Day 20: Reading + College Essays

After the action-packed three days spent at the summer cottage in Kustavi, it was time to settle down and relax at home. The fact that it was miserable and rainy outside also deterred us from venturing outside into the blustery weather. 

My host father Kari owns an interior design firm (raumainterior.fi) that specializes in producing beds and cabinets for luxury cruise ships, such as Royal Caribbean, but today was the first day of Kari's summer holiday, so he also stayed home! Marja cooked a delicious curry chicken pasta for lunch (keltainen kanna pasta in Finnish). On a side note, in Finland, lunch is free from kindergarten up until high school because everything school-related is funded by the government, which in turn is funded by the Finnish taxpayers. Apparently, curry chicken pasta was voted by Finnish high school students around the nation as the most delicious lunch in school, and Marja simply borrowed the recipe!

I spent most of the day reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and browsing through the AP English Literature curriculum for next year. 

In the afternoon, I continued to research in depth various schools and craft college essays. I'm so happy that almost all of the schools I'm interested in have excellent East Asian Studies and study abroad programs, two of the most essential aspects I desire in my future college. My UChicago supplementary essay is coming along nicely, as I've found a way to tie it into my experience in Finland this summer. My Why _______ essays are still a bit unsophisticated and rough, however. Hopefully I'll have them polished before school starts in mid-August. 

Tomorrow, depending on the weather, we will probably be driving to the city of Pori, Finland, which is a town about 45 minutes away by car. Its population is around 85,000, which is double the number of Rauma's 40,000, so I'm excited to explore the city!