Ranking

 In France everything is about ranking: who is the best student, which is the best university, which is the best faculty. They do this starting when they are little kinds at the age of 4 when they go to school and do this to the bitter end. In Finland we don't have this system: actually in Finland we don't have a thing called "a failing student".

At the university here all the notes you get are on a wall for everyone to see how good (or bad..) you did. They show everyone your student number, name and points you got. In Finland we have the same system with the difference that only you know your points because the paper shows only our student numbers and points.

For someone I guess this system is a motivation because you have to get a good note because everyone sees how you did. For me it was awful. I'm an exchange student so I guess everyone knew that I'm not going to shine with my numbers but I didn't like people looking at them. Only for one course here they showed only the student numbers when revealing the grades. But on an extra line before my student number there was a little text "Erasmus" and I'm the only exchange student here. Gee I wonder who that is..

In France you get points up to 20 and getting more than 10,5 means that you passed the course. For me this was really confusing because in Finland we get a mark from 1 to 5 and one means you passed. If you fail a course they say you did. So here when I looked at my marks for the first time I didn't know if I passed or not. And what's worse: they show everyone how badly you failed.

This week I also learned that the faculty of Uni Paris-Sud 11 is the best faculty of science and the ranking is really rough. I talked with some of the foreign students who have been studying here since their first year of uni and they told me that when they get 14/20 it causes a stir. "How can that person get 14/20!! He is not French! He doesn't almost speak French!" I think this gives an idea of how hard it is for the students here.

I was really confused when people came to congratulate me in person when I got 16/20 from German. But after finding out how the system in this university goes I'm not at all surprised.

So how am I going to get 45 credits when half of the French people studying here are failing their classes? Here we can try every exam two times and between these two times there are several months. In Finland we can try every exam 3 times and there is less time between each try so that we don't forget everything that we learned. I can try the exams that I failed here in 5 months and I'm really hoping to pass them.

l'Attestation sûr l'honneur

So for CAF I had to write l'attestation sûr l'honneur. I found this really difficult because in Finland we don't do stuff like this. It took some time for me to even found out what it was..

In the end I asked my French-Finnish friend Emilia to help me :) it was nice of her to help me. L'attestation sûr l'honneur is a piece of paper in which you swear that you aren't working. I decided to post a model. It's exactly the letter that I wrote with my friend's help and by using models that I found.

Name                                                                                Where, the date

Adress

(SUBJECT) Attestation sûr l'honneur


Madame, Monsieur,


Je souhaite faire une demande de bourse afin de financer mon logement universitaire.


Je soussigné (NAME) preparant le diplôme de (YOUR STUDIES).


J'atteste sûr l'honneur ne percevoir aucune rémunération quelle qu'elle soit.


Dans l'attente, recevez, Madam, Monsieur, mes salutation les meilleurs.

                                                                     (NAME)
                                                                     (SINGNATURE)


I would have found it helpful if someone had done this so I hope this helps someone :) sorry for all the possible mistakes in spelling...

Snow !!

I was SO happy this morning (11.30.. is that morning?) when I opened my curtains and saw that we have snow here! And not just 2 mm but more like 4 cm. Of course for me it's not that much (there is like 60cm in Finland now), but anyway I was really happy.  There was enough snow to cover all trees in white.

Well anyway first I was thinking about going jogging with my camera but then my friend Julio told me that Spanish and Italian people are gathering together for doing something and I decided to go with them. At first it was our intention to do a snowman but the snow here is too powder-like and we can't make big balls from it. So somehow making a snowman turned into a 1-hour and a half of snowball fighting. Finland was completely undermanned with only one soldier so I was completely wet and cold when we finished fighting.

After snowball fighting I took a warm shower and ate risotto with Italians. They told me that they are having evenings like that almost every night just to hang out. I'm so jealous that there aren't other Finnish people here so that I could do the same! I also learned that there is a problem with cocaine in the campus area and because of this we have guards patrolling during the nights. I didn't even know this! I'm happily sleeping in my room so I didn't have any idea. I also found out that there are some homeless people who take showers in these buildings because somehow they now the codes for th doors. This is kinda scary for me.

Anyway! Enjoy the snowy pictures ;) Let's see how long it lasts..

Finland lost....

New semester

Salut!

My next semester started and I'm so relaxed and enjoying it so much. This semester is much easier than the last one because we have less lessons. We are going to have a lot of laboratory courses but it's ok.

People started talking today that we are going to get the results for our exams this week.. I'm not so sure I want to see them! On the other hand I "only" have to do 45 credits this year so even if I only passed one exam worth 5 credits I'm closer to my goal.

This month I'm going back to Finland for a little trip! I can't wait to see my dog and guinea pigs.. We have our winter vacation next month and my mom needs me in Finland. We are going to have our spring break of two weeks in April and I'm planning a trip to Prague and Dresden for that. I have a friend who lives in Czech Republic and I'd like to use this opportunity because I've never been there. One of my Finnish friends is in Dresden now to do her exchange, so I'm thinking about visiting her too in spring break.

 Last week first people left for their home countries.. The farewell party was bittersweet. Especially I miss my German friend Lisa. I'm planning on visiting her in April.

As you can see from the pictures winter here in Paris is just.. awful. Now we started to have days when we actually have -1C but it's really nothing. I actually took up jogging because it's nice to run when it's not too hot. Of course every friend of mine is complaining like it would be too cold for them to be. In Finland it's -30C now and I can't wait to go there in a couple of weeks :P

All of my CAF papers are almost ready. They send me a letter that I need to give them a birth certificate (which we don't do in Finland..), a note from the University that I'm attending and a letter telling them that I have money to pay my rent. I was really amused about the last one. Like I'd tell them if I didn't have money to pay!

This week I've been sending e-mails all over Finland finding out what I have to do about this birth certificate thing. The paper has to be in French including information of my parents. First of all because we don't have birth certificates in Finland they have to give me some other paper that costs 35 €. Then to prove that this paper is good they are going to stamp it and send me another paper that costs 11 €. This is what I found out from the embassy of Finland in Paris. Then I send an e-mail to the register office in my hometown and they told me that they don't do the paper in French and asked me to send an e-mail to the capital of Finland. So now I have a letter coming from Helsinki with all of the papers that I need and I hope that I'll get this CAF-thing sorted out next week!

Yesterday I visited my friends in here and we had a little BBQ. Tomorrow I'm going to Paris for a gig of Synthetic Waterfall in "Le Klub". Enjoy my wintry pictures! ;) Adieu