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Vol. 18, No. 5, August 1, 2005

IN THIS ISSUE:

This Reveille Home Page | Friday Program: A League of Their Own | Sayoko Kuwahara is ROTM | "Adopted" Highway Clean-Up | First New Member Mixer | Calling All Great Golfers & Putters | Friday Potpourri | Stewart Martin, Raffle Rotarian | Infirmary Tales | Former Bellevue Area Exchange Student Checks In | Web Fun

Former Bellevue Area
Exchange Student Checks In

A former Rotary exchange student from Finland, Suna Rautavaara, who spent a year here with a Rotary Club in the Bellevue area, recently sent this email, with an interesting update on her life since her Rotary experience, and how it affected her future.

• • •

I am a former exchange student from Finland. I stayed in Bellevue for a rotary exchange from 1994 to 1995.

To all of those I had the pleasure to meet and to all the other club members, too, hello from Finland!

It has now been ten years since I got back home from my year in Bellevue with the Rotary Club. Some of you will probably remember me, others I have never even met, but I wanted to let you hear my reflections looking back to my exchange year. It was probably the most important experience of my life so far, and as I later see it, changed my life for good. It is always an honor to be welcomed to the homes and lives of people from other countries and an experience to be learned a lot from.

During the last ten years I have travelled a lot all over Europe and some of the other continents, too, and I hugely value the things I learned from your country and culture. Some of these things are a somewhat positive attitude, a big smile (this has helped me many times), the habit of giving people compliments and thanking them (we do not use thank you-notes in every country), and that kindness can come in many different forms and people.

The thing, though, that sculpted my future the most after that year, was that I gained a huge amount of confidence during my year there. What you didn't know then is that I used to be bullied in school a lot, all the way until I was fifteen. I had gone to high school and gotten rid of the problem a year before the exchange, but the previous years influenced my life a lot. This all changed during my stay in Bellevue!! People were so amazingly nice to me, always smiling and giving me compliments, taking me to all kinds of places to see the country and making me feel like I was very welcome and special. This probably didn't cross your minds then, but you honestly made me a different person, and I went back home believing in myself and appreciating other people a lot more. After the exchange, nothing seemed to be impossible or too far from my reach, and that was a good state of mind to start building my future. I will always thank you for that!

Finally, a few words about my life nowadays: After I came back to Finland, I spent the next two years finishing my high school and graduated with good grades, even among the best 5% of my whole age group in English! I continued straight to a culinary institute to be a restaurant chef and to get a few more years to figure what to "really" study, as this cooking was just for fun to me, although I worked full time as a chef for a year after graduation. When I had worked for a year, I finally figured out what it was that I wanted to do for living, got accepted to the training the first time I applied and today I have worked for three years as an air traffic controller and can honestly say that I love my work.

During the last month I have bought my first home from the small city of 8000 people, where I live, and most of my free time goes into painting and making new floor, which is kind of fun, although I've never done something like that before. Most of my week-ends I travel and go to practice camps with the Finnish junior synchronized swimming national team, whose team manager and second coach I am, and also an international judge if needed.

As you can see from this letter, I have grown to be a very happy person and I'm doing ok in life. I want to thank you for all that you have done for me and for all the things I learned from you. You should know that with other Rotarians, you are doing valuable work that really makes a difference in young peoples' lives, makes us understand other cultures better and be more tolerant towards each other. You should now all pat yourselves in the shoulder for the good job!

I wish the best for your country and it's people, and finally all the members of your club. Keep up the good work!!

Suna Rautavaara, Finland (Bellevue 1994-1995)

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