The Temporary "YOLO" (and other perks of life)

Ciao amici!
It's been a week, and a long one, for sure. I got Rosetta Stone, for starters. AFS Italy has a mandatory rule that one must finish at least one unit of Rosetta Stone in Italian, so you're not a babbling American idiot that can only say pasta dish names. Upon firing it up for the first time, it was like a life-changing experience. Previously, I was using an internet site called Duolingo. I thought it was amazing and I was learning so much, but Rosetta Stone made it feel like using a public restroom. Rosetta Stone uses tactics with absolutely no English at all. Pretty sweet, until your mic doesn't pic you up and you end up yelling into it. Which actually picked up the right answer, for the most part.

Yesterday, as I was at my job at the thrift shop (not as cool as everyone thinks it is), my mom went to her cousin to buy a car. My mom's cousin is a big wig at a Honda dealer, so we get discounts on cars we buy. Which helps a lot since cars are expensive and we are driving an Acura MDX with 168,000 miles on it. My mom ended up leasing a brand new Honda Accord, which rocks your socks off and doesn't make weird rattling noises every time you hit a bump. God bless this car.

Another thing, and the thing that has been on my mind: how I'm spending my life. Scratch that...more specifically, what I'm shoving in my mouth in order to live my life. My life is a never ending cycle of eating a lot, thinking about dieting, eating a salad, realizing salads suck, and starting the cycle over again. As a 15 year old girl that's always been pretty fat all her life, not knowing what a size 4 has ever felt like, I'm not that self conscious. PLOT TWIST. I honestly could care less about what I look like, which might as well be why I'm successful. But really, this is what's up. My dinner last night was this pasta dish with most likely 54321345675432567543 calories in it, and I ate half of it. I ate the other half this morning for breakfast, the salad and hunk of bread it came with for lunch, then made baked macaroni and cheese for dinner, which contains 2 bags of cheese and a stick of butter. Whoomp. There it is. Now the honest question is, is it still exercise if I take a 2 mile walk for ice cream?

The Temporary YOLO, I call it. Living life in a care free, yet responsible way. Just for a little bit. As a kid, you do whatever you want with the guidance of parents and teachers. You're restricted, but you still have fun. When you're an adult, you know what's right and wrong and you don't really test those boundaries. But here's the thing, the Temporary YOLO, that is the key to successful happiness as a teenager. YOLO is imposed to be having sex, drinking, smoking pot, sneaking out, getting tattoos, etc. What it really means is life your life while you have it. Go ahead and eat that pint of Ben and Jerry's while watching The Notebook. Go ahead and wear a Jack Sparrow costume to school, cause who will care in 10 years? Everyone will remember the kid brave enough to do it. If you're going through some tough times, just fight through them. Parents divorcing? Death? Bullying? Read any textbooks lately? The broken ones always end up on top. So what Kara Richards is trying to say is live your life without destroying it. The future is bright for all those who choose to light it. Make good decisions and forget what anyone else will think. You know what is best for yourself. YOLO isn't about doing stupid things that are bad for you, or giving into peer pressure (which is normally what this scrapes down to anyways). You only do live once, but you just gotta do it right.

Arrivederci.