So many stories of where I’ve been and how I got to where I am. But these stories don’t mean anything when you’ve got no one to tell them to. It’s true; I was made for you.

It has come to my attention that I have yet to deliver on all the interesting anecdotes I’ve been promising. This injustice, to some extent, ends now.

*Cue story time music*

While driving from Orlando to Denver with my mom and sisters this summer, we passed through quite a few southern states, all of which were beautiful and, frankly, overrun with churches of all Christian denominations. Admittedly, we were driving through the Bible Belt, but still! There were churches literally everywhere; sometimes even in rows on a street, with one next to another and another and another.

Sacrilegious (that’s a hard one to spell. Wow) though it may be, my sisters and I did quite a wonderful job entertaining ourselves by guessing the denomination of a church, based solely on the name. We discovered that Baptist is far too narrow a category, and that the churches with a predominately African-American or Caribbean population often had some variation of “free” in the name. My middle sister then joked that I would probably fit right in at one of those churches because of my enthusiastic participation in NYU’s Gospel Choir, and my attendance at a black gospel church in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. After living in Asia for so long, and singing with a technically Christian, but–let’s be honest, basically Asian–A Capella group in university, I would argue that a church with services in Chinese would be more appropriate.

All jokes aside, it was quite comforting, actually, to see such a presence of Christianity in the many states we traveled through, especially after living in China (where there’s limited freedom of worship, but only for foreigners) and in New York City (where there are churches all over the place, but not a ton of variety in denomination).

By the time we crossed into Colorado, however, there were no churches anywhere. Is this because the inhabitant of Colorado are less religious than those of the previous states we drove through? No idea, although probably not. The lack of churches had nothing at all to do with Colorado, and had everything to do with the geography of the state. Because it’s not just churches that disappeared from the scenery, but buildings of all kinds. There were literally fields as far as the eye could see. And it was amazing. I’d heard people describe stuff like that as an ocean of [insert crop here]; I’d never believed them until I saw it for myself.

Flat fields of nothing except for silos can get pretty uninteresting after a while though, so I did my baby sisters eyebrows for her and just about poked both of her eyes out. My middle sister was driving because the flat expanse of land is good for practice, but we kept distracting her by my youngest sisters cries of pain and my constant repetition of “oops.” Note for future use: plucking eyebrows in a moving car, no matter how constant the speed and smooth the road, is probably a bad idea. Luckily my sister was relatively unscathed by the experience, but I was traumatized.

I had already attempted to do my other sister’s eyebrows while in Orlando, and had pinched her more than once with the tweezers, despite my best attempts at keeping a steady hand. It was probably almost midnight, but neither one of us could sleep, so she volunteered to do mine (I’m wondering if this was an underhanded remark on the then current state of my eyebrows…), and requested that I fix up hers in return. I tentatively agreed, worrying about the safety of both my eyes and hers; my nerves were distracted away relatively quickly, when she pointed out that my face is covered in freckles.

This realization blew me away. Like actually. I was all “Yeah, I know. There’s one on my nose, but that’s about it.” She vehemently disagreed and I sprung–this is not an exaggeration–out of bed and over to the mirror to gaze at my face in awe. My cousin likes to remark on her beauty and I enjoy teasing her about it by referencing Pitch Perfect and saying “You should let someone else tell you you’re beautiful.” And yet there I was, staring at myself in the mirror (quite shamelessly) because I actually had no idea that I had freckles. And when I discovered that I do, in fact have them, my day was made. Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables, laments her freckles quite often, but would not, in my opinion, be herself without them. I don’t know that I can say the same since my freckles, though always present, are only recently discovered, but I’d like to think I’m more interesting with freckles on my face.

*Cue end of story time music*

I had meant to tell more than just a couple stories of my time in America this summer, my brief return to Shanghai, and my continuing adventures in Florence. This post is turning out to be very long, however, and I actually have plans to go sweater shopping with a friend that I made. Can we pause for a second and reflect on the fact that I, introvert extraordinaire, made a friend? You should be excited for me; this is a big deal. Especially since, as an ISTJ, I’d be Snape, and we all know his only friend was Lilly, and she died. So I’m off to purchase myself some warmer clothes to tide me over until my family comes to visit for October holiday, and I promise to have fun, if only to tell you all about it later. And don’t worry, there will be more stories to come; I’ll try to pepper my blog with posts about general updates, as well as posts with just anecdotes.

And I’m off (to the Duomo and an afternoon of shopping)!

**Title: “The Story” by Brandi Carlile**

Nothing ever happens if you stay in your room; nothing ever happens if you leave the party too soon. Never be a winner if you’re not in the game; nothing ever happens if you always play it safe. Make a little space and get out of your own way.

As of 2011, the Manhattan borough of New York City has a population of approximately 1.6 million people. China’s population is quickly approaching 1.35 billion, and my current country of residence–Italy–has almost 61 million. 20,000 young people from my religious organization might, therefore, seem like a rather measly number, but I was blown away by the sheer number of people my age who believe, more or less, the same things I do.

I’m not there now, but living in New York was hard for precisely that reason; everyone has different beliefs and opinions, which is wonderful and completely a result of the freedoms I get to exercise as an American, but it’s always nice to be surrounded by the like-minded, if only for three days. That said, if the conference were much longer than that, I’d probably go insane–diversity is what makes life exciting, at least in my opinion–but I enjoyed my time, learned important lessons, and have since moved along.

I was in New York for three days but that hardly counts since most of that time was spent unpacking from my summer life and repacking for my academic one. I got to see old friends, which was wonderful, but left me feeling strangely divided. Seeing people that whose friendships I value once more before leaving the United States for almost a year was, of course, really nice. And we had a grand time. But there was a part of me, though small, that wished I hadn’t gone to New York at all. Life can be bittersweet at times, and I’m not always sure that the benefits outweigh the negatives. In this case, they definitely did; but do they always? I don’t have an answer to that one.  It might just be something for each of us to decide on our own.

Returning home to China was nice too, until I had to leave. I have been dreading my year abroad since I decided to go to NYU in the Global Liberal Studies program around May of 2011; this has been a long time coming, and its turned out to be amazing, at least so far. The problem is that I had no idea how much I’d enjoy myself in Italy and how comfortable I’d become in such a short time. If I had known this, I probably could have left China for Italy with a much lighter heart. As it is, I was so stressed about this transition that I stayed up the entire 10 hours of the overnight flight and was absolutely exhausted when I finally arrived in Florence. I could have saved myself so many hours of sleep, but I just didn’t know. 20-20 hindsight and all that.

So now we’re all caught up. At least mostly. When life is coming at you faster than you can think, it’s hard to process it personally, let alone for other, faceless people on the internet. Although if you’re reading this, the chances are high that I actually know who you are.

Thank you for that, by the way. Keeping a blog is a lot more work than I imagined, as most things in life usually are. I can’t promise consistency in updates, but you’ll at least never be bored. That’s a plus, right?

Until next time, then. That’s when you’ll get the fun stuff. And in the words of River Song, “No sneak previews.” Cause I’m in Italy, but I’ve barely begun to tell you about everything that’s happened to me here, and if I spill all the good stories now, what’s to keep you coming back? So no spoilers this time, but when we return, prepare to be amazed–I certainly was.

**Title: “Nothing Ever Happens” by Rachel Platten**