January Items...

Januray 21st. Maybe that date isn’t symbolic in and of itself, but it does mean something rather important to me. I’m almost at the half way mark. How scary is that, ladies and gentlemen? Nearly half a year has gone by. In those precious six months, everyone has gone on with their lives. Some have started university, some have found new jobs. Some people finished school, some stopped working. Some went home, and others stayed. So this blog is going to be in two parts: Part the first will be a recollection of some of the major event in January; Part the Second will be shorter.
Part the First: Events
So New Years, first and foremost. In Sweden, there exists a law that prohibits the lighting of fireworks in city limits. But on New Year’s Eve... The police will look the other way. Or down in this case. Starting at around eight o’clock in the evening, there were fireworks. People were lighting them in their back yards. At midnight? It was madness. I was at a friend’s house, welcoming the new year with her and a couple of her friends and some loud music. Five minutes to midnight, we went out of doors and launched our own fireworks. By that time, the entire night sky was lit up. It was one of the most breath-taking moments in my entire life. I left soon afterwards to catch the last bus home. And the fireworks were still going up.
School started again. It is my humble opinion that no matter where you come from, no matter how awesome the school system may be, school is still a prelude to purgatory. Don’t get me wrong, the people in my school are awesome! Fantastic! There must be a little angel sitting on my shoulder making sure I end up with wonderful people, because the people in my class are nicer than I had ever hoped for. My schedule as well is fantastic! But only after I stepped in and said, “Look: I’m not a regular stream student. I don’t need to pass. If I didn’t feel like it, I wouldn’t be in school. Yet, I do want to be here. So can I have a better schedule, please?” It took a little time, but I have more classes that are outside of science. I hope. I’m waiting for the teacher of my history and social studies class to give the go ahead, but other than that, my schedule is better. But I still despise early mornings. And 45% of the time, I don’t understand what’s happening in my classes. So school still sucks. Particularly after a two week break. But it’s better.
The Aussies went home. I wasn’t close to any of them really, but regardless, I will miss them.
In return, we are getting four new two students, three from Australia and one from Brazil. Hopefully they’ll be fine.
I also changed host families. I live now in an apartment downtown. My window overlooks the river and I get to watch the ferries come sailing in and out. I have a new host sister, Ulrika, and a new younger host brother, Erik. I have a new host mom, Katarina, and a new host dad, Jerker (The ‘j’ is not pronounced). All in all: life is good. But it was hard leaving my first host family. You know, I got a little attached. More than a little. I won’t go into details here. Permit me just to say that it was very hard to say goodbye.
So that’s the month of January as it stands now.
Everyone: Stay warm! And Take Care!