Herfstvakantie

So yeah, my vacation was very, very good. Berlin, Amsterdam, Zeist, Walibi World, Den Haag, Nijmegen, all kinds of fun things. I just don't like having to go back to school. AAGH. But the vacation was amazing.

Berlin.

Okay, so Berlin was completely excellent. AFS needs to set up more activities like that, because everyone is so totally chill and wow, I felt home. I have some of my closest friends through AFS, even though I've only hung out with them a total of what, six days of my life? Still, they are amazing people and I don't know what I'd do without them. Currently they are my reason for staying in the Netherlands...even if school sucks, I have the AFSers. It's just so weird to think about though. I went out to dinner with some kids on Sunday night before catching the bus, and we discussed how surreal everything still is. A year ago, I would never have IMAGINED I would be going to dinner in Berlin with kids from New Zealand, Switserland, Brazil, Australia, Perú, Italy, etc. Crazy crazy.

Yes, I will post pictures, but I'm too lazy to do it right now haha.

AWESOME POSSUM

So today was completely rockin'. I got out of school at 12 because uh, yeah, all my classes always get cancelled. I came home, had some lunch, you know, finished LOTR 2, etc. Then I had to go out and buy some shampoo and whatnot to take to Berlin because I don't want to steal my host family's hahaha. Then when I got home from shopping there were two HUGE packages from my parents waiting for me. I guess both sets of parents sent me packages at the same time? Anyway yeah, I now have food to last the next eighty million years, plus some good books, my amazing calculator without which there is no math or, indeed, life...and warm clothes, my track spikes, a general assortment of excellent things. And tonight I am leaving on the AFS trip to Berlin. Weooo I love my life.

The only not-so-fantastic thing that happened today was that applesauce exploded in my bag. It was entirely gross and a huge mess, but I managed it and my bag just came out of the wash, good as new. Bahahaha, I suck.

Bijna Herfstvakantie!!!

So yes, it's almost the autumn holidays. I really don't understand the structure of the Dutch school year; they seem to have about a million more days off than we do in the US. Not that I'm complaining, though. A week off from school (actually a little more, since I'm leaving on the AFS trip to BERLIN tomorrow) will be quite nice.

My brain is going all weird. My English has actually deteriorated...I find myself using really, really odd words and sentence constructions sometimes and I have to wonder what happened hahaha. Dutch is getting better, I suppose. I understand a lot in school now, although my ability to speak it myself is not too impressive. French is also kind of screwed up. I can understand it fine, both reading and listening. But when it comes to speaking, I can never seem to get out what I want to say. I always end up inserting a Dutch word instead. Crazy, crazy. Also, yesterday there was a test in French class and we had to translate sentences. I kept trying to put them into Dutch, only to realize that they were already IN Dutch. Aghhh! Confusing.

Speaking of languages getting mixed up, I don't seem to be using a particular language for thinking anymore. I used to think clearly, definitely in English, but now I kind of just have thoughts without words put to them, or with words from different languages put to them. Very, very weird.

WHAT?!

Wow. What the hell. I was having a relatively good day until I was pretty much smited a couple minutes ago. Hans was in the same room as me, not addressing me at all, and then he got up to leave the room, turned round, and said, "So Renee called AFS and the volunteer is coming on Sunday."
I was confused. "What?" I responded.
"Jaaaa, we called and the counselor is coming to talk about how to deal with things."
"What things?"
"The situation."
"What situation?" (OH MY GOD please give me a concrete answer sometime in the next five years.)
"Ja, well, we just don't really know how to handle it, you know."
"No, I don't know, because I can't tell what you're talking about. Could you please explain this to me?"
"Well, Renee feels that you're just really unhappy with the school, with flute, with us, with everything, and you're really inaccessible and not open to discussion."
I understood the unhappy part--yeah, I DO hate school, but YOU WILL NOT LET ME CHANGE!--but I did not understand the inaccessible part. I answer all their questions and start conversations of my own accord; I do not have to be prodded for information. But okay, whatever. So now there's an AFS counselor coming Sunday to "discuss our options". Which means, essentially, I am getting kicked out. Awesome, thanks guys.
And then Hans felt the need to throw down one more. "You know," he said pseudo-comtemplatively, "we've never had to do this before." (Implication: You are the worst foreign exchange student ever.) Yeah yeah, I know that was completely necessary to tell me. Just like it was completely unnecessary to diguise the fact that you didn't want me in the first place and basically got stuck with me.

So now I am in an extremely foul mood due to events that took aproximately three minutes to transpire. Even though the rest of my day was fine. I mean really, though...could they not have attempted to talk to me before calling the exchange organization and getting into a whole mess?

Mostly, I just don't want to leave Julia.

Don't Romanticise.

So it seems that before I came here I had the entire thing romanticised up in my head. Of course people are prone to thinking about what certain experiences will be like--I mean, how else would we decide what to do with ourselves?--but from what I'm currently experiencing it would appear that I really took it to the limit with unrealistic thoughts. Which is odd, you know, because I felt very prepared before I left. I actually did all of the AFS preparation crap and kept telling myself not to have any expectations so that I could just experience things as they were. But I guess that, in itself, was a delusion that I created for myself; one of being prepared for this whole deal and being ready to take whatever was coming. Truthfully, I wasn't ready then, am not ready now, and will probably never be ready. I can see that now. I'm despairing that everyone else seems to be having a better time than I am, which is, of course, one of the things AFS specifically tells kids NOT to do. The comparison, that is, not the having a good time part. We're allowed to have fun. Anywho, not the point. I am trying very hard to stay positive about things, but it's difficult when my life is completely off-balance. In my opinion, a normal life consists of a mix of days: mostly passable, with some very good and a few very bad thrown in. This allows for a general feeling of content...perhaps some boredom, but general content. Right now, though, my life seems to be made up of bad day after bad day with the occasional somewhat good day thrown in. And then even the good days have their little flaws that can manage to bring the whole thing down. I full-out hate my school. School here is such a huge waste of time. The teachers, for the most part, do not even teach. It's always "Read pages 193-200 and do exercises 14 and 15." Seriously, what are these people being paid to do? Julia and I both fervently hope to change schools, but so far our host parents have been entirely unsupportive. Not like they would support me anyway; I refer primarily to their approach to her. I want nutritious food but cannot find any. My flute teacher is not interested in what I have to say and, therefore, cannot tailor his approach to help me. The orchestra conductor pretty much blew a gasket when someone at rehearsal (not me, actually) asked him to speak English. Since I got here I have felt like my host family never wanted me, and this was recently confirmed. I get annoyed at pretty much everything that ordinarily wouldn't bother me at all. The kids at my school do not go out at all because they're always busy with church--always, no lies. I miss my family and I miss my friends. I even miss my school. But this entire feeling is not really homesickness; it's not so much that I want to go home as that I just don't want to be here.