13.04.2007 Friday the 13th

I didn't notice that it was Friday the 13th today. Not until now, though.
Anyway, whether it was the myth around the day or of my own doings, my day turned out a very crappy day.

I woke up with the sound of my alarm clock. Ever since I used the one on the radio, (it's a multi-functional tingamajig, really) I've been waked up at least 3 times in the morning, and every single time, I sleep again with the exception of the last. On Fridays, I only have Norwegian classes for a meager 4 hours and a half and we had a test today. As much as I like writing, I just hate exams because, besides the fact that I don't really need it, it sucks out a lot of me - not of lack of writing, but of lack of things to do. Sitting there for hours at a time, doing practically nothing tires me out. (Who gets tired of doing nothing? me!) After the test, Jens and I decided to take our bikes to Rema to buy some stuff. Here's where things started to go wrong.

On the way to Rema, suddenly, the gear-changer of my bike (or technically speaking, my host dad's bike) lost its screw causing the chain to go out of track and land in between the fork and the gear. (Why can't the chain just land in the gear? Was he tired and wanted to take a break from the gears?) Anyway.. the sad thing is, I really didn't know that it was just the screw missing and not the entire gear-changer-thingamajig broken into pieces. So, I went home, dragging the bike with me, and went out to carry on a surgery on it. And then I found out that the screw just fell off or something. However, due to an extreme lack of logic on my part or rather an influence of complete laziness, I did not look for it. (I mean, how stupid can I be?) All I thought of the time was to tell it to Trond, the legitimate owner of the bike. (and partly expecting that my butt will be kicked) The thought of looking for the missing screw did not really dawn on me if Trond had not suggested looking for it. And that was roughly 6 hours after. -_-

Anyway, while I was waiting for dinner and boring myself out, I went up to my room, used the pc, played music, read a book and in the process, fell asleep. With the sun shining through my window, I just needed to fall asleep. Anyway, half an hour later, Ragnhild started yelling around for me. Now, I am hearing her but I'm not up to anything besides sleeping at the moment. I really wanted to sleep just because it's feels great. Anyway, she was saying something about a call for me. Now, who in the world would call me? and in my *temporary* residence number?

It was a lady who seemed to be in a very bad temper and is talking to me with raised tones. Ouch. It was my AFS local contact in a bad mood. This weekend, my host mom will have a ladies' party in the house and she already leased all the beds in the house for some of the guests who would not be able to go back to their own respective homes in the course of the night. I really don't have anything against it because, in effect, I'm just a vagrant here myself and have no claims to any property or whatsoever. So, my host mom asked my local contact if I could crash over for the night and generously she said yes. Now, her son sent me a SMS message asking when he could pick me up and I replied something like this: "when? because I'm going to a birthday party of one of my friends at 7." Now, I did ask when, right? By asking when, I meant, what time. Apparently, they only managed to absorb the second part of the sentence. They suddenly had the idea that I'm not going to sleep over. So, she was quite upset that suddenly, i go off canceling things. When I explained that I am still going but I'm coming after the party, she became even more upset. Understandably, as a mother, she would not want her son to be staying up all night waiting for me to come to them. In her perspective, it would be unfair for her child to wait for a stranger to come home to them, and I agree with her. Curse my wording preferences. I could not ask for them to come and pick me up so late, can I? That would be even more embarrassing for me but apparently, as later I would come to know, they wouldn't mind. The end of the conversation left me with two choices, either ask Morten to come with me or i wouldn't go to the party at all.

Now, I already considered these two choices before (and even more alternatives that I taught of) and I can see both as not a real option. Asking Morten to come with me would be a good thing to do, but I don't think he's the kind of person that would be interested with such kind of things. I don't know but I just feel it. The second choice would mean breaking a promise because I already promised her that I would be coming. It's my way of making things up for myself by trying to uphold all promises that I make. So, i already discarded them as options. But here I am, ended up in choosing one of the two. As the whole thing was very stressful, I chose to go to Morten early instead of just going to the party. So, I sent messages to both Morten and Cho Kiu, telling them that I'm coming early and I'm not coming, respectively as well as an apology message for the both of them.

And then came dinner and I told Trond about the problem and we went out, after dinner, to search for the missing nut. We had no luck. So, I took the bike with me and drove down to the sports center and asked if they had a nut that would fit the hole? The first clerk told me that they're not offering Diamant bikes and therefore they have no parts of it to sell too. So, I called Trond and asked if I should ask for something that would just fit even though it's of not the same manufacturer. I was just being sure because it's his bike, anyway; and that I would not want to choose things that would contribute to its wreckage. It's strike #3 for the day and strike #2 against Trond. I got a lecture on how things function. I know those things, hallooo! what do you guys take me for, 6 years old? I don't know your preferences on things so I needed to make sure that it's what he would pick himself. So, I went in and asked a second time to another clerk. This time, this clerk tells that I can just check it in for repair and get it back next week. Oh well..no biking for me.

So, by the end of the day, I was upset myself and I sat down at the church's garden for a while. How long exactly, I did not know. It just felt soothing to be there. Just sitting there, thinking, listening.

So, how's your Friday the 13th?