First few days of Lukio (high school) - UPDATE: now with photos!

Fact to know:  Here, the high school is called Lukio. So if you here me mention this word, you know what I'm talking about!!

So where do I even begin? Well for starters, before arriving to Finland and all throughout my travels - and camp - I had in mind "I start school on Tuesday, August 14th" Well, it seems as though my school had something else in mind. You see.. I think they have a bit more leisure with us exchange students. Now, don't get me wrong.. it's still a great school! And very highly educated too (I mean, I don't need to convince you of anything... look up where Finnish school reside in our world, they are pretty high up there on the top!) So, back to what I was saying: I arrived at school on Tuesday ready to start the day and turns out, I didn't actually have to be there until Thursday! Which then gave me a few extra last days of summer. I was excited to have an extra last few days of summer, but also I was eager to get my school year started.

And so on Thursday morning I showed up with my host mom and Rotary club counselor, and there were two other exchange students there with their host parents too. This teacher named Seija is the one whose in charge of all of us exchange students and she told us what we are to expect today, and also the days to come. All of our parents left shortly after and that left me, and two other very curious and nervous exchangies to face the day ahead of us.

Turns out, our day wasn't bad at all! We sat in a couple of different English classes throughout the day that Seija taught and just followed along with her material. Since this is my native language, it wasn't very difficult at all for me to understand what was going on. We also had to go in front of the class and introduce ourselves, say where we're from, what we like to do, etc. In this same day we got to arrange our own schedule for the next period and also meet a few of the students who go to the school.

side note: Unlike the USA, Finland doesn't go by semesters in high school. Instead, they go by what they call "periods." These periods generally last 6 weeks, with the 7th week being testing week. Generally, most schools will have 5 to 6 periods throughout their school year.