Milestones

For starters, Blogger apparently accepts my photos if they're uploaded from my university computer lab. Oh, it's good to have a picture on this page again! I took this one in Capri at the end of last June. Now that I've discovered the trick, more photos coming soon . . ..

My friend and I made a pact to focus on the positive this year. Here's my upbeat contribution for this week.

I went to confession in Italian for the first time last night, and as far as I know, I didn't tell God I murdered or pillaged anything. A year and a half ago I couldn't order coffee without mispronouncing something. It's a big deal for me.

I've wanted to learn desktop publishing since I was 17. That crazy year, one of my friends gave me a mixed music CD. Playing around with the free-and-awful program that came with my printer, I put together a real CD booklet just for the heck of it. It took me hours to do, and I loved every minute. Must be my mother's artistic flair coming out in me whatever way it can, because I sure as heck can't draw or paint like she can. The cool news: my graduate program offers a desktop publishing class, and just this afternoon I finished putting together a graphic magazine that looks like the real deal. Love, love the creative component!

Thanks to a fun challenge from a friend a couple days ago, I figured out that I can take a news story in Italian, translate it into English, and make it sound like a real piece of journalism. I never would have thought I could do that.

Reading over this, this post sounds an awful lot like bragging. But it's not meant to be. I've asked God for a lot of things lately. My status lately has sort of been ''begging mode.'' It hit me last night that some great things have been given to me that I never expected nor even asked for. Allora. Time to give thanks. And time to go write another paper . . . after I upload some more photos.