We’re selling, but where can we live once we’ve sold?

It’s been a while since I last did some blogging and I think it’s about time I write something again.
Right now it is raining and thundering, so it’s the perfect time to listen to music and think about how my life is.
The last couple of months our financial situation has gotten worse and worse. In the start I didn’t think this really affected me, but now I know it does. I’ll get back to how it affects me later on. Shortly before Easter the bank told us to sell the house, so we got a realtor around to look at our house and give a price. Of course we knew that we had to pay for status reports on the house. That’s not something we can afford since we are actually quite poor. We looked at apartments we would be able to afford renting if we could sell the house. Remember, it was the bank that told us to sell. We managed to find one that looked really nice, it wasn’t too expensive, it wasn’t too small, it was in a new neighbourhood and so on. We were told that within a week we had to say weather or not it should be reserved for us. All we needed was for the bank to lent us the money for those reports. Our house would have a good chance of being sold during the Easter. The bank wouldn’t lent us the money, and we couldn’t sell or reserved the apartment.
About two weeks ago my parents signed the papers and the bank accepted to lent us the money for those reports. One week ago I signed the papers that needs to be signed when changing a bank. I’ve simply had enough with the bank I’ve had so far, so I’ve changed to another bank. It’s a small bank that is only in the local area, but they seem like kind people and I like their principles. Also, our old bank adviser from the other bank works at the one I’ve just changed to. He understands the situation.
Monday our house was put online. Already Monday people were getting details on the house. Those people might be possible buyers. I fear that our house will be sold quickly. I feel fine about the fact that we will move, but I just wish we knew whereto. If the house will be sold to the price it is set to we won’t owe that much money anymore, but then we will still need to borrow money so we can move into an apartment. We know the bank won’t borrow us those money. Right now that isn’t our first concern though. We need to find somewhere that isn’t too small, someplace where we can still keep our dog.
All of this affects me. I noticed some time ago that I wasn’t caring that much about school. I’ve hardly been doing my homework these past months. I have been doing my assignments, but not the day to day homework. I’ve been looking more and more forward to the next time there was a concert I would have to play at or a shooting competition or the next time I had a flute lesson or a training evening with shooting. I have been more interested in the music than in my school and I have had problems in maths and physics. We are talking about two of the subjects I used to be so good in. Yesterday I got my final grades. Looking at the overall perspective they weren’t bad, but my dad couldn’t understand why I had dropped on grade in oral math and oral English. I tried to explain that all of this had affected me, and still is affecting me and that is affecting how I do in school. In the end I broke down in tears. This situation isn’t unfamiliar to me. It reminds of the situation I have told you about before. The one about the psychological bullying I went through once. All the small things that have affected me a little bit seemed harmless at the time they occurred, but they weren’t, and it isn’t until now when it is almost too late that I have realised that. This morning I still felt like crying, and I was getting ready to leave for school I could just feel the tears starting to gather in my eyes once more. I looked like a mess as well, but that something else. My mum thought I should go to school anyway because I just said that my stomach hurt (which it also did). My dad allowed me to stay at home though. So I’ve been at home all day, and after some decent sleep on our sofa I actually felt a bit better.
Sleep is another thing that really affects me. I could hardly sleep last week, and last night I had a horrible nightmare that didn’t really help either. I get some medication that helps preventing headaches. One of the side effects is that I can hardly remember any of my dreams. Sadly enough when I do remember a dream it tends to be a nightmare.
This time I dreamt that someone came after my mum and I with a knife. He tried to kill and I managed to get out of his sight before he realised I was there. When I screamed for help he realised I was there and went after me. I woke up shortly before he killed me. It’s not the first time I’ve dreamt that someone tries to kill my mum and I. It’s always a man.
I guess this would really interest a psychologist. That’s another thing this will lead to. My mum will see if she can get our doctor to get me an appointment at a psychologist. I need help, and I know it.

I just hope we will find somewhere to live, and that I can get someone to talk things through with, someone professional.
I would also like to send a prayer out to anyone out there in similar situations or worse situations, a prayer to all of those people that are already homeless or will be if they don’t get the help the need.
I hope people will start realising that there is indeed poverty everywhere in the world, it’s just not always so easy to see. We all get good at hiding it, even from those that see us and talk to us every day.
-Sofie

A crazy end to a “normal” week

Hi there.
I’m here with a quick little update after some time in silence.
Thursday was a bad day. Everything went wrong and I forgot almost everything I should remember. It was just one of those days. My shooting that day was kind of like everything else, not too good. I could have done a lot better, but the points could have been a lot worse as well. I just feel like it’s pretty bad because of the way the shots were placed. I won’t talk more about that though. There was one thing that did go right though. We had a meeting at the club I shoot in, and that means that we got the trophies we achieved at the club championship and at the. This means I got the trophy I’ve been waiting for since February. I guess this couldn’t have gone wrong no matter what since I just had to go up and receive a trophy. So now I get to keep that trophy for at least a year. Next year in February I’ll then have to see if I can be good enough to get it home with me again and keep it another year. I know I won’t get this exact trophy in 2015 because I’ll be in a different age class at that point, but that’s a different story. For the time being this trophy stands with the other things I’ve won, and it is actually pretty big. I think it’s a good thing I moved the other things to a more spacious place before I won this. Before you think of asking, yes, it is the big silvery trophy in the front.

Now the rest of the week has been almost normal. I’ve been a bit busy with school, and yesterday we had a theme day. The theme was mobster, so we all had to be dressed up as mobsters. By the end of the day we had to go downtown and do a flash mob with Gangnam style. I decided not to take part of that for the simple reason that someone I know might actually end up seeing me, and I had forgotten to had in my physics report Thursday (another thing that went wrong that day), so I had to hurry home and do that before 3 pm. Tomorrow I’ll be working in the church (as usual), do some assignments and then hopefully I’ll get time to watch Paris-Roubaix. Next week I should get a bit more back to normal since I’ll be having a flute lesson again. I’ve had two weeks without flute lessons because of the Easter, so that will be wonderful.

Until next time
-Sofie

Making art from the beginning

I really need an opinion here that isn’t my own, and that opinion is your opinion. I need a bit of help to finish a sketch here. It’s just the colouring, so nothing big. Please just take a few minutes to read this through and maybe give me an honest opinion. It’s a sketch for a sculpture I’ll make in school over the next few weeks, and if I will have to go to an arts exam this is something I’ll have to talk about. I’m not gonna change too many things on the sketch, maybe a little detail a place or two, but I’m still not sure about the colouring. I’ve got three different materials I can use for the sculpture: black wax, white wax and grey net. I’m sure I’ll use the net for the devil’s wings in in, but I’m not sure about the black and the white. The theme here is good and evil, so I decided right away that I would make a mix between an angel and a devil. This means that the angel part will be one colour and the devil part will be another colour. I’m not sure whether I should go with the traditional white for angel and black for devil or if it should be the other way round. What do you think? My sketch is made for the traditional. I would really appreciate if you would just write a little comment about it.

In advance I’d like to say thank you.
-Sofie

The national championships of Denmark

So… That could have gone a lot better.
It started out okay. I did my shootings yesterday, and the first was better than I had expected. I got 192 points in the first shooting with 1 bullseye. Something went wrong during the shooting though. I was suddenly feeling this pain in my chest. I figured that it was just my asthma messing a bit with me because my pulse had been pretty high earlier. It didn’t get worse during the shooting though, so after that I told one of our trainers that I’d like to do the second shooting as well. It might seem crazy that I wanted to shoot again knowing that something was wrong and causing me pain, but this was my chance of placing well at the national championships. If you don’t do both shootings there’s no way you’re getting a place, and then you might as well not do the competition at all. Of course you might have a bad day and see that after the first shooting and then go home, but I’m not like that. I also knew that if I really did have a good day it would be a shame to waste it. I had to wait an hour before I should shoot again. That’s actually okay. In that hour the pain got worse. My breathing was affected by it, and I wasn’t feeling too good. I was talking to the others from my club, and checked the results of the other shooters occationally. Then it was time to get ready again. I got the jacket on, got the bullets and got the rifle. Then there was just the final minutes I had to wait before we could go to the lanes and do our best. We waited longer than we should have, I’m sure of that. Finally we got to go to our standings. This time I had to be on the top floor. We were three from my club who had to shoot the second shooting at the same time, and we had two trainers. Two of us basically shared one trainer. We also used to use the same jacket and rifle, but since we had to shoot at the same time that wouldn’t work out. During the second shooting I basically took care of everything myself. I made the decisions on whether or not to adjust the rifle and how much. While I was shooting it all got worse and worse. My shots weren’t as good as they could have been, not as good as they should have been. I could hardly breathe, and when I did it had to be some really quick and deep breaths. I had to hold my breath all the time I was aiming, and my vision was kind of blurred most of the time I was aiming. I knew it wasn’t good. The pain in my chest got worse and worse, but I finished the shooting just within the timelimit. That’s another factor in all of this. You’ve got 30 minutes to do the shooting, including the test shots. That’s about one minute per shot. When you’re feeling like I did, that’s not enough time. I saw that my shots got worse and worse, and I didn’t have much time in the end, so I just hurried to finish up. I got out, got my jacket off and got something to drink and eat. I was sure it would make me feel better. If it really was some sort of extreme asthma thing it should make me feel better to get something to drink. It didn’t though. I saw my results. It wasn’t as bad as I had fearred, but it was not good enough, I knew that. I had gotten 189 points with 4 bullseyes. That makes it a total of 381 points and 5 bullseyes. I went home after that. When I got home I was feeling much worse. I hurt to breathe, it hurt to talk, it hurt to drink. Everything hurt. I placed myself on the couch and curled up in a way that made me as painless as possible. That means that it was hurting about half as much as it did in any other way I could sit. After an hour my mum saw that I had only gotten worse since I had come home and she could hear that my breathing had gotten worse. We had agreed to give it some time to find out if it was just some asthma and if it would get better by itself, but it didn’t. So she called the emergency doctor at the hospital. We had to go there as soon as possible. So we did that. When we got there they checked if it was my asthma, but my blood was containing as much oxygen as it should, and my pulse was fine. The the doctor checked me out and found out that two of my vertebrae were misplaced. It had probably happen during the Friday when I had played some guitar and walked the dog, and then yesterday when I was leaning over the table while I was shooting. This is not as bad as it sounds though. It could be cured right away. I was told to lie on my stomach and relax and breathe deep (so easy to do when you can’t really breathe), and then the doctor just pushed down on the two placed on my bag where these vertebrae are. I tell you, it is not something you want to experience. It hurts to get that done. You’d think it was enough with one time, but no. The first time wasn’t to bad, but the second time I started crying, and the third and fourth time were horrible. I screamed and cried until it was over, and even when it was over I couldn’t stop crying. The last time I was in that much pain at the doctor was when I was 9 years old and had to get a lumbar puncture.
When I got back home it was already so much easier to breathe, and I got some painkillers that also helped. I still have some pain if I breathe too deep, and now I actually do have pain in my chest, but it’s getting better and better. I am pretty sure I’m not going shooting tomorrow, though.

After the pain I went through during the first shooting you might wonder why I wanted to shoot the second shooting, but as I explained above I wanted to get a result. I did get a result as well. The national championships ended today, and in my class 87 shooters did both shootings. 139 did the first shooting, so 52 shooters decided not to do both shootings, maybe because their results were too bad. That is to my luck, because if the last 52 had done the second shooting I probably wouldn’t have gotten the place I did. I ended up as the 69th best. It’s not too bad when you think about the pain I was in, the fact that it was the first time I used that jacket, and I had only used the rifle two times before. I had hoped for a top 50 placing, but there’s always next year. Now I just have to work hard on getting the results I want.
It was my first time at the nationals as a junior shooter, and on the indoor lanes, and I have only beem a junior since November. I didn’t quite get the result I wanted, but I had a good day, despite the pain. I got to talk with one of the few other shooters who’s a girl, and she’s even my own age and probably my biggest oponent.

I hope you will all pursue your goals, and that i haven’t bored you. I also hope that I will feel ready to shoot again soon.
-Sofie

Oh god. It’s the National Championships tomorrow!

So… The national championships in shooting has started, and tomorrow I have to shoot. There’s no pressure, no pressure at all. Or something like that.
I do feel a bit nervous since I’ve seen some of the results the others have had. Those who have been shooting this evening have been pretty good, but I’m confident that I can beat some of them. There will be 136 junior shooters in my class, and on the list of all junior shooters in the country of both classes I’m the 390th best. There are 824 junior shooters in the country. That gives me comfidence. The fact that I know that those 136 at the nationals are gonna be from the better half of the junior shooters makes me a bit nevous. If I could choose to do the shooting on the lanes I’m used to I know I could do better than I will tomorrow, but I haven’t got a choice. There is one place everyone will have to shoot, and personally I don’t like that place. The thing that makes me dislike it is the fact that the tables can’t be adjusted as much as I’m used to. There are some different heights that I can choose from and my preferred table height is in between two of the heights I can choose from. Can it get more annoying?
Anyway, I’m just talking away because I’m feeling the nervousness kick in right now. In twelve hours I’ll be on the lane doing my best.
I have to get up at 5:45 am tomorrow to go to the place I have to shoot and I know the crowd of shooters will make me even more nervous. I just have listen to some music to make sure I’ve got the right song stuck in my head and then remember to relax and breathe. I’ll also have to remember that as long as I do my best there’s nothing more I can do. I know that if I place in top 90 I will be more than happy. I think that is almost realistic, almost. Top 100 should be realistic, anything better than that will be hope. I just have to make sure that I don’t get optimistic, so I’ll tell myself that top 110 is the realistic goal. Then I just have to beat 26 other shooters, and I know that there are some shooters that won’t show up, there always is, so that is realistic.
I’m lucky that I’ve got to go to the nationals. I haven’t even got a choice. Of course I could’ve said no and said that I didn’t want to, but any sane person wouldn’t do that. I feel like I owe it to the club to be there and do my absolute best. They are doing so many great things for people, and it’s almost like one big family. If you can understand the humour they have, you fit in. And I understand the humour, it’s almost like the one my uncle has, so that suits me well. This week they have really done everything necessary to prepare me. Wednesday I went to the club to try out a jacket that is made for women that one of the trainers had and no one was using, and that fitted me well. The rifle I used at training Monday was put aside so no one else would use it. Arrangements were made so I can get a ride to the place. Everything is ready. Everything, except my nerves. I am more nervous than I can remember being about any shooting competition before, and it’s not even the first time I’ve been to the nationals. I tried years ago on the outdoor lanes. Maybe it’s because I’ve only been shooting since November this time round? I know the other juniors have been juniors for longer time than that. Maybe that’s why.
I don’t know.

I just hope I won’t disappoint anyone tomorrow (especially myself), and I hope I haven’t bored you.
I’ll be back sunday when I’ve got the results.
-Sofie

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Hi guys.
As I told you here I went on a date Friday.
That actually went okay. We went to an Italian restaurant and just talked. After that we went back home to our house and watched some films.

Yesterday I then had to go to the school party. I had been chosen as one of the students to work there, so I got to see the seniors have their gala and I even got money for it. It was a bit hard in the end though because I had to help with moving back the tables, restoring class rooms and do a bit of cleaning afterwards, so I didn’t get to bed until around 3 am. All in all it was a good evening though. I got to wear my new shoes, that I bought yesterday, and I got to dance a bit of lanciers.

At the moment I’m also practicing a lot of flute, or trying to. Now I’ve got a pretty good reason to do so. Monday last week I got told that my friend and I have been allowed to play at a classical festival here in Horsens and play at a concert that is only for the best students on the music school. This means that on Friday we’ll be playing in front of a lot of people. I haven’t done that for quite a while, and I feel the pressure a little bit because I know we still need to improve on one of the pieces we’re going to play. We will be playing two pieces of a Belgian composer called Jean-Baptiste Loeillet de Gant. It’s not like they’re that difficult, but we’ve only been playing together since the end of January. We are improving a lot though and we’re improving fast. I am slowly beginning to believe that we will be able to be ready for Friday, but I know that I am the weakest of us when it comes to this concert. I suffer from stage freight, you see, so I can make mistakes because of the nerves, and if I make mistakes I’ll mess it up. I also need to remember to be really aware on some places in the pieces to avoid making mistakes. I’m sure we’ll do okay though and I am really looking forward to it.

Another thing that has happened in this week is that I’ve gotten the results of the club championship in shooting. Last Saturday I went to shoot at that competition. You might have seen that I was counting down. I was sort of optimistic about it. It was my third week with a competition in a row, and I hadn’t done any normal training in between the competitions. I did some maths before going there and listened to the music I need to listen to before shooting:

Another song I like listening to before shooting is this:

All in all I felt good. So I got myself ready to go in. And then I went in and took my time. I quickly counted my points before handing in my targets, and I thought that I had gotten around 192, but I was being hard at myself, I always am. I then went in and did some party shooting. Party shooting is shooting on different targets that are usually a bit harder to get good results on than the normal targets, but they’re usually fun enough to shoot on. When I got out from that the official results had gotten up on the board and I found out exactly how hard I had been with myself. I had gotten 197/03 points. That means that I got 197 points and 3 bulls eyes. That was so much better than anything I had expected and by far the best I have done ever since I started again. It was also enough to ensure that I kept my tradition alive and got first place. Monday I then went to a normal training evening. The first one in some time. I got 191 points, and the strange thing is that I was disappointed by that result. I mean, it’s not a bad result, especially not since I had been sick all day and had been to my flute lesson right before shooting, but I was still disappointed. I don’t know why.

Tomorrow is another day and I’ll go practice some more flute and go to train my shooting. After all, there’s less than two weeks till the national championships. I don’t stand a chance at that, though, but I’m looking forward to it anyway.

That’s all I’ve got for now.
-Sofie

Being “girly” isn’t easy

I need your help guys. I really do and I hope you’ll read on and help me. Don’t worry, it’s just your opinion I need.
So here I am. Yet another lesson has been cancelled and I have nothing to do, so I figured I’d use the time writing you a little update.
Monday was a really good day for me. I know Monday is usually the worst day of the week, but this was not the case for me this week.
An old friend of mine texted me again for the first time since June last year. I know it was partially my fault that we hadn’t been talking since then, but I didn’t have he’s new number so I had no way of getting in touch with him. It was a bit strange the last time I saw him because it was shortly after he had told me that he had feelings for me. That made me really confused because I have been really insecure and I’ve had really low self esteem, so you can say that I’ve missed out on some things compared to others my age. As if it wasn’t enough that I had no idea what my own feelings were he is also four years older than me. During the time I haven’t been talking with him I realised that I had lost something valuable, and that I missed him. I know this sounds like I do have feelings for him, and I think I do, but I’m still not sure. Anyway, as you can probably imagine I was really happy when he then texted me again. I kind of saw it as a second chance. Yesterday I suddenly had a lesson that was cancelled (kind of like today) and I had nothing to do (exactly like today), so I killed time by texting him. It’s not like I just texted him, he texted me first and I just replied. Anyway, this is what is so exciting and has made me so happy. He just asked me out. Kind of like out of the blue. I know it might sound strange, but I was afraid that he didn’t have feelings for me anymore, so this really made me happy because this must means that nothing has changed. So of course I said yes.
My parents don’t know this, and I don’t know if I should tell them. Last year they met him and we were just friends, and they were fine with that. In fact I think they liked his personality, but they also tend to get a tiny bit overprotecting sometimes, so I don’t really know if I should tell them that it’s a date I’m having with him next week. Maybe they’ll figure it out themselves.
I really need some help. What should I do? Should I tell them?
Oh, and what should I wear?

I hope you’ll help me out a bit.
-Sofie