Pyrstötähti

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So yea. My first time singing in front of people :) Can you tell I'm nervous as hell? Well...I was.
I'd also like to apologize to Lotta and Pauliina for my red jacket and how it sort of stole the spotlight. My bad.

This is what I love about being in Finland, in a new school, with a bunch of strangers. I don't think I could've done this back at LNHS. No... It's weird how being in front of strangers or new friends is a lot less stressful than performing for the people you've schooled with for many years. Or maybe it's American highschoolers in general (I feel like they're a lot more critical and judgemental).

I don't have much else to say about this. I might get around to uploading our cover of the Foo Fighters' 'Learn to Fly.' If I ever have the patience to tend to a youtube upload on a slow computer like this one again. We'll see.

Another weird thing: as much as I hate watching myself perform....I can't stop. Bleh. And I'm so critical. (SO CRITICAL)  Like there are a million things I would fix about this performance...but I won't point them out because there's a chance you won't even notice them. I'm sort of hoping for that. :)

And to all you non-Finns out there, in case you're totally confused; Muumi is like the shit here. Our band decided to incorporate it into the performance. One kid, Joel, always brought up this video of the Mörkö theme song (Mörkö is a Muumin character :: The video at the beginning is the theme) during practices. It was a good laugh so we stuck with it. Then we decided to include the dinky little tune in the middle of the song (also from Muumin) for the heck of it. And at last we named our band 'Joona ja 7 Pyrstytöhti.' Joona was the pianist and a Pyrstötähti is a meteor thing that pops up in the Muumin cartoons a lot. So there you go, a healthy dose of Finnish culture and some odd things explained.
Hey, it was either Muumin-themed or Gay Bar-themed. And unless you want to be caught chanting 'I wanna take you to a gay bar' at random times of day (guilty 0.o) ...then be thankful we stuck with Muumin.
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In other news: Christmas. Or rather, Christmas Eve. Or no, Christmas on Christmas Eve.
That's more like it.
The Finnish tradition of Christmas is sort of off for me. Here's some differences:
-The tree is set up and decorated Xmas eve morning. Early.
-The kids dress up as elves. Yes, I gave in to wearing a red elf hat.
-We went to a church service (I guess that's normal around the world...but not really for me...hah)
-The pianist was bad
-We ate rice porridge for dinner
-Then sang Carols (...meh, the Finnish ones.) while waiting for Santa to show up.
-Santa was a woman (I don't think this is traditional...but whatever.)
-ALL the presents are 'from Santa' which is just odd. But a nice cloak of anonymity is thrown over crappy gifts.
(Too bad I left all my gifts at the apartment...now they're all going to know what was from me. When they get them. Eventually. Dangit.)
-Everyone opens their own gifts at the same time
-...neatly
-Then, once everyone has finished they present what they've gotten.
-Then it's pretty much bed time. Though some of us did play one of the new games - Ubongo.
-Christmas morning I slept in till midday.
-Had a lunch of leftovers...
-Then got on Fb :)

So yes. It's quite different. As in, today doesn't feel like the 25th. At all. Like Oula said, it might as well be the 26th. True that.