We had our second meeting today with Ella. This time we met at café Puisto and it was super nice to see her face to face. Felt so much more natural to have conversations and it’s nice to actually see people after being in that online bubble for so long now.
About half of the time again was spent talking in Finnish and the other half in English. I have to say we flow quite seamlessly from one language to the other. There is no awkwardness in it. It felt goo practising my English pronunciation and it’s very easy with Ella because if I don’t seem to find a word for something, she helps me with no hesitation.
One notable thing I learned, during our discussions was about the taxation in the US and how for example product tax can differ a lot depending on the state you are. That is pretty interesting to me. I have always wondered about the differences between the states. I’m very keen to learn more about this. I also never thought that the US would have such strong military culture that there is this thing called military discount, which means people working at military service get a discount from almost anything, this applies to their families too. I’m really in love with the story of how Ella’s parent met in Italy when her mom was backpacking through Europe and her dad was stationed there. I think that is a beautiful and unique story, really worth sharing and whenever Ella mentions something about it I can’t help but smile. Because Ella has traveled the world, she has knowledge on places I have not been to. It’s really interesting to hear about what for example Italy is like, since I’ve never really been there.
The topic of our discussion today was the books we’re going to be reading for this course. I had a problem because I found two possible books that drew me in. The first book was about Karl Lagerfeld the longtime head of design for Chanel, which happens to be my all time favourite brand. Chanel is my inspiration on so many levels and I’ve read many book about her life and career, but not about Lagerfeld’s. The second book option I had was about the third gender of Thailand also known as ladyboys. That topic has always had my interest and I’ve actually had this book for some time now, I just never seem to find a good time to read it.
Well this was not the time for that book either. After discussing with Ella about it I realised the book about Karl Lagerfeld would have more to give me at this point and it would make a great topic for an essay. My plan is to write a blog essay about that book and share my inspiration behind it as well.
Ella wants to focus on leadership on her literature this time, which I found very good topic in general but I think since she is so young that book could be even more beneficial for her. I’m very excited to see what she gets from that book and have a discussion about it. Some way my book is also about leadership because Karl Lagerfeld was in charge of one of the biggest brands ever, so we’ll definitely have some mirroring opportunities here between our books.
We also had a discussion about what a good essay is. Here is some of the things I gathered from that discussion:
– The text should be seamless.
– You should refer to things previously said or mentioned in order to show the connections.
– There needs to be a key idea that goes from start to finish.
– Circling back to the start at the end is a good way of closing the essay in a natural way.
– Do not repeat the same words/sentences over and over again.
– If possible find different ways of expressing the same thing so the text becomes more colourful.
Next step for us is to start reading those books we chose. Personally I’m really excited to read this book and write the essay about it. I think Ella can give me really valuable feedback once we go through the essays together.
Written By: Emilia Parikka
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