September, October and first half of November

(this post was to be released in September but guess who was lazy again..)

From where should I begin with... beginning of September maybe? So... my school continued as usual when September started.

The picture below is from September 9th, when was very beautiful morning so I took the photo (:

..and these pictures are from September 13th, when was also beautiful, serene morning (sun shined and no clouds on the sky)

Then was my first term's exam week + matriculation examinations. It was a bit hard to read for exams + matriculation examination test at the same time, but luckily I had only 3 exams on exam week (exam week lasts always six days -or- five days + afternoon of some day). But then it was already September 15th, when I had my matriculation examination test. I started reading for it on July but somehow on that morning I wasn't even stressed as I usually am on exam day mornings (I had HUGE stress on previous Saturday hit my head to the wall). 

But the main point: exam. You have six hours of time, own pens, rubbers, sharpener, ruler and unlimited amount of paper given by the school (people who made chemistry or geography (me!) that day had also book containing chemistry, physics and math formulas + calculator). You are free to leave the place after three hours but it's not sensible since you have those six hours + you have to paid about the exam. You can get a grade of A, B, C, M, E or L, when A is the worst and L the best. When I got predictive points of my exam, I got 22 points, which is on border of grades C and M. Last years you have usually got M with 22 points, but I still haven't got my final points yet. I think it's next week when I will got the final results are grade. I hope it went well!

Then the first term of this semester ended and the second one started. Nothing special happened during second term even though I broke my bike somehow again. No, this time it wasn't a wheel that blew out. It was a wire that goes from handlebar of my bike to back wheel axle, where is the gears. I leave it to repair and got it back next day so everything was OK then (:

This picture is from October 1st, when trees had full colours of autumn (I took this picture after I had left my bike to the repair and I was walking back home).

And this picture is from October 8th when there was amazing sunrise when I was leaving to school in the morning.

Sorry about the bad quality of two recent pictures, they were taken on my phone, an old (2011-model) Nokia :D

In the middle of October I had yearly autumn holiday and then I finally bought a new phone for myself :D   I had my Nokia 500 for almost three years (since Christmas 2011) and it was.... slow and not reliable anymore. I bought HTC Desire 610 for myself and it has been good so far. It is almost good as my laptop when talking about performance haha (;

Then it was time for second term's exam week and we will got grades of last term's courses on next Thursday, when we will also get our course exams back (:

It's been a bit cold lately here, it's almsot December already (: The last year in high school goes sooo fast when comparing to two previous ones. But it will feel much better when we 4rd grade students will start our own activities at the beginning on December. 

When the cold weather arrived, I was on trouble with my bike again :(   My bike's gears froze so many times and last week I almost broke the gear selector on the handlebar of my bike. But yesterday it fixed somehow automatically and today it seemed to work well even though it was slippery everywhere. And last week we had also FIRST SNOW OF THIS YEAR. Yeah it already melted away but the feeling when it doesn't feel that dark outside (:

And today we made a school trip (most of our 3rd grade students) to Jyväskylä (big city located 43 kilometers far from this town), where is university and university of applied sciences. It was really fun even though when going there our bus was late and we missed the first lecture both in university and university of applied sciences.

Phew, it was quite long post haha :D

By the way, I had enrolment for military service on October 22nd and I said there that I want to go to civilian / non-military service. I got a letter at the beginning of this week saying that my 4-week-long "training period" in a training center locate din southern Finland starts on April 13th, 2015 and the actual civialian / non-military service starts on May 11th, 2015. I haven't found a working place for myself yet, but there's lot of time. I'm too shy to go to ask different plaes, maybe I will just send e-mails....

I started a blog about my civilian /non-military service at http://laurisivarissa.blogspot.fi/ but it's only in Finnish. Feel still free to use Google Translator. I will update both blogs while time

Have a nice November everybody!  (:

More music for Autumn

Feel free to enjoy and share these songs if you found some songs as cool! ^.^

Old(er) songs:

 

(what would the world be without "anime pop songs"?  :D

(nice mashup even though it doesn't have that much more to say btw^^)

New(er) songs:

I have been planning a new post for a wile but unfortunately haven't had enough motivation to start writing it. I already have photos edited for the post but let's see when I got the motivation to write it..... hopefully as soon as possible  (:

Music for cold autumn days (:

Maybe you find some good songs to listen from this post, feel free to leave a comment or suggest songs  :)


Old songs (1995-2010)

New songs (2011- )

Lapland trip and something else

Hello everyone, for a long time! This post has been a draft since August 10th when I originally wanted to write this post. But my try failed when my school started on August 7th.... School has made a busy as always and matriculation examinations are coming closer and closer. I'm writing only one subject this fall and rest three next spring and I'm graduating from high school (wohoo!).

BUT the main point of this post is my Lapland trip (July 30th - August 4th). My sister was in 10-day-long language course in Sweden so my mother and father decided to go Lapland / Northern Norway. We left home early Wednesday morning and drove to Saariselkä for first night. We stayed in hotel and enjoyed about the lanscapes even though it rained as usual in Finland. 

Next morning we drove through Ivalo and stopped some kilometers later next to the highway. There was a turist point and there was a HUGE erratic block. A legend says that a bear has slept over winter inside the rock and there was a huge cavity in the rock. (coordinates for parking area: 68°48'59.96"N, 27°18'54.90"S or 68.816755, 27.314355)

After that pause we drove through Inari and Sevettijärvi to the Finland-Norway border line in Näätämö. We drove from the border to Kirkenes and stayed a night nearby it on a camping area (coordinates: 69°41'51.54"N 29°57'2.76"S or 69.697659, 29.950784). We stayed in a little camping cottage which had only heating and electricity (photo below).

Next morning we drove back to Neiden, where the little road intersects to Finland. We stopped in Neiden to see this wonderful "white-water" where salmons tried to jump while going upstream. 

A bridge over the "white-water".

In Lapland distances between towns are quite long...

Some photos more  :)

We drove for some time and then stopped for a parking area to look more beautiful landscapes (coordinates: 70° 0'27.29"N 29°12'8.71"S or 70.007611, 29.201459). 

After the pause we continued driving and drove through Varangerbotn town to Vadsø but we stopped for a lunch break some time after Varangerbotn town and watched beautiful landscapes once again (coordinates: 70° 6'57.45"N 29°12'33.21"E or 70.115960, 29.209219).

Vadsø town where it rained a lot.

Vadsø church.

We didn't found any camping areas nearby Vadsø so we went to hotel :)

View from hotel's parking area.

Awesome view from hotel's breakfast room :)

After breakfast we drove to Vardø where is the end point of European road 75 (E75). In Vardø we visited in local fortress and walked through the city anyway.

Moat of the fortress.

Local cemetery. That big thing behind the cemetery is a memorial for persecution of witches victims.

Beautiful little river between Vadsø and Vardø.

From Vardø we drove through Vadsø and Varangerbotn to Tana bru, which is a village by river Tana and only 18 kilometers away from Finland's northest point, a village named Nuorgam (which is 1000 kilometers away from my home).

Road to Finland.

Some little streams.

We stayed that night in a camping area 4 kilometers away from Tana bru.

Amazing sunset (:

Next morning we drove to Utsjoki and from there to Karigasniemi. We ate a lunch during that trip by amazing landscapes of river Tana (coordinates: 69°57'30.45"N 26°37'26.42"E or 69.958429, 26.623729).

From Karigasniemi we drove to Karasjok, which is a city in Norway.

We continued driving and ended up to Kautokeino, where we stayed last night before long trip back home. We styed in a camping cottage again but this time we had shower and toilet on our own!

We slept well that night and left early next morning and drove the following route: Kautokeino - Enontekiö - Muonio - Kolari - Pello - Tornio - Kemi - Oulu - Rantsila - Pulkkila (nowadays Siikalatva) - Kärsämäki - Pyhäjärvi - Pihtipudas - Viitasaari and FINALLY back Äänekoski (this is the shortest route and it's still around 860 kilometers) *phew*. The photo below is from Pello where we had a lunch break (good food after eating mostly only sandwitches for few days!)

And then we finally arrived back home! I was a bit butt-hurt it was worth of the long trip back home :)

I had some days before school started so I just did a recapitulation for my matriculation examination.

Oh, I explained a bit too much, sorry -_-


EDIT (2014/08/29 - 18:06): fixed coordinates and added another ones :)