Days 81-89

I have been very behind on this, but here I go, trying to wrap up the last nine days.

Let's see what I can remember.

Last Saturday we had a district conference with all of the Rotarians in the area and all of the exchange students in our district came to Uppsala. We all had to sing songs in front of the Rotarians that represented our country so the guy from Michigan and I sang "The 50 States That Rhyme." After the conference we hung out in town for a while which was a lot of fun.

On Sunday night, Iliyas' family invited me to go bowling with them, so I obliged and actually won the first round and came in second during the second round, by about 10 points.

School this week was not too exciting. I slept in every morning until 10 except on Wednesday, so that was nice and today my Math class and PE were cancelled so I got to go home pretty early.

Yesterday I was invited to go to a "Tea Society" meeting at school at like 7:00. It was supposed to be a "Waffle Orgy" which Iliyas and I thought meant that they would be eating waffles, but they wound up just talking and then failing at making waffles. They then proceeded to take their shirts off, draw circles around their nipples and then rub cooking oil on each other. Then someone made chocolate pudding and every ate some and then one guy smeared it on himself and another licked it off. It was rather traumatizing, I must say. There is just something about Swedish people; when they get together, they always want to take their clothes off, whether it's in the sauna (aka bastu) or just at a tea party/"waffle orgy."

Tonight was a party celebrating Per's 60th birthday, so there were a lot of drunk Swedes at my house. Luckily they didn't all get naked as many Swedes like to do when they get together... We watched this Australian movie about suicide and secret love in high school with Anna, Iliyas, Amanda and a couple of the neighbors that were our age. It was a very weird film.
Well that's all for now.

Next week is höst lovet, or fall vacation, so I have the week off and I'm going to Gotland (an island in the Baltic Sea) with my family and Anna and Iliyas are also coming too. So we are leaving tomorrow night so it should be a lot of fun.

Day 80

Today was just another average day at school, kinda boring, but not too bad. I was able to sleep in until 10, so that was nice. After school I helped Anna pick out boots that she was going to buy. (well I actually didn't pick them, she just wanted my opinion. Well I don't know if she even wanted it, but she just wanted me to tell her to buy them I guess) And after that I went to Iliyas' house and ate dinner there and then I went home and now I'm going to sleep and I know that this sentence has way to many and's in it. :)

Day 79

I had a very late start today (1:20) and so I had hoped that I would be able to play the piano during the morning but Per was home when I woke up so I couldn't. Well I could, but I don't like an audience when I'm trying to learn something new because I have to keep playing it over and over again until I get it right and I'm sure that anyone listening would get really annoyed. So I wound up sleeping pretty late and then left for school a little early so I would have time to mail a post card. Then I went to school for my two classes, Biology and Physics. I like Biology because we were talking about genetics and I actually understood several of the questions on this sheet she gave us, and I was able to write answers without any help! Yay me!! Physics was a little bit of a different story, we were studying electrical forces. I understood the notes on the board and the sample problems he did, but when we actually did the work in the book, everyone was having a hard time understanding. After that I met Anna and we ate a salad at our favorite salad place in town and then hung out for a couple of hours and then I went home and played the piano (Finally!!) because nobody was home. I finally learned the second part to When You're Gone and I can play up until after "Can you see how much I need you right now?" I spent the rest of the night on the computer, talking to my dad and studying a little bit.

Also, I would like to wish a Happy Birthday to Maria! Grattis på födelsedagen!!

Day 78

Today was a normal day at school, blah blah blah.... boring


After school was just as boring, I spent almost the whole night just watching clips from madTV on youtube. I just didn't feel like working on online homework, especially after spending so much time on it yesterday.

Day 77

I got to sleep in this morning and I didn't have to be in school until around 10:00. I caught the bus and met with Emelie and Ida, two of my classmates who live a couples stops after me, and we talked. Right as we were pulling up to our stop, Emelie got a call and we found out that our Biology Lab class was canceled and so was our regular Biology class which meant that I had no lessons today. I wound up going to school anyway and hung out with them and some other friends and waited for the cafeteria to open and then I ate and then went home. I spent the entire afternoon from around 12:00 until like 5:00 working on English and History work. I feel like I'm always playing catch up. I hate how my English class thinks it's a history class. I also told my teacher off in an assignment, because we had to write our own Declaration of Independance (told you it thinks it's a history class!) but instead of declaring independance, we had to declare freedom from something else that was bothering us so I declared independance from online classes. We had to include a list of grievances like in the real one, so I did just that. It made me feel good after doing it, I finally really got to speak my mind and tell the teacher about how I think the curriculum is medicre and the assignments are uninventive, stale and have little or no educational value whatsoever.
Oh yeah, I went there.

Day 76

In the morning they both left and then I was bored. The weather was really nice out and I really didn't want to just sit inside so I meet Iliyas in town. We hung out for a while and then met Gen, who was with her best friend from Enköping, the town she used to live in before she moved to Uppsala. We hung out with then for a while and then we all went home and I ate dinner with Iliyas' family and then we went to my house and watched a movie. I really reccomend watching Amelie, even if it's in French, because it's really good; really wierd, but really entertaining.

Day 75

Today we all (Iliyas, Gen and I) went to Anna's counselor's house to hang out and study. We wound up not studying at all and just watched A Shot At Love with Tila Tequila because they were running a marathon. We went shopping for food and made our own lunch which consisted of a GIANT peice of bread (like a foot long and 1/3 foot wide) , smelly but really tasty French cheese and french fries. We wound up buying a 2.5 kilo bad of fries, because it was only one crown more than a 1 kilo bag, so we figured why not. (that's 5.5 pounds of fries, Americans) So then we watched more tv and then later her counselor came home and soon after that we left for my house. (not because we don't like her counselor or anything, we just wanted to go there) We just hung out and talked and stuff for almost the whole night and then went to sleep. Gen and Anna stayed over, but Iliyas went home.

Day 74

Today I had a test in math. Now everyone must think, "Oh math is easy because there's no language involved." WRONG!!! It's really hard if maybe you don't understand the directions, or if the test is comprised of about 30% word problems. I was able to make out the meaning of a few of them, but then I wasn't sure what to do with the numbers. I guess it doesn't really matter because I'm not getting grades here but still I wish I could have done better. There's always next time, I guess. My teacher was babbling on a couple of weeks ago about how math is so international, but I wonder, if it's so international, why do I have to bring a DICTIONARY to math class?

After school I went and hung out with Anna, who helped me feel a little better after the confidence-shattering test.

Day 73

Today was just another average day at school, sorry to disappoint, nothing really special.

Day 72

Another sleep in today!!! But this time it was until 1:20!! I actually was planning on waking up at a reasonable hour and then working on some online homework and stuff, but that plan sort of failed when I woke up at 11:00. That pretty much gave me time to take a shower, eat breakfast and get dressed and ready and then catch the 12:23 bus #20 to town to get to school. I then got to school and sat through Biologi and learned about genetics (well I actually kind of already knew the stuff) and then went to Kemi and wrote post cards to my friends while the teacher was babbling about something that I didn't really care about... I did take notes though, so it's not like I didn't care completely, I just wouldn't have really gotten any more information from listening to her talk. Anyway... After school I met with Gen in town and we ate at Max, which I swear is going to be the last time for a while, and I'm definitely going to the gym tomorrow. I finally got home kinda later than I had hoped because I was planning on working on some more of my online stuff. I got home and then ate a little of the dinner they had saved for me (it was like a quice/pie sort of thing with ham and cheese and it was really good) and then Katarina came home from the gym and we talked for a long time (in Swedish) about my day and what I did yesterday and random things, and it was really nice. Then I went upstairs determined to work on my homework and I finally started working and realized that there is no way that I can complete this assignment and then spent a lot of time contemplating and thinking about how I can either get out of doing it, just not doing, getting a zero and moving on, or even dropping the course and seeing if I can pass my English class here off as "English III" back home. I finally came up with a solution, and please everyone don't think differently of me because of this, because this assignment has really been eating away at my sould for an entire week now. I have been losing sleep and been constantly streesed so I finally just got a friend to complete it for me so I can get this incredible weight off of my shoulders and stop the wrinkles and gray hairs from prematurely forming because of this one assignment. In case you haven't noticed, yes this does have to do with my furied rants about how much I hate poetry. The assignment is horrible and after I turn it in I plan to have a long talk with my teacher about it and how it should be removed to prevent further suffering. Anyway that's all for tonight, I need to get to sleep because I don't have a sleep in tomorrow. There is nothing to be learned or gained from being forced to write a poem in response to a dead woman's poem that the never intended to be published in the first place.

Day 71

I had a sleep-in today, which was nice and I got to school at around 10:00 only to find out that my Mikrobiologi class was canceled and that I had an hour and a half to wait. So I called Anna to see what she was up to and then we hung out and went to this outdoor market thing near the "Nuclear Power Plant" aka the concert hall. (see "Day 3") After that I returned to school and had so much fun learning about stuff and blah blah blah. After school I met up with Gen who had just gotten back from a trip through Europe with her dad who had come to visit her. We hung out around town for a while and then came back to my house and watched movies with Amanda. Tomorrow I don't have to be in school until 1:20, so maybe I can actually wake up semi-early and work on some assignments! ...or not...

Day 70

I had to get up early this morning. (well not that early, I guess I'm getting too used to sov morgnar and sleeping in) After a physics lab and a chemistry lab I had biology and then school was over at 12:35 so I ate lunch and then met up with Frenchie and we went and mailed some things. (I do not want to devulge any more details so as to not ruin surprises...) After that we went to Anna's house and hung out there for the whole afternoon and part of the night and I learned how to do a couple types of ballroom dancing with Anna which was really fun and funny.

Now I'm going to go to sleep pretty early so that I will be able to use some of the time tomorrow morning before school to work on this stupid English assignment. I HATE POETRY!!!!!! I hope that this doesn't change anyone's opionion of me, but I feel it is absolutely pointless to make young people suffer while studying it. It's bad enough trying understand the "hidden messages" and symbolism that nobody really cares about, but it's even worse when you are forced to write your own poetry. There is nothing that is learned or gained from this, there is no educational value whatsoever and I think that FLVS' curriculum is mediocre and downright horrible. They should not be trying to teach American History during an English class; I'm already suffering enough working for an actualy American History class, which I also absolutely hate. It is also way behind for an 11th grade level class, because the reading list includes 4 books that I read in EIGHTH grade English. And despite the fact that the previous sentence was a run on sentence (right before I posted it I just realized it wasn't, but I still would like to leave this here for dramatic effect) and I started this sentence with "and," I still have to say that I am DAMN good at English, (please excuse that colloquial phrase) even though I tend to overuse parentheses and ellipses (they are the "..." for those of you who didn't know) and I belive that the current ways of thinking in English "education" are an absolute atrocity. (excuse the run on and To think if I had actually spent all this time working instead of ranting, I might already be done with it, eller hur? I guess I'm not too bad at Swedish either... Well anyway, I certainly hope Anne Bradstreet is enjoying eternity burning in hell. :)

Can you find the subliminal message?

Day 69

I slept really late (until like 12:30) and then stayed at Frenchie's house until around 4 and then headed home to eat an early dinner. I've spent the rest of the day at home just catching up on my online classes and talking to my mommy on skype. ^_^

Day 68

It may have been a little confusing to understand my last post in terms of time, because I kept shifting tenses. So to explain; today, Saturday, is the day of Ewa's birthday and I spent last night at their house after the misunderstanding that was described in the previous post.
So I slept late like always and then we spent the rest of the day watching anime and movies and then at around 5 I went home to get a change of clothes and stuff because I was planning on spending the night again because the party would be over at around 1, and I knew I wouldn't feel like riding home that late because I'm lazy.
I came back at 6:30 and then we headed to Skarholmen, the yacht club, for the party. The party was nice, it was a little boring because it was mostly just a bunch of old people getting drunk and dancing to the live band. During dinner, which was an Italian buffet, there were frequent pauses to drop everything and start singing. They has distributed sheets with the lyrics to all these songs. There were at least 8 or 9 of these outbreaks of singing; it was quite funny, actually. Frenchie and I spent pretty much the whole time just talking because there was nothing else to do and then finally at around 2, we headed home and then went to sleep.

Day 67

I had a sleep in morning today, so it was pretty nice. School was the same as always and after I went to Frenchie's house and wound up spending the night after misunderstanding the time we were leaving tomorrow. They said half past six, but they didn't whether it was in the morning or night, but I assumed that since they offered for me to sleep over, it must have been in the morning because that would be easier if I could just leave with them. But alas, it was at night, so there was no point in staying over, but it didn't really matter anyway... They have a really nice house in Södra Gottsunda. (not to be confused with regular Gottsunda, which is supposed to be a scary place at night)
The reason for this confusion was because tomorrow is Ewa's (the w is pronounced like a v: Eva) 50th Birthday, and "0" birthdays are a big deal here. Ewa is Frenchie's host mom and is my future host mom when we swap families after Christmas.

Day 66

School day, same old, same old.

Day 65

Today was pretty cool, besides the 3 hour Mikrobiologi class. We were experimenting with bacteria including E. coli, and I was the only one that seemed to think that it might be dangerous. I also was the only one to notice the the butane cans we were using were designed for camping and were filled with propane and had a warning on them: When burned, propane releases chemicals known to the state of California to cause birth defects, cancer and other reproductive harm. DO NOT USE INDOORS" As we were using about 8 of them simultaneously. And when I told people to take a look, they just thought it was kind of funny and so did the teacher. So much for having kids...

After mikrobiologi, we had lunch, but today was vegetarian's world day, so the food was rather nasty, so a group of us (my Swedish friends!!!) went to Subway to eat. There's no such thing as $5 footlongs, here, it's like $30000000 6", but luckily we had bogo coupons so it wasn't too bad. We ate out by the river in the same spot that I sat just a few days ago, but today it was rainy and very cold and icky out. After we ate we went back to school and had two more classes and then we were finished.

After school I went to Forex to exchange the cash I brought here because it hit an all time high today (which I though was strange considering the whole crisis thing) The rate was about 6.93 kronor for one dollar which is better than the 6.38 when I got here. The actual rate their (for buying) was 6.74, but that's still better than before so I exchange $450 and got around 3000 kronor. The rate for selling dollars was 6.99 meaning that it costs about 7 kronor to buy on dollar. The exchange rate made me happy all day.
After that I went home and changed and then headed for the gym where I met Iliyas and Anna. We spent a long time there, mostly talking and laughing, and then we went home and now I'm going to sleep.