Un-American Qualms on the Fourth

Today’s the Fourth of July here in the USA, so if you’re American and you’re reading this, Happy Independence Day!

The Fourth of July usually consists of the smell of hotdogs on the grill, bathing suits, awkward family encounters, the only time you can use your blue eyeliner, fireworks, and other festivities to celebrate Our Beautiful Country.

At least, that’s how it looks on tv.

For my family, the Fourth of July is quiet. We still dress up in our red, white, and blue, but don’t go to a big party. We grill, but only enough chicken and corn for three people. We haven’t gone to the fireworks in our neighborhood for the last few years because it’s always been packed, but somehow hearing the pop and crackle as they burst into the sky a few miles away is enough.

To be honest, I don’t even feel American. I learn about them at school, learned about the successes and difficulties and the days that made today, but I don’t identify with the Americans. The very fact that I call them “the Americans” instead of “us” should be an obvious indication.

I’m not from here. I’m an immigrant. I was born in a third world country fifteen years ago, and I love it there. That’s my home. I hardly have any family here, all my grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles are from back there. I only came here nine years ago, and while I’ve spent more time here than I’ve spent in my home country, it still hasn’t been enough to call the USA my home.

Not that I don’t love living in America. It’s absolutely amazing here. I have more freedom than I would have anywhere back home, great education for a much lower price, and I’m exposed to so much more different cultures and foods and ideas. I just still feel like I’m not an American, even if I’ve been living here for nearly a decade.

I guess what I’m saying is, I’m american by legal nationality, but I’m still living somewhere else in my heart.

Sorry for the cheesiness.

That’s just what I’ve been thinking about lately. Hope this didn’t put a damper on your Independence Day.

Happy 4th! 🙂

~Annika

I just wanted to give a big thank you to everyone who looked at and read my previous post. You all were so lovely with your comments and likes and feedback, and I am grateful for and appreciative to anyone who ever takes a look at my blog. Love you all! xx

Crushless, Kissless, and Boyless.

As you may or may not know, I’m 15. 

As you may not know, I have yet to experience any of those romantic “firsts”. 

Let’s not delve into the big first yet, okay, because I think I’m still too young and my brain still hasn’t wrapped my head around the facts in my 7th grade health class. No, I’m talking about the little firsts: first boyfriend, first kiss, first date and fine, let’s even throw first hand-hold in there. (Is that even a thing?) As you can see, I’m quite a toddler in the romance department. 

Sure, I’ve had crushes. Plenty of them, actually. There’s one short boy, one tall boy, one who shall not be named, one…er, two gay boys, (that was awkward), and others that have been shoved in the back of my brain for my friends to pick out when they like to embarrass me. I still remember my first crush in second grade; he liked me back but we didn’t do anything about it because we were kids and relationships were still gross back then. But I haven’t had a serious serious crush in a while; my last one was probably more than two years ago. 

Like I said, I’ve never had my first kiss either. I’ve gotten multiple kisses on the cheek on one night from one of the boys named above, but nobody was ever brave enough to go for my lips. The same goes for boyfriends, and dates, and hand-holds…It’s like when you go fishing, and you wait all day and only catch a small fish, but you’re way too tired to go in again to catch a bigger fish even if you could. This analogy may be completely inaccurate since I don’t fish, but that’s probably what it feels like with me. 

I’ve suspected that a few boys that I’ve come across this past year have had a crush on me. I’ve never asked them, so I may not even be correct, but I do this thing with boys. If I think one likes me, or even if I don’t think that, I can’t look them in the eye and speak unless I’ve known them for a super super long time. I’ll stare right between their eyes or at their nose or at the mole on their temple but never at their eyes, and I’ll fumble my words up or not completely decide between two responses in my head so when I speak, “Fine” and “Okay” turn into “Fikay” and an awkward stare.

And I’d like to re-empasize that I do this with almost any boy my age, especially ones that I deem sort of attractive/boyfriend material.

Now is a good time to bring up that I don’t actually know what my “type” is. I used to think it was brown-hair, brown-eyed boys with light skin, but then I found some Asian boys attractive along with some tanned skin boys, and then I realized that blue eyes and green eyes were more favorable than brown eyes, but brown eyes were sometimes cuter if they were a certain shape, but some types of brown are too brown, and some boys were cute but not nice or funny or smart enough, and…The point is, if you asked me to describe my ideal boy, the description would most likely resemble a mutant. 

As you can tell from above, I’m a critical person. I over-analyze everything, especially when it comes to situations with the opposite gender. My thoughts range from: On a Facebook chat: “Should I add a ‘haha’ here or would that make me sound too weird?” In class: “What if he says this to me? What do I respond with?” At home: “Are you sure you actually like him? Because his…But then again…Okay, you do like him, but would you actually go on a date with him?”

It’s not that boys are a complete puzzle to me. I’d like to think that I understand them pretty well, since I have a little brother and know all about video games and eating habits and feelings, although this information might not be very useful unless my boyfriend is eleven. (Which would be creepy.)

But then again, I don’t have a boyfriend, so what would I know? 

~Annika

(Want me to write about something? Let me know in the comments!)