I have too much life!

So people, I bet you've all been wondering  WHY DOESN'T HE WRITE etc. Well the thing is that I've been so busy with everything, and seriously: EVERYTHING! I haven't written anything for 4 months and now I try to write most of the stuff I've been doing.




1. Maybe the saddest part of my exchange was in September when the French exchange student, Maiwenn, left.. I was all alone boohoo..... welll I got over it and we're still in touch and stuff. Now she lives in San Fransisco and I'll go there one day to see her. After she had left we had our spring holiday for 2 weeks :b

2. In the beginning of October I went on a trip called 'Going bush with Rotary' which meant that I, 2 of my friends, 8 11-year-old kids and 12 Rotarians went camping with 4WDs to the Aussie outback to the Flinders Ranges. I loved that trip so much! I saw all the wild things and the landscape AH THE LANDSCAPE!!  I'd go back there any day!! It was one of the best weeks of my exchange! And the whole week I slept in a Swag which is one-person tent-sleeping bag.  The first night was very interesting to sleep in it but the rest one's went sleeping like a log : ))

3. After the Bush trip I changed host family, which was pretty interesting, because I sort of had just been going around for a week and then I'm just changing. Well it really didn't matter because my next hosts were very nice to me and everything : ) They lived in a sub division near the school which was all new to me! I liked very much living there! After few weeks of staying at their place they had their 60th birthday which was very enjoyable : ) Happy birthday to them ^^

4. We also had a sports day at our school (as they do here in Australia) and every 'house' was against each other. This was in the end of October. I was the captain of the blue house and I attended mostly every event. There were all sorts of running & spronting, tug of war, volleyball, soccer, and stuff like that. The best part of the whole day was that we were supposed to dress up in our house's colours and of course when I get the chance to dress up - I do! few days before the show I went to few op shops to buy blue clothes and I was planning my outfit, well.. Everyone either said that my outfit was horrible or amazing. I had a light blue collar shirt, a dark blue tie, dark blue wetsuit pants, a dark blue belt, light blue socks and blue 'n' white shoes.. ..Well anyways in the end our house came second for the whole day but I won the Best Costume Award for the day, which was predictable but I actually doubted that :DD

5. In the beginning of November there was a new shopping centre opened in Murray Bridge (=My town here in Australia if someone didn't know), called Murray Bridge Marketplace which I have found very convenient :)) The mall has most of the stuff you need and I've been hanging out there with some friends and it's just so good for that too!

6. In the middle of November my best friend from Finland, who's also an exchange student here in Australia, decided to come and visit me here in Murray Bridge from Melbourne! Jaakko Lahdenkauppi was here for 3 days but those days were amazing! I hadn't seen him for 5 or so months and it was just so good to see him!! Thanks for coming man!! :))

7. While I've been attending the Murray Bridge High School I've been doing drama there and we had this production: Narnia's The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and I played part for Mr Tumnus and oh how I loved that play! Everyone who came to see us told us they loved it! It was a good experience! So yeah if some of you didn't know yet, I see my future as an actor! :))
And actually I've got my best friends in Australia from Drama and I'm so happy I did! I don't know what my exchange would've been if I hadn't met Andrew Thomas! Btw, he's an amazing actor, singer, dancer and a cook! : D

8. One weekend in November we went to Renmark, which is 2h away from Murray Bridge and we went there with all the other Rotary exchange students from this district oh how good time we had!! We went bowling, to a laser skirmish,  cayacking and a lot more! Our group is just the best!! I see them and the 'neighbour district' rather often. we organize hang outs and such in Adelaide and then most of us just go and have a good time! : ))  

9. In the beginning of December my host parents decided to go to Carins, which is right up at north-east in Queensland where the Great Barrier reef is and I had to stay in MB because it would've costed too much to go there.. So I stayed with one other Rotarian family.
Oh By the way! I got on my Christmas holidays few weeks before this! :b
Here in Australia Horse races are a big thing! This substitute host family took me to one and oh how I loved it! The atmosphere was amazing! I even got the chance to go up to the tower where they broadcasted it all over Australia! It was magnificent!!
Also during the same weekend there was this one Australian girl, Isabella Pickering, who has gone now to Finland, to my home town Paimio as an exchange student and she was visiting me then! She's such an amazing girl and a 'little sister' because she'll be staying at my place when I go back! Pretty keen for that! :)) .

10. I'm a scout back in Finland so I decided to join the scouts here also! So I decided to take part on a Scout camp for all South Australian Venturers(/Explorers) called Super Splash. The Camp was amazing! There you had heaps of activity, such as archery, cayacking, rock climbing, water skiing, knee boarding, swimming, bicycling, land yachting an many more! It lasted for one weekend and you could just go around the area as much as you wanted and do what ever you liked! It was great!

11.In december my second oldest brother and my second oldest sister Lasse and Elina came to see me here in Murray Bridge. They were here for about one week and then they flew to Sydney and I flew there few days after them. We went to Sydney because Elina has been an exchange student 8 years ago and she was in Sydney. There we spent a bizarre hot christmas at Elina's hostparents' place and after that we went to Forster which is 4 hours up north from Sydney. There we spent a couple of days which included cayacking, golfing and surfing! It was great fun!! We came back to Sydney for New year's day and I went to see the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge Fireworks with Elina and Lasse and golly they were amazing! They were big, massive and lasted about 15 minutes! I flew back to Murray Bridge on Chrismas day and they flew back to Finland the next day. It was good to see them, helped my home sickness! Thanks for coming <3

12. After returning from Sydney I changed my host family to my 3rd host family. Now we live outside of town on a farm. We have about 20 Race horses, crop fields and a great big house and heaps more stuff! You just can't understand how much stuff here is! I'm just too lucky to be here! During the first week at my new family we went down to the southern coast to Goolwa where I was for one week at my host family's holiday home. It was amazing! I also went surfing there once. I just love the place!

13. 20th of January I had my 18th Birthday!! All the Rotarians had wished me happy birthday the tuesday before and they sang to me and gave me a card and they had made a cake and they gave me an Akubra, which is a traditional Australian hat and I was all confused because I was turning 18?!?!
On my birthday I first had a barbaque in a local reserve area, Sturt Reserve, and many Rotarians were there doing the BBQ (THANKS FOR ALL YOU <3 ) and there were about 30 of my friends to see me and wish me happy birthday! That was very lovely and all them sang me happy birthday and some of them gave me presents which I hadn't even asked for. (Thanks for all of you people too for coming to see me! <3 ) At the evening I had a small get together/party thing with my top 15 friends :))
I really had a good birthday here in Australia and I'm actually so glad that I could turn 18 here in Murray Bridge with these amazing people!

14. Because I'm very keen for acting now I decided to apply for 'Fiddler on a Roof' which was a play performed by a group called In Christ's Company and actually I got one of the lead roles in the play(Perchick)! And because this is a musical, I've started to take singing lessons now too! I'm just so keen for the whole thing and the whole cast is so nice that I feel like it's one big family!! I have rehearsals now every tuesday and every sunday until it's performed on the 30th, 31st of March and 1st of April so if you're keen to come and see me, be at John Dollar Hall in Murray Bridge on those days! :))))


15. Just few weeks ago I went back to school. It was good to get there and to get some routine to my life too! Now I'm doing Drama, Art, Photography and Music at school so it's rather casual for me :b
Just a week after school had begun there came a new exchange student to the school from Germany, Maximilian(or just Max)  and he's just a top bloke! And he's also almost just like me! He's into drama, he's musical(plays piano) and he's just so much like me with the characteristics and everything! I'm so glad he's here too!

^^

Well I believe this is the most of the stuff what I've been doing past last 4 or 5 months(?) : D I've also been hanging out with friends and doing all sorts of little stuff!  So yeah I have a lot things I'm doing so don't be mad if it takes another 3 months to put the next blog post :b

So yeah. Now you knoe what I've been doing!  
Please comment if you have something to say/ask/anything : )

Still less than 5 months left, which is pretty sad.. I wouldn't like to leave this place at all.. But it's also going to be very nice to see all my Finnish friends and my family and everything again.

See you everyone sooner or later!
Take Care!! ^^




Ps. I miss sauna <3

Out of time, Full of life!

Sorry guys that I haven't posted anything for two or three weeks but I have just been so busy doing all my stuff! But now I am spending my weekend up 4 hours north from Murray Bridge in a town of Orroroo with my host parents and lots of old people at some uncle's 90's. → Reason why I have time. Haha, just kidding.

During last few weeks I've done heaps stuff! The first friday of september I went to play golf and I fell in love with it immediately! Now I have been playing golf three times and it is just so fun! I am not the best golf player you've ever seen but at least I like it and I have something to aim for! I'm playing it with one husband of a rotarian who has played golf for over 50 years.

There is annually organized 'Royal Adelaide Show' in Adelaide which is a big event for South Australia! It lasts for 8 days and there is just everything there can be! It's almost like an amusement park for 8 days (there were a great amount of amusement park rides which were SO AWESOME!) but there is also heaps of other things like riots, farm show and many organisations having a tent where they were advertising themselves, for example I was there with our venturer group helping in the Scounts SA tent. But when you are going to the Show you are not going there to save your money. Ticket to get inside the show area costs already 20 Australian dollars and everything at the show area costs. Some of the rides may cost over 50 bucks! But yeah, I spent there just too much money but we had heaps fun!

Also I've been to few friends' places. I've been many times to a French exchange student's place and she is sooooveryvery nice and fun but unfortunately she's leaving in two week time and it is so sad! But I just manage to be with her as much as possible before she leaves. I've been to other friends' places too but mostly at her place. Some people have had bonfires but they are quite small compared to Finland's midsummer bonfires! Haha.

Last monday I was at Adelaide with my counsellor and his wife. There is going on an event called OzAsia Festival where has lots of Asian cultural things come to Adelaide and there are smaller events for example we were at 'Moon Lantern Festival' where was heaps people gathered around to see some Asian performances at the stage and over 20 hand-made lanterns, some were dragons, some tigers and some were what they were and they were from all around Asia and they were very nice!

The rest of the time I've done my schoolstuff which is compulsory for me. Here in Australia at school is more individual assignments than in Finland. Or the homework we have is more like projects than homework. But my studying is quite casual here. I already selected my subjects for next year and I decided that I'll study Drama, Photography, Art and Biology. I don't know how you reckon but I think my later half of the year is going to be quite casual. Or at least I hope so, haha.

In Orroroo we were supposed to have a birthday party for 90-year-old uncle og my host dad but unfortunately he was terribly sick and he had to be in Adelaide hospital. But we had the party anyways without him so I saw how Aussies celebrate old people birthdays. Most of the guests were over 55 years old but there was no one who was anything as old as me, they were either younger or older. But I got known to the family elders.. Orroroo was a beautiful town! The poulation is something about 600 people and the town was just so old fashioned by it's looks and all!

And also when we went there we saw the landscape of South Australia and I just have to say that I am deeply in love with it! It is so wide and different to Finland's landscapes!

I am very glad if you read this post and you enjoyed it! 

I'm sorry about the lack of photos but it takes so much time to load them here.. I'll put sometime :)

I miss you all but I'm just not saying it out loud...... I'm the tough guy. Haha!

Take care of yourselves! That's what I'm doing to myself :)
Teppo

One month been here and feeling like the king of the school!

In my last post I told you that I nominated myself to be a house captain at our school and guess what, NOW I AM!! We had our house meeting today and we had to keep speeches. I had my speech rehearsaled with my friend Elyse and we included German and Finnish also in it and our house just loved it! So now I am the house captain with Elyse and this is just going to be so great!!

I reckon drama is my favourite subject at school and now we begin rehearsing the play 'The lion, the witch and the wardrobe' and I got the part for the faun Mr. Tumnus which I really wanted and also the part for Father Christmas! I am very eager for the play and I also have the opportunity to make the costume for Mr. Tumnus!

Two weekends ago I had my first party in Australia! It was a birthday party for one of my schoolmates and we had heaps of fun! There was a bonfire and a lot of music! There was also food and drink. I drank only soft drinks, don't worry. There was in the party this one guy, Owen, who was so enthusiastic about Finland and it was so funny! He liked the dudesons, he listened children of bodom and he said that Finnish girls are beautiful!

This weekend I went to Adelaide for the whole weekend to stay with my counsellor. On saturday I had a briefing day with all the other rotary exchange students from our district and we had just heaps of fun! The group was just so great! I can't wait for the other events I'm going to spend with that group! This time we went to Warrawong wildlife sanctuary and that was my second visit there. There we saw heaps of kangaroos and we had the chanse to walk with them and touch them and it is just so extraordinary!


I'm having so much fun here!! I think I don't want to ever leave this country!

Seey'all
Teppo

!!!!! I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!

Last friday we had drama (school subject) and the teacher told us that some of us might have an opportunity to go for a working experience to Sydney to Shakespeare company to learn about working in a teathre!! And on the last days I've realised how much I really like acting and all drama stuff! This opportunity would be just so amazing! The only sad thing is that we have to write a letter where we tell why I would be good for the work experiencea and I don't have any bigger experiences of acting or theatre work. But still I'll try to apply for it! It'd be a whole week in october. I am so excited about it!!

I also have second thing what makes me excited!! On monday we had school house meetings (Yeah, we have houses like in Harry Potter!!!) and we were wondering who would be our house captains and I nominated myself!! In two weeks I have to keep a speech why would I be a good house captain but I believe that I'm going to be the captain anyways because I'm an exchange student, everyone knows me and I believe that I'll get the votes of the students who just seriously doesn't care at all. And it'd be so great experience!!

Also!! Last sunday I talked first time Finnish in three weeks! I was on a boat cruise to see some dolphins and there was a group of international university students and I decided to ask one of them who they were and actually the person right behind me was Finnish and it was just so strange to speak Finnish when everyone around us was talkinjg English!! But that was awesome! And I saw some dolphins too.

(I wrote this on my photography lesson.. it tells how much I enjoy playing with photoshop... that's all we do here..)

Seeya!! :))))