Final Briefing and an array of other topics!

Hyvää iltaa!

Our districts final briefing was on Saturday and to be completely honest it was rather boring, we went over all the technicalities, like quarantine, insurance and the rotary support network. As much as it is very important information, i'd heard most of it before and I just so happened to be really, really sick so spent most of it trying not to die in front of all the rotarians! We did however get out blazers which was rather exciting! Mine is a bit big, but you wont be able to tell when I have pins all over it! We also got a a rugby top thats green and yellow which was cool and also a set of business cards; my picture is very nice ;)

I've spent most of this week sick which kind of made this week suck but I did do a bit of Christmas shopping with my Nanna, who is visiting from Melbourne, and Renee and also with Lisa! I picked up a really nice jumper for 20 bucks! Today I went and saw "Devil" with Kate and Lisa, it was an alright movie but wasn't really that scary, I had a free ticket so I didn't mind! 

I did a fair bit of vocab cramming yesterday, learnt a lot of new greetings and how to respond to greetings, I also learnt the seasons and things you might find in a bedroom (pillow, sheets, bed, etc) I feel kind of silly sitting there repeating the word to my computer, not because it cant hear me but because I just can't make the same sounds as the Finns and it is rather discouraging. I know that I will pick it up through repetition but I dont want to look silly by miss-pronouncing a word when I first get there and i'm afraid that will stop me from putting myself out there and trying and I really really want to just try my Finnish! I guess I must just hope that everyone will be supportive and understand that sometime I can't say the words right! To all the outbounds reading this, even before I have left, I really feel like investing in the language has helped me because I am familiar with the sounds and the sort of sounds that different letters make together which i'm pretty sure will make it easier to pick it up when I arrive. Some say you should focus on grammar but I am happy learning new Finnish words that I can add to my vocab and improving my pronunciation.

There isn't really anything new on the packing front, it is stressful and I worry about how im going to get everything I need in to one small suitcase and make it weigh under 20 kgs :/ I will get there, slowly and steadily. Another thing that anyone who is my facebook friend may have noticed is those constant links I post about voting for a competition! It is a comp to win a trip in Finland and it is for my dad, if you want to vote for him, click here! It would really make his year seem a whole lot better if he won! On a unrelated note,  I sent my first mail to Finland yesterday!

Now for some cool things I found over the last week: 

Really beautiful pictures of the Northern lights

This hilarious video of some Finnish Heavy Metal rockers who won the 2006 Eurovision 

Top Gear in Finland! 

Also if you have never seen Scandinavia and the world comics, you should definitely check them out!