Things I've done.

1. Went to England and Finland. Yeaaaaaaaah boooooy.

2. Snuggled. A lot.

3. Had an amazing time.

4. Walked at graduation but didn't get to technically graduate. That's in the works.

5. Got into grad school in London. Peace out NYC.

6. Spent some time down the beach. Noice.

7. Discovered I can get wasted off of a bottle of wine, and that there is no better club than The Purple Turtle.

8. Beer in England is RIDICULOUSLY CHEAP.

9. Lunch in the park with your boyfriend is kind of amazing.

10. Summer in NYC is hot and busy but my friends make it fun.

That's a quick list. Today is a trashy trance day and I love it. I've been experimenting with tumblr but I don't like it's commenting and such. I still like Vox the most. Once I get back to England, I'll revive my abroad blog and do some vlogs too perhaps?

Okay. Bedtime for me. Peace.

Wow.

So I completely forgot about this blog. 100 percent. I need to start writing again. I've been blogging since 2001 and I don't intend to stop. Those deadjournals and livejournals have been closed for quite a long time now. I don't intend on reviving them.

Needless to say, lots and lots has happened. The fall semester of 2008 was extremely rough, but the Spring of 2010 was nice. I received an award from the Italian faculty for the History of Italian Literature courses, which was a nice pat on the back.

My Summer was a bit of a whirlwind. I couldn't tell you what I did during the first half of the summer. I did enjoy a bit of time at my grandma's beach house. My favorites are the days where I can sit with my grandma and the dog, relax and chit-chat and then ride my bike over to my friends house and get inebriated off of magical drinks that my ex's sister makes. My ex and I are best friend's thankfully. I decided I liked men, it happens. She's currently living in NYC but we always hang out down the shore, go figure.

I had a bit of a revelation when a good friend and I finally admitted we liked each other. More on that later. Then I flew off to Japan for Obon, which is a holiday period in Japan. The dates depend on where you live in Japan, but in Kansai (i.e. Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto) it's in early August.

The weather was surprisingly nice in Japan. I got to meet the host student my Japanese mom and dad took care of in the spring and we all went on a trip. I'd say he's kind of like my brother via my non existent Japanese lineage. After he returned back to the ol' US of A, I spent lots of time relaxing with my good friends from my Uni there, three of whom are possibly the best women I've ever met.

One of the most surreal moments was sitting with my two friends, meeting an italian girl friend of theirs, speaking to her in Japanese since my Italian had grown rusty and then meeting up with my Dutch friend that I go to para para clubs with, all in Kyoto which was the capital for roughly 1,000 years.

I fell in love with Kyoto this past summer.

Cooking with Okaa-san and drinking beer while talking about deep stuff was lots of fun. I'm grateful that I can do all of that while not speaking a word of English, and we rarely have to pause so I can look something up.

The rest of my summer was lazy.

The fall semester was insane, but I was reunited with my favorite professor (who is now back on sabbatical, sad face) and spent much time talking with my first professor, who I wish was my sister. I love my department and I love the friends I've made. Minus one who's a hick and did something not so nice to one of my best friends but stupid American boys will always be stupid American boys.

Most recently, I spent a week in Iceland. Reykjavík to be exact. I fell in love, both with the city and with my aforementioned i-was-always-in-love-with-him friend. Granted we live nowhere near each other but it's quite nice managing to find someone who thinks as highly of me as I do him, and who treats me nicely as well. Dating in New York City is absolutely awful and I'm glad to never have to do it again.

Now, things to come in the future! In a convenient bulleted list.

-Losing my European virginity in June and July. I'd love to visit my friends in France Germany and Norway but the three places that I am going without a doubt are England, Finland and Italy. Staying with friends is very visitor and wallet friendly.

-Graduating. Then going for my MA, perhaps across the pond.

-Spending as much time studying in Central Park as I can. I haven't taken advantage of it.

-Getting used to driving. I have my license, but it's time to stop letting it languish.

-Lots and lots of papers in Italian and lots of art history. I'm proud of myself for staying on top of my work rather than ignoring readings etc. as usual.

-JLPT in the summer. And perhaps I'll take a Finnish course. I may be insane.

I think that's all. It's been such a long time, but I really need to get writing more. I miss it.

Oops.

It seems like I forgot about this blog.

Recap:

-All done with Japanese. For now. 

+Back to Japan in August for O-bon, clubbing, gaijin drinking fest, nomikai

+Finished with Italian for a while. Managed to get a 90's on my Lit History midterm and final.

-My huge final paper made no sense. As I wrote it in Italian in 5 hours.

+My teachers are amazing.

For now, I'm doing a whole lot of nothing. Work, relaxing, and eventually cleaning my room.

I'm planning on reviewing for JLPT and looking over Italian grammar sheets I have, but I don't want to be too ambitious cause then I won't do anything.

A presto, vado a dormire.

Ho il rafffreddore

I caught another cold. I'm not surprised, cause in every one of my classes someone was blatantly contagious and coughing. My friends out of class were coughing. The guy I see was sick last week. With just a little bit less sleep than usual and eating habits that kind of went astray, I guess I was asking to get sick.

I have to read a bunch of "Orlando Furioso" still. I only got about 6 stanzas in on Thursday. I have probably about 40-50 left. My teacher said we didn't have to understand it word for word, but still. I did my first journal entry for composition, I need to re-read for my lit class, and do some work for Japanese.

I got some booty the other day. A simple date turned into a by-the-pool-table make out session. Which then  became street corners and the subway platform. To go further or not to go, the debate rages on until next time.

Okay. I should stop listening to Liz Phair and pull out some Ariosto. Peace out.

Ricominciamo

I'm back.

Classes have started up again. I have reading to do on some 15th century authors, a journal to write in, readings for Composition, and lots of other stuff. Japanese will be easiest by far.

I'm a bit worried about workload but thank God for breaks.

I'm kind of sorta seeing this guy now. I feel a bit...too naïve at time I guess but whatever. I need to just go with the flow.

Canada was cold, P.S.

I'm tired. Goooodnight.

Ass

I think I caught the flu over New Year's weekend.

I managed to get two B's and a B+ in my Italian classes. Japanese is so far my only A. Next semester I'm taking the minimum to be full time.

Has anyone ever tried chugging Cava? It's like champagne, but doesn't taste like rubber tire. 

I chugged a bunch on New Year's. Why? Because I'm classy and my friend's cousin told me to. 

Okay I'm gonna take some pills and pass out. Later.

Al fino

Finally, I am almost done with the Fall Semester of 2008.

It seriously blew. I didn't do my best, I took 21 hours of class, and I let myself (and to some extent my professors) down. 

However, I did pretty well in some aspects. My Italian has improved, I've gotten a bit better about being proactive in regards to readings and homework, if only a little bit, and I didn't party. 

I had Japanese yesterday which was surprisingly long but not too bad. I slept when I got home, woke up at midnight, read, then did some homeworks to be resubmitted for the end of the semester. 

I got a box of candy for my professor since she was really kind. She went so out of the way to help me. I love professors that come off as stern and serious at first but turn out to be the most interesting, kind and amazing people ever. 

Now I'm off get ready and go to school to study for my last final. Wish me luck. 

いよいよ、ほっと出来る様にになると思う。

Be Mine!

I'm doing my revision for the Italian final paper I'd been freaking out about.

My topic has broadened a bit and changed to the evolution of the idealization of the woman loved. It's really hard to make sure I'm talking about the idealization and not the figure of the woman herself as she's never really humanized. She's just this amazing image in a poet's head.

Which just made me think, "Don't I do the same when I think about what I want in a relationship?" Which might explain why I'm eternally single. 

I picked up some new cd's I'd been looking at for a while. I've listened to "Be Mine!" by Robyn for about a year and a half now but it never gets old. Pick it up for Christmas, it's worth it.

Back to the paper. 5 pages to go. 

Oh baby can't you see, 待つのは得意じゃないけど...

Commencing Anthropology essay.

We were talking in class the other day about our favorite thing (out of the art world, or what we can relax to).

I said languages and music, specifically how someone expresses themselves through the lyrics in a song in different languages. English tends to be a bit more rhythm gamey and flat out with emotions, Italian I'm honestly not sure but a lot of it is kind of...corny to me (unless it's Carmen Consoli), and Japanese uses shitloads of imagery and description, plus lots of forever's (永遠) and I love you's. 

In other news, my friend told me to find a boyfriend. Pardon me while I find out what is wrong with me. Clearly I'm an ugly beast with a low intelligence level.

Oh wait not so much. I will be the 40 year old virgin. Oh my. (I'm more than half-way.) Less to take up my oh-so-plentiful free time.

Right. Onto conservation in Southeast Asia. Go makeout with your significant other if you're reading this. You should be fucking, not reading a blog.

Scacco Matto

Here's a poem we had to read in class. My teacher had gotten it from her father who had gotten it from co-workers. They were in Italy. If you understand Italian, read this.

Scacco Matto

Sono nato a Rockaway,sotto Brooklyn, in un lembo di terra che sembra un dito largo e teso nell’ Atlantico.

Non ricordo donna che m’ abbia custodito d’ amore l’ infanzia e i primi incanti.

Ma è stato bello crescere dietro una siepe, ogni giorno l’ oceano negli occhi,

bello come scovare orgoglio malnascosto nella faccia italiana di mio padre

la volta in cui entrai a casa con il primo stipendio da contabile.

 Volle giocare una partita a scacchi e fumando due sole sigarette,

fece che lo battessi senza scuse su una mossa di torre e di regina.

Concluse che dovevo sempre stare attento alle torri,

comunque infide nei loro movimenti lunghi su un percorso di croce bianco e nero.

“Infide” disse serio il mio vecchio

E ricordavo la parola sorridendo di martedì quell’ undici settembre

Mentre correvo a lavorare per Manhattan.

E il suo monito posso riconoscere ora che sono polvere dispersa da un lampo osceno,

polvere abbandonata fra altre polveri scomposte sotto un marciapiede divelto,

a fianco della foglia dove mio padre non potrà mai trovarmi,

nemmeno per tenermi la mano degli scacchi.

Ero di Rockaway e non ho avuto amore né conforto di donna:

una adesso ne venga e chieda agli iris bianchi

di fiorire nel nome mio indistinto, cancellato.

And I'm off to bed. Let me know if anyone got that. I have to re-read it myself. I was supposed to do a homework on it quite a while ago but I'm getting to it now.