una bella realizzazione

What did Erica do this weekend? Well, let me tell you. She had big plans and was thinking of either spending the weekend at Lake Como or making a trip to Parma and Siena. I agree, it sounds amazing. BUT what did she do instead? She spent 44 of 48 hours inside her apartment, being lazy and stalking people on Facebook—a very interesting life, indeed.

And then it hit me. I’m in Italy. ITALY. Not in America, but Italy. It’s full of so much history, so many beautiful cities, so many beautiful people men, and of course, food. After telling a friend back at Brown that I hadn’t left bed, she told me, “girl you are in Italy, what is your life?” Greattttt question.

This got me thinking and I realized—perhaps a little late—that I needed to hit the pause button and reevaluate:

1. I’m in Italy and I should be taking advantage of it. Time to get my travel on.
2. My time spent on social platforms needs to be reduced tenfold. At its core, Facebook is silly. While being able to follow people’s lives from thousands of miles away is nifty, I would say a good 80% of what I see on FB is stuff in which I am completely uninterested (though I admit that I am equally guilty at posting the same sort of things that I criticize). For the sake of preserving friendships, I won’t go into detail… My point is that I know that I can be so much more productive (and perhaps smarter?) by limiting my time spent on the Internet.
3. Food is the devil. Anyone who remotely knows me knows that my self-control level is close to zero, but I realize that this needs to change. It won’t be easy, but I’m going to jump on this baby and make it work! 
4. I need to introduce manners into my vocabulary. Yeah. 

It really shouldn’t have taken me this long to realize these very elementary points, but eh, it is what it is. I’m 4 days short of being here for a month, and with classes beginning next week, I’m going to use my time here to work on bettering myself—well, I’m going to try.

I suppose that I could leave FB altogether, but it would complicate my form of communication with friends and family back in the USA. That being said, I’m still going to use it to post photos to keep my family and interested friends (?) in the loop. I might also throw some leisure (stalking) time in there, but it will be very minimal relative to the past. As for the blogs, it's a requirement for the program so these babies aren't going anywhere. 

I hope you're proud of me, mama and papa!

Quick update on Italy: everything is great. I think my speaking skills are improving quickly, but I guess we'll see when classes begin on Monday! Italy has been invading all aspects of my life but I liiiiike it. :)