About languages and winter

Timmy playing in snow in Finland

 I started thinking about languages today while giving a Finnish lesson to a French guy. He is a professor in this Uni and for some unknown reason he wants to study Finnish. He has already learned Swedish so he wanted to study something harder.

How difficult can it be to tell the difference between conjugations in your own native language? I really had to think a lot for good examples and such. I've already taught him the alphabets and prononciation and now I should move on to teaching verbs and such. Moreover I'm trying to teach him in French so at the momen it feels like too much work!

I'm thinking like crazy during the lessons trying to translate all the Finnish cases to French when they don't actually exist in French. It's giving me a headache even to think about it now. For tomorrow's lesson I have to think of good examples of conjugation and I'll teach him how to tell the time. Pfff...

Also tomorrow I have my German course after the Finnish course so I'll be happily in confusion when I go there :D

 The pictures don't have anything to do with languages - I know, but I also started to think about winter. I really miss it! Now in Finland it's around +5C and here it's +15C.  I'm already missing snow. And also a funny fact that I realized: people are using winter clother right now! I've seen people wearing same clothing that I use when it's more than -15C and I'm taking the dog out for a long walk. I find it so comical because I think those shoes are too warm to were when it's warmer than -15C :D Timmy in the pictures is my dog btw.

 A list of things that I miss at the moment:

- sauna
- polite people

- Finnish

- salmiakki!!

- my pets

- snow

- most of my clothes

- ease of studying

- hanging out with my friends

I miss Finnish sauna even though I almost never go there.. It's because it's so cold in my room and taking showers here doesn't guarantee that there is any warm water.

Polite people is on the list bacause today my copying card for printing and taking photocopies was stolen. I forgot it in the copying machine and when I remembered that I forgot it (less than 10 minutes later) it was already gone. In Finland I'm sure that someone would have just put it on top of the machine or taken it to someone in the library where I can pick it up later. 

Finnish is on the list because I miss speaking a language where I don't have to think so much about the words or be afraid all the time that I make a bad mistake. Unlike almost all the other exchange students here I don't have anyone to speak my mother tongue with. Of course it's easier for me to also study in Finnish and I miss studying with a language from which I understand all the words.

 Salmiakki, my clother and my pets, oh well. I can't have them here and that's why it's kinda hard. The same applies to being with my friends. I especially miss stuff that doesn't include alcohol or partying. For counterbalance I think I'm going to miss French cheese and living in a huge city.

Well I think I'd better go prepare my Finnish lesson for tomorrow. Ciao ciao!

Autumun never comes

Defacto présente Le Petit Prince

Hello and welcome to enjoy the weather of +25C in the beginning of October! This is so not true! All my friends are enjoying the mild temperatures of +4 - +8 in Finland and I'm here.

Talking of mild temperatures there was HOT WATER in the shower! Party time! The most irritating thing I've grown to almost hate in here is taking a shower. This building is really old and I think there is something wrong with the pipes bacause there isn't enough hot water for the showers.

When you are in the shower when someone turns the tab on in any part of this building (with maybe 80 people living in it) hot water turns off and the water pressure goes down. I've experiances hell in here when taking a hot shower; in a couple of seconds hot water turns into a water from Antarctica. It's especially irritating when I've been jogging and feeling hot I take a shower. After sports it's nice to take a cold shower but I don't want to have a frostbite while at it.
 Ok I'm exaggarating a lot but it really pisses me off because I'm a friend of warm showers.

 Well what else have happened here. I've gotten new French friends and I'm really happy to practise my French with someone. After 3 weeks of courses I can now write my notes and listen to the professor at the same time without lifting my head to see what the professor is writing. I was so happy when I realized that! Also I've started to use new French words more and even when I'm not sure of the right word it usually comes to my mind. I still have problems with conjugation but I'll learn I'm sure of it.

I'm still wating for my ImagineR card for metro.. I'm paying them starting from October (this month!) so I'm wating to see it soon. Although I know that French system is slover than a dead snail I really hope to get my card so that I can go to work and to stores whenever I need to without paying extra!

 Oh yeah that reminds me: I got a job :) I'm a babysitter for a French family and I'm teaching English to the children. I'm taking care for an adorable 1-year-old boy and his 4-year-old sister. It's a bit of a trouble to travel there because it takes 50nminutes by metro and a buss but it's totally worth it. I didn't like children at all when I came here and now I'm taking care of them. I knew exchange changes people but this is so unbeliavable!

And then to things we have done with my friends: we visited "Spectacle : Defacto présente Le Petit Prince" meaning a show of the story of Little Prince with lights, pyrotechnics and fireworks (24.09.2011). Oh my God what a show it was! The story was told in French so I didn't get every word but I could keep track of the plot. The pictures were reflected on a side of a building in metro station La Défense. I included a link of the show from Youtube if someone is interested to see some parts :) There are also pictures included if you look the beginning of the text.

Le Jardin du château de Versailles

 The following day from the spectacle of Little Prince (and after only 4 hours of sleep..) we visited Le Jardin du château de Versailles with Erasmus students. Our intention was to go inside the castle but we ended up wondering around the garden and seeing Domaine de Marie-Antoinette. We saw like 1/5 of the garden it was so huge! It was nothing breath-taking but it was beautifull. We are going to visit the castle some other day. It was Sunday so the lines were awfull. Pictures from the garden are included around this text.

Domaine de Marie-Antoinette

Domaine de Marie-Antoinette

 Tomorrow I'm going to keep my first Finnish course to one professor who wants to learn Finnish. I find it really weird that someone wants to learn Finnish.. It's not exactly too usefull. But in return he is going to teach me French so I'm happy about that. I need help with my prononciation and there are also so many words to learn. I always tend to forget the genre of the words and the whole sentence is ruined if you have feminine and masculine stuff incorrectly in there..

 Speaking of languages I took up German. My German courses are on Thursday from 5.30pm to 07.30pm making Thusday officially my favorite day of the week with 11 hours of lectures. By the time German starts my brain is hurting from all the French I've heard that day and I should learn morea languages. Of course I'm starting with the beginners course so all the stuff is really easy. Actually sometimes I have to think if the teacher is speaking German or French because I understand both so well that I can't make the difference! :D

I'm still wating from my CAF (local housing allowance) on top of ImagineR. I thought getting it would be really hard but actually there was a generator in the interenet that filled the papers for you. But at least I got all my bank stuff in order. I got two bank cards and a cheque book from BNP Paribas. It's like I've gone 30 years back in time because now I can use cheques.

I think today I reached the ultimate Frenchness: when making notes I started writing Finnish with accent marks :D Also sometimes when I speak with my mom on Skype I start to answer her sentences in French without realizing.

I end this lovely little writing thanking MikGo for correcting my mistakes in spelling! His name is link to his blog (in Finnish). Thank you, it's nice to know that there is at least one person reading this! ^^

// Riikka helped me with mistakes in spelling. Thank you!