ProNutro

Firstly I would like to show you what my wonderful family sent me from NZ

I was expecting some maths books and I get to the post office and there was a huge package and this is what was inside:

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Ok so on Saturday we went to a little festival kind of thing. It was a bread day, so we tried different breads. Herb bread, meat bread, cheese bread, some kind of berry bread. All homemade and delicious! The festival was set amongst the trees, it was kind of like a museum. There were a whole lot of wooden houses with low stick rooftops that had been collected from the old days and brought together in this forest. Each one set up on the inside to resemble what it would have looked like back in its heyday. There were a lot of wooden windmills, one big main one and a whole lot of little ones scattered around. There was also a little market with stands selling homemade items like mittens and jewelry and soaps, scarfs, different foods, pottery and more.

Then on Sunday I went to church and tried those little translating headphone things. Someone literally sits and translates the service while its happening. So I didn’t miss out on anything. It was quite funny at one point they played a little movie in English and the person in the headphones said ‘it’s in English’ don’t know why but it was rather funny and I started laughing to myself. Everyone at church is really friendly and a lot of the people can speak English. 

It feels strange sitting in class at school and hearing the teacher talking in Estonian. Or hearing the other students chatting away in Estonian. I have heard it so much and often now that I feel like it should just flow from my mouth, I should just be able to open my mouth and speak Estonian. It’s like I understand what the teacher is saying but I don’t actually know the words she is using. It’s hard to explain but somehow I just have an idea of what people are talking about without even knowing the words they are saying. Hopefully soon I will be able to actually fully understand all the words that are being said around me. But until then I’ll continue to rely on my good guessing skills and my helpful (and patient) classmates.

This is me dressed as a baby

So as a sort of initiation for school we had whats called a fox day. This is where all the 10^th graders (which is my grade) were slaves to the 12^th graders. Each person had a mentor from the 12^th grade. This went on for two days. On the first day we were all dressed up funny, I was dressed like a garbage man and had to carry my books around in a garbage bag as well as a heavy rock freshly picked from the wet ground. We played silly games like dodge ball with plastic cups over our eyes. The next day our mentors had to dress us like babies. Some people had nappies on and a lot of us had to walk around with dummies in our mouths. Some walked around with squeaky toys tied to the bottom of their feet so the corridors were filled with a constant squeak squeak squeak. We provided the younger kids with some good entertainment though. At the end of each lesson I would walk down the stairs to see a whole line of little kids pointing and laughing as all the 10^th graders squeaked past dressed as babies and sucking dummies.

So at the end each class in the 10^th grade did a little performance thing. My class (10D) sang. We all positioned ourselves on the stage and we sang a song, I don’t actually know what it was about because obviously it wasn’t in English. And when I say WE sang I mean the rest of the class sang and I just did the actions because I just couldn’t actually remember the words.

We were then each giving a certificate and accepted into the high school.

So in the school cafeteria today we had the choice on rice or pasta with meatball sauce. I had pasta and a glass of milk. I was talking to a friend and she asked if I had been to the movies in Estonia yet, I replied no I haven’t and she said “well then lets go”  So I am making friends and they are all really nice and unbelievably helpful. I was explaining to some friends that Christmas in New Zealand is in summer so we usually go to the beach or spend the day outside in the sun. They all found that very funny because here Christmas in cold and snowing, not at all a day at the beach.

When I walked into my Estonian lesson with the younger kids, I was greeted with a chorus of hello, hello, hello. They are just learning to speak English so 'hello' is the one word they test out on me. While I was writing down some of the Estonian alphabet and the kid sitting next to me looked over, scanned my work and then nodded in confirmation, ‘mmhmm’ I had written it correctly. He then opened his book and showed me where Estonia was on the map and the Estonian flag and using hand gestures and a buzzing noise he asked if I got to Estonia by plane.  

Well we are now heading into Autumn and let me just say that today, today was cold. Very, very cold, and I have been told that the coldest month is February so in other words the cold I felt today was just the beginning. It only goes downhill from here. Oh Joy. 

Some Pictures:

I thought I'd show you what I looked like when I was sick and had to sit under the blanket with the hot water. 

This is a cake Epp and I made

This is the lego version of the cake we made

Balloons

Sunday afternoon I went with Mari to a juggling class. Yes juggling as in juggling. Who would have thought I’m here in this little country going for juggling lessons. We started off with just simple juggling with three balls, she then showed us some different tricks which the small group of us practiced for a while. We then moved onto juggling with those batten things which I kept hitting myself in the head with whenever I tried to flip them.

Well my school (Tallinna 32. Keskkool) has this competition where one student from each class (all the way from the 1st grade to the 12th) has to go up and pop a balloon and inside one of the balloons is a note saying that class won 1500 euros for a class trip. On Tuesday this competition ran and my class said I should do it because it only runs once a year.
So I go up and there are all these balloons tied to a string across the hall. A whole lot of us line up and then the rest of the school watches and there is a drum roll, they count to three and then we pop the balloons and everyone opens the paper. Mine was stuck so I was fumbling for ages trying to open it, and the whole time I was worrying because I don’t know what it’s going to say and I can’t read Estonian. Well I didn’t have to worry about that because when I eventually got the paper open it had 1500E written on it. We won! My classmates said I was a lucky charm and that next year when it happens again they will call me back from NZ just to pop the balloon for them. We now just need to decide what we want to do as a class and where we want to go.

I’m learning new words in Estonian all the time but still struggling to make full sentences, I think that may still take some time. I say things like ‘this pen is blue’ (see pastakas on sinine) to friends at school and they just laugh at me because I’m pretty sure they can see the pen is blue, but I’m making progress. It’s hard because I’ll learn some words and then try using them in sentences but get it wrong because the case changes. The Estonian language has 14 cases so I’ll need to work hard to get those right.

The film lessons are going really good. Although it does get a little frustrating because I don’t understand what the teacher is saying and I really want to learn and take part in the discussions. But I have a class mate who takes notes during the lesson and at the end of each one she sits and translates for me as best she can. When I come home in the afternoons I sit and go through the stuff and try research it in more detail. We also have to write reviews of all the movies we watch in class and any that we have to watch for homework so we each have a movie blog where we can post our reviews as well as pictures and clips from the movie.   

The orienteering map

On Wednesday we had our school sports day. We met at Hiiu Stadium which is basically just an athletics track tucked away in the forest. We didn’t do any athletics though, we did orienteering. We each got a map and then were off through the forest to find the points. It was good to get out and do some exercise and after our run we were given some tea and a bread roll thing and then I hoped on the bus and went home.

 The weather hasn’t been that great, the past few days the sky has been a covered in milky clouds and we have sudden bursts of rain. I have been a bit sick but so has everyone else at school so there must be a bug going around. I sat today with my head under a blanket breathing in boiling water with some oil stuff in it, it burnt my eyes at first but after 5 minutes I was used to it. I wondered how hot it would be if I stuck my hand in the bowl but common sense told me it was a bad idea to try considering the water had just come from the kettle.

Epp and I had a game of chess today, she taught me how to play and taught me the names of all the things in Estonian and English. I have to say I’ve never really given chess much thought but I actually enjoy it and it was quite easy to learn how to play. 

Some Pictures:

Sonja

 Juss

These concrete slabs hanging on the wall were originally the flooring of one of the old Churches

A street in Vanalinn

This is a door to one of the Churches in Vanalinn

Church and around home

So on Friday Epp and I went to another youth group, one that’s a bit closer. It’s called Terminal and has a lot more people, about 30 or so. They had a worship band and some games, a lot of Energy. When we arrived we were greeted with enthusiasm by a lot of different people. When they introduced themselves they said two names, their real one and one they had made in English “because foreigners can’t say our names” I was told. Again I had someone translating for me which I’m very grateful for. We also went to the church on Sunday (9^{th September}), again a lot of energy. The service was held in a large hall which had a door leading to a little café. The service was in Estonian but they have these little ear plug things that translate to English, but I only found this out at the end so I’ll try it next week.

The other night Mari and I made spaghetti and I have to say it was the best pasta I have had in my life. 

This is the spaghetti set out to dry

Yum is all I can say

Funny stories for the week:

Our run to Church

This is the Church we went to

We tried a different church on Sunday (2^{nd September}), an English one! So because we were late my host mom told me we were going to take a short cut to the bus stop. Through the forest. I can defiantly say this was the coolest way I’ve ever had to get to church. All dressed up for church and running along a little wet path cutting through the woods. I followed close behind my host mom who was wearing high heels and still managed to fly over tree routes and wet mud without slipping once!

My bus mistake

Well it was my first day taking the bus by myself. So when my lessons were finished I walked through the lines of apartment buildings to my bus stop. So I get onto the trolley bus number one which was right . . . but I forgot to cross the road first so I sat on there for almost 2 hours as it went all the way into town, and back around in a loop. At first I had to laugh because as the trolley drove off I saw some of my classmates who take the same one as me crossing the road and getting onto another trolley bus on the other side of the road. I eventually got off at a stop that I thought was mine. Then got onto bus 10 because that’s the bus I was supposed to come home on. But instead the bus goes through an area I’ve never seen before and stops one last bus stop, everyone gets off . . . except me because I have no idea where I am or whats happening. The bus then pulls into the place where the busses ‘sleep’. I tried to ask for help but obviously I don’t speak Estonian. Eventually the bus driver told me to just wait, so I sat in an empty bus for about 40minutes then it did another round and eventually I got to the right place. Just to show you how long I was on a trolley or bus for, school finished at 2 and I finally got home at 4.30. Lesson learnt, CROSS THE ROAD! I won’t make that mistake again.

First week of school

This was my first week of Estonian school so I thought I’d sum it up as best I can. The first day was just an assembly and then meeting our class.  Walking through the hallways and hearing everyone talking but not understanding a word made me decide that I need to learn Estonian . . . and fast. It’s like the voices are on a distant radio turned down really softly so that the speaking can be heard but none of it makes sense because it’s too hard to hear. 

My first full day of school went something like this, each class I sat in but didn’t understand what the teacher was saying, luckily the students can speak English so I had some translations. I tried really hard in each class to listen to what the teacher was saying and try piece things together. Sometimes I could figure out what a teacher wanted us to do but mostly I sat clueless. In chemistry I sat and tried to remember the names of some of the symbols on the giant periodic table on the wall. During the day I listen to how the students and teachers talk and how they pronounce words. I can sometimes pick up words that I’ve learnt like: sleep, lunch, chair, different colours and numbers. I ask how to say some sentences but I find that at the end of most days my brain just switches off and I can’t take in any new words.

The subjects I’m studying for the first five weeks are:

Estonian, English, Russian, French, Chemistry, Film, Maths and Music

So after five weeks these will change and then after five weeks those will change and so on.

For Estonian classes I’m in the 3^rd grade with the little kids. They dress very colourfully and are always bouncing up and down and chatting non-stop. It’s easier to understand the teacher in the younger classes though and I’m starting to pick up sentences. 

So on Thursday I had my first film lessons! We have a small class of about 15 students. We spoke a bit about the history of film (it was translated to me of course) and a bit about what we will be doing during the lessons. Making films, editing, watching and analyzing a lot of different movies, we get to visit some production studio etc. We then watched a short 9 minute ‘shocking’ video. Basically the whole think was suspense and right at the end someone gets hit by a car and someone else gets an injection stuck in their eye . . . don’t actually know why we watched it but yes. We were given some papers with information IN ENGLISH so I can understand them luckily. The teacher let us out early so we had a shorter day. I have four film lessons every Thursday.

For English I have to give a 35 to 40minute presentation because I’m English. And I thought that three minute speech in NZ was bad . . . I will be doing it on New Zealand because the teacher said the only thing they know about NZ is that it was close to Australia.  

Some interesting things about my school

• ·         Firstly the bell. Here the bell isn’t an annoying ring, it’s a speaker that plays music in the hallways signaling that it’s time to head to class, then again when class begins and ends.

• ·         When coming into school in the mornings everyone goes downstairs to a big room, called a wardrobe, where we leave our jackets and shoes for the day. In the mornings we arrive at school and change our shoes, then when our lessons are over we change back into our other shoes and leave the school ones in the wardrobe.

• ·         We don’t have a set starting and finishing time. For example from Monday to Wednesday I start at 8, have 6 lessons and finish at 2. Thursdays I start at 9 and finish at 4. Fridays I only have three lessons, I start at 9 and finish at 12.

• ·         We have a cafeteria, so when it’s lunch time everyone rushes to get some food and a place to sit. The coolest thing there is a machine where you can get a glass of milk, it’s like those hot chocolate machines but you get milk. A girl today joked with me “It’s like our school has a cow

• There are lockers but we have to pay for them
• And no we don't have a uniform

Well will keep updating about school, so far I'm still trying to find my way around, everything looks the same to me so I just follow everyone else but I'm sure I'll be able  to find my way soon.