Another day at Uni...

Our first course today was "Spanish for beginners". It was quite the same as the last times. The teacher is explaining almost all the grammar in finnish, so Nina and me understand eeeeverything. ;) After these "interesting" 1.5 hours we had our lunch break.

Then the day at university continued with "Finnish for exchange students". We spoke about ourselves in finnish, about where we come from, what language we speak,..., and about our hobbies and what we like. After almost everyone said something our teacher also told us what he likes...

Namely: Eurovision song contest. Finns would love the eurovision song contest even if the only won the contest once. 

He explained us what the secret is to win the eurovision song contest. It has to be in english, the text doesn't have to make sense but has to be about love and the song has to have 5 variations in the melody... And he found the perfect song: Watch it! =)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyC_B4YxRUs

After we learned a lot about eurovision song contest our day continued with the course "Introduction to finnish education system". The issue from today was: equity and equality. So it got more serious than the rest of the day... After discussing this issue, we also saw a video, which you also should check out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAh9NRGNhUU

And here the finnish band who won the eurovision song contest... They sing about looove, the text doesn't make sense,  they have variation in their melody and finally it is in english... Have you noticed it!? ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-eVF_G_p-Y

Always look on the bright side of life...

Mölkky - let's learn to play a finnish game!

Our tutors organized an event for the exchange students of behavioral science, which took place today at late afternoon.

Everything you need to play Mölkky!

«Mölkky is a very popular Finnish outdoor throwing game. This game of wooden skittles is similar to several other games of its kind played throughout Europe since the Middle Ages. Mölkky is suitable for the whole family and you can play it outside wherever you please. Tuoterengas owns the Mölkky -trademark.»

cf.: http://www.molkkyliitto.fi/en/ (17.09.2013, 22:57)

«The Mölkky-game is suitable for the whole family. Scoring of the game is recorded on the scorecard. The game is not suitable for children under three years old.
Skittles: numbered 1 - 12 

Throw skittle: MölkkyNumber of players: two and up
Throwing order: In the first game draw the order. In following ones, throw according to the previous game results form lowest to highest score.
Scorekeeper: Players take turns acting as scorekeepers. See also "ending the game".
Beginning the game: For a tight group af skittles (see the diagram) 10 - 13 feet from the throwing place. First player throws at the grouping.
Fallen skittle: A skittle is not considered fallen if it is leaning on another skittle or on the Mölkky throwing skittle. After a throw fallen skittles are uprighted at the place where the fell.
Scoring: If one skittle falls, the score = the number on the skittle. When more than one fall, the score = the number of fallen skittles.
Ending the game: If player misses (has no score) three times in a row, he/she is out of game and acts as the scorekeeper. The game ends when the first player reaches exactly 50 points. If one scores over 50, that player\'s score is lowered to 25.»

cf.: http://www.molkkyliitto.fi/en/Rules/ (17.09.2013, 29:09)

Pin layout

cf.: http://www.molkkyliitto.fi/en/Rules/ (17.09.2013, 29:09) 

Position of pins and mölkkaari at startup

cf.: http://www.molkkyliitto.fi/en/Rules/ (17.09.2013, 29:09) 

It can get really difficult!

If you also want to play Mölkky and you can't find the game in a shop, just do it yourself - out of wood like the original or you could do the cheaper and quicker version out of PET bottles filled with sand...

Try it and have fun...!

Brainteaser

What can you do or buy at an INSTRUMENTARIUM??? What do you think?

Instrumentarium Helsinki

It's in the middle of the city centre, next to this are shops like H&M, Esprit, The Hard Rock café, etc.

Do you have any ideas? =)

Finnish course - why can't school always be so much fun?

Today was our 3. lesson of our "finnish course for exchange students". During the first two lessons Nina and me already learned a lot of words and sentences in finnish. Now if we hear people talking finnish it doesn't make no sense to us anymore. It's quite strange for me to not understand a word. Now I can imagine how it feels like for people who don't speak a latin language hearing Rhaeto-romanic. I could never imagine that.


 Back to finnish course. I mean finnish language is funny indeed, only if you read or hear it. Here some examples: (Tipp: read the sentences as it would be one word - that's how Finns speak ;) )

Moi! Moi Moi! Mikä sun nimi on? Mun nimi on Pekka. Hauska tavata! Kiitos samoin. Mun nimi on Kaisa. Mistä sä olet kotoisin? Mä olen kotoisin Helsingistä. Mistä sä olen kotoisin? ...

So, you unterstood everything, right?! =)

Back to our finnish lesson from today... First we had do write a dictation. That was an experience! Try to write something you can't even define as a language and you don't really know what letters do exist in this language... ;) But hey Nina and me, we weren't that bad. I think we are really talented for finnish language.  ;)
After the dictation we spoke about the text the teacher dictated to us, so that we knew what we actually wrote on our papers. Eventually someone of our class asked about the pronunciation and the difference of different letters: y, i, ä, a, e, ö, o. For Nina and me it's not really a problem, because we know these letters from german language BUT think about english-speaking people... Then the entertaining part of today's lesson began. Our teacher wrote all these letters on the board and showed how to pronounce them.

Then we had to practice them. We had to stand up and do the same moves as he did and with different voices - deep deeper and high, higher, which supported the pronunciation: Iiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeäääääääääääääääääääeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiii. Uuuuuuuuuuuooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeääääääääääääää. yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyöööööööööööööööööyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. iiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeäääääääääeeeeeeiiiiiiii. Äääääääääääääääääääaaaaaaaaaaaaaääääääääääää. (a=leave your arms behind your back, ä=move your arms forward) And so on... I really felt like being in a theatre course! =)

So that's briefly what we learned today at our third finnish lesson...

our biggest goal for the time in Finland

Fishing is quiet a big thing in Finland! So why not go fishing? Nina always wanted to learn how to fish and she could animate and motivate Carmen to go fishing. Sometimes Carmen was even more excited than Nina! =)
So we looked for a fishing store to buy all the stuff we needed for angling. By the way for fishing we would need a fisher license and for angling not!
Not to forget; of course we had to do some "mental preparation" how to angle, kill and clean out a fish! The thought about killing a fish is really strange and feels unsure of ourselves, but somehow we'll manage it...but back to the mental preparation; one evening we watched all the youtube videos we found about angling, cleaning out and killing a fish. After that we felt totally ready!

Next day we went to the store; "Can you help us, we want to go fishing, but we have no idea what we need?!" - First the seller looked at us and started to smile..." Yeah...so...you need an angle route, a hook and some worms and I'll give you a map." - "Okay!"

1st step - put a worm on the fishing-hook

Back to "mental preparation": Why didn't we think about a youtube video - how to hook a worm? 

Believe us - quite a challenge...

2st step Carmen's fishing position!

peaceful angling

iiiiiii

great work Carmen

Unfortunately no fish...but next time...we are still optimistic!

Education system

Common school for all!

Strong professional capital

The three capitals - human capital, social capital and decisional capital - cooparate with each other! A strong professional capital for teaching should include all of the three capitals! So there are a big cooparation required between them.

Good system overall

Introduction to finish education

Today's first lesson about finish education was quite interesting!
Main question for the students; what is the magic key for one of the best education system in the world?

I read in an article about our professor Dr. Pasi Sahlberg saying that he doesn't want to convince everyone that his country had the "best education in the world".  "We should not think like this", he said, nothing that the media is ultimately responsible for such a declaration. "I can't say that one education system is better than another one." He called the American education system a big inspiration for Finland. Ultimately, he believes that we can learn from each other.

Read more: www.gse.harvard.edu/news-impact/2013/04/sahlberg-advocates-for-finnish-way-at-askwith-forum/#ixzz2f3rNg1f2


How to think about Finland's school system?! 

Sahlberg told us this morning at our first lesson that the education in Finland is not just that successful because of the education system - it's the whole society that forms the education system!

Good to know:

• Finland has never aimed to be the best! The keynote for Finland is to offer a great school for each and every child and not just to be the most successful school system in the world!
• TRUST - the most trusted public institutions - finnish people trust their public institution
• Police 90%
• education system 89%
• army 83%
• Health care system 72%
• Equal distribution of wealth
• A fairly equal wealth distribution within Finland also impacts the education system. As a result, Finland continues to do well in many areas beyond education, like women's empowerment, technological advances, child well-being, and prosperity. 
• The balance between rich and poor people is not so big. Finland is more a "middle-class-society" which is also a reason that leads to good results (PISA results)
• Sahlberg suggests: "The spirit level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger" by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

More about our professor Dr. Pasi Sahlberg: Pasi Sahlberg

University time

First day at the University - chaos and irritation for two girls from the countryside of Switzerland! First of all Carmen and me had to organize and do all the administration stuff in one afternoon, because we arrived late - other students had one whole day for that! Somehow we managed it, thanks to our tutor! We got everything at the Welcome Fair, a place where you can get all the cards, internet account and some informations that we need for the studies.

On top of all that - finnish language! No idea, no clue, no possiblity to compare with another language that we know, not even raetho-romanic! First two words we learnt: moi moi (hello or bye) and kiitos (thank you).

The university is quite good. We were a little bit lost the first days, because there are more than just one building - Päärakennus, Fabianinkatu, Minerva, Alexandria, Siltavuorenpenger... -  How can you keep these names?! After a while we realized that some of the names are just the addresses...

Than we had to decide which courses we take; kind of difficult and hard to choose, because we didn't really know what to choose and we had to look that the courses don't overlap!
We chose to attend a finnish course and spanish course - awesome! the teachers are great! Ah by the way the spanish course is actually a course for finnish students. The whole instruction is in spanish, but if the professor has to explain grammer it's in finnish and the book is finnish - spanish! So quite hard, but it's manageable and funny.
Beside that tomorrow we start the course - introduction to finnish education and later on some physical education, crafts and  finnish school and subject education!

Suomi - moi moi

Carmen and me arrived in Helsinki 2.5 weeks ago. We had a stopover in Berlin, which was really nice, because we went to the centre of Berlin to have some Sushi - really cheap and good!
Arrived in Helsinki we took a taxi to our new home where we will live for the next 4.5 months...The renters already waited outside the house when we arrived. They are super friendly, our hostparents for this months here. They showed us everything and the best of all; they had a big map with a loupe on the table to show us the important things we should know for the beginning.
We found the apartment on lyyra (https://www.lyyra.fi/home.php). We can consider us lucky, because we got the confirmation just one week before we arrived in Helsinki. The apartment is perfect - furnished and a lot of things for the kitchen where left by the previous tenant and we can use it!
"Our home" is situated a little bit outside Helsinki, 25min by bus or 10-15min by train to the centre. We are surrounded by trees and a few days ago we just found a nice beach at the river where Nina goes swimming sometimes in the mornings! =) There are some nice paths through a forest too.

beach

First days we explored the city a little bit - most interesting for us were (are) the flea markets, food markets, 2nd hand shops and so on! Nice stuff - also perfect stuff for a "Schlagerparty"! Beside that the city is nice - the design district has a lot of artistic shops with unique staff and cafés with fancy food.
One fancy shop with delicious food - especially for Nina because there were a lot of coriander inside!

Nudge & Restaurant Rulla

The food markets offer really delicate food. We couldn't believe our one's eyes - blueberries, raspberries, vegetables and look at those mushrooms - gnammi!

Steinpilze & Eierschwämme (english names are to comlicated, sorry)