Just because you're a thin woman doesn't mean that your life is any better than an overweight woman.

I was watching a show on TV called "Supersize vs Superskinny" and an obese woman said something AMAZING!!! "Just because you're thin doesn't mean that your life is better than mine." How true? This show comes to the US from across the pond. where an average size is 12 US. Here, in the US, that is border line plus size!!! WTF AMERICA?!?!?! Since I was little, I have felt like a failure, ugly, unwanted, and as though I would never be able to be bautiful until I was stick thin like the popular girls in my school. Has I grown up in the UK, I may have turned out differently... just think, I would think that my size 14 sometimes 16 was beautiful. I would feel pretty BEAUTIFUL!!! I mean, one of the first things that I bought for my apartment was a weight scale... and I hate seeing it because I know that everytime that I step onto it, I will feel badly about myself. But without it, I won't face up to how my eating is affecting my health.
I know that I am beautiful because I am a child of God and even though I abuse food because of my weight and the feelings that have surrounding my weight because of food... every time that I walk around thin women I feel morbidly obese. What has American or mass media done to me? done to us?! My whole life I've felt held back because of my weight... I've been shy because I feel fat. I know that I need to lose about 60-50 pounds in order to be at my ideal weight for my height and age, but I wouldn't mind being back at my lightest weight which was 180. What's so wrong with a curvacious woman with meat on her bones? "No man wants to sleep with a snake." - A Land Remembered I'm ready to just be how genetics made me. I want to be like the French women are. They ask one question about their weight: "How do my jeans fit? Still comfy? Yes."
So buck up lovely ladies and don't feel like you have to be a size -5 just to be beautiful. Screw that! Life is too short and too precious to waste on being obsessed! Being concerned and watchful is permitted. But eat that piece of cake if you haven't had any sweeties all week. ENJOY YOUR LIFE!!! GOD GAVE IT TO YOU FOR A REASON.

It's hard to be on the outside looking in; especially when it's your dream.

That is how I have found myself feeling. Irrational, I know, but there my mind stays. I look at people laughing and having fun and doing things that I want to do while I am at the library or at home studying my life away... and I find myself thinking, "this most definitely is not the way that I planned for this to be going." Alas, there it is. And here I am living it... will fun ever find its way into my everyday routine or will I remain as I always have been? a lone girl with her books to keep her company when she begins to feel lonely.
I remember when I moved here, I fantasized about about all of the great people that I would meet and all of the fun that I would have and those fantasies are in stark contrast to the reality that I am now faced with living.
But here is to being positive. Here is to being patient that God will help me work it out. Here is to figuring it out before it is all over...

Excuse the absence

Please do... I know that I promised that I would have daily updates from my journal about my trip, but my normal life takes more of my time than I remembered it taking. Odd, isn't it? As soon as I catch up to my life, I'll be back to posting more stories and more photos and more experiences that will hopefully make you want to be an adventurer! <3

"A witch or sexy kitten are the only two options for women."

It's pretty much true. When the world looks at women - the only way that it knows how to: superficially - all that it sees are witches and sexy kittens. Could it be that Sex and the City, even for Christian women, is a fountain of truth? I don't mean to pose rhetorical questions to cyber space; but it begged to be asked. And then there are two types of women... cute and hot. Why are there no labels in the attractiveness like smart, funny, sweet, adventurous? Other descriptive words that don't include superficial qualities. This may be an undeveloped idea, but it's just a surface thought provoked by the Sex and the City movie. That's all.

Blood and Honey: the true story

 

The word Balkan comes from two Turkish words. Bal: honey  Kan: blood. And being in Mostar and in Sarajevo you would understand how fitting that name is. How truly it describes the region. Bosnia i Herzegovina is still filled with blood and honey. The people are sweet yet filled with pain. And the land is beautiful, but filled with the blood of its' people. If only you had been there to see it. Oh, I wish that words could make you feel what my eyes saw. I wish that these photos meant to you what they mean to me.

Everytime we (my class and me) went somewhere that I knew there had been conflict only 10-15 years prior to our arrival, I desperately searched the buildings and landscapes for signs of destruction: namely shell holes. I was forced to wonder during all of my searching if I was doing something wrong... looking for only the open wounds rather than looking for the signs of healing. I felt strangely fascinated by all of the wholes and then... I felt... guilty. Guilty for wanting to see it all and feeling vaguely disappointed about the covered and filled in holes. Should I be ashamed of myself? I'm not sure. Should I know how to feel all by myself?

It was an alien situation for me. I didn't want to see the destruction, but I did; I was happy to see the repair and the progress. It means that the city is healing - that the people are slowly learning to forget the pain. This is what I want to do with the life that God has given me.

Kraljević: Croatian for Prince

Miroslav Kraljević
Ruski Ballet, 1912
Pen, Ink/ Paper

What I learned from my study abroad experience, be it in Croatia, Bosnia i Herzegovina, Montenegro, or on the Aer Lingus overnight flight from Dublin to New York is that American suck at being gentlemen. AMERICAN MEN NEED TO STUDY MAN-SKILLS ABROAD!!!

Never in all my life - with the exception of my brother and one other guy from the past - I have never been treated like such a lady! Men were so willing to help in any way! The American that I sat next to on my Dubrovnik to Dublin flight was no help at all; but the Irish gentleman that sat next to me on Aer Lingus flight EI 109 in seat 39 K (next to 39 H - yes, I went there) named Mark Hensley blew my mind with his gentlemanly behavior. Not only was he cute, he was sweet by helping me conquer the touch screen TV and by getting my backpack out of the overhead bin for me AND helping me put it on! I couldn't believe it!!! No American man has ever been so helpful without it being in his job description! WHERE ARE THESE MEN IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I want one! The men at Hotel Peristil and all of the hostels that I stayed wouldn't let me carry my own bags or do anything. Coming from America where this never happens, to a country where it always happens made me feel like a lady. I felt like I was living in the 1950's where a lady was treated like a lady and her luggage wasn't rummaged through and her delicates were never seen.

As anti-feminist as this may sound, I liked being treated like a lady... even if it means that I am seen as the weaker sex, I liked it. A lot! And I can't wait to go back to Europe! I can't wait to pack my suitcase and get out there and explore the world and not always be treated like a lady. That's the risk I'm willing to take in this adventure that I call my wonderful life. <3

Proper English... we are dumb without it.

http://ereads.com/2011/07/can-one-typo-ruin-a-book.html