Around one big table
Filed under Sweden
Yeah yeah yeah, I’ll admit it’s true, you can get used to most things rather quickly – and maybe even start to appreciate them. After taking my first real shower here yesterday and having spent some quality time at Ikea with my room mate as well as at a traditional Moroccan dinner she made for us, I’m slowly starting to realize what a gem this little red house is (so far). Let me tell you what happened.
Today was the first day of the intro week at uni. The different schools (not called faculties here) organized different things, there were welcome lectures and campus tours. Now, everyone in The Little Red House is at the international business school. Except me. I’m at the school of education and communication, or HLK – which is the Swedish name. Over the weekend I had grown pretty close already to everyone in my accommodation so I was sad that not one of them came with me today. And, as I feared, it was difficult to make new friends – if that’s what you want to call it – at HLK. After only two days, there are already certain groups that aren’t as open to welcoming new people as everyone was when they just arrived. Add to that my general shyness, and you have something between high school and tragedy. I basically just followed around two of the people I had met at the airport – and I could tell that they were thinking to themselves, What’s the deal with this kid? Doesn’t she belong to anyone?
And then, a handful of people from the Little Red House that I tried to stick with whenever our different schedules would overlap kept talking about how much they were looking forward to the first epic party at the university’s own night club tonight and- yeah- seriously- most of the information lectures were about HOW LIFE-CHANGING THESE PARTIES WILL BE.
I felt completely out of place. I do think that this experience will change my attitude towards personal space and solitude and all of that – but I will probably always hate clubbing. With a passion. It’s the least thing I want to do in my free time. I’m a homebody, and I like relaxed gatherings; bonfires, movie nights, eating at a nice place. — And when they kept mentioning tonight’s party – there will be official parties every night during the intro week – I suddenly remembered that, YES, this is what people are like, these are the kind of people I always have trouble connecting with on any level.
So I took the bus home around 4pm.
Shortly after I arrived home, a girl from across the hall asked me to come to the cocktail reception that would happen as a sort of pre-party at the business school tonight. I didn’t want to go because I didn’t have anything to wear and I feared everyone would end up staying until the early morning – but I knew I needed to not say no for once. So I went, in my jeans and boots, a gray sweater, nice ear rings. The other three girls that came were dressed fancy fancy. Two guys also came, by the way, one from France that I already knew – and a new guy who, as it turned out, usually studies in Maastricht as well! WHAT! REPRESENT! But so- I felt under-dressed and insecure and dead tired.
The cocktail reception had a red carpet, fire, a view of the lake, red wine, and way too many girls in short skirts and guys in ties. It was extremely high profile and luxurious and… not my kind of thing. My room mate and the girl from across the hall agreed. We left after 45 minutes.
And I know that maybe I should have stayed longer or checked out the actual party afterward but- I was so glad to have found people who agreed with me, who despised these kinds of things as much as I did. And then: when we got home, we all went down to the kitchen and almost immediately a girl from the Czech Republic, one from India, one from Russia, one guy from Pakistan and one from Tanzania joined us. And we talked forever about how ridiculous we thought the entrance fees for these supposedly epic parties were and WHY WOULD PEOPLE EVER GO TO THESE THINGS, and- I don’t know. It was awesome. Yeah, we were the ones left behind, the not-cool people who ended up at home, not drunk, in bed before midnight.
But we cooked together, talked, laughed, sat around the big kitchen table – and it felt good. Like home. Like a family.
Aug23
