The Halloween Festivities Continue

Monday: For my job, I recorded an event where some people from the company, Boeing, came to talk to our school. I learned some valuable things that big companies look for, and that includes great leadership and great communication skills. Confidence really goes a long way, so that helps as well.
Tuesday: I didn't have my broadcasting class because we were having a work day, so that was awesome because then I was able to both focus on my project and study for my test the next day.
Wednesday: The Giants won the world series! It's been a trend that they have been winning every other year!
Thursday: Our apartment cafe handed out free hot dogs and chips! It was amazing. I also went to our school's favorite Karaoke bar and dressed up as Minnie Mouse and danced the night away! I think my favorite part was the classic 90's/early 2000's songs that they played, such as "Hey Juliet" and "Hit Me Baby One More Time".

Friday: Tonight was Halloween, I dressed up as Mrs. George, otherwise known as the cool mom from Mean Girls. It was fun when people would recognize my costume and laugh. (I'm on the far right). Also...I have another story about Friday night, but you'll have to get to the bottom to read that...

Saturday: Saturday I dressed up as Cruella Deville. I actually got a fantastic response from people regarding my costume! People were like "wow! you're killing it! you look awesome!"  My roommate sprayed my hair half black, and I had a dalmatian shawl thing around my shoulders. I went to the bar and talked to some students I don't normally talk to, which can be intimidating, but I've found that a lot of students at my school are really friendly and welcome to conversation. I was able to hang out with friends that I hadn't seen a while as well and so that was nice to do.

Sunday: I was finally able to relax from the party-filled weekend. It was so much fun, and even though I'm a senior in college, it made me SO excited to think of ideas for next year! I definitely want to make a habit of thinking of creative costumes and going all out just because of how fun it is! No matter where I am next year, I'm sure I can find friends to party with.

Can you tell I love Halloween?

But not all good things happen on Halloween...in fact, people tend to be even more riled up than ever.

...So about Friday night...I left my keys under the cushion of a seat at a party I was at, and of course I didn't realize that. So when we went to the bar, I realized that I had completely forgotten not only my ID to get INTO the bar, but my keys to get back to my apartment! What a mess. So as my friends and I started to walk back (because fortunately for me, another friend of mine forgot his ID), someone in a car made a cat-call comment to my friend. Thinking that the people in the car were just at a stop light and were going to drive away, I said something along the lines of, "do not talk to her like that. She is not a display for you to look at" (not the exact words, but you get the point). Little did I know that both my saying something (and my other friend said something as well....a little cruder but yeah...) would cause one of the females in the car to get out. She came up and said "what's going on?", to which I said, "I don't like the way your friend spoke to my friend." And being a female, she said that she completely understood and got back into the car. So we thought it was over. False. The male who made the ORIGINAl cat call comment started to follow my friends and me. He got into my male friend's face, and the female from the car also came back, but this time, she was armed (which I didn't know until later in the night). Fortunately for us, no one was seriously injured (I wasn't touched at all), but my friends got hurt a bit (not going to go into detail), but it definitely could have been worse.

However, this situation really got personal for me because even though they were the ones who started the catcalling, my friend and I were the ones who spoke up. If we hadn't have done that, we probably wouldn't have put ourselves into danger. What gets me the most is that I cannot stand to be silent. But I now understand that speaking up in that situation wouldn't have done a thing; it wouldn't have made the guy go, "oh you're right, I'm sorry for objectifying your friend." There is a time and a place for this conversation, and that was not it. After much contemplation, I do realize that it wasn't totally my fault, I mean, I did the right thing for speaking up, but it was stupid, and I hope to not do it again. It's incredibly frustrating when you want to fight for a voice, but instead you put yourself and others on the line. At this point, I still don't know what I would have done differently except for to stay silent, and that just doesn't sit well with me. I just wish people were more respectful of others and didn't feel an obligation to comment on my female friends' appearance. They should be able to wear whatever they want without getting someone gross to say something or honk their horn.

What frustrates me even more is when some people didn't stand by our side when we told them our story. Like I said, I understand what I did was stupid, but that's all some people said about it. They just said it was stupid. I'd like to think it was more than that, (perhaps brave...) but I'm not sure, maybe it was just idiotic. Some of my friends understood though and supported me because they knew I felt badly about speaking up. They understood that I KNEW that it was dumb, so they didn't need to lecture me or anything. I felt like that was the best support.

I'm not exactly sure how to end this, so I'll just say this. I've learned that sometimes we need to be less impulsive on our actions. Assess the situation. Will speaking up to this person make a difference? Will speaking up to this person probably instigate an altercation? If so, it's not worth it. But there WILL be a time and a place where you can say what you want and make a difference. There will be a time and a place where your argument will matter and have influence.

Getting Ready for Halloween

So I've been trying as much as I can to jump into doing more projects. This is definitely part of my goals for this year. I really want to strive to be the hardworking, driven person that employers seek in the professional world. I've been learning more about editing programs, and my camera, and I offered to help someone with their video, and I think I'm going to have a couple more opportunities in the future to be more creative so I'm excited about that!

I kinda want to post the new foods that I'm trying. I really like to try new things, especially food, and I  get all of my recipes off of Pinterest to do that. Recently, I stumbled on to recipes that contained quinoa.  I think I cooked it wrong first? Because I was NOT a fan, but it's been growing on me! I think that mostly has to do with the yummy things that I'm mixing with it, though. This week's quinoa bowl includes avocado, bacon, tomatoes. Sounds simple but it's quite yummy! I add a little bit of garlic and salt to make it more flavorful.

For now, I'm gonna leave out the food, but perhaps in the future if the week happens to be slow.

Story within a story: Not so Scary Theme Park Adventures

Last week I went to a theme park nearby, which was completely decked out for Halloween. I wrote a little about the experience last post, but I wanted to elaborate a little more on the experience. I was actually curious as to how I would react with the park. The last time I had been in a "haunted house" (aside from Disney's Haunted Mansion) was when I was little and I HATED it. I know that when it comes to scary movies I don't get scared, but I think this has to do with me distancing myself from the movie, not allowing myself to BE scared. I'll think about how the movies are made and how funny it would be to act out this scene of being dragged my a possessed demon, silly things like that. The whole park was going to have characters who would try to scare you, and not knowing what the experience and atmosphere would be like, I was hoping that I would distance myself just as I had with the movies. My doubts stemmed from my friends telling me of their experiences at the theme park. I got texts saying, "IT'S TOO SCARY" "It's horrid. Not worth it unless you like scary things". So I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for this disastrous trap that I'd gotten myself into. We get to the park and my bones tense up, not knowing what is going to happen when we enter the gates. At first, we just see some park employees, no big deal. I then spot our first "zombie". He didn't even try to scare us, really. He just kinda roamed around and approached people, but not even that aggressively. It was from that moment where I was pretty confident that I was going to be okay.
My friend and I knew characters popped out at us every now and then, so we were actually pretty well prepared and consciously aware of our surroundings at all times. However, we could not for the life of us find the roller coasters. We walked up to a security guard and asked where we could find the rides. He told us "yeah, no problem, all you have to do is go straight that way and go through clown town and it'll be right after that." Clown town. Oh. Good. Clowns. LOVELY.
Well the clowns turned out to actually be nicer than I was expecting. Having gained confidence from talking to zombies and creepy dolls that approached us like it was no big deal, I decided to say "what's up?" to a clown and "i like your makeup!!" No problems in clown town. Score. We actually later had to go through it again and I had a pleasant conversation with one of the clowns who directed us to a haunted house we were looking for.
But anyways, we really enjoyed the roller coasters that we were able to go on. One of them went backwards specifically for this Halloween event, and let me tell you, going backwards on a big drop is weird. I don't exactly know how to explain it (which you would think I could considering I'm WRITING A BLOG), but it's a very strange sensation. We also went on one of those drop rides, which was MUCH taller than I was expecting. Going up felt like forever, and the way the ride is made, there are obviously no people out in front of you, so it just feels like you're not connected to much except for what you're holding on to, and the higher you climb the more you start to regret getting on that ride...until the unexpected click and a big long drop. In a matter of seconds it was over, but oh man. Also, I tend to make a really weird, uncontrollable face when I do big drops like that. I'm just glad no picture was taken.
We ended up going in two haunted houses. There was one haunted experience that was 45 minutes long, and was essentially this long train ride where you have to like fight off zombies. We found out about that one a little later, so we weren't able to go on it, but how cool does that sound?! The first haunted house we went to was like a "rave" theme? And we had these 3D classes that made the house super trippy. Because this was my first haunted house since I was a kid, I decided to be a wuss and not put on the glasses, also it was hard to keep them on my small head (but we know the real reason I didn't have them on...). There was rave music going on for the entire time so I was actually having a GREAT time dancing and going around the house. I had this man in front of me, so I think I also felt a sense of security behind him hahah. The thing about haunted houses is that you can hear the people in front of you screaming, so you know something is coming up....so it kinda loses its scariness when you know something is about to pop out. The ending was absolutely insane, though. Essentially there was this walkway that we were on, and there were lights that made the room look like it was spinning, and I guess with those two combined I could NOT keep my balance. I still have no idea if the walkway was slanted or moving or what, but I had to hold on to the railing and just could not get it together. I can't even imagine what it must have been like WITH the glasses on! Overall, it was fun!
However, our second haunted house had a more...gruesome theme. It was called "Blood Bayou", so you know they're not playing around. For this one, I was feeling a bit more anxious in line and told my friend that I would basically be holding on to her for the entire time. We get inside and the room is just incredibly overdone with decorations. I said this then, and I'll say it again now, I felt like we were inside the Indiana Jones' ride at Disneyland, but just like a spookier version. Needless to say, it was not spooky. However, we were still in line, so surely it must be worse inside. Nah. See, the people in our group, who went ahead of us, probably had the best reactions we could have asked for in a group. Not only were they ahead, but they screamed and flailed a ton. Essentially, they were asking to be the targets of all the actors, which means that no one even tried to scare us. I could see clearly the entire time, so I think that maybe if it were harder to see, it might have been scarier, but if you don't get scared of actors popping out at you (and I didn't) then it was just not scary at all. No complaints on my end, though, because I do not like being scared! It was actually really fun getting to walk behind the screaming people and enjoy their reactions.
We ended our night going into a cafe and grabbing some hot chocolate, as it was getting really cold at this point. As we were leaving the park, we bumped into a zombie who attempted to scare us with his dinosaur like noises, but we asked for a selfie and went on our way! I posted the selfie on my last post, so be sure to check that out!

One highlight I forgot to mention was that at various times throughout the night, at a certain location, some of the zombies would come around and do the thriller dance! Here's a video of it below. Really crap quality, but you get the point.

Monday: We didn't have school, so I was able to relax. Normally, this late in October the weather is pretty drowsy, but it was 70 today! It felt so nice to walk outside and not have to wear a jacket! Also, the photography tumblr is doing fairly well, slowly but steadily, so I'm appreciative of that because it's something that I care about. My sister and I hung out for a while. I took a picture of her Harry Potter themed pumpkin and we ate popcorn and watched Bob's Burgers and Gravity Falls. It was a nice break.

Tuesday: I hung out with my sister (again) and made lasagna with her. So. Good.
Wednesday: Honestly, my outfit was on point today. My green army jacket, black lace dress, tights, and boots.

Thursday: My Journalism teacher told me that I was a really good writer and that I should consider looking more into it. This really meant a lot to me because I actually think that a lot of my writing is way too casual (as you can tell on here) and unorganized. I really enjoy writing and I think I put a lot of my personality into it, so it felt incredibly encouraging.

Friday: I didn't do a gosh darn thing today and it felt so good. I am going to work on being more productive this weekend, though, or else I know it will creep up on me and pile up. But I woke up late, went to the Halloween store with my sister and grabbed some Harry Potter gear for her costume, we then watched Bob's Burgers and Gravity Falls (again), and later on I hung out with my friends. We watched the end of the world championships of League of Legends (which I think happened a week or so ago?), and then I played Epic Mickey for a little bit! It was nice just hanging out with friends and chilling.

Saturday:  I skyped my friend, Allison, and we talked about graduate school and I helped her a little bit with her essay that she was working on. It's always nice being able to talk to a friend. She's actually the one who turned me on to looking into Myers Briggs stuff, so we talk about that a lot, which is super fun!

Sunday: I watched The Nightmare Before Christmas for the first time today. I actually liked it! I don't think I would show it to my kids as it definitely would have been too creepy for me as a child, but overall I loved how clever Sally's character was. She always had a plan and that continued to impress me throughout the movie because we rarely see that in female characters. I wish I had seen a bit more chemistry between Jack and Sally or at least a history of them because the ending was a bit abrupt when it came to their relationship. Anyways, overall, really enjoyed it!
I also went with my friends to get a basketball ticket for our first game of the season! I hope to go to a lot of the games since it's my last year.

What I've Learned About My Personality

Good things that happened this week:
Monday: I forgot to do an assignment, but my teacher let me email it to him, so all was well there.
Tuesday: I made a funny icon for my twitter account. Here's the picture of it.

Wednesday: I discovered the fun of snapchatting Kevin Jonas.
Thursday: Despite things being stressful on this day, things seemed to work out really well for me this day. For my journalism class, I didn't HAVE to attend, so I studied for my test that was for the next class, which wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be (THANK GOD), and then for a snack I had a salami and cheese sandwich, which sounds pathetic but it was actually amazing.
Friday: I went to Scarywood, a theme park that normally goes by Silverwood, but it transforms itself during Halloween time. It was super fun! Check out my new zombie boyfriend!

Saturday: I went out to an LGBTQ friendly bar with an awesome dance floor and danced to my heart's content.

Sunday: I helped edit someone's scholarship video. He told me that he and his family really liked it, which made me really happy because we can all be our own worst critic, so it was comforting knowing other people appreciates my work. Speaking of which, I've been putting up pictures on my photography tumblr, and 6 people liked/reblogged one of my pictures! This doesn't seem like a big deal, but I've been really doubting my skills recently and just to have only a couple people like and share my work really touched me. Sometimes it can seem like there are so many talented people out there and that I could never compare to them. But I think it's important to keep in mind that if you can have one person appreciate something that you've created, that's pretty awesome. 

Like I said last post, I'm really trying to work on finishing things that I've started. Recently, I've been super invested in reading up on the Myer's Briggs Personality types. I'm the kind of person who loves taking Buzzfeed quizzes and learning about myself and reading the results and saying "wow! that's SO me!" So it comes to no surprise when I started digging around the good old Myers Briggs pages. For a while, I've been so conflicted with deciding between two personality types, and for some reason I NEEDED to know. These two types were basically both spot on, but just a couple details didn't really fit, and I felt lost. How could I not fit either perfectly?! I decided to go with ENFP, but just minus the detail that they're always late (because I am ALWAYS on time, and very very insistent on that). I decided to label myself as a "disciplined" ENFP.

I noticed, though, that I desperately was looking for a label, and was so frustrated when I didn't have one! I love taking Buzzfeed quizzes because they "tell me who I am", and this was no different. Once I DID identify with ENFP (finally, like honestly it took like weeks for me to do this), and read up as much as I could about it, I would notice things about myself that the description said. I would start to say to people, "oh yeah, I'm the kind of person who_____". But then I started to notice the flaws stated in the description. "ENFPs have a tendency to not finish things that they've started" oh god. That's me! Honestly, my family has told me this and I haven't ever done anything about it. But once it's written in words as part of my label, I wanted no part of it. I did not want this to be my downfall in my career! That's why I decided to make a change. It doesn't mean that my personality will change (although I've heard it's possible), it just means that I don't want to let my personal weaknesses have control over me.

I don't know why it's hard for me to follow through, but it just is. But I am working on it. Just this weekend I helped a kid make a video for his scholarship. And it was cool to just do it all right away and have it be done and successful. But the difference is that this was his idea, and I just executed it. That's way easier than having and creating an idea and following through. When you have your own idea, it becomes your baby, and you don't want anyone to tell you that your baby is worthless. I get scared of putting my ideas out there, so I make plans for them to happen, and then I don't for various reasons. Obviously this isn't going to be easy to get over, but it's a work in progress!

Going off of that, once I discovered my flaw, I decided to pile on a bunch of expectations for myself. I've been eating healthy, and that's awesome, but I decided that I wanted to turn it up a notch. I wanted to work out every weekday morning. Um. That's unrealistic, especially since I'd have to walk there, it'd be in the morning (a time when I'm the most lethargic and miserable), AND since winter is coming, I'd have to walk in the snow...to the gym. That's just not going to happen. I tried asking my sister to go with me, because I know for a fact I can motivate myself as long as others are there, but going by myself? Yeah, that's out of the question. I have discipline, but walking through the cold to go to the gym is just not even remotely motivating. So I've already set up myself for failure on that one (typical). The next one was to continue this blog. A long time commitment? Oh good. My favorite. I do want to continue this, though, as I think it will help me with my writing as well as just sorting out my thoughts all together. Who knows? This could be fun. My next goal was to finish the projects that I have pending and to not browse the internet or do anything pointlessly fun until they were done......well it's a good goal to have....I just, you know, gotta make it happen. Maybe now that I've written it here, it will happen.

It's just so frustrating because this past summer I told myself I was going to work a ton on projects and I just ended up working two jobs and going to summer classes. But now is the best time, more than ever, to just get creative. Why? Because "if not now, when?" (holla at my girl, Emma Watson).

I think that's a good place to end.

Following Through

Recently, I've had to tackle on more than I wanted to and that has caused a great deal of over thinking and stress. It's not that I can't handle it, because I absolutely can! It's just that I get stressed when things aren't going as well as planned and it a larger amount of time than anticipated to get things done. That's when I get frustrated and just want to give up. This, along with other things, leads to my tendency to not finish things that I started, a trend that I want to stop immediately. That's why I have awoken my blog from it's slumber of 6 months. It's been half of a year since I've written anything! And it's not like I was done with my Europe documentation...so what gives? Well this is me putting my foot down and trying to create a change in my mindset, because I firmly that people can change. So, the goal (uh-oh, time for the "new years"-like aspiration that will (hopefully not) inevitably fail) is to write something good that happened each day. Now, I won't be posting one each day because honestly that would be a waste of space for this blog, so it will be weekly. But I want to be able to have a list of good things that happened each day (as small or big as they are) for the week and then maybe a post of thoughts that I had, etc. We'll see how this goes! I'm going to aim for EITHER Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays, whichever day is the least busiest.

And so we start...

----Break From Study Abroad...Where I'm at Now---

Hey there. So obviously I haven't finished documenting my study abroad adventures, but fear not! They will be definitely going up here at some point! The past few months have been packed full of the rest of my journey of Europe, being back home working two jobs and school, and going back to Europe! I'm in my final year of college currently, but I definitely plan on bringing back this whole writing thing. Not only is it therapeutic, but it helps me practice my writing and just gets the brain going!

A couple things to note:

• My spring break trip in Ireland (one of the best weeks I've ever had) was written in a journal....that I left in my room at home, so once I get ahold of that, the study abroad posts will continue! 
• The posts that I will be publishing in the following weeks will include details of my summer and up to the present! 

Essentially I wanted to start writing again because it's a fantastic skill set to have, and it includes keeping up and following through with something that I've started. I've had a lot of things on my mind recently that I think are worth discussing here, and I also have some stories that I want to include as well! This blog is meant to be an essence of myself, both fun (silly) and serious (discussing deep topics). I hope to look back on these posts and laugh at the memories I've made during my 20's, and also think deeply about the thoughts I've developed. I think that's all I wanted to get at for now, but here's to my last year of college! I had never imagined of being at this point in my life, and I want to be able to look back at the memories I've made. I've had a great 3 years at my University, and I certainly look forward to this last year. 

Wine, wine, and more wine...

Beep boop. Another late post! What else is new?

So a couple weekends ago...the last weekend in February, I decided to stay in Florence for the weekend again. Europe has really made me appreciate and become accustomed to wine, as their cheap wine would be considered expensive in the United States. I feel like I'm just going to come home and be this pretentious wine fiend. Although I still don't know the names of them, so I guess I can't be that bad!

I'm going to make this post short as I don't exactly remember what happened this weekend as it was a month ago. On thursday night, I believe, some friends from my pensione and I went to this restaurant called "Dante's" where they give students UNLIMITED free wine (with the purchase of a meal). It was fun! My friend's friend was visiting town so it was nice to meet yet another person.

Friday, I am very certain I did absolutely nothing, which I quite enjoyed. Some days it's great to relax and not worry about anything! That night, we went out to dinner again to celebrate my friend's birthday at this nice place where about 8 of us sat at this HUGE table that looked like it was made to serve a giant! We ended up going out that night to a couple bars and a club (aimed for Americans). It was my first club experience and actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! Many girls had told me about bad experiences, but I think because I was with a group of people and we isolated ourselves in a corner, we were fine. I met another one of my friend's friends, one from Italy and another from Norway. They were very interesting to talk to, and it's cool getting to know people from different countries! They also taught us what the typical dance was like when they were at clubs and then my friends and I had to mimic them, it was so goofy but really funny!

On Saturday, I met back with my friends and their friends visiting to do a Chianti wine tour. Before we went on our tour, we stopped at Piazza Michelangelo, which has a fantastic view of the city of Florence.

 The food was AMAZING! It was simply just salami, prosciutto, cheese, and a plate of pasta, but it was so. good. and so fresh!

 I don't normally like salami, but I'll take it in Italy, yum yum! At one point we went into a butcher shop (which I almost had to leave because it looked and smelled disgusting, I swear I almost became in those couple minutes I was in there) and I tasted a piece of bread with olive oil, and I could absolutely tell the difference between good quality olive oil and not. It was such a nice, beautiful, tasteful day and weekend!

A Time for Reflection and Relaxation

This past weekend has been the first weekend in 5 weeks that I have stayed in Florence. From all the chaos that has been surrounding me with traveling, work, and school, it was something I definitely needed. At first I was concerned because I would not only be spending this weekend but next weekend as well. What was I going to do?! If I'm already having a problem staying in for a weekend in FLORENCE FREAKING ITALY, then we're going to have some big problems when I get back to the states. Boredom to the max. I was thinking about this concept this past week and how although I didn't experience culture shock when coming here, I know for a fact that I will encounter reverse culture shock. What am I going to do every weekend (if I'm not working, which I probably will be)? Then some people came up with a couple ideas. Before, we never considered to find cheap flights and do day trips around the United States. I can't believe I'm already thinking about this trip ending (with 2ish more months ahead of me) but I am. Once this study abroad journey ends though, our thirst for travel doesn't need to. Keeping money on my mind, if I can do trips to different countries during the weekend, why can't I do that with different states or cities? This may be something I'm going to have to keep in mind for the future.

So on Thursday night I got to stay in Florence! I didn't have to, I got to! I went with some friends from my pensione (which is where we live. I don't know what it means, it's just what we call it) to dinner. It turned out to be a really nice evening, so it was nice getting to walk around the part of Florence that wasn't my typical route to school. We crossed the bridge across the river (beautiful, of course) and made our way to a nice, quiet plaza where we enjoyed dinner and talked mainly about our childhood. It was not only a new memory created, but nostalgia at the same time. Afterwards we got some gelato and strolled back home for a quiet weekend.

Oh yeah, random thought that included this week: On Tuesdays people in our program always go out because their classes are later (I don't usually because my first class is at 9 and I like sleep), but this past Tuesday I went out to a place that had a Beatles cover band. They were actually pretty good!

Back to my weekend...

On Friday I went with a group from my school on a pilgrimage to Assisi, where St. Francis came from. Although we did a bit of walking, the trip didn't feel chaotic because it was a journey for peace and reflection. I talked a lot with my friends, but the entire trip itself felt very quiet and calm. This was such a nice change from the crazy "go go go mode" that I'm always on during the weekends. I think what I loved most about Assisi was how green the grass was and just how beautiful and serene the city felt.

We had a couple questions on the bus ride there to reflect about. What I thought about most were two things: not letting jealousy or anger get in the way and to treat my body right. Two very different things, but both having to do with making myself a better person. 

The first thought has to do with considering other people's successes as my own failures. These do not and should not correlate, yet many people do. We grow up constantly comparing ourselves to others, and some of our parents may do the same. "Well, I bet ___ has a job. Why don't you?" It's the lingering thoughts that other people are succeeding that nag at our feelings of failure. Although this may motivate some people, it may feel like defeat to others. Sometimes it's best to take a step back, take a deep breath, and do your absolute best to focus on the best version of yourself that you would like to be.

This goes onto the other point that I was reflecting on. First, mind and soul, now body. We only have one of them, so why the hell do we treat them so poorly? As a possible addict of the internet (admitting is the first step haha), a sedentary lifestyle comes with that, and that is not good. Exercise, as strenuous and tiring as it may feel, is good for us. When we treat our bodies the way they should be treated, we feel a lot better. I know people who were on a "paelo" diet, which is essentially eating meats, fruit, vegetables, and non-processed food. As a result from this, she said that she physically felt a lot better. It's just something we need to all think about. 

On Saturday, I slept in because I haven't done that in AGES, and it was nice! I didn't really do anything that day, but for dinner I went out with a group of us from my pensione and that was a lot of fun, because it was kind of a group that I may not have hung out with had we not been living together, which is awesome! That's what I love about this program, is the fact that I have gotten to meet so many people that I may not have met otherwise. At dinner we had the idea of using the unicef app at dinner so we wouldn't be on our phones and we would be helping people in need! If you don't know what the app is, basically you go to a website where as long as you don't touch your phone, every 10 minutes donates a day of water to a person in need from a sponsor. It was really great because we all had our phones down and we all really engaged in conversation! 

Sunday was more or less a study day, but this weekend overall was so beneficial and I'm glad I stayed and I looked forward to next weekend.