Leaving...

ahhhhh! i'm going to be leaving the eternal city soon! SO not excited! i miss my family and friends but i don't really want to leave. i'm just thankful, rome has opened my eyes to a lot of things. i want to accomplish so much more than every before, i have stronger goals, but i also realize that none of these things will come simply by sitting on my ass and doing nothing. so i'm pushing myself to work harder and having people by your side to support u is most important.

most of all i'm thankful to the two greatest friends that i made here, because they made me happy and they added to my experience here! first is jen! i love jen! she's always so happy and goofy. she can't be on time to save her life. u tell jen, "be ready by 8"---you can bet ur bottom dollar we're not leaving until 10. sometimes it can drive me (and everyone else) up a freakin wall, but she knows how to have fun and she always looks out for everyone around her. she helped me with my italian and encouraged me to speak more. as a result i've gotten better at the language. she's inspired me to come back here (to rome) and do something with myself. it's really not enough to just "dream." she taught me that and i love her for it.

second is momo! momoko-chan! love her to death! always so happy and helpful! if we didn't sit down and have serious talks sometimes, you would never know that she has things she struggles with as well. she's the one that helped me learn to stop stressing the little things and has invited me with open arms to stay with her when i go to Tokyo. my own personal tour guide! and translator! she's offered to hop on full board as a translator for my keiko kitagawa fan site! makes me SO excited---i can learn japanese from her and she can improve her english with me. "i like it!" and "va bene!" her two favorite things to say shows off her positive attitude ("va bene" is "it's okay" in italian). she's inspired me to just have fun and take whatever problems that come my way in stride like it's nothing. and seeing her always makes me happy.

and even tho michi is nothing new (been around that chick for 2 years) we've fought the most this semester! and i think it's because we both has so many things stressing us and our tendencies came out. my laziness and her attitude came in conflict quite a few times. i just love how we trust each other enough to talk things out and how we don't hold grudges. we have the same hopes and dreams and goals to travel the world and become successful and fears that we won't be able to do everything that we want and that we won't be able to support our parents the way we want to. because being an artist is just as hard as being a surgeon---it's just a shame that nobody thinks so.

right now i'm focusing on getting myself together. finish registering for classes, get my loans sent through, pick my job back up, apply for summer classes, find an apartment for next year, and finish reviving my fan site. i can do it ALL. thanks to these people, i kno that i can do it all!