I've recently realized something about myself. So my middle school experience was not a good one, there were good parts of it but overall it was miserable. While I was reasonable confident in elementary school, I became increasingly insecure in middle school. Kids can be really mean, and I don't think the age range of middle school are anyone's best years.
The realization that I had was that though it's been years since I escaped the hell that was middle school, I've still been carrying middle school around with me. I've been carrying around feelings of inferiority with me since then and letting people make me feel inferior. It was a light bulb/eureka moment when I realized this. I'd heard the quote from Elenore Roosevelt many times which says that no one can make you feel inferior without your permission but while it sounded nice, I didn't really know how to apply it in my own life.
I feel like a weight has lifted off my now, I don't intend to take middle school around with me any more. I'm building better self confidence and self worth. I know it won't be a magic wand waved and the problem will be solved, but I'm changing my mind set. I hated the way I felt in middle school and I'm happy to be putting it behind me once and for all.
To anyone out there who may still be struggling with middle school, etc. I wish you the best of luck in being able to leave it behind.

David

Did I tell you how we met this really awesome guy in Italy? In Florence actually, his name is David, he's kind of old but very nice. Meeting him was a dream come true. P.S. That's not really him, the don't let you take pictures of him, but they do let you take pictures of the copy.

KJV

If you haven't heard, this year is the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible. I don't usually give having the bible in an English version much thought, but with various celebrations of this anniversary year, I've been able to realize what a big deal it is to have it and how many people lost their lives to bring this to pass. I'd like to share some of the things I've heard in conjunction with this year. This program followed this forum at BYU and I found them both quite interesting and both taught me more about the bible and specifically the KJV. I was further intrigued when I came across this article. I really enjoy history and learning more about it, it makes me want to fulfill dreams of being a scholar, to learn languages, read dusty tomes perhaps, and know things that really smart people have known, or people in very enlightened or academic times. Should you have any such ambitions, I submit the KJV to you as a place to start, after all it is a year to celebrate.

Book of Mormon in ASL online

I have the Book of Mormon in ASL (American Sign Language) on a set of DVDs which I've been watching but my computer is older and my DVD player is picky and so I was very happy to find it online here. I thought I'd share just in case anybody else wanted to know.

Lucca

Lucca is a lovely little walled city near Pisa. We stayed there overnight in a nice little bed and breakfast and the next morning we took a walk around the wall before we left the next morning.

Anne Shirley

I've been spending some time with my friend Anne Shirley, I believe I've posted about her before. I really have come to love her, so much so that it seems I read all or some of the books in her series by L. M. Montgomery every year, like To Kill A Mockingbird, but I might actually read that about every six months. Anyway I believe I got my introduction to Anne through the movies made about her, the ones made in the 80s. When Anne and I were first acquainted, I liked the movies so much that I thought it futile to read Anne of Green Gables because the movie covered it so well, I would start with Anne of Avonlea (because the second movie is actually a conglomeration of the next four books or so) and read through to Rilla of Ingleside (I believe the last few books are somewhat lesser known, they're not always included in sets sold and they have more to do with Anne's children than with Anne herself). I loved the movies, and the portrayals in them and I'd watch them over and over. They came out with Anne of Green Gables the Continuing Story, which I also enjoyed, even thought I knew it had nothing to do with Anne, at best it could be derived from Rilla of Ingleside.
I'm getting side tracked, the point is that I had a period where I was not watching the Anne movies every year and I met her more through the pages, I found a strange thing when I again saw the movies - I didn't love them the same way I had. I had previously thought they captured Anne, but now the Anne in the movies is not really the Anne I know, indeed I think it would be very difficult for a movie to really do justice to her. I suppose it's because I've gotten to know her better. I've been reading Anne of Green Gables, the first book that I used to skip and I've been loving it. I would invite you to get to know Anne Shirley as well, remember it's "Anne spelled with and e"

I know I haven't done very good about blogging about Italy, I'm not going to continue the previous post today, this will be about the pantheon. The pantheon is probably one of the oldest churches/temples out there, and I believe it's been in use from its pagan days until present in its life as a catholic church. The pantheon was the biggest dome until the Duomo in Florence was finished. The pantheon was studied by those who built the renaissance domes. It's absolutely beautiful in the Pantheon, the dome is gorgeous and made even more so by the wonderful effect of the light coming down from the oculus. We wandered around a little bit, seeing the beauty and the tombs of important Italians and then we sat for a while, listened to an audio tour and just took it all in. I think it's one of my favorite places that we visited in Italy.