Chez moi

I'm already home. Sitting outside in 38 degree weather, probably getting a sunburn at the moment, eating as much Mexican food as I can possibly fit inside myself, and spending money. Life is good. Home is good. I am happy.

I am partially so happy because leaving college was so nice. I mean, of course it was hard, but I feel like I mostly left everything with closure, like it was all finished and had all been said and done by the time I left. The fact that the week after was amazing helped as well. I really could not have asked for any better.

Tove's was good, a crazy party in a beautiful place and plenty of time to talk and say goodbye. Then Marc and I took a little roadtrip with Adriana and Alex from Goteborg to Malmo which was actually quite nice. From Malmo, Marc and I took the train to Copenhagen where we spent a ridiculously decadent night. One of those nights that you don't forget, that really stays in your head. Every detail was just right: the restaurant, the wine, the food, the city, the cathedrals, everything. And of course, the company wasn't so bad either, haha.

I think I needed to leave the college to really appreciate the person that it made me. The week spent traveling really showed me how much I'd changed, and now being home, I'm happy with the person that I am.

I may have gotten a job, though I'm not sure. I'm quite happy about it, too. I'd be waitressing and bartending at this little upscale Spanish restaurant. I think I will really like it, and I get to speak Spanish. It is funny though that I can bartend but I can't legally drink myself. Oh well.

I think the summer will be interesting and I'm glad I have this time to sort myself before going to Paris. I am so excited for Paris that it's unnatural, I think. I'm not sure if I will ever want to leave :)

Again, thank you for everything. Graduation was perfect, leaving was perfect, traveling was perfect. I haven't been this happy in a long time. Thank you.

The aftermath (but not really)

So, that last post was angry. But Elisabeth with a late night cigarette gave me some perspective on the whole thing. As did leaving campus. So it's alright. I apologize for my public internet rantings and ravings.

Yes, I've left. There's nothing to say now. Am I bitter about some things (or just one thing?)? Yes, obviously. But am I ridiculously excited for the life I have in front of me, the life I'm living right now? Yes and yes.

I didn't cry as much as I thought I would. I think that's because I feel like I deserved to leave, I deserve the life that I'm working out for myself. The past two years have been long and hard and I've earned the right to set out in the real world, surround myself only with the people I truly care about, forget about the rest, and just be myself. It's wonderful.

I'm sitting in bed with Raine, trying to fall asleep. Downstairs, there are about 20 of my co-years. Sweden is sunny and warm and full of good things. Party tomorrow, and then off to Copenhagen with Marc. God, I love life sometimes.

I will write more from home. Maria and Katherine, anything I could say also goes unsaid. There aren't enough words, and I've emailed you a million times already. Sebastian, Hanna, everyone else, I will email you when I'm back home. Take care of yourselves and enjoy that place while you own it.

Thank you for everything. It's been amazing.

"Voici les cles de ton bonheur..."

Now I'll go sleep next to my best friend, wake up tomorrow surrounded by even more of them, drive around Swedish country roads, dance the afternoon away, then drink white wine as the sun sets.

Thank you thank you thank you.

Never You Mind

I've almost finished my exams. In fact, in exactly 9 hours, I will be entirely finished with the IB. Strange, two years of work will all be finished tomorrow.

And what do I feel? Relieved, obviously. Happy. Exhausted. Exams have been annoying and tiring. Not especially difficult, just a pain in my ass. Maybe I haven't done my best, but I haven't done my worst either. So that's okay.

The end is coming up so quickly. I can't believe that this is me, that I am now what my second years were last year. I can't believe I'm here, ready to walk out of this place in a matter of days. It seems impossible, but it also seems right. It needs to happen.

The end does, however, beg the question: how do you want to be remembered? Apparently, some of you wish to be remembered as gossip-mongering liars (oh, that was harsh). But it's true. I am so disappointed with so many people. I am actually in disbelief, I am shocked that any of you could and do believe something so illogical and ridiculous and stupid.

I'm going to be honest, it hurts. It hurts that people would rather lie about something at my expense just so they have something to talk about. It hurts that people can speak behind my back but not to my face. It hurts that everyone is so quick to assume that I am a certain way even though if you all took a minute to consider everything, to consider me, you would think differently. It hurts because only very few people know that I couldn't do such a thing even if I wanted to. So all of you gossiping about it, laughing about it, judging it...you should take a second to consider how absolutely painful it is for me. You are judging something that I am literally incapable of. And all of you make it so much worse. You are adding insult to injury.

This is part of the reason why I am ready to leave. I feel like I have outgrown this place. I feel that I really cannot be bothered with the high school gossip and the back-stabbing and the strange alliances any more. I want to be back in the real world where people think normally and clearly and for themselves. I love Flekke but to be honest, it is full of far too many sheep (both literally and figuratively).

Now this may all sound harsh or bitter, but I guess it's really not. It is the truth, but I am not exactly angry about it. Instead, I would say that I'm sad about it. It is sad to realize that two years have come to this, that some people have not grown up very much at all. It is sad that so many of you want to be remembered like this. It is sad because I have cared so much, because I have believed in all of you, and it apparently hasn't amounted to shit with any of you.

I guess in the end, we all reveal our true selves.

"Are you sorry that you treat me unkind? Never you mind. Are you sorry that you wasted our time? Never you mind."

Oh Semisonic, thank you for writing the soundtrack for this exact moment.

Contemplaciones y Mensajes

Yo se que no puedo escribir poesia o literatura en espanol. Pero voy a trater de escribir un poco. Pienso que puedo expresarme un poco en espanol. Somos diferentes en cada idioma, si? Y para este tema, necesito espanol.

Hay personas en este mundo quienes son diferentes. Hay personas en cada vida quienes afectan mucho en cualquier sitio en cualquier momento.

Nuestros corazones son mugrientos con el suciedad del mundo. Cualquier persona tiene una polvareda de su corazon roto. Pero hay personas quienes pueden limpiar el polvo, el mugre, de nuestros corazones. No vamos a esperarlas. Pero son nuestros amores, en el sentido romantico pero en otros sentidos tambien. Los limpiadores de nuestros corazones son la gente que infunde nuestras vidas con razon. Y eso es lo unico que importa. Un poco es mas vale que nada.

Esas personas son esas que recordamos. Es probable que el mundo no va a recordarte. Pero si una persona, un corazon, te recuerdo? Eso es todo que es necesario.

Hace diecinueve meses aqui. Mi corazon estaba roto. Mi corazon estaba reparado. Y en el tiempo intermedio, aprendia mucho. Aunque hay personas que se quedan y hay personas que no se quedan, personas que rompia y personas que reparaba...no puedo olivdar que me ensenaban. No puedo olivdar algo como eso.

Y si tu te quedas todavia, te prometo: te voy a recordar despues de este sitio. Y me vas a infundir con razon, con esperanza, con confianza siempre.

Lost In Translation

I've just realized that any normal person coming across my blog would think that I hate this place and that I am a very unhappy person. That is not the case. We're always hardest on the ones (and places) we love, yeah? I mean, if I wasn't irredeemably tied to this place and its people, I don't think I would find it so easy to criticize everything. So the point is, although I might sound all doomsday/fire and brimstone-like, I'm not. I do care about things. And because I care about them, I'm emotional about them. I'm just afraid that the only impression I give is that I'm emotional and that I fail to convey the caring and meaning behind all of it.

It generally seems like we misinterpret a lot of things. It is this horrible, permanent language barrier caused by the fact that we all speak our own languages. I'm not referring to the problem of me speaking English as a first language and you speaking Russian or Spanish or Arabic as a mother tongue...I'm talking about the fact that we all have our own language that we speak with ourselves. And this language is one that we are completely incapable of teaching to others, one that we fumble to translate into spoken words. But that's the problem. It's always a translation. It's never what you actually mean, it's just a good approximation of it. I know this sounds like a bad summary of Wittgenstein's musings on private language, but it's true. We are always translating ourselves and, as all of us at this multilingual school know, there are always things that get lost in translation.

That is not how it works.

Fuck you for attempting to diminish and romanticize and laugh about something that is anything but eclectic and pretty.

Fuck you for trying to make real life a whole lot shinier and more adorable than it actually is.

And fuck you for not making it worth it.

Fuck you for not giving it all meaning and justification

Fuck you for showing me pretty but giving me ugly.

I am tired.

I am tired of watching the organization that I have put my faith in (and spent the last two years of my life living for) implode.

I am tired of hearing about how much I should be studying.

I am tired of university paperwork.

I am tired of thinking about money and scholarships and how to pay the rent.

I am tired of hearing about how much you all are studying.

I am tired of never really being at peace.

I am tired of people acting less like real people and more like caricatures.

I am tired of any sentence beginning with "This is the last time...".

I am tired of waiting.

I am tired of not knowing the right words.

I am tired of having writer's block.

I am tired of the past.

And for some reason, I don't think that this is all the kind of tired that can simply be fixed by sleep.