Kiukku

Kiukku is a word I learned on my work placement. It means anger (my dictionary actually says "crossness"). Anyway, it's a pretty useful word at the moment since it more or less describes my feelings at being back at language school. I didn't learn the Finnish for waste of time though, and that would have been even more useful just now.

About 8 weeks ago I was told that my work placement was going to be at a nursery school. Before it started there we were two weeks of lessons about Finnish work life. They were unbearable. I was given the choice to go back to the normal lessons just before I went and I was on the verge of doing it before deciding on a "get it over and done with policy" and, well, getting it over and done with. The idea of working in a nursery school was not one that I contemplated with any kind of relish. I was pretty sure that I would not like it and the thought of trying to corral 5 year olds who wouldn't understand me filled me with terror.

I arrived on day one determined to keep an open mind. Sure, it was probably going to be pretty awful but it was only 7 weeks and starting the work practise expecting horrors was probably the best way of making sure that it happened. As long as there was some kind of improvement in my Finnish then the whole episode would not be a waste of time. I had met the staff that I would be working with and they had seemed to be pretty nice so I figured I would keep quiet and knuckle down.

However keeping quiet and knuckling down is a pointless and boring way to fill the time. After the first day had been and gone and I had sat watching children play or eat for six hours I left feeling glad to have survived a group of children and feeling that I had acheived fairly little. So I looked for ways to relieve the boredom. Ultimately that meant actually interacting with the children. Slowly I got myself more involved in what was going on. Initially that meant doing my best to stop the children killing each other. Anybody checking the statistics will find that I did that aspect of the job especially well - in the time I was there, no-one died.

My days were slowly filled helping the children put on their outdoor clothes, helping them take them off, nudging them along when they set the table for dinner, getting out and putting back beds, and so on. I'm not sure when it happened but at some point I realised that I was enjoying myself. Sure, there were bad moments - mostly when not much was happening and I was again just watching. But the boring times were not that bad and were partly the reason I was there in the first place. That is, I was rubbish at doing the job because I couldn't speak Finnish. If I could have spoken more Finnish the job would have been even more enjoyable.

At the moment, I'm giving serious consideration to going to school and studying so I can start working properly in a nursery school. However before that can possibly happen I need to improve my Finnish. And so back I go to Finnish school. And it's intolerable. Yesterday was spent listening to people complain for three hours about their experiences. One guy seemed to be mostly upset that the place he was working in expected him to actually do some work. His logic was wonderful - he was only on that course because the job centre paid him do it, so it was unfair of them to make him go to work. People seemed to miss the point that learning a language usually involves using it in some way.

I'm hoping that when I go back to the normal lessons and actually study Finnish it will be a more pleasurable experience. One discussion point yesterday was "what is Finnish work culture like?" I have worked in a variety of jobs for more than ten years and still I couldn't describe British work culture - every job I have had has been different. So there is no way for me to describe Finnish work culture after seven weeks. If I could do it, I wouldn't have the words to talk about it in Finnish.

Hopefully it won't suck all of the life out of me and I'll manage to struggle on. It's giving me Kiukku though!