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Swinging into School


Well, kind of. We had orientation three days this week and had a chance to meet our fellow LLEES classmates. The program is truly international with students from Taiwan, Germany, China, Korea, Greece, Basque, Bangladesh, Iran and Mexico. There are only twelve of us right now but there are two students from Ghana and one from Nigeria who haven’t been able to make it due to visa issues. Besides being international, the areas of interest vary a great deal so it will be fascinating learning about everyone’s thesis topics and professional experiences.

The inside of the cathedral
Life on campus has changed dramatically. When I first got to Turku, you would see a few tourists hanging around the cathedral, which is on the edge of the University of Turku and Åbo Academy campuses (there are three universities in Turku, the third is Turku School of Applied Sciences). Now the area has throngs of students walking to and from the city center to the universities. Coming from a university town, this is a familiar phenomenon but somehow it feels more festive here than it did back at home.

There have been many highlights this week: meeting my classmates, being able to show people around who are newer here than me, discovering the other university cafes so I don’t have to go to the one in Educarium all the time. But the biggest highlight has been discovering swing classes!

Swing hadn’t originally been on my radar but I ran into the Turku Swing Society’s stall at the University Opening Carnival and changed my mind spur of the moment. The first class was the same day so in the evening I trekked over to Tarmon Talo, a rather innocuous wooden structure pretty close to my apartment complex.

My first thought walking into the packed room was that I was the only one there who had significant amounts of melanin in me. It’s interesting because the only other times I have been so hyperaware of my race have been when I was in Japan and Korea. Fortunately, learning a new dance puts everyone on the same playing field so this feeling quickly went away.

Another thing to note was how very un-Finnish the atmosphere was. If you’re going to spend even a few minutes dancing with a person it’s best to be somewhat friendly. Of the 36 leads I danced with, I only learned two of their names but that’s a start. There also was the Finnish guy who turned beet red when I smiled at him. It was adorable.

The best thing was that I ran into some of these people while walking around campus during the rest of the week. We don’t know each other well enough to actually say hello but it’s nice to recognize faces in the crowd. Turku is starting to feel like home.

PS. Please know that I do read your comments, even if I don’t respond to them! Thank you for all of the wonderful feedback so far.

Love,
Avanti

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