The Countdown Blog...

Well it's been an interesting couple of weeks. Giant life fail in the internet department. Thank you Italy...I'm so glad that when I have 3G service skype doesn't work but as soon as I run out it decides to actually work perfectly...yeah that's really awesome thanks. Also, I have survived a bus strike, 2 rainstorms, and just the general stupidity of Rome, so that's looking up. My apartment has however been taken over by ants. Stupid little bastards they get everywhere and like honestly they're in my bed too. I get that we like this whole exploration and pioneering new frontiers thing, but honestly there is no food to be found here.

On the awesome countdown front, there is officially 15 days until by birthday...for those of you who want to send me a card...hint hint...you should probably get on that. I'm not particularly sure that being 22 is really going to be any different than 21 but hey here's hoping for a great and slightly less emotionally traumatizing year.

As I'm sitting here on Amanda's bed stealing internet I find myself thinking through all the exciting stuff I have coming up and everything that I plan to do. So first is Mallorca. Little island off the coast of Spain. Plan is to get in as many dives as possible for Amanda while we're there and I'm planning on screwing around with carrying a stage cylinder. I think it'll be super fun and well get to have a beachy girls holiday....margaritas anyone? Right well it's only 24 days until that and then we've got Amanda's graduation when I get back. Wohoooo I get to meet her parents mwahahaha. (She should probably be afraid)

Ok so after that awesome and fun adventure I am off on my own personal adventure to the UK! And let me tell you after dealing with other people and their travel plans for the past couple months I am so so glad that I get to be in charge of my own adventure. AHHHHH this is so exciting. Pretty sure I already filled you all in on the Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Liverpool, and best of all I GET TO SEE HELEN AGAIN!!!! Yes strange/bad things happen when me and her are together but whatever I GET TO SEE HELEN!!!!!!!! And go diving...I mean like diving is cool but HELEN!!!!! Ok right well THAT point is made....

And after that I'm headed to Egypt. Ok so maybe THAT plan isn's as perfect as I'd like it to be, but welllll I'M MOVING TO EGYPT!!! I'm so freaking excited about this and to get to go diving and work again. And it's the Red Sea and well frankly I can die of happiness.

Lastly as I sit here trying to figure out why my house is making funny noises. I just thought you should all know that Christmas is only 247 days away. And that might seem far away, but if life goes according to plan I'll be flying to Hawaii for Christmas to meet my family there. Hopefully it'll be fun.

Right and also on the list of important realizations for the week, I pity anyone who actually tries to date me. Frankly, I have no interest or energy in giving a shit about anyone other than Amanda, Helen, or Steve. It's just soooo difficult to expend enough energy to care. Maybe someday I'll find someone I care enough about but honestly I can't even be arsed enough to reply to text messages from guys more than a couple times a day...I can't imagine caring that much about someone right now. (Side note:not completely true but the only person I feel that way about is not someone I want to feel that way about)

Right and moving riiiiiiiight along...my FRIENDS marathon is progressing brilliantly. I am now on season 6. Mwahahaha. God I love this show. This is ALL Amanda's fault. Well cheers to everyone and the adventures will commence again shortly. Starting with Santa Croce with all the Italians this weekend. *Sigh* more Italian divers. You have no idea what it's like til you try it....but pictures will follow! Oh and I get to use my new princess crown hood!!!!

Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!

In case you were wondering the title is from Alice in Wonderland...fitting I suppose given my obsession with the book. This has been quite an eventful week. Firstly I've officially booked my trip to the UK! I'll be spending time in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, and visiting friends in Leicester and Whitehaven. While the real highlight is DEFINITELY Whitehaven to see the lovely Helen I am also going to dive Scapa Flow. If you are giving me confused looks that's totally cool. Scapa Flow is a body of water in Northern Scotland in the Orkney Islands. There's a super awesome site HERE that has 3D images and the stories of all the wrecks. See that map on the left and that little "A" point up there? Yeah that's Scapa Flow, and where I'll be spending a week. I'm obviously only a little excited. Also, on the calendar is a rescue diver course, 2 advanced open water courses, possibly a couple DSDs, and a trip to Mallorca! AND 4 days after I get back from the UK I'm off to Egypt. I'm super excited!

I am also a stressed out mess, par normal, and have managed to clean and completely rearrange my bedroom! I really need my maid to come though. I never realized how completely dependent on her I was until she left for 2 weeks....come back to meeeeeeee! Apparently, despite the fact that I hate the nosey chain smoking lunatic I need her. Also, it's 3:30am. Why am I awake? Oh yeah...I'm a stressed out emotional mess and I cure that with cleaning and organizing...plus I'm out of fins to draw on and dishes to do. Seems like a perfectly acceptable reason to me.

View from my bed....so pretty and clean!

And now for the slightly more serious side of this blog. I'm sure you've all heard about the Boston Marathon bombing. If you haven't by now, you're actually dug further under a rock than me and my mother are soooo you might wanna work on that. THESE pictures will throw you. How do you tell someone who has dedicated so much time to running that they might never even be able to walk again? But that's not even the worst part. The worst part was not knowing who had set off the bombs. Me and Amanda were talking about it, and we realized that at this point in the US's history it's a pretty fair toss up between terrorist and mental case. And I'm not trying to draw attention away from the pain or the loss that has been felt today, but think about it for a minute. The US has fallen so far to the point that we are sitting here discussing if the latest tragedy is a terrorist or a mental case. Our world is truly going to pieces and we can't do anything but sit back and watch. I can tell you God has a plan or use this as a threshold to launch on how the US is going to hell, but that just doesn't seem fitting. There's no soapbox to be stood on for disasters like these, and I think so much less of those who try to find one. I'll leave it at they families and friends and everyone who is some way affected by the events in Boston today are in my thoughts and prayers, but thats the least I can do for now. I'll just sit here and be angry at the assholes that are capable of doing this to people and feeling terrible for the victims and their families. What is the world coming to? Don't answer that...I don't want to know.

A legit cafe in Italy?

Ok so for the record, my lovely friends living in Rome, Fetrinelli has a almost Starbucks like cafe upstairs and its brilliant. It's ALMOST like being in a Starbucks again, sans functional internet and crappy music, but I'll take what I can get. And in return I am delivering a bit of a deep blog today with crap I've been thinking over for a while now.

I know I am really open about just about everything. You will find out anything about my life whether or not you want to know, but people who know me better know I glaze over sometimes. There are times when I'm content to just sit by myself, or stare out a window. I don't know how to cope or what to feel and I put up this impenetrable wall so I can sort out my emotions. Especially if you hurt my feelings, it's quite difficult to insult of offend me, but when it does happen it takes me a while to sort it out. I know why I do, but I'm not 100% sure that any of my friends understand. I can attempt to give you a bit of an idea, but really its such a complicated shit fest im not even sure a therapist could deal with this, oh trust me they've tried but there's bigger issues in my life that we're just not going to go near.

So for those of you who aren't aware I was raised in a cult, and when I say cult I don't mean like we believe in vampires and aliens and shit like that, it was a legitimately emotionally damaging situation. I don't blame my parents at all for this, in fact I think that it actually provided me with the structure in my childhood that I needed in order to function and there was a lot of great things that came out of it. The main problem though is that I was told during the first 14 years of my life that this was life and this was the way it was supposed to be. This controlling and emotionally manipulative situation was how the world is supposed to function. I was taught that all these other families and people had problems and that I needed to not go near them, that if you weren't 100% with us you were wrong and going to hell, and that personal thought was WRONG. There was a way it was supposed to be and you did not deviate from that. Ok that's great and all, but that doesn't really fit into any form of integration with the rest of the world so the obvious solution presented itself. We didn't integrate. We didn't have friends outside of church which was ok, we spent 5 or so days a week at church so it was essentially our life anyways. But the boundaries just weren't there. We weren't individual families, we were all one family and punishment could be administered by any adult. The goal was to teach me how to behave perfectly no matter who was around. Well if you are reading this I'm gonna assume you know me at least a little and are fully aware of the fact that trying to control me or even figure me out is a long lost cause. So while my mother understood me, as much as she was allowed to, that doesn't mean that any of the other adults did. I have a lot of really hurtful memories from that time in my life and honestly I still carry them with me and probably always will.

When the cult broke up I was left as an extremely confused 13 year old kid. Complete with braces and a perm and everything else horrible in the middle. I had no reference for emotions. Sure I knew people could hurt you, but I was also taught that I was supposed to allow them too because they knew better than me. The end of middle school and high school was one of the hardest times in my life. I wanted to be like everyone else and had no idea how. My mom told me I was normal, I was too young for the cult to have affected me. I just needed to get on with my life, make new friends. But it really wasn't that simple. I had no idea what normal even was! I could honestly be talked into ANYTHING because I assumed it was normal. I trusted everyone, I mean isn't that what I had been taught, that no matter who they were if they were in your life you were supposed to believe them 100%. This in turn led to terrible self confidence issues. Why was I never good enough for these people? Why would people want to hurt me? I didn't understand and honestly I still sorta don't. I still believe everyone has my best intentions at heart and occasionally do deserve a solid slap upside the head.

Well let's fast forward to present day. So so much of this part of my life affects me now. I gravitate toward teaching and kids because I understand them. They trust the adults in their life, and especially as a dive instructor I know that my students in the water trust me, and that in my mind is the hierarchy of how life is supposed to be. Everything makes sense to me in situations where there is control and submission. That definitely wasn't supposed to sound as bondage-y as it came out, but the more I think about it I think this explains why I'm attracted to the people and men that I am. To my fucked up mind every situation has a dominating factor and a submissive one. And given the fact that I'm convinced everything I do is wrong it sorta explains why I tend to just roll over and take whatever. Well that is changing. I am done making stupid decisions just for others opinions. Making decisions I know are wrong in order to get approval from those around me. I am constantly groveling for the positive opinions of others and that's not healthy.

Moving on from what you know

“Where there is desire, there is going to be a flame. Where there is a flame, someone’s bound to get burned. But just because it burns doesn’t mean you’re gonna die, you gotta get up and try, try, try..."

Just sorta summed up my sappy feelings at the moment and I had to post them somewhere. Definitely one of my favorite songs at the moment.

Right so as I believe most of you are aware, I am a proud holder of a one way ticket to Hurghada, Egypt. Ok I know you are all very worried, but I have a couple thoughts on this matter. Firstly, I don't settle well. I believe that most of you are aware of my inability to stay doing one thing for more than a year or 2. I think this has to do with the fact that I've never found anything that I passionately love, and that keeps me engaged. I believe that diving might be the thing that grounds me for the rest of my life I am never so happy or peaceful as when I'm diving, but I also think that it won't require me to stay in one place. Italy has been truly great, but it has been almost 2 years now and I am done. I have a love hate relationship with this dang country. And yeah my life would so not be complete without Amanda in it, but it's really time to move on. I read somewhere recently that it takes 18 months to fully adjust to a country and at that point you either love it or hate it and can decide whether or not you can hang in there for the long term. I have examined my life in Italy and frankly no, I cannot do this anymore. They are disorganized, inefficient, and as a majority downright stupid (I back up this thought with the proof that they actually re-elected Berlusconi). Ok ok I know what you are thinking, Egypt isn't going to be any better, but you know what? It is. Egyptians don't pretend they have their shit together. They know they're a disorganized mess and if they want something done they just do it, because frankly, no one is going to stop them.

Secondly, Egypt is not as bad as you all think. In fact the whole of Northern Africa is muslim (in case you missed that) and the way western media portrays the issues there are SO exaggerated and at times completely untrue. When I went to Sudan earlier this year, we had a 24 hour layover in Cairo and so did the group of Romanians that were traveling with us. Supposedly the day we were there, there was some huge riot in Tahrir Square. The problem is, we drove right by it, and nothing was going on and the Romanians were there and actually have pictures of the empty square. I guess what I'm trying to say is that a large part of what you read isn't true. And I realize that a lot of people are fearful for my safety, but what you experience when you visit verses what the media portrays is just so so different. I'm not using this as an excuse to be stupid or make silly decisions, but I am also not an idiot and Hurghada is also a tourist city. I have friends there, and its not that difficult to buy a ticket out of there if I don't want to stay anymore.

On that note, it's been too long since I've been diving! It's been like almost 3 weeks...I'm starting to shrivel without water...save meeeeee....on the to do list for the next couple weeks: My Birthday! Amanda's rescue course, possibly diving at Tor Paterno, diving at Porto Ercole, maybe Santa Croce, Mallorca with Amanda!!!!!! Amanda's graduation, and uhmm I'm sure a couple other adventures!!! But for now enjoy my incredibly stupid scuba diving comics.....

I think I suck at this...

Life, Love, Blogging, etc.

I honestly feel like a directionless mess at the moment. Ok that's not completely true, I do sort of have a plan at the moment. It all fell into place last night with Amanda and I'm so so excited about it. First off let me say that Helen being here was quite possibly the best weekend of my life. Sudan wins for best week, Easter wins for best weekend. I cannot even begin to describe the hilarity of what occurred  but I can officially say I made it to the Vatican for Easter. I also managed to get epically sick...I guess being out until 4 am in the pouring rain might do that to you. Right well I am now teaching an EFR/Nitrox course on Saturday, diving for May Day at Tor Paterno, piecing together a rescue course for Amanda between the pool and Porto Ercole, and Mallorca with Amanda at the end of May!!! After that it's Amanda's graduation and then off to Egypt.

Right see that's another point. I am now officially headed to Egypt. Sorry mom, sorry dad, hold onto your seats but this is happening. I am so incredibly excited and the ticket is getting bought this weekend. I'm going to go with, hey I could be telling you I was pregnant or had another tattoo! Ok I think I actually had something worthwhile to say here, but it eludes me.

Oh by the way can I please just add for the sake of my mother that I have no intention of dating and/or marrying an Egyptian. In fact at the moment I hate men in general. They are over dramatic children who cause problems with everything they do. I mean honestly WHY do I need them?! On the flip side can someone please maybe find me one that I don't absolutely hate and I can get married and have a cute little house and maybe a dog (me and Amanda are both really big fans of this dog thing) and maybe eventually a few little mini Jo's to terrorize the planet. But other than that MEN NEED TO DIE...I hate them...I'm done whining now.

OOOOOO in other news my apartment is being over run by ants. However, as Momo put it...I went all Jedi on their ass and cleaned my kitchen and they are going away. I was however about to die today because there's nothing to eat in my cupboard and I haven't been to the supermarket in weeks....and then I realize I have every ingredient for my favorite food on the planet!!! mac no cheese!!!! So I am now going to have a couple bowls of happiness and return to my cough syrup induced coma.

I am however noticing that I suck at blogging consistently. There's just so much going on!! I'm just sick and exasperated. So I will content myself sitting here with my new princess crown hood and drawing on my fins and BCD. Both of which by the way are now adorable.