#1 Thought of the day

Answer me this:

Why do shit things always happen to good people?

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.

One noodle at a time

And when the noodles are finally gone, the bowl empty of everything but a few oleaginous blobs, each diner sets his bowl back upon the counter, mumbles “Gochiso-sama deshita” — roughly “Thank you for the meal” — pays the 700-yen fee (about $7.85 at 89 yen to the dollar) and wanders back out into the daylight world where Ganko suddenly seems like a hallucination, a Wonderland dream of noodly bliss.
-One Noodle at a Time in Tokyo.

What's on for lunch today?
Looks like it's going to be a serving of melancholy with a siding of pensiveness, hopefully with afew of those crispy noodles sprinkled on top.

Drainer

To study abroad and venture to Prato in Italy to study at the Verdi Music School in Florence for three weeks, during November to December for a price of $6500....?
or..
...To purchase my own car and not have to rely on public transport for the same price?

Yes. That is the question..(s)..