37 students passed their matriculation examinations earlier in the spring and graduated on May 31.
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Hello everyone, this is Pauli again :D
Because our Comenius-project is about young people and so on, I
thought writing a story about a little amateur movie made in Ivalo.
The project called J2B started already the 3rd of January, but due to
the matriculation examinations the filming started in the early April.
There are fourteen people working in the film group, including actors,
editors, camera man and musicians.
What I can tell about J2B's plot is that the movie is a parody about
American Hollywood films. J2B contains a lot of fun, but also
criticizes a bit. For example, some Hollywood movies and tv-shows
always consider Muslims and Russians as terrorists, which is
veeeeeeeeeeeeeeery stupid. J2B speaks up about the intolerant attitude of some movies.
The J2B contains some swearing and shooting (not bloody), so it's not
for the smallest children. The age limit is 15.
The estimated publishing time for the film in the www.youtube.com is the early June, after the
editing has been finished and the music composed.
We'll let you know when the movie comes out! :)
Pauli, May 10 2008
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We had a small party in the afternoon, short theatre plays, a quiz and some traditional snacks. After that we continued our school work.
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I guess every Finnish upper comprehensive senior student is very excited about the matriculation examination, which takes place in autumns and springs. I was no exception. I started my share of this 'fun'. I had decided to take part in History, Finnish, medium long Swedish, advanced English, short German and short Russian. I did more languages and not so many other subjects like physics, biology, maths, religion etc. I made History, short German and medium long Swedish tests last autumn, and the rest this spring.
The language exams consist of two parts. The listening and the written part. The listening part of Swedish test was the first. I was nervous, and I almost ran out of time. I also wrote some of my answers to the wrong side of the paper, but my teacher and the Matriculation examination court understood the situation, and I didn't lose any points. The coolest part of the autumn was the German test. I was the only one of our German group who made the test in autumn. I was almost laughing in the exam, because the test was sooooooooooooooo easy. I felt the same in the written part. Music helped very much while praticising for the tests. For example, I listened to Nena, Ramms+ein and ABBA.
And how's the spring? I'm not so nervous anymore..hehehehe. I only have the written part in Russian left. The others have been done and I feel they went well. Not super but not so bad. In spring we also have had special three-week study holiday. Also the Easter have given us more days for studies. Study breaks are cool, because the hard studying requires hard funs ;D...
Peace.
March 27th 2008
Pauli Orava
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Hello fellow students around the world. It’s time to look for the main differences between the culture I’ve known all my life, the Finnish lifestyle and the culture I somewhat learned during my stay in Palermo, the Italian lifestyle.
Because Comenius is a schoolproject, I’ll start this monologue from that as well.
My school here in Finland is very different from the one I visited in Italy, mainly because the system itself is different.
The Finnish schoolsystem lasts for 12 years before university, polytechnic or worklife and it’s divided in 3 sections, comprehensive school lower level, which lasts for 6 years. After that, comprehensive school upper level, which lasts for 3 years. These are obligatory and you have to go at least through these. After this we begin highschool which I’m at, which lasts for 3 to 4 years.
In Italy, schools last for 13 years divided in 3 as well. You begin school at the age of five, in scuola elementare (primary school) for 5 years, then it’s time for scuola media (middle school) which lasts for 3 years and after that you continue to scuola superiore (secondary school) which lasts for 5 years. After that you have the opportunity to proceed towards university. So that was that for universal knowledge, now my egoistic personality takes over and it’s time to talk about my experience.
Let’s talk about living. During my stay in Italy I lived in 2 places, one was the 12th floor of a 13th floor high apartment house a few stops away from the center and the other was a 4 store high, almost ancient block of flats in the heart of Palermo. One thing I always wondered was how big the apartments were, compared to Finnish ”boxes” they were huge.
The freetime. Usually in Finland, we have all this stuf to do during our freetime like we have these youth house meetings and stuff. But in Palermo , we had almost nothing to do, except going in some bars ( not that we wouldn’t do it in Finland as well) or I just lacked the imagination to do something creative (most likely) .
The thing I miss most in Italy is probably freedom and this funny attitude, loudness and such that we seem to lack here in Finland. And here is a funny link for you, which shows some other cultural differences between Italy and the rest of Europe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2VDSHkS5tU&feature=related
March the 20th 2008 A.M
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Thursday February 14th, Valentine’s day
The third graders began their day by coffee with their parents and teachers. They made a funny track for other students and used lipstick to mess younger students’ faces. They also threw sweets all around. The third graders acted their teachers and after that they gave them little presents to thank them. Then younger students carried them out of the school. They left the school and went to visit elementary school by a lorry.
NM&RS 21 Feb 2008
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The Ivalo team has already made its travel arrangements. We will take off from Ivalo on Sunday May 4th and arrive in Giresun on Monday May 5th. We will fly via Istanbul where we will have to spend the night. Our departure will be on Saturday May 10th early in the morning from Giresun to Trabzon and then the flight to Istanbul. We will have an opportunity to see the sights in Istanbul in the afternoon as we spend the night there. Our flight to Helsinki and Rovaniemi will leave on Sunday May 11th. Our coach from Rovaniemi to Ivalo will leave in the evening.
We take five students with us; one boy and four girls aged 17 - 18. The teachers are four. We will work on our trip and the meeting during our Comenius classes. It is so nice to see you all again in Giresun!
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November 9
It is a beautiful, sunny day in Buzau.
The week has been wonderful and the hospitality almost overwhelmingly warm. This week has offered us a number of once-in-a-lifetime experiences: Bucharest, Bran Castle (aka Dracula's Castle), the people in Buzau, Castle Peles, the town of Sinaia and lots and lots more.
A more detailed report about our week here will be published later.
Mulzo mesc!
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At the airport. Guess who is the new student for three months!
MRM with her "family" .
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Maria Rita was our exchange student for three months. Niina and Pauli
interviewed her during Comenius-classes at school.
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Ivalo upper secondary school has had a special autumn. First of all, two of our students have been as exchange students in Italy and in Germany. We have also had a great opportunity to host an Italian exchange student, Maria Rita Marsala. This is what she tells us about the experience.
It was a little exciting but very joyful to travel to Finland and settle down to a Finnish family, the Keskitalo-Pyykkönen family. Since coming here, Maria Rita has got new friends and familiarized herself with new hobbies, like fishing and taking a sauna bath. She has also learnt some Finnish and had a good chance to improve her English. Maria Rita loves Finnish nature, for example the northern lights, and salmiakki, of course. (Salmiakki is Finnish salty liquorice.) By the way, she likes Nightwish and has of course heard about mr. Lordi but she didn’t know that he’s Finnish.
One big difference between Palermo and Ivalo is that Palermo is full of life but here you have absolutely nothing to do. In Palermo there’s always noise and people are laughing and screaming all the time, but here in Ivalo everybody is in silence and guys even listen to music in a very low volume.
What has been best in Finland? Well, Maria Rita thinks that hospitality was very great and she will never forget these experiences and people in Ivalo. There are also some plans about Aino’s visit to Palermo in summer. About other activities in Lapland Maria Rita tells as follows:
"I went to Oulu, Utsjoki and Rajajooseppi. Also, we made a little picnic with my host family near Inari lake. I went to Utsjoki because my tutor lives there. I spent a weekend in a family which went to Italy.
I went to Oulu because I had a meeting with other exchange students from the central and northern part of Finland. I met many students from Germany, France, Norway, Turkey, Austria, the USA, Columbia and many other Italian people, too. We shared our first experiences of Finland. I enjoyed the trip very much and now I’m keeping in touch with them.
The school here is amazing. It’s beautiful. You can choose some of the subjects that you study, and then, you have different periods during the year. In Italy we have the same timetable for the whole year. And, you study only the grammar in the languages, but we have to study the literature of each language, too. We also connect the subjects very much. And about the tests, here you have only a written test in different subjects but we also have oral exams. We don’t change classrooms either, the teacher changes. And we don’t use teachers’ first names at all, only the last names. And about the exam week, we have it only in the last year in June and we have three days for written exams and one for oral exams."
31.10.2007
Pauli ja Niina
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What happens when you add a bunch of highschool students and teachers and a nice sunny spring day?
This eternal question was answered on Wednesday the 26th of May 2008 when the Ivalo Highschool staff and students galloped happily towards the icy fields and banks of the river Ivalo near Ivalo lower comprehensive school. The day included tons of snowfilled fun, grilling sausages on an open fire , eating snacks such as crackers , juice and sweets, tobogganing contest and of course, Yukigassen ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukigassen ) also snowball fight in English, but with officially recognized rules. All and all the day was a welcome change to the otherwise hard and busy schoolweek, and at least for what I can say, I had a really great time while on this well organized yet spontaneus event so 2 hours well spent. We all had time to relax by the fire, and just enjoy each other’s company.
-A.M (March 27th)
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We had two guests in our school from Taizé, originally Estonian and Indian men on the 27th of February. They told us about Taizé, which is in France. They showed us a video which told something about Taizé. The two visitors are spending about three weeks in Finland and from Ivalo they went to Utsjoki and left back to France via Kittilä.
More information about the community can be found from http://www.taize.fr/en .
13.3.2008.
NA
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On the 14th of February, Valentine’s day, it was the time of the year when the last graders left the school building and started to prepare for matriculation examinations. It was also the time for sophomore dances.
This year there were 14 couples dancing. They danced various court ball room dances and other dances, too. The climax was the dance, which the 2nd graders had made by themselves. All girls were beautiful with their dresses and hairdos and all boys were handsome with their black suits.
In the evening there was a dancing show in high shcool for the audience. There were about 250 people watching the show. After that the dancers went to the Hotel Ivalo where they had one show for French tourists. Next day there were five shows: two in the elementary school, one in the senior home, one in the service home and one in high school.
After dancing the atmosphere in the dressing room was relieved but at the same time sad because it was over. The last thing was a nice dinner in the local restaurant Kultahippu. Now the sophomores are all heading to the next party in their senior year.
RAM 21 February 2008
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Last Monday Riina and Antti came back to school. Today they told us some memorable experiences about Palermo and Stadtallendorf. Riina gave us some German gingerbread biscuits. Their interview will be published here later.
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Back in business!
First we wish all those hard-working first graders welcome to this course. There are so many of them! We are altogether fifteen students here.
Let´s see what happened in our first meeting. We got a nice little snack and the teachers made their usual beginning speech. Then it was our exchange student Maria Rita´s turn to teach us some Italian. We learned the usual things like numbers and greetings. Next we played one game where we had to remember the numbers in Italian. We did it so fantastically!
Ci vediamo più tardi!
24. October 2007
AM RH MM
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We started school work on Monday August 13. The weather was still fine and warm but all the students and teachers were eager to start working. Our headteacher Ulla Hynönen is on a sabbath leave. Janne Hannola substitutes her during this school year.
Our Comenius work will start in the second period at the beginning of October. However, we already have some international flavour in our school as Maria Rita Marsala from Palermo arrived at Ivalo on Saturday, August 18. She will stay here three months. She is doing just fine here.
Two students from our school participate in the same programme with Maria Rita, Comenius International Pupil Mobility Pilot. Riina Akujärvi flies to Germany to meet Ulf and Frank in Stadtallendorf and to spend three months as an exchange student there. Antti Musikka travels to Palermo to learn something about the Italian language and culture for three months, too. They both leave in the week 35. These exchanges will give a lot more genuine international contacts to our students and teachers and contribute effectively to the work we have done for two years now.
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