The End - Stage & Goodbyes

Gosh, so much has happened since I've posted last. Actually, I'm back in Alaska, but for now I'll just post on what took place during the remainder of my exchange year. Once I've thought more about how I've learned, grown, and shared during this last year, I'll make one final post. But for now:

Stage -

An absolutely mind-blowing experience. Our team of 16 student performers, 3 student media helpers/script writers, 2 local teachers, and one incredibly talented and wonderful celebrity (Eeva Vilkkumaa) had no idea how much we were to learn and grow, musically & otherwise, during the two-month Stage experience. We began with creating our musical.

The 19 students worked together to create a story that appealed to all of us. We spent about a week brainstorming. The final plot sketch: a teenage boy, Kristian, dies in a car crash. He is sent back for one more day on Earth to redeem himself and correct his past mistakes (previously he was somewhat arrogant and selfish). He must learn to respect his friends and family.

An angel and a devil, detectable only by Kristian, complete both Kristian's good side and his evil side. They also serve as narrators for the audience. Other characters include Kristian's little sister, constantly hurt by Kristian's absence and rudeness, Amanda, Kristian's ex-girlfriend and eventually the antagonist of the story, and Tony, a stereotypical cowboy and Texan exchange student and Amanda's new boyfriend. I, the American exchange student in real life, naturally got the role of Tony; it was an incredibly fun role to play.

Before the live performances on television there were two aired episodes with footage of the teams creating story ideas, inventing characters, and rehearsing for the live performances. Going into the first live Stage airing, most of our group thought we would be the first team to be dropped. (At the end of each weekly show [excluding the first show], the three judges [two permanent judges and one guest judge] would decide which team would be dropped between the two lowest-scoring teams in respect to votes. In the final, the judges obviously had no say in determining which team was to win; only the voters did.) In actuality, though, the first live show went incredibly well. And the next went better. And the next even better. In the shows we included songs by Michael Jackson, Katy Perry, and the McCoys, and from musicals such as Rent, Grease, and The Sound of Music. We also wrote one song for a very important scene with the help of a local musician, Luca Gargano. All in all, we ended up making it to the finals and getting second in the competition. The winning team, the team from the city of Tampere, took first place, and therefore got places in a summer theater as actors. They adapted their musical from the Stage program and performed it a total of 17 times that summer in Helsinki's Peacock Theater. Many people from our team were disappointed that we didn't take the first place position, having made it so far at that point, but all of us were also incredibly grateful and contented that we had even made it that far and had had the time of our lives as Finnish TV stars.




By the time Stage had concluded, school was also wrapping up. The weekend after school ended, I partied with friends to celebrate the end of school and the beginning of summer. My parents came to Finland about this time (they made it there to see me in the Stage finals in Helsinki!!), and I showed them a bit of my Finnish life for a bit. Then we popped down for a little traveling in Switzerland, Austria, and Italy. They went back to Alaska at the end of this two-week venture, and I returned to Finland for a week and a half. During that week-point-five I spent time at my second host family's summer cottage in Ylämaa, traveled Finland a bit, and saw friends for the last times before my departure on the 29th of June. Goodbyes with friends were hard. Goodbyes with my host families were harder. I never wanted to leave, though I never felt horrible about it even through the airport stage. Once I got onto the plane and was alone, though, I started thinking about how when I came to Finland I sort-of-knew one person in the whole country... and now I was leaving after creating a whole life there, with a new language, school, and families. I was thinking about how many friends I had made and all the unforgettable experiences I had. It really hit me then, and I burst out crying and I couldn't stop for an hour.