ALMS English 2023

This week I did a bit more to catch my time plan.

I had support group meeting. We did discussion about the second writing and got new instructions for third. Not much about to tell. I do like the support group idea, but I thought that I could have had more feedback from the teacher. Well, wiser now.

I did write third task. This one was the hardest one for now. I star writing on Wednesday, continued Friday and finished on Sunday and all this because I just couldn’t figure out what to write. I had the plank paper syndrome. I wrote something, then wiped it off and wrote something else. I got the beginning quickly, but the rest was hard to scrape together. Finally, I was happy for the result. Time has gone over an hour together.

And some news reading of course. Read very sad new about the fire in apartment in Vantaa. The fire started at night and four children and mother got dead. That is a very good reminder that everything can happen. The other news at this week talked about the Israel conflict. Very sad and depressing. A lot of news talking about the Finland’s government. It is true that some cuttings must have done but now they are doing it wrong way. Taking off some social supports is not the answer because you are taking of people who really needs it.

I did watch one movie which lasted 2h. The movie was called “Knives out” and I founded it from MTV. I dared watch it without texts and luckily understanded everything. The movie was murder thriller with some comedy, and it was fun and hooking. It was acted out movie and the detective was Daniel Craig! I have seen one James Bond when Craig was acting Bond. I think he did a good job in this movie too.

We got spontaneously the first meeting with our own support group or “coffee group”. We; me, Victoria and one of our friends went to the café in Helsinki and discussed. Our friend, Eevi, had this course last spring so she was happy to help and came with us. We discussed about our studies and this course and what we have now in periods one and two. I haven’t seen Eevi since spring, so it was nice to do a little chat.

I read my book for an hour and got some chapters forward. The narrator got to the point where he starts doing acting. It was fun to read how he felt doing some scenes I have seen a lot of times.

Here is my timetable:

This week I had not much time to do anything. My energy went to the workplace and thoughts rounded there. Also, another course got a lot to do at this week.

But again I did the news reading on my way. Some news was telling cooling weathers all over the country and I got to feel them. I was so cold outside at the end of the week. There was also news about walk outs for different careers because of governments cuts. One article told Helsinki-Vantaa airports walk outs which lead on super long lines at the security check.

One interesting article talked about Kenyan students who are studying in Finland. The article told that Kenya has promised to fund their students’ studies, but the money never came to the schools neither Finland. There is suspects about a few Kenyan officials and the governor who might have sent moneys to their families. Finland still educates students and offer work after graduating. Studies includes Finnish studies. Even that many students choose to move back to Kenya or another country like Denmark or Canada.

Support group meeting was on Monday and we did deal with the first task. It was lovely to hear two writers to read their own texts and got the picture of place in mind. Break out rooms worked out well and we got some feedback. Next task is a bit challenging because we have to write academic text.

Second writing task for Writing in general support group took me a while, 45min almost. After I had chosen my subject for which to write the problem was the academic view. I have never written academic text in English before, so it was a bit tricky. I have read academic texts and write it in Finnish but just translating text is not an option because linguistic is a bit different same with the structure.

I used Manchester University’s academic phrase bank and got some ideas how to express differently and more academic way some sentences. I still think it was not academic enough, but it will be better when I keep writing more.

I did continue reading my book for an hour (three chapters).

And that was about my third week, here is my timetable at the end:

This is the second week in my ALMS course.

This week started my support group: Writing in General. It is going to be every Monday, five weeks from now on. The first meeting was chill, we just talked about what do we want about this group. Do we need more academic or non-academic writing. We did the mix. The group is small which is good because it is safer to write or read own texts. I choose zoom group because it is not that awkward than live group would be. I have some fears from high school…

Again, I did some news reading on the buss while going to the campus. Three times a week, about 10min per a day. This week I did read news about the student occupations all over the country. I have seen the Kumpula campus occupation while going there but I haven’t taken a part. The news talked about how today’s government in Finland is planning to do some savings or “the austerity measures” like it was written. Petteri Orpo’s government do appreciate pro-business and workers and promises more jobs for everyone so that everyone could pay bills for the salary, not for the social supports. It means that they are making cuts to housing allowance and studying allowance. There is going to be even more but these two are the main for students to fight for.

Of course, there is a few news about the Ukraine situation and Putin’s doings and savings, but I have just read the main titles. I read an article about the unseasonably warm weather in September where meteorologists expected temperatures climb as high as 20 degrees. It is quite warm as September. I know myself something about weathers because of my science studies and it is not a good sign to have that warm in September. How ever I did enjoy warm weather.

This week I did the firs writing task for the support group. The task took me abut 30min to do and I did it outside on patio at the summer cottage. It was hard to figure out how to start but I decided to write about the view, what do I see, hear and feel. Text does not need to be academic, so it was easy and fun to do.

I did start reading one English book at the cottage. It is not academic, it is “easy reading” as I wrote to the ALMS plan. It is a biography or more like a memoir like the author describes it. I started a book calling: “Beyond the wand – The Magic & Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard”, Tom Felton. It is a book that I got last Christmas and haven’t haft time or energy to read. Now is a perfect time to do it. The book tell Tom Felton’s story or memories from his childhood. He was the legendary child actor from Harry Potter films, Draco Malfoy and now he is going to talk about the journey to the actor, acting out, behind the scenes material and life after film shootings and fame around it.

I just read first three chapters because I am slow reading. I have to keep translator next to me and really focus on reading in English that I can understand everything. I have never read a single book in English but this one has not been translated into Finnish, but I am curious to know his story so I decided to read this book in English. I have read all the Harry Potter books in Finnish a few times and watched the movies a lot more, so I know this is going to be just fantastic!

The first chapters told about Felton’s childhoods, about his family and neighborhoods. He did introduce his older brothers and told his “tough” teenage friends. He did not get into the acting career yet.

Here is my timetable at the end:

First thing I did for this course was watching a movie. I don’t usually watch quite much movies, I just don’t have time or that and the first problem was where to find a movie with English texts or without it. I don’t have Netflix or any other streaming service because I don’t have time for those. If I ever want to watch something I’m using YLE Areena or Ruutu or MTV for that but now the problem was that of course every movie in there were with Finnish texts. So I decided to by HBO max for this course and watch some stuff from there.

Movie I chose was called “The Blind Side”. It was acted out movie, based on real life story behind American football legend Michael Oher. I watched it with English subtitles and it was a good choice. I understanded almost everything and keep on a wheel the whole movie. There were some words I did not know but if it seems to be important for the narrative, I translated it. For example terms tremendous which is a synonym to huge, blunder which means mess up and predicament which I’m still not sure what it means in the movie context but synonym dictionary says it is the same than awkward or difficult situation.

First movie was great and in my counts I still have 4 movies to go. Nice opportunity just be and watch something!

I watched another movie next day and I chose movie called “Bad Education” which was also acted out movie. This time movie was also based on real life case where American school systems moneys were used wrong. The head character, Frank Tassone and his coworker are school district superintendents in Long Island where they try to lead public school system and be one of the best schools in the country. However, they use millions of dollars tax money from their wealthy public school district for their own expenditures for examples private flights or huge houses on the beach. That was the largest school theft in American history. The story is unbelievable and gives a lot to think about. Luckily I watched the movie with English subtitles because there were so many hard words I needed to translate. It was a bit hard movie to watch because I did not know much about American school system or things behind it. Also a lot of cultural and geographical terms.

I did a short googling about the case and yes, it is still the largest school theft. I can’t even think about that happening in Finland! I have known that American school system is a bit odd and crooked but this is a whole new level. In America there is private schools and public schools. Public schools are in weak reputation because this kind of things but also because it gets the moneys from the state and taxpayers not straight from the students’ parents like private schools. It has been said that private schools give better education; motivated teachers, better materials, safe school areas and high level teaching. Public schools are famous for cheap education and less motivated students and teachers. Those were high stereotyped examples but that is the picture we got here from news or movies and series.

I enjoyed much watching this movie too, gave me perspective about Finnish school systems greatness.

I did also read some news in this week. I found out that YLE is writing news from Finland in English, so I have read those. I haven’t opened any news in Finnish this week just read it in English. I read about for example Sweden’s Crown Princess Victorias visit in Finland. She was taking part for Hanalhomen Swedish-Finnish Cultural Center 50^th anniversary. She also went to the Hanken, Swedish language business school in Helsinki and enjoyed her time there speaking with students and eating with them.

Some other news did tell about the President election in Finland for example how Olli Rehn became selected to Finland Center Partys candidate or who are the candidate for Cristian Democrats and who are already signed in as a candidate for upcoming elections.

I did this news reading about 10-12min every three day I were on my way to campus. I read new on my phone in the bus, and it was pretty nice. Once I almost skipped my stop because I was reading too interesting news.

There is my first period timetable at the end…

So this blog is for my ALMS English course in autumn 2023. I’m going to show my doings and mark down what have I already done and what have I planed to do. Welcome to follow my journey!