Joonas Keränen

2008-09 Inbound from Finland

Hometown: Kuopio, Finland

Sponsor: Kallaveden Rotary Club, District 1430, Finland

Host: Ormond Beach West Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida, USA

School: Seabreeze High School, Daytona Beach, FL

Bio

Joonas's Bio

Hey,

My name is Joonas Keränen and I come from Kuopio, Finland. I was born and raised there. Now I am living in Ormond Beach while on exchange in Florida and I am hosted by Ormond Beach West Rotary Club.

Time has passed by very fast. Now I have been four weeks here in Florida. I am already used to this heat, big cars, and palm trees. Also, I have got a little bit tan and burned once.

I am attending Seabreeze High School. First days at school were boring, but now it’s getting better and better all the time and I am making a lot of new friends.

I chose to be an exchange student because I wanted to discover a new country and culture, get more independent, and improve my English.

October 21 Journal

Time has been running very fast. It is already October and I have been here more than two months now, it feels like two weeks. I can’t believe that the weather is still nice and warm, which is really nice. The weather in Finland, my home country, is absolutely different now at the moment. I am sure it will snow back in Finland in next couple of weeks.

I had a birthday in October 14th. We invited a lot of people to come over, ordered some pizza and turned the hot tub on. It was funny, even though my birthday cake had a Finnish flag with white cross on the blue background.

I have already changed my host family once. First I lived in the countryside with a family which included mom (Linda), sister (Rachel) and brother (Rolly), who is an exchange student in Ecuador right now. Now I live a little bit closer to school with a nice guy called Tom.

I have been busy the past couple of weeks now. During the week I have been at school and during weekends I have been traveling. Couple of weeks ago we went to a golden wedding anniversary in Atlanta with my host dad and Ivan, who is an exchange student from Brazil. We went to Stone Mountain, which is the largest granite stone in the world. They have a ski lift to the top but we decided walk to the top and back down. We also went to the third largest Hindu temple in the world. Last weekend we stayed at St. Augustine with a bunch of exchange students from our Rotary District.

At school I started to do cross-country, which is running on the beach everyday after school. The next incoming week is Homecoming week, which means different events during the week and great Homecoming dance in Saturday. I am really looking forward that.

December 14 Journal

Hey everyone!

I thought it’s time to write few words about what is going on.

The weather is getting colder right now. Nothing very dramatic has happened, but still temperature has gone down a few degrees and I have to take a hoodie with me when I go to school.

School days pass off very quickly and after school I spend time with my friends. I really like to watch football, American football, especially when my high school is playing. Today I went to Jacksonville Jaguars game with members of my hosting Rotary Club.

A few weeks ago I had my first Thanksgiving. We ate turkey and some other traditional Thanksgiving food. Schools were out for five days

Last weekend I went to Disney World with all the exchange students around the Florida and few students from other states. The trip was great and I had a good time.

On next Friday our winter holiday starts, finally. I’m just wondering how I turn on my traditional Christmas spirit without snow.