BACK TO REALITY

So the last days in DR went by way too fast. I soaked in all the sun I possibly could and took nice swims in the sea. Can you believe I was taking a morning swim and lay on the beach on Wednesday and now I'm back in Utica and battling approximately -17 degrees. Big jump in degrees there compared to about +30… Not mad at all. I started to actually get pretty okay with going back because traveling that much is no vacation if you thought that. Well, the last 12 days was as close to vaycay as I could come, but before that it was all traveller mode on and that ain't easy every time. I'm probs going to do a post on stuff I realized during my travels, because there was lots of shit going through my head. I don't know if that's part of finding yourself or soul searching or whatever, but it was relieving and even rewarding some times.

Classes started on Thursday and I'm actually pretty excited about most of them. I'm taking Publication Design, which is mostly graphic design and learning InDesign, then Digital Photography/Advanced News Photography, where we learn about Photoshop and taking pictures that tell stories. Also I have Public Relation Cases, where we go through various cases in PR, Social Media, in which I haven't had a class yet and then PR Writing, which seems a bit boring, but it's probably very rewarding in the end in terms of learning to be a better writer. Plus gym classes in volleyball, yoga and aquatics maybe and later on tennis and golf. It's going to be a packed semester and it will go by so fast, but hopefully it will be awesome!

Tonight we're going to cheer for our hockey guys and then out later on :)

Clothes/Shoes/Accessories Exchange year in the US Getting fit Pics Studieliv Studying Traveling

Great Ideas & Cunning Plans

One final exam down, one more to go, then Christmas break! Testet vi hade var löjligt enkelt och jag tackade mig själv för att jag inte onödade tid på att läsa på det. Jag kanske missa på någon fråga men det gör nog inte något alls, borde få A i alla fall. Ja, här kör vi ju på A-F system, lite att vänja sig från vårt 1-5, men i princip samma, förutom att man kan få minus (-) eller plus (+) också. Jag har ännu en exam om två timmar och borde kanske ens kolla igenom anteckningarna sådär snabbt, för det här testet kommer nog vara mera att skriva (tar laptopen med så går det snabbare). Borde nog gå helt bra ändå, men man vet aldrig. Istället sitter jag här och bloggar…

Ikväll tänker jag göra exakt ingenting vettigt. Bara slöa, titta på en film eller så, njuta av att ligga under filten och kolla på snöstormen och främst av allt: försöka bli frisk. Och fortsätta kolla in grejer att göra på mina destinationer under lovet. Jag köpte en söt gul anteckningsbok inne på Urban Outfitters för några dollar som får fungera som min (rese)dagbok, notebook, memory board osv. Så dit ska jag skriva ställen jag vill besöka under resan och allt möjligt annat nödvändigt att veta, t.ex. spanska fraser inför Dominikanska Republiken. Ha en så underbar fredag alla!

Kom ihåg att kolla in min BUCKET LIST för kommer göra vissa av grejerna under resan!

Exchange year in the US Studieliv Studying Traveling

NOTHING BUT FINALS

Hello!

Finals are keeping me busy this week. We don't really have that bad finals, as many others do, but still we gotta work some. I still do not see the point of having a final test where you know there will be 40 multiple choice questions and 3 short answers that we already know which they are… Easy breezy! I do like my final project in another class though. Me and my group are creating a webpage for the 27 Club, you know the artists who died at age 27? Well, you can check out what we got so far here. We will be adding content until Thursday so be sure to check it out :)

This weekend we had a little wine night on Friday, on Saturday we went to see the Teddy Bear Toss hockey game. I have to say that our college hockey players are so good! When we scored the first goal everyone threw their teddy bear on the ice for charity and it was just amazing because there were so many! Our guys won the game 5-2 so that was awesome! After that we had a night out, even though it wasn't the best one, it was okay.

Now back to studying (before midnight breakfast tonight. Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like!)! Ciao ciao!

Said goodbye to Icey, that I had known for about 2 days. Bye champion, make some kid happy!

Just one part of the ice, so you can image how many there were!

Exchange year in the US Party/Happenings Pics Studieliv Studying

I'M BACK ON TRACK!

Just a quick hello here to let you know I survived Boston. That city is so far the best one I've visited here. It was even better than hyped NYC, let me tell you that. I'll write more about Boston and the trip in another post. Still haven't written about Montréal either… Such a lazy blogger. No, really I just have lots of stuff to do and blogging is the last of my concerns. And one more thing about the trip, the best thing really was that I saw my BFF Aoife again. Soooooooo superduperamazing :) Thanks for visiting girl, bisous <3 Can't really believe on how many trips we've been on together already and we have only known each other for 3,5 years :D

Me and Eef

Finals week is just around the corner and we're really just going through the last things in every class now. Today we had the most important presentation I've ever had to do so far for a real client. I told you earlier that we were working in groups this semester to create a PR campaign for our client, not-for-profit organization Thea Bowman House. Oh, yeah, our campaign was a Thanksgiving food drive for the TBH food pantry. So today we presented our campaign and I was really impressed by all of the groups campaigns. Everything was so professionally done and thought-out. See, this is why I enjoy studying here. Everything is on a whole different level than back home, everything is more real and tangible. I've learned more than I ever thought I would during this semester and I'm so happy I'm staying for another. Finally a good life choice! :D

Food bin for the Thea Bowman House campaign we created.

This week is going to be interesting since it's the last real week of classes before the Christmas break, were having a fundraising campaign with PRSSA this week and there's a charity UC Pioneers men's hockey game on Saturday (Teddy Bear Toss), if we get tickets that is.

Now I really need to do more homework and meet some deadlines. Have a nice week!

Study study

Exchange year in the US Pics Studieliv Studying Traveling/Tourism

Homecoming, Playboy and a 24 hour meltdown

So homecoming was fun and so on and so on. I'm just letting you know I survived and that the last 24 hours has probably been the worst since I came here. Again, time management is not my strongest attribute. Today I handed in a research paper I've been doing on Playboy and of course I started a bit late with it. Plus we had a group assignment due today which I started on AND finished today before deadline. Then we had night class for 3 hours, so I'm knackered right now. I will still try to read for a quiz we have tomorrow and just go to bed as early as possible. I'm going to treat myself with the latest episode of Hart of Dixie before that though (if I can keep awake that is...) and like do my nails or something. So cheers to me and Anna who made through this day!

Homecoming fair and fireworks later on. We even bought candy cotton! Later in the evening we went to a fraternity's (AXP) semi-formal party in the library (that's a first!). It was fun. Let's just leave it at that.

Reading, reading, reading... Very interesting though!

I've had way too much fun with The Simpsons: Tapped Out to distract myself from homework.

"Oh, my, what a nice change!". Got funny feedback from one of the profs for an assignment on music. He apparently thought it was a nice change that someone listens to, excuse me, REAL music instead of most of the crap that is played today. Not being judgmental or anything, because I myself listen to that crap sometimes. Haha.

Took the obligatory "tired girl-selfie" today. I don't look that tired (neither does actually anyone who takes these), even though in real life I felt like crap.

Peek-a-boo, the studying continues!

Dreaming about being back in NYC. I'm apparently having way too much fun with the art and sculptures in the city in the second one....

And I'm missing this little fella. She's grown soooo big already and I'm still mad at my sis (last picture) that she didn't get the dog when I'm back in Finland. The doggie is gonna be all big and boring when I get back. And of course I miss the dogs at moms, and my mom with whom I communicate with mostly by playing Wordfeud and my sisters. And all my cute friends. Buhuuu. Well the time flies here, it's soon November already, what happened?

Exchange year in the US Party/Happenings Pics Studieliv Studying Traveling

HOMECOMING

It's homecoming weekend and even though a couple of days ago I had practically no idea what homecoming is, I'm pretty excited. After all, it's my first American college homecoming, and probably my only one also. It's a weekend when alumni come back to their college and parents of students and so on. They have different events, speakers, parties and a small fair with rides. So it's pretty fun I guess. Yesterday I was swamped with homework though so I didn't do anything special, but tonight we're probably gonna party a little. I just came back to the dorms after watching half of an American football game with the UC Pioneers against the Ithaca Bombers. I still don't understand the rules, so it's not that fun to watch. Well, now I'm going to continue my homework and hope I'll finish enough of it today.

Kanye West's Homecoming pops always in my head when I think about homecoming by the way :D

Shit my phone camera quality is sooooo bad nowadays. WTF iOS?

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WORK HARD, PLAY HARD(ER)

I'm still awake. In the middle of the night. I just finished studying (done that pretty much since like 2 PMish), and still it doesn't feel like I got enough done. Gaaah, I hate this feeling. I actually didn't finish anything today, just started on everything, which is not good. I'm not good at finishing projects that way. We've had a crazy week with Anna, and lots is still to come, since we have a midterm tomorrow, a quiz on Friday, and also I need to write a blogpost for my project blog and hand in a research paper outline on Friday. I still haven't figured out on what exactly I want to do research on, or more what I'm able to do on, since I can't find sources. I'm just bad at researching I guess. And I'm way late with writing this weeks column that I need to hand in tomorrow.

We've had some beautiful mornings and beautiful sunsets.

I've probably said it before, but the amount of homework we have here is way more than at home. We have much more to read for every class and a lot of written assignments, both smaller and bigger ones. Also we have quizzes almost every week, that we usually don't have back at home. There we have just one big test in the end of each course in the end of the semester and you crazy study just before the test. It doesn't feel like you're studying at all actually. But the pros are though, that I've learnt so much more here in just a little bit over a month than I probably have in one year back at home. I don't know if it is the mentality here, that you have to try to get good grades (or is this just the bored exchangies?), or if it's that we actually have the small quizzes in-between that work up toward the bigger test in the end. The "big" test doesn't seem as frightening when you've had the chance to test your knowledge a handful of times before the actual test I think. Well, I've done pretty good so far, so I'm actually not that worried about the test tomorrow. I just have to wake up earlyish and read the rest of my notes. Yeah, and that's also one thing, you can actually do very well if you only take notes during class and read them for a test. I haven't opened an actual course book for a test yet and that feels so nice somehow. There's just TOO much information in the books.

Well, now I guess I need to round this post up and go to sleep. I'm overly tired so it's hard to fall asleep,  and also because I'm all worked up and still trying to process all the info I've taken in today. Good nightie all (or actually good morning back in Finland)!

1. Beer pong (with water, whaaaat?) on Saturday. 2. Night out in BLU on Saturday. 3. Rainy night. 4. Chocolate. I miss Fazers Blå!

Still rocking shorts and skirts bare-legged. It's getting a tad to cold now though.

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FIRST MONTH IN AMERICA - check!

It's been nearly a month since I came here. So thoughts and feelings about this first month? Confusing, exciting, sometimes boring, amazing and probably also overwhelming. I wrote my first column for our college newspaper yesterday and to be honest it's quite exiting having something published in a real paper! I will try to write a weekly column about whatever I'm thinking about and experiencing here.

Should I use #1, #2 or #3 as my "mugshot" for my columns byline? ;D

I haven't actually done anything exciting this week (yet). It's been all about homework and school school school. We had a quiz yesterday and another today and I actually think both went pretty well. On Monday our PR Campaigns group visited Thea Bowman House and the food pantry that we're going to concentrate our project on. What an eye opener! I think it's just horrible that some people have to go on every day not knowing how to get food or clothes for their children, let alone for themselves. This not-for-profit organization really needs help and funding, because it is doing a good thing for it's society! I'm pretty happy we're trying to do something for them this semester and in this course, because it's actual work in a way, even though we will not implement our campaigns for real. It will help them along the way anyway!

Visit at the Thea Bowman House. The Peace Garden.

I really miss Finnish chocolate and rye bread. I'm starting to get tired of the food here, even though we had some awesome Indian food yesterday and in a couple of weeks I think we'll have some sushi. That's gonna be awesome!

Indian food. I can't remember the names of the things we ate, but I know naan bread. That's something right?

One of the last skirt days I'm a afraid.

Exchange year in the US Pics Studieliv Studying

THE AFTERMATH

Hello! I really should be studying, but I just can't get my head around to do it. I've done one assignment so far and have some reading to do too. Crap. I think reading stuff on Upworthy or Cracked.com is much more fun. And now I was asked if I want to play cards. Well I could.. In a second. I'll finish this post first.

So yesterday we went to the jungle party and it was actually a nice party! It wasn't as hot as people had said it would get, but don't get me wrong, it was pretty hot anyway. The dj's who were playing were really good and played some nice beats. Only bad thing was that I got a small panic attack at one point and felt dizzy because it was crowded and I started crying a little bit. I don't think anyone actually noticed, because eveyone were so busy with their own stuff. That made it just worse, because I had a hard time orienting myself from the crowd even though it wasn't that big, but if you're in panic nothing seems easy. Luckily this is something that happens only like once a year or so. So after that episode I had a hard time having fun, but it was okay anyway.

We got home from the party with shuttle vans that got people to and from the party for free. Such a good system! When we got home we were inside for about 10 minutes and suddenly the fire alarm goes off. Everyone has to go outside and wait until the fire truck comes and checks the place out. Did I mention this was at like 2.30 AM? Well, some of us embraced the opportunity and went to the gas station to have a Subway and when we got back the whole episode was over already.

Today there was another fire alarm, but in another building so it didn't concern me. Also we got to know someone was trying to "set the mood" last night when the fire alarm got the scent of the candles and triggered it, I would have guessed someone was smoking weed, but this time I was wrong apparently. And you know what happened this evening at about 8 PM. Yes, you guessed right. There was another fire alarm in our building. This is getting pretty old now guys! It was apparently triggered from one of the rooms where two of the hockeyguys live and one of them was showering. So that's how sensitive they are.

Well now I'm actually going to go play some cards and skip reading, because why not? Have a nice one!

Sunday selfie ;)

Exchange year in the US Party/Happenings Pics Studieliv

American College Life

Hello there! Has this week started off alright for you guys? Lets do this the American way: I don't expect an answer on that or any other "Hello! How's it going?"/"How are you?" either. I still have no idea what to answer the lady at the caf (cafeteria) when she asks if I had a good day, because she doesn't really want an answer. I feel awkward every time that question comes up, honestly. So in that way I'm still not totally americanized.

My week has actually started off really good. Monday started out with morning volleyball practice and then two classes. I have my own domain now and I'm about to start blogging there soon enough for this one course. You can find the blog here: jasminekukko.com. Follow and comment if you like! (Will make my teacher (and me) happy!). It's still a work in progress and not at all how I want it to look like, but eventually I will learn to use wordpress and get my interviews done.

Today we had volleyball practice again and it was so much fun! We actually had a game going on now! And next week we actually start playing tennis against each other, since we've now learned the basics. I feel so grateful right now. Just because I got the chance of coming here and also that I'm learning new things every day. In class we learn so much more somehow, because we repeat things a lot and we actually get to know what is coming to the quizzes in advance so we really learn the most important things. I think this system is still a little bit silly though. My first writing assignment went pretty well, A-, and then I got a 92/100 on my first quiz so I'm happy. Hopefully this flow will continue throughtout my year here.

Another interesting news is that I'm going to start writing a weekly column for The Tangerine, our college newspaper. I'm going to be the female "Lasse" as Louis said. Haha. Lasse was another Finnish guy from our school that was here last year. I can write about just anything so it will be nice and fun I think. I want to do that to improve my writing skills and also I have just about 400-450 words that I can use so maybe I will finally learn to be concise.

What else? In a couple of hours I'm off to kickboxing and I should read another chapter for mass communications after that. So adiós for now!

My messy schedule.

Selfie from yesterday :P

Today there was this organizations and clubs fair (much like Gulisakademin for you back home). 1. I joined PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America). / 2. A club I'd like to join, but I'm afraid I'm not nerdy enough to go through comicons and such.. / 3. International Student Organization's table was empty, but I'm in that one already. / 4. A 9/11 memorial.

Exchange year in the US Pics Studieliv Studying

Frat party, soccer party, just collegelife man

I don't quite know how to descibe this Saturday night. Just so much happened tonight that I need one whole post to describe the houseparty we went to tonight. It's just over 2 AM here and I should really go to bed, but I want to blog first so I won't forget all the stuff that happened today.

Well lets start with telling that we started drinking at the dorms, just a couple of drinks while playing a drinking game (obviously). After a while we got a ride from Matty to a soccer house party. Yes, the sports clubs, fraternities and sororities have their own houses here that people just party in. Cray cray! This one was better than the fraternity party we went to yesterday, since it was less crowded and you could actually walk from spot A to spot B. Oh and yes, we were out partying yesterday too, such a fun night even though I was not that sober. Playing flip cup and all... With tequila. Not a good idea guys! I needed one of those crazy nights. So tonight we went to this party and after like 10 minutes people started shouting that we should go down to the basement since the cops where outside. So without knowing any better we went down to the basement and it was so dark and moist in there. There we were, crammed in a basement of some random house and I swear I saw a spider. The upside is that they actually had music there so it was fun. After a while we went up again and there were less people than before. Sometime before twelve we decided we should go somewhere else, I decided that home would be the best whilst some of the others wanted to go out.

You would think this was it, but really, the cops outside the house, like 4-5 cars, one of them came to us and started talking to us. The end result was that one of us got a ticket (court date?) for having a beer in the hand. Seriously now? It's so strict in here and I can't effin' believe it. So really we've been through this whole collegelife party thing tonight. Getting to an over crowded party, the cops busting the party and someone getting a ticket. Might as well have gotten arrested alright! Also one weird thing is that the people who arrange these parties sometimes call the cops themselves because they don't have any control over how much people there are at the party. 

Well, I'm at least at "home" now, safe and sound, soon off to bed and just writing about this weird experience. This is not a free country and it's not that liberal either. I get annoyed of the rules we have in Finland about everything imaginable, but it's almost worse here because they actually do something about the rules, it's not just a courtesy thing as in Finland. So that said, I just want to go to bed now. Good night folks!

Serbian shot glasses. Cheers!

Flip Cup.

Nacho explaining to Filip how to play. 

Saying goodbye to my blond hair!

 Anna-Marie, our hair dresser, dying my hair.

Anne and Damir.

At the soccer house.

Basement party?

This is how they roll. Shaving cream all over the shower!

Some people played beer pong.

Me, Maria Claudia and Anna-Marie.

Posing with the cop car :D

Exchange year in the US Pics Studieliv Studying