2007 - A Year in Review

Things I Learnt in 07

1. That to love someone and leave them anyway is hard.
2. That to live your life for someone else's benefit is wrong.
3. That long haul economy flights are, simply put, slow painful torture that we pay a lot of money for.
4. That daylight as a source of happiness is not to be underestimated.
5. That living with strangers is a gamble which does not always pay off.
6. That the amount of money you spend on your child's education rises in direct proportion to how spoilt, ignorant, boorish, bigoted, poncy and unaware of the real issues in the world they will turn out in the end.
7. That I was blessed with quite extraordinary friends throughout high school, the likes of which do not always exist in large groups in the real world.
8. That London is a truly amazing city.
9. That the Oyster card is a truly amazing invention.
10. That red wine can give you a TRULY awful hangover.
11. That family are your greatest blessing and curse.
12. That who you were friends with in high school is irrelevant.
13. That a lot of the stuff you thought defined you in high school means nothing to complete strangers.
14. That children are the greatest source of humour and wisdom.
15. That if Italy were any more Italian, it would have to explode with the sheer post-modernity of itself.
16. That I speak with my hands for a reason.
17. That I am an Italian citizen.
18. That independence and loneliness are only a frozen pizza away from each other.
19. That I want more out of my life than mediocrity.
20. That I will not be deterred despite naysayers.
21. That I am actually quite proud of Australia, despite its many, many faults.
22. That MSN is a hugely inadequate medium for communicating emotion. Actually, you would have thought I had learnt that in 2006 but apparently not.
23. That you can only offer a drowning man a raft - he must grab hold for himself.
24. That Paris is NOT always fun, OK?
25. That I love Shakespeare and it's probably just as well he's dead or I would be one of those creepy literary stalker-crush girls.
26. That all-female workplaces are a health hazard.
27. That normally reasonable people turn into bizarre monsters when they have children.
28. That one must confront life, rather than shrink from it.
29. That a companion makes the most mundane things enjoyable.
30. That if you want something badly enough, you can ignore any manner of disastrous weather conditions.
31. That all Scandinavians are cool.
32. That trains are fabulous places for reading, thinking, talking and eating, but generally NOT for sleeping.
33. That if Europe were a giant playground, all the cool kids would be in the sandpit, building their own little world.
34. That you should pack nothing in a suitcase for an overseas trip, as you will merely want to buy doubles of everything you already own, simply because it is from overseas and therefore much cooler.
35. That I am an emotional spender.
36. That I am an emotional eater.
37. That most Australians who one meets in Europe in Summer are twats.
38. That even when you think you're over it, you're probably not.
39. That you should SLEEP WITH YOUR FUCKING VALUABLES UNDER YOUR FUCKING PILLOW. For God's sake, how stupid do I want to be?
40. That Amsterdam is the best place in the world to forget your troubles.
41. That you can be anyone you want to be.
42. That true friends will not be fazed by who you become.
43. That you can know a person five minutes and feel you've known them a lifetime.
44. That you can know a person for a lifetime and feel you don't know them at all.
45. That you should reach out to people with whom you have seemingly little in common, BUT
46. That if you have reached and reached and reached repeatedly over six months and still gotten nothing back...it's probably because you actually do have nothing in common.
47. That five girls in a room can be fun in a STRICTLY NON-PORNO way.
48. That six months is long enough for a place to become a home.
49. That six SECONDS in New York is long enough to decide you want to give up any previous intentions in life and decide to move to some brownstone in Greenwich Village.
50. That BANKS FUCKING SUCK.
51. That people in New York are all extras from Friends or Seinfeld or Sex in the City.
52. That you do not have to like your extended family.
53. That LA is sort of surreal.
54. That you can never come home.
55. That things do not freeze in time, and that people will move on with their lives without you.
56. That this hurts, even though you know it shouldn't.
57. That you can put the past behind you and move on.
58. That dull work and overactive imaginations do not mix.
59. That when opportunity arises, you must seize it.
60. That old friendships never die.
61. That simple pleasures are the best.
62. That I might possibly have a substance abuse problem...with clothing.
63. That I want the whole world to be spectacular.
64. That I believe in the possibility of better things.
65. That no one can take that away from me.
66. That you should take true friends' appraisals of your personal faults very seriously.
67. That Sydney is a beautiful city, with an appalling public transport system.
68. That it is too easy to fall out of contact with people.
69. That the term "catching up" is evil and is used as a substitute for having actual, continuous relationship with people you used to see every day.
70. That when you arrive people will leave.
71. That with privilege comes responsibility.
72. That all people are deserving of our respect and hospitality.
73. That I write too many lists.
74. That it can only get better from here.