Always and Forever

I can come up with a song that fits any theme and any occasion.  So this might become a regular occurrence in my posts that I reference lyrics, and tonight, I would just like to join in Kip's refrain of "I love technology, but not as much as you, you see.  Always and forever.  Always and forever" (from the funniest movie of all time - Napoleon Dynamite -for those of you who didn't stay after the credits rolled and watched the bonus/additional ending).  

The connection between the song and my life currently is that I feel like I am going to DIE without my technology as I head off to Europe!  I am scared, because I can already feel the withdrawals coming on.  I've been told that missionaries that have been out over a year still hallucinate that their cell phone is ringing sometimes.  They should do psychological studies on this, because obviously we have all been classically conditioned to need our technology.  The stimulus is the technology, giving us positive outcomes, in the form of contact with someone that we like,  whenever we pay attention to the inanimate objects.  I personally check my email at least seven times a day.  I am completely addicted!  And lets not even begin to discuss my attachment to my phone.  It is my clock for pity's sake, and I wake up to it and check the time approximately thirty times a day without including all the times I flip it open to text or talk to someone.

I need a 12 step recovery program, but as of tomorrow, this whole going out of the country thing is forcing me to go cold turkey.  And its going to be painful.  But on a happier note, I am pretty sure that the bliss of traveling will definitely soften the blow.  Now if you will excuse me, I need to go find an alarm clock that functions only as an alarm clock, and dig my watch out of moth balls :)  

Lemming

I have resisted creating a blog for some time now.  But,  as Queen would say "another one bites the dust".  And although I am not sure whether or not they intended that to be a reference to death, to me it means the same thing as "just bite the bullet and get it over with" but in a past tense, third person kind of way :)  As to the association with dying, creating this blog will probably kill any misconstrued, but much appreciated reputation I might have of being normal, interesting, or coherent :)  So there you go.  And if not, it will at least reveal my obsessive over-use of smiley faces and commas :)

I gave in to creating a blog for the sole purpose of documenting my upcoming trip to europe, which should help make my posts at least slightly interesting by nature of the subject matter alone, and if not, at least there should be some amazing pictures!

I am leaving on April 30th at 6:00 am from Las Vegas, and I am so excited!!! I won't be back home until June 24th, which is marvelous :)  The program I am going with is the Spring Art History Study Abroad officially.  We are going to five countries in the following order: Greece, Italy, Spain, France and England.  We will be visiting tons of museums and historical sites during the trip, but we do have many half-days to ourselves.  So if anyone has any suggestions as to how I should spend that time, I would love to hear it!

Now, I need to get studying, as I am in the middle of finals, but as the creation of this blog makes obvious, I am having a really hard time keeping the daydreams at bay.  Wish me luck! :)