Had my last exam at half one today. German reading. As I walked out of the hall fifty minutes later, I was ecstatic, jubilant, elated, rhapsodic, overjoyed at the prospect of never having to speak another word of German ever again! Ja ja ja ja ja! Screw modal verbs, screw past participles, screw "der, die, das" - I'm FREE of this bitch that has been dragging me down until I'm on the verge of committing racial homicide for so long*! I'm FREE, DAMNIT! FREE! Not only that, but it was my LAST GCSE! No more exams! HEAR THAT? Summer! I'm freeee
Celebrated by pottering along to Stefan's place with Ben and spending a lovely couple of hours sunbathing in the shadiest space available [I burn like toast], eating cake and drinking Coke out of a glass bottle. [Is there anything more awesome than Coke in a glass bottle? Unlikely.] It was really, really nice, just to chill and talk about mindless stuff and drink "lemonade without the fizz", courtesy of Stefan, and it occurred to me that this is the start of what could be the best summer of my life.
Three weeks from now: my brother, Robert, flies his skinny arse over here so I can kick it for being away for so long. A week after that: the four of us [parents, my brother and I] drive up to Skye and inflict ourselves upon our cousins. A few days after that: we all travel to a charmingly Scottish holiday resort and stay for a week. During that time: big family reunion [my sister, her husband, Granny, the seldom-seen Uncle Peter, his wife, Rob's girlfriend] to celebrate dad's upcoming birthday. Following that: puppet academy [don't ask - I have peculiar hobbies, but at least I'm damn good at them]. After that: Soul Survivor [my favourite place in the world, without a doubt]. After that: exam results! And then: a few weeks of sitting around, scratching my nose, growing more and more nervous about starting a new school in September.
[You probably didn't need to know my entire timetable for this summer, and you almost certainly couldn't care less, but I'm not bothered.]
All in all - a bloody amazing couple of months, no?
I'm about to go off at a tangent.
As a rule, I dislike summer. I'm more of a winter person, in every way. I like rain, I don't do well in heat, I have typical "ginger skin" and burn ridiculously easily, I hate all the beetles that occupy the garden when it gets warm, I don't like going into swimming pools to cool down because I'm too insecure - the list goes on. ANYWAY, this evening I braved the midges, I defied the pitiful Suffolk sun, I donned my straw hat and sat outside with my ukulele for a few hours and was completely amazed by how good it felt. Yes, it was too humid, yes, I was sweating like a pig, yes, a multitude of many-legged organisms were crawling all over me, but it was actually really really nice. So then I got thinking - why can't the rest of the holiday be like this? It can be - I have about ten weeks until I need to wake up at any reasonable time and shake myself out of a nocturnal habit again, why not spend it enjoying summer?
I've [hopefully] a time of acclimatising myself to the outside and twiddling with the uke and laughing with friends and reading good books and having fun ahead of me, and I want to take advantage of that. Maybe at the end of it I'll have earned myself a tan, who knows.
I suppose the moral of the story, and everyone already knows it, is: enjoy life. It's too precious to waste sitting indoors, thinking about what's going on "out there". Get "out there" and see for yourself. There's nothing that can't be overcome with patience and persistence and the knowledge that you have people to help you every step of the way.
Since I started writing this, I've been debating with myself whether or not to actually post it. Is it my honest opinion? Yes, completely. Is it likely to turn the German nation against me? Hopefully not. Might it be seen as massively insensitive? Quite possibly, and that, I admit, I'm worried about - call me a bitch, a bad friend, an intrinsically evil human being, but I'm not going to tiptoe around other people if it means distancing myself from what makes me happy. I know it isn't, but if it was me, if I had a lot to think about [euphemistically speaking], I know I'd want people to be normal, because normality gives me something to aim towards when things outside of my control are changing around me. I'm sorry if this causes offence or displeasure, but I'm not being deliberately vindictive; I'm here to be a friend, and I'm trying to be as helpful as I can.
Quote of the day: When one door closes, another opens; but often we look so long and regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. [Alexander Graham Bell]
* From a politically correct perspective - I have no hard feelings against the Germans. Not enough to collectively wish them misfortune, anyway.
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