Different

Beep. Beep. Beep. That sound is the worst sound ever. Especially at seven. You might have guessed what was making the sound by now. If you guessed alarm clock then you’re right. What do you think I did next; a) Got up in happy mood or b) Tried to turn it off and when that didn’t work, throw the alarm across the room? If you said b) then you’re right again. Well that’s what I was planning on doing, before my mum came into my room to stop me from doing just that. She knows me to well and she didn’t want to buy me a new clock.

As you can see I’m not much a morning person. My six year old sister Abelie is an expert in this area. She’ll tell you, that I’ve never been a morning person, and not to go near my room until at least 11:00am. However, as it is a school day, I hae to get up and be ready to leave before eight. How I hate this country.

I know I had to do this back in Denmark but there, I got to take longer showers. Do you know that here in Australia we’re only aloud to have FOUR MINUTE SHOWERS!? I don’t know how I, or anyone else, can have shower in such a short time. But apparently we can, and have to. You know why we have to have a four minute showers? Because this dumb, dull, boring, dry, lifeless, brainless country is in a DROUGHT! Nothing like this would ever happen back home.

Can you see how much I hate this country? Oh by the way my name is Mikkel. I’m a seventeen year old guy, who’s moved to Australia for the next year. All because my father is writing a book on this stupid country.

I bet you want to know why I hate this country. Well it all started a year ago when my father decided to write a book on Australian culture. He decided that the best way to gather information was to drag his loving, but unwilling family halfway across the world, to a country that doesn’t speak Danish. Why my father would choose to write about a culture that is so boring is completely beyond me. Any way six months later we were packed and ready to come to Australia.

At first Australia wasn’t too bad. It was sunny and it wasn’t that hot. I know get the feeling that had something to do with the air-conditioner being on twenty-four seven. We had a pool in the backyard; we had never had a pool before.

I was really starting to like living here in Australia. However just as I was starting to fell this way, the worst thing happened. School started, and I had to start wearing a uniform.

I had never in my life had to wear a uniform, because I had always gone to a public school, but in Australia every school had to wear a uniform. It has something to do with equality, but I didn’t really see the point. This was strike one against Australia.

Strike two was the heat. I know I said before that it wasn’t that hot, well I was wrong. The classrooms didn’t have air-conditioning. This was a surprise because the days were like 30 degrees Celsius or higher, adding uniforms to the mix, it got really hot. The Australian kids didn’t seem to mind, but then again they grow up with it. I grow up in Denmark were its cold all the time. The highest it ever get there is like 17 degrees Celsius and we consider that hot.

However the biggest problem with moving to Australia was the people. I could hear them whispering as soon as I walked into the room. I knew this because they weren’t really being subtle about it. They were talking just loud enough so I could hear "Look at the new kid, I wonder were he’s from."

On the third day of school I still hadn’t made friends. None of them had come up to me. On the fourth day this guy came up to me and asked if I wanted to sit with him and his friends. As he was the first and only person to do so, I agreed in a second. They were nice and made me feel welcome.

One day we were hanging out, and they started talking about sports. To me sport is the worst thing in the world and so I voiced my opinion. When I said this they all looked at me and said "Are you serious Mikkel?" I knew then that they wouldn’t accept me because I didn’t like sports. They were the only friends I had; I thought to myself ‘I’ll only have to pretend until the end of the year’. And that’s what I did until yesterday.

Pretending to be something you’re not is really hard. I almost told them so many times that I hated sports. Pretending to like sport was hard, because I really, really hate sports; I can’t begin to tell you how much I hate it. My new ‘friends’ however loved it, just like all Australians do. This made me a really unhappy and hateful person. I hated the person who I became.

I spent the night before yesterday tossing and turning trying to think of what to do. So when I woke up yesterday morning I knew I what to I decided to tell the truth.

I went over to Ben’s house where we were all meeting. After everyone had arrived and settled in I told them the truth. As soon as I told them it made me feel so much better. They didn’t like the fact that I hated sports. They told me that we couldn’t be friends anymore. I was disappointed, but I wasn’t surprised. I went home and spent the rest of the day by myself.

So you can see why I didn’t want come to school today, but my mum made me. When I got to school I was expecting everyone to be talking about what happened yesterday, because another thing I learnt here is that Australians are biggest gossips ever. But when I got to school they weren’t talking about it. So maybe they haven’t heard yet.

Anyway right now these group people are coming towards me. I’ve seen them around before they seem nice. But I’ve learnt from experience that Australians aren’t nice in any ways. They are just going to walk past me and not even notice me.

Hey wait what’s going on here they seem to be slowing down. I’m surprised they actually stopped right in front of me. The guy who seems to be the leader of the group, which I believe is named Justin says “Hey, we heard what happened," so they’ve heard. And know they are going to make fun of me and tell me how stupid I an for not liking sports.

“We’re sorry about it. Those guys you were hanging around were jerks.” Hey what’s going on why don’t they care”

Justin continued “Would you like to hang around with us? We don’t like sports either." I’m completely confused I thought all Australian loved sports. Maybe Australia isn’t so bad after all.

“Sure I would love to hand around with you guys.”