HAPPY EASTER!!!

it's easter and instead of going to mass (i'm not catholic, i'm christian and yes same God but WAY different ways of praising) i rolled out of bed and came straight to the studio. T_T working on my dreaded final project for advanced drawing. it's coming along ok...i guess...i mean, minus the fact that it's SUPPOSED to be a self portrait but it looks nothing like me and i can't fix it because it's done with charcoal and ink pen. T_T

if i was home i would be helping my stepmom cook. i woulda woke up this morning, put on my new sunday dress, hurry and eat breakfast so my dad can kill me with family photos, hop into the car, and head to church. then we would do praise and worship and have an excellent sermon. then i would come home, take off all my church stuff and stand in the kitchen for the next 4 hours, helping to cook a huge dinner. maybe my aunts and uncles bring their wonderful (and occasionally annoying) kids as well as their own food. there would be nigerian music BLASTING (and i mean, BLASTING) from the sound system. when all the adults are settled they'll pop in a nigerian movie and sit around while i run around helping with the food and taking care of THEIR children.

THEN, when all is said and done, all the food would be laid out on the big dinning room table. Uncle John (Pastor) would pray for a long time thanking God for his mercy and for dying for our sins. and then we'd all rush around the food and eat and laugh until we couldn't stand anymore. then i'd stay up helping to clean before going to bed and waking up the next day to do to work. 

IF i was home.

but i'm here, in the holy city of rome. holy week was so beautiful but i missed most of it because i have a lot of final work to do for my classes! T_T i went to go see "stations of the cross" at the colosseum and got to see the pope do his thing. people had candles and recited a lot of prayers. it was REALLY beautiful! HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people! i've never seen rome so crowded before! shame i just don't understand half of the traditions catholics do around this time even tho i do the same things in different ways! T_T makes me feel like a heathen! lol i'm sad i missed out on palm sunday tho...easter is seriously one of my favorite christian holidays and waving the palm leaves was something i look forward to every year. but i'm stuck in the drawing studio until late tonight when we'll have a makeshift easter dinner...

roma lost to lazio yesterday. SO glad i didn't get my hands on tickets because it was a miserable defeat against a team that most romans hate (even tho lazio is a roman team) who've been losing their past four games!!!! they scored within the first two minutes!!!!! WTH!!!!! they are DEADLY rivals, i mean---people kill over these two teams. it just really sucks that roma didn't SMOTHER lazio like the should have!

my new favorite song, "Jidai (This Period)" by Hidemi Uematsu

she's a new japanese artist. while i don't kno how i feel about her voice (YET) i got momo to translate what she's saying. u can definitely hear traditional folk rhythms in her musical style (which she inherited from her parents). but basically the song is talking about how all the animals even the littlest things in the world live and breath and fulfill their lives but lately humans have been stagnant and not moving. they sit around watching TV and wasting their lives which might as well be the same as being dead. and she wrote the lyrics herself! so i'll be keeping an eye on her...