Hello Mother, Hello Father, I am Smoking...

Make that "I am second-hand smoking." No, I don't like the smoke, but after years of staying far away from it, a few nights of smoke-filled rooms is worth it for the social aspect. It's also just one more way I'm learning to tear down my comfort zone, to get rid of that attitude of everything must be just the way I want it.

We often think we can control everything in our lives; I think Americans have that "God" mentality more than most people... Why do we put up a big fence around our home? Well, to control our space and keep it the way we made it to be (we forget that we aren't the ones who made anything or own anything...it's all on loan to us while we're alive the way I see it). I know that I need to completely remove these qualities in myself if I ever hope to be the person I need to be--for whatever purpose I am meant to have.

My roommate had a dinner party tonight so she cooked spaghetti with a very yummy sauce of olives, celery, tomato sauce, guests brought great wine and gelato. It was a fun group and good time--and particularly nice to have people here after the past week and a half when I was the only person here (my roommate had to go home for a week since someone in her family died).

This was pretty amusing, so I have to share. One of her guy friends came and within 10 minutes of meeting me asked me out on a date. He didn't want to accept no as an answer. So I shared with him my philosophy on dating. He responded, "Well then we can just be friends." Nice. I wish I could have been this straight-forward in my younger years, it would have saved a lot of wasted time. Really, as interesting as it might be to check out the dating scene, this is not the town for it. (The cool little guide book I blogged about earlier today had a whole section about dating...it helped me appreciate what the scene is all about.)

In other news, it's true what people say, full immersion language classes are exhausting. After class this afternoon, my head hurt--literally, from being stretched in every which direction. This was day #4 of class, and I can already tell my level of comprehension is way up from this time last week and I'm thinking/reading a bit faster (I still have an incredibly long way to go). Vocab is sort of floating in, it's not hard for me to remember words after learning them once or twice since it's in context and I am stressed to learn. It's a super fun pasttime to look up words and check out idioms--even though these scare me a lot since it's just so much to learn.