Chapter 2: Veera Simola
You don’t always notice someone is different from the first appearance. Just like this, Veera Simola blends perfectly in among all other students in the crowded high school hallways. A normal-looking girl, her notebooks and books stacked under her arm, making her way to the next class. However, her name does not seem very…American. And if you talk to her for a while, you will soon notice an unfamiliar accent in her friendly voice.
Because she is, in fact, not American. The 16-year-old teenager is a foreign exchange student from Finland who will be spending this entire school year as a senior at Pleasant Valley High School.
For her, there were a lot of reasons to come to the US. “I wanted to come here to learn how to really speak English, make international friends, experience the high school student life and the American culture – and see if I want to live here someday.” she says.
Indeed, there are some major differences between her Finnish and American life. Coming from a large family with four siblings living in a mid-sized suburb in southwest Finland, she now stays with a Bettendorf family in their Iowan home – surrounded by corn fields. She now lives with her American family, that means the parents, three younger siblings and two dogs. “I only got to know where exactly I would end up some months before I came here – I didn’t know my family before that, and neither had I heard of the state Iowa. However, I Googled it and I was really happy that it wouldn’t be as warm here as in the Southern States,” Simola laughs.
High school is also not quite like in Finland. “Back at home, we had no homework, our periods were 75 minutes long, lunch was free and we could call our teachers by their first names.” But still, she enjoys being here, which gives her a lot of opportunities to try out new activities. A former passionate fitness boxer, she now practices with the Junior Varsity Basketball Team and participates in the Ceramics Club. Also, she really enjoys her classes, especially Spanish, and works hard for her grades. “She is a lot quieter than her classmates, but surely, she is a good student.”, her history teacher, Jeff Meyers, says.
But the teenager’s time here is not only about studying and spending a lot of time with her host family, there are also opportunities to travel every once in awhile in order to see as much of this country as possible.
“This summer, I spent a few days in New York City, and this November, I will go on a Caribbean Cruise with my host family, which I am super excited for. Maybe I will even travel some more with my real family after this year is over.” The bucket list, of course, is still long.
However, there are also some things the Finnish exchange students dislikes. “I don’t get to eat as many fruits and vegetables here than I used to. Also, the breaks between classes are very short and stressful; in Finland, we had 15 minutes. Plus, the school buses come so early!”
Despite these complications, she does not regret being an exchange student at all. “It’s just awesome. You are going someplace all on your own, and yes, sometimes it’s hard, but it’s so worth it. You learn a lot during your stay in a different country. I, for example, realized that, after all, the US and Finland aren’t even too different.”
In the end, there will always be more things connecting us than separating.