Sampsa (Sam) Pöyhönen

2009-10 Inbound from Finland

Hometown: Vääksy  Finland

Sponsor: Asikkala Rotary Club, District 1390, Finland

Host: DeLand Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida, USA

School: DeLand High School, DeLand, Florida

Bio

Sam's Bio

Hi. I'm Sampsa, but most people call me Sam. Almost a month ago I started a life changing journey over the Atlantic Ocean with many excited Finnish kids on the same plane. I was one of the lucky ones who got this opportunity to pack their belongings and head to New York. After the amazing weekend in the Big Apple I sat in the airport again, this time heading to Daytona Beach. My host club is great here and I'm lucky to get Curcio family to be my first host family.

My hometown Vääksy in Finland is small, but in Finnish standards it’s above average. There are over 5000 inhabitants but the amount almost doubles in summer. The town locates in southern Finland, 125 miles from Helsinki and around 20-30 miles from Lahti. Now I’m living in Deland, maybe 600 feet from Downtown. The school I am attending is the Deland High.

I want to thank all of the members in Deland Rotary Club and RYE-Florida for allowing and helping to make my dream come true. This year will be one of best in my life, full of new experiences and people, learning the new and having fun. I will never forget your hospitality.

February 1 Journal

So this is my first journal! I try to make it as long as possible and to remember all the things I have been doing in past months in Florida!

So let’s start it all from the beginning!

My first weeks in Florida were learning the new stuff. Very first week I was sick whole week and I was tired all the time (I seemed weird to my family, but luckily they changed their opinion about me... I never told them that I was sick). My lovely host family took me to all kinds of places during that time.

Ok, now I tell you about the school. When the school started I was so happy, because I had waited it for so long and I wanted to meet American teenagers. My expectations were wrong… I tried and tried, but everyone was kinda mean or just didn’t want to talk to fez (foreign exchange student). So I gave up in two weeks to talk to everyone (well… maybe it was weird), and just talked to people who asked things about me and my lovely home country. Luckily I met some kids who were willing to get to known with me more (like people in yearbook and girls in cafeteria), so I got those friends that I had been trying to make for so long... Most of my friends are girls and the reason is that somehow I think that the girls are more mature (most of the guys in my classes aren’t, of course some are).

In school I have math, law studies, German, English, American history, yearbook (now pottery) and personal fitness (now weight training). I really like the people in my classes. Sadly my yearbook teacher didn’t understand that I’m not that good in English so she kicked me out of yearbook that I had loved and where I had worked for so long. Well, I still like Ms. Jem! She, after all, is the best teacher in my school.

That’s most of the school, so I continue… My first months were great! I went to my school’s football games and I saw most of them (GO BULLDOGS!). My job there was taking pictures of cheerleaders for our yearbook (I think that they don’t use them, but whatever).

Then my first homecoming came, which was great. I also went to homecoming in Sanford, but it wasn’t that good. Also my first Thanksgiving was great.

Our district made a trip to St. Augustine. Wow that city is awesome! There I stayed with Zee in host family (I was supposed to send some Finnish chocolate to them, but I ran out thanks to my family dog who ate rest of my stash).

Then the trip to Disney came and that was awesome! Every day was different there and the Reflections of Earth was so unbelievable! We met one crazy lady who started to argue with us about that we are bad people and we ruin the holidays of other visitors there. That lady was so annoying, but kind of she made the day more exciting.

Christmas was good, even though it was the first one without snow. But the time with the family was great. Otherwise the Christmas break wasn’t that great. My new year was also kind of boring, we saw crazy Chinese movie with bad subtitles and that was pretty much it.

Then they kicked me out from yearbook … I don’t really like my school anymore, I lost almost half of my friends already and I hate waking up so early. I still have good friends, but not as many that I used to and that’s kind of sad.

Then the trip to Key West came and wow that was so great and made me happy again. I love other fez’, all of them, and I’m happy that all of us met one more time together. I’m going to miss all of them so bad… Well… I already do.

So thank you all in my Rotary club here, RYE Florida and my Finnish Rotary club for everything!

April 7 Journal

Now it is time for another journal from me. It has been long time since I wrote last one, and lots have happened after that.

First of all I tell about school, and get over with it. Last journal I told how boring and how upset I was when I got kicked out from yearbook. It really turned out to be great to go in Pottery, people in there are cool and I have lots of fun there. Somehow they think that I have three kids back in Finland. I explained that it’s not true.

School has been overall good, a lot better than in January.

During the weekends I’ve been hanging out with my friends in movies or “parties” (if you can call them that way), having fun though.

And then other weekends I’ve been with my wonderful hosts. They were so cool that they bought me 4 day pass to DISNEY! I love them so much! They also took me to Palm Beach to see Surfing contest, one of the oldest in America. It was cool, though there were no waves so we didn’t really see any surfing. Also the parking took hours.

I have learned these past months that even as an exchange student, things can go wrong and there are some down hills. But they can be get over with almost as fast as they come.

I really love my time here in Florida, and I can’t believe how fast it goes… it's soon time for me to leave all this behind and go back to cold, icy Finland. Probably in the future I wonder where I spend all my teenage years, now I have something to remember about that wasn’t completely waste of time.

This journal turned out to be kind of short, but I hope it doesn’t matter.

Thank you RYE Florida!