Saturday 4 October 2014

rambling about italy, exhaustion and self-worth

Hey there! I'm currently listening to Ed Sheeran's album X and freaking out because I love him and I love his music and I'm seeing him live on Wednesday. EEEEEEEE! 

 In other news, I got back from Italy last night and so now I am so exhausted. I have a ton of school work to catch up on but I needed today to recover from a week of 1. barely any sleep and 2. SO. MUCH. WALKING. Including trekking up freaking Vesuvius. Tons of walking/standing around etc. + scoliosis = not good. But I'll be fine in a few days. It was SO worth it! 

























 So our hotel was in Sorrento, which was so beautiful! And our hotel was so so lovely, it was right on the beach and ridiculously picturesque. We climbed vesuvius, went to the solfatara, shopped in Naples, visited Pompeii & Herculaneum, sight-saw in Rome, and visited a farm where we got the most authentic italian lunch which was amazing and made everything else I've ever eaten seem unhealthy and stale and boring. But the best part of the trip was easily the fun everyone had together, having 42 of us on long bus journeys and site-seeing led to a lot of singing and laughing and selfies. Especially at night in the hotel everyone from my year would pile into one room and play 'never have I ever' and talk about boys and eat sweets and dance to terrible dance music. Such fun times.


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“I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.” 
- Simone de Beauvoir

(Obviously I get all my quotes for these posts from the internet but this quote has been floating around my head all week. Let's just say I relate.)


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The weekend before I went to Italy I went out with my friends, which was so fun! And then saw my sister become an All-Ireland Champion in football. I was ineffably proud. 
Being the supportive lil sister I am. And the only person in the country not wearing a jersey.

The dress I wore out from (asos) the brand Lavish Alice. I really loved it!


So that's pretty much a fill-in on my life lately. Now onto the actual post. I feel like unless I talk about life at the start of the post then I'm being secretive or something for the rest of the post or I'm always leaving something out. I don't know. If the life updates are annoying/boring please comment but I kinda like them. I'm just narcissistic, really. 


In this post I want to talk about the things people value in life. I don't know why exactly, but it occurred to me while I was in Italy and I thought about it a lot. I think it stemmed from how this girl I was on the trip with was so obsessed with instagram likes, follower counts, who you know, who you go out with, all that kind of stuff and she really saw it as this hugely important thing and said it was one of her life goals (not even with sarcasm) to get like 200 likes on an instagram post. 

 It really saddened me because you could tell that comparing herself to more popular girls in these things really got to her and lessened her feeling of self-worth. She idolised the people that got hundreds of likes etc. It really did sadden me and make me grateful that I realise and can see the triviality of those things and wish I could get her to agree with me. I mean, I love getting likes on instagram and I'd like more followers and that kind of thing but I don't strive to have them. I don't base my self-worth on them. And I wish no one did. The thing is, it's so obviously ridiculous to do that, but so many people do. 

 I'm pretty sure I've ranted about self-esteem enough but really I just wanted to think about what I value, what's my equivalent to that girl's social media popularity? I think I value when people are friendly, more-so as I get older and people become more and more gossip-y and I become more aware of how everyone deserves to be treated kindly and inclusively. That sounds cheesy but I really believe it. I value treating people nicely, regardless of who they are. It's something I've always, and will always, notice first about someone.


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“I will not be "famous," "great." I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one's self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded.” 

Virginia Woolf

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 Side note: I'm not saying I'm some angel when it comes to being friendly, when I'm in a bad mood, which is not un-often, I am definitely not able to fit in the 'friendly' category. Or even the 'some-what nice' category. But everyone has those days.

 Okay I wanted to also talk about being a fan of things and pushing people away but it's 1:06am and I, as you know, am currently in a constant state of exhaustion. So they can wait until the next post. Thank you for reading this far, see you next post!

P.S: Song of the week: Hospital Beds - Cold War Kids. It's been in my head all day. Such a classic.

4 comments:

  1. I'm glad you had a nice time in Italy! :)
    - F - www.elevatorbrain.blogspot.co.uk

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  2. really loved this post grace! x

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