Drumroll...

The inevitable has occurred.

Everyone: let us welcome the newest reader of my blog. Mine own mother.

Since coming to Rome, my blog has been an area of contention with my mom. I expect she found it because when I told her I was going to start trafficking drugs here, she did a frantic search on google for what pharmaceutical company I was going to enlist in my little project. And that is when she came across here.

So sorry to everyone who ordered all that heroin. I’m afraid we’ve been found out.

For a while, I seriously considered discontinuing this small endeavor altogether. “This small endeavor” being my blog. However, I see no reason to do this. What I write in school goes something like:


Creative opening sentences. Thesis. Creative opening topic sentence. Supporting evidence. Tie together. Creative opening topic sentence. Supporting evidence…and so on and so forth.

In other words:

Boring. Boring thesis. Boring. Boring boring boring boring. I really think Adam Smith was pretty naive to think that humans will only do what’s good for them. Boring boring boring. Boring. Boring.

Besides, telephone conversations have been EVER SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING. They usually go something like:

Mom: Hello, how are you?
Self: Fine, how are you?
Mom: Good. About your blog…

I think it’s really brought us together. It’s a win-win situation all around. My mother is exposed to fine, substantial literature, and I get the free services of the harshest critic that exists on the face of this earth.

Which brings me around to my next point. Obviously, a critic’s job is to critique, and the biggest issue that’s been going on is my use of swear words on this blog. Namely, that I even know what they mean, because good people’s brains are supposed to automatically bleep them out when they hear it in every day conversation and substitute the word “beautiful,” “golden,” or "fabulous and perfumed" instead of it.

So. I have decided to limit my use of all those four letter words. Or three letter words. Or 8 letter words. Because really, she has a point: it’s ever so much fun to call someone a “cursed, rotting, good for nothing, large-eared, wide hipped moon-faced donkey” than simply an “ass.”

(I guess it's pretty sad that one of the only people interested in this is my mom, but whatever)

There we go! On to the usual program.

Today I bought new shampoo and conditioner. For everyone, this might seem like a pretty normal purchase, but for me, it still brings about a sort of cheap thrill that I am buying new shampoo and after one single use, my hair will be brilliantly shiny and ever so strong. Instead of tying one mere not in my hair like in all those Pantene Pro-V commercials, I will be able to tie 3! Maybe 4!

(Nevermind that my hair is all of 5 inches long…)

This, I think, started in elementary school when every time I got new shoes and wore them to school for the first time, I thought I was going to be the most popular person in school.

Guess what. That quick-fix method DOES NOT WORK. I never became the cat’s pajamas among the kids, and I continued asking for teacher’s addresses over the summer so I could send them postcards.

Upon coming here, we had about 8 handbooks thrown at us. I don’t remember in which one it was, but one of them had a section about how to be a young woman in Rome. It had something about walking with your head up and paying attention to what other Roman women wear. In addition to encouraging a ginormous shopping spree, I think this was also supposed to encourage an entire change in your outlook on life as well.

On the street I live, walking “unconfidently,” namely, with your head down, focusing on your feet, would pretty much confidently guarantee you falling into a foot high pile of dog…excrement. So I get by looking confident while EVERYONE knows I am anything but confident. I am a brunette. I am Hungarian. I am many things, but confident I am not.

So it could seem that this confidence one allegedly has when she’s walking with her head up and the knowledge that something bad is up the road is one and the same. Right? It’s got to have some sort of affect on your attitude knowing there is a pile of poo 3 feet ahead that’s the size of a St. Bernard. However, as I have discovered, there is a significant difference.

What I’m trying to say is that there’s been quite a bit going on that I’ve got to sort out. I’ve always known there is no shampoo that will automatically make my hair awesome, and I’ve always also known that the next issue of Glamour will not have the key to make myself unconditionally satisfied with me, but there’s always be a tiny bit of hope that maybe, just MAYBE it will be different this time around. But I can’t get out of my utter lack of confidence easily by looking ahead for all the trouble I know I’m going to run into. This time I’m speaking figuratively.

What these summer programs are good for are that you meet more people. And everyone has something you can learn from them, good or bad, so that means that the more people you meet, the more learning you do. Last summer, my roommate Katie showed me that first impressions are incredibly wrong. That is basic. They’ve been telling us since kindergarten not to judge a book by its cover, but last summer was when I found out that was so true.

This summer’s theme was all about confidence. I was with two great roommates who, although they are not entirely satisfied with who they are, are still not going to let that affect the way they’ll behave when choosing what toilet paper to buy or prevent them from doing something. Yup. That’s pretty basic. And I can’t say I’ve mastered this skill. By no means have I mastered this skill, in fact. I still suck at life.

But about a month ago I was in a pretty blue place. Marisel had the pleasure witnessing what an Adrianne is like in meltdown mode. Although I still don’t know how I’m going to better whatever it is that I need to, at least I know what sort of outcome I should have. That’s what this month here has done.

And if nothing else, it’s also brought about the return of the purr. Coming here I definitely was not in the purring program. Today, Libby informed me that I have been purring quite regularly over the past few days.

So in addition to welcoming my mother, let us welcome the return of the good old purr.