It was right in front of me all along.

I am freaking out.

I don't understand when I became so conflicted about every aspect of my life and I have spent the past hour trying to convince myself that it may not necessarily be a bad thing.

I have gone as far as to say: Do I even want to do this anymore?

As well as: Why am I doing this?

Somehow I have forgotten what I love about art. However, I feel that it is partially the result of my lackadaisical attitude about everything in my life. The whole summer and maybe even before that I have been struggling with the idea of my life, the people I know, the things that I am doing. I have a waning interest in everyone and everything, and I really don't know what to look forward to anymore.

Amongst the disparity of this all let me explain why this may not necessarily be a bad thing.

I am scared shitless. I have no idea what to expect and to be honest I am afraid that I just won't be able to handle things, but having nothing to look forward to opens the window of opportunity to just go with things. To delve head first into the unknown and see what will happen. I need to "makeover" my life not just as an artist. This will be painful, but in a different way.

Now, I just have to believe that I am right.

The Season is Ending

Real World Firenze is slowly coming to a close. Not that I really watch the show, but I feel that it's almost impossible to not at least have the gist of what it's about. Regardless I think I have been educated enough about it after reading Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman, who says:

"I tend to consider myself an amateur Real World scholar. I say "amateur because I've done no actual university study on this subject, but I still say "scholar" because I've stopped watching the show as entertainment."

And with that said, although my housemates and I are eight people and not seven (arguably seven at some points), we were certainly strangers thrown into a house of the proper Real World age and social demographic, except in a foreign country where none of us can speak the language and to study. All that's missing is a confessional booth, but we've certainly had the drama, conflicts, interactions, and absolutely random experiences to probably be just as interesting to watch as a season of the actual show.

We had always joked about this in the house and we still do from time to time, but as the days wind down, I find myself in more of a contemplative mood and trying to summarize everything that has happened in the past 4 months, or give my last "confessional." I came to a pretty big realization about my time here last night and as I was talking to Julia today about it, one of her only responses was that my experience really was like the Real World and that was my last time in the confessional booth and more so that is what this entire week will be (with a few finals and last minute sight seeing in between).

It really isn't going to hit me until I am stepping off the plane in JFK on Saturday. So much has happened, yet nothing has really happened at all.


I will leave it at this.

The one creative thing I have done here other than write and take photographs:

(I'm surprised I still know how to even draw at this point.)

I've been Thinking

And so I've realized exactly why I want and need to go home.

It's 5:17am, I'm a bit drunk, but I am finally catching friends I haven't talked to in a while. And yet tonight has been a roller coaster of emotions. My roommates and I went to dinner and theater with our Cinema teacher and it was absolutely amazing. I didn't quite understand the theater part, which was about wine because 1) it was in old Italian and 2) my mind was wandering half the time.

My emotions have been more than a hot mess in the past few 2 weeks and I am ready for something new, although I have quite a bit of sorting out to do when I get home.

I am ready for a semi-image change, a return to my regiment, a reintroduction to climbing, and working at the Trattoria. I will certainly miss Italy, but there are so many people I have left behind, that I absolutely miss from my life and in my semi-drunken state I am realizing that to its full extent.

10 days. Wow.

Also, I am well overdue for an escape from the absolute confusion of my house that is more or less the epitome of the Real World. But what else would you expect from 8 different people living in close quarters for over 3 months, who coincidentally go to the same school, but have never met and would probably never meet in their lives. (And of course, the famous just friends situation + you have a boyfriend, but who's judging).

And like I've said the whole time. We shall see what happens when I get home. haha.

I found this picture while rummaging through my computer bored out of my mind during class the other day and I love it. It's from a used furniture store in Chicago.

Imitation is the Greatest form of Flattery

Lately I have three obsessions:

The White Stripes,

the Dead Weather,


and the Kills. (especially Midnight Boom) Let's just say Alison Mosshart his my new idol.

That and I have a new found desire to learn Italian, to move to another country, to stop being lazy about making art, and an addiction to sandwich shops in Florence such as Antico Noe and I Due Fratellini.

It hasn't quite set in that I will be returning to the states soon and I don't think it will until I am on a train to Rome the morning of December 19th, or when I find myself freezing to death when I walk out of the airport later that day.

I have quite the list of aspirations to fulfill and a head full of realistic fantasies and ideas, that should last me through the winter.

I'm ready to start a new life when I return, or at least take the steps towards it.

We shall see what happens.