This was powerful.

coldplay

What day couldn't be better for an awesomely large dose of Coldplay?

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.