10. How digital am I

Today you can't avoid the digital world it's everywhere, on your screen, in you pocket and with all your friends around you. I have for myself embraced the digital gadgets and trinkets of today's world like almost all of the youth but at the same time try to remember to stay safe in the world of internet. I have also tinkered with computers for almost all my life since my dad works at Elisa as a land lord. This helps quite a lot however I'm no master at computers but still better than most of my classmates or at least I want to believe that.
As for digital devices that I own, I have a smartphone, a tablet and a PC. These drain most of my time at home so I have learned a lot how to work with them even if they are quite complicated and sometimes might crash without a reason. And also my experience with these is that the guy you think is really good with computers is just really good at googling. (176)

9. CV and my application letter

Hello! My name is Juho Immonen and I would like to apply for an internship in your company. I've read about your company on your website and think I would make a good intern in there. IT-field and technology is always been a major of interest of mine. My goals as intern there would be learning about working life and getting insight in IT-security and IT-fields in general. I'm well motivated and independent. I have already experience from computers because I've spent very much time tinkering with them and always ready to learn more. I hope you contact soon I'll leave my CV down below.

Curriculum Vitae 

Personal details 

Name:                            Juho Immonen 

Address:                        5022 Yates Cir 

Email:                            juho.s.immoen@edu.hel.fi 

Date of birth:               15.8.1999 

Nationality:                  Finnish 

Education 

2015-present              Helsinki School of Natural sciences 

2006-2015                   Pitäjänmäki comprehensive school 

Work experience: 

2013 spring                 Internship at K-market 

2014  fall                      Internship at K-market 

Language skills: 

Finnish                         Mother tongue 

English                         Fluent 

Swedish                       Basic 

Spanish                        Basics 

Computer skills:        Word, Powerpoint, Excel 

Interests:                     Computer, economics 

References:                 Available upon request 

8. Is entreneurpreship for me?

It seems entrepreneurship is the word of the year. The government is trying to get all youth to start their own businesses and help to thrive the Finnish economy. But still from all the advertisement I'm not convinced. I think that my persona would be as far away from an entrepreneur as possible. I'm lazy, not creative and reluctant to change. These are all things I hope my future employer won't find on the internet after I've published this text. But these are also things that make me nonviable to start my own business. Also I'm just way more comfortable with working for someone other than myself because I don't have to fear that my whole livelihoods goes down the drain if my business were to fail. Of course working for someone other would have the danger of being laid off but then I haven't invested so much money on that on job. So entrepreneurship is off the list for, no matter how much everyone would want it to be there. (171)

7. Life of a not-beggar

The LogRhythm building

I'm poor and it seems I can't just start begging. Really wish there would still be a beggars union like in the middle-ages. But since we live in modern times I have to chose something in between having as little money as beggars and still doing some work, internship.I'm trying to get the internship at LogRhytm, Inc which is a IT security company. It seems that it does some work for other companies that want to protect their data. I'm very interested in IT-fields so I think this company would suit me quite well. Also since math and especially number theory which is applied in computer encryption. I think this could be really interesting internship if I can get it. Here's a link to the company's website in case of you want to check it out.
 I think I could make the cut because I've been tinkering with computers almost my entire life since I play so much games on them. So my computer skills I think are better than the average Joe but not too good still. I would be only an intern so I don't think anything more complicated than Excel would be demanded from me from the start. Also since this is something that I'm interested in I will have motivation and independence in my tasks and try my best at there. Let's see how this will develop from here. (234)

6. Hellos to the host family

Hello there! I heard that you've accepted me as one of your on and will give me food and shelter during my exchange year in the US. I'm very excited about meeting you and hope that we will get along well. I'm a 16 years old and live in Finland, my parents have divorced so I visited them both on a weekly basis. My mom has remarried and my dad has a new girlfriend. My mom has also gotten new kids, and my stepmom had already got her own kids. So I have two half-sisters, a stepsister and a stepbrother. My mom is an engineer, my dad isn't but still does have a job that requires an engineering degree. Mom works at ABB not sure doing what and my dad is a landlord at Elisa.
  My freetime mostly goes to being on the computer playing videogames and surfing the net. The computer is practically my best friend and I have invested a lot of money in it so I would say that it is my most important possession. Gaming in general, be it with computer or consoles, has been very close to my heart ever since I was three years old. That was when I got my first console, the mighty Playstation 2. Nowadays I mostly play online games with my friends and there my primary connection to those friends and maybe even a kind of way to socialize. So I'm going to play a game or two in day with my laptop even there
  Fortunately my English is pretty fluent so we should understand each other well but I might have a little bit of a Finnish accent. English has always been very easy to me because I play so much games on the computer. Even though my English skills are quite good I think I might have s have some problems in high school especially in science and math class since there are so much vocabulary in those subjects that you don't use in everyday interactions.
  One thing you should know also is that I'm quite the quiet type. In Finland we don't interact or talk or socialize as much as you folks. At least that's the stereotype I'm going to trust on this one. But the point is I don't do smalltalk very much so please don't be offended even if I don't seem that interested in talking but I will try my in that regard too. (360)

5. The gr8 educational system m8

Finnish education system is praised far and wide. We actually do almost no work compared to others and still get the best results, my comprehensive school years in a nutshell. Many people also have theorized what could be the reasons behind our students massive intellectual and high achievement in education. There was actually a BBC news story or document, not sure which one it was, about the subject.
In the BBC story they gave about 13 reasons why the system is so great. The first one was that in Finnish schools are a laid-back environment because we take our shoes off and call our teachers by their first names and so fort. Also in Finland we don't differentiate our pupils by their skill and teach them in a same class what seems to be working fine and dandy. Our teachers are so something to be proud of since they have to have a masters-degree before they can have tenure. Then there is a quite strong trust between students and teachers which is probably with the qualified teachers a very strong suite of the Finnish education. I mentioned in the beginning already that we do the least hours of work and get the best results. Our schools also have a nice autonomy and the principal has quite a lot of freedom with how he runs the school. We also have a wholly different ideology with schools than the US or the UK because our system isn't based on competition but rather on just giving quality education to everyone. (257)

4. School vocabulary

campus = kampus
pencil = kynä
subject = kouluaine
eraser = pyyhekumi
student = opiskelija
pupil = oppilas
summer break = kesäloma
homework = läksyt
vocational school = ammattikoulu
tenure = pysyvä virka
teacher = opettaja
headteacher = rehtori
principal = rehtori
curriculum = opetussuunnitelma
comprehensive school = peruskoulu
highschool = lukio
gap year = välivuosi
master's degree = maisterin tutkinto
university = yliopisto
backpack = reppu
polytechnics = ammattikorkeakoulu
course = kurssi
dorm = opiskelija-asunto
P.E = liikunta
recess = välitunti
education = koulutus
school = koulu
class = tunti


words: 31

Now to compare the Finnish and the American school system



As we can see Finnish school system is quite simple and easy to understand but

The American gets little more complicated. For start the Finnish system is more simpler and it hasn't got as many different schools since it has only three different degrees. But in the American system at grade 7 you can be in four different kinds of schools.

3. My new school

Hey everyone! I've chosen the school where I'll spend my year in the States. Its name is Abraham Lincoln High School and it seems like an interesting school. Here's the link to the school's website. I got to admit I don't really know much about the school but the name of Lincoln sounds pretty good. They have a 78% graduation rate which sounds quite good too. It was founded in 1960 and prides on its multicultural students and on its mostly hispanic student body. These things aren't too important to me and I think those aren't really big issues right now. But I'm waiting really eagerly my first day at Abraham Lincoln high school and hope it will fulfill my excpectations. (121)

2. My personality according to internet

Since I'm going abroad my guidance counselor told me to do a personality test that was based on different colors. The test was about picking colors based on how much you like them and somehow it determines your personality on that alone. There were lots of different colors that I had to firstly rank on the merit which ones I preferred then which ones I disliked or didn't prefer. I think that's quite farfetched but the test gave me the results I was expecting.
 According to it I'm an intellectual, thinker and about 60% introvert. Intellectual and thinker are probably traits that manifest themselves simultaneously. And the result that I'm an introvert isn't really surprising to me since I have always liked my own company and don't socialize too much. Even though I'm happy and agree with the results I still don't think that picking colors is something you can reliably test someone's personality over. It might give some direction, that I'm willing to admit but not very thoroughly. But that's only my opinion and I'm not an psychologist so what do I know.
 But I did consult another test to see how consistent the results were. I did the imbti which stands for Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and it was developed after WWII. From that test I got that I'm INTP which stands for introvert (I), intuition (N), thinking (T) and perceiving (P) and they represent only 3,3% of society. To get in more details, this test told me that I'm 92% introvert so in that area it differs with the color test but other than that I don't think the results are easily comparable but generally I got same kind of results for example the thinker part. Here's a link for some more information about my type. As I read more about it the more it felt correct. So if you wan to do a test that feels correct this is my recommendation.  (324)

1. Hello!

Hello people, I've just started a new blog because I'm going to study abroad for a year! I'm going to the United States to study in a high school for the year. It's pretty exciting because I have never traveled outside of Europe and I have no contacts in the U.S. This'll also be my first time traveling alone so I'm nervous about that too.
 It also feels kind of weird finally traveling there because the only contact I have gotten to the States is almost solely pop-culture and I have difficult time believing that that's too close to actually living there, therefore I'm really interested how the life actually works there and what kind of people real Americans are. The presidential elections also will have people riled up and I want to follow up close what kind of chaos, if any, they will bring.

Here's a nice picture from the Rocky Mountains national park in Colorado

I will be spending my year in Colorado where I can admire the Rocky Mountains and the mile high city of Denver. Colorado as a state has always had my interest since I'm a long term fan of South Park. Also Colorado doesn't seem to be that popular like maybe California, Florida or New York but it isn't wholly unknown like maybe Iowa. Have you ever heard anybody being fired up about traveling to Iowa? Me neither. Also Colorado is supposed to have a own really good cuisine I'm thrilled to try. (250)