A Vague Attempt To Make My Life Look Romantic

This is from that time my friends and I had a seance in the park

Here’s the front door of my new school

GOTT NYTT ÅR!

It’s January first!! The world still hasn’t ended! Sherlock premieres tonight!

Plans got really messy last night, so this isn’t going to be about what I talked about in previous posts. I’ll organize this into a time table because life is hard and confusing and it’ll give my transitionary adverbs a break. I don’t know what tense and which pronouns to use in all of this either because half of this happened to me and half of this happened to me and the group and some of it is still happening? Lordy Lord. Also, I’m bad at math, so those estimations of half are probably really off.

4:00 – picked up Perth from the station

4:40 – picked up Hannah from the station

4:50 – went back to my house to drop off luggage

???? idk the real time. I’m gonna guess it was about 6:00? – Went to Central Station to meet up with Josh, Avishkar, and Oliver to get coffee Starbucks was closed though and we were very sad.

7:00ish ish – Went to McIncredible. Then we sat and talked and it was nice and also a little boring because I am the worst at making plans. Every other day is a ‘red day’ in Sweden which means that the shops close at 2:00pm and whatnot. We discussed what to do with the time we had free until the time we had free was gone.

9:00 – picked Narain up from the station. Oliver, and Pablo left to go to house parties and Narain and Perth went off in search of food that wasn’t McDonald’s. The rest of us waited for Alejandra and Jorge to come to the station. We ate Hannah’s brownies while we waited so it wasn’t all bad

9:45 – Several brownies later we left the station to find a kebab house for Jorge.

10:30? – We got to Slussen (an area near the water) and watch live music under the shadow of Katrina’s Hissen.

11:40 – Narain calls me to come and find him and Perth, which rescues me from being crushed to death. Every person who has ever lived was pressing up against each other in a writhing mass of bodies and I thought I was going to die.

11:55 – I find them and we watch the fireworks from a safe distance away from the drunk people.

12:00 – HAPPY NEW YEAR! Instead of kissing each other, strangers give hugs to one another which is infinitely more hygienic. (Side note: All night people were grabbing at me on the sidewalk and stuff. Like, they’d take my arm or stand chest to chest to me and go “Hallå!” and at one point this guy came up and was like “Pata Spanska?” and I was like “No, pero- hey, Alejandra!” because I thought he needed directions or something and then he says to her “Me gusta ella. Es muy bonita.” and I’m laughing because I could kind of understand and Alejandra translates it to “He says he likes you,” and I say “Claro que si!” and that is literally the extent of my Spanish so I walk away before he can try and talk to me again, but wow. Just remember to S.I.N.G. if you ever get into trouble. Miss Congeniality taught me that. Self-defense class taught me to aim for the eyes.

1:40 – We finish listening to music and watching fireworks and look for a place to pee and eat and McIncredibles is the only place open so we head on back.

2:30 – We find Oliver at the station and take him back to McDonald’s.

3:00 – I’m really tired and I start to feel feverish? Also I get unnecessarily emotional and start crying because I suddenly remember that everyone is going to leave and I’m never going to see them again and the present is really nice and I don’t know if it’s possible but I felt nostalgic for it.

3:45? – We head home, missing the Nockeby train by nearly two hours. sl.se, the website we use to check train times, went down around midnight, so there wasn’t anyway to know unless we had checked before going out. Oops.

5:00???? – We get home after walking from Alvik and wow I was so cold, it was unreal.

7:00 – After several deep and meaningful sleepover conversations, I fall asleep. Dang.

1:00 – have breakfast

2:30 – Keep the party going by going to Starbucks and taking sips of everyone else’s drinks because that’s how you find out what’s good and I’m definitely not a mooch.

5:40 – Go home because I’m definitely have a fever and am the clammiest of clams. Dear lord. Go on, feel my hands. They are sweaty and cold just like the rest of me and I am probably dying ohmygod. I’m shivering while I type this. Literally, my teeth are chattering and my stomach hurts the way it does before you jump off of something really high. This is disgusting. I’m hope it’s just left over emotion from last night and I’m not actually ill.

Okay. I hope this post was informative. I think there’s probably a million things I’m missing. We danced at the new years thing. All of those dances I had during gym class with that weird kid who tried to ask me to prom Sophomore year were useless and I had needed to be taught all over again. I think that’s it. I don’t know. I’ll probably remember more later.

^ Gabriella left a few days ago, so a bunch of us said good bye to her at the airport.

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.

I think it’s the yogurt.

I don’t know if I told you this before, but I’ve been having nightmares/disturbing dreams practically every night since I got here. At first I thought that this was my young adult protagonist self manifesting, but for the last week or two, it’s just been really annoying. And then there was Last Night.

I woke up FOUR TIMES.

And each time I was sitting up and I was convinced I had to get out of bed to do something. The one I remember most clearly was the last time when I thought dad was choking on M&Ms that I gave him and I had to go get a bottle of water I had sitting behind the curtain in my room.

Last night I had a dream that I had dyed part of my hair blue again and I had to look in the mirror to make myself believe it was only a dream.

People. This is serious business.

In all reality though, I’m really tired of(from?) being woken up all the time and not sleeping well because the dreams make me feel like I’ve been awake all night.

I need a week off where I can sleep as much as I want and no one  will judge me and also I won’t judge me, and also I would be in another dimension so that I’m not actually wasting a week in this one.

So Chic

I feel like I live in a Coffee Shop AU. I spend a lot of time writing and drawing and reading alone in coffee shops and I feel like at this point, I’m am definitely the main character of this YA novel. Today I ordered a Caramel Latte, and I definitely suggest y’all try one because they are THE BOMB. Also, all of these coffee shops have little pitchers of lemon water, and lemon water is good for your voice, so I’m probably a professional singer now with all of the free water I’ve drunk. (Keenan, I almost wrote dranken, and then I thought of you.)

The only problem is, whenever I enter a coffeehouse, I think of this post: i keep seeing the words coffee shop au without knowing what they mean. a coffee shop universe? alternate universe where there are coffee shops.friends, i have some good news for you about this universe that we live in.

And then I want to laugh. Living the dream right here.

Today I want to the Carl Milles Garden, and I’ve got some photos to share with you that about sums of the trip. Here they are, along with a video of how my morning went and part of the tour.

This reminds me of the sandman from that Episode of Sleep Hollow last week.

angels

I’m a professional blogger, so I can update as often as I see fit

Alright. Where did we leave off last?

Um so. This weekend I went to the library and got some books that I probably won’t read. (I only want to read The Book Thief right now, but I can’t find it, so I guess I won’t read at all.) I walked around until I was a Kate-sicle and then I got on the train and went home. The rest of the night was spent skyping with my parents and that was nice.

On Monday I went to school at 13:00 for my only class of the day, but no one opened the door when I knocked, so I figured it got cancelled and hopped onto the train. I rode for like two hours because I didn’t feel like going home. I got off at the slutstation (it means last station, but I call it the slut station, which is definitely my stop 😉 jkjk ) and got some risifruitti which is basically my life. I only eat risifrutti and tea now. I think drowning in either one might be an okay way to go. The only time I stop thinking about how much I want some is when I have some. And even then, I’m thinking that I wish I had more. I will probably have to go to addict meetings when I get back to America.

On Tuesday I made vegetable soup for dinner, but no one really ate it, so it’s my duty to finish it off before friday. Thermoses of soup abound. I am always drinking it. It’s a little off putting when you get to the chunks, but I do my best.

Today I slept until 10:00 exactly which is when my English class starts. Somehow my alarm got turned off and I missed class. Amazing. This must be how it feels to go to college. Wake up late, school day is over already. So I spent all of today drinking tea and looking at scholarships and eating grapefruits.

I’m feeling like I’m going back to my middle school days because lately I’ve been listening to exclusively musicals. You just can’t stop the beat, my friends. Showtunes are where it’s at. I like how they don’t really repeat and how I can use a funny voice when I sing and it sounds right and how every musical has the same sort of sound in each song, so you can sing along even if you don’t know how it goes exactly.

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!

Dr. Livingston, I Presume?

Today our english teacher asked us if we had any news about Africa. Va? Really? No one answered him because that’s such and obtuse question, and he got all upset that “none of us had done any research”. He went on to tell us about how some Swedish missionary just died ‘over there’ and if we knew who he was. I don’t think Swedish missionaries are exactly “news about Africa,” but okay? None of us did and then he asked us if we knew about Dr. Livingston. No one was talking, so he told us about how this dudebro got lost in the wilderness (still not sure where exactly, but I guess that’s not important to the story.) and when someone found him, they said something famous… what could those words be? hmmmmm I wonder…? No one was raising their hand so I did, and the teacher was like “THANK GOD” and I was like, um, these kids didn’t know who Livingston was, and they speak English as a second language? Why would they know those magical words?

Anyway, we went to the library to “Research Africa” and I read some short African horror stories about kids getting tricked into terrorist plots and some boy getting tangled up in and exsanguinating to death in some barbed wire. I think I’ll probably write about Rwanda or something. It’s not due until October, and it’s only a two page long paper, so I’m not too worried.

I took a nap on a bench. Probably drooled a little, but I was face down and my hood was up, so it’s all good. We had a two hour wait before going on a surprise field trip during E-Block to the King Christina exhibit, so I made the most of it and got some rest. The exhibit was alright, and probably pretty informative if you spoke Swedish and could understand the tour guide. I felt like any minute I was going to time travel back to the 1650s and that would be my YA character power, but no. So because that didn’t happen, I guess my favorite part was when we got to wander off on our own and I found the dress up section. There will be pictures, but I’m to tired to upload anything right now. Check back later.

Alright. So that was my day. I made pancakes for dinner and it was only Hugo and I eating tonight, so we ate all the bacon and got two giant pancakes each and it was heaven.

Poetry

I’m not one of those girls who has a poetry journal full of “deep” thoughts and bad similes. My first class today was music though, and our project is to write a song. The group nominated me to be the lyricist because since I’m the singer it’s going to have to be in English. I wrote a bad poem (see the bottom of this post) and they all think it’s really great because I don’t think they understand it fully. They’re all really good at guitar and piano and they came up with music on the spot, so I’m the weak one in the group. Hooray! They all seem really cool and nice though, so maybe we’ll all become friends and they’ll forgive me for sucking so much.

In my SFF class Davide (the Italian boy) and I are the oldest. There are five fourteen year old boys in this class and omg I forgot how immature fourteen year olds are, boys in particular. They were disruptive all class long and it was super annoying, but Davide and I shared many meaningful annoyed looks at each other because I couldn’t understand his accent and he couldn’t understand my English. So maybe once we learn Swedish we can get past our language barrier and be friends.

My religion teacher was no where to be found (Cecil Baldwin teaches that class too) and I think he maybe went home because his daughter was sick or something, because I remember him saying something to me about just getting back from maternity leave. That’s right. Maternity leave. Because Sweden is amazing and equality reigns. This is a feminist paradise.

I got on the train and went into the city because I needed another pair of jeans and some sweaters and I got some (it was so hard to spend money, you don’t understand. I don’t like shopping that much, and I HATE spending money, but it was important and now I won’t be freezing all winter long.

After I was done shopping, I went in search of the library my school buds took me to earlier, and I was walking for almost three hours because, even though I had a map, I was lost. The map only named major roads, and I couldn’t find any. I asked for directions a few times, but every time I asked, they would point me in the opposite direction the last person pointed me in. Eventually I got there and my legs were having little muscle spasms and wow. It was all uphill and I was carrying a lot and don’t judge me.

Anyway, I picked up a million books about religion so that I can write this thesis-like thing that they want from us for Humanistics. It’s a huge paper that has to have a least ten sources and you have to explain why the sources are legit and then you have to write a companion piece demonstrating what you learned. I think I’ll write a short fiction story. In English, just to stick to them for making me work so hard.

Sorry about the lack of pictures. My camera is dead and I only have one adapter, so I have to decide what is priority in the charging queue, and the camera is dead last.

Here’s the terrible poem I have to sing in front of my class. It had to be about a key, and we couldn’t decide what the key was to, so we made it a key to a heart, house, and lock. Hooray for indecision!

We met on a Saturday night

The bus was running late, the rain was a fright

I thought you were cute so I opened my umbrella

I thought we could share, you seemed an alright fella

How could I have known how wrong I was

How could you mislead me so

Why would you go and break my heart

Say you love me,  then let me go

And I’ve been told a hundred times

That it’s not you, it’s me.

I don’t know why I thought you were different

Why I gave you my key

I let you into my house

I let you into my heart

We were always supposed to be together

I don’t know how to live now that we’re apart

We declared our love at Westbridge

Our lock still hangs for all to see

I wish I could tear it off

But you threw away our key

Though years are passed

And other lovers have come

I can’t make myself forget you

You’re still the song I hum

And I’ve been told a hundred times

That it’s not you, it’s me.

I don’t know why I thought you were different

Why I gave you my key

I let you into my house

I let you into my heart

We were always supposed to be together

I don’t know how to live now that we’re apart

Now that we’re apart