Nerdy break up feelings.

I'm going through a strange break up phase with IB, minus sadness, but rather the aimlessness. I suddenly have all this free time and I'm reacting in a few stereotypical break up ways:

• Eating a lot.
• Spontaneously picking up hobbies to fill the weird void (such as spending a free period making popsicle stick photo frames.)
• Considering other hobbies to pick up.
• Introducing voluntary dietary restrictions (I'm not drinking milk this week to see if I feel better.)
• Thinking of adventures to have. 
• Laughing unnecessarily hard at things that barely make sense.

The fact that ending IB feels like a break up gives you a general idea of (1) how much of a dork I am and (2) how perpetually single I have always been.*

What do people even do with free time? I don't really understand this concept as I haven't had free time since around August. I suppose I can plan my epic journey that I want to happen and read more classic literature so I can go into pretentious arts university with as much literature as possible under my belt to reference and sound smart and feel enlightened.

*I have been dubbed both a 'bro' and 'the most platonic person of all time.' I have a unique quality of being an extreme platonic bro about me, I guess. I don't know how this came about.
Hearts,
Julianne

How to Thursday:

• Go to school
• Write three essays in two hours about historical topics you may or may not know
• Dance in the hallway chanting "Done IB forever!"
• Eat celebratory crepes
• Get books from the library because IB exams are over and you have time to read again
• Attend afternoon classes for the second time in two weeks
• Go to a school coffee house
• See the 10pm showing of The Great Gatsby because screw it, IB exams are over and I deserve this. 

Hearts,
Julianne

I should actually go on a journey.

So, I figure to start this, I'll need some context;

When I was 10, I moved to Kenya. My parents decided a few years previously that they would follow in my grandparents' footsteps and become missionaries at this American Christian boarding school on the edge of the Rift Valley about an hour outside of Nairobi. I spent 5th and 6th grade there before moving back to Canada, in the same city in the same house I'd lived in before.

I really miss it today. I'm not totally sure why, I mean I've spent all of one month there in the past six years. I guess you can get homesick for a place where you've never really belonged. I've come to the conclusion that mostly what I miss is the atmosphere of there, especially when faced with the stark contrasts of my life here.

Here, everyone is always rushing. They can barely focus on one thing because soon they'll be running to the next. Most people go about their day as if everything is a tedious obligation. Everyone can't look beyond themselves to see that there's bigger concerns. When people stop rushing, they don't know what to do with themselves; they immediately turn to boredom.

In Kenya, I found everything to fall in a comfortable routine; people did one thing at a time, at a pace that seemed comfortable, and without pressure. Everything could always pause for a cup of tea in the middle of the morning and again in the afternoon. People relaxed and let things be uncomplicated. There was always time to go to read a book or go to bed early. Everything felt a hell of a lot less complicated. Occasionally I find person that has a similar gist to their life here but they are few and far between.

I think that largely I found this because I'm romanticizing my memories a bit, or I was mislead by age, but even when I was twelve, I noticed how discontent people seem with their lives all the time here. People wouldn't let little things go and prepubescent Julianne asked why it mattered to people that their hair be perfectly in place when they go out or that their parents pick them up at exactly 3pm, as opposed to 3:03 or 3:05. Why do people get so hung up on things that don't matter?

Mind you, I'm a huge hypocrite in pointing these things out. I'm one of these people who is always rushing. I get bored after two hours of nothing to do. I bicker about how little money I have. I stress about stupid things.

Basically, my job is stressing me out, school is stressing me out, and I want it all to stop so I can find some nirvana and reach some sort enlightenment where I can feel mostly content about things again.

I think I need to go on an adventure somewhere this summer. Maybe I should quit my job in late July/ early August so I can go on an epic journey. Any (relatively thrifty) ideas of where I should go?
Hearts,
Julianne

Fool proof, almost summer plans:

• Get a custom painted van and solve mysteries.
• Become a chain smoking alcoholic barista for the irony/ as my final act to deal with serving coffee before I quit to go to university.
• Try to get a summer job at the library so I can work real people hours, get full time cash money swag, and not have the worst shifts bequeathed upon me because I'm the lowest seniority. Also, working with people who aren't unreasonably intense about their job at Starbucks to overcompensate for the lack of achievement in other areas of their life.
• Become that person who is always casually wandering around. 
• Party Thursdays/ recovery Fridays.
• Read books not for school.
• Go on road trips with cool people to beaches and stuff.

 I actually just don't know what I'm going to do after IB exams. I've dedicated so much time and effort to IB since tenth grade and I don't know how I'm going to fill the void that it'll leave. To me, ending IB is like ending a long term relationship (with less emotions) because this is the sad state my life has been reduced to.

Hopefully I'll fill the void with something less masochistic. Like friends. Or running a meth lab out of my garage.

First exam tomorrow: English Paper 1. It's the beginning of the end, the hinge of fate. Just kidding, it's still a mystery as to what these exams actually count toward.
Hearts,
Julianne