Sorry for the inconsistency.... but just go with it....Happy 2009!xxx
Today is the first day of 2009, the New Year. I have always been superstitious when it comes to celebrating the end of one and the beginning of another. Always start the year out with a bang and you will have a great year. Eat black eye peas for luck and health and collard greens for wealth. Southern Tradition. Last year for New Years I was in Atlanta with Rachel and we had a great time… of course we were drunk by…um… 830…. But still we partied the way you are supposing to during new years…. And that being an indication of what the year would bring… I never would have guessed that a year later I would have been in Italy at a grand dinner party surrounded by families and so lonely that my heart hurt and a frown plastered to my face. I wanted to be happy last night… but the melancholy of missing home was inevitable. To make things worse…. I was seated with the young couples side of the table…and also the stray married men who like to pretend they were still bachelors. I knew all of them… the young couple is very nice and I happen to like the female half very much… I believe she is a professional volleyball player…I think….but she was very quite through out the night and looked just as uncomfortable to be there as I was feeling. The worst part about sitting at that end of the table is the married men who think they can speak English and lay one of their pick up lines on me…. It’s like just because I am the only female between the ages of 14 to 30 I become free range to all the Italian men to lay it on thick. Another thing is that here in Italy it is not rude to comment on the bodies of females, so of course there came the muffled comments about my breast size….I wish these men would find something more interesting to talk about….this one is getting old and I am sure my fake laugh reveals that, but still even into the new year these Italian men are worried about the size of my 22 year old breasts…or lack there of! At least I know how to say fuck you in Italian, right?
And the guy that I have been seeing for the past few weeks did not call me at midnight!! I can not be upset by this because it is not serious or exclusive, but with the mood I was in, I wanted him to sweep in and take me away from that dreadful dinner, take me to some log cabin and have champagne waiting for me on a bear skin rug or something terribly textbook romantic…. ANYTHING but being at that dinner. His name is Stefano and he is great. Its not love but its good. And he is more of a friend than anything. He makes me laugh more than I can handle. He is the least Italian guy I have met since I have been here, thank god. He gives a good name to his race, because I have definitely met some rats while I have been here.
It’s pretty ridiculous how lonely I have been here lately. I am not sad, I mean I am sad that I am lonely but nothing like depression or anything. I am generally a very content person. I have a very consistent spectrum of emotions, but still it is never fun to be lonely and then unhappy about the fact. I miss my friends so much. I have friends here but I have never invested too much time in my relationships with them due to the fact I will only be in Italy for a short time. Stefano is one of my good friends here I would say. I met him in Sardinia over the summer. He lived in the house next to ours….I have invested time there because I have known him a bit longer than everyone else and plus his English is perfect, well almost. Marco is another friend I have invested time in. I really enjoy his company for some reason… but for months I have not been able to put my finger on why that is. His English is terrible. He speaks English the way I speak Italian… but we always speak in English. Actually for the 7 months I have known him his English has improved drastically. He wants to come in the states for a bit over the summer so many of you might get to meet him. But watch out because he is your stereotypical tricky Italian however many times he has tried to convince me otherwise he is just as tricky as the rest of them, but he is just nice about it. Giula is one of my only girl friends over here that I like. We have lots in common but she is much younger than I am…but back in the states I have a best friend who is much younger than I am and it seems to work…. She studies languages and she speaks German, English, Italian, and French fluently… she is very pretty and I am very impressed by her. Because she is so young are personalities clash at times… where she feels the need to impress others around her and be noticed, I have been through that and understand and it makes me feel awkward that I don’t care so much about what the people around me think…. I think its funny. However I don’t want to make her sound shallow, because she is not…or at least I do not know her to be. But my guy friends who have met her or who know her find her to be just that.
Females in Italy are significantly different then American girls…or at least this is what I have been told. Italian girls walk into a room and do not make the effort to make eye contact with any one in the room….everyone must make the effort to notice her….not the other way around. American girls, however, walk into the same room, and instantly makes eye contact and smiles at everyone and it is as if a spot light has been turned on. YES! The Americans have arrived! Haha…. I love this comparison of Italians vs. Americans…. I have tried to plead that it is only because I am from the South that I tend to smile at everyone. I have never noticed the difference. My male friends tell me about it and I have tried to observe this but I guess it takes years of research to come to such a conclusion. I just know that the Italian women here in Courma make me feel like a hobbit. I don’t get how they make themselves look so amazing when there is a blizzard outside while some of us are freezing to death and dealing with frost bite and lack of moisturizer…. Blows my mind, really! Sidenote: See, I told you I was feeling down. OH, self-pity..
But I love Courmayeur. It is one of the most perfect fairytale places I have ever seen. The houses here look like Hansel and Gretel’s gingerbread house, or Snow White and the 7 dwarves’ cottage, as you like. I have never seen such amounts of snow in my life… Every thing here is covered with a thick frosted layer of glistening snow. Its magical. I was out walking with Marco (he lives in Courma and is a Ski Master) and he told me once that when he is with me he remembers how special of a place Courma is….that I remind him of a kid. Thanks. Did I mention Marco is gorgeous? Well he is…
Anyway, I think this might be the reason I like Marco so much…out of jealousy that he gets to live here. “Its just not fair,” I have said to him on many occasion. Marco and Giula both live in Courma and I have known both of them since July, maybe. Giula shows me the social and party life of Courma and Marco shows me the mountains, stars, and soon to teach me to ski….. I know, right? Giula is always taking me to a new night club or out with friends for dinner. She can seem very shallow (in fact, Marco cant stand her) But I find her very interesting and I think she has so much potential! She is very pretty and speaks several languages already. She is smart, she quotes Oscar Wilde in English…. Also another reason I stay close friends with her is because Rachel and her share the same birthday and the same obsession over the Phoenix… they both have tattoos of a phoenix which bares the same meaning for both individuals…. Too parallel and I am too far away from Rachel to pass up this friendship….Is that wrong?
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Now on to Benedetta, Bebe as I call her. Literally my sister from another mother. I wasn’t a big sister growing up. I was the little sister that got everything I wanted while my big sister felt robbed of attention. There are many parallels between Marta and Bebe and Ivey and My self’s relationships. Well now, I have Bebe and she is as close to a little sister than I will ever have. And she is everything I have ever wanted in a little sister. She is stubborn yet loving. We talk about everything. Everything. She tells me about her boy troubles, school, likes and dislikes, what she wants to be when she grows up….etc. And I try to guide her the best way I know how and the best way I see fit. I don’t lie to her. She is old enough to want to know the truth so that is what she gets… of course I sugar coat it….things always sound better that way whether I am talking to a 13 year old or not…She asked me about the first time I fell in love the other day… and I was able to relive every emotion I had and explained it to her… and she wanted to know why it went wrong… and I relived that for her and explained the heartache and repercussions of the pain…. I hope she never has to deal with the amount of pain I went through after Jon and the bad decisions I kept making even a year and a half later after the break. She is a Libra like I am, which means she has so much love to give. But another thing about Libras is that they are in love with the idea of love, not so much the person. Kind of like reading a fairy tale or a romance novel and enjoy the falling in love part, the danger or excitement of it all….and then the day after? That’s when us Libras fall out of love…when it stops being new and exciting. I am crazy about this girl! She is so grown for her age. Are all older siblings like this? I am 22 and I still feel like a baby most of the time…. And Bebe is barely even treated like a child… I think I am treated more like a child than she is….. She is so tough. And she knows things that I don’t remember knowing at her age…. It shocks me at times… like the other day I heard her explaining to one of her friends what an orgasm was… okay okay... I KNOW I did not know what that was when I was 13…. NO WAY!! Maybe 15, but 13? I think I was still playing with Barbie, pretending to be a princess, and still in love with Hanson at her age…. Not wondering about orgasms and sex and whatever else that falls into that category… when I ask her why she knows that stuff… she just says, “It’s a different age now…everyone my age knows about this kind of stuff, I have friends who have had sex already.” WHAT!? This is something I can say in confidence, I have had “the sex talk” with Bebe and she seems to be well grounded in her decision to wait for the right one. And that is not something to throw away. She understands the significance.
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Okay so since I have been going on random tangents in this entry I guess I can give my thoughts on the upcoming year. My new years resolutions are always the same: Lose weight, get in shape, be nice to everyone….you know…. I think everyone always has the same ones….every year. And everyone always makes these promises to themselves half- heartedly. But this year I am going to attempt to make a list and hopefully will follow through. Hopefully.
In 2009 I aspire to accomplish the following:
Let myself fall in love- something I have not been able to do for too long, I feel my heart is getting ready to release all the bad luggage.
Maintain a healthy weight and healthy eating habits, healthy lifestyle- no more yo-yo diets. Its time to be healthy.
Train for a triathlon- this is a long shot, but why not aim high
Travel cross country with my dad- I really should write a whole entry on this and I just might but as of right now I shall leave it open.
When I go home in 4 months I want to be able to speak Italian
Make a decision one way or the other what degree I should attain- Conservation Biology, Public Relations, Journalism…..any suggestions? I want all 3!
Purchase my own car-also a long shot…
Help out with Habitat for Humanity every Saturday and as much as my dad lets me get involved.
Be Happy and Positive!
Start changing the world, even if it is a small gesture.
Going back to my first resolution on my list. I don’t want to fall in love and get married and all that but I want to prove to myself that I am not such a fool when it comes to love. I am ready to learn to be smart about love. But first of all I have to learn to love myself. I haven’t for a while. Always thinking I am not good enough and always thinking it will end before it even begins. And stop having such high expectations when I just get let down….always. Learn to love the person for who they are not who I want them to be. Learn to have more respect for myself. And love with out restrictions. Love everyone without conditions.
I want so much out of life! And I expect to achieve everything I set my mind to do. I have a really good guy friend back home who is so positive about life that I can’t help but take on his mentality about life. He tells me I can do whatever I put my mind to and I love him for believing in me. I use to think his way of thinking was perplexing and false. But he is so consistent each time I am fortunate enough to speak with him on the phone. We have not known each other too long actually. I think we started being friends a few weeks before I got on my flight to come over here. And he never was negative about me leaving. But always positive about the experiences I would have while I was over here. He is older than me but still young, but seems to be caught in the Thomasville mentality, as I like to call it. And I am sure with time I will have that mentality. I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. I am drawn to it and it would be so easy to turn off my adventurous side and settle down in Thomasville. But I know that later in life I would regret not living life to the fullest. There are so many places in the world I have to see before I start the ultimate adventure of starting my own family.
Adventure. One of my favorite words. Along with Discovery , and Immerse. All these words have high significance to me and are enchanting to me. I guess I could start this entry by defining each word from a textbook, then perhaps go on the give their individual significance to me. But I am sure that might be boring for you, lord knows it would be boring to me. But I am rather stuck when try to explain to you the type of life I wish to lead. Hmm….Lets see….. I love Disney movies and every time I watch one I tend to search the Behind the Scenes segment of the DVD to hear the animator’s enthusiasm about making the film. All these men are just like kids looking for their own adventure but not finding any up to par with their imaginations they must resort in story telling and the magic of animation to make their dreams come to life. I love watching their faces when they talk about their art. You can see that they truly believe that magic is out there some where…. It just needs to be discovered. One of my favorite stories is Peter Pan. I think you can tell a lot about the inner workings of a person if you just ask what their favorite Disney movie is…. Mine has wavered a bit as I grew older… Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, of course….but I believe ultimately…Peter Pan is my favorite. And I would like to believe it is not because of Tinker Bell, or envy of Wendy…. But the idea that there is magic in the world if we just believe. And that there is magic in the world if we only let out selves see it and have it. That is why in the story the adults can not see the magic because they have let the world poison their minds into thinking and stop believing. I am not too religious but there is a parallel between the story’s main point and a certain story in the Bible. Something about “Let the children come to me” sorry don’t have a Bible on hand so I cant really quote it, but in my memory I remember something about children being able to see the good in the world, being able to see the real magic in the world because they do not preoccupy their heads with worries or fear, well, fears of monsters under their beds maybe but not fears of if their crop is going to sprout this year. Side note: sorry for the reference if you are offended, just sorda popped in my head… so there you have it.
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