obligatory first day of school photo

Here it is. My first day of master's school. Since my mom is not in Finland, Scott has taken over her duties of picture taking (he is not nearly as good, mom). But the picture lived up to its expectations just like all the other terribly awkward and unattractive first day photos…I wouldn’t have it any other way. I rode The Viking (that’s what we’ve named her) to school, looking very collegiate with my fiancé’s backpack on. So far I’ve learned that class scheduling in Finland is very different than what I’m used to in the states. Most of the classes last for only 2-3 months. So not all of them start on the first day, I have some that start in October or November. And there’s generally no pattern to how the lessons are scheduled. There’s no Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday classes. There are just random days and times. It’s been kind of confusing and somewhat difficult to organize in the beginning, but I’m thinking (hoping) that this is the hard part. After scheduling everything I think it’ll be nice to have my classes so spread out.

I only had one class on my first day and everything went smoothly. To start, we all introduced ourselves and said where we are from. There are students from all over the world in my class – Namibia, Canada, Iran, China, Germany, Peru…the list goes on. I’m so excited to get to know these people better and learn from their experiences in all their different countries. I know that it will make for an interesting and rewarding two years. Cheers to first days!