The Future

My future plans... they're a scary thought that I still have awhile to think about. It's a little frightening to think about your future plans and how much everything's going to change, but I do have high hopes for the future. In my mind  my future plans are in the distant future, but in reality I only have about two years to think about what i’m going to do after high school. And that time flies by so fast. 

I'm obviously planning/hoping to graduate from high school in three years and the first year of that is almost over, only a few days left to go. At the moment my plans for after high school are to go to IMC international make-up center-school in Tampere. That school has courses that last for 6 months, so after that I want to go travelling or maybe go be an au pair in some lovely country. I really want to move to a different country in the future which is why I want to have an international job that I can do wherever I end up.

I think that the future for the young people is going to be alright work wise, or so I hope.

I haven’t given much thought to what kind of work markets we will be entering before, but now it’s getting quite close so maybe I should start planning something concrete. Even though the youth unemployment is a “big” thing right now, we never know in what direction things are going to change. I like to stay optimistic about it.

Even though I don’t have a clear picture on what I’m going to do in the future I hope that this make-up school in Tampere will still be in my plans for the following two years as well as the last two. I have a habit of changing my plans quite often because I find something strange or get bored with last plan, I also hope that everything will clear up in time for graduation, because then I can start my own life immediately.

The Finland Phenomenon

We had an assignment on our exe English course to watch a video and read an article about the Finnish school system. I chose an hour long video called The Finland Phenomenon, it was about how Finland is number one in a lot of areas of education and ranks high in the Pisa tests as well. The video was in four parts so it was easy to watch, the reporter in the video was amazed how different Finnish lessons are and how much trust the teachers have for the students.

One good point they made in the video was that in Finland students are equal and everybody, no matter how rich or poor, gets the same education and it's free for everyone. Also we do a lot less work and school hours than for example American students, but still we rank a lot higher than they do.
I think a lot of it has to do with our teachers because here in Finland teachers are required to have a high education and a masters degree. After the ninth grade, which is the end of mandatory school for us, students choose if they want to go to a more academic high school or a vocational school. In the video the reporter said that the most of the students chose the vocational school, probably because after that school you have a profession and you can start working immediately.

One point that stood out to me was that they said the Finnish school system doesn't rely on testing... we have  a lot of tests. Now in high school we have test weeks after every period and we have five periods each year. In the lower grades all though  we didn't have test week I remember that we still had a lot of tests back then too.

I was actually surprised to know that Finland is so high up in the statistics and how well we do in the Pisa tests, because I don't think we do exceptionally well in school here and we don't have as much work to do like South Korea.

All in all I quite liked watching the video because it looked at the Finnish school system from an outsiders view and it had a lot of interesting points that I hadn't noticed before.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU KNOW

We did a few intelligence tests in our English class. One of them was an IQ test and the other a multiple intelligence test, that tested all kinds of areas of human intelligence. I preferred that one because it gave a lot more detailed description than the basic IQ test. I think there are lots of different kinds of learners and everything depends on how we interpret that knowledge we get.

The quote “You are what you know” is a little narrow and implies that our knowledge is the key factor in us. Though I do think it’s slightly true because we use our knowledge and experiences in our everyday lives, but I think it’s more important to be smart in life than being book smart.

Obviously knowledge and education are important in life but I don’t think it should define us like the quote above implies. All in all I think that being smart in life and knowing what you’re doing is more important than knowing the geography of Europe or something similar to that.

Amy Tan: Two Kinds

We had to read Amy Tan’s Two Kinds short story for our English course, and now I will answer some questions about it.

1. How does Amy Tan represent the mother’s dialect of English?
I find the mother’s dialect as a very stereotypical Asian way of speaking English. Very understandable but far from good. For example she quotes the mother “Play note right!” or “Not best, because you not trying.”

2. What motivates Jing-Mei to try to become the prodigy her mother wants?
Jing-Mei is trying hard to be the prodigy because she feels like her mother doesn’t accept her for who she is so she tries to be something better.

3. How would you describe the character of the mother?
Jing-Mei’s mother was very strict and sometimes even mean. She wanted her child to be something great so badly that she never stopped for a second to hear what Jing-Mei thought about the ideas.

4. The narrator speaks as one who looks back on her childhood. She now realizes that she could have become a good pianist. What does she indicate about why she was lazy in her practice habits as a child?
In the end of the story the narrator says she could have become a good pianist, but I think she was a bit rebellious as a child because her mother always pushed her to be the best so she didn’t want to be the best. If she would’ve had the choice to herself I think she would be a good pianist and actually enjoyed playing.

5. What is ironic about Jing-Mei’s daydreams?
The fact that she dreamed of being perfect and that her parents would love and adore her. The irony is that her mother always wanted that for her too but with all the pressure to be perfect Jing-Mei didn’t want it anymore.

6. How do JIng-Mei’s expectations differ from before her performance and after?
When she went on stage she was full of confidence and excitement and thought that she could actually do this, be a prodigy. But when she hit the first wrong note all of it collapsed and she was filled with shame and nervousness which led to more wrong notes.

7. What do you think of Jing-Mei’s interpretation of her parents’ reasons for sitting through the rest of the show? What about hers?
Jing-Mei thought that her parents didn’t move from their chairs because of their pride. It would’ve been too embarrassing to leave in the middle of the show and admit that their child played terribly. Jing-Mei was anchored to hers because she was too ashamed to leave.


8. How is the mother-daughter conflict resolved?
After the bad concert Jing-Mei thinks she never has to play again but her mother has different ideas, Jing-Mei starts to scream and shout saying she’ll never play the piano again. They never talk about it again and Jing-Mei stopped playing the piano. Years later her mother offers her the piano and she refuses to take it but sees it as an apology for everything. I don’t think they ever really resolved their issues just made them a little bit better.

9. What does Jing-Mei imply in the last sentence?
In the last sentence she realizes that the two songs Pleading Child and Perfectly Contented were the two halves of the same song. Maybe in that she implies. that she and her mother are the two halves of that same song, just different sides. and that those halves have caused her to become a strong and independent woman.

+10 The writer Amy Tan  is an American writer with Chinese parents. Her works explore mother-daughter relationships. Her most well-known work is The Joy Luck Club, has been translated into 35 languages.

Peter Pan- The Musical

Our school has a musical every year and this year it was Peter Pan. We started practising the musical almost immediately when we came to school this fall. I didn’t audition for any roles because I’ve never played any kind of part in anything, so I was one of the dancers. We had only 3 dances in the whole musical, a pirate dance, an indian dance and a mermaid dance.

Our dances were all pretty easy but we all still struggled with them at first. But comparing to all the lead roles and everybody else in a role we had it very easy for us.

The week before the premiere we were at Sigyn-Sali, which is a local theatre, and where we would have all of the shows. We got there in the morning and got out very late at night and that went on for about 5 days before the premier. Everyone was exhausted and stressed because at one point it wasn’t even sure if it was going to be ready for the opening night.

We had 5 shows or actually 6 if you count the very first one we did for free to all our friends and people who wanted to see it before the premiere. And that actually was the first time we did the whole thing at once and I think it went quite well.

Overall I really enjoyed being a part of this musical because it was a great experience and I got to know a lot more people than I could have imagined. All of the stress and tiredness was all worth it in the end.

Forever Young

Our school musical this year was Peter Pan and I think it fits into this subject quite well because Peter never wanted to grow up, and I find myself being like that as well.  I'm actually sometimes afraid of growing up and what comes with it, responsibility, future plans and finding a job. But I do love being young, we have freedom and the chance of doing nearly anything with our lives. The best thing about being young in my opinion is summer. I love going to festivals and camping out with friends during summer, not to mention sneaking out of your room on a summer night and not coming back until it's almost morning, which is the best feeling ever. 

In a way it would be cool to live in a different era, such as the 60’s. One of the things why I find it interesting is the fact that there wasn't so much technology yet, people were happy living just the way they were and didn't need any computers or smartphones in their lives.

Being young in the 21st century means we're surrounded by technology and social media and they pretty much control our lives. Smartphones have also taken over the world and made accessing all of the social media sites even easier, which means more and more people are walking around with their eyes glued to their phones.

Some people actually are addicted to the internet and their computers. I find it really idiotic that some people would rather live their lives behind computer screens, than to actually be out there and have fun in real life.

There are some good sides in living in this era as well, like the fact that we can easily travel to different countries or just places in our own country. If I could, I'd be forever young because I'm afraid of wrinkles and just being old. And it would be cool to see how the world changes throughout the years and be a part of it all. But unfortunately we all eventually grow old and wrinkly, and we or I just have to accept that.

we<3it
 

New York the City of Dreams

When I first arrived at JFK international airport and saw the Manhattan skyline in the far distance, I thought I was dreaming it was so unreal. I had wanted to go to New York for so long that it didn’t feel real at first that I was actually there. I still remember the feeling I had when I got out of the cab in Times Square, it was magical, the lights were bright, the number of people was unbelievable compared to Finland and the smell… it was something I had never smelled before, it was the smell of New York. It was possibly a mix of all the different types of food served in the restaurants that were placed right next to each other and coffee, coffee that nearly everyone who passed by was carrying. 

This picture was taken from Central Park

On the first day I still didn’t completely believe that I was in New York, so I went to the window in our little apartment and saw all the screens of Times Square and it made it all a little bit more real. The screens were big, some even giant at least compared to the one little screen we have in the center of Turku.

This one is from Times Square at night

As I mentioned our apartment was located close to Times Square above a small deli where we got our breakfast every morning. The deli had a wide range of different kinds of fresh baked goods, croissants, paninis, fresh fruit and yoghurt cups. Anything you could imagine, and it tasted extremely good. I don’t know if it was just the fact that I was in New York that made it taste so good, but there’s nothing better than taking your morning latte and panini to Times Square and enjoying your breakfast while looking at all the people who are walking by.
I went shopping nearly every day and ran out of my money quite quickly because there are so many shops that Finland doesn’t have so you just can’t miss the opportunity to shop at all the wonderful stores. Even though I loved the shops out there, it was very strange shopping there because everything was very different. For example the dressing rooms, in Finland you just walk right in to the first free fitting room you find, in New York the shop assistants came and opened the room for you because they were all locked. You could also reserve a fitting room and the employees would take the things you were trying on into the room so you wouldn’t have to carry so much. Overall I think that America just has better customer service and we Finns just aren’t used to such luxury. Another thing that was strange was that there were two security guards in front of every shop, it created a very intimidating vibe when you went shopping.

I really liked Times Square because there was this indescribable atmosphere. I think that all the wonderful energy and excitement that all the tourists have makes the atmosphere exactly that, energetic and excited. I liked the fact that all the screens made it look like day in the middle of the night. I had never seen so many lights, it was beautiful.
Another place I liked was Central Park, we spent a whole day walking through it and it was a lot bigger than I could have ever imagined. It was weird walking into the park because it was filled with green grass, trees, small ponds and sunshine, completely opposite to the rest of New York. But it was very beautiful like a little oasis in the middle of the concrete jungle.

Central Park