Well, it's the middle of December and I can't believe I'm halfway done! Such a strange feeling. It feels like the semester was such a blur of emotions and events. Ian and I are leaving for Vienna on Tuesday! YEEEEE! But, this evening a big group of us went to get pizza and everyone wants to meet to say good-bye and spend time with you. The goodbye's just don't seem real! We're all pretty adjusted to Finland but so many people are leaving soon. Jyvaskyla gets about four hundred exchange students in the fall semester so you can imagine how strange it will be when most of the students leave! There's a good group of students staying the entire year, most of them being French. :) And this means I will be speaking French. So, that's the most recent thing right now! Everyone leaving...
My culture shock is becoming easier to deal with! I feel accustomed to missing people, Montana, MSU, America, my 'real' life. The gratitude list is amazing! Ian was funny today. I bought the Frank Sinatra Christmas album today and listened to it three times. I told Ian how happy the christmas music made me, because I never had time to enjoy the holiday season since I was working. And he replied "everything makes you happy." Of course, he said this sarcastically. But I couldn't help but be happy by his comment (obviously), why shouldn't I be happy with simple things? Silly Ian... :) Life is exponentially better in Finland.
I went to my first "pikkujoulu" (Christmas party) a few weekends ago with Anu. It is so refreshing to hang out with Finns, people who have normal lives and aren't living in shit apartments that are only for exchange students. We drank a drink called glogi, which is essentially heated red wine, juice with some almonds and raisins. And we continued to eat our body weights in baked goods and chips. :)
I had my FOUR Finnish exams the last two weeks. Holy crap do Finnish schools take their tests seriously. Firstly, I had a dialogue. I was partnered with RoseAnna, a Dutch, and Samantha, an Italian. And basically, we totally winged it. After learning Finnish for a mere three months we had to prepare a five minute dialogue! We survived... Then there was the listening exam, that was a disaster for me! Listening is SO hard, especially because it seems they are speaking so fast! Again, I passed and survived. Written exam! My forte! I rocked that exam, me and my verb conjugating skills. Lastly, we had another speaking exam! The teacher was highly critical. I figured we just had to say something. No, not the case. I had to precise! We were given pictures with every day activities and had to describe them. Two of my pictures involved the character watching TV, what verb did I forget? To watch. My answer: "Han ei luke" = He is not reading. Good, Mariah.
There's the update! Hopefully, I can update during my travels. Firstly, I will fly to Vienna then go to Germany to see Christoph. Back to Vienna, spend Christmas there. :) Afterwards, we'll probably go to Prague. We haven't completely decided. :)
