I’ve written before about the
year abroad being a curve, how you either start feeling great and go through
dips of hating it or loving it even more. Whilst I agree with that concept, to
me it feels like every day itself has one of these curves. At least every day
this week I’ve gone from feeling great to awful, or from ridiculously low to
buzzing. It’s so odd.
It’s like everything is
magnified. Bad things become really bad because that’s when you want to see
your friends and family and talk about it and have the problem solved. For me,
anyway, it feels like nothing can fix the low moments and you’re going to feel
low forever. So then fab moments are automatically made ten thousand times
better compared to these low shitty moments. It’s so weird.
I suppose it makes sense that
being in unfamiliar territory heightens all your emotions – everything is
different and your head is all over the place and the littlest thing can be the
best or worst thing to happen to you in a while, like finding Heinz beans in
the supermarket or your laptop not connecting to the wifi.
Take this week for example; I had
some really bad moments. Pals around me can testify that when things have been
bad I have been a miserable nightmare to be around, soz pals. I’ll make up for
it somehow. My laptop has broken a bit and now my ‘w’ key doesn’t really work
(might be from when I spilled coke on it September 2012) and iTunes won’t open
and my speakers don’t work so I have to either use headphones or my external
speakers. I’m super skint and had to beg people for money, that was a low
point. I was so excited at the prospect of moving my early January exams to
before Christmas but then I got an email saying it’s not possible to move one
of them and just because I’m an Erasmus student I don’t have the right to
change official exam dates. Oh my God, I was gutted. Realising I’d have to come
back here on the 8th rather than the 17th of January was
horrific. Not that it’ll come as a shock to people but I’ve been struggling a
lot here and I was really looking forward to having an entire month at home, so
finding out my plans were ruined and that I’d have to come back and be here
bored and alone until my next exam on the 21st just made me so
miserable and angry. Lots of swear words around the time of receiving that
email. But then I sent a few more emails and talked to my teacher in person and
fingers crossed, it could be possible. See, up and down.
Also, I received my exam result
for the Spanish language course they put on for Erasmus students. I thought my
exam went pretty well but then picking up a result of 95% made me so so so
happy. I know the exam doesn’t count and since it was pretty much a recap of
all the grammar I’ve ever learnt (and then a tiny bit more) it would have been
shocking for me to have done badly. But still, buzzing. I was in the best mood
but then that was ruined when I got on the tram to go home and then was
accosted by these two lads. They were probably between 18-20. Despite there
being signs all over the tram, and the two of them holding mobile phones, they
asked me the time. I told them and then they asked me to have sex with them in
Spanish. I told them I didn’t understand (even though I did) and that I didn’t
speak Spanish (although I do) and though that would make them go away. It
didn’t. They decided to sit down next to me and persisted in asking me, for ten
minutes, to ‘fucky fucky’. I said no, repeatedly. They asked me if I knew what
‘fucky fucky’ meant. I said yes I do, but I still don’t want it to happen, repeatedly. They made rude hand and mouth gestures (I’m
sure you can imagine what they were) so I turned around so I was no longer
looking at them. So they kept trying to get me to turn back and look by pulling
their knobs out. I wish I were joking. I eventually told them to ‘fucky fucky
off’ and they got off the tram about 5 stops away from mine. I don’t know what
I would have done if they’d followed me when I got off. I mean I don’t think
they would have done but the possibility was there. It was just awful because I
was trapped in the corner of this busy tram and there were loads of people
around and clearly I was not happy with what was going on but nobody did
anything. I put it on Twitter and messaged people and most were really very
helpful and I love those people. Some found it funny but I just ignored that.
Obviously I wasn’t feeling great after this but then my pal James asked me if I
fancied a 20-minute chat as a break from my work. An hour and a half later,
after lots of giggles with James, and Cameron towards the end, I was feeling a
lot better. Then I facetimed home and talked to Mam, Howie and Christopher and
had pretty much forgotten about the whole thing. Ups and downs.
Before writing this it felt like
loads of bad things had happened but really it’s just that they became such a
big thing that it felt like everything was bad. Other good things to happen
include: getting a reply from Robbie Williams on his Facebook Q&A, hitting 5000 views on my blog (thank you thank you thank you!!!!), continued email correspondence with one of my best pals back home that makes me
feel like some CEO, buying sparkly Christmas decorations from Alcampo to take
home, getting a 5€ Kinder calendario de adventio (which is sooooo good) and
discovering I actually do like Kinder Bueno, doing my presentation on Much Ado
About Nothing and actually making decent points and now having a definite
direction to go in, finally listening to Robbie Williams’ new album ‘Under the
Radar’ (a review of that potentially to come), and buying some last minute
Christmas presents and going out for dinner on Saturday with my chicas.
Oh yeah. Something else good
happened. I GOT ONE DIRECTION TICKETS!!!!
OH MY GOD. I CAN’T EVEN. My
brother is ace and has paid for half of the ticket for Christma so now I have
to think of something better to get him. Anyway. On the 25th of
October next year I will be going to see my beautiful boys at the Metro Radio
Arena in my beautiful Newcastle. I’d fully prepared myself for ticket sales to
be a nightmare and having to refresh for four hours or not getting any at all.
What happened? I refreshed the page dead on 10am (9am GMT), got straight
through, and had my ticket email by 10:03. Easy peasy. I’m very tempted to pick
up a last minute ticket on Twitter in September for one of the London shows
though – I’ll be in Norwich and it could be a nice little Friday night treat to
go see the boys. I’m so happy.
Today we had the day off because
it’s a national holiday for the Immaculate Conception so that’s fun. I’ve
pretty much finished all of my work; my portfolios for direct translation and
literature and cinema are both done, I’ve corrected ¾ of our group translation
for inverse translation, I’ve finished my final individual class translation
for inverse translation, and I’ve sent over the last of my contribution to our
rules and uses group work. Now I just need to do that last ¼, write an essay
plan for my Much Ado About Nothing essay, revise (a bit) for my literature and
cinema mock exam, and try and learn all the words ever for our inverse
translation exam on Wednesday and (hopefully) our direct translation exam next
week.
So things are definitely up and
down. I just need to try and remember that they do get better if I give them
time. I’m not the best at that. We’ve reached the point where I can now say I’m
going home NEXT WEEK. I can’t believe this first semester is so close to being
done. It simultaneously feels like I arrived six years ago and just yesterday
all at the same time. I think I’m glad I’ve done it. I’m definitely glad I
haven’t given up because at times that has felt like a definite possibility.
Cray cray. Anyway, should probably go. Back to uni tomorrow after a three-day
weekend and I feel like it’s going to be very very difficult to wake up in the
morning.
Laters.
Hasta luego
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