This is Getting a Little Out of Hand

I’m soooo bad at updating.

I can’t remember where I left off. I think it was Tuesday.

Tuesday: 

My group and I preformed that song that I talked about a few weeks ago. I don’t know if I’m going to share it or not yet, because I haven’t listened all the way through the recording. So far, it’s a no. If I do, there’ll be a little surprise for you at the end of this post.

Mikaela (I have no idea how to spell anyone’s name, so bear with me.) and her group was super flipping amazing and I don’t know what her song was about, but she’s a really good singer and I’m very jealous. That is all.

We talked about Islam in religion class and since I didn’t understand much, I skyped with Ollie when I got home, and she attempted to clear it up. I think I’ll have to read the wikipedia page though, because the whole Mohammed becoming a prophet and then getting in fights with rich people still kind of confuses me.

Wednesday:

I finished my Aspects of Africa paper (officially. I might have said that I did earlier, but I was lying if I did.)

In Humanistics, I found out that I have to do a field study on Norse Mythology???? I was told to go to some museum in Uppsala, so I guess I’ll be doing that at some point. Everyone else is doing theirs on Rome, so I get an indefinite extension to complete mine. Cool Beans.

During E-Block we went to the auditorium and listened to this guy play his hangdrum and sing sufi music. The best part was when they got some kids from the music section to go up on stage and play with him. He called his style sufi-jazz, so there was a kid on the saxophone and another playing a gourd-guitar. I just found out that gourd is spelled with a u. Amazing.

When I went home, I got a really bad headache (which is starting to come back. Something to do with my neck I think?) and so I went to bed right away, woke up for like an hour in the middle of the night and then slept again until my alarm went off. Times is hard.

Today:

Cecil Baldwin came in for about five minutes and then he left abruptly. I’m told he suddenly decided that he had a really bad fever and couldn’t make it through the rest of the class. I wish teachers at Fondy would have acted like that.

In Svenska 3 we read something. I don’t know what it was about, but Scent of a Woman was mentioned. I made a list off all of my favorite tv shows and movies and books and podcasts so that Muna would have something to watch while she waits for SNK to return.

We went to lunch and I had cereal for my 5th meal in a row. Honestly, I’m starting to feel a bit nauseous at this point, but there isn’t much else to eat at my host family’s house and that’s all I can have when they make meat for dinner. I really need to ask for more grapefruits and eggs or something.

In natural science we did an experiment with solubility, wherein we boiled carrots and beets in water and oil. I don’t really know what we were proving, but I participated, and so I got an A for the day. Yay me.

In music class we started out Blues unit, and now I have to sing the blues. I really lucked out with my group because we’ve got Sandra on the piano, Erik on the trumpet, and Hugo on guitar. Hugo and Sandra are really good and Erik is the only one who plays the trumpet in our class, and I feel like trumpets are pretty bluesy.

Tonight, I went to Dorren for my photography class, and it was super fun as always. Today we took still lifes of things that we had in our pockets and one of mine got posted to facebook. They put some sort of instagram filter on it, but it still looks pree coo.

In other news, I really like drawing hands. Hands hands hands. I stare at everyone’s hands until they feel uncomfortable. Ah, the joys of being with strangers. They will never see me again, so I don’t care if I make them uncomfortable.

Here’s the video. I decided it was alright.

Here’s that video I promised

Stress

This morning started off with my mum texting me telling me that I can’t fake swear on the internet. Usually, I’d be all “yeah, k whateves.” and take it down, but instead I replied none too nicely ranting about how stressed out I am. I probably did that because I’m stressed out. I know I shouldn’t be, but I am, so I am. I still am. Not so much as this morning though because today was really funny.

I woke up early to shower so that I could be at the school early to talk to the counselor and when I got there she was in a meeting with another student and then was too busy to talk to me for the next thirty minutes. So I read. Then we discussed my classes and she put me in SFF and a music class (with Mikayla (sp?) and Nick Baker) and she told me that I should go to the Rome class since I don’t like the Human one. Awesome. I’m totally going to Rome!

By the time I was done talking to her, my SFF class was about to start and so I had to run up seven flights of stairs to get to it on time. When I got there, there were three other kids sitting outside the locked door of the SFF classroom. Awesome. We sat there for fifteen minutes and talked. There was a girl from Finland, a boy from Egypt and another boy from Eritrea. Then the teacher came up and told us in Swedish that class was cancelled because she had a funeral to go to and that we should hang out in the library until our next class. So I read.

The next class was Religion and I was kind of excited because I like learning about other people’s religions and I thought maybe I would learn something even though the class is taught is Swedish. Nick Baker and this awesome girl named Farida Tanttu sat with me and we talked for forty-five minutes before someone kid came into the room and told us that our teacher was sick and that we could go to lunch or whatever. Religion is a split lunch class, so I have 40ish minutes of religion and then lunch and then another 50 minutes. I walked with Nick and Farida to lunch, and we saw what they were serving and all decided to go home instead. There’s a reason lunch is free. I’m going to make a lunch sucks and a lunch rocks tag so that we can all keep track of how often the miracle of a good school lunch occurs.

So basically, I didn’t have to go to school today.

I got home a half hour ago, finished the last ten pages in my book (that’s two books in two day! I’m on a roll! Can’t stop this, oh no can’t stop this!) and now it’s 12:30 and I’m kind of hungry but they only have frozen bread and cereal here and I feel like I’m at Cana’s house. I think I’m going to go get some lunch and then make some cookies or something so that the Skarins can taste the joys of fat. kk peace out

I didn’t sign up for this

My class is H3, which means I’m in the highest grade level and all of the courses have to do with language. You can take German, French, Italian, Spanish, och/eller Latin. I can speak a little tiny bit of Espanol. All of the other classes I would have no hope to achieve anything in. There’s a few other classes that we’re required to take like Philosophy and Natural Science, but mostly it’s language courses with a math option thrown in their to spice things up. I’m not signed up for anything. I just go to the mandatory classes and lunch and then I go home. The guidance counselor told me that I should talk to her in a week and then we’ll see how everything is going.

??????????????????????????????????

She told me that in a week she would schedule me for Swedish For Foreigners. I’m in Swedish 3 right now, the hardest Swedish class there is. Why wasn’t this pre-arranged??? I’m missing a week of SFF! Whatever. And then she said she would see about getting me into an art or music class? In a week though. Because apparently it’s better for me to sit in on classes I won’t be in later and not understand what’s going on than sit in on classes that I’m going to be in the rest of the year and not understand what’s going on. If you can’t tell, I don’t like waiting. Mostly I want to have my SFF class so that I can start to understand what everyone is saying.

Highlights of the Day:

We had to go up to the sixth floor to get our Philosophy books, and everyone left that blind girl I mentioned earlier behind. I figured she would be fine because no one was worried about her, but then I thought maybe it was like when everyone left my wheelchair bound math teacher in the classroom when there was a fire drill and she actually needed help, but no one thought to give it. Turns out, she did need help, because she ran into the side of the staircase, no where near the stairs. I asked if she needed help (in english, because I’m really thoughtless. “Behöver du hjälp” is easy enough to say, but I didn’t think to say it because I’m slow.)  and she obviously didn’t understand me, but I took her hand anyway and lead her to the stairs, and THEN some kid from my class remembered that she had a blind classmate and came looking for the poor girl.

My philosophy teacher looks like irl Cecil Baldwin. He even has a mysterious tattoo on his arm. I couldn’t understand what was going on except for what he was writing on the board so I stared at his arm all of class and tried to figure it out. I let ya’ll know what it is when I see it in a few days.

I took the music class thing into my own hands and went to the seventh floor to talk to a choir teacher. I met this weird little man and he wasn’t very helpful and was totally scary and he told me about chamber choir and there were only two spots left to try out and I couldn’t decide if I was going to, but then at the end of the day I want back and there was a nice McVeigh-like choir teacher there and she said I should ask to join S3 instead of being in H3 because it’ll be more interesting classes, and also told me I could try out tomorrow at 12:30 and so I guess I will. There’s some sight-reading and some piano-voice response stuff and then I have to sing her a song that I know by heart. Which one??? I Carry Your Heart With Me?? Something from a musical?? Who knows. Ugh. This is hard. The other choir teacher said most kids sing Christmas songs. I can’t think of a single Christmas song besides Silent Night that would be good for this. I don’t really want to sing a Christmas song. Anyway. 12:30. I’m going to die.

Debbie and her friends let me eat lunch with them. I can’t tell if they like me or if they feel bad for me. Probably the latter. I think Debbie actually likes me, but it’s tough to know because I’ve never had to make friends in an environment where everyone is already friends with each other. Life’s hard.

In Nat Science, the teacher had everyone go into corners based off of what they thought about science (is it a belief, fact, always changing, or something else) and she had us do that like seven times, but she only told me what each corner meant the first time around, and then she went around the room and everyone had to say why they believed what they did. I would like to put several expletives here, but this blog is supposed to be classy. Eventually, I just staying in the same corner because I was comfortable in my spot against the wall and was tired of trying to figure out what was going on, and she just skipped over me for the last few questions THANK GOD.

So that’s been my day so far. woo.

Here I am falling asleep in my Svenska 3 class.

This says I, one. I prefer the title Everyday. It made sense.

Swedish Game of Thrones. This is my excuse for not reading them.

Here I am in my Svenska 3 class not understanding anything.

This is Miu-Miu. She sleeps in my bed a lot, but leaves when I get it. Jerk.

First day as the main character of a YA novel

^ that’s part of the train ride. Hooray for public transportation!

I met some of Hanna’s friends (Elsa and Anna) and we had coffee for about 45 minutes before going to school together and 2:30. They’re super cool and even invited me to a party and I felt like maybe I had the ability to make new friends. Then I got to school and the only person who sat next to me at first was this blind girl named Mikeala and she didn’t really talk and I didn’t know what to say because she might not have spoken English so well or understood it well and I didn’t want to be weird and then the the second half of the class came in and they all shook me hand?????? It was really weird because here in Sweden (at least so far as I’ve encountered) when people shake your hand, the hold on for another thirty seconds after while they talk and it’s really awkward and sweaty.

Then this girl named Debbie sat next to me (I was worried I smelled bad, but no. All of these kids have been with each other in almost every class for the last two years so they’re all really good friends and don’t want to talk to the new girl.) and another girl who’s name I didn’t catch and they were super cool and explained everything to me and we talked for forty minutes before looking for our lockers and then I was supposed to catch the train home because first days of school here only last for an hour or two I guess.

I didn’t go home though, I went to the guidance counselor’s office because I’m not signed up for any specific classes and I don’t know what to do. The counselor wasn’t in though, so I’m going to go to school midway through the first class at 8:40 so that I can talk with her and get things straightened out.

So, overall everything’s great (besides that stupid bird thing. God.). I’m glad I brought my converse because that is literally the only shoe the kids wear. The teachers dress the same as the students and we call them by their first names. So Coco and Doug would fit in in the Swedish world. I kind of feel like I’m at a really liberal college. My host parents say that at Hanna’s school there were bins of apples sitting in the hallway and that the kids had to take off their shoes in the entryway. People are only liberal here apparently.

Astrid says my Swedish is getting better. I think it’s because we watch American shows a lot with swedish subtitles.