First-Year Students' Welcoming Party

Friday 7th September

The every-year tradition of FES is to welcome the new first-year students to the school. This new semesters' students were welcomed on Friday 7th of September. Normally the welcoming party is orchestrated by the second year students and basicly their aim is to make the new students (more commonly known as "the Skins" on that day) embarrass themselves by doing weird stuff during the schoolday and by showing proper respect towards the second-year students.

 

                                                                          Class 1B

 The first-year students also had to wear costumes that were decided by the second-year students and this year's "theme" was Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". What this meant was that the boys were dressed up like Esmeraldas and the girls were dressed up like Quasimodos, and personally I have to admit that everyone was dressed up well in my opinion. Of course you didn't have to participate in the event if you didn't want to, but a good thing is that usually nearly everyone participates.

 

 The first-year students' day started with practising the dance that they were supposed to perform to the second-year students later that day. There were also designated areas for the first-year students where they could not tread. Also, always when a first-year student encountered a second-year student on a hallway they had to bow deeply and say the following mantra: "Oh you great second-year student, you are like a royalty and I am not your equal". Since every first-year student was wearing a large paper nameplate over their chests, the second year students were able to draw smiley-face symbols or minus symbols on it according to how well the first-year student performed the mantra.


                                                               Practising the dance.
 

 

 In addition to dancing, the first students also had to sing a song to praise the second year students.
                              

                                               The special areas reserved for the new comers.
 

 Overall, the event was great fun and I'm sure that everyone who participated in it had fun. At some times, though, it seemed that the second-year students had a little bit too much fun during the schoolday. 

                                                                                        The royal ones.

                                              The second year students also served a drink to the first year ones.

  After the healthy drink, the new comers had to complete an agility track.  To make it a bit  more complicated, the participants were tied together.

                                                                              The winners of the day.

Written by

Ismo Vulli, 1B

New school year

Straight on towards matriculation examinations

A new semester has begun in our high school. The seniors of FES Upper Secondary School are just now preparing themselves for the autumn’s matriculation exams. Most seniors have decided to spread their exams into both autumn and spring. This way it may be easier to concentrate on each subject and to get better results.

We talked about this autumn’s exams with a few of the seniors. Here are some of their thoughts:

 Veera, 3a

 What subject are you going to take this autumn?

- I'll take religion.

Are you feeling very nervous yet?

- Yes! I almost feel like panicking a little. I regret not starting to prepare properly already in the summer holiday. I also feel a little envious about my friend who doesn’t have to have any stress about the final exams until the spring..

Henna-Riikka, 3b

What subject will you take?

- I'll take psycholochy.

What technique have you found the best when preparing for the exams?

- Well, my ability to concentrate properly is so low that I need to schedule my reading. I need to read a little at a time and many separate times in a long period of time. I also need to underline sentences and make notes besides reading.

Are you still happy with your decision to spread your exams into autumn and spring?

- Absolutely! I knew I could do this among the other work and it has gone very well.

Are you afraid of the matriculation examinations?

- Well, maybe I’m a little afraid of forgetting everything on the spot or that I have highlighted the wrong points. But complete failing scares me the most.

Aleksi, 3a

What subject will you take?

- I'll take health education.

Do you expect the exam to be especially difficult or easy?

- Average, I guess. It depends on the assignments and questions.

If you could change your mind now, would you still take health education? Or would you prefer to leave it till the spring, too?

- I wouldn’t like to take another subject or to  leave it till the spring.

Are you going to start the preparation for the spring’s matriculation examinations right after the autumn’s  exams?

-  Well I think I should but we’ll see what happens.

What is your main feeling about the matriculation examinations right now?

- I’m just a little nervous, that’s all.

I, the other author of this post, am also going to take part in the matriculation examinations this autumn.  I am going to take only mother tongue but I have to say I regret it a little. It was really hard to realize early that this subject needs studying just as any other subject you are going to take. Shortly, this means I may not reach as high grades as I was planning.  Luckily I’ll still have a chance in the spring, but this doesn’t mean I’m going to leave the final preparation entirely this time, I just want to leave some alternatives open.

Written by 
Maiju 3A ja Janette 3B

Graduation 2012

On 2nd June it was time to say goodbye to our 3rd year students.  The day they had been waiting for so much was unusually rainy and stormy but it did not diminish the joy.  As we say goodbye, we wish you all good luck for your entrance exams and a very great future!  And for the rest of our students and teachers we wish a very happy and relaxing summer holiday!  See you in August!

                   Our guests of honour, the students who graduated from our school 50 years ago.

                                                                       The school choir.

                                                       The white caps still waiting.

                                                           The principal's speech.

                                                       The moment of graduation.

                                                  The graduation speech by Emma V.

                                            
                                                            The whole group together.

Greetings from Kaunas

One of our special courses in FES is a geography course no. 15 in which we deal with travelling. The course also includes a trip to somewhere nearby, this time to Kaunas, Lithuania. I think it was a good choice because no one had been there before (expect for the teacher and her husband), and it was an amazingly cheap place to visit! At least I was quite excited already before the trip because of the shoes I was going to buy there… 

 So, now I’m going to tell you via pictures about what we saw and experienced in Kaunas. But first I would like to tell you about our experiences and feelings when arriving to Kaunas. Well, after surviving the flight by Ryanair we stumbled upon the language barrier and also the angry behaviour of some Lithuanians. After this I noticed that we Finns are actually really friendly in spite of our different fame. 

The sights we visited: some monuments, the Ninth gate (a former concentration camp), the Devil museum (the only one in the world!), the zoological museum, Resurrection and another church and two shopping malls, Akropolis and Mega (Mega only briefly). 

  

             Kaunas city, the main shopping street called “Laisves aleja” and our hotel called “Kaunas city hotel”. 

  

                                     The longest (1,6km) pedestrian street in Eastern Europe!

 

                               The old town of Kaunas reminded me quite a lot of that in Tallinn. 

 

        There was a huge, about a 10-meter-high aquarium at the Mega shopping mall! You could also see  

                                                       little sharks there, it was quite amazing!

 .                “Our hotel room”, we were joking. But in reality, it was so shocking to see how cruel people 

               have been to each other –and still are. This was in the Ninth gate (a former concentration camp).

       And when the evening came, we were playing young and wild souls in the streets of the Kaunas city! Unfortunately we couldn’t ease our “homesickness” by watching the World Championship ice hockey, because they didn’t let the interested ones watch it in the restaurants.. It seemed the Lithuanians preferred watching fashion shows or Elvis…  and on the other hand, aren’t the pubs usually the places where you watch sports?

                                 Views from the bridge of love in Kaunas in the evening. Gorgeous!

               We were entertained by  young street dancers in the streets of Kaunas! This little boy in the picture  

                                                 wanted to join the dance, too ;)

                                 There we were, on the roof of the Resurrection church, at the vantage point! 

                                        …and saw the best and the largest views of the whole of Kaunas. 

      We also met a sweet old Russian man who had been in Siberia for a really long time, about 40 years! He just kept talking to us even though we could only understand a few words in Russian. He also showed us his great skis made of bear or some other animal skin. And absolutely wanted a picture of him with his great skis! 

                                          The best students, as our guide said in the very beginning!:)

Great and large shopping malls, small and sweet boutiques, delicious ice cream, lots of amber and shoes, and even more beautiful views and new tastes and experiences! Emphasis on the word “ice cream”.

So, overall we had a really successful trip in Kaunas, the mood was great and at least I had really fun and an exciting time! And this is the saldo of the 4 days: cheeks aching from smiling, feet aching from walking, lighter wallets but heavier baggage and memory full of unforgettable memories (and shoes and ice cream…)! 

…but finally Finland with its thousands of lakes was calling us again. But, I really would like to get back to Kaunas, who will come with me? 

Written by Janette Välimäki, 2B

 

The first of May

The first day of May is a very traditional and famous festival in Finland. It was invented in the Middle Ages, and it’s a national festival for workers. Nowadays it’s also the day of Finnish work. 

The first of May has long traditions also in our school. It’s the day of funny clothes and water war! (Even though we celebrated it a bit too early since the actual 1st of May is a day off.) As many years before, many people had dressed funnily. We had Angry birds, cowboys, animals, almost anything walking in the school’s hall ways. We had donuts after lunch, and that gave us the energy we needed for the war.

                                      Angry birds, the first prize winners in the costume competition.

                                                      Some teachers wore unusual clothing, too.

The war itself was the funniest water war I had ever played. Of course some of the students didn’t take part, but it didn’t matter that much. First those who had the best outfits got their prizes. It really helped them in the war, they got water guns. Then the war began. We split out into teams, 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B were fighting against each other. Every team had a newspaper sheet, and the opposite team had to break it. The first sheet which was broken was that of 2A. They started to help their friends 2B. The next one out was 1B, which then went to help 1A, of course. The game ended to the victory of 2B, but 1A wasn’t much worse.  The main point in the war was to have fun and get wet. That we sure did!

Written by Eeva Linnainmaa 1B

Psychology a little closer

In FES we have many applied courses. One of them is psychology course 7, which is done in cooperation with the Open University of the University of Jyväskylä. In practice this means that we are registered into their website and we do exercises there. This time we chose an assignment including three parts in which we deal with mental health and its problems.  We chose one mental disorder that we are examining more closely. The assignments include exams via the Internet, special reading material (even in English!) and some views of our own. 

This course is known to be a little harder than the other courses in psychology. At the beginning of the course we could choose what kind of assignment of the three we wanted to do.  We don’t have actual lessons; we only meet briefly occasionally.  This means that we have quite a lot of independent work, which we have really seen during this course… Luckily we have more time than just one period. 

This course isn’t compulsory for those who are going to take psychology in the matriculation examinations but it gives you better chances to do your best.  We do get more and closer information, don’t we?;) 

This course is also special because we will get a real diploma from the Open University of the University of Jyväskylä as we send our assignments there and they grade them there.  In addition, this course costs a little bit because of those exams and other materials and escpecially because of the diploma. 

This course can give you so much if you really invest in it – which may be hard when having all the other school work to do at the same time, though.


Written by Janette Välimäki 2B