About the author.

19/12:
I guess now is a good time to introduce myself, for you readers who don't know me. If you exist.

My name is Laura.

Hejsan.

It's now that my blog title feels especially apt, because it's difficult to know where to start when I'm supposed to give a summary of my first eighteen years of life. At least I've had to go through it multiple times recently for college application essays, so it's fresh in my mind. 

21/12: After writing and rewriting this a million times in various formats and failing miserably each time, I threw in the towel. This was meant to be brief, but if there's one thing you will learn about me (if you haven't already), it's that my writing is never brief.

Voilà: a timeline. In bullet form. I will now go eat lunch in despair. My blog title is validated.

• 1995. I am born in Lyon, France, to American parents. These American parents are missionaries, who have worked with churches in Europe for nearly thirty years now, in 2013. 
• The next nine (well, eight) years, I spend in a suburb of Annecy, a beautiful city nestled at the feet of the French Alps. (I advise you to Google it and marvel at how gorgeous it is. Go on.)
• There, I go to a local preschool, and then the local elementary school, learning English and French at roughly the same pace. 
• (Nowadays, my French is quite rusty, mais je sais toujours comment écrire, lire, et comprendre, so that's something, au moins.)
• 2003. At this point, I feel very much a French girl, albeit with an odd family arrangement. My two siblings, an older brother and sister, are still living at home, and going through junior high and high school respectively.
• 2004. My parents accept an invitation from New Life Church, in Stockholm, Sweden, and we move that summer.
• At nine, I start from scratch. My French is suddenly quite useless, while my English is a lifesaver, and after being put in an international class that teaches Swedish to immigrant children, I quickly add a third language to my repertoire.
• I spend the next few fitful years in Swedish elementary school, making and losing friends. My sister is back in France. My brother is in a local high school, taking the same program I'm now taking, the International Baccalaureate.
• 2007. My brother graduates from high school, and as my parents need to return to the States for a regular social security check-up, we move to California for a year.
• This year revolutionizes my life. I'm in a Christian school for the first time, and the constant social pressure I'm used to is largely gone. Nearly everyone around me speaks my English, and the language barrier I'm used to is definitely gone. I make some of my closest, dearest friends this year, and I'm still in touch with several to this day.
• 2008. I cry essentially the whole way back to Sweden. My brother is left behind.
• I change schools twice the next two years. 
• I spend my final two years (out of four) of junior high in an international school, where I grow to enjoy Sweden again, and make great friends both with my classmates, and my teachers.
• 2011. I start high school.

• 2013. Present day. Half a year away from graduating.