WOW I HATE MYSELF SO MUCH

Of course. As if I don’t get enough crap for the way my last name is spelled already.

This is the Most Poorly Written Post I’ve Ever Made

Hamish, Andrew, and Emily. I think I joined a gang. I’m not sure. I don’t know if I like it.

Andrew

We took this escalator up to a library and then when the library closed we tried to leave, but there was only this escalator and it only went up, so we had to use the handicap elevator???? I feel like this architect could have just planned it so much better

group hug! awww

Pablo and Jorge DJ-ing like bosses

yoooooo Pabloooooooo

Martin is an amazing dancer omg

Oh Narain

Aakanksha!

Martin wearing Andrew’s glasses

wow my lense is dirty

we woke up at 7 in the morning to walk Aakanksha to the bus stop

THIS IS THE BEST SCHOOL LUNCH I’VE EVER HAD!!!! ILY ST. ERIK’S GYMNASIUM! First time I’ve had curry too!

This is my ID. I’m lookin fresh to death, but my name isn’t Aaron??????? Or is there something my parents aren’t telling me?

Okay so I hung out with the losers (I say losers lovingly. That probably sounded mean if you don’t know me.) in the first picture all night and it was great and Muna from Kungsholmen came along which was super cool of her and I hope she didn’t hate us.

The next day I went to the train station to meet Andrew so that we could go to Södertälje together and he was late. Andrew, if you’re reading this, I haven’t forgiven you yet. He told me to meet him at 12:30, and he came at 1:13.

Moving on.

We walked around Södertälje a bit before meeting up with Breno and then later Narain, and then even later Hannah, Alejandra, and Jorge. We sat in this super amazing McDonalds for a long while before the DJ event started. (Jorge and Pablo take DJ-ing lessons and their club put on a charity event for kids with cancer. We all signed up to work it, but in the end only the 18-year-olds were allowed to work. Martin gave me his Crew shirt though, so it was all good on my end.) We got there and Pablo did some mixing and then we all stood around and talked/danced*.

That night we went home around midnight and because it was a sleepover we talked until 3. I then layed in the bed Hannah generously offered me (btw, if you’re reading this Hannah, you need to stop being so nice because it makes my stomach hurt and I feel awful taking things from you.) staring at the wall wondering how sleep happens. A little after four I think I fell asleep. The alarm went off at seven and that was the start of the day. Who needs eight hours of sleep? Certainly not me!**

We walked Aakanksha to the bus station and then went home. Narain called and he and Pablo met us outside the house, where from we walked to ICA to get some doughnuts for Hannah. Pablo is really generous and bought everyone doughnuts*** and wow, what a cutie. He stuffed a chocolate bar in my pocket and I ended up really needing it when I got to the train station to go back home because I hadn’t eaten anything all day. ily Pablo!! ❤

Idk what else to say? I hung out with Narain and Hannah all day because Pablo had to go to his host mom’s birthday. I love Hannah and Narain so much and it’s not like I can tell you our conversations? I seem to run into this problem a lot. We just sat around and made bad jokes for a few hours . <I hope that works for you.

Then I headed home. The bus and train ride home seemed to last years and I really appreciated riding to Södertälje with Andrew and being able to take the bus to Trossa to Hannah’s house with everyone because company makes the time go by so much faster and easier.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

I got up at seven (ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh seven) to go to school and I had a really hard time finding my first class. My room was A4107F, but the doors went G, D, C. No F. So I went to the room where F should have been (it didn’t have any number on it) and I asked the teacher and she was like “Go away, I need to start my lesson. I don’t know who you are, I can’t help you.” in Swedish and I was like “UM?!” and I’m desperately trying to explain my situation in bad Swedish and this other teacher guy comes up and he’s like “Who are you?” and he’s speaking English now, so I was able to explain myself completely and he still wanted to kick me out until I showed him my schedule. I think they made a few phone calls wherein Jonas explained who I was. It was all very stressful.

The kids in my class are super cool and super nice and I’ll take pictures of the school and classrooms soon.

In all, it was the best day of school ever and I can’t wait to go back.

*When I refer to all of us dancing, I’m excluding myself. Social situations with that kind of pressure give me a lot of anxiety and I know I may seem like a super cool person on the outside, but I’m almost always uncomfortable with everything and it takes a lot of effort for me to even talk to people I’m unsure around, much less dance in a dimly lit room with them. If I ever dance around you it’ll be impromptu and probably after several nights without sleep when I’ve lost all sense of boundary.

**That’s a lie. Today think I fell asleep in every single class. My eyes kept closing and when I tried to keep them open they were so heavy it hurt. I want to go to bed right now, but I need to make this post before I forget everything! 😦 I’ll do the ESA thing when I get home from school, Dad. I’m dying right now.

***I told him “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” because I can’t let people be nice to me and also three hours of sleep makes you want to lay down and die, not eat doughnuts.

St. Eriks Gymnasium

Here’s my new schedule!

Monday:

8:30-11:00 ~ Art

11:10-12:25 ~ Svenska 2

13:25 – 14:40 ~ History

Tuesday:

9:55 – 11:10 ~ Svenska 2

11:20 – 12:35 ~ Natural Science

13:35 – 14:50 ~ English

Wednesday:

9:40 – 12:10 ~ Art

13:00 – 15:30 ~ Photography

Thursday:

9:55 – 11:10 ~ Physics (help?)

11:55 – 13:10 ~ History

13:20 – 14:35 ~ Mentor’s hour

Friday:

8:30 – 9:45 ~ Digital Art

9:55 – 11:10 ~ Natural Science

11:20 – 12:35 – English

Beautiful. 

Living the dream right here. Look at all that art! And the man who helped me to get this schedule, Jonas, said he could probably get me into the choir too! I’m dying of happiness. No offense to all the other days I’ve had so far this year, but this one has probably been one of the best.

List of my favorite days:

1. Arrival
2. Photography days at Dorren
3. My weekend with Hannah
4. Imagine Dragons
5. That One Time We All Went Ice Skating
6. New Years
7. That Day We Went Sledding 
8. TODAY

These aren’t in any particular order.

I’ll update the cast page tonight with all of the Newbies because I get to meet them in an hour or so! God. I can’t believe I’m an Oldie. I should probably invest in a map so that I don’t lead them to the red light district or something on accident.

Meeting Hamish and Seeing the ABBA Museum

On Wednesday I didn’t have school because the teacher didn’t come. I ran into Jonatan and we window shopped. I tried to buy an envelope at this one store. As you may know, I don’t like to ask the workers for help when I shop, but Jonatan wasn’t having any of my crap, so he told me to suck it up. The uniform was a red sweatshirt and so of course the first guy I ask for help is wearing clothes that look like the uniform, but he’s just a civilian. Ugh. So embarrassing. He was all “I don’t work here!” in Swedish. I was glad that I understood him right away because pursuing him would have been awful. I nearly fell to the ground in tears anyway.

Later that day I met up with Hamish and Emily and we took a walk and then went to the Tekniska Museet. It was pretty rad as the video will show you. (Sorry Grams! I know you don’t have internet and that mom just prints these out for you! Just imagine a super interactive museum and science-y things! S/O to my Grams for having a binder of every blog post I make :D)

Today Christal called me and she said that I’ve got a new school lined up (!!!!) so I should go there at 12:45 tomorrow. I’ll be sure to take some pictures!

I got fika with Sam this afternoon. A bunch of other people were supposed to be there, but it was super last minute so I didn’t get to meet any other newbies 😦

After fika I went to the ABBA museum with Astrid and my host dad. It was super interesting and cool and I can’t believe they broke up!!!!!!!! D:

Me as a puppy and Emily as an officer of the law

Sam

Astrid

ABBAHHHHH!

I Am Not Yours (My Choir From Back Home)

I am a very anxious and uncomfortable person

Yeah, so on Mondays I only have one class (Natural Science) and so that starts in the afternoon and I guess that’s good because I don’t know how to sleep anymore. For the last few days I’ll go to bed early (eight, nine, idk. early(ish) ) and then I WAKE UP. The reason I just emphasized that is because this is not a pleasent experience. I WAKE UP around one thirty every night  and then I don’t fall back asleep until five or six. Before I WAKE UP I have really weird dreams. The sort that make you open your eyes in real life because they’re just so ridiculous, and then you need to sit up and drink some water and remember that there was no war and that your parents are totally still alive and that no, that helicopter never crashed into your house, you silly goose, that’s why you’re still in bed! With the exception of Saturday night, this has happened three times in a row-ish (Saturday, why you gotta be different?). So, Amy, you can probably skype me at three am in these next few nights because I’ll totally be awake.

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about today. What I wanted to say is that I slept in p late this morning because of the one class thing and because of the insomnia thing and someone set the house alarm and I accidentally set it off this morning because I didn’t know that it was on and it scared the bejeezus out of me! And then the security lady called the house and I picked up because I knew it was her, but she was very confused about who I was (as am I security lady, as am I.) and then she had to call my host parents that their jobs and it was all very stressful and I feel very bad about it and wow that alarm is loud and frightening. I jump out of my seat when people whisper my name, this was awful!

Then when I went to school there were these men scanning cards to make sure you weren’t a barrier jumper and they scanned my card and it didn’t work? and then they checked it on the machine (which used up my last 20 kr on it for a single journey. jerks.) and sent me on my way. When I tried to get home it didn’t work on the barriers, so the ticket window guy looked at it, shrugged, and sent me on my way. I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some kiwis (I have this problem where I realize I like a thing and then I have an obsession with the thing and I can’t stop myself. Rissifrutti, yogurt, bread with honey, bananas, kiwis. I like the thing for a few weeks and then I never want to eat it again. Like my PB&Js in Minnesota all over again.) and then I had to go through the barriers again and the guy explained to me that my school semester had run out and that I only had the nights and weekend pass working right now. So I had to wait until 16:00 to go through to the train which was an hour away. Ugh.

I called my contact person and she said that she’d transfer money tonight so that I could fix it this afternoon, and she is a very lovely person and I’m lucky to have her. She also said rotary will definitely pay for some of my EuroTour expenses and I love my rotary club very much for doing that for me! I wouldn’t be able to go otherwise! Still no word on the school situation, but I’m dropping music tomorrow because it stresses me out and I don’t know what the heck I’m doing because music theory in English is hard, and music theory in Swedish is harder, and I cannot preform in front of people because I will throw up, so that’s the hardest thing ever.

Back to the card thing though. I had to wait for an hour, so I sat down in front of this half empty cup of cold tea someone had left at an espresso house because otherwise there weren’t any benches and I didn’t feel like standing for an hour. I’m just sitting there eating my kiwis, pretending the cup is mine and I totally paid for it when this barista comes over and starts cleaning up all the cups around me. I got paranoid that she knew the tea wasn’t mine, so I pick it up and I make pretend like I’m going to drink out of it to prove that I bought it, and SHE LOOKS AT ME WHILE I’M FAKE DRINKING AND DEAR LAWD I HAD TO DRINK THAT MESS BECAUSE WHAT ELSE WAS THERE TO DO???? And it was cold and gross and I don’t know whose it was and what if they had mouth herpes? And she kept looking at me, and I wonder if she knew I just drank some strangers cold tea????? Because then she must think I’m really gross and wowowow I’m disgusting. I am. Truly. I’ll probably get mouth herpes now. I can’t believe I actually did that.

Now I’m home and I’m going to make tomato soup and bread for dinner and it makes me miss that quartet I was in with Eli, Keenan, and Cana. Because they came over to my house and that’s what we ate after practice and Keenan and Cana are going through a really hard time right now and I wish I could just be there to give them grilled cheese sandwiches and thermoses full of soup, but I can’t because I’m here drinking strangers’ tea. And Eli is such a sweetie and I don’t know when that happened but I just want to fluff his hair because that dork is so cute. Walking Cana to class. Asking how I am. Ugh. I can’t handle him.

So, in conclusion: I am tired and disgusting and no one should kiss me in the next few days until we see if I have mouth herpes.

the culmination of my grand day

I’m the one in the bird suit who makes a snow angel

Hika (Hiccup) serenades us with smooth jazz

perf snow angel

we’re starting a rap group and this is our album cover

Kate

Hika

McKenzie and Hika

Kate and HIka

Hika and McKenzie

Sam and Hika

McKenzie and Kate

McKenzie and Kate

Sam

Kate

Sam, Hika, and Kate

Sam

Sam

McKenzie and Sam

McKenzie

Kate

Kate and Mckenzie

I think these boys swore at us, but I’m not sure

I’m Sorry (for the millionth time, so you probably don’t believe me anymore)

I know I never post anything, and I felt bad about it so I went out today and tried to do something I could write about, but alas, I am boring through and through. I took a bunch of boring footage and since I have nothing to write about I guess I’ll just post that. I don’t know what to do with myself.

I GOT MY SL CARD TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve been feeling like such a shut in and I haven’t left the house since sunday afternoon except for that awful time I tried to walk to school and nearly succumbed to the ice spirits will. Now I have my SL card though and I can return my library books before I turn 18 and I can go to school and graduate and I can go and pick up those Sweeney Todd tickets and wow. My life can start again. I’m pathetic.

X

Yesterday was the worst day of my entire exchange. I’m going to steal pictures from other people’s blogs because I was to distraught to do naught but film.

Here is some context for the day I’m about to talk about

Thursday: Signing of the flags

Friday: Saying goodbye to Perth. 

Afterwards I went home with Brooke and helped her pack a bit. She gave me a bunch of stuff that was weighing her suitcase down and now I’ve got Aussie stickers and a really cool Aussie lanyard and summer clothes that will remind me of her everytime I wear them. I almost don’t want summer to come now. 

That night I slept over at McKenzie’s house and while we were falling asleep she asked me to tell her my life story, but she fell asleep halfway into it. I hope she’s reading this right now.

<USA?

Saturday: Went on a walk with McKenzie because it SNOWED!!! < jk 

< I ate some

I lost my SL card on the walk and now I’ve got to get a new one in a mail. Meanwhile I can’t really go anywhere. I was supposed to go to school on Monday for my Natural Science class, but when I woke up I couldn’t make myself go outside and walk all the way to school in the cold for a class that I hate, sit there for an hour, and then walk all the way back home. Google maps says it would have taken me well over an hour, and I’m a slow walker, so I’m going to say it would have taken me two, making adjustments for getting lost. Uphill both ways. Through the snow. With wolves chasing us. We didn’t even own shoes. 

Later that day I met up with McKenzie, Tanner, Narain, and Abigail. We ate deep dish pizza from Pizza Hut (it was amazing, fyi. Everyone told me Pizza Hut was a bad idea and that Swedes couldn’t do it right, but they were wrong.) and then went to Max for ice cream. I called my papa and talked to him for a while which was SUPER DUPER COOL! I miss talking to my parents on the phone. Skype is different. I just want to be able to call my friends and tell them pointless things and send them pictures of things that remind me of them and I just want to go home, only I don’t because I don’t want to go back to working two jobs or my life with my monotonous high school schedule from 8:00 to 3:20 and I would like to go on EuroTour right now and then return home for college. I’m so jealous of the Australians. Jerks. 

We told our parents about this live camera in Stockholm that shows the weather, and then we went to it and stood in front of it so that our parents could see that we were still alive.

      < we’re the group standing in front of the circle thing < sick photo of me high fiving tanner < trying to figure out where the live cam is

 < Abigail and Tanner touching a heated statue’s belly

 

 <waving at the camera

 < <hot hot hey we got it, hot hot woah we got it, hot hot yeah we got it, HOT CHOCOLATE

Sunday: I hate this day. I don’t want to talk about this day. I’m going to anyway because I don’t know how else to get over it.

We woke up at 4:45, and I threw some clothes on and ate a piece of half frozen bread which I later felt like throwing up. We got on the train. We got off the train. We got on another train. (Because I’m only a lil bb, possessing only 17 tender years, I got to ride the Arlanda Express for free. All of the adult children feigned stupidity and bought senior citizen tickets instead of the full priced ones.) We got off at the airport. I didn’t think I was going to cry because I was so tired, but I was wrong as usual. Brooke and Oliver walked in and then I saw Emily crying and I just wanted to lay down in the fetal position for the rest of my life. Emily cheered me up by singing songs and doing interpretive dance and telling me the story about how she became Orky Idol and her name was on a sign welcoming people to her town of Orky in Canada. She’s great. I want a Pocket Emily to cheer me up every time I’m sad.

We said goodbye and everyone was crying except for Aakanksha who was too stunned to do anything but stare.

I don’t know what else to say. I feel like you all can understand how terrible it is to know that you will never see someone ever again for the rest of your life. I mean, there’s skype, but it’s not the same. I feel like Miles in LfA, wondering when he’ll forget Alaska’s name and when it won’t hurt so much to remember. So dramatic. Someone pinch me. God. I need to get over myself.

 <Emily and I < Sam and Beth <Brooke and McKenzie < Hugging Brooke goodbye <Me, Oliver, and Emily

  < Narain dying

 < SEE YOU SOON!!!!  < Breno showing off his cool shirt    

The Rest of The Day: 

We took the bus back into Stockholm so that the adult children wouldn’t have to pay. Narain was  silently crying, Breno was showing off his Alaskan presents Carley had given him, Emily was talking about YouTube, Somehow we all broke out into “I Dreamed a Dream”, I’m sure the other passengers were very confused and annoyed. The emotional distress we were all in was a little too overwhelming at this point for any of us to care though, I suppose.

I was a little upset that we were in Sweden at this point and not a country with a Denny’s because I really needed some pancakes and everyone agreed that Denny’s was what they were craving. Let it be tradition from now on that whenever something tragic happens, Denny’s is the place to go. Get some crisp bacon and maple syrup and put your head down on the table. Denny’s don’t mind. Denny’s will take care of you.

Tanner needed to meet his host mom at noon so Emily, Narain, and I all waited with him after grabbing some food from Coop. This ended up being not such a good idea because I was already dying and wanted to throw up from all of the stress. Yogurt isn’t something you should drink when you feel nauseated. We ended up at Espresso House later and then H&M to get Tanner a hat. I begged Emily to come with me to pick up my stuff from McKenzie’s house because I couldn’t bear to be alone. Have I mentioned how great Emily is?? She rode all the way with me to McKenzie’s house and back again.

When I got home I was a mess again and decided to try and edit all of the footage from the day together to take my mind off of things, which is the opposite of a good idea??? I ended up falling asleep and waking up an hour later still completely wiped. Today is a little bit better. I just want some pasta and a book.

BTW: Kate Recommends: The Fall (2006) and The Book Thief Movie. (Watch the movie before reading the book or else the movie may feel a bit disappointing in comparison.)