Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Finally it's time to relax during the Christmas break:). This autumn has been fun but also it has included a lot of hard work. We have had two exam weeks, 2,5 periods, a lot of new courses and a lot of new things to learn in different subjects. 

   We now have a two-week-holiday and school will start on the 8th of January. I have quite a busy schedule in the last two periods and that is because I have my first matriculation examinations next autumn in English and health education. In February I will have my wanhat also I'm going on a school trip to the Netherlands=). I'll tell you more about the trip later. 

  Now I want to wish you all a happy and relaxing Christmas remember to relax and spend time with your loved ones and I also want to wish you a great beginning of 2015. 

This photo is taken a few years ago in Australia.

 Santa and Frosty the Snowman wish you a merry Christmas!=)

Last weeks of 2014

So two weeks ago the third period started and I have 7 courses in this period. 6 academical subjects (Finnish, physics, chemistry, geography, biology and Swedish) and "wanhat". 

  

   Wanhat is the prom of Finnish high scool second year students. Vanhojen tanssit also known as Wanhat has got it's name from when the third year students leave on penkkari day to have their almost two month study leave and from that day forward the second year students are the oldest of the school. Wanhat is one of the highlights of the year and quite an important day for second year students. The meaning of wanhat is to learn ballroom dancing and etiquette. Wanhat is also a very formal, so the boys wear a tuxido and girls wear an evening dress. I'm really excited about Wanhat we have started practicing and we've learned during five classes seven different ballroom dances. Wanhat are organized in the beginning of February =).

   

   Only 1,5 weeks until our Christmas holiday that will be almost three weeks long and school will start on the 8th of January.

   

Quick update on what has been going on

Heyaa! 

It has been a while since I last posted something over here so I thought I'd write a little update on what has been going on. 

 So a few weeks ago I decided that instead of three years I will be graduating after 3,5 years of upper secondary school.

In Finnish class we had to follow a news and how different newspapers and medias told about news' subject. This assignment was done in groups of three. Our group's subject was the crisis of Ukraine, we chose the subject because we thought it would be current. Today instead of having an exam we had to have a presentation to the class. During Finnish courses we also have the opportunity to go and see a theatre performance (this isn't possible in every school) so våwe went to see the play Supernaiivi at Ryhmäteatteri in Helsinki

So as you might've understood our second exam week started today with our Finnish "exam" tomorrow I've got health education and luckily I have Thursday and Friday off:). On Saturday I have my social studies exam that luckily has two essays because we did one of the exam excercises in advance during our last class yesterday in electronical form.These electronical exams will be becoming more used because the matriculation examination is changing in to electronical form starting in year 2016.

Next week I've only got my English test and the third period will be starting in a week on Wednesday. =)

Halfway through the 2nd period

The second period has started well I've been quite busy with homework and stuff. But luckily we had the autumn half term 13.-19.10. As you can see in Jylla we have the whole week off but it isn't so in every high school, because the school can choose to have the whole week or just a few days off.

The holiday came just at the perfect time.

After the holiday it was a bit hard to get back in to the school routine. We had some homework during the break for example in Finnish class we had to read a book called Nukkekoti by Henrik Ibsen and on thursday last week we wrote an essay of it. We have had some homework in health ed that have been on Fronter so I've been doing them also.

Now we are halfway through this period, three weeks until this years second exam week. I should probably start studying for that soon. Luckily I've only got four exams that I need to study for. 

2nd period

So on Wednesday the second period started. It was weird that the new period started immediately after exam week because I am used to explanation day which we had in our school but now it's been taken away. Explanation day was the day after exam week when we went through the exams and quite often we got our exams back on that day. Wel anyways it was weird because you had to "empty" your brain and restart in one afternoon because explanation day has been a day when you can relax before you'll have to start studying. 

  

I n my opinion my tests went well and hopefully the grades will be the ones I am expecting. I'll find out when the teachers will be giving the tests back maybe I'll even show you what high school exams look like.

My schedule in this second period is quite easy. In this period I have English, Finnish, Russian, social studies and health education. Here is a picture of some of my books for this period.

Oh! I almost forgot we had a photo shoot on Thursday and all of you ninth graders will be getting a booklet and maybe you'll see some familiar faces. =)

Exam week

So last Tuesday it finally started the first examweek of this school year. As you can probably figure out from the title during this week we do our exams from the courses we've attended in the previous period. Meaning now the courses in our first period.

I'll explain to you what the whole week is about. So as you might know one period lasts 6 weeks and after each period we have an exam week.  We have five priods so we have five exam weeks. One exam week lasts 7 days. During the three first exam weeks we have Saturday as an exam day, so that we can have a whole week off for autumn half term. 

How exam week works is that our courses are in different kind of codes and each code has it's own exam day.

As you can see from this picture we have 8 codes in which you can have courses. Each code has three lessons a week. For example as you can see code two classes are on Monday ,Wednesdau and Thursday. So on exam week the codes and exam days go logically. So code 1 exam will be on the first day of exam week, code 2 on the second thay an so on. But lets say you haven't got any course in code 3 that means you have the day off when that code has it's exam. Code 8 hasn't got an exam day  but the exam will be done on the last lesson so when exam week starts on a Tuesday and you can see that code 8 is on Monday afternoon you will be doing you test during that class.

On exam week you don't have any normal lessons. You come to school at 9am and you can leave at 12pm, but you can stay and do the exam until 2pm . At 9am you will have an revision class except if you've got a language exam or maths. If you have an exam in a language you will have your listening comprehension test from 9 till 10. And in maths the test is in two or three parts and you will do the first part at 9. So you haven't got any regular school on exam week, which is really nice because then you can focus on studying for the exams.

Now you probably want to know when you will get your exams back. So the teacher of you course will put a wilma message and tell you when and where you can collect your exam.

If you don't pass the exam you can redo the test on the next redo day. You have one chance to try to pass your exam and if you redone exam is also failed you will have to attend that course again.  You can also twice during a schoolyear try to get a better grade by redoing an exam. The better grade will be counted.

I think exam weeks are good because you can focus on the exams and you don't need to worry about homework. I'm feeling confident about this exam week hopefully I've passed and possibly got some good grades. =)

The first period is almost over

Fourth week of term was just a normal week of studying and working hard. On tuesday we had our school photos taken. =) We have already had a couple of wordtests in English and in Swedish and also I've needed to do some writing tasks. For all of these we have used our electronic learning environment Fronter, which we use for tests, asignments and sometimes the teacher puts the schedule of the course on the noticeboard in Fronter.

It's the fifth week o this period and I thought that I would tell you a bit more of me and what subjects I study and am interested in. So as you might already know I'm a second year student at Jylla. The second year is said to be the most important year of your high school time. For this year I've chosen to study more physics, chemistry, biology and health education all of these will help me in achieving my dream of being a doctor or a surgeon. I've also chosen to continue to study Russian and advanced Swedish, which is quite obvious because I speak Swedish with my dad and sister. In addition I have to take all of the compulsory courses like history, religion, Finnish, math. As you can see I'm interested in science and foreign languages, hoping to be able to learn more languages than my mum she can speak six different languages and I can speak seven but not all fluently. Oh and almost forgot to tell you that I've got a partner for vanhojentanssit and I'm very excited about that. =)

Week number three

The third week of school was the first normal week for me or almost. Because on Tuesday we had a a fire alarm and we had to evacuate the whole building. Later on that day one of our school's exchange students arrived and I was there to welcome him to the school =). Some of his classmates and I showed him around the school and got to know him a bit better.

  The rest of the week continued as normal :) It has been quite hard getting back to school routine with so much things going on and there has been quite alot of homework too. Only a few weeks left of this period luckily because my schedule for the next period is quite chill. =)

I'll finish off with a quote that one of my idols posted a few days ago and I feel like it is a good reminder to all of us to be ourselves.

Introductory Day

We had an introductory day on Friday for which the first year students had dressed-up. They had chosen the themes themselves and done a really good job! :)

                                                                         
The tutors had also dressed-up our themes were army and lifeguard (baywatch).
                         


   

Here is my friend Tiiu and I as lifeguards.
You can go and read her Finnish blog at jyllatiiu.blogspot.com

First Week Of Term

Tuesday 12.8 was the day when we returned to school. For the whole day rest of the tutors and I were with Jylla's new first year students. We gave information to them about the school and played games with them. The new students are really nice and I think they liked the games we had planned for them. The day finished after one.

On Wednesday morning we had one session with our tutorial group where we showed the school and played a few more games. After this we had our first lessons of the year =)

The rest of the week went quite quickly. Getting back to school routine was a bit difficult.
For the whole week I was quite excited about Weekend-festival, which was one of the highlights of my summer.