Bondi Beach

Today I had my art excursion to Bondi Beach.  They have a Sculpture by the sea event there, which was the reason for us to go.  The art works were all totally different, from all materials you can think of.  Here are couple of examples of them, if you want to see more, just go to the image gallery at the website.

After the walk we had free time so I saw the Bondi Beach! :)

What an amazing day,

Liisa 

Short

Tomorrow I'm having an art excursion, and I'm going to Bondi Beach for the first time, so exited! We're leaving at 6.45, so I have to be at school at 6.30.  That means that my alarm is going to go at 6.00 Ouch!  I'll make a special post about that trip tomorrow night, or in case I don't have time it's coming on Wednesday.  

I've forgotten to tell you that I changed my English class.  I was in the advanced group, but it took so much effort that I decided to change to the general one.  Analyzing Shakespeare in English; not a job for person who doesn't speak English as a first language... :D

FIVE NIGHTS BEFORE MOVING! :|

Not looking forward my alarm,

Liisa 

Splashes

Today we took the boat to one fresh water lake nearby.  The weather wasn't as good as it could have been, but we had so much fun that it didn't matter at all!

So as you may see from these photos, my last weekend with this host family has been nice.  

Waiting for the dinner and my cheesecake with raspberries,

Liisa 

Ps.  Yesterday we went to a party and everyone thought I was Australian!  So proud of myself :)

Armistice day

I didn't really have time to write yesterday, because I spent the whole night at the Singleton army base.  My Rotary club went there to have their Armistice day dinner and hear what the soldiers had to say about the war today and tell the reality of it.

Today I went to school for only one lesson, and after it the principal, all six school leaders and I walked to a little park kinda area near the school, because the Armistice day event we participated was there.  All the 'important' people were there, and the whole thing was really official.  But that's the way it has to be when the whole idea is to honor the people who were killed in world war I.  

After this, Rotary people took me to the city council building where my second and third host mum work.  I was given the honor to be the mayor for five minutes :DD  (I hope I'm getting pictures from all of this so I could share them with you!)

Then we headed to lunch with those soldiers and army bosses, Rotaries and people from other big organizations.  Last night's dinner was official as well, but it was more about the army's point of view; we were at the army base and the solders were giving speeches.  Today it was more like social event and people were allowed to discuss freely.  I happened to sit next to the same army boss who was giving those speeches last night, so obviously we were talking more about that kind of things than other tables.  I have never taken part in lunch or dinner events like this, so my opinion is that some bits can be a bit boring (both of these lasted 3 hours), but mainly I really enjoy them.  It's unbelievably interesting to meet so many new contacts, or sit next to older lady who has so many stories I could never hear enough.

As you may have already realized, Armistice day is a big thing here.  The symbol of it is red poppy, and that's why I got two new pins.

Lest we forget,

Liisa 

Ps. Notice that this was sent at 11.11.11 11.11.11PM  Pretty good, pretty good!

My tour

Today you'll be attending Singleton tourist tour where you will get to know the places I usually go to. Ready to go?  Ok,  travel here and we can get started!

At left you can see the library, absolutely amazing place with free computer and internet access.  You heard right, free access, and unlike in my school, with these computers you can go to every webpage including YouTube and Facebook, luxury!

Help yourself a bit forward to the next little road turning left after the library.  Be careful with that blue car!

Now right in front of you the gray building is where my host parents work.  Really nice place to wait a lift home; very soft and cozy sofa, definitely recommended!

Turn left but don't speed, only 50km/h!  Continue going straight till you see a building with dark blue roof.  

That is gym, high quality place.  Really good option for free time,  also for the breaks called study periods!

Continue this road, and next time when you see crossroads please turn right.  Still no speeding.  At left you start seeing my school buildings; the brown brick ones.  Let that red car go first, then turn left.

At  right, further away after the car park, you see primary side.  I don't study there so turn your head to left.

Continue this street till you have to reduce speed because of that silvery car.  

If you turned your head left you'll now see the gate of my school.  This is where the awesome bus stops when it drops me here half an hour before the school even starts. Roll your head around and you'll see how big the buildings are.  

I'm so sorry but seems like you've already seen the coolest places, so unfortunately we'll end our tour here. Thank you for the company, have a good day!

Liisa's city tours thanks you for your participation, hope you didn't get lost,

Liisa

Shopping again!

I would say yesterday's shopping was pretty effective, because I found

- Bracelets

- Hair bows

- Highest heels I've ever had!

And everything in such a short time!

And there's one more thing I have to tell you!  My phone is really old, because I've planned not to buy new one while I'm here because there's too many ways to brake it during the safari and other trips.  Lately it has been taking ages for it to get ready if you restart it or touch the battery, but at least it has worked.  Last night it started to flash black and white lights to me, and I was a bit worried because I couldn't control it at all.  After a while it started working again and I set my alarm, so I thought the problems must have been just because I restarted it.  Sure.  Instead of waking at seven o'clock to my techno sounds, my host sister was knocking my door five past eight.  The bus comes fifteen past, so I had ten minutes to wash my hair, do my face, change clothes, eat breakfast, make my lunch, pack my bag and brush my teeth.  A piece of cake!  The most surprising thing is that I did everything except washed my hair.  All that in seven minutes, that's something to be proud of!!! :DD  Despite of my great success this morning, my host dad is waking me up tomorrow.  Hopefully I have a bit more time then...

Fast, faster, 

Liisa

Ps.  Today was the first time I read out loud in the class, and I managed to do pretty well :)

The beach

Today four of us spent a day at the beach, and I went to the water for the first time.  It was very cold, but a lot of fun with good company. :D  After that we went to a big shopping mall, and we only had about twenty minutes before it closed.  Anyway I bought some things; I'll send pictures of them tomorrow. :)

Good day again, 

Liisa

Picnic

My host sister's German host sisters are here again, yay!  Today all four of us had a lovely lunch picnic at the back yard.

Loads of fresh fruit + Doritos and dips + Sun + over 30 degrees + THREE AMAZING GIRLS = what a great picnic! :))  

Loves life here,

Liisa

Art work

This year's year 12 are just finishing their HSC exams.  They are four hour exams, the ones you have to pass to finish school.  In art there's HSC work, which is a huge piece of art.  It can be anything fitting into the weight and space limit.  Basically that means you can do anything you want; paintings, photographing, drawing, graphic design, clothes, or a collection of works which includes different techniques.  There's almost a whole year, so the work needs to be something where you can see the effort.  

I'm doing art and I have to do the HSC work as well.  I won't be here when we have to hand them in, so I'll just do it and take it with me to home. That is a big limitation, because it cannot be anything big or heavy.  I was having a conversation with my art teacher, and at the moment my idea is to do a collection of my photos from the nature and tourist attractions of Australia. That means it'll include close-up photos from plants and maybe landscapes, and then attractions like Harbor bridge, Great barrier reef and Ayers rock. I'll use many pictures from my blog, and because of that safari I'm going to I'll see a lot of places and hopefully get many good pictures. Then I'll take loads of cardboard and fold it up, so it'll be a super long zigzag.  My teacher said that I need to have maybe 250 photos, and they can go from my arrival to the end of my year.  So while being my HSC work, at the same time it'll be a story about my journey.  I'm really exited about this idea, and I can't wait to start!

And one more thing!  Thank you to my Finnish friends for sending me so many messages, they make me feel important and loved.  You make my days even brighter. : )

Sunbather,

Liisa

Mistakes

I'm surprised, but I haven't said anything really silly so far, just little humane mistakes.

It's very different here, because people who are in primary school (years 1-6) don't do exams.  They have little tests but not exams like we do in Finland.  And when my year has tests, instead of only writing essays, they may have multiple choices as well.  This was new thing to me, because I think multiple choices as primary and secondary school things (years 1-9). So while we were sitting in a library I was asking 'Can you have multiply choices in exams?' They didn't say anything, so I asked again about the multiplY choices.  After repeating that couple more times they started laughing, took piece of paper and a pen, and told me what is the difference between E and Y.  Not even a big mistake, but I felt myself as a complete idiot.  They said that it's cute thing to say, but I know the difference, I seriously do! :D

We went to shopping mall last Thursday, and they were selling post cards. One of my friends pointed the card and said that this card suits you because you look like the animal in it.  That wasn't really nice thing to say so I wanted my revenge.  I took the next card in the line, pointed it, and said; you look like emu.  Or I'm quite sure I did; I'm still pretty sure that's what I said.  But they just laughed and asked me if I know what an emo is. Maybe I just said emu in weird way but that's what I meant anyway!  So, still today people were asking me about emos, nice.

This is definitely the worst one.  Usually when it's night you end a conversation saying something like 'I'll go to bed, good nigh'. One night I was chatting to a boy from my year in internet, and we were both really tired, but neither of us finished the conversation because it would have been impolite.  We didn't have anything to talk about, and I thought that now we just better stop and get some sleep.  So, without thinking it at all I just said something like 'I guess there's nothing else to say, so maybe we should just go to bed'.  Yep, what an amazing way to end a conversation with a person you've known for couple of weeks.  Great.  But obviously I didn't mean it that way, and actually he didn't even realize what I've just said before I was apologizing and trying to explain what I really meant.  How embarrassing was that! :DD

This weekend we don't have any plans, and because both of my host parents are working I guess we are just spending time at home.  I actually like it, because I've had couple of Rotary things lately, so it's nice to just chill and do nothing.

Oopsie,

Liisa

Ps.  Only two weeks left with my host family number one!  

New stuff

Today our year finished early, so we went downtown with my friends.  After eating in Subway (yum yum!), we went "shopping" to one clothing store.  I found really nice, light pink pair of shoes (20 bucks, that must mean they are extremely good quality...), so I bought them.

I forgot to send a picture from my wallet, the one I bought on Monday, so I'll do it now.  I like it a lot, but it's already breaking so I'm really disappointed.  

The mufti day today was ok, nothing too special.  At least for one day the school looked normal to me, and people were way easier to recognize. :D

Waiting for the weekend,

Liisa

Spring

Spring in November.  Christmas on the beach.  It's really hard to realize what it means, because in Finland it's getting colder and it's snowing really soon. I like warm weather so there's no problem, it's just different.  Just like everything here.

Tomorrow we are having mufti day, which means that we are allowed to wear our own clothes for the whole day.  We are meant to use Aboriginal colors (Black, red and yellow), but I'm pretty sure  people in my year are just wearing something else than the uniform.  

Planning for tomorrow's clothes,
Liisa

Info

FIRST SAFARI PAYMENT: DONE!

That means I'm going to that safari I was telling to you earlier.  As you can guess I've been wanting to go for the whole time, I just wasn't sure if I could ask my parents to pay for it.  3500 dollars is quite a lot, especially when I haven't actually paid anything by myself so far.  So, only thing I can do now, is say THANK YOU to my brilliant parents.  :)

Today was a nice day, and I found out that the Aussie girl from my district (who is going to Finland in January as an exchange student) is going to my city, to my school.  That is an amazing coincidence, because exchange student's don't usually take other one's place.  That made me think what nice things she'll be doing with my friends, those things I'll miss. I've been saying that I don't miss my home, but after that (don't get me wrong, I'm really happy for her and can't wait to hear what she things about my city, school, friends etc.) I started thinking again.

Lately someone asked me if I looking forward going home, and I really needed to think about my answer.  Seriously, think what; of course I'm looking forward that!  But what else could I have said?  It's my home, it's where I belong, where all the people I love the most are, the place where I've grown up.  It is the place where my life used to be.  Of course I'm looking forward going back!  All the sudden there's million things which I can't wait to do.  That is ridiculous because this year is not an obstacle, vice versa, it's supposed to help me to get forward.  And in my head I can't wait till it ends.  How silly is that.

All these things and a beautiful song from my brother: I'm ready to cry. And I don't even have a good reason for that.  I just feel like it even though everything is going well here.  Now my writing is starting to sound very strange so I better stop, but I just thought I would like to tell you all kind of thoughts, not only the happy ones.  Life 15 017 kilometers away from home can't be perfect all the time.  Surprisingly close though. :)

Got all the bad thoughts out of the mind,

Liisa