Hi everyone,

Another one? I know, but I just really feel like writing. It’s a bad idea to waste my precious time and energy on things I can’t control. That doesn’t even make sense. But hey, I’m human. With feelings and everything. Especially at night. Normally I just talk to a friend and bother them with my ranting. Thanks to time zones, I can’t just do that. Writing it down in my own notebook doesn’t quite cover it, which is why I’m writing this for all of you to read. But no Facebook post this time and no email to those on the list. I’m warning you, this will be boring and personal. You might as well stop reading now.

I’m slightly getting more and more annoyed with my year. They’re all so self-centred, it makes talking to new people pretty hard. I try, I really do, but they just refuse to cooperate. The new kid just isn’t that interesting any more. I hung out with a few other kids today. Not really my kind of people either. I kind of gave up on trying to find people similar to my friends at home. They’re one of a kind and this only makes me appreciate them more. Kiana doesn’t have the same problem. She went on retreat for 3 days. A religious bonding sort of thing. It’s not as bad as it sounds, really. But yeah, she’s already found herself some friends.

Let me just take this opportunity to talk about Kiana. She’s so lovely, I’m lucky to have her as my host sister. She’s great. And she talks a lot, which I don’t mind at all. Thanks to that, I don’t have to talk that much myself. I can just observe and do my own thing. It’s nice talking to her, though. She’s like the older sister I never had. Oh wait, I’m older. Right, I constantly need to remind myself. Yeah, I’m not that great at the whole older sibling thing. But it’s good like this. I like it.

She wrote something about me the other day but I only just read it. It made my day, it was so sweet. I should probably tell her that in person. Thing is, I’m not that good with words. I’d rather write someone a letter than talk to them in person. I don’t know why. It’s probably because I seem to think faster than I speak. This also means that I probably won’t tell her in person and that I’ll just appreciate her in silence.

One of the biggest changes here is how polite people are. They apologise so often, it’s actually really cute. When kids bump into me at school, I’m not used to them saying sorry. And it’s true; Australians are pretty laid back and relaxed. In general, that is. I’ve got this one teacher and she’s not relaxed at all. I don’t like being around her. She stresses me out, and I only get to see her 10 minutes a day. Go figure.

Anyway, the other thing I wanted to write about is how people address me. I get called ‘darling’ quite a lot. Not used to that at all. I like the change, though. It makes me feel appreciated. I mean, sure, my parents use the Dutch versions of such words a lot but it’s not the same. It may be just the fact that it’s in English, though. I don’t know, could be.

That’s about it. All in all, I’m feeling a lot better, mainly thanks to Kiana and one of my friends. If you wonder who said friend is, it probably isn’t you. I just don’t want to use their name all the time, cause, you know, it’s pathetic. In other news, Valentine’s Day is coming up. For once in my life, I’m pretty excited about that. I’m actually looking forward to it. No, I haven’t met anyone. It’s not like that at all. Not gonna explain it to you. I guess it’s for me to know and for you to never find out.

As usual, thanks for the comments. I like comments (hint). Especially nice ones (hint).

Enjoy your day,

Laura