I decided to do more cross-stitching again. I had started on this 39 by 49 cm (15 by 20 inches) piece, a picture of a tradtional African tribe woman - or, at least, what the Western world typically likes to imagine they look like. The material alone cost me 60 euros (90 dollars). It has beautiful warm and earthy colors with a streak of aqua blue in it for the woman’s hair decoration. I really love it. Although, I kinda wish I had bought a different picture; it was the same size but the colors weren’t as bright and dominating. It was the portrait of an North American Indian kid.

I’m not sure if I’ll like this one put up on a wall somewhere just because it is so colorful and bright. It hardly matches with anything. But then my friend J showed me a picture she drew over the course of a couple of months. It’s a Mediterranean scene painted in acrylics and it looks unbelievably real. As if it was a photograph, almost. It’s awesome.

And so I asked her if she’d paint me a picture to hang next to my cross-stitch project. Maybe if I’d have a whole wall in these colors, it won’t look as crazy out of place. And it would also be nice to have something made by her in my own apartment once I won’t get to see her every day anymore; a nice conversation piece. In a Hey, remember when I asked you to paint this for me? sort of way.

She already agreed to start on my painting as soon as all our exams are over which will be around the end of April. Now I don’t know yet when exactly I’ll be moving out - my mom has been looking for apartments in Belgium because they’re much cheaper than in the Netherlands or all the way over in Germany. But I’m thinking I should start working on my African woman cross-stitch again so that by the time J’s painting is ready and it comes to the actual situation of moving into my own place it’ll be ready to frame and hang up on a wall.

On the other hand, I’m still totally caught up in Pillars of the Earth - I just can’t put it down. Plus I’m supposed to be studying like, right now and later on, before dinner, and at night and on my way to school. And anywhere in between. Crazy educatioal politics that force people to go beyond eveything that’s good and holy to graduate from goddamned high school!

Oh by the way, ONLY THREE DAYS TO GO.

I haven’t done any studying these last three days and I’m sure I’ll find out soon why that was irresponsibe, lazy and just plain stupid. I should have been preparing for my German exam on April 7 but I don’t know where to start. And now it’s only about a week away and I haven’t done a thing; in fact, with spring break in between, I even forgot those things we did last in class right before the break. Let alone all the things we’ve done over the course of the past two years.

This calls for a majorly dramatic sigh, doesn’t it?

Tomorrow we have another Senior Book meeting and considering the number of pages we have gotten done so far (35) and then number of pages we still have to finish (265), the meeting will probably last until late at night. Which sucks because school starts again on Monday and it’s our last week.

IT’S MY LAST WEEK OF HIGH SCHOOL.

I don’t know if that is as big a deal in other places around the globe, but here it is. I can’t fucking wait for it all to be over. People always say that high school is the greatest time of one’s life because, supposedly, it’s so worryfree and fun. But I don’t agree. And my host mom in Kentucky, Andrea, agreed with me on that. She is the first person to admit that life after high school is more fun because you can finally chose what you actually want to do instead of fulfilling some illogical regulations. She’s as awesome as Steve.

But right now, honestly, I’m a little scared because I fear that, for once, things won’t just magically work out. But I don’t know what to do about it either. I can’t decide what I should study because there’s no limit to it. Everything I have learned in the last thirteen years of school could be part of the exam on April 7. How am I supposed to come up with a studying system that covers it all?

In these past years I always thought that stuying for the final graduation exams would be crazy, strict and endlessly long; numbingly emaciating. And now here I am, one week before the German exam, and I haven’t done a thing.

It doesn’t feel right.

That cheeky little kid up there is me at the age of maybe two or three years. My mom always says I look like a queen in this picture, as if I were looking graciously over my land and my people. I think I look as if I were about to throw up. And yes, also a little bit concerned. But my mom called me her little queen when I was a baby/toddler instead of her princess - which, I suppose, is what many other parents call their first-born daughters.

Every senior had to choose one of their baby photos for their Senior Book profile and I chose this one. Or rather, my mom chose this one for me. For some reason I’ll never understand my mom is simply obsessed with this one photograph. I had picked a different one at first but after my friends had commented, HOW BIG WERE YOUR FEET AS A KID?! JESUS!, I decided to go with my mom’s pick.

The queen story reminded me of a really sweet thing my host dad in Kentucky, Steve, once said when a neighbor and him were debating over whether Steve would let his daughters date an African American boy. Which, as I’m sure you would all agree, is a stupid debate because WHY THE HELL WOULDN’T YOU?

But they had had a few beers and so finally the neighbor turned out to be rather racist which made me furious because he really is a decent guy and a great friend of mine. During my stay in Kentucky, I had seen it over and over again: racism against African Americans in a form I had never experienced it over here in Europe. However, most people I spent my everyday life with were not racist at all and so, naturally, the neighbor’s comments, that night, really caught me off guard and left me shocked.

At one point in their discussion, this happened:

Neighbor: So, you would seriously let your daughters date a black guy?
Steve: If he treats her like the queen she is, yes, of course I would let him date her. Color doesn’t matter.

I was so grateful that he said this, that he was man enough to utter his personal opinion this way. Although, the neighbor’s question followed by an unbelieving stare is obviously alarming and a joke in itself and no other reply would actually make sense.

I know that Steve loves his daughters more than anything, he his terrified of having to let them go one day but at the same time he’s not as overprotective as dads can sometimes be. My dad doesn’t really care about anything at all.

And so one of the worst things about leaving Kentucky was having to exchange Steve for my real dad again. He is without a doubt one of the most amazing people I have ever met and so incredibly perfect and in balance with himself and his beliefs - it’s a joy to watch him life everyday life. He is rather quiet and has a very dry sense of humor, much like myself.

The first half of my year in Kentucky I didn’t bond with him at all. Even though he did try again and again to get me to open up, we were both so quiet that we couldn’t really connect. In the afternoon of New Year’s 2005/2006, while cooking truckloads of food for the night’s party, we both got so mind-blowingly drunk, though - things changed. That day was one of the greatest days of my life.

It was also one of the most disappointing days in my life because that night something else happened; at a neighbor’s bar, when everybody was shitfaced and it was 4.30 in the morning and most people had left - even Steve - but I just didn’t want to go home, wanted to hold on to this amazing day. A family friend who I had considered a good friend of mine as well and whose pregnant wife and little boy I had began to love, put his hands down my pants as he was sitting on a bar stool behind me, put them all the way down my pants although there were people around us and I was too drunk and too surprised to stop him and so his hands stayed right there, between my legs, between my jeans and my underwear and my butt and my legs; this thirty-something-year-old took advantage of me, a sixteen-year-old far away from home and my real parents in a foreign country - until I went home.

I didn’t actually realize what had happened until the next day when my body had processed the alcohol over-dose and my brain kept screaming HOW ARE YOU EVER GOING TO LOOK AT HIS WIFE AGAIN AND NOT FEEL GUILTY? HOW CAN SOMEONE BE SUCH A FUCKING ASSHOLE? And I went and talked to Linn, another exchange student there and best friend of mine, about what had happened and she was disgusted. Only then did it finally occur to me that what he had done was very, very wrong and that he could have taken it all a step further if we hadn’t been in a room filled with people.

The night of that first day in 2006 while Steve and I were watching TV together, late at night, I told him. I said that The Asshole had stuck his hands down my pants and Steve asked, what do you mean? And I said, pretty much all the way, down my pants. And then Steve looked at me, knowing that I was old and strong enough to defend myself in any situation, evaluating whether this could have counted as sexual abuse, considering what to do next, wondering what he would do if I was his actual daughter. Then he said, did he hurt you? He gave me a shy look, clearly as uncomfortable in this situation as I was, and I smiled at him and said, no he didn’t.

I turned back to the television and it was quiet for a few seconds but then Steve said, do you need a hug or something? And I crawled over to him and he hugged me and I felt more loved and respected and protected than ever; and most importantly he made me feel as if I was, in fact, his daughter. With that hug, I instantly put it all behind me and never told my host mom. I don’t know if he ever mentioned anything to her but I like to believe that this is a little secret between just the two of us (and, of course, The Asshole), a difficult situation we have worked through together.

He is the greatest person in this world. His birthday is on April 14 and I have no clue what to get him. Which is so typical. I don’t think he’ll ever know how much I love him.