“It's a dangerous business… going out your door. You step onto the road, and…there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

Happy New Year.

This is my first post in the year 2011. I am days away (unfortunately I don't know how many days away) from changing the course of my life forever.

This time next week I am going to find myself in a completely foreign position to anything I have ever experienced.

I am moving to Italy for the next three months. That's really why I made this blog so that I and my family and friends could see everything I'm learning and becoming. This is kind of like the travelling journal I suppose.

I am going to be around amazing people that I've never actually meant. I'm going to be in a culture I don't understand. I don't imagine how I'll ever be able to shut my eyes. There will be so much to see everywhere! I don't know how I'll ever be able to sleep there is so much to do! I don't know how i'll convince myself to do my homework when just being outside walking down the street will be something so special and prescious and fleeting.

It's almost like going to a new school. It feels like a fresh start. You're with new teachers and new people and you can make up your mind to be whoever you want to be. It doesn't matter if you were a nerd in your old school, you can be a cheerleader now or whatever you want. Nobody has any expectations or stereotypes to put you in yet.

Italy is not like going to any school I've ever gone to. It is more different than my mind can comprehend and I'm just guessing. I am excited for the challenge to be me. To be me when no one is around to know or say that I'm not being me.

People always talk in church about how when they were somewhere else it was hard but, it was amazing because they had the opportunity to stand as a witness at all times. I've never been anywhere like that. Growing up in Utah and then going to BYUI I've always been surrounded by people that believe what I believe and act how I act. The challenge I am confronting is to believe what I believe and act how I act without the support of anyone else. Just me and God.

I feel like going to Italy is a lot more like spreading my wings and leaving 'the nest' then going to college. College felt so natural. It was simply the next step and I wasn't very scared about it and when I was there it felt just...normal. I loved it for that but, that was the test flight. This is the real thing and I'm so nervous and restless for the experience.

To learn about the world and myself all at once is a dizzying thing to contemplate. A kind of experience you can't help but growing from. A kind of adventure that can't help but change your life.

So long America, Utah, Idaho, family, and friends. I don't suppose we will ever see each other again the way we are now. You don't have to go to Italy to grow and change. We'll both be different, or I should say, in three months we'll ALL come back different and hopefully it's all changes we like.

The New Year is about making changes after all. Some of my New Years resolutions are:
Learn Italian (rather important)
Finish at least one book (authoring)
Explore the world-or at least Italy
Learn how to cook at least 3 Italian meals/dishes
Fly in an airplane
Make ten new friends
Write a letter every week

Become more of a perfect square.
This one requires more than a one word explanation. There are four areas I am constantly trying to develop and every year I resolve to make them more a part of me and increase them every year.
1) Grow in Wisdom. Mentally
2) Grow in Stature Physically
3) Grow in Favor with God. Spirituallly
4) Grow in Favor with Man. Socially

Idea came from Luke 2:52