Welcome to the REAL WORLD

Aprox. 3-4 years ago I got a traffic ticket. (I had only had my license for a couple of months when this happened. I’m a better driver now.) I paid it, drove on and forgot about it. Last week is rose from the junkyard to haunt me. I am applying to jobs… and one of the job applications asks me to list any traffic violations within the last ten years where the fine was over 300 dollars. I cannot remember what I paid. I cannot remember exactly when it happened. I do not remember what I did with the docket number of the ticket.

Being a resourceful little student, I call the DMV: They can’t help me because the violation doesn’t appear on my record. Then I call the court where I paid the fine: They cannot help me because I don’t have a docket number. IF I HAD A DOCKET NUMBER I WOULDN’T NEED TO BE CALLING THEM!

So then I pull out the big guns: I hire my dad’s private investigator to get to the bottom of this. I need to know how much I paid; if it WAS over 300 and I don’t list it, the potential employer will do a background check and not hire me.

The private investigator gets back to me and says: Your records are in some berried file… It would take at least a week to get an answer. However, the infraction I think you commited is worth less than 200 bucks.

So I am saved. It just irritates the heck out of me that I can’t have access to my own records. They are MY records. Why couldn’t I have gotten them when I called? Why couldn’t the court lady have been a little more helpful? Hiring a private investigator, to investigate myself, is simply ridiculous.

Poem Part I: The Ruins of Rome

Inspiration, Inspiration; Where art thou?
I look for you in the depths of my soul,
In the night, in the day
In bad poetry and stars
In food, books, in bars
And Santa Clause.
Even Google I tried, unsuccessfully
To find where you took my desire to read.

Murano...

Sleepy Island of bliss. Only 15min. away from the main island of Venice. This place is great to escape from the crowds of tourists and relax, while looking at masterpieces of art made of glass. Every island in the area has its own specialty and identity. Murano is the cradle of glass making(mirrors, crystal, house stuff like vases, etc). You can see people blowing glass in windows.
Fun Facts: -It had a "secret service" that would kill those who they thought might leak the secret of how to make mirrors. -Crystal was invented in 1450.

Of course, hand made glass is expensive, so we didn't buy much.

I would LOVE to go back to the little-Island-that-Could:

Venice.

-Our sun-set gondola ride

-Churches, Churches, more Churches. Beautiful

Need I say more?

Must Study. Don't Want To.

(Venice, 2006)

My acute case of senioritis does not allow me to concentrate on schoolwork. I have HW due tomorrow, readings and such, but I could not care less.
What is wrong with me??

Any remedies/traditional medicines you could suggest??

Things that only happen to me

- Just two min ago: I waited until the last min to run to the bathroom. Rushing made me slam my index finger with the door. It really hurts.

- Alan and I spent over an hour buying an almost 100$ drill just so we could skew ONE screw into the wall. The actual screwing took less than five min.

- I went to the Uffizi in Florence and didn't see the "Birth Of Venus", even though it was there!!!

- I posed with cows in Down-Town Florence:

Grrrr!!!!

I have been trying to upload a drawing of my highlights for about an hour now. I self applied bleach to my hair the other night.
I vaguely remember a sense of Now-Or-Never being involved in my actions as I went to the store and bought the ingredients... as dyeing/bleaching my hair is something that I have mixed feelings about, and I have never done it before.
The results were not what I was expecting, and I wanted to show you. Blogger SUCKS sometimes.
The drawing was inspired by nataliedee.com.
Instead of giving you a picture of me being mad (which I don't have at the moment) I will give you a picture I took of Alan when he was pissed off and hungry in a foreign country :
(He is cute even when he is mad!)

I love school, despite myself

Even though I was having a great time in Italy, by the end of winter break I was getting the gitters to get back to school and put my brain to work. The hardest thing I had to do during the last month was figure our where our hotel was with respect to ancient monuments (not that hard as our hotels were perfectly located in the center of everything).
I kind of felt like this:

(Rome, 2006)

At the end of last semester. But now I am renewed and fresh and super-duper-ready to go.
I have new notebooks and many, many books that smell wonderful, like they are about to be read and fulfill their purpose in life!!!!

I can’t wait to hang out with my friends again.

Self Explanatory

Rome, 01/2006

I Found My Hotel

... In Florence. We found it by wondering aimlessly through the city. No maps, no general direction. The things you can stumble along in this process are quite amazing, especially in foreign countries.
Notice Alan in the reflection, taking my picture.

We could not stay at my place because we had other reservations to honor... and the hotel only has one star. One lonely star, that stands proudly against the golden plaque.

Toilets: A Musing

I am always fascinated by the toilets in Europe. Each one has two buttons that you can use to flush; one indicating that it spills more water than the other (clearly an attempt to preserve water from being wasted). Why have I never seen this flushing system in North America??

Although the porcelain throne may vary slightly in size and shape in the US, the variations I saw during my trip to Italy were shocking. For example, I went into a café restroom one night and was confronted with a model that was barely lifted two inches off of the floor! Alan commented that he feared for me after using it himself.

During my two week stay, every trip to the lady’s was an adventure.

I can only imagin what toilets are like in less westernized countries.

We are Back!! We are Back!!

Totally jetlagged and suffering from the aftermath of terrible airplane food.
... And I have stories to tell about toillets and gondola rides, pasta and Pisa, traveling in the winter, singing monks, ghettos, and much more.

For now, I guess I should sleep as I have been traveling for the last 24 hours. (But I'm really not sleepy because now is when I would be wakng up in Italy!)

Soon I will make a multitude of updates.

New Posting: Finally, from Florence

All is well so far on the two week trip ( if you don't count that while I am blogging Alan is overcomming issues that arrised after our latest meal in Florence.)
We arrived a couple of hours ago from Rome. I woudn't mind living in Rome and learning Italian. When I think of Italian, I see pieces of French and Spanish rearranged differently, and I think I could learn Italian's arrangement.
Quick Observations:
* The historic centers of Italian cities are like gigantic shopping centers, sprinkled with big churches and museums.
* It is not so easy to find a good Icecream.
* Even though it is not the high season for tourism in the country, there are hundreads of tourists everywhere.
* Italians wear boots! Boots, Boots, Boots. So I got some to mix in with the crowds.
* So far no snow, but it is cold.