Hyvää maanantaita kaikille!

Mitä kuuluu? God måndag alla! Hur mår ni?

Now you may wonder what on earth is she saying….”Good morning everyone, how are you doing?” is another way to put it. There’s two official languages in Finland: Finnish and Swedish. However only about five percent of the population speaks Swedish as their mother language. Rest of us (me included) try to learn Swedish in school but fails miserably - mostly because of lack of motivation.

Most Finns speak good English but especially with older people it’s always good to know some basic phrases in Finnish. So here you go!

Hei/Moi/Terve = Hello! (terve means also "healthy")

Hauska tutustua. = Nice to meet you.

Kiitos! = Thank you!

Ole hyvä! = You're welcome!

Kyllä = Yes

Ei = No

Anteeksi = I’m sorry

Paljonko kello on? = What time is it?

Olen eksynyt ja tarvitsen apua. = I’m lost and I need help.

En puhu suomea = I do not speak Finnish.

Yksi olut kiitos. = One beer, please.

Viina = spirits

Sauna = sauna

Terva = tar

1 = yksi

2 = kaksi

3= kolme

4= neljä

5 = viisi

6 = kuusi [kuusi means also ”spruce” (Picea spp.)]

7 = seitsemän

8 = kahdeksan

9 = yhdeksän

10 = kymmenen

Kuusi = spruce

Mänty = pine

Koivu = birch

Metsä = forest

Kirves = axe

Kokko kokoon! Kokkoko kokoon? Koko kokkoko kokoon? Ok, kokoon koko kokon kokoon. Koko kokonko kokoot kokoon? Kokoon. Kokko kokoon! Ok!" = Make the (camp)fire! Campfire? The whole camp fire? Ok,I´ll make the whole campfire. U make the whole campfire? I´ll make. Campfire must be done! Ok"

Thus I challenge you all to learn at least few of there words, numbers and phrases! Any person who learns the last phrase correctly will receive a big big pint of beer or juice from me in August.

Spring greetings,

Jenni the Penny

Student parties

Hi again,

Well we all have parties in every country. Some of them are a bit different from each other, so I thought I would show you guys how we do it in Finland.

Usually people know there's a student party when you will see overalls. Yep, I said overalls. It's a Finnish way for student's sometimes to dress on those. There are a lot of different colors and things you can put to them. Most of Finnish forest students have green overalls, of course, but there are exceptions. One is that Tuomarniemi University of Applied Sciences (forest), has gray overalls. This is simply because some other degree program took it before them. So every degree program have different colors but they variate between different schools.

I have to say that "clean"/untouched overall looks kind a boring. For that boredom we have overall badges. There are thousands of them and you can even design and order your own. Usually when there's some kind of student party going on, there's overall badges. You can always change badges with other students to gain more. No one says what you can or can't put on to your overalls, almost everything goes!

Last we have some pictures from our events:

-Mr. Rossi

Enjoy the moment! Enjoy the sunny winter days!

I also want to send my greetings from Finland! They who were last year in Korea get to know me as "one of the Finnish Mikkos". Yes, Mikko seems to be quite common name among Finnish foresters, and you will notice that in next summer. My responsibility area in the organizing committee is defined as "IT and publications", but what do I really do? I update the websites and the blog and now I'm working with the registration form. And later there will be much more to do...

Let's stop writing about IFSS. How is Finland today? Today we had a fantastic sunny winter day! First time since autumn I went walking without a woolly hat and gloves. I also climbed a bird-watching tower to test my new camera. I was very happy for the camera, and I had to put some pictures here.

I tried to photograph a bird sitting at the top of a spruce (I cant't recognize the species), but then a crazy great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major) wanted to come to my picture.

Skiing is one of the most popular

outdoor activities in Finland. And why not, because the conditions for skiing are excellent? Today I didn't take my skis with me,but tomorrow I planned to do that!

I hope that you

all can come to enjoy Finnish nature next summer!

Best regards,

- Mikko