Warning! A very long update, but I just needed to get stuff off my mind, and writing about it helps me

A lot of people keep telling me that my luck has to turn around now, that the rest of my year is going to be great. That no one can have as much bad luck as I have had. And I really hope that is true. This year turned out completely different than what I thought it would.

I remember the day I got the news that I had got a host family. I had left school early because I needed my last shot for the next year. I was sitting alone in the car while mom was in the store buying something. I get a phone call, saying they had a family. Five people. Two twingirls and a little sister. Mom and dad. In Ohio. That was all I could remember. I was happy, I had secretely been hoping for getting twins as my host sisters/brothers.

I smiled the rest of the day. A big smile. When we got home I checked my email. Got more information. The names, the place I was going to live. I was so happy and sent an email to them immideately. I was waiting desperately for an answer, and it took them forever. I remember the first time I talked to them. Rick answered the phone, after two-three times of not reaching them. And it made me really look forward to a year with younger sisters, and everything sounded so good. I was so happy. I was sure I would have the best time there.

Turns out I was wrong. After three weeks, things happened and I moved. And I thought things would be better in West Virignia. But it didn’t happen. I liked it better at school, that’s for sure. Felt more welcomed. I was one of four exchange students at a school with maybe 1400 students.  In Ohio I had been one of ten with a school with about 600 students. It’s a big difference. But things with my host family was not as it should have been, and I ended up moving again.

This time to a friend. So I didn’t have to go through the whole new school thing again. And I was very happy about that. I finally felt like the rest of my year would be as I thought before I left Norway. Christmas came along, and Michael asked me out. I was happy. I really was.

Finals came. I didn’t want first semester to be over. Partly because I didn’t want to be halfway done with my year, but mostly because I didn’t want to end my classes. I liked them, all the people were so nice and good, and the teachers I had was so helpful and I enjoyed the classes. And i was so nervous about the finals. I was afraid to fail any of them, and it resulting in my grade getting lower than C. That would mean I would be on the next flight back home. I was most afraid about public speaking.

Mrs Broderick told me though, that it would be different for me. It was only going to be extra credit. Because I was in the situation I was in. No one else in the class had that situation. That made my nerves go away a little. So then it was just the biology left. When the week with the finals is there, my head starts hurting. Of course. That was the first sign to something being wrong with me. But we thought it was just because I was stressed. Because it stopped the next week.

But after the trip to the Wisp was when I got sick. The week after that, my face swelled up and all I really wanted to do was sleep. But I went to school and practice the whole week, except for Friday. On Monday we went to the doctor. I had bronchitis. Get some pills and just rest. Resting I did, that’s for sure. I slept through most of the week. On Saturday I went to regionals for swimming. And on Monday again my fever was back. Back to the doctor. “You have mono and pneumonia.”

I just saw the rest of the year not being any better. I didn’t want to be sick. The thought of going home actually did cross my mind. But I shook it off quickly. I wasn’t gonna give up. I had my host family here to help me, I had Michael and I had other friends. So it hurt really bad when Michael told me we would be better off as friends. He said he did it because he didn’t want me to be dragged into the drama that was starting. It wasn’t because he didn’t have feelings for me anymore or anything like that. It still hurt though.

Then school started again, after two weeks with snowdays. I had to face Michael again. That was hard, especially in third period and lunch since I have it with him. At lunch I sat with Dan, and I went to the nurse when I had eaten. I was too tired to stay at school.  The next day I sat with my old bus-buddies. And Thursday turned out to be another snowday, which I found out after I had taken a shower. But i just went back to bed again and slept. And tomorrow we have a snowday as well.

I really do hope the people that has told me it will be good now is right. This has been a year I definitely won’t forget, that’s for sure. And it’s not just in a good way. It’s been hard going through all this without mom&dad here. Without my best friends that I’ve known for years to come give me a hug when I need it. To say that I’ve grown this year is for sure. Even though I haven’t really noticed that much, I think maybe the people back in Norway will see it when I come home. I’m just praying that my friends are right, that I can’t have more bad luck here now.

So, after a Saturday with a meet, it was early up on Sunday for the ski trip with my coordinator Gail and other exchange students. I didn’t know who was going on this trip, so I was really hoping it was someone else there that knew how to ski. Cause many of the students in the group has never seen snow before. We were 12 students there, and four of us knew how to ski, so luckily I had someone to be with. The rest of them were gonna have lessons.

Doug drove me to Maryland that morning. Early up again, but not as early as the rest of the group. They live much further away than what I do, so yeah. We met them there, and I put my bag in Gails car. We went to get our skis and snowboards. Three of us had skis, the rest with snowboard. I was gonna go with Stina, Flo and Guan, cause they were the ones that didn’t need a lesson. Nate was coming with us, and when we get off the lift at the top, he asks us if we are going to a lesson. No, we tell him, but we find out that he is suppose to. Okay, we better get down thesince the lesson has probably already started.

So we find a slope to go down. A blue one. Poor Nate, he has never been on a snowboard before, and we take him down a blue slope. He did okay though, but it took us a while. And in the end he walked down cause it was too hard for him. But we got him to the lesson.  And after that we jsut explored all the other slopes, I think we went everywhere. Stina, Guan and me went inside to eat, Flo wasn’t hungry. When we go out again we meet Flo, and Pablo is also there. He is done with his lesson and want to go up with us. Of course he can come with us. We go up, and now is when the best thing happened. We decided to go down the Black Diamond. Which you may guess by the name, is a black slope. At the beginning it went good.  But then we came to the hard part.

Flo goes straight down. Stina Guan and I are kinda waiting a little, letting Pablo go before us. Stina and Guan goes down quicker than me. And I keep laughing, cause Guan falls, and Pablo falls. Then I go down to the rest of them, and we’re just waiting for Pablo. We see him, and its going slow. Really slow. We laugh. He goes further and further to the side. Its a side that has trees between the two hardest slopes. The one we took was the easier one. Anyway, we stand there and wait for him, watch him. And all of a sudden, he disappears through trees. That just made my day, haha.

Then while we are still waiting for him, Gail comes up to us and ask how its going. So we tell her. And she thinks we were mean to him. But she laughed as well, so it wasn’t that bad. After minutes of just laughing at him, we decide to go up again in the slopes, and down the same one, to make sure he is okay. But righ before we go on the lift he comes up to Gail, so he was alright. And he was just laughing. So it was all good. And it made my day, haha.

The weather was great, the sun was shining and not a cloud on the sky. It was a little cold though, especially on one side because of the wind. But it was okay, it was a great day.

When we are done with the skiing for the day, we just wait in the lobby of the hotel. All six girls were sharing a room and it was not ready, so we were just waiting. Sitting in the lobby getting to know the two new girls that came to our group, Maria and Evanes. Talking and just having fun. And they made fun of me, cause my face extremely red.

We finally get the key after getting ski/snowboards into this little locker-thing. And we have to hurry up, cause I want dinner with the rest of the group. Maria, Cammie and Evanes had already eaten so they werent really gonna go. So Gail tells me I have five minutes, cause they are really hungry. We find our room and guess what. Our key card doesn’t work. Great, isn’t it? So, I leave the stuff I have with me, outside the room and Cammie and I take the elevator down again.  Cammie to get the keycard fixed, and me so we can go eat. The key stopped working cause I held it close to my camera.

But when we come down, Gail goes up again with Cammie, so we still have to wait. Cause Gail wanted them all to come since everyone else were going. So we wait and wait, and finally they come so we can get into the cars. We drive to this place, but decide not to eat there cause we have to wait for an hour to get a table for 16 people. So we change our mind and go to this place called smily’s. So we sat there, talking and having a great time. Stina and I laughed a lot about Pablos experience in the black diamond. It was great.

Back to the hotel we all go to the hotel room. We decide to change so we can go to the swimming pool. Everyone is down there, so thats great. We just joke around, trying to take pictures under water with my camera. When the pool closes, we go to the hotelroom again, kinda getting ready for bed and watching the Grammy’s. Gail comes in and gives us our tickets for the lift for Monday. And tells us not to let Pablo and the rest of the guys in to our room.

After Gail is gone, guess who comes. Pablo, Flo and Guan. Yes, they came in our room. Stina and I are thirsty, and Pablo just wants to do something I guess. So we go down to the lobby to buy something to drink. On the way out, a lady from the room next to ours ask us to be quiet, cause there are kids in there. Which is okay, of course.

Pablo wants to use all of his money, so we end up buying popcorn also. Stina goes to back to the room, and Pablo and I are waiting for the popcorn to pop. Back up in our room we decide to go to the boy’s room instead. That way we won’t make noise for our neighbours, and if Gail comes, we listened to her. She only told us not to let boys into our room, she didn’t say anything about not going to their room. So we sit there, talk and just enjoy neing together. I had a very good time.

Monday morning and more skiing. This time I only went with Stina. We couldn’t find Flo and Guan since they went out before we even had had breakfast. We saw some people we knew here and there, and the best was Maggie from Germany when she got off the lift. She couldn’t really do it, and everytime the lift had to stop or she would get hit in the head. And the guy that controlled the lift knew it everytime, he recognized her. Haha, it was so funny.

I left the Wisp a little earlier than the rest of the group. I wanted to go to practice so Doug picked me up and drove me to camp Dawson. I was tired, but practice was okay. And after that, i got sick. Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday I was not feeling well, and on Friday I stayed home. On Monday I was at the doctor, and I have Bronchitis and I think she called it walking pneumonia. (For those who don’t know, in norwegians it’s lungebetennelse) Just great. I’m better now though, although I am coughing pretty bad still. But at least I’m not spending the whole day sleeping.

So tomorrow we have practice again. It will be nice to get out of the house, and to see people again. Unless it snows a lot again, cause if it does, we are not going anywhere. It has started snowing again, so I just really hope it doesn’t come a lot of snow this time. I really don’t. We have enough now, seriously. I will see if I can get som pictures of it, cause we really have a lot right now.

I kinda look like a chineese person right now. I’ve done it the last week actually.

I know people are waiting for an update now, but I’m not gonna give you a big one. I’m just not feeling up to it. Yes, cause I’m sick, not just cause I’m lazy. And I mean really sick. I don’t think i’ve been this bad ever. Well, the swineflu was pretty bad, but that was only really bad for two days or so. I’ve been feeling like s*** for days now.

It started at the Wisp and I just got worse during the week. I probably shouldn’t have gone to practice, not even school at all on thursday. I was home on Friday though. But anyway, I will give an update when I’m feeling better, tell all about the amazing trip to the Wisp, how Stina, (Norway) Flo, (Germany) Guan (Ecuador) and I were kinda mean to the people that didn’t know how to ski at all. And how bad we laughed at them. (No one got hurt, don’t worry)

Then all the snow we got now. Yesterday the whole state was in a State of Emergency. All the roads were closed. There was something between 45 and 60 cm. They had a three hour early out at school, which meant they got out at 12.30. Not me though, cause I was home sleeping. Right now, I probably should be in bed, but oh well. I was originnaly waiting for a phone call. I was supposed to get it yesterday, but that didn’t work. And not today either. That makes me upset. Oh well.

Here are the ones who were pro. Or just the ones that didnt need a lesson (Picture stolen from Gails facebook)

From left: Me, Flo, Stina and Guan

So, my finals on friday went okay. I guess I could have done better if I had studied more, but considering the fact that my head has been hurting all week its okay. And I get to stay here, so that’s nice. That was what I was most afraid about. Getting lower than a C in any of my classes. Cause if that happens, I will be one the next plane back to Norway.

But yeah, nothing exciting happened this weekend. Chris, a friend of Danielle (who’s also my friend now) came over on Saturday. Sunday I didn’t do anything.

And today we had the first day of 2. semester. We had to go to our first pd 1. semester first, so everyone got their schedules. And then off to the next first period. Which was chemistry for me. That will be interesting. I’m not gonna say anything about it yet, cause I’ve only been in there one day. But the teacher, she kinda scares me a little. Second period is right across the hall, so I don’t have to hurry out. The teacher there seems so calm. Her voice is so soft and small. That class is Pre-Calc. After Pre-Calc I have English. Thats gonna be the funniest class, at least it seems like it. I have C-lunch again, and theres like no one else who has c-lunch. Michael does, cause we have English together. But other than that theres not really a lot of people I know.

Fourth period I’m having Java-stuff, but what I had today was not really that. Cause they don’t have any of the class that I needed in fourth period, so they are gonna set up this thing for me. Which means I’m gonna be the only one in that classroom doing something else. Interesting.

Swimming today was different. The first thing I hear when I go to put my backpack down is that Sarah, Mary’s daughter (Mary is the coach) needs me. I go change and come back, and she has questions about Norway. Cause shes doing this project. So I helped her with that. Shes 12 or 13 years old I think. She is also the one that told me on one of my first swim practices what I was doing wrong and what I needed to do. That felt kinda weird, a twelve-year old teaching me how to swim

We started practice, nothing special. But, at the end of it, guess what happens. The fire alarm went off. Yeah, we had to go stragght from the pool and out. We all grabbed our towels, but it was cold. It wasn’t below the freezingpoint, but man, I almost lost feeling in my feet standing there on the concrete or whatever it is. So I took one of Dylans flip flops to stand on. And then Becky madde room for me on the carpet-thing that someone had brought put. It was cold standing there, trust me.

So, on monday we had another snowday. I really didn’t mind it at all, I did not feel like going to school. And since we were going to have swim parctice anyway it was okay. But we were out all day. Went to the hospital cause “Grandama” had a doctors appointment. Danielle and I were with her while Doug (hostdad) went to see Lisa. She has been sick. After that we went to eat and Lisa wanted to see Danielle so I took grandma to her next appointment. Which took forever..

Then it was practice. It was good to have practice. And really nice to see everyone again. On Tuesday we had a two hour delay. It was nice to be back in school. We have a whole bunch of work to do, since we missed a week. So it wasnt really the best week to have two swim meets in.

We had one on Wednesday, my first one. There is not very often I am that nervous, trust me.  I was only put to swim one event, and that was 200 free relay. I was the first one to swim on the relat, since I’d never done it before. I think I did pretty good, and was kinda shocked when Mary, the coach, told me afterwards that I had kept up with Shayland. She is one of the best swimmers on the team, so yeah.. I think we lost the realy though. One girl lost her goggles so we lost some time there. But it was good. We were gone all day. After school, we were watiting at the school. We were suppose to leave at four. But there were cars missing so not everyone had a way to get to where we were going. But it got fixed, so a little after four we left the school. I was home againg around eleven if I remember correctly. And then I had homework to do.

On Thursday we also had a meet. That was a bigger one than the day before. On Wednesday it was only Preston and one other school. Today there was three other schools. And it started at 8. So we were gonna be there for a loong time. Mary finds out that they have messed up with who is swimming what, so she was angry. And she told me I might not be swimming anything at all, because they had messed up and there was nothing she could do about it. Great, I thought, being in here all day and not swim at all, when I have loads of homework to do. But I was put in one event, 100 breast. Okay, breast is fine, I can do that. Until she started saying that you HAVE to put both hands on the wall at the same time. She said it many times, so I was afraid I would mess up.

I was going to swim late, so I was just waiting. But suddenly Mary comes up to me and says I might have to do a realy. Cause on of the girls that were suppose to swim had a bleeding toe and could not swim. Thats fine, I did that yesterday was what I thought. Then I heard who I was swimming with. Shayland, Katie and Nicolle. Only the best girls on the team, so nothing to worry about. I got soo nervous. We lost the relay. If it was because of me I don’t know, and I don’t think I want to know. I thought I did okay, and that’s all that matters for me. Kinda.

My 100 breast came up and I got nervous. Again. So was Brittany, the other girl from Preston that was swimming the same event. So we agreed that we should pretend it was only the two of us swimming. And I won! Of us two, at least. But I did do pretty good though. Mary told me I did phenomenal to be my first time. And when we got home Doug told me that the first 50 meters I was almost in the lead. But then slowed down and everyone went past me. I think my time was 1.48 minutes or something. I’m not sure, though.

So I’m a breaststroker now. At practice yesterday that was all I did, swim breaststroke. First with only legs and then with only arms and bla bla, a lot of swimming. It felt good. And I’m surprised I wasn’t more tired this day. I had spent the whole night doing homework. And we overslept, Doug woke us up around 20 minutes before the bus came. We drove up to the bus right when it came. So I didn’t have breakfast. Michael gave me a poptart at school, but that was it. And lunch was not good at all, an extremely dry hamburger.

In public speaking on thursday and friday we had a debate. We were debating about who was responsible for someones death in the book Lord of the flies. We had spent wednesday preparing for it, and on thursday we started the debate. Danielle and I had the question&answer part. Or, maybe I should say Danielle. She took over, cause she was in the mood for that, haha. I got to ask a few questions. Danielle asked a lot, she didn’t even let the people she ask finish answering one before she asked a new one. It was funny. What was not so funny though, was when it was our turn to be asked. The group that was questioning could direct a question to one person and not let anyone else answer. And I hoped that wouldn’t happen to me. But guess what. It happened. One of the two persons in there that really knows me. But I think the answer was good, and it made Michael say something wrong, so it kinda backfired on him.

When we were done, I told Danielle that it was Michael was mean, since he really knows me. So Danielle asked Mrs. Broderick if it was fair to ask me a questions like he did since he knew I sometimes have problems coming up with the right words. Mrs. Broderick didn’t really say anything special against it i think, but it came comments like, he just wanted to ask her because they are dating and things like that. My face was so red, it was kinda embarrassing

The rest of the debate continued on Friday.