This book is based on stories I came across in my own life. This sounds ofcourse horribly stupid. But it's true.
It's a book about how we all excpect certain things in life. Of which some, or sometimes most will turn out to be impossible or untrue. In this novel you will come across things that seem painfully recognizable and situations you might have been through yourself. Maybe you will even realise things only after reading this novel. Quit an adventure huh?

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS MY NANOWRIMO PROJECT, ALL YOU READ HERE IS JUST NOTES, SOMETHING TO START WITH, NOT A STORY JUST YET.

There I was, standing in there between all these people. I mean, there we were. Standing with all our friends and family. Holding this piece of paper. And a bunch of white flowers.
White. The colour of freedom. This was it. Our moment. Our time to shine. Off we go. Into the big wide world.
We all graduated. And with all I mean everyone. Not only everyone in my class but everyone in my year made it. Everyone. Isn’t that special? Not one single person failed. I think that says something about us. How we pulled it together. As this big group of insignificant teenagers. Or adults. Were we adults now?
I looked around at all our smiling faces. Everyone was shaking hands, chatting, saying goodbye and thanking teachers.
That’s what I should do! Thank teachers! But all of them? What was there to say? I didn’t think about that kind of things at all.
Maybe none of us did. For some of us our parents did. They bought little presents for some of our teachers. But we all had been busy with our future. Busy with exams and studying.
Thinking solely about ourselves.
This was it. The beginning of the end. We all had plans. Some bigger than the others. And we had all worked hard for this. Some harder than the others.
I could only remember cramming for math really hard. I had had an insufficient all year in all the tests but in the end I managed to get an 7,8 which gave me around a 6,0 average.  Which was the average for all of my subjects.
So I was standing there. In this big room. Crowded with all my fellow students. Holding this piece of paper. Which was so average it was pretty much useless. But no one thought about that. We were all so glad we made it.
I thanked some of my teachers, but the most important ones weren’t there.
Like my chemistry teacher who wasn’t there because he was suffering from ALS and probably going to die in a year or so. He had been the best teacher to me. Strict. But smart. Annoying yet funny.
And my Math teacher, whom I hated when I started the exam year. He was the meanest most evil thing in my opinion. But he had always been supportive. And never stopped believe in me. His wife is in labour as we speak.
So I had to thank my English teacher, who I didn’t fancy to much but who was a nice guy and not much older than I am.
And my Philosophy teacher. Who was a weird nice guy. And a good teacher. I had babysit his house and cats while he was on holiday and he preferred to be more my friend than my teacher. But that was something I needed to get used to more. He gave me a book written by Sartre. Which I thought was really cool. And although he was an example to a lot of students in our Philosophy class, he was really nervous that night. He even forgot me in his speech. Which I didn’t mind. I don’t like public attention that much.
But my dad was making jokes about it. Which meant he was annoyed. Because he had been waiting for hours to hear this story about his one little star and then she was simply forgotten. My teacher made up for this by giving a private speech. About how nice of a person I was. Because everyone had noticed he had forgotten about me.
Which was the only reason why I wish he hadn’t because it resulted in more unwanted attention from my classmates. Who came to ask why had forgotten about me.
I didn’t blame him. I felt like this mediocre student. Which I had been. I had done enough to graduate. Nothing more than that. I hadn’t participated too much in class discussions. Just enough. I hadn’t gotten to great of a grades. Just enough.

I had been nice to all my teachers. And to all my classmates. One even claimed I was ‘too nice’ which was why she decided to dislike me. I thought that was the most horrible reason to not like someone but I didn’t care.
All of my real friends had been in a different class. Doing extra subjects and being kind off geeky. But I didn’t mind. I loved them for who they were. And I was going to miss them as hell.
But you know what? All of this isn’t important. After you graduate no one cares about how nice you were in school. Or how good of a grades you got. Except for when you wanted to go to a really exclusive school. You need recommendation letters for that (so some people have to like you in order to write one for you) and they only take people with good grades.
But I wasn’t going to university. And the point is, we all had these plans but no one had a clue what was waiting for us. We felt free, and happy. Ready for this new part of our life. People had told us about going to college and how great it all was. No one told us the down parts. How we would fall in this big empty hole. And how at some point we wouldn’t know what to do anymore. Some of us would get lost in thoughts about the future and what to do with life. Only some would instantly choose the right thing to study and be so happy they finally made the right choice. But I only think this counts for around 40%. I’m not sure though. That’s just a wild guess.
At that point, standing there, I didn’t know when I was going to see any of you guys back. I knew I would miss some of you. And could only hope everything would be alright.
People warned us though. That life would change so much we weren’t going to see each other back. We would all start our lives by ourselves. But not seeing some of you back is something I wasn’t able to  imagine at that point.
 

It took me quite some time to take distance and say goodbye to everything. Even the building, I had been walking around in for six years was something I needed to say goodbye to.
In this building we had believed great adventures. From our first steps as freshman, nervous, not knowing what was going to happen. To feeling absolutely lost in the third year, unsure of where we were going and what subjects we had to choose. To being very self-conscious in the last two years. Dominating the school as the oldest. Feeling comfortable and at home. Taking some freshman under our wing to help them out.
In our last year we bonded together. Formed a team. Made fun of our teachers. But, also important, with our teachers. We had thrown parties, skipped classes and worked together on projects. Complained about all the work and about our horrible teachers. It had brought us closer. Although we were a wide range of different people. I felt pretty close with my classmates. But I knew I wouldn’t see most of them again.

That night was the party. In a cocktailbar. It was meant to be pretty chique, everyone in dresses and suits. But some of course didn’t want to wear anything fancy.
I was wearing the highest heals I had, feeling like a giant.
It was a nice party which started with a meal, with everyone who wanted to come. Which weren’t too many. But it was nice and I had a nice chat with some people I normally didn’t speak with a lot.
The down part was that it was time for the soccer match that night. Holland versus some country, I don’t really recall. Which meant the place was full with big flatscreen tvs to see the match on.
People were hanging around to watch.
After the match there was lots of dancing. Some people turned, despite their nice outfits into skunks. Grinding up against each other. I wasn’t really interested in that kind of stuff.
Which was why I thought the rest of the party wasn’t that interesting. People were getting drunk and some of my classmates were doing tequila shots with salt and the lemon juice in their eye. I laughed about it. Goofballs they were.
But I liked them anyway. No matter what kind of crazy thing they did.
At the end of the night my feet fell sore and I ended up almost kissing a guy who was in my class. He was a year younger though. But really nice.
I realised I was going to miss them in some way. Although I didn’t  feel too close to them at all times.
I left alone, bored and tired. Put my high heels in my bike bag and slipped on a pair of sneakers.
A lot of my good friends had already left for home, living further away than I did.
It was the end of a very important time. The closing of the past 6 years.

Only a few days after that I left for camp. My first camp as a leader. With kids from 7 til 11 years old.
Not knowing that, after I’d come back life would change drastically.
It wasn’t the ending of school that made that change. It was my parents’ divorce.
But that’s not what this story is about.
My parents’ divorce changed my life but I guess going to college changed everybody else’s life.
Big adventures were waiting for us.
But school didn’t change for me. When I went to college in Wageningen, which was part of the university I thought I was going to learn a lot of new things and going to get to know a lot of new nice people. Which partly happened.
The school was nice, the big glass building looked amazing and I liked the light coming in everywhere. And the fact that there were computers in every room and every hallway. So you could sit behind a computer in the centre of the building on a hallway connecting 2 sides of a floor while you could look out of the big windows. I loved sitting there until sunset.

The thing about studying was, for me that I actually expected to learn a lot. And with a lot, I meant a lot. Where others thought of partying while thinking about going to college I thought about my new career and what I was going to be after finishing school.
I felt like I paid for learning a lot. So that’s what I wanted. I can’t emphasise this enough. I was going to learn a lot. I thought in college you could decide for yourself whether you were going to class or which subjects you were going to take. And all of these subjects would be to your own interest.
I just forgot about the fact that there were more students than just me. And a lot of group projects. And with a lot I mean, a lot, you know. So, group projects. Imagine me, sitting with these bunch of people, those groups were often a bit too large. And no one understood the project right except for me. No one in my group seemed to listen to our teachers and they all wanted to do their uttermost best but they ran in the wrong direction, very fast. And they ended up being very confused. Don’t get me wrong, they were all very nice people (in my first group at least) but they wouldn’t listen and made things a lot harder than they often were.
It only lead to more confusion. And they still wouldn’t listen.
I can’t help but mentioning, they weren’t too clever either. It was a very international school and study and most of them weren’t very good at English, speaking nor writing. Often they were barely able to read our textbooks. They would complain about how hard it was.
We ended up discussing the same paragraph over and over in one class.
But what surprised me most wasn’t the fact that my fellow students had a lower level of understanding the English language (as a bilingual speaking person I of course had an advantage) what got me most was the level of our teachers and lecturers. One teacher said things like ‘you have to learn everything out of your head’ with this horrible Dutch accent that made my hair rise.
I couldn’t stand listening to that man for an hour. It was repulsing. We had only 2 teachers who were on a decent level. A German teacher who knew a lot about physiology and horses and our English teacher (of course).
Furthermore there was one lecturer that I liked, a man who taught at university as well and gave us Marketing lectures. The lectures were ok, and pretty interesting but no one in my class cared and all they did was complain.

You see, college wasn’t what I expected at all.

Maybe it was also because of the place where I lived, I had moved to a town called Ede, to be closer to Wageningen, where the University was. I lived there above the garage of a middle aged couple. Together with another Wageningen student. He was already in his last year and totally used to living there. He came from a small town as well and talked a bit like a farmer. Furthermore he was a very tidy and nice, polite guy. He loved to listen to hard rock music and watch comedy central. Which we sometimes enjoyed together.
Often I was away from home though, studying at the university and later working in the grocery store in Amersfoort.
There I was helping to build a new store. We had this team with which we had to do the interior. And stock the whole place. I had to make sure we had a good team of cleaners to start off with and that everything was clean, and save. It was going to be a big store on a new place in Amersfoort.  Close to the central station and the shopping centre of Amersfoort.
Because I only went to school a few hours a week, I worked the rest there. But it was an hour with public transport to get there so it meant a lot of getting up early (5 a.m.) and getting home late (7 p.m.). It was starting to get more and more tiring and school was getting more annoying. I rather worked than go to school, doing nothing there all day.
It was no surprise when I failed two of the four exams. Just because I put no effort in hardly any subject. I couldn’t care a lot. I felt like I paid for nothing, buying all these expensive books and living partly on a student loan.
Also I felt quite alone, I made some new friends at school but they were all very busy, with school and their horses. And they lived with their parents often. So after school hours they returned home.
This meant I had no one to spend my time with after school. And when winter came and my computer broke down I felt horrible bored and lonely. My roommate Edwin was nice, but not too nice. Not like I was going to make plans with him.
Close to the house there wasn’t anything to do. It was a 15 min. bike ride to the city centre of Ede and a 10 min. bike to Veenendaal, which was even more horrible.
The house was surrounded by fields and small farms. Across the street there was a snack bar and a 100 meter further away was the highway.
It was turning cold and dark, winter was coming. In the morning I walked to the station to take the bus to Amersfoort, and in the dark it was quite scary. Because dark there, is really pitch black dark. And I wasn’t used to that. In Rotterdam we didn’t have pitch black dark. It was always dark, even in the middle of the night. There was always light somewhere.
I have to admit, the dark scares me a little. When walking to the bus station I heard noises that weren’t there. Saw things that didn’t exist.
Sometimes I would run a bit. To get to the light. Or to catch the bus instead of miss it.
I remember on the end of a dark street was this house. Were they had stuffed animal monkeys hanging on a rope between trees. But in the dark it looked like they hanged baby’s on a string. It was terrifying. I knew it weren’t baby’s, but still it scared the hell out of 

Me. Maybe the worst part was, when I finally got there and the bus was late. I had to wait there for minutes. No one there. Except for the lady in the kiosk who started early, baking crossaint. But the kiosk didn’t open until 6. And my bus had to be there around the same time. So I stood there in the dark cold, looking at the bread being baked, quite hungry and still sleepy. When the bus arrived, I would get in, nestle myself in the front seat and fall asleep again. I would half sleep half be awake for the full 45 minutes. Until I had to get out and walk the last part to work. Getting in early with only a few others. I would, still sleep drunk, start to mop the floors with this big machine. I would just stare in front of me, walking around, sometimes almost bumping into something with the machine. I would to this until my boss would come to complain. About how I wasn’t fast enough. Or he would grab the other machine and help me out. I liked him a lot, he was a nice guy.
At 8 the store would open. Some students would walk in, getting fresh baked croissants and bread for breakfast or lunch but it would only be about a handful. The store wasn’t running well at all. People didn’t really like the new market place with the new stores. Which I could understand. It was a nice place along the water. But the new buildings and modern urban flats didn’t fit in the normal style in Amersfoort. This city had medieval buildings, little streams of water through the whole city and the old city walls were still standing. I liked the old characteristic buildings, and I loved walking through the little park around the city. 

Maybe you can guess. But soon after this I quit school. Actually, right after the first exam week. I think I didn’t even go to the last exam. Or maybe I did, I don’t remember really.
But I never missed school.
After a month I moved to Amersfoort. Close to a park in a neighbourhood called ‘Randenbroek’  at the border of the rather small city.
I made new friends there and moved in a student apartment full with guys.
It was small, had no living room and an old kitchen and tiny bathroom were only a shower fitted and an ancient washing machine. It was always pretty gross and my room was the 2nd biggest but still not large. The room I had had in Ede had been around 20 square meter. And had been new, with a new kitchen and bathroom. This was quite the opposite.
But full with nice people.
I liked it, except for the rent, which was pretty high.
The good parts were I had a lot of new friends now, one of my roommates, Chris, was a really nice guy who had the same interests. We got into this habit were we would drink coffee together every evening, or cappuccino actually, which he freshly brewed for me every time. We would hang around in the kitchen or on the balcony attached to his tiny room. We could chat like that for hours and hours. Eventually, I started to like him quite a lot, but he wasn’t interested which was a shame.
He did a lot of nice things for me to, apart from making cappuccino, he would get me late in the evening after babysitting in a sketchy neighbourhood and if I needed some groceries he would sometimes go and fetch them for me. But after a while it seemed like hanging out with me wasn’t cool anymore, so he started to hang out with the guys who lived upstairs, smoking weed and stuff.

When it got warmer we could go outside, at the back of the building. There was a grass field. Chris and I would sit there with blankets and pillows. We would smoke cigarettes and make fun of each other. We goofed around and shared a lot of things. He told me pretty serious stories about his friends and his band. We laughed, complained, whined about work and how tired we were. But we also enjoyed live.

I ran into Chris, at least have a year later. After I had already moved out of Amersfoort. He was with one of our other roommates, David. And super drunk. He asked me what I was doing there but didn’t look happy to see me at all. I regretted that. It felt like I had ruined our friendship by liking him. But I had never been rejected by anyone. Anyone but Chris.
Seeing him so wasted, influenced by David, he looked lost. And all I could do was feel sorry for him. I couldn’t ask how he was doing, I wasn’t going to get a serious answer anyway. I hope he is alright, and made something out of life. Followed his dreams. Still made fun. But did his own thing.
Our other roommates were different, David, the gamer guy working in ICT was a nice very tall guy. He was quite handsome with a big nose and he talked a bit funny sometimes. He earned quit a good sum and smoked a lot of weed every day. He wasn’t my type. But we had fun. Which meant sex. And I don’t know if anyone in the house knew, but I didn’t care much.
When living in Amersfoort I had a very insecure period in which I would wear short skirts and go out to get drunk, kiss random people and dance a lot. Very out of character but it made me feel alive. Like the whole world was at my feet.
So I had sex with David. Just because I could.
Our 4rd and last roommate on our floor was a totally different thing. The only lower educated one, a truck driver. Fat and antisocial. He always made a lot of sexist jokes at me, which was why I didn’t like him. At all.
In our house lived a nice combination of people as you understand, most pretty successful in what they did and wanted in live. Although I guess the truck driver really wanted to be more social and have a girlfriend etc. He had a career. Earned enough money.