Chapter 3

Life In St. Louis
Chapter 3
(photos in the end)

Topics

On chapter 3 I'm going to focus on things like high school life, my trip to Hawaii with other exchange students, and reflecting on the last few months. I will write one more final and closing chapter about my exchange year after this.

High School Life

The Environment

I've seen movies and shows and heard from former exchange students about American high schools, so I had my expectations. I was hoping for a big high school and I got in to one with over 1200 students. That's about four times as big as my high school in Finland. Another big difference is the area around the school, you can see signs for the school on the highway which is not common in Finland, that already shows the difference in size compared to Finnish high schools. In my Finnish high school all we have is one sand field and a gym for sports and a small gym for working out and were lucky as we have a swimming hall in the same building. Here there are seven tennis courts, a football field with huge stands, baseball and softball fields, a soccer field, three gyms and an extra one for working out, and a swimming pool. The school can afford all of this because high school costs money here when it's free in Finland.

The Students

Having a lot of people in the school has its pros and cons. For example, between classes the hallways are very busy and its can get busy in some tight hallways. There is one hallway so busy that it's known as the "hell hallway". When you come to school in the morning there are a lot of cars as there are students themselves driving to school and parents are driving their kids to school, so it is very busy in the morning and you end up waiting a while in the line to get to school. When you get out of school there are about 30 buses leaving the school and only a few cars get out before them as they are let out before student's cars and again you end up waiting a while before getting out of school. Then there are the positives about having a lot of students. Especially for an exchange student like me because it's my first and only year in the school and I can meet a lot of different people and make many friends. I've been here for a while now and I'm still meeting new people and making new friends.

High School Sports

There are many different sports events throughout the year. At the start of the year there's football and soccer, in the middle during winter there's basketball, and at end of the year there's volleyball. Those are just the big sports and there are many other sports. Our school is very good in many different athletics. Our soccer team won state, football went to final four, basketball got to top 8, and volleyball won state last year and they're expected to go far this season too. There are also many other sports like baseball, swimming, track, tennis and many others. There are also many different clubs you can join, and you can help the school by working in the library and by doing other things and of course you'll get rewarded for it. The high school sports are one of the things European schools are missing. Not only is it very easy to join the team as you're doing it through the school but also going to practice is easy as it is pretty much straight after school. Going to practice after a difficult day of school can be exhausting at times and you can be very tired going home some days but at least for me it felt good because I was doing something all the time and I liked being busy. Home games and some away games also attract a lot of fans and the students always have their own section. The students have also come up with their own chants and everybody knows them. The chanting really builds up the atmosphere of the game and having a home game is a huge advantage as you have the home fans behind you. In Finland for youth games there aren't these huge fan sections with traditional chants. There are usually a few friends of the player and some of their parents yelling something every now and then. There isn't really an atmosphere. I loved playing in front of a lot of fans and the games felt better as it was louder and you could hear the chants and your own name yelled at times. In big games the fan sections are battling out on who's the louder one and those type of games have the best atmosphere. At times there is trash talk between the fan sections and the fans might even pick on the opponent's player and yell at them. Usually the principal or an athletic director of the school is at the game, so they will tell the fans to stop before they go too far. Games between two schools that don't like each other are the best. There are many rivalries between different schools and those kinds of classic games are the best as a lot of fans show up to show who's the best school.

Classes and Studying

One other thing that European schools can learn from American schools is the number of classes there are to choose from. There are over hundred different classes and especially the number of electives impresses me. There are so many classes in subjects like art, sports, politics, marketing, computer science and many others. Also, if you are more interested in school than others or just want to prepare for college, you can take college level classes that are more difficult. There are these classes for pretty much every subject. The way you choose your classes is four core classes that you must take to graduate like math, history, physics and English. Then is the fun part of choosing three electives. You can choose anything you want, some are more difficult than others but usually electives are more fun and easy. Then there is ac-lab that everybody takes. It's the same length as every other class and everybody has it at the same time two days of the week. It's basically free time, where you can either just hang out with your friends inside the school or do homework and go to your other classes to get help from your teachers. For me it is very useful because it saves my free time after school as I can get some homework done, or if I'm struggling in some class I can go there and ask help from the teacher. For the classes, I feel like there is a lot more work and small tests you must do so the teacher can grade them. Your grade is a percentage and usually over 90 is an A. The grading varies on each class and you can raise it obviously by getting better scores on your tests and assignments which there are a lot. This way you can always go see your percentage and know if you must start doing more work to get the grade you want or not. There are finals at the end of each of the two semesters but they're not even close to as hard as the finals in Finland since there are so many small tests during the semester.

Hawaii

Former exchange students had only said good things about this trip and praised it a lot. Their words and the fact that I've never been in Hawaii got me excited. It's basically a vacation for exchange students organized by a company called Belo USA. Their trips are paid separately from the exchange year and exchange students in the US can book them. The trip is fully organized as every day is full of activities. We spent our free time by going to the beach or the city. The trip lasted for a week and for a lot of us it felt short. I will now go over my favorite parts of the week.

First full day began with a few hours on the beach. We swam at least a couple hundred meters and our feet would still reach the ground. We were warned about sunburns a lot before going to the beach, but some people still didn't listen and looked burned at the end of the week. They let us walk around the city alone during beach and free time and we took the advantage and explored as much as we could. We continued the day with a catamaran ride where we were able to see a few whales and see the beautiful city of Waikiki from the ocean.

On the second day we left the hotel early at 7 in the morning to do one of the things I was most excited for. We went surfing on a special beach and got a short surfing lesson before it. I've never surfed before and looking at other people surf it looked awesome and I had always wanted to try it. We surfed for probably almost an hour and I was honestly so tired after it. One reason being that we had to wait in line for 5 to 10 minutes to get one wave and they let us go one by one which was a bit of a chaos as there were more than 20 of us surfing at once. It was a struggle at first after a few tries it was easy once you understood a few tricks on how to get up and get the balance. A few lessons they told me was to get up fast and keep my eyes on the shore. I followed those two rules and didn't fall many times after that. Surfing was one of the big highlights of the week. We continued the day with walking around a small town nearby and eating lunch there. They even have pineapple burgers there, but I decided to go with a normal burger. The day ended with a few hours in a place called Polynesian Culture Center, where we could learn about seven different cultures, Hawaii, Fiji and Tahiti being a few of them. We were taught about their language, lifestyle, architecture, food, and many other things.

Here are a few other things we did during the week. We visited the capital of Hawaii called Honolulu, it was a short visit as the day was full of activities. We went to Waimanalo Beach which is one of the most famous beaches on the island. We visited Pearl Harbor which I was excited about as I had heard and read about it so much in and outside of school. I was a little disappointed since we only had an hour to look around before we went on a boat ride to see the actual memorial which was great. One of my favorite things we did was hiking the famous volcanic crater called Diamond head. The view was amazing and even the hike was enjoyable as the track went through tunnels and had very steep stairs. On the last day we did probably my favorite activity on the trip, which was snorkeling. We drove to a special beach to snorkel and it was worth it as the water was very clear and full of colorful fish. It was like watching Finding Nemo - movie underwater at times and it was a lot of fun competing on who would find the biggest and most colorful fish. They said we might even see turtles, but we weren't able to see any despite hours of snorkeling and looking for them.

I had high expectations for this week and I wasn't disappointed. Every day we were doing something new and exciting and during free time we could walk around the city or go to the beach. What made the trip special was the people. I love meeting new people, especially exchange students. They have the same kind of mentality as me because just like me they all decided to leave their home country for a year and build a whole new life in another country. I had a lot of fun meeting people from 13 different countries, learning about their culture, and just talk about being an exchange student and how our years have gone so far. I spent most of my free time with these two guys from Estonia and Germany and in a week, we became very good friends. We even talked about meeting up in Europe after our exchange years. It's amazing to me how fast you can make important and long-lasting friendships and made me think about all the friends I have made this year and how it will be difficult to leave in a few months.

NHL Game

Last few months have gone by fast and as I'm writing this I'm trying to figure out how they went by so fast and what did I do during these months. We finally went to a St. Louis Blues game and unfortunately, they lost by a lot to Minnesota Wild. I still enjoyed the game since it was only my second NHL game. If they somehow manage to make it to the playoffs, going to a playoff game would be amazing as the atmosphere is great.

Soccer Season Ceremonies

As our soccer team won state, we were invited to Missouri Athletic Club Awards ceremony where they award the best college soccer players from Missouri. We were recognized during one of the speeches. The dinner was good and the whole ceremony was great. Even Carli Lloyd, a famous US national soccer player was there.

In American high schools at the end of the season of a sport they have a gathering of players and their parents where they talk about the season called banquet. Our coach talked about the season, we watched a video about the season and ate dinner. There was even a special made cake with all the seniors names. You were able to buy a championship ring earlier and we finally received them, and I bought one since it'll always remind me if the championship and the year in general.

Chicago

Last week we visited Chicago with my family and it was awesome. I've always wanted to see Chicago and we also saw a Chicago Bulls game which was big for me because it was my first NBA game. We drove down the famous Michigan Mile and saw the Bean. Chicago in general is a beautiful city and just walking on the streets was nice. It was March 24th which was the day for the gun protest march. We shortly joined the march and saw a lot of clever posters and for me the amount of people marching was crazy. I've also never been to a protest, so it was a great experience. We also visited Springfield on the way to Chicago and went to the Lincoln museum

Final Thoughts

It's spring break here in the US as I'm writing this, and I've been thinking about this whole year a lot. I've made many great memories and friends so far. Now I'm focused to make the most of the remaining three months as there are still a lot of things to do. As I wrote in my last blog this year has gone by so fast and this place feels more like a home every day. As there's only three months left I keep thinking about leaving for Finland and how mentally difficult it'll be. The fact that I'll probably never see most of the people here ever again makes me sad but hopeful I'll be able to come back here someday. It's amazing how one year can totally change your life and that's why I came here.

Photos
(A few more this time since I went to Hawaii and Chicago)

Hawaii

After snorkeling

The beach we spent a lot of time on

Just a few of the exchange students I met on the trip 

Me and my Estonian friend on a famous lookout

All the exchange students on the trip

The Diamond Head view

The Pearl Harbor memorial which we couldn't visit due to weather

Climbing the Diamond Head

View of the beach where we went snorkeling

Picture on the last day with two of my good friends 

Chicago

The Bulls game


The Bean
 

The gun protest

Other Stuff

The lunch area in our school

The Blues game

The championship ring that has our logo on the front and says "State Champions" on the top and bottom and "2017" on left and right of the front. It also has my name and number on one side, and our school's name, this season's record and the score of the final (1-0) on the other side.


One of the special cakes made for us at the soccer banquet

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Chapter 2

Chapter 4