Postcards from my life

2nd partials are officially over! They were done around 10.45 on Friday. So nice! Now I only have an essay for my online class to do :P And I am lacking motivation. Hopefully I'll get more done tomorrow. Well, I have until Thursday evening to get it done so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. The coming week should be less stressful than the two previous ones, but you never know. This week, thursday to be exact, is the day of the international fair. When we show off our countries to the rest of the school. It's a bit strange this semester because I don't know the other Swedes so I haven't really coordinated anything with them... But I'm making meatballs and I'll show up in my Sweden t-shirt so that will have to do.

In two weeks I'm in Mexico City with mum and dad =) I cannot wait. It's been waaaay too long if you ask me.

Movie? Read some Twilight? Or my road trip book... I want to read Harry Potter. I don't know why, but I really want to read them. Read them and just disappear into the wonderful world of Hogwarts. I'll do that this summer, when I get home to my wonderful bookshelf with all my books.

Still haven't heard back from Kilroy so I don't know what's going on with our flight home. And I haven't heard anything from work either. But I assume they now atleast know I'm interested in working this summer. Once I know exactly when I can work I'll send them another message and let them know. It's still very early.

In two months, on the 14th of May, this semester is over. That's when I have my final exam. And then no more Tec. And a few days later no more Gudalajara. No more Mexico. Time goes by so fast....

Partial 2 progress:
1 out of 3 essays handed in.
1 out of 4 exams taken.

Nice to have them started. Means that they soon will be over. And once they are, the next ones are far, far away (20ish April). The exam today was easy. Very easy. So hopefully I did well :P It was super short and the answers were pretty straight forward. NEED to get a good mark though as I only got a 78 (70 is pass) for last partial... Oh well. Tomorrow it's Spanish... Scary.. HATE Spanish exams. Pure grammar. Never know what to expect. Never know what or how to study. So will probably look over my notes once more, and then call it for today.

The weekend will include:
Alice in Wonderland with Sarah.
Chilling on the rood with Sarah and anyone else who would like to join.
Some studying. Probably on the roof.
Gingerbread baking with my fellow Swede and listening to Winnerbäck and other classics.

Should be a nice weekend :)

So! How's it going with that list of mine? Pretty darn good! I've done the homework's for tomorrow. I've found an article, I've finished the spanish work sheet, read the spanish text, corrected my spanish 'essay', done the questions about the Vietnam War. Then I've also done the seminar questions for the online class from Lund. And I've finished my ten page essay (as in I have almost ten pages and all that is left to do is re-read it a million times to make sure it makes sense and then to sort out my references and appendix). But the text is there! Which is always nice. And I've studied for my exam on Thursday. All this I've done in three days. Where I've also managed to get in a football game, a barbeque, visit to the hair dresser (still not blonde, but I don't care anymore), making meat balls and watching quite a lot of Gilmore Girls. Not bad for my usual three-day weekend.

Tomorrow it's Tuesday and a day of classes again. They're not that bad... And then it's gym. And then studying.

Wow. I'm actually getting things done and I can feel the pile getting smaller!! And I can feel the end of second partial getting closer and the easter break drawing nearer! Cannot wait!!! =)

And now. I'm done for the day! Almost ten o'clock and I'm going to watch Gilmore Girls without feeling the slightest guilty.

Quite a lot of stuff going on at the moment. I guess this is what uni is supposed to feel like... The problem is that there's so much, too much. And it's kind of paralysing me. Instead of just doing it, I run around like a dizzy hen (always fun to translate Swedish expressions to English :P). I should write a list. It's going to be a long list. But I should do it. And then just take on thing at a time. Like today. I will allow myself to NOT work on my 10-page essay. Because for tomorrow I have to read a text about the Vietnam War, prepare a presentation on the same war, read another ten pages for Geopolitics and find an article for Geopolitics. Thank god I've already done my Spanish homework. And I'm going to the gym. And to some government institution to finally register Benji as ours. I should just take a deep breath, slow down a bit, and focus. Tick things off my list. See how it decreases. I'll never forget how during IB I wrote all the essays and assignments and finals I had to do on post-it's. Then I put them on my wardrobe, and then for every thing I submitted or completed I moved it from one door to the other. And the feeling when more than half was on the completed side? So amazing! And then suddenly all of them were on the completed side and I had done it. Just like I know I will this time too. Sometimes it just gets a bit overwhelming.

Last night I went to Mandy's after spending a whole day studying in my room. Needed to get out of the house for a bit. We were supposed to study. She studied. I lay on her bed and read Lonely Planet. Which is something I need to do as well to plan my parents visist. And it was nice to lie there and read about it and know that soon they will be here and we will explore a new part of Mexico together. And I chatted a bit with Rosanna. And we bought ice cream. It was nice.

But yeah. Back to that list I guess....

The excitement is gone. Lately I've been really looking forward to going back to Nottingham when the summer is over. Been planning which classes to take, how I will go to the gym, and how nice it will be to live with the people I miss so much now. But now, I don't know. It doesn't seem to be turning out like I hoped. And now I don't feel like going back at all. I mean, I am looking forward to coming home. Definitely. And coming back to beautiful Nottingham campus. But I don't know anymore. I don't know what's going to happen. And it doesn't work like at home. That's the problem. In England, you either live in university accommodation, or you live in a house with several people. One or two, no. There's hardly anything available for that. And since the few people we know in England already seem to have their lives sorted we're stood empty handed.

I don't know. It will work out, of course. It always does. It's just frustrating.

I'm sitting working on my essay for Lund. Actually going okay. But now I'm stuck so I decided to give it a rest. Am gonna look at my history notes for the exam tomorrow. Shouldn't be too hard. I hope.

I want this week to pass by. I want Saturday to come. I still can't believe it. Probably won't until I stand there face to face with her. Amazing.

Finally this weeks is over!! My Thursday exam went well I think, didn't seem to hard. Today's presentation went okay. I even said something! Proud of myself. (It was in Spanish about geopolitics, just to explain and not make people think I usually brag about speaking :P). Then the Spanish exam today... I don't know. It felt okay, but then again, Spanish verbs in past tense is my hate topic so we'll see.. Finished off the week with just over an hour in gym with Malin and Sarah. Felt good!
And now I've just finished writing the first part of an essay that is due Tuesday, so I am officially taking Friday now! I'll go into Tec tomorrow and study hard. Essay due Tuesday, want to finish it tomorrow. Exam on Tuesday. Essay due Friday. Exam Friday. God. HATE partials!!!

But atleast the sunshine is back which means I can sit outside in the sun tomorrow at Tec!

So, first partials of my second semester are coming up. And it feels. Currently sitting with two articles from a Spanish newspaper and trying to understand them. Have read one now, with SpanishDict.com right next to me. It gets a bit tricky when I don't even know the word I get translated to! So I'm working with both SpanishDict AND Dictionary.Com. Thank god internet is behaving tonight! I have a group meeting tomorrow about these two texts. We're supposed to write a conclusion or summary or something like that and present it in class on Friday.... In Spanish. It's a bit scary having class in Spanish. But I've learned a lot of new words tonight :P Which is kind of the point so I just have to keep pushing.... Who knows, maybe by the end of the semester I won't have any trouble reading a poltical science-y article in Spanish :P I wish.

And I have an exam on Thursday. In Spanish. And Spanish exam (actually me learning Spanish) on Friday. So I need to revise for those. And I need to write a museum report for Friday as well. And then next week I have one essay due on Tuesday and an essay or exam on Friday. I'm not quite sure... Don't really understand what the teacher is talking about. Will ask her on Friday. Would be stupid if I misunderstood the exam :P

And it's raining. And it's cold.

But as soon as I am done with this text (five pages A4) I will go to bed! No matter what time it is. So I better bite the bullet (or the sour apple as we say in Sweden) and get going.

This song is so Mexico to me now. It will always remind me of my time here. All the road trips. All the laughter. =)

 

 

So, the third week of classes is over. Can't believe its already been three weeks... And next week partials are up! Those lovely partials :P It's a kind of love hate thing going on there I would say. They are so annoying cause it means that all the work always falls at the same time. Like next week I have two exams (Thursday and Friday) and the week after I have two essays due. But it also means that you can really feel time going. Now first partial is almost over and before I know it the second one will be too. It makes you have small goals rather than just aiming for those exams in May like we do in England. In that way it's nice.

Tonight it's off to Sarah's for a bit of partying. Fun fun. And then we'll see what happens over the weekend. Kat is staying here so that should be fun. Should really try to get some work done too though... Have a nice list of things I need/want to do before Tuesday when it's back to school again. Yeah, Monday is off! Well, Monday is always off for me, but this Monday EVERYONE is off. And Tec is closed so I can't even go to the gym ;) But my knee is hurting from today so it might be good with a break....

It's been a long day. A very long day. And some how I ended up sitting in the kitchen and now my back hurts... I should just go upstairs to my lovely bed. I'll probably do that pretty soon. I've been organising my newly acquired Beatles collection =) But now they don't want to load up into iTunes... Weird...

So, tomorrow I'm going to Tuxpan! At the moment I keep asking myself why I signed up when it is my day off and I could have stayed in bed doing nothing :P But I'm sure it's gonna be fun. And a good opportunity to mingle with some new people maybe! I'll bring my camera so I might put up some photos tomorrow evening. We'll see..

I'm ready to go to bed.

I heard that some actually read this blog so maybe I should start to write a bit more.. I've been lazy lately..
School's back in full motion. Syntax to learn more Spanish. And then one class in English and two in Spanish. Oh my god is all I have to say. The classes in Spanish will most likely be my death. But so far I seem to understand most of it. I've only misunderstood one assignment so far :P I'm sure there's more to come!

It's still weird walking around campus not seeing the familiar faces from last semester, but slowly I'm getting used to seeing the new faces. But it's tricky getting to know them. They are all bonding over visa issues, Chapala trips and the whole getting to know Tec and Gdl. While we are lazy and stick to our own crowd.. Lunch is most often spent with Sarah, Malin, Mandy, Kimzey, Martin and Omar. Rosanna sometimes. People from last year in other words. But it's stupid cause the new people don't sit at the good tables! They sit in the shade so if we go sit with them it's so cold! :P That's our lame excuse!


And I'm still planning on going to LA. Even though I can't get a hold of my friend. I need to get away. And that was decided before chaos hit.


And just so you know, it will be okay. I know it doesn't feel like that right now. But it will be. It will just take some time.

Oh, and if you haven't already donated something to Haiti, do so! It's one of the world's poorest countries. And it keeps being beaten up by different forces. They deserve your help, and it is you duty to help! So do something!

So, back to business. It was weird. Walking around campus and not seeing the familiar faces I've gotten so used to seeing every day. Not bumping in to friendly people while walking around (I'm sure the people I see are friendly, I just don't know them...). Not immediately spotting people to sit with for lunch. Malin and I got super excited this morning after we had bought our Starbucks coffee when we saw that there actually were people we knew sitting at a table! There they were, Mandy, Simon and Lottie. Familiar faces.

It's going to be weird getting into the old habits and routines without the people who used to play such big parts in it.