The last few weeks I have been able to experience and be part of the somewhat odd and different events this school has for the students. A lot of the events had content that I know would not be allowed in American high schools which made it all the better.
About two weeks ago on a Friday there was this day named, uusasutuspäivä. For this day the second year students gave a dress code of embarrassing clothing and costumes to wear the whole day. For example... One class was assigned to have the guys dress as princesses and the girls dress as princes. Another class was assigned to dress as cave men. The day was basically reserved for "hazing" the incoming class. At the end of the day the second year students put on these games in front of the school. Again, these games were there to embarrass the first year students. I just want to list some of the games so you can get a better idea of what I am talking about.
1. Three girls had to lay on the ground with bananas in their mouths while their male partner had to do push ups over them and eat the banana out of their mouth...
2. Girls had to lick whipped cream off of their male partner's shirtless body.
3. A girl and a guy had to hold a ball in their mid section and move it up to the upper part of their bodies without touching it with their hands (I was part of this one).
4. Guys had to give girls lap dances.
5. Seven very well built guys came on stage with marker drawn all over heir bodies and then they were paired to a random girl that had to try to get as much marker off of the guys bodies as they could in a time limit.
6. Rap battle, tweak battle, lots of battles
There were so many more but those are the ones that really stuck in my head. Also the prizes that the winners got sometimes consisted of lube and condoms. It was honestly pretty shocking when I was sitting in school knowing that teachers were standing watch knowing this was taking place and not caring. In America I knew stuff like this would not fly so seeing it actually happening in school here was surprising to me. At the same time it was extremely entertaining and everyone was enjoying themselves, even the first year students that were being picked on.
The other day we had a day where we didn't have any classes and just came to school and had the classes compete in soccer. First year student classes played soccer, second year students played Finnish baseball, and third year students had to actually do school... It was just interesting to have this day where we got to bond with our home room classes and get to play soccer with our whole class. Really giving the students a chance to get to know each other.
The most recent event I didn't know about until the day before it happened. There were signs posted all over the school announcing that the third of September was Etiksen Liikennevalopäivä which is English means traffic light day. Everyone was supposed to come to school wearing a color that coordinated with what the list said...
Red - Taken
Green - Single
Yellow - Math and Science is my Passion
Blue - Friends with Benefits
Black - Horny
Grey - Just Had Sex
White - Gathering a Harem
Orange - Stuck in the Friend Zone
Pink - Keinutaan?
There were all colors around school. Some people wore multiple colors. Me and a couple other girls planned to wear all black.. So we did for fun. It was interesting to see everyone and their "relationship status". Also in my old school or like most schools this kind of thing wouldn't be appropriate or it isn't seen as appropriate as you can see. I liked the idea and the whole thing was really funny since people ironically wore colors. I now know all the single people int he school. Another interesting thing was that most of the single guys were hanging out together. There were huge groups of people all wearing the same color. A group of girls were all wearing pink, a group of guys were wearing green, and so on and so forth. It was an interesting day to say in the least.
Overall I'm enjoying the school environment here. It's really laid back and none of the teachers are really uptight. There isn't really cliques here or "popular" people. Everyone kind of talks to everyone if they want to. I love it that way and it makes my social life and school environment so much easier to be in and apart of. The little things that they have planned here come as a surprise to me everytime they happen since I'm not so used to the events but it makes school fun and exciting. A good start to the school year.
- The American
