I never want to be someone who wishes they could've done something

For everything.



I wouldn't trade one stupid decision.


No sir.


And today, walking the half-mile Angela's house in over a foot of snow. If I could survive last winter's blizzard in London and the cold winter in Praha and Vienna, I sure as hell can do this.

Ode to Mike Ordonez

For coining "kimchiha". 3rd year, as UVAers called it, when I spent weekends running away to endless beer pong games, late night karaoke, Marco and Luca's, flip cup and lovely morning afters. Their apartment was always a disgusting mess, but in the morning, I always felt like I was waking up by the beach. Odd, I know.

And life has never been the same. I'm glad I met you.




Some people are just meant to be kept.

Awworthy

"Bros before hos"

So what's the saying for girls? Girls before idiots? I'm too tired to come up with anything clever.

In the final moments, it all starts to feel surreal. I accomplished what I once thought would never be. And, at the end, I find, perhaps how easy it really all was.

So, thank you Firenze. For allowing me this. This chance, this life, this experience, these people.


Our education succeeds.






And I've loved you my whole life.


To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

-William Shakespeare's Hamlet

The beginning of the end, as another window opens, I must let go

And here we are. And so it starts. I’m writing the one reflection I’ve been putting off. Why? Because it signifies the end. The end of this experience. And somehow, somehow now this entire year has felt surreal. I made this commitment last year to move to Italy and get my M.A. in Political Science. Not entirely because I was passionate about the E.U., but rather because I wanted to run away from the life I had. I wanted more than what I had. I wanted to live in a foreign country for a year of my life. I wanted to know what it was like. And so I signed the papers, and I paid the deposit. I deferred my acceptance to American University, to a program I actually favored, to run away to Italy. And who could blame me?

I came here last September, and I remember waking up from my nap after I’d arrived thinking, what did I get myself into? I had left an entire life on the other side of this great wide divide. And for what? Florence wasn’t love at first sight. In fact, I simply got used to living here. I hated the inefficiency, and how difficult it was to get the simple things I’d grown used to at home. Cookies had to be home made, cupcake mix was nowhere to be found, and I still have yet to see wings sold anywhere. There was a point last September when I broke down and started sobbing because I thought I was going to fail the program and I didn’t even really like the city. But somehow, over the course of time I accidentally managed to fall in love with this city and these housemates that I live with became my very own dysfunctional family. I’ve learned to appreciate Italy’s inefficiency, it’s personality, it’s organicness, and the culture that is the food. It’s incredibly difficult for me in these final moments to sum up my existence over the course of this entire year. I came into this program knowing nothing about the European Union, and now I feel confident enough to debate on the issue with others. I came into this program never really surrounding myself with people so different from me, and I feel like in that sense, it’s been the most challenging year of my life.

I grew up in the suburbs of northern Virginia, and I attended James Madison University as an undergraduate. I’ve always chosen my own friends, and I’ve always been particular in that. But, despite that, the people I’ve known my whole life, have never been all that different from me. Living in this house though, with 15 other students from all over the U.S. was incredibly eye opening. Cara’s from New Jersey, Allison’s from the middle of nowheresville Pennsylvania, Andrew grew up in Pakistan, and Carol is from Georgia. You always read and hear about different prejudices in different areas of the U.S., but I’d never really known anyone all that different from me—in terms of upbringing, and the environment that they had grown up in. Being in this house though, surrounded by vastly different people, from different places, with different thoughts, ideas and prejudices, I found for the first time in my life the reality of how different people are and how real prejudices are as a result of where we’ve grown up. I am no different.

I can surely say that this was the most difficult and rewarding experience of my life. I wouldn’t trade one single moment, and I wouldn’t do one single thing differently. I’ve been on over twenty-five flights, visited more cities than I can recall at this moment, seen more beauty than most people do in a lifetime, and by accident I fell in love and came to know some people who will be an important part of my life for years to come. Most days, I can’t believe I was lucky enough to be able to experience this. Most days, it all feels so surreal. I walk across the Ponte Santa Trinita and I can’t believe this is my life. And the thought of leaving in a week’s time makes me heart incredibly heavy. Even though I am ready to go home, I’m not quite ready to leave this city behind, in this way. I’m going to miss the fresh baked bread at corner panino, Sunday market day in Santo Spirito, and being able to get fresh and organic vegetables from the vegetable people in the square. I’m going to miss having friends to hang out with any hour and any day of the week. These little things have made up my daily life over the past year. And though I love the city I grew up in on the other side of this ocean, I have made a home here. The palazzo is our home, and these people, regardless of how dysfunctional, dramatic and chaotic our house may get, became my family. Even if half the house doesn’t like each other half the time, I know we care about each other because we shared something—we shared this experience that most people don’t ever get to. And I can’t ever be thankful enough for everything that I’ve been afforded here. And, at the end of the day, this wasn’t that hard, it wasn’t that impossible.

Family dialogue over the past 3 days. I love having house mates. I have friends at my disposal 24 hours a day.


11:22:15 PM Kim Ha: girls girls girls
11:22:24 PM Paul Evans: they're driving me fucking crazy Kim.
11:22:37 PM Paul Evans: and I'm typing away down here in my room, far away from the center of the madness

9:36:32 AM Carol: kim
9:36:33 AM Carol: kim
9:36:34 AM Carol: kim
9:36:36 AM Carol: dove satia
9:36:38 AM Carol: stai
9:36:42 AM Carol: and when does asia ooen
9:36:44 AM Carol: open
9:36:57 AM Carol: and why is there a sugar free redbull on my bedside table

1:55:24 PM Carol Forehand: who is malta

11:18:17 AM Leigh Raskin: shit ijust woke up
11:27:03 AM Leigh Raskin: kimmmm

11:19:50 AM ilk ghavami: kim chi !
12:02:50 PM Kim Ha: yea
12:27:23 PM ilk ghavami: hi
12:27:34 PM ilk ghavami: just wanted to see where you were , no biggie

12:06:42 PM Kim Ha: what is ur location paul
12:07:00 PM Paul Evans: vie dei Michelozzi 2
12:08:06 PM Paul Evans: perche?

11:28:40 PM Paul Evans: yeh, i'm pretty sure that they were boning.

11:46:26 PM Paul Evans: let me in
11:46:29 PM Paul Evans: please
11:50:13 PM Paul Evans: let me in, i am locked out
11:50:15 PM Paul Evans: 1150
11:54:44 PM Kim Ha: SHIT

11:11:16 AM Matt: i peed in a bottle last night

4:06:06 AM Caitlin: omg i AM fucking crazy
4:06:11 AM Caitlin: i will explain later

8:54:58 PM Matt: if i were masturbating it would not take an hour
8:55:04 PM Matt: thats just weird

12:53:32 PM Leigh Raskin: so like you saw his peedo for real

5:27:37 AM Kim Ha: why the eff are u awake
5:27:46 AM Leigh Raskin: i could ask you the same

10:47:38 PM Leigh Raskin: i love us. i'm going to miss the hell out of this place.

Between me and you

I ran away to Italy and it was the best thing I ever did.


An entire life created over the course of our year here, and what now? Most of us still don't have a damn clue, but then if we did, we probably never would've made it here to begin with, so hey, a toast, to making something out of nothing, to having friends at your disposal any hour, any time, any day, to constant entertainment, and even then, consistent boredom

to not knowing exactly what we're trying to do with the rest of our lives, to running away, to running here, to meeting you, to knowing you, to our palazzo, to the tv room, to rando kitchen conversations, to trash and piled dishes, to food thieves, to our crazy italian witch teacher sara, to castagna, to chiara, to quarters, to joshua tree, to food lion, to kebab, to the arno, to river rats, to miniature dogs and peeing in the streets, to weekends away, to endless train rides, and oh, to this all feeling like so long ago, yet as if it were all yesterday, to the palazzo plague, to sweltering hot summer days, to italiano, to birra moretti, to emo status wars, to sparring, to corner panino, to fiesole, corner panino, to the price of everything edible at the eui, to simulations, all nighter dgs, to professors dancing and singing in the middle of the street, to avid liver damage, to tijuana, to all the bullshit that is, to this fucking beautiful city, to bongos in Santo Spirito, to singing hobos and crackheads, to floor pizza, toilet tissue dispensers, 6 a.m. construction, throw up, 80's night, jager bombs, to speakers and professors who've never made any sense, to the gustas, to cappuccinos, to piazzale michelangelo, palazzo vecchio, piazza della repubblica, to deoderantless europeans, american breakfast, craving mexican, yelling at randos in the middle of intoxicated nights, to space, to Turkey, to civil and not so civil 'conversations', to frizzante, casalinga, yellow, central park, asia, the tranny park, to things disappearing into space, to the agony of morning afters, to photographs capturing every moment we never wanted to remember, to trying not to regurgitate in class or on Roma, to regurgitating in Roma and Ireland, to cara's facebook status novel, our greatest achievement on the eve of procrastination, to the Damn Cat, to the men of Italia, Albania, Lebanon, England, America, to bagged wine, to bag noodle, to our vending machine, ikea, cracktana, food babies, not killing each other, ricchi, gelato, to pisa, fiddler's, buses, boats, trains, planes, snowstorms in our fair London, the exchange rate, to vafanculo, to food babies, digressing, the vegetail people, market day, bus strikes, meepmeep, gg, and alex, to magi, cirque du soleil, to watching the entire 10 seasons of Friends and countless hours of dvds on top, late night political debates and civil arguments even in our intoxicated states, to the european union and to Firenze.

We've almost made it, no one's had a baby yet.


Oh, and I still think MTV should've paid to tape our life this past year. We would have so much money by now, sigh.

9 months past, where I've been

"One of these days we need to catch up."

so when did we become strangers?

and when did he decide he knew me at all?


and how come, this may all be just okay.

I was at the corner place (this place with paninis, etc in Santo Spirito where I live) this afternoon getting a pizza and they were playing Had a Bad Day and it made me miss being home in the spring with my sun roof open driving through the city. And lately I find myself missing Dubai and with this new obsession with the Middle East. I want to see Damascus and Beirut and Israel and Palestine and India and I want to know what it's like to live there, just for a little while. Though that may never happen. I still haven't even gotten my ass to Istanbul or Kuala Lumpur, Saigon, Beijing, Bangkok, Hong Kong and the list goes on.

I always have my IPod on when we land or take off, it relieves my nerves, though I know I'm not supposed to have it on because my IPod could cause the plane to crash, but I did it once by accident, so now I don't really care since I survived. Since September I've been on 25 flights, countless trains, through 3 continents and roughly 12 cities. I realized my chances of dying by plane crash is probably far higher than the average persons, but then I think about flight attendants and their stats and it makes me feel a bit better.

And today, while I was in the corner place and this American song came on I found myself thinking of how much I missed home, but how much I would miss Florence all at once, and how strikingly different these places were. I could never have both for life. It's funny how I love Florence for the vegetable people in the square in the mornings, the strictly Italian food, walking to bars and walking home over the River Arno, piazza della Republica and for everything that it lacks, it offers a world which can't be found at home. And then I find myself missing the diverse culture, my honda accord, the people I've loved for years and walking to Starbucks in the middle of a sweltering summer, getting dressed up in 4 inch heels to the bars in Adams Morgan and Georgetown. Life here is so much simpler. I can't have both, and I will choose the world I grew up in, but god, I will miss the time that I have spent here dearly.

I got on the short list for fellowships with BNA and USAToday a few weeks ago. I didn't end up getting either, which wasn't entirely a surprise to me. I've never been good at interviews. Public speaking, articulation, confidence, I've always had trouble with these things. But I was thinking about it, and it's probably for the best I didn't get them because when they asked me what I wanted out of it all, I wasn't entirely honest. I said I wanted to be a journalist, to cover Capitol Hill, to cover the EU in Brussels. And though my resume may be conducive to all these things, at the end of the day, I'd be incredibly happy with my own column in the lifestyle section of some newspaper in some city I adored. And that would be enough for me. I think. But I never give that answer because I'm afraid it sounds superficial, not important enough. But who knows, with my dreams of traveling through the Middle East and Asia still need to be taken care of, I have to find a route to accomplish those things somehow.

I'm twenty-four and a half years old. I have never had a 'real' job.

I thank my parents every single day for everything that they've given me to delay the real world for as long as I have, to figure out what I want. They've given me everything they never had the chance to attain, and I owe them a lot for that.

ATMs spitting 2500 dirhams

April 15 - 22, 2009
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

April 19, 2009

Safari through the desert in the United Arab Emirates. My life is fucking cool. I've never had so many people be jealous of my life before, and will probably never again. It's kind of weird. I'm living it for all it's worth.

Halfway through this ride though my motion sickness kicked in and I had to regurgitate into a bag. I hadn't had much to eat so it was just me gagging out liquid, gross. But it was still pretty damn amazing.

town by the sea

April 12, 2009

Brighton, United Kingdom

missing the big big sky

I'm writing this at 5:07 AM from my hotel lobby in Dubai, UAE. I fell asleep around midnight and woke up around 1:30 AM and haven't been able to fall back asleep. I've had a lot of time to think the past week, without school getting in the way. Perhaps too much time, I'm not sure. People are already awake getting the hotel up and running. It's kind of insane. I'm glad I don't have to wake up at 5 AM to do work.

So we landed on Wednesday, and I'm not sure I've taken to this city. I guess that's bound to happen sometimes. It's just perhaps because of some combination of smog, the sky is not clear here. Rather, almost non existent. I'm actually not sure I've seen it. And it's making me feel eerily claustrophobic. Funny the things we take for granted.

I was laying in bed with all these thoughts running through my mind. American University, USA TODAY, how come not talking to you is easier than talking to you, but now I kind of just want to talk to you again because you're home and I'm missing that now, but I realized I can't keep pulling that switch on you, or on myself, and I find myself missing New York City lately, but that's ironic considering I've never even really taken to that city, and ever since I left Firenze last week, I've found myself missing it incredibly because the inevitability of leaving so soon is really getting to me, and months ago when I first arrived I remember laying in bed trying to calm myself down, wondering what the hell I got myself into for a year of my life with these strangers, who have now become like some dysfunctional sort of family who I adore all at once, and this city that was strange and annoying and lacking, I've now fallen in love with somehow, somewhere, when I wasn't even paying attention, well I guess you can learn to fall in love, maybe that's how love works sometimes. But today I'm missing everything that is real, the big blue sky, and the people I've loved for years, months, weeks.

I wondered how come I always have to miss everything and everyone, but then if I didn't, that would mean I didn't enoy the people or experiences, so I guess I've lead one lucky life, and on the plane ride here, I thought my life was too good. You ever get that feeling? Like everything is just too good, it's almost scary. And it is terrifying, to have almost everything I've ever wanted and have life work out this way.

As for this city, at first sight it seems to be a replica of everything that is, the West self-imposed in the Middle East. But hey, I guess I can't judge too quickly because we all make a home somewhere, and there's goodness everywhere. The ATM did spit an extra $600 at me for no reason.

Rough draft.

I hadn't seen you in months. The last time I had been back to visit after graduation, I hadn't had the time to drop by. Rather, it was too much trouble for me. Now it was Spring. Almost a year after we had donned that cap and gown, done the whole dance, and received that diploma that was supposed to have meant something. We were grown up. At least, that's what we were told. But hell, somehow it didn't feel that much different.

"You got a boyfriend or anything these days?" He asked sitting down on the sidewalk beside me, his bottle clinking against the pavement.
"No. I've been hanging out with this guy, but he's kinda intolerable," I said. "Kind of reminds me of you actually."
"Cause I'm intolerable?"
"Nah. Cause he's kind of depressing, and sort of an asshole. I don't even know why I'm hanging out with him actually. He's got this self-deprecating thing going on."
"I see the resemblance already," he said wryly. "So why are you hanging out with this kid?"
"It's actually kind of depressing," I admitted. "I'm not sure why I'm hanging out with him. He's never going to matter. Maybe that's why."
"What's sad is I remind you of an asshole."
I laughed. "You know that's not what I meant. You're gonna end up breaking that bottle."
"Don't worry. I got it. I'm not that drunk yet," he replied. "So what's with you and assholes?"
"What do you mean?"
"That one night you came over, and you were crying over that frat boy."

"Why are you here?" he had asked me.
I couldn't answer then because I couldn't understand why he was asking me this question.
"Because I didn't have anywhere else to go." It was a lame reply.
"That's not true," he'd said, shaking his head.
And it wasn't.

"God I miss this place sometimes," I said.




I borrowed this CD from your car a few years ago, and of course I still have it...somewhere. You'd dropped me off at my apartment after class, and it had been one of those hot, completely beautiful spring days.

After College

It is not a question of possibility, but rather.... How badly do you want it? What are you willing to give up for it? Because you see, your life has always been your choice.

I wish I were a balla

So Italy is not a diverse country, in terms of food and ethnic diversity. In fact, I miss peruvian chicken and pho so bad all the time, especially on morning afters.

But anyway, the only 'Black' guys we ever see around here are North African. And they come into the pubs, get in our face, literally, and try to sell us things like ripped dvds, roses and sometimes tissues. So as me, Leigh and Ilk were walking home from the bus stop by the Duomo yesterday through Piazza della Republica we walk by these 4 black guys. And one of them points to the piazza and goes:

"What you wanna do?"
"Do you wanna be a balla?"
"A shot calla?"

Haha. They were AMERICAN!!! And they are probably the first African Americans I've ever come across while traveling abroad. Anyway, I forgot how much I missed African American men. And now I wish we had a token black guy in the house.


Matt: agreed. i wish we had a token black dude in the house
Matt: they would be funny
Matt: and they'd do the kim voice with me
Matt: and we would act out kim'isms
Matt: and then he'd be like shit son
Kim Ha: just cause you're tall, doesn't mean he'd be your bff
Matt: and we'd fist pound
Matt: yeah huh
Matt: if your skin is brown you respect people who are tall
Matt: thats the way it works

And I guess it would give Matt a little man friend he seems to be missing.

La vita e bella

The sunset over Firenze from the European University Institute in Fiesole. I still have trouble believing this is my life. I can't wait until summer, driving through Tuscany. First, must figure out how to rent a car.
On the way to the EUI we noticed this new plaque on the ledge of our bridge prohibiting climbing or sitting on the triangular shaped ledges which you can climb over onto. It's kind of dangerous since you could fall into the Arno since there are no barriers, but I was kind of sad they put up that sign. Because this means, no more possibility for peeing into the Arno, or writing postcards sitting against the bridge. As me and Leigh were commenting about it this old man stopped by us and saw we spoke English and he started ranting about teenagers, mostly American students who graffiti the bridges and climb over the edges for late night parties.
"Write things like I love Giovanni. Where is Giovanni? I want to find Giovanni and throw him into the Arno!" As he continuosly spits on Leigh. "Two years ago these American students had parties on the ledge and one fell in. Well, they didn't fish him out until two days later and he drowned. I'm glad he drowned!" omg. It would not be a day in Firenze without running into some kind of weirdo. That's the one sure thing about this city, aside from it's beauty, it's filled with nutcases. Mind you it's 70 degrees out.


I recently moved my desk to the middle of my room. Sometimes Caitlin or Ilk or basically randoms will come into my room and entertain me. I feel kind of like it's my office, like I'm a psychologist or something.

The Streets of Philadelphia.

She said you left them. She said you're still making the same mistakes, the same ones that made her leave you all those years ago. But she's always had a habit of lying to me. Telling me things she thinks I'd rather hear. And this time I hope she's lying. I hope she's lying because wherever you are today, I hope you are happy. I really hope you are happy and have learned from your mistakes and have people who love you and children who have grown up to adore you. I really hope so.


We made something out of nothing. We made a mess of this place, and now there's nowhere to go. To everything that is, and to everything that will never be.