This is my favorite video of all time...

23

I have waited about four years to be able to play this song with some significance. :-p Thank you Robert D. Biddy Jr.)

I felt for sure last night
That once we said goodbye
No one else will know these lonely dreams
No one else will know that part of me

I'm still driving away
And I'm sorry every day
I won't always love these selfish things
I won't always live--no, stop it

It was my turn to decide
I knew this was our time
No one else will have me like you do
No one else will have me, only you

You'll sit alone forever if you wait for the right time
What are you hoping for?
I'm here and now I'm ready, holding on tight
Don't give away the end, the one thing that stays mine

Amazing still it seems
I'll be 23
I wont always love what I'll never have
I wont always live in my regrets

You'll sit alone forever if you wait for the right time
What are you hoping for?
I'm here and now I'm ready, holding on tight
Don't give away the end, the one thing that stays mine

You'll sit alone forever if you wait for the right time
What are you hoping for?
I'm here and now I'm ready, holding on tight
Don't give away the end, the one thing that stays mine

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Watchmen is a graphic novel from 1985 that Time Magazine named as one of the best 100 novels of ALL TIME.
Also, I based my last college paper EVER after it. It is that complex.



The movie comes out tomorrow.
Go see it.
Oh, here's a reminder of why... the stellar trailer.

I got very bored today

Seriously... I need a job.

Grad Pics

All thanks and gratitude to Ryan Gibbs, a friend and fellow student in Spain who took my wicked awesome graduation pictures. Please visit his website at www.rgibbs.com

Home

I had planned on doing a much more comprehensive post about my final reflections on Spain and being home and all that fun, fun stuff.
Since I got back the first question to come out of anybodies mouth is, "So, how was Spain???"
As much as I both understand and appreciate the question, it really is a terrible one. Like Dillon said to me yesterday, when we were eating glorious Dion's pizza...

"Oh, yes, sure. Let me some up the most complex and impacting four months of my life in a sentence for you."

It just doesn't work that way.

So, I'll keep it short, five points both ways for now... especially because I keep having these dreams where I'm either IN Spain or going back next semester...
...and they are just depressing me to the core. So.

Things I most appreciate about being home:
1. My mama. Even though she frequently ditches me for her "friends". Doesn't she know any better? I'M her only friend!
2. The food. I loved Spain food (which is a rarity, I'm told) but nothing beats some good red chile and beans or my mother's homemade guacamole. Nector of the GODS.
3. Being comfortable at home. IE... I can put my feet on the coffee table or layout across the couch if I feel the need.
4. My babies. Indy, Chewie, and Leia (when I visit her) ... how I forgot the small comforts of personal pets.
5. The guys. The looks, the brains, the wild card, and the useless chick. I missed our cynical discussions of douchebaggery and debauchery.
Runner-up: THE DOLLAR. Nothing says "Welcome Home" quite like the ability to be paying the actual, monetary price for things that you buy.

Things I most miss about being in Spain:
1. Rosario, Ricardo, and Jaunita. The scheduled, home-cooked meals kind of come into play here, but I just also miss my host families daily presence.
2. The roomie. I can't make fun of Adrianna sneezing ever 10 seconds or giggle in the dark with her when she's all the way over in Austin.
3. The other 26 students I was surrounded by this entire semester. I mean, really. Just imagine being in a country where you aren't a native speaker and you are constantly surrounded by the same 27 students for four months, whom you happen to get along with quite well... and then imagine being completely ripped from their combined presence in one day. It's not OK.
4. Sevilla. I loves me some Albuquerque... but I also love urban settings as well. Settings where I could walk out of my apartment building and mousy along the crowded streets, dodging gypsies and blood drivers.
5. ZARA and H&M and MANGO and OMG SHOPPING IN THE STATES SUCKS BALLS.
Runner-up: Daily Spanish victories. I can't really feel progress in the foreign language anymore... when I've only got one family member who speaks it too.

I love being home, finally.
But, I wanna go home.
Not HOME. But, mi casa. If you catch my drift.
It's a strange little sort of emotions all fighting it out in there.

¡Barcelona!

I have arrived in the city of my final European harrah. (Hurrah? Huraah? No se...)
Yesterday was my last college class ever, and I felt very weird. It did not help that I had not slept all night.
It is not helping today, either, since I have STILL yet to really sleep. (Does a 3 hour nap, an hour-and-a-half plane and half-hour train ride count for two days worth? Um no.)
Uhhhhhhh, my hostel is really neat... very lived-in and hostel-like. Dunno if that makes since, but it just feels homey. I feel comfortable here, sleeping in a room with 5 other bunkbeds filled with strangers.
After I get my US work visa, or whatever, I kinda wanna help run a hostel somewhere. What a bad ass, day to day living.

Alright, well, I went here today...



yes, yes, very neat... but I must seista for many, many hours or I might actually discover that I've become a homicidal maniac or some such.

Also, I walked by a Jimmy Choo store for the first time today.
I almost peed my pants.
OMGtheshoesweresodamnedhot.

Besos,


Brit





PS: I made this video for the group at the Tech Center. Maybe it can give you a little glipse into the awesome people I got to live and learn with in Spain this semester.

Madrid

Basically... it's the Spanish version of New York.
But, not as cool.
But... in Spain... so cooler.
Does that make sense?

Like, I loves me some New York... but there's something so fun and refreshing to walk around the corner and see a theater showing "La Bella y la Bestia". (Yes Em, I'm extremely tempted to go. I need to walk by and look at ticket prices...)

We started our long, final trip up and around Madrid on Tuesday morning at 6:30 in the morning. NEAT, yeah?
Actually, we had a lot of traveling to do and things to see, and the very first thing we saw was a castle of the Order of Calatrava from the like, 1300s.
I walked around a castle. It felt appropriate.
Next we stopped a town called... um... Alhambra? Almembra? Almargo!
Anyway, it was kind of weird stop, because we had to stay there for 3 hours (something about some law where the bus driver has to rest for a specific period of time???) and it happened to be RIGHT at the beginning of siesta time when all cities just general SHUT DOWN. Like seriously, place was a ghost town. We got to shop a little bit at the handmade lace store, which had some gorgeous stuff that made me want buy some authentic Spanish, handmade lace to use for a wedding garment someday, but you know... I didn't want to jinx it...
Last, stop was Toledo, and it was a beautiful city. We all went out to this chill bar that night and just hung out, having a good time.
I dunno if I've mentioned this enough, but I love my classmates. The entire group is a complete and utter joy for me, in a world where everyone can only understand me like one understands a 1-year-old learning to talk.
They just make me happy.
Next day we checked out this famous painting by El Greco...



I didn't think I liked this sort of Gothic style he uses, but seeing it in person totally changed my mind.
It's awesome.

Then we ran around the old palace, where the kings and queens of Spain lived (again, it felt appropriate for me) and finally made it to Madrid. Today I was supposed to go look at this ancient Roman aqueduct and the newer royal palace, but I needed what I like to call a mental health day. Two-hour baths while watching a James Bond movie gets the job done...

I'm probably gonna explore the city streets for a bit...

4 days of college left..
2 papers and 1 final project...
2 weeks until I'm home.

Weird.

Curious...

... what the inside of my heart looks like after that game???







I considered drowning my sorrows in a shot of straight CYANIDE, but I settled for laying in the fetal position in my bed for 15 hours...



:-(

Letters

I've been needing to get these off my chest. I guess I can start with the more pressing matter... Here's one of two...

Dear #2 ranked Texas Tech football team,

Look at you go. I remember charging the field last year when you beat OU (then a highly ranked powerhouse... go figure...) for your last game of the season. It was also the last game I would get to see in person, as a student, so rushing the field seemed more than appropriate. I remember, also, having a vague feeling of 'perhaps greatness' when I accidentally ran into Sir Michael 'Olympian god of being badass' Crabtree and had no other reaction than to give him a hug. There was a hint of that similar feeling while I watched Graham Harrell being hoisted on to shoulders of students in the middle of a wild, cussing, inappropriately awesome throng of Red Raider fans.
Fellow pirates, if you will.
I remember the feeling of 'perhaps greatness.'
And here you are. Ranked #2. ESPN setting up shop on your doorstep. Sports writers calling Coach Leach 'a little weird, but brilliant' not just... 'a little weird.' Those little golden boys, Harrell and Crabtree (who I've mentioned) are at the top of the list for the Heisman Trophy and you guys are literally two games away from making it all away to the BCS National Championship game.
Oh yeah, and this isn't a fantasy either. Or a finely tuned Disney tale.
I don't... I do not. No entiendo. I mean, seriously... OH MY GOD.
If you guys don't beat Oklahoma, if you do not make my love for you actually legitimate for once in my painstakingly sad and pathetic sports adoring life... I will never forgive you.
NEVER FORGIVE YOU.
My hatred for you will be so great, such a turnaround, such an unbelievably unfair and unreasonable unforgiveness... that I will forever root for the Texas A&M University FIGHTIN' Aggies.
You hear me?!? A&M! The cult down south that kept telling us that we weren't really a rival because we weren't really that good! Those kids who wear maroon and don't believe in cheerleaders. The hullabaloo chanting Longhorn haters who call us classless clowns and personally told me to get my 3.7 GPA up....
I will put a curse on you. The like of which where you will never see a 'W' next to the name Tech when you play them. Ever again. EVER.


....

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..

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..

...

....


Ok, that's not true. I'm... you know. I'm in Spain.
Studying abroad, having the time of my life... and missing the greatest season that ever existed in Tech history.
Absolutely missing out on dressing up like a sexy pirate and singing the Matador Song with my best friend.
I can't walk around school constantly wearing a smile and the color red. I mean, I CAN, but nobody in Sevilla gets it.

*le sigh*

Do not screw this for me. That's all I'm asking.
Ok great love you all goooodbyyyyyeeee...

- Love, Britney




PS: Michael, this doesn't really apply to you. You could lose, actually drop the winning touchdown catch in the final seconds, and I'd still want to feed you grapes straight into your mouth while lying on a bear-skinned rug.
You know you want me to give you some McCarty-Drumm babies.
Black, ashy, crazy competitive/athletic babies...