Accross the Ocean.... the unkown land

Finally I got some time to post something... Last couple of days have been hectic, chaotic, etc (continue with adjectives nearing to panic decription). The thing is: after coming back from Madrid, from a peaceful, art-filled weekend in Madrid, I had to get moving! I was leaving in 1 week! Leaving, as in, packing up all my things in a suitcase and not knowing exactly when I would be back to see my family again.

Yes, I have been doing some posts where I let my alter-egos go on (the surfers one) or analyse books and movies, or just write non-sense ( or what doens't seem non-sense at the time but afterwards does). Now, I am quite serious: this is what is happening to me.

I packed all my clothes yesterday. I needed my Mom to help me, and my sister. I thought I would panic a bit about that: overweight and all unfortunate events related to suitcases. That was untill I saw, on the Internet, this:

________________
THINGS TO BRING ( SFU Residence)

What you will need:

A telephone • - even if you plan to use your cell phone you will
need a phone to access security and, in many residences, to
buzz people into your building.


Linens and pillows • (your mattress is provided.)
_________________

A telephone.
As a background to this, let me just say that this week I found out about American plugs (yes, I am Europocentric, not by choice, by circunstance) and how they were connected to a voltage. That means, have to buy everything new there, except for my laptop and camera. Ok, Fine with that. A telephone? I come from a country where we don't even buy telephones! you buy t with phone company subscription! A telephone? Ok, I guess I will have to find that.

your mattress is provided
Thank you, at least... And a pillow, no? Oh, well, they are taking us shopping for essentials in the first day - hopefully I won't need to sleep on my coat.


Now for the rest...
_________
Thing you may want to bring:

(...)
Cleaning supplies • ?
Clothes hangers •???
(...)
Desk lamp •?????????????????
(...)
Laundry detergent •?????????? (As if paying for the laundry machines was not enough!)
(...)
_______________________

These are just a few examples of my astonishment. I know this is pherhaps a regular Univeristy thing. But the fact is: it wasn't like this in Norway. Residence at the college was designed for people getting there from huge distances with very little stuff with them. THIS is designed for people who are dropped and helped by their own parents in big american cars. I can do it on my own, but still... I can't carry all this things! And knowing I don't have a whole house packed in my suitcase, makes me feel unsure about my first times there.

I am not exactly scared. I think I might even be OK with the classes. I am just realising that, besides having to cross the Ocean and get to the right places on time, I will have to get myself together and live all alone in a very strange place, for a while, untill I learn my way around. No roomies, no House Mentor, no Clothing Store, no Uncle Tom's Cabin, no Cleaning Day or changing bed linen. Now it sounds like I am scared. but it is just me realising how well taken care of we were in that college. How easy and nice it was.

Well, on a positive note. That is the challenge. Key word in fact. I will be doing this on my own ,and enjoying it I bet. It is the kind of trip that puts butterflies in my stomach (yes, like the ones you get when you are in love). I have everything planed, what can go wrong? Not much, really. With all the intense socialising plan they have for the first week... the "living alone" thing won't be that lonely.

I'm young and alive - watch out American Continent, here I go!

Surfer boys - A Romantic Manifesto

To the soundtrack of "Virgin Suicides" by Air


Last week I went to Spain.

One night, we decided to camp near a town called Ferrol, in a camping site by the coast. It was next to a beach, very remote. On the side of the camping where my parents choose to stay there were a few tents, it was closer ot the beach. And,while I helped with our own tent and sleeping bags, I saw them. Some 4 or 5 Spanish surfers, about my own age. They came in their wet suits with long curly hair and laughing of some joke. On the right, there was a French family, in a van with painted flowers. And they had three sons and they all came back from surfing, with long blonde hair and blue eyes. One of them passed by my tent and said "Hola", with a French accent.

For no reason at all, I felt disturbed. Well, there must be a reason, I just don't know what it is. What is this about surfers? I have listened to too many Jean and Dean records? What do they evoque that I want so badly?

It could be the freedom, the adventure. But, I have that. I got to a point where I am satisfied with the uncertainty of my future, I am free in that way. What is it then?

I can't really tell, but I would say it has something to do with their boyish face and the curly hair. It was not about the surf, it was about a sense of purity in the air, whenever they were around. A feeling that any look we could exchange could be nothing but true and clumbsy.

This summer I felt tired of all I ever lived in relationships. Of being pragmatic, of being cheated on, of pity-love, of unsaid love, of not talking, not being romantic, of wanting always to be with someone else, of being content with left-overs. I don't know how I got this way, but I did. I know many people did, and I see it everyday. What happen to us? We, that cried so truly in the cinema, we, who promised to count the stars once we had someone to help out, we, who wanted to hold on to a leather jacket cruising across America?

I call for a reclaim. We, who have the right to a proper highschool love, like the ones the movies promised. We, who will not give up on that summer night walk. We want it and we will fight for it, simply because it is worth it. Let us never again get fooled, never again compromise. From now on, true romance, like we wished for. No white weedings, but true, genuine romance. And in that case, it won't matter if you have spot on your face or you feel that the shoes don't match.

Because, there is one thing I know, there is one thing that is true.