/// sweden is at your side

as long as you love nothing can go wrong.

when the class started, my seatmates mika, simone and carina started chanting angel, angel, angel! and it felt good. carina said, JUST DO IT! GO THERE AND DO IT! and i stood up and said to arwed, i'll go first. and it all just went out of me. sweden sweden sweden and all these things about public diplomacy and nation branding that i didn't even know a few days before and here i am, doing something for the place i love the most and scared out of my wits but standing there, and just... doing it. in the end, only one other classmate asked a question and i answered confidently and arwed only said a few things but no one really criticised me. and at the christmas market, claudia said it was a really good presentation. how i turned something that i really loved into something fitting into an academic paper etc etc and how i know what i wanted and how it was clear. hello si claudia yun e, super perfectionist-critical german!!! haha wow i really needed that encouragement because everything i have been doing here is really unsure and i am unsure of myself and my capabilities and i am just doing task after task after task without really thinking what it is for, what i learn from it, it was going from fear to fear, trying to cross things off but then jumping into another nauseating, horrifying thing to do. not knowing until when i can keep on doing this. waking up to worries.

but there are breaks such as THIS and i want to remember it forever. it was the moment going home alone tonight from the first night of the christmas market at the town square. they had gluwine, i had heise schokolade of course. roasted sugar almonds, leberkase. christmas lights, warm mugs, people huddled in groups. i was screaming AHHH MALIGAYANG PASKO!!! it felt good to be over that IP presentation and to know that i did well. i was biking, standing up, alone on humboltallee, listening to the fleet foxes' tiger mountain peasant song. the moment in the chorus... i just wanted to close my eyes and stay there and be happy. thank you god for this two minutes of peace.

anyway nakarma yung amerikano hahaha tang ina tinanong siya ng mga... 7 tao yata. ang gulo kasi ng presentation niya. and maybe they wanted to get back at her for all her mindless power tripping criticism. HAHA ANO KA NGAYON. ang defensive niya o, tapos bad trip siya pagkatapos. hahaha what goes around comes around, whitey.

tonight's winner: the filipina.