Celebrating achievements

This was a week of celebrations in Jyvaskyla.  

School let out this week.  The end of year school celebrations here are a big deal.  We attended Katie’s graduation party (she completed 5^th grade) where each grade offered a performance of some kind.  Katie’s class performed a dance choreographed to their live band. 

Katie was the keyboardist.  She’s in her element when she’s behind a keyboard or a microphone.

We also celebrated her birthday!  

She turned 12 on Friday.  To celebrate?  Make a whole tray of cupcakes (Kirsti has MAD baking skills!)...

that you hold very carefully while all sandwiched into the elevator...

and then squeeze almost half the crew into the car...

 to head to MegaZone for a round of laser tag.  I realized it must have been quite a sight for the group of tween boys and their dads when they walked into the staging area and saw a group of 10 girls standing around the television watching the safety and instructional video.  Love it!!

The girls then got geared up and, given the choice, played against a team of adults.

Here they are coming out to check their scores:

The adults won.  But the girls still had a great time!!  They worked up an appetite for those to-die-for cupcakes that had a surprise inside:

chocolate pudding.  How do you even do that?!

This week we also celebrated Reetta's Viva (oral thesis/dissertation defense) and Karonkka (huge party to celebrate the successful defense of the thesis).
I saw Reetta the day before her viva.  She looked calm, collected and focused.  What struck me the most, though, was how she was able to be present in our conversation—and she was intent on hearing how my time back in the US had been.  After she left, I marveled at how she could engage with me in a meaningful conversation--and be focused on others and not on herself--the day before her Viva and just hours before hosting her opponent and her supervisor for dinner. 

The day of the Viva...

Eija Hjelt, me, and Sini Lemmetty practiced our smiles as we eagerly awaited the start of the defense (held in one of the original buildings from the mid/late 1800s).  We sat in Reetta’s direct line of sight and smiled—so she’d see happy faces as she responded to the questioning. 

The said questioning begins:

The opponent, Veli-Pekka Lehtola (professor of Sami culture at the University of Oulu in northern Finland), is seated on the left.  Sari Pietikainen (professor of Discourse Studies at the University of Jyvaskyla and Reetta’s supervisor/dissertation chair) is seated in the middle. 
Reetta is seated on the right.  She responded very well to his questions and critiques!!

Here’s Dr. Reetta Karjalainen right after her defense. 

Her opponent saw us taking pictures and without saying a word walked over and stood next to Eija as we were getting ready to take another shot.  

I took it as a good sign that he wanted to be included in the photo.  :)

That evening, we gathered to celebrate Reetta and her terrific accomplishment.  The karonkka (the huge party thrown in honor of Reetta’s successful defense!) was held in the Alvar Aalto Museum.  It was a lovely evening.  The tradition is as follows: socialize beforehand, enjoy a delicious meal together, and then spend the remainder of the evening celebrating the person who successfully defended.  (More about the tradition here.)  

Reetta was the first graduate of the MA program in Sami Cultural Studies at the University of Oulu in northern Finland.  She is also the first in that  program to graduate with a PhD.  

She's a trailblazer, this one!!

When Reetta learned that I would be back in Finland in time for her special day, she asked the chefs... 

to make the desserts gluten-free so I could enjoy this part of the celebration, too!!  :)
It just goes to show how thoughtful she is (she even ordered a separate dish for me because of my seafood 'allergy')!!

As her fellow PhD comrades, we wanted to honor Reetta in a way that would be meaningful (and fun!) to her.  So, after putting our heads together, we used Abba’s Dancing Queen song as inspiration for Discourse Queen:

Here we are (L-R: Sarah, Sini, Aija and Maiju) reenacting our performance.  And, oh yes we did sing—Sini as well.  Not only did she sing, (at the outset, she was adamantly opposed to any such thing), but she stole the show!!  

We passed out copies of the lyrics to the crowd and they sang along, too.  It was a performance to remember.  To top it off, we gave her a gift card for dance lessons she's wanted to take for a long time.  Now that she's reached her dream as the Discourse Queen, she's got time to live it up as the Dancing Queen!!  :) 

This weekend we also celebrated the high school graduations of Kerttu Lampinen and Kalle Koivisto.  They both donned their student caps (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_cap).  It’s common here in Finland for high school graduates to host their family and friends for a graduation party that lasts for a good portion of the day/evening.  

Kerttu (center) was one of the girls in the group of young women at church who I worked with when I first came to Finland.  It’s wonderful to see her grow into such a beautiful young woman both inside and out!  (She is a gifted organist.  It was wonderful to see her play in church today!!)  She made five different cakes for the party.  Here she is with her sister, Hanna-Marta:

Ironically, the first graduation party I attended in Finland was Hanna-Marta's, back in May of 2012.  Here’s the photo from that occasion:

She’s pictured here with her older sister, Milla.  Hanna-Marta returned home on Thursday from serving a full-time mission for the LDS Church on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah.  She made it just in time to celebrate Kerttu’s graduation.  Milla would have been there for the party, too, if she weren’t in California finishing out her full-time mission. 

Kalle Koivisto graduated as well.  We attended his graduation party and enjoyed getting to hear about his upcoming military service (which is required for all young men in Finland).  He’ll be stationed close to Jyvaskyla so he can continue to play for the floorball team (indoor hockey) here in town.  From there, he’ll serve an LDS mission (for two years).   

His sister (second from right), Eevi, is one of the girls who is also part of the youth group I worked with.  She leads the music at church.  I just LOVE cheering her and Kerttu (and the other wonderful young women) on as they continue to develop their talents!

Camille Clifford and her family were in town this weekend.  Camille served as a missionary here in Jyvaskyla in 2013 (see below for a photo of us from those days).  Can you tell by the look on our faces how WONDERFUL it is to be reunited again after two years?!  We even got to meet her parents and sisters.  It must be a special experience for parents to travel to the places where their children served—to experience for themselves what their children described to them in letters and shared through photos and videos.  Most touching of all, perhaps, would be meeting the people that their children came to love so deeply. 

(Sister Laurel Ehlen, Katie, Kirsti, Sister Camille Clifford
Adelaide, Connor and Edith Hansen are the super sweet kids--who have since returned to the US with their parents and have welcomed a new baby brother!!)

The last fun thing I’ll mention about this week was playing ultimate frisbee on the lawn in front of my office building.  I learned about this group one day back in 2012 when I was down on that side of campus for a work project.  They warmly invited me to join them for their weekly games, but other commitments made it difficult to do so.  It just so happens that they now place on Mondays and Thursdays during the summer.  

They kicked off their first practice and scrimmages this Monday.  So...where was I?  That’s right.  Out there running drills with them and then donning one of their jerseys for the game.  Oh--and trying to be quiet while chasing the frisbee.  As I’ve mentioned before in previous posts, Finns are quiet players and composed competitors.  I never realized how vocal I was until I played broom hockey with my colleagues.  I’ve since discovered that silence is appreciated on the field as much as it is off the field.  :)

The upside to missing this pass from Teemu was that it made for an awesome action shot!!
(Can you find the frisbee that's airborne?)

What a wonderful week for celebrating such great achievements.  

Really, it was about uniting in celebration of people we love and adore.  During Reetta’s karonkka, she came over and visited with Eija and me for a good long while.  When we asked her how she felt, she summed it up in these words: “I feel so loved.”  She had been serenaded with songs, messages, and gifts of love all evening long.  We were all there to celebrate her.  And she felt it. 
I hope that Katie, Kerttu and Kalle felt how loved they are, too!!