Back to school

Summer holiday is over. The children started school this week. Their daycare centre was closed for one week and we missed 3 days before that when we took a cruise to Sweden.

The kids were very excited to go back to school. Finland starts the academic year in autumn so the kids went back to new classes. They are excited to see their friends again, and seem keen to make new ones.

But I am also referring to myself. Today is the first day of Helsinki Summer School where I have enrolled in a course.

Back to school after more than a decade. I'd thought I'll be the oldest student but it seems that I have a companion in Esther, a girl from The Netherlands. I may have dwelt on my agedness too much because she had to tell me that both of us are actually still young!

During the welcome ceremony today, the course coordinator announced that 60 countries are represented among the 360 participants, starting from Albania to Zambia. The largest representation came from China (40), followed by Germany (37) and a wide array of students from all continents (except Antartica). Seems that Finland has just around 10 students. Only 1 from Singapore... moi.

My course held a briefing today so I had a glimpse of my classmates. There's a German, an Italian, a Venezuelan, a Japanese, a Finn, a Swedish Finn... I didn't catch all their names and nationalities.

It's always fun to meet people from other countries and cultures. Everyone is different... unique.

I have a Chinese classmate who spoke fluent Finnish. Initially I'd thought he is studying in Finland and has taken Finnish lessons. It turned out that he is from Beijing but had lived in Finland when he was a young boy. His primary (elementary) education was carried out in Finland and he returned to China 8 or 9 years ago. He didn't use Finnish afterwards until he arrived in Helsinki 2 or 3 days ago. Amazingly, he spoke Finnish and to me, he spoke like a native. He claimed that he isn't very good but I believe that he just needs some time to "warm up". It's like someone had turned on a switch in his brain and he speaks Finnish all over again.

I'm sure I'll meet more fascinating people the next 3 weeks. Besides meeting new people, I also hope I can follow the course and learn something useful.