A Funny Little Thing Called "Time"

Hyvää Pääsiäistä Kaikkille! Happy Easter Everyone!

Time is such a relative concept. While listening to a lecture a second can feel like an eternity. While watching a movie an hour and a half can be turned into a lifelong story. While abroad for one year, time flies by in the blink of an eye.

I always find myself thinking about time. I’ve been here for eight months. I’ll go home in three months. I’ll sleep for seven hours. 28 minutes until lunch, yet I’m always surprised by how fast it goes by.

While I am here my life is progressing, as a person I’m gaining maturity and life experience, my studies are advancing, and I’m getting older (not by much, I might add, but it’s still something). Then when I thought about my life back home, I felt as if it was on pause, not moving forward, but recently I have chosen which university I will attend next year. Now I finally know that my life back home and my life here aren’t separated and can be moulded together.

I have decided that Queen’s University will be my home next year, and since I have already found two exchange students that will be joining me there. Suddenly I realized I have plans for after my exchange that not only are exciting but also combine my exchange life with my home life.

And now onto other exciting things that I’ve been up to:

During hiitoloma (skiing holiday) I went on a skiing trip to Vuokatti with my host family and we had an amazing time together by going skiing and visiting the Angry Birds Activity Park. It was nice to visit another one of Finland’s attractions. Once I returned to Oulu my friend, Molly came to visit and I was so proud to be able to show her around Oulu and also try a vogueing class! (anyone who has seen me recently knows how big an impact this one vogueing class has had on my overall dancing abilities)

Shortly after the skiing holiday I changed host families, so now I am living with the Piira family, and it also means 2/3 of my exchange has passed by, but I will make the most out of the remainder of my time in Finland.

After I changed host families I also went on a Rotary Tour to Saint Petersburg, Russia. I left at 11:47 PM from Oulu and took a train to Seinäjoki and arrived at 4:00 AM, from there I took a bus to the Russian boarder, which was close to an eight-hour drive. Once we all were in Russia we took the bus for two more hours then finally after all of the traveling, we were in our hotel.

Päivä Yksi Venäjällä (Day One in Russia):

During our first day in Russia we spent the morning at the Hermitage Museum where we were able to learn about art and history, in an amazingly huge gallery. We went for a quick lunch then we spent the afternoon in another museum, where we were able to see medical research collections from Peter the Great.  In the evening we saw a traditional folklore show which was very entertaining and full of energy.

Päivä Kaksi Venäjällä (Day Two in Russia):

During our second day in Russia we did a city tour in the morning and in the afternoon we were able to have free time to go shopping on the main street in Saint Petersburg. I went to the Pandora jewelry shop for a souvenir and also to a Russian Starbucks! That evening we went to see the Nutcracker Ballet show in one of the historic palaces.

The next day we were on the road again for the long journey home.

Once I got home, I didn’t have much time to relax as exam week was in full swing. Nonetheless, it went very well and now four jaksos have passed, and only one more to go.

In regards to physical activity, I’ve been very busy going to the gym and I have found a group of people that share my love of Zumba and CXWORX classes, so shout out to The Squad for keeping me entertained at the gym, I don’t know what I’ll do without your motivational texts next year.

Next week I will take a language test, so in the spirit of the Finnish Language Proficiency Test, I will tell everyone how everything is going, in Finnish.

Terve kaikille! Olen nyt asunut Suomessa kahdeksan kuukautta. Näiden viimeisten viikkojen aikana olen matkustanut venäjälle, muuttanut uuteen isäntäperheeseeni, ja olen opiskellut suomea! Olen iloinen koska aurinko paistaa joka päivä ja tämä tarkoitta että kesä on kohta täällä, kunhan lumi vain sulaa! Päivät ovat pidentyneet reilusti joten kesän odotus ei tunnut enää yhtä raskaalta. Useimmat ihmiset ovat innoissaan koska tämä jakso on päättynyt mutta minulle se on ristiriitaisempaa koska se merkitsee  että aikani Suomessa on päättymässä. Toivokaa minulle onnea minun tenttiini!

Even though time is going by much faster than I would like to acknowledge, I’m happy with all of the things I’ve done this year and what my future has in store for me, from Eurotour to university next year, we all know how excited I am.

Wishing time would go slower,

Mackie

P.S. Here's some photos from Russia!
P.S.S Here's my new youtube video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Io5tdcqjtY