Inspiration.

Inspiration is coming to me more frequently lately. I've always felt a strong connection to the work of Salvador Dalí but I've recently discovered the entire Surrealism movement and all the things it represents/includes are incredibly appealing to me as well.
For example this is beautiful to me:
"I was born to know you. To give you your name. Freedom." -Paul Eluard ((from Poèsie et Vérité, 1942)
So simple, to the point, yet it says so much.

Reading the book "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath right now. I just started it last night, but I'm already loving it.

Also, totally digging Ellie Goulding right now. Look up her song "This love (will be your downfall)" or "Starry Eyed". Really pretty chill music.

Until I'm feeling like writing again....

Clarity is something you never take for granted during a period of uncertainty in life...

"Take me, I am the drug; take me, I am hallucinogenic" - Salvador Dali

Ahhhh sweet, sweet, precious clarity. I have missed you. I welcome your presence with open arms and I embrace it.

Continuing on my most recent post, I am feeling extremely enlightened, refreshed, and inspired lately. For the first time in a long time, I am finding the beauty in liberation, and in solitude. Knowing and embracing oneself is one of the most important things a person can do for themselves. It's not until you know know and love yourself that you can be happy with another person. When you begin to lose hold of who that person is or you start to notice that person is hiding, camouflaged in a mix of another person or the person someone else wants you to be, it's an extremely empowering feeling to find your way back. To free yourself of the situation or environment that is negatively affecting you.

I feel awakened. My mind and soul are both things I've forgotten to nurture lately. I spent the afternoon reading and writing (things that I used to love but somehow I've forgotten how to love- which can most likely be atleast partially attributed to my journalism concentration in school) and my lovely afternoon soon became an evening and night of conversation, coffee, books, discussion, music, art... ahhh I love it.

I feel so fortunate to realize and respect the value of self-education. I also feel extremely happy to be so stimulated by creativity and art. I don't know what I would do without it, I really don't. It's getting me through a pretty rough spot right now. I can just immerse myself in books, works, conversation, and I'm free off all of my negativity. The fact that I'm finally, after a several year hiatus, finding my way back to the things I love and actually enjoying them again, tells me something in itself.

I think it's ironic that now that I'm not in school I actually have the desire to educate myself further and learn as many new things as possible. When it's not a grade or a chore, and when it's on my own time and in things that I'm genuinely interested in, it comes so much easier.

Speaking of being inspired, New York, the city that inspires me, drives me to be the best I can be, that makes me come alive you are calling my name, I hope to see you soon.

Some recent insights from the pages of my journal..

There are a lot of things I save for the confidentiality of my (hand-written) journal because I prefer not to put all of my really personal thoughts on such a public platform as a blog. Then there are some things that after writing about them, I feel compelled to share them as is the case right now.

Due to my personal experiences thus far in my 23 years of existence, I've come to realize something very significant- it's when a relationship or chapter of your life ends and through the difficulty and "re-adaptation period", that crucial transition- that you learn the most about yourself. Not only this, but you seem to always grow up and mature significantly. Most times you don't realize it's happening until you reflect back on it, although now, I can feel myself being in that place, and I don't know what I'll come out looking-like on the other side, but I have a feeling I'll really like it. The change isn't sudden, but rather subtle and gradual and a series of emotional highs and lows, realizations (both mini and/or life-changing), questions & answers, and self-reflections. There are moments that are extremely challenging, moments when you feel yourself "relapsing" (for lack of a better description), you feel that the things you're coming to realize are being challenged or are even maybe completely absurd, however, each time you find yourself in that brief moment of clarity, you somehow know everything will be okay.

I've been thinking a lot about choices lately. The choices people make regarding themselves, their lives, how they choose to handle certain situations. What is it that makes one a "good person"? How can you even define "good".. it's completely subjective. What about the way those choices affect you, your life in the long-run, the way you are perceived by others (not that it matters, I just mean if people think you are a good person)?? Pretty heavy stuff, I know, but also the kind of stuff I think is really important to ponder sometimes.

I have such a desire to better myself during this transitional time in my life. I want to learn to treat myself with more respect. Respect my dreams and aspirations, respect my mind, respect my body, respect my freedom, and embrace my potential. I want to feel strong, confident, and powerful. Sometimes I can, but more times it's hard to maintain that feeling, especially in the midst of uncertainty and change.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm sitting on my back porch, on the first "fall-like" night of the year, comfy sweatpants on, candles lit, trying to use the pen in my hand to sort out my clusterfuck of thoughts on a blank sheet of paper so I can better visualize them, organize them, put them into little boxes.

By the way.. totally digging the "Lykke Li" pandora radio station lately.. it's awesome to chill to.. try typing in "Little Bit" (one of her songs) in the search bar and listen to the awesomeness! :)

Things that make me happy in this moment:
-this chilly (but just perfectly refreshing) end-of-summer night
-candles
-music
-the freedom and liberation of being on my own
-artistic/creaitve/progressive/innovative people (specifically Dali as I'm reading a book about him right now!)
-stimulating conversation
-chatting with old friends
-feeling on the verge of something great
-having the world at my fingertips
-comfy sweatpants
-a cup of hot tea
-bubble baths
-catching up with old friends
-the familiarity and comfort of home
-the public library (recently just rediscovered how awesome it is!)
-the fact that my hair is officially long after 3+ years of growing it out!
-the mystery/potential that the future holds

:)

Home again (for now)

I'm in the mood to write-- errr type right now. Without any pen and paper, I have to resort to blogging. I've been home since July 3, almost a month-- it's good to be home, it really is. It was really hard to leave Spain, that country will have a huge place in my heart for the rest of my life. I fell in love with everything about it, and I know I will be back there again- hopefully sooner rather than later. I can't imagine it taking me too long to get back there. I'm going to try extremely hard to maintain maybe even improve my Spanish. Once I know where I'm going to be, I want to sign up for some coversation/immersion type classes to practice.

I've been busy rediscovering myself and finding my way back to where I want and need to be at this point in my life. The last two months have been a whirlwind of change and readjusting to being myself because I spent a lot of the last year feeling guilty for the person I am, and the way I've chosen to live my life. It made me really angry and a little cynical of other people, relationships, and life in general, which I absolutely despise. I'm still struggling, even now, to pick up my scattered pieces and thoughts and put them back together in the right place and order. On the other hand, I haven't felt so alive and free in a long time. I am so incredibly happy with the decisions I've made, because I've proven to myself that I am a strong person and that I'm sure about what I want, or actually more what I don't want. I feel like I'm that much closer to knowing myself and finding whatever it is I'm searching for in life.

I've been a little stressed because I'm in between jobs, living back at home with my parents and struggling with the idea of corporate world and what I "should be doing" vs. what I want to do. Up until this point I've been able to get away with living the life I love and following my heart but lately I've been feeling extreme pressure to be responsible and think about things in a more "mature" (for lack of a better word) manner.

I'm so torn because I want to continue following my heart but is that really possible when you have to worry about health insurance, 401ks, bills, etc.??? I wish I could spend the rest of my life traveling the world, creating art, and asking questions, finding my answers in the every day occurances and experiences rather than on google. Why does it feel so incredibly impossible to live the life I love and follow my heart rather than follow what society tells me I should be doing. How can you enjoy the everyday without worrying about money, the future, etc. ???

This is something I'm sure most people in the early 20s go through, when the transition into the real world is looming in the near future, I just hate not knowing where to go or what to do, and not having a plan.

Not really sure why, but I felt like randomly posting some poetry on here. I've always liked poetry and writing since I was younger and I haven't read or written much of it lately but I'd like to start again. There is some poetry that is written so beautifully it touches your soul and that's how these are to me, the way they're written has a way of drawing you in, and you can feel the raw emotion that their poets were trying to convey.

The first two poems are ones I heard for the first time in high school English class and I've never forgotten them. The first is my absolute favorite of all time. The last is one I just recently heard and I really like it.

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal
By: Lord Alfred Tennyson

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.



When We Two Parted
By: Lord Byron

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow--
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shrudder comes o'er me--
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee so well--
Long, long I shall rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met--
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?--
With silence and tears.


The Life That I Have
By: Leo Marks

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

How to Tame a Free Spirit

Just found this article on wikihow.com (not the most reliable source but whatever) and it really fits in to my life at the moment and I really like it. I couldn't have said it better myself. :)

How to Tame a Free Spirit
(Borrowed from wikihow.com)

Have you met someone who's fiercely independent, or just loves everything that's out of the ordinary? The key to sharing a wild soul is to make him or her feel like they can be freer with you than with anybody else. Here's how to have that free spirit eating out of your hand, willingly and happily.


A step-by-step process

STEP 1. Get your priorities straight. What do you want most out of the relationship? Think about what your top three expectations are: Commitment? Respect? Honesty? Affection? Companionship? Passion? Security? Stability? A free spirit is not the kind to twist and turn to meet your every need (although some can at times, once they feel they can completely trust you). You'll have to make it simple for them by coming to an understanding of what you want most out of a relationship and asking for that, and nothing else.

STEP 2. Don't sweat the small stuff. Things like punctuality, precautions, and any other kind of minor limit or inhibition will be of no concern to an independent mind. They like to flow through life, following their whims - and this often makes them extremely creative and fascinating individuals, which is what probably attracted you to them in the first place. By imposing dams, as little as they may be, you could very well suffocate the qualities that make this person desirable to you, if you don't manage to scare them off first.

STEP 3. Choose your battles wisely. Don't nitpick. If they're 15 minutes late and you end up missing a movie, roll with the punches and see the next one. But if they're 45 minutes late to pick you up in the middle of the night in a bad neighborhood, that's serious. In general, if it doesn't directly threaten the priorities you established in Step 1, then let it go and just enjoy the ride.

STEP 4. Avoid setting rules. Restrictions are like chains, and will send this wild horse running towards the horizon. Instead of saying, "Don't ever cheat on me," say "You'd be a complete idiot to risk losing such an awesome person like me just so you could get a little extra on the side."

STEP 5. Get to know the person inside out. Study their tendencies, their quirks, their deepest desires, and their worst fears. Always be accepting and open-minded. Knowledge is power. The better you know this person, the less you'll feel the need to control them. Moreover, he or she will sense this and feel like you're the only person who truly knows them and thus, the only person they can be their uninhibited selves around. To a free spirit, this is the jackpot.

STEP 6. Give them the benefit of the doubt. A person who values his or her independence will truly test your ability to trust. You need to determine early on whether or not you trust this person, and then trust them completely. Sure, you might get burned, but you also might capture the heart of a person that no one else could touch.

STEP 7. Get in touch with your own free spirit. Don't sit at home, wondering what he or she is doing, or when they're going to call. Get in your car and take a road trip. Visit an old friend. Watch a new movie. Taste a different kind of food. Your free spirit will respect you for it, and feel a sense of kinship with you when you both get home and recount your adventures.

STEP 8. Appreciate their free-spiritedness. The number one condition that all free spirits demand of their relationships is acceptance. If you don't accept the free spirit, the free spirited person takes that as an assault on his/her freedom. If you accept them exactly as they are and place no expectations/conditions on them, then they can trust you. And only in trust can a relationship develop. Just remember that independence is something to be appreciated, not just tolerated, you'll be giving a free spirit exactly the kind of nourishment that it needs.


Tips

* Free spirits don't like the idea of being judged. Once you start judging them, they feel it's a personal attack and will back off and may even vanish so be careful with your words and actions. But once you meet him/her on the same level (learn to accept them) they can become the most extraordinary individual you ever met.

* Don't try to change him or her. This is a classic mistake, in any kind of relationship, but especially when you're dealing with a rugged individual.

* Give them time to themselves and to their projects. Independent individuals tend to have a burning need to progress alone - sometimes you have to let them go down a path by themselves and just let them know you'll be there for them when they get to the end.


Warnings

* You can never trully "tame" a free spirit. What you want to do is have the free spirit close to you. Think of it as changing your location (bringing yourself out into the wild) rather than theirs (bringing them indoors).

* If all else fails, try to enjoy the free spirit from afar. Support their activities, and communicate that you appreciate their decisions. Sometimes it is hard to be a free spirit (not everyone accepts them as they are and sensitivity can often be an issue if you don't stay open to their beliefs), and occasionally some encouragement feels good, even if they are incredibly independent.

* A free spirit usually shows their love for their partner in "unique" ways. Pay attention and be aware of their showing love. An example would be like: normally he/she is doing their hobby on Saturday at 3pm,but this Saturday at 3pm they're sitting in the living room next to you watching T.V. while you do what you normally do. They may not cuddle you or tell you anything, but their presence next you to is one of the ways they show their affection.So, please first think about any "oddity" of theirs as a sign of love and don't accuse them of their lack of showing their devotion to you.

Don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade....

So this week officially marked the beginning of a new era and I've decided to take a little detour on the whole "jump right into a boring marketing/pr/advertising/etc. job" and go in a different direction.

After spending the last year sifting through the craziness and clutter inside my head, I've finally figured out what I've known all along: I want to be on stage. An obvious thing, but it took me until this week for the little light inside my head to come on and say "Hey, Allyson! DUHHH!"

For those of you who weren't aware, I've been taking dance classes since I've been living in Spain because for the first time since high school I actually have the time to do what I love without being consumed by school work and waitressing full time. I've become addicted to dancing. I've taken advantage of my alone-time here and unlike high school (where I was made to feel like dancing was a lost cause for me by those around me) I've had the opportunity to really work hard and get somewhere with it. It's revived my love of arts and performing- although that was never really dead, it was just temporarily on hold.

Now that I'm older, I realize not going to school for musical theater was probably a big mistake. I've missed out on 4 important years of training, and experience and now I'm far behind. However, with the knowledge that I have a Communication degree under my belt and something to fall back on, it makes the possibility of falling a little easier to cope with.

The other day I was rehearsing a song (hence the title of this post) and for the first time since high school, I just let go and belted it out at the top of my lungs and put myself in that character's shoes and it just poured out of me. Bottled up for years, it was like a reawakening. It felt so amazing and I couldn't believe I'd forgotten how it made me feel. It was at that moment that it began to click for me. THIS is what I love. When I constantly feel that I'm meant to do something big or special in this world, I'm absolutely positive it has something to do with performing.

So here I am, almost 23, without the experience and training that I want or need, so what do I do now you might ask? Obviously I work my ass off first and foremost. I'm about to go into overdrive. Hours upon hours of practice,working with a vocal coach, acting coach, and taking more dance classes, auditions, auditions, and more auditions, living/breathing/dreaming musical theater. I'm SO ready to do this. My biggest challenge of all will be to stay positive throughout the next few months. The entertainment business is one of the most ruthless, unforgiving, and competitve in the world. So I'm surrounding myself by supportive, positive, people, and people that will teach me something. Positive thoughts from here on out, so if you're feeling skeptical, go away!! :P

On that note, wish me luck. This is gonna be hard, but I'm going to do it. :)

"The motivation for me, is them telling me what I could not be.. oh well, f*ck off!"

Seriously someone needs to put a straight jacket on me right now, I'm so sky high, full of ambition, creative energy, passion.I'm starting to get so antsy I can hardly stand it!!!

Don't get me wrong my experience in Spain thus far has been the best and most challenging experience of my life, it's made me grow A LOT as a person, just like I was hoping it would. However, I'm starting to get ridiculously antsy now to get back to the US, find a job, and dive in to my career head-first. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about what I want to do and where I want to go, etc. Although I still have no earthly idea what I should do, I do know a few things. I have to be working in a creative environment, that involves music, and interacting with tons of ppl on a regular basis.

I really hate the place I'm at right now. What I mean by that is being in this awkward, in-between school and the real world place. I absolutely HATE not knowing what I'm going to be doing next. I dread having a few months of being stuck at home in Clemmons looking for jobs. Mark my words right now, I'm about to do some big things people, just you wait! I'm about to put my life/my job search/everything in to hardcore overdrive.

Being young, having recently graduated, and pretty much having the world at my fingertips right now is the most exhilarating- yet scary, feeling ever. I can pretty much go any which way I choose, it makes me so happy.

I've just been feeling very inspired, liberated, and ambitious lately, so I felt like sharing. :)

On that note.. here's the video for Rihanna's latest single "Rude Boy", the video has a really cool Andy Warhol, 80s Atari vibe (and it's being argued it's very similar to MIA's video for "Boyz") but regardless I really like the video and the song :)
---- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e82VE8UtW8A

CARNA-whatthehellhappenedlastweekend-VAL!!!

I am officially speechless after last weekend... okay let´s get serious, I´m never actually speechless, but I´m about as damn close as a person can get.

Danielle and I arrived at our hostel in La Orotava, Tenerife around 1 pm Thursday. This was following an exciting night of "sleeping" in the Madrid airport (which included a group full of Germans blasting techno from their laptop, talking obnoxiously loud, and banging the floor repeatedly), an unexpected 2 hr bus ride from the airport, the worst cup of coffee of my life, and another bus for 1 hr to get to our hostel. Needless to say, we were both exhausted. But we pushed through, because we were after all in a tropical paradise of sorts.

Tenerife was one of the most beautiful places I´ve been. With a constant temperature of approx. 70 degrees, tropical plants, palm trees, a volcano, snow-peaked mountains, and black-sand beaches, it has virtually everything you can imagine. It was one of those places that you can be content just exploring for days.

When we arrived, almost immediately, we met 2 other Americans who are studying abroad in Madrid who were super nice. We all went on a walk down to the beach (which I swear appeared to be a 10 min walk from our hostel and really turned out to be 1 1/2 hours away) and almost got killed when we got sidetracked and ended up walking along the highway. A bird pooped on my head, that was pretty sweet. We spent the evening walking along the boardwalk and frollicking on the beach in Puerta de la Cruz, a cute little beach town. We had a nice little dinner- I had a maragarita (obviously) and pizza.. I´m so lame I know! We ended the night drinking wine on the roof of our hostel, ahhhhh.

Friday, the rest of our group arrived, so we spent the day shopping for Carnaval costumes, exploring some more, and bracing ourselves for the weekend to come. Friday afternoon, I went out to lunch at this amazing restaurant. It was inside an old mansion-turned hotel/museum/restaurant and we ate on a covered wodden porch that overlooked the Island and had the most gorgeous view. For $15 I got a 3 course meal (cream of vegetable soup, grilled tuna and potatoes, and a typical Canarian dessert called "golfi"). There was also a live chicken just walking around the restaurant while we ate, luckily no one ordered chicken to eat.

Friday night we got dressed up in our costumes and headed into Santa Cruz (the big city in Tenerife) for the opening parade of Carnaval. All the "Carnaval Queens" ride in elaborate floats through the streets along with a million cross-dressers, ppl in ridiculous costumes, and a million other floats and bands etc. I´ve seriously never seen so many ppl in one place in my life, there must have been 100s of thousands of people there. We threw back a few sodas and stumbled upon (literally- just kidding Mom!) an amazing spot to catch the parade. We spent the first part of the night dancing, enjoying the parade, and taking breaks to hacer un pis (take a pee) and take chupitos de vodka with cross dressers in bars. Circa 1 am I (along with Danielle, and our 2 new friends from California) ended up on the floats in the parade. First we were on a fireman (bombero) float complete with free rum and cokes and fire hoses to play with (get your mind out of the gutter, there were literally fire hoses). After getting kicked-off that float, we managed to find our way on to a hippie float. What a surprise, finding myself in the center of attention, even in the middle of Carnaval in The Canary Islands. Somehow everyone made it home in one piece that night, even though many of us got there at different times. One of the guys we met
actually ended up passed out on the neighbors roof in his Roman soldier outfit, can you imagine when they discovered that in the morning? haha Bottom line- Friday=ridiculous.

Saturday the weather was beautiful, in the mid-upper 70s and sunny so obviously we spent the day lounging on the beach. Because of the volcano, the beaches are all black-sand beaches so it was really cool for me because I´d never seen that before. I bought some super ugly flip flops, a couple postcards, and a really cute towel that says Canary Islands.. I figured it's not everyday you see someone at home with a Canary Islands towel so it'll be fun to show off. :)







Saturday night (also my last night there) we decided to stay in Puerta de la Cruz b/c there was a music competition and a lot of stuff going on there, not to mention it was closer to our hostel and much more convenient. We went out around 10:30 or so with a group of about 10-ish ppl and we somehow picked up a few more people along the way and we all managed to stay together for the most part this time. We spent the night drinking, laughing, and dancing and I don't think I've laughed so hard and so much in a long time! We nicknamed this night "noche de gratis" (free night) because we somehow wound up getting a lot of food and drinks for free. Infact at one point in the night, Danielle actually paid for her beer with the condoms we had gotten from the Red Cross earlier in the night.. only at Carnaval can u buy a beer with condoms! haha The original plan WAS to stay out until about 2 then go back to the hostel to sleep for a few hours because Danielle and I had to take a 6:30 am bus to the airport to catch our 8:40 flight. Wellllll about that.... Once 2 am rolled around, we figured it would be in our best interest to just push through and stay out all night b/c when are we gonna be partying in The Canary Islands for Carnaval again anytime soon? Exactly. So... we made it till about 5 and then went back to shower and catch the bus. The sleep deprivation (that I'm still trying to compensate for/recover from 2 days later) was well worth it!

Soooo... with all that said, this weekend was by far one of the best trips/weekends I've had in a long time. Carnaval was the experience of a lifetime and one I will never ever ever forget. If anyone reading this has a chance to go experience it for yourself, a HIGHLY recommend it-- just stay longer than a weekend because lord knows I wish I was still there now! Here's some pictures for anyone who hasn't joined the rest of the world on facebook yet:

20tennnnnnnnnnnn

First can I say that I'm confused.. does 2010 still count as part of the first decade of the 2000s or is it the beginning of the new decade? Anyone?

2010 is off to a relatively calm but good start. I went home for Christmas and it was great to see my family, my friends, and my boyfriend. Home is still well.. home. Don't know why, but I can't seem to ever want to stay there for too long at one time.

So now here I am, back in my apt. in Madrid, feeling slightly inclined to share my thoughts with the world wide web.. and by world wide web I really mean all 5 people that actually check this every once in awhile. This week, I've begun intense preparation for my travels in the next few months, researching, planning, booking some things.. it's going to be an exciting few months. My tentative itinerary is as follows:

February 11-14: Canary Islands
March 25ish-April 5ish: Tour of Italy
My Bday week: Greece

...And then I have a list a mile long of other places I'm gonna try to fit in somewhere in between all of that depending on my $$$$ and time.. but mostly $$.

I just booked my trip to the Canary Islands (or en español "Las Islas Canarias") 3 days ago kinda on a whim- and without checking my bank account first hence why I'm eating bread and baked potatoes until my February paycheck. My friend Natalia told me about the Carnaval celebration held every year in Tenerife on the Canary Islands because I had been talking about going to another celebration in the south of Spain. She warned me that the other one was lame and the one in Tenerife was amazing. So being curious, I looked it up online and sure enough, she was right. As most of you probably know, "Carnaval" is best known as the extravagant celebration in Rio de Jainero, Brazil every year. However, unbeknowst to me (and many of you I'm assuming) the Carnaval in Tenerife is supposedly the 2nd best after Brazil. Millions of people come from all over the world to celebrate it there. The Canary Islands are a group of Islands off the West Coast of Africa, close to Morocco, but they are owned by Spain. I also found out (as a major bonus) that the weather in the Canary Islands is in the mid 70s year round b/c of it's location.. which I can't say I'm too disappointed about! I'm looking forward to a nice break from the cold, snowy, weather! Anyways.. Danielle (and 2 of her friends from Guadalajara) and I are going for Valentines Day wknd, also the opening weekend which is supposedly a huge event. It's gonna be a weekend of scantily-clad/if not naked Europeans, dancing in the streets, raging techno music, and "lots of sodas" (as my uncle says) will be consumed. Take a look at the website below for some idea of what I'm talking about. Ridiculous! And I'm sooo excited!!
http://www.realtenerifeislanddrives.com/Carnaval.html

I'm trying to focus on my excitement about Carnaval before I let myself get too excited about my next trip b/c it's the trip I've been looking forward to all year. For Easter break ("Semana Santa" here in Spain) I have a really long vacation. Bry is coming to see me (I'm soooo freaking excited!!) and we are going to go see Italy for the first time together. I've been hoping to save my Italy trip for a long vacation so I can go see all the places I want to see (which is impossible of course). As of right now, we're looking at going to Venice, Florence, Rome, and making a day trip to see Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius! Ahhh I can barely contain my excitement.. floating down canals, eating amazing Italian food, drinking wine, limoncello, romance! :) It's going to be unforgettable! Not to mention Bry is going to see Europe for the first time, and I couldn't be happier to share it with him. I feel like I was born to live here, all the art and culture, the way people think and live, it's so enthralling to me, it makes me feel alive! :) I hope more than anything he'll share some of this love with me. Maybe we'll vanish into the Italian countryside never to be seen again.... ;)

As for the Greece trip formy birthday.. still in the very early planning stages but I've already figured out how to get there, and I found an awesome (and cheap) place to stay. A week long bday extravaganza in the Greek Islands?? If anyone cares to join, there's an open invitation (and yes this means all you people who were "gonna come visit me")

I've started thinking a lot about what kind of jobs I want to look for come April. Do I really HAVE to grow up and start job-hunting.. this blows! I wanna go back to eating jellopops and running from cootie-infested boys on the playground. Anyone know what I want to be when I grow up?? I still feel like I've come no closer to the answer myself.

I'll post more after all my trips and maybe a few here and there and in between. It was great seeing everyone at home.

Before I go, just a side note... I really wish I could go help in Haiti, how devastating. If you haven't already, please go to redcross.org or call your local chapter and donate some money to the Haiti Relief fund. The minimum donation is $10 which I know everyone can spare for someone who is in desparate need of help. The website wasn't working earlier b/c it's clogged from so many ppl trying to donate so just call if you can't get it to work. Keeping everyone there in my thoughts and prayers. It's times like this that people have to put aside their differences and come together to help each other. We all live on this planet and those are our brothers and sisters, we all need to join forces to help them in a time of such grief and misery. It reminds you how fast life can change and to be thankful for what you have. :/