A history

1. China
2. Russia...? (I remember being very into my Royal Diaries book about the Romanovs, and the Russian Olympians during the Beijing Games in 2008, and (because I was still writing stories at that age) naming the main characters Tatiana and Alexandra to purposely sound Russian. So yes, Russia as well.)
3. Italy (on a low degree, just because I adored Lucca and the language. I wouldn't necessarily call it cultural obsession on the level of what I do now.)
4. Japan (for a short period of time. Mostly because my friends in 7th grade were inspiring me, and I liked Death Note and Ouran and going out for dim sum (not Japanese, I know).)
5. India

Now what? I think I'm a mix of India + Puerto Rico + Botswana + Barbados. Jajajjaja, I love it.

Motivation

I'm such a perfectionist when it comes to aesthetic stuff. Like honestly, even my blog has to look so perfect, and it doesn't now, which is freaking me out a little bit right now. But other things in life are also freaking me out right now, so I guess it kind of makes sense.

In December I made myself some January resolutions, just for that month. I went veg, I didn't have dessert, I ran at least 3x a week, and I had goals of meditating and writing in my journal every day. Which was good, and somehow I felt motivated to do it, but when I try to do that again it just doesn't work. Like, losing weight, say. Sure, yes, I want to, but what for? I have no reason to do it. I have no one to impress, and I myself won't be impressed by it because there's always something else for me to be insecure about. So why should I?

I was beginning to get a little worried about constantly wasting all my time on Skype, OK, a lot worried. But I almost think what I'm doing right now is worse: stressing about what I should be doing and how I'm running out of time and all the things I should be achieving post-camp, because god knows I'm not doing anything with myself right now. All my friends are doing stuff because their parents are forcing them to. My parents aren't like that and they want me to take the initiative by myself but I have no drive, for whatever reason. I just want it to be like it was earlier this year when I still had that part of me that I don't have now, you know what I mean, and I was happy, at least. I know I'm romanticizing it, but I read my old journal entries every night and it's always talking about how I can't wait to go back to school on the weekends because school was actually fun for me. And the weekends were too, because I was always hanging out with different friends, doing different shit, and it was fun. And I was running at least 5x a week, usually every day after school and one weekend day, because I WANTED TO.

It's pretty upsetting.

Africa, etc.

I was feeling like change, so here we are. New format, new background, new link, OUAY ('yeah' in French, jaja). I'm also extremely annoyed with the fact that Blogger is blocked on my school laptop. It's not like it's detrimental to our education.

Just out of curiosity, I wonder how many kids in school even have a blog. On here or Wordpress or whatever. I made one on Weebly, inspired by Olivia and because it was accessible on that damn computer. But I have absolutely no idea how it works. I wish she could teach me... I wish we could be in the Anatolia and she could teach me... And Minky could keep watch and hum some of her Setswana songs in the background...

De repente, I'm into Africa and the Caribbean islands. I'm reminded of Olivia, how she told me how I was the only other person she'd gotten to know with the "culture crisis" thing going on, and how her thing was Africa, mainly Ghana. I can totally understand why, Africa just has some kind of poetry or something to it, some simple earthiness and beauty. I think of Delphina when I think of Africa and I want to write to her, she's just so sweet and quietly graceful and all.

And the Carib, pueeees I've always been a Bob Marley fan, but on our trip last month I loved the culture of Belize and Roatan, Honduras (maybe not when we were walking around in the middle of the street in some pretty sketchy areas of Belize City as the only non-locals, but it resonates with me now, jaja). I bought a small oil painting of a woman standing in a doorway with a basket on her head and shrubbery behind her from a man with dreads painting right there on the street, which I love. And of course I love Krista's culture in Barbados, although it's totally different than Belize. They all just feel kinda warm to me, I don't know. I like it. It's friendly and I feel like I could just laugh with these people that I've never met. That's just the vibe I'm getting.