Another Uneventful Update. Feel free to skip.

Two things first: TOMMY SENT ME A PACKAGE!!! I got the Senior class shirt from him and I am dying.

YAY!

Second: Can we talk about this picture? This is an add in the tunnelbana station where I get off to go to school. I laugh every time because it’s supposed to look sexy I guess, but all I see is her giving him a purple nurple.

You can’t tell me I’m wrong

 

This is the lyrics to the blues song that I sang for music class:

• I sold my soul
• down the river
• all I wanted
• was your love
• Guess you’re a wanderer
• you didn’t want me
• you weren’t my angel
• from above.

CHORUS:

• But that’s okay; I’ve got myself
• I think I’ll live; I’ve got my health
• I’m better than you anyway
• Dancing alone
• in the Moonlight
• Thoughts of you
• When will I learn?
• And your last words
• they were heavy
• my skin is thick
• but it still burns.

Chorus

• Hello Hello?
• Can you hear me?
• I’m drowning in
• your fickle whim
• You stand so close
• my life preserver
• but you’re screaming
• Learn how to swim

Chorus

• I’m not broken
• my wings aren’t clipped
• your indifference
• can’t bring me down
• I’m not Icarus
• Oh, I’m still flying
• Towards the sun
• I’m homeward bound

Chorus

Okay, and then here’s this awful little story I wrote for Svenska 3’s surrealism unit. I don’t know if this is surreal or not. I based it on the Street Cleaner Episode of Welcome to Night Vale.

It’s that time of year again, folks! Christmas! Out ’round back the abandoned cheese factory we’ve still got a bit of plywood, so you’d best get out there quick to pick some up before it’s all gone! It’s very important that you board up your windows and stay. out. of the streets this holiday season. I cannot emphasize enough the dangers presented by the interlopers threatening to destroy this town. Santa is coming and he will not show mercy. I’ve also been warned be a vague yet menacing government agency that we should expect a blizzard to blow in a large bout of elves beside the expected man-eating reindeer this year. I don’t think I have to remind you that if you happen to be caught outside when Santa comes, you should search for shelter immediately in a shallow ditch or unlocked car. Leave your loved ones, children and pets alike, behind. They will only weigh you down.

In other news, Monica-you know, the sweet shop owner out on the edge of town?-says she’s just finished her invisible window shop display, and MY, is it beautiful! She’s recreated the Battle of Lexington and Concord using only gingerbread men and gumdrops! She hasn’t boarded up the window just yet, so if you hurry on out before the darkness hits us tonight, you might still have a chance to see it!

Oh! Here’s something! The food drive for this city’s chapter of The Salvation Army has surpassed last year’s record of canned bread. Thanks to an anonymous donation, the Salvation Army has received well over 13 billion cans. In unrelated news all of the Salvation Army volunteers and several of the less fortunate they pledged to aide were crushed to death when 13 billion tin cans fell from the sky unexpectedly last afternoon. Our thoughts and sympathies go out to their loved ones.

Breaking News! Santa is here! I repeat, Santa is here! Run. Run. Run fast. Run far. Stop whatever you are doing and run goddamit. Do not stop to help those who have fallen. They are gone already. Do not scream, do not look back, do not pass Go and collect $200. Just run. Run for your lives.

I’m dying and I hate everything whymeeeeeeI

I made the post and then I tried to add the pictures and the computer froze and lost the whole post. So. I quit. I’m not rewriting it all, because now I’m in a terrible mood. You get the abridged version.

Friday.

no. nothing happened. I ate pizza. Here are those pictures I promised earlier.

I was so close.

this is ridiculous

Here are some more to tide you over.

secret agent man

tell me who you are

so mysterious

species please

what kind?

bird

this reminded me of the IKEA monkey

IKEA monkey

Saturday:

Cafe Dox exchange student gift exchange.

I didn’t participate because I suck at giving gifts.

It was nice

We went ice skating afterwards. I was wearing tights because all my pants were in the wash. I was super super cold (but also super super cute.)

Lots of kids had never seen snow or ice skated.

I was helpful. Made me proud to see them going off on their own. And sometimes they fell, But they got up without help, and that’s what counts.

We went to McDonalds to warm up and ate ice cream because we like to be ironic.

I got home at midnight because I was sitting with Narain and Tanner at Central Station for a few hours after they missed their train home. Had a little heart to heart. It was grand.

Sunday:

Went to see Catching Fire with Hannah, Emily, and Oliver.

The movie theater candy

Hannah is like the best friend I had in a past life, Emily is like the friend on the internet I never met in Real Life, and Olver is like the big brother who never came to stockholm with me.

If you guys ever run into these three, you’ll need to step up your wit-game. Clever sarcasm abounds.

Oliver and Narain

Emily and Tanner

Afterwards we looked at the NK display and had our minds blown.

Then we went to a trendy cafe.

Hannah’s bus home was coming, so we left really soon after getting there.

We ran to Emily’s host family’s apartment to get Hannah’s bag, and then ran all the way to the pendltag platform.

My lungs still sting from the cold air.

I think that’s it.

OH!

I might be moving to where Hannah lives at the end of the christmas break. So there’s that. No more living in Stockholm. It’s alright. Hannah’s the best. Also, music program at school. I miss singing.

OH!

Also, I’ve been staring at dogs when they walk past me, and then they stare at me and they stop sometimes and their owners are like ‘whatchyou doin m8?’ and I keep looking over my shoulders and I can tell the dogs want to be with me. This is my power. I can control the minds of dogs. My YA novel character power has been achieved, not a moment too late either, seeing as it should be at it’s full force around my 18th birthday.

To answer your many questions

Alright, so I’m going to post some of the pictures I took at Dorren and tell you some stories, and then I have to go to bed because my head is killing me and these pills aren’t working fast enough and I am going to puke.

I got the box from my parents and grandparents

The box contained:

• three pairs of winter tights
• so much tea
• Instant mac n cheese!
• POP TARTS
• Nutella
• a letter from my dad
• a letter from not my dad
• fudge
• more fudge
• shampoo and conditioner
• love

THANK YOU FOR SENDING ME ALL OF THIS!! I WAS DYING WHEN I OPENED IT

I was looking for gray’s American store yesterday so that I could buy pop tarts and I was walking along this highway and into some industrial park and there was no store where it was supposed to be, so I walked into this hardware store and asked them if they knew of it, and they said it was the next store over, so I go in there and there’s a little key code thing on the door and I can’t get in without the password. A sign above said “Gray’s American Store Ty: 1” I figured Ty meant tryck, so I pressed one and nothing happened.

I went back to the hardware store and the lady came over to help me out, but she couldn’t figure it out either. Then this guy came in and he’s like “yo, sup?” and he scanned his entry card on the thing and got us both in and led me up the stairs to where the store was. The store door and a little key code thing too, and I was like “How am I supposed to do this?”

And the guy said “This is where you wanted to go, right?”

And I’m like “Yeah, but it’s locked. What am I supposed to do?”

And he repeated what he said before so I nodded and then he smiled and walked away. So.

I pressed what I thought was a door bell and nothing happened so I knocked on the door and no one came and then I pressed one on the keycode thing and nothing happened, so I left.

Only before I could leave the door to get out was locked and I almost crumpled to the ground in disbelief because I thought I was going to be stuck in there forever until I used my powers of observation to find the lock release button and escape that place.

Good times. Good times.

I have pictures. but I’ll upload them in the next post.

I talked to my music teacher today and he was like “I listened to your recording and it’s perfect. I have no comments, You may go home.” And I started laughing because I’m pretty sure he was only saying that because he doesn’t speak English and he didn’t want to try to talk to me in slow swedish.

I watched that new Disney movie, Frozen. Meh. Don’t waste your time. It was alright, but I’d only watch it if I had a fever or something and couldn’t reach the remote to turn off the tv.

I found this feather on the road and I picked it up and painted it to use it as a bookmark. The locket has a picture of Great Grandma Horning and Grandpa Seibel. The book is Jane Eyre.

This is a cork I found at the docks sitting on top of nuts that I’ve found while on outings which are on top of all my loose change in a bottle that used to have this awful fruit smoothie in it.

This was taken shortly before he noticed me

Hanna taking photos of strangers

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.

Hello, Schoolmates

Okay, so Josefine wanted the link to my blog, and I’m just going to assume that she’s going to share it with other people because that’s how things work. Anyway, catch her up. If you are not Josephine, you can skip this part.

• Nick Baker = Jonatan
• Cecil Baldwin = The religion teacher
• school lunch = whyyyy
• Kate = awkward and very pedestrian
• Highlights = things that happened that were worth sharing. Not necessarily all good.
• I use the words Then, Okay, So, and Whatever a LOT.

Yesterday I went to the highest point in Stockholm with Daniel, Aakansha, Iara, and Sofia. They are all exchange students from Texas, India, Brasil, and Italy respectively.

They met me at T-Central a half hour late and while I was waiting some old black guy smoking a cigarette came up to me and asked me something in (french?) and- nevermind, let me reenact it for you.

dudebro: HON HON HON BONJOUR BAGUETTE EIFFEL TOWER

me: I’m sorry? Do you need directions?

dudebro: oh, i so surry. u speek inlgleesh? i say “i wonder wat a bootifool womahn is doing seeting all by herself?”

me: I’m… uh… waiting. For my boyfriend. Fiance. Guy. He’s big. Real strong. mhm. Gonna be here any second.

dudebro: ah. *sulks into shadows and watches me until I duck into a store*

Yeah, so that was creepy.

Today, I started my humanistics paper (at last! No more procrastinating!) and then I went to a rotary meeting where some guy talked about American politics. From what I could understand he agreed with the Republicans on the whole Government Shutdown thing, and when he talked to me and told me as much after the meeting, I gave him some straight facts and I think I might have changed his opinion on the whole matter.

I thought it was really weird that they were discussing the government shutdown for an hour, because it doesn’t really affect any of them directly as our foreign affairs are separately funded. Strange.

I went to science class and the teacher told me I needed to participate in class discussions if I wanted to pass. Okaaaay then. I’ll raise my hand if that’s what she wants, but I’ll probably say something totally unrelated.

After school I went to Dorren and we sang songs until 8 and it was really fun and I love choir a lot. The only hard thing is trying to match my american/british vowels to their Swedish ones. I don’t think it should take too long to perfect though. Mondays are my new favorite day of the week because of choir.

Here’s some pictures I took during the last two days:

Aakansha

Iara

kitty kitty

kitty kitty kitty kitty

Debbie, Muna, and ??? omg I knew her name. I’m so dumb. Everyone hates me because I’m so bad at this.

JOSEPHINE! HELLOOOOO!!!!

Here’s that video I promised

Everyone-ish is in Rome

Yesterday I had one class and there were only 2 other people in it (Debbie and Paula). We talked about Africa since the library was closed and we couldn’t check out books or go on computers. Then, Debbie pulled out her laptop and we watched a show called “Outsiders” which documented three elderly Finnish sisters who married 20 year old men in Africa because they wanted to have a “love adventure” and the men wanted to leave their country so that they could be richer. It was pretty freaky.

We went to McIncredible after the documentary and talked and then I went home and slept for a million years.

BTW, you all need to be watching the new Fox series, Sleepy Hollow. It’s like Supernatural, Once Upon a Time, and CSI all mixed together.

Today I had a field trip to some sort of Astronomy museum. My science teacher was really excited about it, so she convinced my Svenska 3 teacher to skip teaching class so that we could spend more time there. The science teacher ended up coming a half hour late with an excuse given in rapid Swedish. The museum was alright. I saw a fake fetus in a jar and a three legged pigeon in a jar and a two-headed snake. I was going to take pictures, but I forgot the memory card in the computer, so I’M SORRY.

Then I took Mickayla back to school and we went to music class. Marcus Markus Marckus was there and he said that we get three more days to rehearse, THANK GOD.

I went to Dorren’s oppen hus, and it was nice. There was a really confusing skit done in Swedish that consisted of a man in a dress, a girl in a playboy bunny costume, and an angry girl who screamed “I’M BLACK AND PROUD,” even though I’m pretty sure she was middle eastern. I accidentally stumbled into an oriental dance class, and they made me dance and the only thing I could do was the figure eight thing with my hips and the sexy walk. I’m hopeless at shimming and booty shaking, so it was really embarrassing. Anyway. Let’s not dwell on that. I hung out with Hanna and Rhoda and it was nice and I really like them and I’ll be joining the Dorren choir as well as the photography class and so that should take up some of my time. HOORAY!

I really like Gamla stan, so I’m glad I’ll be getting to spend more time in it.

OH, I almost forgot to tell you this story! My friend Paula told me about how she has this 32 year old boyfriend, and the way that they met was she was on the subway and she smiled at him because he was hot and he smiled back and when she got off, he followed her and was like, “I’m sorry, this is weird, but I really want to talk to you. Can I have your number?” and so she gave it to him and later they went to a cafe and ever since then, they’ve been dating for over a year. Literally love at first sight. Crazy stuff.

I scowl at attractive men because how dare they be so attractive? Makes my eyes hurt. All the boys here are so stylish, I know I’m going to be disappointed when I get back to Wisconsin where everyone is colorblind and wears basketball shorts and doesn’t brush their hair.

Okay. yeah. Today was good. I had a cinnamon bun for lunch and it made the rest of my day sweet.

Titling these is super hard, you have no idea

Philosophy = I don’t know what happened, but I saw Cecil Baldwin’s full arm tattoo and was super disappointed. Jonatan said it might me a Satanic worshiper thing though, so I guess I can always pretend it’s something scary and cool. I don’t know, it was like a pitchfork in a circle?

Svenska 3= We read poetry about death and then I translated one of the poems and had to write a super detailed and disgusted essay on something that happens in my daily life. Mine was a really surreal piece about waiting for the train in the rain. I didn’t read it aloud because I was embarrassed by how freaky it was.

Lunch = penne noodles and hamburger?

Natural Science = nap time because I couldn’t remember my password for the school computers

Music Class = I still suck at music, but Rickard was just as hopeless, so I don’t feel too terrible. They wanted me to stay after school and teach him how to harmonize though and I had a thing, so I recorded me singing the song with the piano so that he can figure it out on his own this weekend. I really hope he pushes the due date up to next thursday. We are soooo not ready.

Break = I went home and had a meltdown because the internet wasn’t working and I couldn’t figure out where to go to meet my rotary contact and I ended up getting there a half hour late and ughhhh.

Dorren = That’s with a swedish ‘O’, to be clear. I hung out with a girl named Hanna (Hannah?) and a guy named Oscar (Oskar?), and Hanna and I watched Oscar edit photos for an hour, and we talked and ate sandwiches and drank tea and it was a grand time. Then Christal picked me up and we went for vegetarian food and IT WAS THE BEST, OMG! I’m so tired of meat, this was a blessing! Then I forgot my phone charger so I went back and hung out with Hanna  and Oscar some more and then we all went to the train station and here I am. What a day. I want to go back to Dorren because those kids were really cool and I like them a lot and they listen to good music and the photo editing was really interesting and yay!

How To Be Awkward: a guide

I just really don’t know how to make friends? Like I don’t want to appear clingy? But I also don’t want to appear standoffish? And so today when we were walking to lunch, I was waiting for Farida and then she was waiting for someone else at one point, and I just kept walking and then I got in the lunch line before them, and I didn’t know where to sit, so I ended up sitting with kids I don’t usually talk to, which I suppose is fine, but it felt weird and then when we were on the bus they were all talking to each other and I didn’t know if I was a part of their conversation, so I just stayed quiet and ugghhh. I WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT ENTAILS. okay? I’m really into run on sentences if you hadn’t noticed.

Gucci has a cone on her head right now because she got in a cat fight and her leg got ripped open. She’s very sad and very noise and likes it when you scratch where the cone sits and I don’t know if I could handle Sneakers having a cone on his head because I feel bad enough for Gucci and I don’t even care that much about her in the first place.

That sounded cold. I care, but she’s not mine. I guess I have compassion for her. There. Compassion.

Cecil Baldwin saw one of his attackers on the subway so he took a few pictures of him, found a student who witnessed the crime, and they’re going to go to the police station together to make a report. HOORAY FOR JUSTICE! In other news, religion is interesting, but I can’t understand anything, only look at pictures. Astrid translated the pages about Ethics for me, so maybe I’ll learn something yet.

Question: when the college website says that I need to take at least five classes my senior year, do they mean that I need to pass five classes my senior year? I’m very stressed out about this.

I’ll have the music video ready for you guys next thursday. Wish me luck! (say: Lycka Till!)

I don’t wanna apply for colleeeeeeeege :(((((((((

It’s so harrrrrrd you guiiiiiiiiisssee. Essays, and personal information I don’t have, and asking for recommendations, and paying to send it in, and uggghhh.

Anyway, I should probably tell you all about the highlights of the past two days. Ugh. I don’t want to do this either. I’m getting increasingly lazy. Here we go:

1. Humanistics for three hours = Kate reads Jane Eyre for three hours, taking breaks to talk to Jonatan when everyone else seems to be talking to each other.

2. Lunch = colored penne and meat sauce = what Jonatan says is this is the best school lunch I’m going to get.

3. Natural Science Teacher = missing = we “study for an hour and a half and go home = we eat chocolate covered nuts and talk until we feel like going home

4. Music Class = We finished the song, now we just need to add Rickard and guitar

5. Swedish For Foreigners = That teacher is nuts. Today we learned about geography and how to say the letter y. Amazing.

6. Religion = OMG CECIL BALDWIN WAS MUGGED!!!!!!! He told us this story about how four giant guys came and pushed him against this wall and kicked him in the back and stole his phone and money and no one helped him even though he was on a busy street and had blood streaming down his face. He was asking for help but people just passed him by and WOW. Crazy stuff man. He’s got this big ‘ol bruise on his cheek and I guess he has to go to the doctor to get his back checked out.

7. Lunch = frijoles y carne. I thought we were in Sweden? But that’s what was written on the little descriptor card. Anyway, it tasted like taco meat with kidney beans in it. I mostly just drank the milk.

The view from another window.

OR you can have hash browns with jelly. The other option was the penne and meat sauce. So many options. Good thing it’s free!

Hashbrowns with Lingon sauce?

Making Friends on the way to school

this little guy almost got hit by the train!