The school leaving party 2016

Again the day came - the final day at school for the 3rd year students on 18th February.  As usual, they had prepared an awesome farewell program for us who still have to stay there.  The theme this year was Avengers, the superheroes of Marvel comics.  

The teachers had also been given their roles:


 
 


Time to go:

They have gone, it's time for the first years students to clean up so that the preparations for the next day's ball can begin.

Text:  Merja
Pictures: Zahraa and Heidi

Veni, Vidi, Vici,

Greetings! This is the moment you’ve all been waiting for since the beginning of the school year, it’s the one the only McKenna Middlebrook. Yes, this is the probably most anticipated moment of this blog, as all the other students are doing their tests, I will be giving the retelling of the time FES came and conquered St. Petersburg, Russia.

The story starts in the early morning of January, 12th, 2016, well 7:30 so not that early, but early enough for me. The trip started at FES on a bus, as most trips do, so we departed at 7:30 for the train station in Lahti the bus ride was full of tired students, so it was rather quiet besides the off comments here and there. When we arrived at Lahti though around 10:00 in the morning, and the train was leaving around 10:30, as the train arrived, nerves between arose, well for me at least. The train ride was quick, everyone was talking about the few days to come, the adventures we could have! Then we came to the Russian border, where the real challenge was going to occur getting into Russia. Tensions on the train rose, the normal chatter ended as the Russian officials boarded the train, as everyone brought out their brown Finnish passports, most undistinguished from each other but my, navy blue American passport with the golden seal of the bald eagle, it stuck out like a sore thumb. As the Russian authority looked at the passports giving a small glance, but when it came my time, the woman checking my passport looked me, looked back at my passport, looked back at me and it seemed like it lasted hours though it was just a matter of a few seconds, after the final look she stamped my visa and gave me back my passport, the worst part is over. As the Russians left our cabin, the tensions defused and everyone resumed their chatter, the trip had really started then. After that we were weren’t very far from St. Petersburg. Once we arrived in St. Petersburg we boarded another bus, and saw some sights as we drove to our hostel. We soon arrived at the hostel, and all went into our rooms to drop off our bags and we were able to unwind after sitting in trains/buses all day. Soon though many of us got restless and wanted to see the big city! We soon got our opportunity, as we all left for a massive mall that was just a few blocks away from our hostel. We have been told this mall was huge, but we’ve all seen malls before, and personally thinking it was a bit of hyperbole. This mall was MASSIVE! It was four stories tall, it was hundreds of meters of long and had an amazing amount of stores, eat and a grocery store! We spent a few hours there, and many people with bags in hand. The night ended with many people hanging out in a few rooms, that’s really how of the nights ended, actually.

The second day started again, on the early side, we had to leave the hostel around 10:30, the day consisted of actual sightseeing in and off the bus, the first couple of hours was spent listening to the tour guide about the famous landmarks around the city, after the bus tour with and a few stops we went to the world famous Hermitage Museum, which again, is a huge museum that would take a person eight years to see every single piece of art, which is comprised of over six different buildings, making it one of the largest in Russia. Words can’t really describe how beautiful this museum is, rooms made gilded in gold, chandeliers made out real crystals, rooms full of paintings dating back to the late 1700’s and not to mention the Ancient Egyptian artifacts they have! We spent a few hours at the museum before heading back to the hostel before the evening's activities, which was a hockey match between SKA St. Petersburg vs. Slovan Bratislava, in a thrilling 3-2 victory for SKA! Where SKA had a comfortable 2-0 lead in the second period but squandered it, by the third making it 2-2, and by the last few minutes the fans were on the edge of their seats, and with SKA scoring their third goal in the final seconds of the match to the leave the fans rejoiced!

The third day was the final full day in the city, again another early start, this time 10:00, where we went to another museum but this time it was a museum about Russia, but made it up into miniatures, it was made so you could see all the different parts of Russia, starting in the east with St. Petersburg, down to the Black Sea, up through Moscow and into Siberia! This was a fascinating museum, because it was one of the most in depth museums I have ever been to, because all the details that have been put into every single piece of that museum. It was extremely, extremely fascinating. Again after that, we saw more of the city of the parts we didn’t see in the past two days, but again we went back to the hostel for an afternoon to ourselves, which was nice because you really never get enough rest while on a trip, so just being able to lay down for an hour, it gives you that extra energy for the night to come! What happened that night, you say? Well, we had an evening of dining and seeing some traditional Russian dances, at the Palace of Grand Duke Nikolai, which was interesting for me because I participated in one of those Russian dances, thanks to some perfect placement. Then the final day was actually early, we had to leave at 9:00! We went to another mall, for a while, and after that brief shopping trip we went back to the train station where we had to wait for our train and it was a bittersweet moment because we’re all tired and want to go home, but St. Petersburg is such a beautiful and wonderful city, so it was sad to leave! As we got back onto the train and go to the Finnish border, everyone was a lot calmer, because we’ve all been through this, plus the people checking our passports were Finnish so most everyone was a lot calmer. Again, the train ride was super quick even though it lasted almost four hours, and we arrived back in Lahti around five o’clock in the evening, and got back to FES around eight or eight thirty in the evening.

After the third full day, January 15th, in St. Petersburg, you see a lot of things and can take many things with you, you get to see the world in a different light. If you ever have the chance to go to see St. Petersburg, I would highly recommend it, because it’s such an amazing city. So yeah, that was FES in St. Petersburg, I hope you enjoyed it! (Because I know I did)

-McKenna Middlebrook.

Sport tournaments

FOOTBALL

The football team of our girls took part in a football tournament in Nokia on 5th October.  The girls played 3 games and before the first game, the football field was icy and slippery. The weather was like in the winter! 

Some game situations. The only game which we won was against  Rauma. We won 7-1. Heljä scored one goal, Elina scored one goal and Lotta scored five goals. 

We did not win the tournament, but we had fun! Maybe we can go next year again, and then we will win! Everybody played very well, even though we had only 7 players.

Players: Aliisa, Elina, Heljä, Indra, Krista, Riikka and Lotta.
Coach: Tanja



                                                         FLOORBALL

On 23rd October our floorball team played some games in Ikaalinen.  We played three games and we won two of them, but the two other teams won two games, too. The other two teams scored more goals than our team so our ranking was third in the tournament. But we weren`t the last, because Ikata didn´t win any games. And Kristian brought our mascot, it was the FES-caterpillar. Everybody played very well! 

Written by Lotta 1B
Pictures by Tanja

The welcoming party

On 28^th of August we had the welcoming party called nahkiaiset for the first graders. In order to get the status of a real F. E. Sillanpää high school student, they had to do a bunch of very important tasks such as adore the mighty second-year students, dance and taste some very suspicious drink. No backpacks were allowed: all their stuff had to be carried in a cardboard box. Also they had to bring a rope, a rock, a vegetable and some other things that we second graders had decided that they would need on that day. As a bribe to us they had to bring chocolate. Of course there had to be some kind of “barriers” to them too: most of the doors were not allowed to them, there were only two toilets they could use, their lockers were banned and they had to crawl on the staircase.

Traditionally boys are dressed as girls and vice versa and that was the case this year too. The girls were badass rappers with tattoos, caps and too big jeans. The boys had a much nicer look: high heels, makeup, long blond hair and pink, pink, pink. Overall they looked quite beautiful with their appearance which was inspired by Nicki Minaj and Paris Hilton.

When the school day started the first-year students were commanded to the gym hall. There the dance were taught to them and they had to hand off the chocolate and the vegetables. The vegetables were later used to make the drink. 

After the dance lesson we guided the first graders in to a small “stall”. There were a few stalls, and those were the only places where they could spend their breaks and free periods. Of course next to the stalls there was a poem attached to the wall. The poem was a praise about the second-year students: how great, smart and supreme they are. And of course every time they wanted to hear the beautiful poem, a first-year student had to worship them and read the poem.

On the last period it was their time to shine: first they got to perform the great dance they had learned in the morning. After that it was time to taste the poison, as I would call it. There were many yucks and ews but luckily no one threw up. Then came the part where they needed the rope: an “agility track” whilst their legs where tied together with their pair. At the end of the track they had to dance again but this time there was a tough jury. When the jury decided that they had danced enough (and well enough), they had the chance to watch the rest of the first graders overcame the track.

After all that, there was only one thing that needed to be done. We needed to choose the Rumin Nahka 2015 (ugliest first grader). We had a dancing competition (I hope that they didn’t start to hate dancing even though we made them dance so much) from where we choose the winners. It was a though competition but after semi-finals and final we had our “royal couple”.

All things considered I would say that our first graders survived the day very well. It was a lot of fun, at least for us second graders, but I hope that our newbies enjoyed it as well. Welcome to FES first graders! 

Written by Sara 2B

Graduation day

On 30th May it was time for the third year students to graduate. The day was full of joy but, on the other hand, it was a bit sad to say goodbye.  Anyway, the students got their white caps and diplomas and, of course, plenty of roses.  Among the guest were also 20 persons who graduated 50 years ago.

                                      The white caps are still waiting for their owners.

                                           Welcoming words by Sanni, 2B.

           
                  The graduates of 1965 are given their roses by the graduates of 2015.




               One of the old graduates speaking to the new ones.

            The director of education in Hämeenkyrö is giving her speech to the graduates.

School orchestra.

School band.

The handing out of the caps, diplomas and roses.

                                                              Time to put the caps on.

The final performance of the graduate girls.

https://youtu.be/jirdO-jiE9E

Digital tests are coming

All schools were ordered to start preparing themselves for digital testing this spring.  That's why our language lab was provided with the necessary connections a couple of weeks ago. The first year English students from class 1A were selected to be the first ones to test the new arrangements on 25th May and so they completed a part of their third course test online. Everything worked well in this occasion and the students were mostly satisfied with the experience even though the tables provided for the computer were a bit small because they still have all the language lab listening equipment attached to them, too.