Skydiving

Wow. I haven't posted in quite some time, and I'm feeling king of--guilty. But I've been absolutely buried in my quest to find the perfect balance between work and play ever since I stepped out of the plane at LAX in December. So here's a brief summary of what's happened in the past, what's happening now, and an outlook into the near future.

I got back to California, and I first and foremost recovered from jetlag, which this time took only a day and a half. Then, out of the blue, my Grandma's surgery didn't go well, and she ended up having complications, so I spent the next full day at the hospital in ICU with the rest of my family, waiting for updates. Everything turned out to be okay, and she was released from the hospital three days later.

After the dust settled, I explained how my time in Italy was with my extended family, which took quite a while. Before I knew it, it was Christmas, and we had our usual family gathering at my aunt's house. That was a lot of fun, and I was even able to get a free massage from my cousin (she's training to become a masseuse). Work on the website filled in the time in between christmas and new years eve, and I started to visit some of my "long-lost" friends. Then for new years I went to a party and we played texas hold-em pretty much the whole night, almost missing the countdown.

New Years day I went hiking after watching the Rose Parade (which this year, of course, didn't rain like last year, when we went in person) and I continued to hike every week with some people from the book club my mom is in. I needed the exercise after eating all of the good food to make up for the disappointingly horrible food that we get here. Then it was pretty much hanging out with my neighbors, going to clubs on the weekends (DV8 was the most memorable), snowboarding, working out, going to birthday parties, working, and going to the beach that took up the time until I found myself again at LAX, headed for London on British Airways, later connecting to Rome and taking the bullet train up to Florence.

That's enough about the recent past. I enrolled in this new "European Union: Politics and Policies" class, taught by Professor D'Alimonte, who is a world-renound political scientist, and a go-to man for CNN, MSNBC, CBS, FOX, and ABC regarding anything to do with US-EU relations or Italy in general. The class is amazing, although it's a lot of work. This past monday I was supposed to go to a conference that the US Ambassador to Italy and many other top officials were attending regarding US-Italian relations, but Italians being on Italian time, my professor showed up 30 minutes later than he originally said he was going to, and as a result they filled in the classes' reserved seats at the conference. So there went that one.

Other than that, classes have been going good. I finished my first 7-page paper of the semester on sunday, and I have another one due tomorrow that's 4 pages (which, I have yet to start writing, and I probably should stop filling in my time with distractions such as blogging).

As far as events to look forward to, I have three major ones coming up: This saturday, I'm going Skydiving over Sienna, which will be absolutely amazing (thank you to Rasaalika for the wonderful idea), and one friday before spring break, which is March 9th-18th, Rasaalika and I are going to Maranello, Italy, where Ferrari is headquartered and all Ferrari's are produced, to have a private tour of the Ferrari plant, which is by invitation only. (Again, thank you to Rasaalika and her amazing father for inviting me). Two once-in-a-lifetime events happening in the span of a semester--let's just say that I'm counting my blessings.

Joseph and I are then taking spring break to tour around Italy (it's his first time in Europe) and we may even be going to Switzerland and France. In Italy, we're going up to Venice, then to Assisi, then coming to Florence, going to Naples (and while we're there we're going to try to head over to Pompeii), and finally ending our journey in Rome.

Then once Spring break is over, there's only 8 weeks until I head back to CA again. I'm starting to feel like my time here is rushed...and I'm trying to savor every minute of it. So don't expect me to post very often...although I'm going to start posting my replies that are mandatory anyways for my EU class. So basically, don't expect too much intellectual stuff, or stuff directly relating to me.

Until I actually have time (or want to postpone working for as long as I can again like I am now), I will only post what I've already written.

Ciao tutti!