When you go to a movie with me, prepare for total chaos. Why? Because I'm overexcited every single time I go to the cinema :D I actually have a whole list of movies I want to see in 2014. As a kid I never went to see a movie, so now every single one is special and deserves a three month countdown. Last week's movie: Captain America: the Winter Soldier.

Double glasses? Sure, why not?

After a year full of chaotic posts about the most wonderful group of people I had ever met, my blog seems empty now. There's not much to tell anymore. You can tell that I'm a bit at a loss for words lately. What am I going to post about now that my most awesome friends are gone? Well, I guess I'm going to make a change, shake things up a bit and blog about something else today, something... cultural!

My dad and I are barbarians. The last time we went to a museum was in the summer of 2011. We went to the Bratwurst museum in Germany (don't ask, just don't). But then my dad decided it was time to spend some time with his only daughter, who had been devouring Dan Brown novels all summer long. My weird, culture disliking father took me to Rotterdam. To this:
My first reaction? "I'm gonna Da Vinci Code all over that shit!"

What followed was a slightly educational, mostly funny morning. I wanted to touch everything that couldn't be touched. I'm such a bad ass (*coughcough*) that I ignored the signs that said: 'Do not touch' (only if my dad wasn't looking, that's how bad ass I am :P)
I wanted to operate all Da Vinci's crazy machines, even the ones that wouldn't work because of this funny little thing called gravity.

Avatar, the last airbender? Anyone?

While my dad read every information panel he encountered, I decided to do things my own way. In this case that all comes down to running from one machine to the next, almost drooling at the awesomeness of a not working kite. No way in hell this thing would've been able to carry someone safely down from, let's say, a stool, but it looked amazing.
There was an entire hall full of things that were supposed to fly, a hall full of war stuff, like a tank that looked a suspicious lot like a Pokémon, and of course replica's of Da Vinci's paintings, including the Mona Lisa and an exhibition on how the Mona Lisa was made and how people discoverd how many layers the painting has and more jibber jabber like that.

It's that time of my senior year again: exam week! It's fun for all, except the seniors...
After dedicating half of my break to school, I didn't want to go back. I felt like I wasn't prepared for it, mostly because this week would start with Dutch, the subject I had almost failed last time...
Every time I looked at the clock this morning, I thought: nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Sadly, that was the most intelligent thought I had today.

Replace scantron by dictionary and you know how I felt

Last time I went into exam week, I had nightmares. First up was History and I kept dreaming about 1473. I still have no idea what happened in 1473.
This time I slept well. No nightmares. Only waking up with my head in the clouds - clouds of fear.
Dutch is one of my better subjects, so I shouldn't be worrying about it. But last time I scored only 5.7 out of 10 points. Yes, that is bad and when you're name is Envy, it's a down right disaster. Today I had the chance of getting that grade up by writing. This exam is all about blurting out as much facts on a piece of paper as you can. It's got nothing to do with the kind of writing I like.
I decided to take the pen E. gave me for my birthday. Thought it would bring me luck. Until I realized I had no clue where I'd left it. My thoughts went from 'nope, nope, nope, nope, nope' to 'where's my pen, where's my pen, where's my freaking pen?!'
After running up and down the stairs twice, I remembered where I'd left it. By that time my mother thought I'd finally gone fully crazy and wanted to get me on medication...

Before the exam started, I was talking to L. and V. about the upcoming exams. Turned out I wasn't the only one who was scared out of her mind. You should have seen my at this point, holding on to my favorite pen as if the world was going to end if I let go of it. Then I checked my phone and found out I had a message from E. that came in with a six day slight delay. Not only did that message make my day, it also felt like a sign: everything was going to be fine.

At 8.30 the big moment was finally there. I could go into the gymnasium and save my grade. Instead, I went nope-nope-nope-ing again when I saw my assignment. 'Write a piece based on information you got through interviews'.  I looked at my drafts. I had nothing about interviews. Luckily I had the option to choose between two assignments. The second one was a whole lot easier. Now, seven hours later, I feel like I aced that assignment!

My day wasn't over just yet. We still had to go through another one of those vague Social Studies tests.
All my friends where in the library, studying their brains out. I was sitting inbetween M. and Roos, still going 'nope, nope, nope, nope, nope'.
I heard everyone talk about integration an segregation and the Islam and Christianity. I only said: 'Nope, I'm not going to study until the last second. No point in that, nope.'
13.30 and our test began.
14.10 and I left. Once again, I felt like I aced it.

So yeah, I was stressed. But for once, I had faith in myself (yes, that's a first). Maybe I should always go 'nope' when I have to go through exam week. Going into exam week without expectations makes coming out without dying or killing your last three brain cells a whole lot easier.

While most of my classmates are outside, playing with firework and playing with the risk of losing a hand, I'm  stuck inside. Okay, I have to admit that I like it better inside, but the real reason is that I can barely walk.
Once again, I decided to run 6.4k at the Oliebollenloop.
Once again, Liselotte and I wanted to run together.
Once again, we almost died in the mosh pit that was supposed to be the start.
Once again, the wind almost blew us out of our shoes.
But once again, we made it all the way to the finish line! But not together...

Since my trainer asked me 'what the hell I was doing on the track', I decided to quit training with him. That was in September. My Dad and I make my training schedule. And since we started doing that, I've improved a lot. I came in third at the local cross country competition, in which I had to race against women who were at least ten years older than me. I ran a 6k race at the same pace I usually run 5k races (and yes, there's a huge difference between a 5k and a 6k race. 1000 meters to be exact).
So things are looking up. Today was like a final test. If I run well today, I might be able to run 5k in less than 25 minutes. I kept thinking that. I had to run well.
So when the race began, I gave it my all (after waiting for at least four seconds until the guy in front of me finally started moving...)

Liselotte stayed beside me for the first 800 meters. She was having a hard time, I heard her gasp and pant. We hadn't even reached the 2k mark when she gave up. I kept running, but this time I was all on my own. It was terrifying.
The wind was blowing from the exact same direction as last year. It was also a lot warmer. None of this made the running conditions better. Then there were other people swarming around me. I just don't like people so close around me. I mean, I already panicked when one of L.'s friends suddenly grabbed my hand because he wanted to dance.
It was a hard race, especially without Liselotte there to help me when it got tough. But we both made it.

I was 3 minutes faster than last year. If that isn't a great way to end the year and start 2014, I don't know what is.

My exam week is almost over. One more on Monday (German Literature) and then I'm done.
Exam week was nothing like I had imagined it.
Stressful? A little.
Scary? Only on day 1.
Frustrating? Totally.
After this week my brain feels like it's been stir fried or made into a pudding. You know I love reading, but over the last couple of days the only thing I seemed capable of was playing Lego Batman on my battered, old vintage Nintendo DS.
I know I actually should be revising for my German Literature exam, but my pudding-brain says NO every time I look at the book. So instead I'm going all out on everything that went wrong in my exam week - so far.

History
I already posted about my first exam, about the correctHuguenots. I thought things couldn't get more stupid than this. Later on, I found out it could. Keep reading, my friend, and you'll discover that Dutch exams can be so... moronic (hint: it's mostly English exams that are stupid).

Math
If you've read this blog for a while, you know that I suck at Math. And even though E. had tutored me, I felt very incapable. At first I just sat there thinking about everything except Math.
When I finally started working, I discovered that I knew how to answer the first question, a small miracle.
But then I became hungry. We're allowed to have some food with us, so I had this brownie on my table yelling: 'Eat me, eat me! I know you want to!'
And my belly was like: 'You know he's right. Eat him.'
So the brownie, which was in a wrapper, had to be unwrapped, otherwise it would be distracting me during the rest of the exam (which was a full three hours). But as soon as I touched the wrapper it started crackling and making noises as if it were being killed. I swear to God, every sound seems loud in a quiet gymnasium, and this sounded as if World War Three had begun by bombing my school...
So I gave up on the brownie. And on the Math (until the last five minutes ofcourse, when I suddenly knew all the answers).

English
Now this was an exam I was actually looking forward to. It was a literature exam, for which we had to read George Orwell's 1984 (on which I'm going to do a post later on, because I wasn't allowed to have an opinion on it at school, so I'll do that here) and some short stories.
Our teacher had told us that themes and symbols would be an important part of the exam, so my friends and I spent two hours analyzing the stories. I even enjoyed it.
I was well prepared and when I sat down at my table, I thought: I'm gonna ace this test.
And then the test came.
Question 1: Goldstein is the ............. of Big Brother
Question 2: Mrs. Parsons is Winston's ..............
On the dots we had to fill in 'enemy' and 'neighbor'. This made me so frustrated. The whole exam was on a level of such utter stupidity that even in 8th grade I would've passed it.
But then there was the second part (the first part was all about 1984) which had questions such as: 'Jeb's mom did something. What did she do and why did this shock the MC?' When I looked up what Jeb's mom did (I only knew what she symbolized, not what she did), I found out that she actually did three different things, and all of these shocked the main character.
Oh, and last but not least, my favorite question on the exam:
Leo asks Toni if she's got the pink slip with her. Is the pink slip:

• A) A piece of underwear
• B) A parking ticket
• C) The title-deed of the car

Well, seeing that these people are trying to sell their car, I think the correct answer must be A, a piece of Toni's underwear.

Biology
One word: disaster.
The sleeves of my hoodie got caught on a splinter that stuck out of the ancient wooden tables and the exam itself looked more like chemistry (I class I dropped way back in 9th grade because I didn't understand it and I always set everything on fire).
Moving on.

Latin
This exam was the highlight of my week. Well, not the exam itself, but what happened between Biology and Latin (these two were on the same day, but with four full hours of nothingness inbetween them). I went home with M. and we were going to revise for this exam. We ended up playing with her cat and watching Top Gear.
When we had to go back to school for our exam, we encountered a little problem... You see, my school is located in my hometown, which is separated from M.'s hometown by a river. There's one way to get to the other side: This bridge

Bridge! Why u no stay closed?!

And then, just as we wanted to cross the bridge, it opened. For a cargo ship. And we couldn't get to the other side anymore...