| April 15, 2003 - The Swedes are driving me crazy |
| Dear Friends, last summer JOHNNYLEEN spent a month in Sweden learning the Swedish language and generally hanging out. I've been accepted to continue my studies again this summer, but they want me to take a hateful ol' placement exam beforehand. Now, normally this school offers the exam on the first day of class, but this year they want everyone to take it ahead of time so they can start right away in the appropriate class. JOHNNYLEEN received the on-line test the other day (Friday) and thought, "Well, I'll just take the test on Sunday afternoon. After all, how hard can it be to review EVERY rule of ONE ENTIRE foreign language over a period of two days?" Soon Sunday afternoon stretched into Monday (I know, that's later than I had planned to take the test) and I was just so frustrated over verb forms and plurals of nouns that I decided I'd just take the test and let the chips fall where they may. So I opened up the email from the school to read the instructions and realized the deadline date for the submission is two weeks away! Can you believe that? I read and recited and worried and fretted over nothing! I could have been studying in reasonable chunks and still managed to cavort through town instead of keeping my nose to the grindstone! Don't you just feel for me? Now I just feel all Sweded-out! It was just like living one of those nightmares I sometimes have where I realize I've been registered in a math class all semester and have never bothered attending it. In those dreams, I start panicking and finally crack open the math book only to realize that it's the size of the entire Encyclopedia Britannica and was written by Stephen Hawking. So, of course, I start calculating out what my GPA will be with a big fat "F" on it and I berate myself for not paying attention to what I had signed up for. Then I always awake with a start and realize, with a huge sigh of relief, that it was all a dream. In all honesty, I don't know anyone who's ever attended university who hasn't had that kind of dream. It's right up there with dreaming of being naked in public. I must tell you about a dream I had some time ago about CRAPPERTON. In my dream, I was back in high school although I knew I had an M.A. Nobody would believe me when I told them I already had an advanced degree, and to add insult to injury, they made me work serving food in the cafeteria with one of those hairnets on that the cafeteria ladies always wear! Boy, was I ticked off. And I can assure you the food in my dream looked just as nasty as it did in real life. I kept saying, "I've already graduated from high school! I went to university! I don't even live in this town anymore!" But everytime I tried to speak out, the principal would just say, "Yeah, yeah JOHNNYLEEN. You can pretend you have all the degrees you want, but you're here for the duration." God, it was awful; particularly since I absolutely detested the principal of my high school. Now, if you're interested, check out the link to the program I'll be on in Sweden. I'll have language in the morning and art history in the afternoon. You can bet it'll be fantabulous; just like me! Next entry Previous entry Go to diary entries Go back home |