Last weekend

OOTD
This post was writen on Thursday, 28th of May, but I forgot to publish it...
It's Thursday and today was my last school day for this year. I passed all my subjects and I'll be promoted to IB2. I still have some things to do during the summer (and actually I realized that I have to go to school tomorrow and print out my BM questionnaires...), but now I'm just going to enjoy the warmth and do nothing. In two weeks I'll be in England!
But let's still go back to the last weekend. On Friday my boyfriend came to visit us, I cooked some nice vegetarian food. As sometimes you've been asking the recipes I'm going to share this one with you. Basically you need some vegetables (e.g. pepper, onion, garlic, courgette, broccoli, cauliflower , tomato, carrot... What ever you like!) and then you just simple dice and cook them with some oil and quite low heat (as at least I wanted them to be medium). Once the vegetables are pretty much ready, just add sweet-and-sour sauce.
Then a bit trickier part that still is really simple (this could be done while the vegetables are slowly cooking). You need eggs, glass-noodles and green onion.  For five people I used seven eggs, 150g of noodles and four green onions and there were enough leftovers for me for the next Monday. You start by putting the noodles into a bowl, then adding boiling water over them and letting them cook. Then add the eggs into another bowl and whisk them a bit. Once the noodles have cooked, water has been poured out and they've cooled down a bit, cut them into smaller pieces and add to the same bowl with eggs. Then cut green onions and add them to the mixture, mix and then bake them on a pan as you would do with pancakes or so. Then serve the noodle-pancakes with the vegetables. And it was tasty!
On Saturday evening me and my sis went to see my best friend and met the cutest little thing ever. She was born in the morning and so she wasn't even as old as one day. So, so cute! I've seen quite a few young horses, but this one was totally the youngest one. Just look at it and let her melt your heart ♥
On Sunday me and my little sister visited our cousin and her family, as their younger daughter had her 6th birthday party. It was great to see some relatives and spend time with sis on the road. We also stopped twice to take some pics, here you go!
Cardigan - Primark, Top - H&M
Skirt - H&M, Shoes - my sister's 
Sunglasses - Anttila, Necklace - Finlandia Koru
So nothing else this time. Only one and a half week to go and we're flying to England! I still have things to be posted before I'm leaving, but soon we will be on a travelling mode, yay! And I could also mention, that I finally got a new phone which was totally too expensive, but I just hope I'll be able to use it for years.  So see you next time!

A lifetime in exile in the land of the fools.

OOTD
Mustasch - Thank you for the demon

..again one nice song from a Swedish band. The neighbors just know how to do music (and with this I refer also to Sabaton and Amaranthe, two of my favourites!). I have to admit, that I don't know Mustasch's other discography than just this one song, but I've been playing it a lot lately. 

It's Friday. I have four days of school left, today I'm home. I already took a little walk with my dog and now I've been cleaning up my room. It has been untouched for a while, because I just haven't had time to do anything. Some school things are still undone, but slowly I'm getting to a point where I can say that I'm done with this year. Of course I still have my EE to be written during the summer and so on, but I don't even count that in now. 
 Shirt - Lindex, Scarf - Secondhand
Jeans - Cubus, Shoes - New Look 

These last weeks have been extremely busy (as you've heard for fifteen times already) and I haven't had time to concentrate on my blog. However I managed to edit the layout and I'm quite happy with that one. What do you think?

Lately I've been also trying to understand that we're living pretty much the end of May. I still live somewhere in February or March and I don't feel like that in three weeks we're in England and actually pretty soon flying to Germany. But probably the reality hits when I have to start packing - I have already planned what I'm going to take with me, but let's see!
These picture's in this post are from the end of April and I have another set of pics waiting for publishing. That really tells something about what I've been able to do... But yeah, I should probably stop complaining and be happy that I have something to do and I don't have to get bored at all. Now I will continue my operation called "getting shit done" and go to do the laundry. And then I'll go outside and enjoy the weather - the sun is shining and it's finally warm, yay!

Only in IB

IB
Written 9.5.2015
Today I decided to talk about IB and studying, as some of you have been interested in to hear about it and I have to say that even though the whole IB-studying is one of a hell it still is the best decision I could have made!
First I could explain shortly, what IB is all about. It's an international education program which resembles high-school as the diploma is in the same level with the high-school diploma. It's acknowledged in many countries and you're able to apply into universities with the diploma pretty much all over the world. We study in English, six subjects plus TOK (Theory of knowledge) and CAS (creativity, action and service hours). The official website of IB is www.ibo.org and from there you could read more if your anyhow interested in!
Okay, so about me and my studies. I've been studying in IB diploma program for a year now. However, this year is already my second year in high school as I've gone through the Pre-year already. I don't know about other IB-schools all over the world, but here in Finland we have the first "pre" year to prepare us for the true IB. So classmates and another language than my mother tongue used in lessons are already familiar things. Nevertheless the true IB has challenged me again. Even if the English was kinda okay already, the subjects have gotten harder and there's a lot more to do than last year. Now I'm preparing myself for the last tests of the year - I have a plan what to study and when to study and it seems like I won't have any other life than school for next two weeks. But then it's almost summer, yay! It will be worth of doing.

So how do we study? In English, in a small group. As our IB is a relatively small, we have distance teaching coming from Oulu. The whole process includes a lot of writing, Extended Essay (research essay of 4000 words), Internal Assessments (one from each subject, for example BM 1500 words + research work + 500 words of action plan and research proposal) and Written Assignments from English and Finnish (I don't even know the word counts...). So if you totally hate writing, then I would advice you to think twice. 
What do we study? Everyone have to study their own mother tongue, for me Finnish. Then we have the second language that is English. Those are (subject-)Groups 1 and 2, don't remember which one is which but anyways. Then the Group 3 is about individuals and societies, for me it means Business Management (BM). In our school also psychology is available in that group. Group 4 is about sciences; biology, chemistry and physics - which I study excluding physics. Group 5 is mathematics that are offered in three different levels. Last Group, Group 6 is the arts that we don't have in our school, so basically we can choose one more subject from Groups 3 and 4 - that's why I have both biology and chemistry.

And those levels then. We have Higher Level (HL) and Standard Level (SL). At least 3 HL subjects should be chosen, I have four at the moment; English, BM, chemistry and biology. From math it's possible to choose from HL, SL and maths studies. Studies is the easiest one, but considered as an SL subject when applying to universities.
How it then feels to study in IB? Most of the time we have such a great time. You have to be a bit crazy to apply on IB, so that's why our group is such a weird thing. Studying is quite independent - of course we have lessons and homework and tests and stuff, but it's up to you what do you want to do. All the courses should be passed to be promoted to the IB2 but then again no-one is saying to you that you have too many absences or so. You basically have to take care of yourself and study, and you will survive. I personally have liked studying in IB a lot. Our system is closer to studying in university than it is to studying in high school, and it gets hard time to time. At the moment, when I'm writing this, I have fours big exams coming and only one week left to revise.

So I'm quite exhausted at the moment. But still, I have to say that there's so many positive sides in IB that I wouldn't change it for anything. People, IB-spirit, English. Those are the main things that I love!

ps. Sorry about the quality of pics. I just selected some random shots from here and there, representing what it might be like in IB. And probably I should also mention our very own classroom - we have sofa! Check out the third pic!

My day

my day
 Written 1.2.2015
The very first "my day" - post and this is just an ordinary day of mine, if I don't have to be in school. This post is from Tuesday 27th of Januray, when I had a day off in the middle of the test week. Let's get started!

07:15 I wake up, get dressed and wash my face.
07:30 Breakfast. This time banana with yogurt.
8:00 I started watching Imaginaerum, because it's related to my extended essay topic.
10:00 Opened my laptop, got a cup of hot chocolate (but cold one!) and started doing some school stuff. Ended up surfing around the mysterious world of the internet and being useless.
11:45 Lunch. This and that from the fridge - potatoes, avocado and salad.
12:00 Filling in a Sudoku, reading through the lyrics of Imaginaerum and trying to find out what kind of research question could be done related to them.
13:00 Watching some TV and playing piano.
 14:30 Going out with Pyry, it was snowing a bit but we survived and the weather was really pleasant other ways.
 15:15 Some snack, more TV and more internet.
15:30 My sister came home, talking with her.
17:00 My parents came, eating and chatting, spending time together.
18:00 Playing more piano and practicing Taikatalvi. Doing this and that, eating supper.
20:00 Taking shower, brushing my teeth. Spending time with my laptop.
22:00 Sleeping time!

4/15

from phone
Okay, we've been living May for several days already, but I still decided to publish  this post of my April. So here we go, more bad quality pictures from my phone! ps. even though I already said a few months ago that I'll get a new phone soon I haven't. Now I have an idea which one I would like to buy, but let's see when I can afford that...
The month started with my birthday and it included the very first legal drinks while listening Apulanta with one of my closest friends. Awesome night I have to say!
Then some more partying with my classmates from whom I got that sparkling wine with cute balloons! With my family we ate well, the whole weekend with Easter and my birthday was full of everything tasty. 
I also got my drivers license (almost exactly a month ago), and we did a few small just-driving-around trips. We visited Vuokatin vaara one morning and ate subway - actually I ate subway twice that month and both up there in Vuokatti. Normally I never eat stuff like that.
Some selfie, winter came back and having a good time with my best friend with a cup of tea (which was actually quite okay, even I do not like tea at all). Walking with horses in the night and laughing at our selves as no-one, except horse people, spends the May Day weekend like this.

So that was my April, how was yours?

May Day!

chitchat
So the first weekend of May passed by really quickly. My celebration of the first of may included a lot of horses. I bet that last Thursday night most of the people, all the normal ones, were partying, celebrating, drinking, eating well and so on. But not me. As a horsegirl you won't be normal. I was running after six horses that escaped and went to have a run of six kilometers - so we drove around searching them, walked with horses and packed them in a truck and trailer and ah whatever. And I was home after eleven o'clock PM and exhausted and just slept.
©Henna
On Friday I was in the stables again, on Saturday I had a training and then on Sunday a show-jumping competition. But that's about horses, even though I had great time with great people!
On Saturday my sister had her birthday, so I made her a mint-chocolate-cake and it was delicious. The same day (or was it Friday, can't remember!) we ate homemade burgers, potato wedges and salad. Delicious! My boyfriend, as well as my aunt, visited us and it was nice to spend some time with them.
Other ways my life has been just normal. I'm getting excited about the next summer (only a month to go!!) and the ice hockey world champion ships started! Everything is going just fine, but school is killing me at the moment and when I finish one task I have ten more to do. It just feels like I should be doing something all the time and big exams are getting closer and closer. And by Friday I should have 2000 words of my Extended Essay, the first draft. And guess how many words I have? Under 500. And I really should do something about that one.
Now I am going to take my Business Management book and read a bit, so I will be knowledgeable at least in one subject...

How was your weekend?

Languages and what do they mean to me

languages
Written 21.4.2015
Languages. A topic that is close to my heart. Lately you've heard this and that about me, hopefully you won't get totally bored with this kind of posts that include mainly my (wannabe) deep thoughts... But back to the business - today I am going to talk about languages. I wrote a post about the subject in my previous blog a couple of years ago and I found it such a nice topic that I decided to do it again.

So, what do languages mean to me? They mean the whole world. A language can open totally new worlds, you can get into a different, weird, unknown culture. You can get to know people. You may understand history, traditions or habits of some group better. Language is a strong part of who we are, what we do and how we do it. It can be a from of art. I just love languages, but I admit it - I am totally too lazy to study them.
My mother tongue is Finnish and it's my strongest language. It's the language I am most comfortable to use, I read and I have read a lot in Finnish. My vocabulary is wide and I know how to use the language. There's nothing better than writing myself or reading or doing literal analysis. I just love Finnish. It's unique, beautiful and hard language. It's part of my personality, part of who I am and where I come from and I couldn't be prouder of my mother tongue. And now we could ask why do I write a blog in English instead of Finnish?

Well. English is my second strongest language and I could be considered as a bilingual person. I am a bilingual person and lately I've felt that my English has become so much better and I feel more and more comfortable using it. My English is not perfect and it doesn't have to be (even I would wish so). Right now I feel like I want to do as much as possible in English to learn it as much as I can. I also want my blog to be readable for a bigger audience. Finnish speaking population is a tiny one in the end. And quite a few people can understand English.
Other languages then. I've studied Swedish and I could actually manage with it, but I'd like to know it much better. I've studied a bit of Russian and I know very basics - and of course I can read the letters. Then I know pieces of German even though I've never really studied it. Those languages are all interesting and especially German I want to learn - and I will. It seems to be quite an easy language for me and I can understand simple things just by comparing with English and Swedish. I just should get started and decide what, when and how I'm studying.

I hope that some day I'll be able to say that I have (at least) three fluent languages, and I would like to have a job in which languages are needed. Languages overall are closely related to globalization and how important it's to be able to communicate with more than just one language nowadays.
So I could conclude, that I like languages, they're awesome. And the topic is closely related to the main themes of my blog, yay! That's it, nothing else to say this time. Hear you soon!

ps. These random pics © Mattis