Greetings from Sipoo, Finland... and a new start?

GOODBYE SIPOO, HELLO LINZ!

As my time in Finland was drawing to a close, 
I was able to attend the Finnish graduation ceremony called 'lakitus' 
- that's Finnish for 'getting the white cap' as a sign of finishing upper secondary school.
All the students were dressed up for the occasion...

     

....there was music...

My 'old' friend Hassan even rapped for the graduates!

There were 44 of them this year, and they listened tearfully to Gaudeamus Igitur, an official farewell song to high school leavers in Finland (and elsewhere)...

 

 

Hopefully, getting back to Mozartland will give me inspiration 

in my piano studies ;)

Experiencing the capital

Hi everybody, long time no see... (insert excuses here:))

Anyway, here's a Prezi presentation I made together with a couple of students (namely Minja and Joona, great thanks for your help) after we went on a sightseeing tour in Helsinki during a Comenius visit with some Turks and Germans. What a fantastic day!



The whole group in our auditorium

I am sure you have heard of our national sport, wife carrying or eukonkanto? 

Germans enjoying some glow bowling

Mestariteos = masterpiece, that's me!

Rockin' all over Sipoo!

After I had been singing rap, I wanted to change style and try some metal. I got to play drums, and it was really fun!

I also tried to play the piano, but it was really hard. As they say in Finnish: “Harjoitus tekee mestarin”, Practice makes perfect...

French.. pardon?

Today Eero took me to meet his French class...

J'apprends le français! Oh là là...

 
Voici Minja. Elle a seize ans. Elle adore le soleil et les langues étrangères.

Ça, c'est Matheus. Il vient du Brésil. Il passe une année dans notre lycée. Il n'aime plus tellement la neige...

Ici je suis avec Tommi. Il fait du basejumping (c'est vrai!), mais il déteste mämmi. Joyeuses Pâques, en tout cas!

Enfin, voici mon nouvel ami Ville. Il est très sportif. Il aime jouer au foot et au basketball.

Ciao!

Some leave, others stay

Hello again!

 A couple of days ago I had a chance to participate in one of the most popular
Finnish high school traditions. The oldest students (Abis in Finnish) had their traditional last day with all of them throwing candy to “decorate” the school. I also had a chance to see their “Abi show”.

        
Here I am with my new friend, Salla. The oldies decorated the common-room and changed it a bit. See how beautiful the flowers are on the curtains!

When there was a break between lessons, some of other pupils got candy from the oldies. Jörgen, the secretary, got some, too. Yum! The sweets they gave me were delicious. :)

Here I am with the oldies. Can you find me? :)

I also had a chance to taste the Finnish school food. First it looked a little odd, but it tasted really delicious! Very handy to have a ready made school lunch at school, so you can’t forget your lunch at home in a hurry. 

"Luulitko, että tämä olisi aivan tavallinen koulupäivä?"

Erm... Wanna translate? 

Goodbye oldies!
There they go to visit other schools on their last day, throwing candy everywhere...

Scaffy Raps! 

w/Hassan and Gurmeet

Hello my friends! how is it going? did you know that I finally got a chance to make a new album! it's called ‘’Scaffy in da house’’ and it will be released in 2014! are you excited? well i am! thanks to these two fellas i am here in the studio !

Here is another view of me singing for the new album! you, my friends, are going to love it!

Here i am editing my voice and making it better with autotune hehe ;) just kidding, everybody loves my original **bleats**!

Hello everybody, long time no see... 

You see, I've been taking it easy *offline* on the Finnish SKIING holidays:

  
I found it slightly awkward to find the right size gear, though...

   

Keep reading and you will know more!

  

I met Sipoon Lukio’s mascot, Rysky(?). He was pretty big and a bit scary first. But afterwards he turned out to be a good fellow.


Then I visited the arts class and I saw a table what was made from books! I think that was interesting and cool. And of course I wanted to take a picture with that.

And last thing what I did was that I helped Lassi to get his books out from his locker. The book was quite heavy so Lassi helped me a bit.

Happy Valentine's Day!... or something

 

You may be wondering about the company I keep in Sipoo, but be patient and you'll find out!

It's all getting a bit technical...

Today the students took me to the language lab and showed me some online activities. Teemu had to adjust the headphones somewhat to match my sheepish measures ;)

In no time at all, I was drilling my Finnish with Tiia like a pro... 

Did you know that 'lammas' is 'sheep' in Finnish?

I practiced pronunciation with these typical phrases (whatever they may mean):

Vesihiisi sihisi hississä

Ärrän kierrän orren ympäri

Ääliö älä lyö, ööliä läikkyy...

After school I ate some rye bread with cheese and drank some good Valio milk at William's house. Slurps!

After eating we went riding with this snowmobile, it was really fun!

HERE I AM IN FINLAND, 
GETTING FED AND BATHED!

After a long and rather bumpy ride in the cardboard box,  l finally "landed" on Eero's desk...

Eero's English group welcomed me (and my gifts) with open arms. One of them carried me on his head, and another boy promised to take me tobogganing this weekend, so I am looking forward to it (I think...). There's plenty of snow for that, but I hope I won't freeze to death!

Then I got an invitation to visit Satu's (the Swedish teacher) family, who wanted to introduce to me 1) Runeberg's Day with its traditional gateau and 2) the sauna!

Johan Ludvig Runeberg was our national 19th-century poet (more info here), and the story goes that his wife Fredrika had to quickly develop a recipe from what she found in her cupboard... You can see the result in the picture above... Yummy!

Satu's children were quite excited about having me as a guest, and could hardly let go of me the next day... They took lots of photos and played with me till it was time... to have a sauna.

I was slightly frightened of the heat at first, but the presence (and the smell) of the sauna sheep (!) helped me relax and sweat away my travel tiredness. The other sheep (called Pökö) is meant to give off a scent and remind the family of the Midsummer smell of a summer forest - we got along just fine!

Here's what Satu wrote - in Swedish, our second official language. Feel free to use Google translator to see what it means!

Tack, Scaffy, för besöket. Vi hade jättetrevligt med dig och barnen hade svårt att låta dig fara vidare. De ville till och med ha dig till natidjur men jag lät inte dig sova med barnen. Jag var rädd att barnen aldrig skulle ge dig bort mera... 

Satu

Off to Finland!!

Today Zuzanna took me shopping and we bought some typical Christmas sweets for the students in Finland.  Most of them are made with almonds, because there are so many almond trees here in Spain.  I hope they like them.  I also hope I don't get too hungry on my way to Finland and eat some of them!  

We decided that the box that Ms. Payreder had found for me for my trip over to Spain was the perfect size for me.  So, we changed the addresses on the box, put some extra tape on the ends and..... 

in I went!

Bye Spain!!!  Thank you so much for the wonderful memories!

Yours forever,

Scaffy

Time for a wash!

Sheep in Ireland are the cleanest sheep in the world.  They spend their days outside in the fields and, since it's always raining in Ireland, they have showers almost daily!

In Madrid it doesn't rain often at all.  And I had been noticing that my wool wasn't as shiny and white as it was when I was back in Limerick.  I was also worried that the students in Finland wouldn't like me because I was a little bit dirty.  Then, Zuzanna had a great idea!  

She took me home and gave me a good wash in her washing machine!  It was so much fun! 

 Like a roller coaster! 

 Unfortunately, getting dry wasn't so exciting.