Not just sign language

Hi!

I haven't really done a school related post in a while so here's one. When I was applying here, I went through every blog post I found about this education so maybe someday in the future someone will find this as helpful as I found those blog posts a year ago.

For someone like me, who learns by doing things and is a pretty visual person, this education is just perfect. First of all, I've always loved languages but I've never been really good at them so actually understanding sign language and thinking it's pretty easy is really awesome for me. It's definitely my favorite subject in school, unless it's the last class of the day in the classroom we spend most of our days that has some problems. But I don't ONLY study sign language, this school is so much more. We might have a whole day of boring-ish lectures once in a while but we also do A LOT of group projects and presentations (things that terrified me before), play different games and recently we've had classes on how to instruct music, art, craft, sport sessions where we actually got to do a lot of different things. We learn a lot about instructing, the deaf culture and services that might be useful in our future jobs.

Some famous deaf people

I got a 3- on our 2nd sign language exam. I was pretty proud of myself tbh :P

Something I drew on our recent group project :3

3 pictures above are from art/crafts instructing class

We learned about noise in music instructing class.

This blog post was supposed to be much longer but I've tried to write this all week and couldn't come up with more for some reason so I'm not going to force any more text out :D Maybe I'll write another one later. Now I'm off for my winter break that I'm spending in Helsinki :)

See you soon!

~Susanna

Boxing gloves and yoga mats

Hi!

I'm not gonna write too much this time but I had a few pictures in my phone and I thought I'd post them here. I had an idea for another long post but I'll save you this time :P Here's some stuff that has happened this week:

We had self defense classes all Friday last week and all Monday this week. I think it was one of my favorite courses we've had so far. We learned some basic stuff like what to do if someone grabs your wrist, hits you or strangles you and how to handle aggressive customers.

This school week has been so exhausting and it's only Thursday. We had two 10 hours long days, an exam and another exam tomorrow. I feel like we've had more homework than we usually do too. I'm so happy tomorrow is Friday.

My calendar looked fuller than it usually is too. I'm really excited for the weekend because I'm finally having a housewarming party. Five of my school friends are coming over and we're planning on watching all the Lion King movies, get some pizza and other yummy food. I'm probably going to make some chocolate chip cookies too. I haven't really had much to do on the weekends here so I'm just really excited to have plans with some amazing people :)

And lastly, yoga classes finally started today. It was really relaxing and I had fun. I'm so excited to have a new hobby this year especially because I've been interested in yoga for a while now but never got around or had time to sign up for classes.

See you soon!
~Susanna

3 first weeks

Hi!

I can't believe how fast the time has gone by. I've lived here and been in school for three weeks already. I thought today I'd write a bit more about school and how I've been liking it. This is probably going to be a lot of text but please bear with me.

I'm just gonna start from the beginning. I was still pretty lost at what I wanted to do with my life during my senior year of high school. It felt like everyone else had at least some kind of plan and I ended up applying to schools I wasn't really even interested in but they were much more higher education than the schools where you study to be a sign language instructor. Maybe I felt like I didn't want to disappoint anyone who had high hopes for me, like my parents. Do I even need to mention that I didn't end up getting in? Anyway, I had an amazing gap year and I got to make few of my biggest dreams to come true so I don't really regret anything. 

We don't have books but this is how many pieces of paper we've got in just three weeks...

When it was time to apply to schools again, I decided to apply without thinking about anyone else but myself. It was my future after all. I remember getting an invitation to an entrance exam for the school I go to right now and I got so happy. I left the exam feeling pretty confident but really nervous. The day I got the results, I actually cried. I really felt like this was something I wanted to do.

Now that I've been in school for few weeks, I couldn't be happier about my decision. I really feel like this might be what I was meant to do. I absolutely love sign language and everything we study is at least somewhat interesting. I also like the fact that I never end up thinking "will I ever even need this in my life?" during classes. And most of all, I actually like going to school. Sure, it still sucks to wake up early in the morning but studying something that I'm interested in is so motivating.

One thing I've been so so so happy with and what motivates me even more to go to school is my class and just people in my school. The second day of school we met all the older sign language instructor students and they were so welcoming. Also my class is just absolutely amazing. I have never got along with everyone so well in my class. Sure, I don't really talk with every single one of them on daily basis but we do a lot of group projects and I used to hate them especially if we didn't get to pick our own groups but I have nothing against them now. They were especially nice during first weeks because it was a good way to learn everyone's names. 

I decided to start this school year with a new attitude and I'm actually proud of myself for doing so. I've always been the quiet and shy one in class. I absolutely hated presentations, group projects and asking questions in class. Now I don't even get nervous about presentations, I enjoy group projects even with people I don't talk with all the time and I'm somewhat active in classes. I think big part of that is because I actually feel comfortable in the class and I'm surrounded by amazing people.

I'm currently taking 7 classes and more start every week. We take everything from Finnish sign language to ergonomics, child's speech development and professional knowledge. Right now we're concentrating on child and youth studies but soon we're also starting adult and elder studies. Our first on-the-job learning is after our fall break already.

Well that ended up being longer than it was supposed to be. Sorry! I just feel like maybe I can look back on this in couple of years when I'm graduating and see how I was feeling and how that has maybe changed.

See you soon!
~Susanna

First week

Hi!

I'm so sorry it's been so long. I was supposed to write this blog post on Monday but I've been just so busy with everything. Better late than never though, right?

So, I'm now in Rovaniemi. The move went well. I forgot to take a lot of pictures but I had time to snap a few and here they are:

This is not even all of my stuff.... whoops

My new tv stand :D I love it

This is my new lamp. It's actually bright pink in real life. It's amazing

First day of school!! eeekk

So far I've been really liking Rovaniemi. It's obviously not as big as Helsinki but it could be so much worse. At least there are a few shopping centers and most of my favorite stores can be found in here. I really like my school too. Everyone in my class are so nice and I absolutely love sign language. I was so nervous if I would make any friends here but I've already went out after school with my classmates a few times and I hang out with one today (more about that in the next post). 

I already have pictures for a next post so let's hope it won't take me this long to write it haha :D

See you soon!
~Susanna

"Soon you will be translating the news on TV"

Hi!

And no, I won't be translating the news on TV. People get really confused with what I'm about to go study and what I will be after I'm done with school, even my mom seemed to have no idea. So I thought I would clear things up a little bit and explain what I will be studying for the next 3 years.

 x

The title in Finnish is "viittomakielen ohjaaja" which translates to sign language instructor. So no, I won't be a interpreter. They are two different careers and you study them in different schools. For example, if I wanted to be a sign language interpreter and somehow got into a school to study for it, I'd probably stay in Helsinki but I don't. I'm very interested in sign language but I never saw myself as a interpreter.

What is this sign language instructor then? Well, obviously I'm still not fully aware as I'm not in the school but I will try to explain it as well as I can. I'll correct myself if I'm wrong about anything in the future :D

x

A sign language instructor can work with kids, elders and basically anyone between. The work in educational and assistance assignments in places like schools, day cares, camps, service homes, courses, morning and afternoon activities for schoolchildren... You get the point. A sign language instructor can also be a personal assistant.

Sign language instructors can instruct and assist deaf people, those with visual or hearing impairments or both, deaf-blind people and developmentally handicapped clients as well as clients with specific language impairments. Because of this they're not only familiar with Finnish sign language but also sign-based communication methods (like signed speech, sign supported speech or signing key words),
augmentative and alternative communication methods (like gestures, pictures, drawings and objects), and plain spoken language.

x

So I hope that cleared up things a little bit!
See you soon!
~Susanna