10. The digital age

One of the most underrated and overlooked perks of the digital age is the instant access to almost everything we as a society have achieved. The internet is a wonderful tool, yet we take it for granted and don't even realise just how much it has affected our daily life. One thing that amazes me is the speed in which technology has advanced in the recent years. Looking back 10 years when I was just a small first grader, our computer then seems almost primitive compared to my current laptop. I have grown up with digital machines as part of my everyday life, whether it is through gaming or looking up a cooking recipe online. Maybe in the future people will talk about my generation as the digital generation, the very first one to grow up around such a plethora of useful digital machines. The limits of the internet truly are endless, you just have to know where to look. And how to look. Googling itself is truly a skill that some people do not possess. Knowing the right keywords in order to find the specific item you're looking for can be hard, but not for long. As hardware develops, so does software and the complex algorithms behind your internet browser are being developed to make the internet more accessible to people not used to it. At this point I should say that knowledge doesn't equal understanding. I can use the internet to do and find a great many things, but if you asked me how it works, I wouldn't have an answer for you. Educating people about the possible dangers, such as breaches of privacy (looking at you, government of the USA) or viruses and the laws concerning the internet should be a top priority.

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9. CV and application letter

Hey. I'm Pekka Järviautio, a Finnish 16 year old secondary school student coming to Sheffield for an exchange year and I would like to apply for a paid internship at your Daily Telegraph office in Sheffield.
It would be very suitable for me to be an intern there, because I have in the past been on two unpaid internships at a newspaper office in Helsinki as a part of my basic education. During my two weeks I followed the journalists around, watching and studying and taking part in conferences.  I even got to write a few sentences of my own into an online article.
One of the reasons I chose your company was because a member of my host family in Sheffield has worked as a paid intern at your office years ago and recommended for me to apply too. You're also a respected newspaper and it would be great work experience. I hope you contact soon and the CV is down below.

Curriculum Vitae

Personal details 

Name: Pekka Järviautio

Address: 111 Buckingham Palace Road

Telephone: +358 50 5050505

Email: pekkajarviautio@hotmail.com

Date of Birth: March 18, 1999

Nationality: Finnish

Education

2015-present: Helsinki School of Natural Sciences

2006-2015: Helsingin Yhtenäiskoulu

Work experience 

 

2013 spring: Internship at Kotimaa yhtiöt

2014 fall: Internship at Kotimaa yhtiöt

Language skills

Finnish: Mother tongue

English: Excellent

Swedish: Basic

German: Basic

Computer skills: Word, PowerPoint, Excel

 

Interests: Football, winter sports, swimming

References: Available upon request

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8. Innoday

A few days ago I took part in a huge teenagers innovation event at Hartwall Arena called Innoday. I had to collect five stamps to a card to prove I was there and to get a stamp you had to submit an answer to a question, e.g. "How can we encourage teenagers to find jobs in their home region instead of moving to a bigger city?" I got 5 stamps really quickly and was out in 45 minutes. A shame, really. I could have stayed and listened to Hjallis Hjarkimo talk about entrepreneurship and innovativeness.
Some of the people giving out stamps were really into it. They told you to pitch your ideas to them and criticised and complimented everyones answers.
The only problem I had with the event was the shameless advertising of beer to adolescents, they should have definitely hidden them.

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7. Job hunting

http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/

I figured since I'm going to live in Sheffield for 10 months, I might aswell get a job there! A paid internship would be quite nice. I could work weekends and holidays there. But it's wishful thinking that this is a guaranteed source of income. I will definitely not do any work without getting paid. The Daily Telegraph office of Sheffield could work out nicely, because I have been on two unpaid internships at a newspaper office here in Helsinki as a part of my basic education. The Daily Telegraphs origins are in London: it was founded in 1855 by Canadian-born British officer Arthur B. Sleigh as The Daily Telegraph and Courier. I'm not that interested in journalism, even though this would be the third time I have been as an intern at a newspaper office. I'm not familiar at all what kind of newspaper it is and at this point I'm too lazy to look it up anymore.


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6. Dear host family

Hello! My name is Pekka Raimo Juhani Järviauto and I will be living with you for 10 months. I have already read all about you, so I guess this letter will be primarily about me, my introduction. Where should I start? I'm a 16 year old male from Finland and for as long as I can remember, I have longed-for a chance to live in another country, but not because I dislike Finland, I love this place! It would just be temporary, since all my family and friends are here. That's the reason this student exchange programme is the best thing that could've happened to me, though maybe it's too early to say.  I just feel like broadening my horizons.
Regardless of the fact that I really do want to join this exchange programme, I had been feeling anxious for the past few months. My worries began with a simple question: what if the host family doesn't like me? But the moment I read about you guys I realized that I was overreacting. You seem like a nice family from what I read and I look forward to our time together.

I have lived in Käpylä, a district of Helsinki, for about 9 years now. It's a nice and quiet place with plenty of woods. I have always had a short walking distance to school and to the train station next to me, for which I'm very grateful. I compared the temperature differences of Sheffield and Helsinki and noticed that your daily hottest mean temperature is 16.9 °C in July and coldest 4.4 °C in January and February. Helsinki had 17.8 °C in July and -4.7 °C in February. Record low temperatures were for Sheffield -14.5 °C 111 years ago and -34.3 °C for Helsinki 29 years ago, and you get a bit more water than us. Now you might have an idea about the climate differences. I play football with my friends here really often, everyday when it is summer and I'm in Käpylä and almost everyday in autumn and spring. I'm 184 cm tall and I'm pretty slim. Brown hair and brown eyes. In my immediate family I have both my parents, a brother, both maternal grandparents, 3 maternal uncles and my dads mother. I also have a dog and two cats. The dog, Caroliina, is part Karelian Bear Dog and part Labrador Retriever.

The school I'm at right now is Helsinki School of Natural Sciences (Helsingin luonnontiedelukio or Hellu). It's a decent school and there are good teachers there. My english teacher is especially good, which is why I will be able to talk with you effectively when I'm there. All my friends went to different schools. That's the only negative part of going this one. I still see them everyday though, so it doesn't matter that much.

Like I already mentioned, I like football! I don't watch it that much but I play it alot, sometimes behind my old primary school but usually at the local sports field. I should be getting better at it simply because I play it so much, but I don't really see any progress. I saw that there are sports fields near your home too, we could definitely play there sometimes.

Can't think of anything else to say. We can chat with our emails, right? I think we both have each others info already. Look forward to meeting you! -Pekka

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5. Finlands education success

Finlands education system is fantastic. That's what most people say and it might be true. From a students point of view, the two reasons why Finland keeps getting top scores in international tests, even though our students are spending the least amount of time in school, are
1. our educated teachers
and
2. the modest amount of work required from our students
It's that simple. Now that I'm accustomed to this "lazy" life, doing any more work would be out of the question, although I do acknowledge the fact that compared to the amount of work students in other countries have to do, we Finnish students are pretty lucky. In my opinion, children need get alot of free time in order to grow up to be stable, intelligent adults. According to a short video by the BBC, the reasons to our success are trust, in students and the school faculty, a positive and a not too overwhelming working environment, generous support to kids with learning difficulties and highly educated teachers.

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4. School vocabulary

Finnish educational system

English education system

Arithmetic - Aritmetiikka

Backpack - Reppu

Basic education - Perusopetus

Classroom - Luokkahuone

Degree - Tutkinto

Dictionary - Sanakirja

Encyclopedia - Tietosanakirja

Exchange year - Vaihtovuosi

Folder - Kansio

Grade - Arvosana

Highlighter - Korostekynä

Ink - Muste

Janitor - Siivooja

Keyboard - Näppäimistö

Laptop - Kannettava tietokone

Notebook - Muistivihko

Principal - Rehtori

Preschool education - Esiopetus

Protractor - Astemitta

Polytechnic - Ammattikoulu

Pupil - Oppilas

Question - Kysymys

Recess - Välitunti

Stapler - Nitoja

Student - Opiskelija

Teacher - Opettaja

Univeristy - Yliopisto

Vocabulary - Sanasto

Vocational - Ammatillinen

Whiteboard - Valkotaulu

Work experience - Työkokemus

Qualification - Pätevyys

3. My new school

Yesterday I finally found out what city I'm going to live in and what school I'll be attending to during my exchange year in England. I think that normally I could've chosen the school myself, but we encountered some problems and it seems this was the only option.  Anyways, the name of the school is King Ecgbert School and it's located in the city of Sheffield, South Yorkshire. The school is named after a royal chap called Egbert (or Ecgbriht) of Wessex. I'm quite relieved to hear that this isn't a single-sex school or a boarding school, since I read that there are many of them in the UK I still don't know the exact location of my host family and I'm not familiar at all with Sheffield, but one step closer to my exchange year, right?

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2. Testing myself

a.
Today I visited the school counselor and talked with him about my upcoming exchange year. Among other things, we talked about is this whole exchange year the right thing for me. He gave me the links to a couple of personality tests and I decided to do the color test. Of course the test is purely for entertainment purposes only and does not give an accurate description of your personality, but we figured it could be fun and then I could compare my own views to the results of the test.

The test is in two parts. First there is a number of different colors on the screen and you have to pick them beginning with those that you prefer. Then you have to pick them beginning with those that you dislike. The results were as expected. Made to feel really specific, but in reality, the results always have just enough vagueness to apply to most of the users of the website, giving a false sense of precision. I even tried it a few more times and the results only varied a few percentages, regardless of the colors I chose. However, such harsh critique of a simple color test is probably uncalled for. After all, it isn't even possible to get accurate results with such data as a persons color preference.

 

You are 54% extravert and 46% introvert.

I disagree with the results. I don't feel like an extravert, I've always considered myself more or less an introvert.

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b.
Determined to uncover the truth to my personality, I ventured out into the internet and found another personality test. This one was far more precise than the first one. Nevertheless, the results of internet personality tests should be taken with a grain of salt. There is probably a hundred statements in the test and you have choose do you strongly agree, agree, slightly agree, slightly disagree, disagree or strongly disagree on each statement. You can also choose neutral, but this highly discouraged. Here's my results for the test.

 Your personality type is:

Logician

How you interact with your environment:

35% Extraverted 65% Introverted

Where you direct your mental energy:

62% Intuitive 38% Observant

How you make decisions and cope with emotions:

67% Thinking 33% Emotional

Approach to work, planning and decision-making:

42% Judging 58% Prospecting

How confident you are in your abilities and decisions:

 73% Assertive 27% Turbulent

Give or take a few percentages in each category and in my opinion it's kind of in the right direction atleast...

https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

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1. My upcoming year abroad

Hey. My name is Pekka, I'm from Finland and I'm 16 years old. I'm starting a blog about my exchange year in England. I didn't choose England for any particular reason, I just happen to speak the language and I'm reasonably interested in its culture. I don't actually even know the specifics of the approaching exchange year. I have no idea who my host family will be or what school I'll be going to. So yeah, I'm pretty excited and somewhat nervous.

I guess I should tell you something about me. Well I was born in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, that is located on the coast of Southern Finland. I have lived here all my life and I quite like this place. I lived the first half of my life in Ullanlinna, a district of Helsinki. The second half I've lived in Käpylä, which is a nice little quiet place. How do I look, well I have brown hair, brown eyes and as you have probably deduced from my name, I'm a boy. Average height, average weight. Nothing out of the ordinary. I have a dog, Caroliina, who is a female mutt. She's part Karelian Bear Dog and part Labrador Retriever, the rest of her genome I'm not sure of. I also play football (soccer, not gridiron or rugby). But don't think that I'm any good at it though, I'm pretty bad considering I play it almost every day with my friends.

I can't really think of anything else to say, so I guess my first blogpost is done. I'll be doing more of these probably. :) Thanks and see you later!

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