well i am just awful. i spend the entire year dreading the day parker turns a year older and i miss the thing. i swear i thought her birthday as the 23rd for some reason. just called and left a wild message on aunt kathis machine that went something like this:
"hey parker doodle, it's eleanor...i know in america your birthday was yesterday, but in italy its a special type of year here where they miss a day, so technically it's still the 21st in italy..."
the italian across from me, my friend thomas, laughed and put his head in his hands. he was like, "oh my god, that was so desperate, i'm going to pretend i didnt understand what you just told that little girl!"
now the italians are singing "happy birthday day dear eleanor's cousin, whose birthday was yesterday".
so sad.
aw, my italian friend, sensing how sadish i was, just put on "Georgia" over the loudspeaker...


CUT TO MONDAY MORNING:
christ alive, i just had to give a speech to a small group in class, in italian of course. was bizarre. i had no idea what we were suppossed to even be talking about...something about an "objective", but i didnt understand if that was suppose to mean an our objective, like somethnig we wanted in life, or if the argument was suppose to be the objective to make someone agree with us, or i mean, i don't know.
the teacher put us into small groups, and luckily mine consisted of my friend gabriele (who is like a godsend, totally wonderful to me, helpful with my italian, etc), angel face farm boy, the boy from rome, some other kid whose name i dont know but hes always around and nice to me too, and some boy from last semester who is cute and silly. so the group starts going around giving their little speeches. as far as i can gather, they dont really know what we're suppose to be talking about either...one of them talks about beer in america. one of them talks about soccer. one of them gives a recipe for a cocktail. the boy from rome talks about how rome is the best city (which was my first idea...). then its my turn. i commence to give the stupidest effing speech ever, the basic idea of which is why i want to live in italy, but i'm speaking like i'm 4 or something. when i'm done its sort of quiet and the boys turn their heads a bit. angel face farm boy speaks up, and asks me, with a sweet encouraging smile, if it's "hot or cold" in this "place" that i'm talking about. "hot," i reply. and its over. was retarded. am literally bridget jones attempting to go to school in a foreign land. lord, almighty...
anyway, whatever. am goig to venice now because yesterday there was "bora", which means "strong wind" and it was crazy outside so i couldnt go. but today...warmth!