Great events in February

Due to our winter holidays and the busy schedule at school, it's only now that we have had time to write about the two great annual events at our school:  the school leaving party of the third year students and after that, the grand ball of the second year students.  But here we go now:






Goodbye elders



Thursday 14^th February was an emotional day for everyone in our school and especially so for our third year students who were having their traditional school leaving party, that is the "Penkkarit" event.




What is "Penkkarit" you ask?  It's an event where the third-year students dress up according to a theme they have chosen and they are also having an "Abi-show" and an "Abi-video" during that day. This year our third-year students chose to dress up as animated cartoon characters, and I have to say that the costumes were all well made. There were Hercules, Lightning Mcqueen, and even one member from the Teletubbies showed up and many more memorizable characters.

The "Abi-show" was a grand spectacle in its own right. I would imagine that it was an especially nice event for the third-year students as well as for our teachers who were being "punished" for being so hard on people during their three-years of time in FES. Teachers were made to participate in a series of trials and tests and according to how they fared, they were allowed to continue their trip to the Heaven or the Underworld. Only one lucky teacher received the endless glory and was allowed to enter heaven, in this case Disneyland. The Abi-show ended with an emotional "baby-video" in which there were baby pictures of our third-year students.

The "Abi-video" was also a hilarious event. Basically it was a video made by our third-year students and it contained a series of miniature movies in which the students made fun of our teachers. It was all in good spirit and I have to personally say that most of them were outright hilarious.

The day ended when our dear seniors loaded themselves on a truck and drove away in to the horizon, everyone looking for new adventures and eagerly waiting for their cruise on the sea.



Written by Ismo 1B


February 15th

A night to remember

Finally the day was here. The day we had been waiting for since we were 10 years old, well at least us girls. It was our time to be princesses and dance the whole day with our princes. It was the day of the Old Dances. In Finland it’s almost the same thing as the Prom in America, but here we practice the dances in advance and then perform them for the audience which consists of our parents, relatives and friends. 

We started practicing the dances at the beginning of December. During the first lessons everybody was a little tense but our team spirit grew fast and soon everybody was looking forward to those lessons. We had nine dances to learn and it felt really hard in the beginning. Luckily we had really good teachers! We managed to learn all the nine dances in time.

And then the day came. We needed to be at school at 10. Everybody woke up early so nobody was late. Five minutes before starting, we were standing in the hallway and everybody was really excited. As soon as the first song started playing we noticed that there was nothing to be nervous for. Everything went well, except for a few broken dresses and a couple of black toes.

Before the big night show we danced in the 'Syke' sports hall  in an open ceremony and some couples also went to dance in the Old people’s home or a kindergarten. Then we all went home to relax a little. 

The headmaster's speech in the morning.

In the evening we performed the dances to our closest relatives and friends, who we had invited to come. The night was perfect! Our school’s first graders had done an excellent job with our teachers by decorating the gym. We were able to remember all the nine dances plus the dance we had planned by ourselves. After the dances we took hundreds of photos and danced some waltzes with our guests. The night was soon over, and as the light was turned on it was time to change our clothes and leave for another place. The dancers went to eat in a restaurant and after that to have some fun with each other. It was our night and time to celebrate us being the oldest students in the school!

Written by Eeva 2B

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

The third year students' last school day

Last Friday was just like every Friday in FES -except for one thing... it was the last normal school day for us,for the third year students! In theory this means we "only" have some exams or other extra lessons, and preliminary exams this and next week, and then of course the school leaving party and the matriculation examinations, and finally the graduation ceremony. However, we don't have schedules anymore -except maybe at home, when we have to plan our reading.

Since it was the "last" day of school for us, we decided it was worth being a princess or a prince (or a king /a gueen), and you could choose which one you were. Our theme was based on our school leaving party theme, which is called "Abimation" (vs. "animation") this year. I think this made our day at least a little more easy-going than it normally is. When it comes to people´s feelings, it seemed many were relieved when they could say goodbye to their homework (even though it's far from over, since we have to study hard at home), or at least to their long days at classrooms. However, this also means we won't see each other that often anymore, and so it also felt quite melancholic. Luckily we have more fun coming ahead, since on 14th February we'll have our school leaving party, and the very next day most of us are going to a cruise with a ship full of other third year students from elsewhere Finland.

Now I can only wish us all the best of luck, and thank all of our teachers already for their good job! Hopefully all this hard working will turn out rewarding later this spring.

 

           Most of the girls were princesses, and some of us even had dresses on.

 

You could also find princes, or kings, but unfortunately without the white horse... 

Written by Janette 3B

"My fatherland" -project

On December 11th 2012 our group of drama studies (course 3) and the music group from the eight grade performed at the war invalids´ home Honkala in Hämeenkyrö. Our show consisted of music and some short scenes where we acted people at different ages who told their thoughts about Finland, and what it means to them. The acting part was based on Raili Malmberg's poem "Confession of love to the fatherland" ("rakkaudentunnustus isänmaalle"),and so we called our show "My fatherland". The music was performed acoustically, and all in all it was a very beautiful and touching moment. There was also a reporter from our local newspaper to make an article about our visit, and two of our teachers. Before Honkala we visited the local old people's home Kurjenmäki, and we also performed at our schools´ Independence day ceremonies on the 5th and 6th of December. We made this show to honour our 95-year-old, independent Finland, and it was this year's project of our drama study group. 

       Many elder people had some memories about the history of Finland during our performance,    and so it seemed to be quite a touching moment for them.

 Music made our story complete, and it sounded very beautiful both acoustically and with more proper musical instruments. 

Written by Janette 3B 

Merry Christmas

A day among elves

On the very last school day of this autumn, 20th December, we had a theme day in our high school. Since Christmas was already close, we high school students dressed as christmassy characters. Naturally we had lots and lots of elves and of course Santa Claus himself! There were also Christmas trees, reindeer and even a cute pink pig. The ambiance was warm and cheery – we listened to Christmas carols during the classes which we had only in the morning.

The rest of the day ticked by playing the ham bingo, in which the winner got a big ham for the Christmas table, and watching a Christmassy movie at our auditorium.  It seemed to be surprisingly hard for some people to write down numbers from one to forty-nine, it really took a while! Anyway, the game has been favoured for many years now. The specialty of this year was that the ham was domestic and the quality had been invested in.

The students and the teachers were all in the Christmas mood and everybody were at least wearing a brownie’s cap. It was a very pleasant day!

Happy New Year to everyone!

Maiju 3A

 

                                         The winners of the best costume competition.

Class 2B had a special reason to feel good as they got a big packet full of candy from the US where their former class mates Elli and Laura are spending their exchange year.  They also Skyped one more former class mate, Annamari,  in Australia.  Finally Enrique, our exchange student from Mexico, showed them how Christmas is celebrated in his home country, so it was a very international lesson!

Happy holidays to everyone!  And very special greetings to Elli, Laura and Annamari to the other sides of the world!   

Graduation day and Independence day

On the 5th of December we celebrated both the Eve of the Finnish Independence Day and the graduation of Iida Viitaniemi. 

                                                             Iida gets the white cap.


                 

  

In the afternoon the whole school celebrated the Finnish Independence Day with different kinds of performances. Our celebration was a kind of dress rehearsal of the big event on the 6th of December when all the people in Hämeenkyrö were invited to come to our school to attend the festivities.

                                              Third year students bring the Finnish flags to the hall.

                                     Third year student Mikko J. giving the welcoming speech.

                          "The boys of the forest".  One of the best known Finnish poems by Aleksis Kivi                                      interpreted by the senior high school boys accompanied by Black Sabbath´s Paranoid.

 

                                        Finnish flute music by second year student Johanna U.

      Pro Patria War Memorial 1939-1945 was revealed on the 6th of December.  It includes the names of all the men from Hämeenkyrö who died in the WWII.  It is situated in the entrance hall of our school so that all young people of our town will see the names.