I think I might be going to Rome

School was superrrrr boring today. I’m sure it was interesting if you knew Swedish, but I don’t so I sat there bored out of my mind most of the day. Sometimes I make up conversations in my head like that Whose Line Is It Anyway? game where they sit in front of the black and white television and do voice overs. My favorite game to play is when I pretend that the teachers are mobsters and when the whisper together they’re talking about who’s next on the hit list and where to put the bodies. Anyway. I won’t bore you with all of my daydreaming and just get down to what you’ll all probably find interesting.

It’s time for another round of

HIGHLIGHTS:

1.  I got to school early to talk to the counselor. She wasn’t there. She’s going to be there tomorrow though. Probably. *sigh*
2. I went to Humanity class for 3 hours. I didn’t need to be there since I wasn’t registered, and I don’t think I’ll be going back. They made us write an essay about what it means to be human. I got really technical and politically correct and when I shared it with my group I found out that that’s what they did too. When the class started discussing the subject as a whole I think they got into an abortion debate. I heard the Swedish word for fetus a few times. I don’t know. Wouldn’t surprise me.                                                    When we got a ten minute break I asked the teachers (there were four of them in the room for some reason???) what the class was about and what we were going to be doing for the rest of the year, and they told me we were going to be focusing on what it means to be human and then we were going to be writing an academic paper about  for our final project. Yawn. The girls I was sitting with told me at the end of class that the highest grade that you can get on the final paper is an E. Well, åt helvete with that. I didn’t want to be in the stupid class anyway! I especially don’t want to fail it because it’s designed for you to fail. Why would I even try then?? Seriously! These people are insane.
3. Half of my class (H3) was in another classroom that focuses on architecture and is going to Rome in January for only 1,500 Crowns. That’s $230. They’ll be there for a week. WHAT A STEAL!! I’m going to see if it isn’t too late to join that class. It would be a good time to bond and see Rome again now that I’m older and cognitive. If they haven’t already booked the plane tickets and sleeping place that is.
4. We went to lunch. There were Pork Pancakes, Beef Wok, and Vegetarian Wok. I had some tortilla bread, a cup of milk and called it a lunch. All school food at every school ever sucks. This is the truth. These are the facts.
5. I went upstairs to find out if I made the choir or not. The results of my journey to the seventh floor are inconclusive. There was a list with six kids names on it and their vocal parts, but six kids a choir does not make. So. I don’t know if that was the chamber choir results or what. If it is, I don’t feel very disappointed because there were 30 or so kids trying out and that would mean 23 other kids didn’t make it. I don’t know. I’ll see what’s up tomorrow. Maybe I got the date wrong? The choir teacher wasn’t there to talk to me.
6. Today was Hugo and Saga’s birthday. There was cake and presents and I felt bad that I gave them their candy as soon as I arrived because I don’t know them that well and I don’t know what else I could have possibly given them on their birthday besides what I had given them a week ago.
7. I’ve had a headache for the past three days now. Ugh.
8. The Skarins won’t speak English with me anymore in an attempt to teach me Swedish. That’d be fine if they talked to me so that I could have some context. I have things I want to say, but dinner is just them talking really fast in Swedish to one another and I don’t know what the topic is in the first place, so how am I supposed to follow? Besides, no one has really talked to me in the last few days, so it’s hard for me to pay attention when I’m not involved in the conversation. I just kind of zone out all the time now. I should probably be using the time for productive thinking, but I’m so worn out by trying to follow along in class and keep up with all of my Swedish speaking classmates that by the time I get home I realllly bored of thinking so hard and not getting anywhere that I just want to sleep. I don’t know how to tell them that they need to speak slower or speak Svenglish when I’m around because whenever I’ve asked for that in the past they forget after two minutes. Whatever. SFF should be helpful.
9. I just started crotcheting Abby’s baby’s blanket. It’s going pretty well I guess. I need some sleep.

Engelska och MUSIC TRYOUTS

Sorry I’m so late posting! I’ve been really tired every time I had time to write. On Friday I only had English class. It started at 9:50 and ended at 10:50 or so and I was almost late to class because the train was late. Debbie was actually late, so I didn’t feel too bad about sitting in my seat 2 seconds before the teacher closed the door. I was going to sit next to Nick Baker (real name: Jonathan) but he only had one seat next to him and I thought maybe he was saving it for someone, so instead I sat by myself and it was awkward and THEN he turned and started talking to me and no one ended up sitting next to him and omg I should have just sat there instead of being nice to his imaginary friend. Debbie came in late and sat next to me though, so I didn’t look like a total freak.

The English teacher’s name is Thomas. With and H. Which is weird because no one has and H in the middle of their name here. He told us it was a problem for him. He didn’t know I was an exchange student at first and when he couldn’t think of a word (tailor, draught, etc) I gave it to him and he was really impressed. Then he gave us these worksheets, and it was stupid because we had to match the English word to its Swedish meaning and obviously I can’t do that even though I’m fluent in English. So Debbie and I worked on it together, which was against the rules, but no one cared. I told her the English definition of the word and she told me which of the Swedish words that sounded like. I think I was helping her cheat as much as she was helping me to, but when the teacher came over, she said she was helping ME and the teacher was all “Why?? You’ve just got to read the text, it’s not that hard!” and I was all, “I only know conversational Swedish cause I’m American.” and then he was visibly less impressed with my earlier English feats. He flipped my paper over and read the answers I gave to some questions (which were all sarcastic because he SAID we weren’t turning it in and I didn’t think anyone was going to read it.) and pressured me to write better ones and I said “ok” and he left me alone.

I walked around town until 11:45 and ate McDonalds because I’m a fatty and then I went back to the school early because I the choir room is on the 7th floor and I didn’t want to be out of breath for tryouts.

Didn’t matter that I came early because as soon as I got out there, the teacher lady came out and said she could take me a half hour early. Seriously woman. I’m going to puke.

Lucky for me she talked for a while and I got my breath back. She tested my range and said I was definitely a soprano. This surprises me because I sound like Morgan Freeman when I talk. Whatever. Then I sang The Black Swan for her and she really liked it and asked me a bunch of questions about the composer and the opera it came from and I’m SO HAPPY I was curious about all of that Thursday night because I researched all of that and I knew the answers. 10 points for the nerd.

She had me sight read this Swedish song on the sound “nu” and I didn’t do so hot because I didn’t magically gain the ability to sight read over the summer, but I wasn’t absolutely wretched, and she said “It’s always hard in the beginning, but you’ll get better.”

So I think maybe she likes me. We find out on Monday.

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.