Today is a less good day. I don't want to admit it but it is. The high from yesterday afternoon's visit of the film crew has faded, the while event seems like a distant memory of another lifetime. Today I am back in reality, the full, black reality that is my current situation. I need to get out, it is now beyond the writings on the wall, there is an speaker broadcasting loudly 'get out! get out!' overhead.

I am in a love-less relationship. All love and affectiom has been drained because of his loser friends. He does not love me anymore because he cannot see his precious loser friends. The thing is, if he goes out with them, the outcome is the same- except that the resentment will come from my part, much stronger, it will force me to accept that I do not love him, or even like him all that much - I do not like smoking, drunk, weed-smoking, uneducated, swearing thugs. I might have wanted that to satify my 'bad boy' phase, but that phase is well gone. I am just fooling myself sticking around, in denial day in and day out.

I feel the heaviness in my step more than usual today, and it is not surprising. My heart feel like it is weighted down with lead.

It is not that I can not turn things around, if I really wanted to, I don't think that it is worth it. It is like twisting myself into a shape which is so far from what I am, one I don't like and am not happy being. Forcing myself to adapt to an environment which I despise and have absolutley no particular reason to be in. Especially when I have some place else to go.

Ok so i understand the Italian men's obsession with football, after all, he is not my first Italian boyfriend - but this is just over the line. I was walking out to the living room to get a glass of water and was yelled at 'vai via! vai via!vaaai via! it's the last goal' (go away! go away! go awayyyy!) Who does he take me for? Who does he think he is? Not sure how my walking into the living room would affect the outcome of the last goal?! Do I really have the ability to make his team loose the last goal by walking into the living room? Boy, I would be a well-demanded commodity.

It is behavior like this, that makes me look foward to leaving. What i'd give to be with a real gentleman, I have been putting up with the behavior of a thug for too long. I can still remember how it made my heart melt the last time a man stood up as I excused myself to the ladies. Also he is Italian, but he has worked abroad and I supposed has learnt how to be a gentleman. I used to take these things for granted, and like everything else, you only realise how much something matters to you when you no longer have it.

The classic example - one day it was raining cats and dogs, a real torrential rain storm. I had lent my umbrella to my boyfriend to go get the car. He drove the car to the entrance where I was waiting, but in order to get into the car, I would have to get wet as the car could not come right up to the door. I was standing there waiting for him to get out of the car with my umbrella, to come and walk me to the car. Instead he waved and signaled me to walk to the car. I pointed to the sky and waved my hand, signally him to come and get me. This went on for awhile, until he realised I would not budge; then he got out of the car with an annoyed look, as if to say I am spoiled and crazy. He walked me to the car eventually but was obviously not pleased to do it.

I could only smile and shake my head, it was not his fault, I am sure he has never seen anyone do something like that, I am sure all his friends would have done the same. It is just that i am used to another way of behavior, another way of being treated.

It is official, I have been here for one year. And it is increasingly obvious that it is time to admit defeat, and go. I would never have been able to live the life I dream of here, not even the life where I'd find bearable. I have cried too many tears, felt desperation too often, scream in my head far too loud and the bottle bursted too many times. My sanity is somewhat still intact, though i lament what has become of me. I was once a very different girl, now I am just a fraction of what I used to be on a good day. This life has reduced me to a creation so pathetic I am ashamed even to call my friends or family. It was afterall my 'throw caution to the wind', 'go with my heart' decision. Now I know I will most probably never throw caution to the wind ever again in my life. Spontaneity has ceased to exist and forever condemned.

I need to go (back?) to a place where my values would be respected and understood, I am tired of defending them- afterall they shouldn't need defending! I am also tired of being called a 'freak', of being regarded upon as one, I wonder where has my strength gone to raise up and say 'wake up you frogs at the bottom of the well, go and see for yourselves the world outside of this sodded well'. Yet I recoil, my lone voice fading into the crowd's, I hear my voice agreeing just to survive the attack and to have a moment to comfort myself and hope.

i must get my acts together, i must be the superhero now to get myself out of this furnace - no one else can. It will not be easy, but 5 years from now I'd look back and realise how insignificant yet necessary it has been to get myself out of this situation.

My days in Venice are numbered, and the thought of this does not pain me now as it once did. I have had enough of its beauty, its sadness, its wickedness. I have experienced enough. It's time to get back on the track that will lead me somewhere.

Next sunday I would like to go to the Anglican Church in Venice, to pray for strength, the strength to rescue myself out of here and back in a more welcoming place. I will need the strenght and courage to pull the plaster and bear the pain.

I wander as if I have no where to go. I just don't want to go home, but why? My home is far away, and I am a princess there. Here, I am nothing, a nuissance, a bore, a gypsy.

How I long to be understood. It is not realistic - I am too different an animal from any that exists here. How frustrating it makes me to be compared to a desperate brazilian single mother who borrowed a lighter from a poor italian tourist (she doesn't even smoke) just to get him and eventually an Italian passport. She has ZERO in common with me. Zero. For the mercy of God.

Rejection was the last thing I needed. Yet I have become insensitized to the worst, to insults and rejections. They have become such regular occurences. Only in my dreams I long to grasp a few slithers of comfort. Yet they don't come. I live in hope, the hope that tomorrow, maybe tomorrow some comfort will come in some shape or form. And it doesn't, I grind my teeth some more. I hang in there the best I could, surviving on the hope of..

I could have life easy, so easy yet I choose the hard way. I chose it all by myself, I choose to come here, I chose to live I am living. I have only got myself to blame.

I just don't feel like making small talk with people I don't respect.

Thought of last night: 'Shame, for that boy gives me butterflies in my stomach. Shame.'

They think i am strange, they think i am too shiny, annoying and sharp. They all despise me here, strange, unlike the other pieces of trash here in the big smelly bin. I try to understand why they don't like me, then i realise it is because I am different. In order to blend in I have lost alot of my briliance, and I stay down in the bottom.I try not to be heard, seen, cause any reactions. Yet i miss the life I once had, on a purple velvet display cabinet, immaculate, pristine, people come and admire me, say nice things about me, desire me. Here I m trying not to forget what I could have been somewhere else, if only I manage to get out of this bin. I am holding on my ideas and my values, of the essence of me and not let the environment break them down, at least not all of them.

I wait for the time to come. I wait to get back on track. I wait for the strength to come to let me jump out of this bin.

I just let out a big, deep sigh. I had to. I needed it.

The theme continues. I want to be understood. It would be so nice to be understood, completely and without suspicion. It would be so comforting to be told that someone understands, that it is ok, that i am just human. It would be so nice to be just normal, not strange, not foreign, not different, not weird, not suspected. I want to be 'figured out', I wish people would understand and trust that I am quite harmless. I am just someone trying to be a good person, or at least most of the times. I have no intend of any 'cattivaria'.

There is a yearning inside of me, I am sick of feeling all alone, without any ally. I am always the only one defending myself, day in, day out. If once someone happen to tell me that they understand and identify with me, I would be close to tears. It has been too long. Most of the time I swallow it at the back of my throat. I am alone, alone, alone. I once saw a a movie where the girl said that she is the 'loniest girl in the world'. I have been feeling like that. There is no one on my side. Wouldn't it be nice to be told I am ok, just normal, just human. Everythin is going to be just fine. Dare I dream about someone who'd say he'd take care of me, and that is he is someone capable of it.

Wouldn't that be nice.

These days the only thing that keeps me going is my job. For the past 3 weeks I have had one gigantic evil mouth ulcer after another, rendering my life almost unbearable. I could not speak, eat and when I try to do these things I am either in agony or look ridiculous, usually both. Today is the first day that I am no longer haunted by the curse of the mouth ulcers. Anyhow F and I had another fight (more like part deux of the one started yesterday), but I am no longer the pathetic, spineless, self-harming girl who surrender and begs for mercy, this time I stood my ground and refused to comply, I refused to loose perspective, I protected me and told myself I have the right to be me, however bad and evil and immature he thinks I am. I want to be me and I do not want to change anymore than I already have. I need to retain some of me, already I am in this foreign environment. I refuse to loose myself and be someone else just because someone else thinks I should. I have regained my presence of mind.

I thank God for this new job, it has given me new hope and aspirations. It is not grand or powerful and I don't even have my own desk (I really hope my boss find me a place soon!), but I like it so far and I am happy. I even dream about it.

The objective for this week is to be nice to myself. To put myself first, and everything else second. This means not let things upset me that plays little importance in the long run- things that won't matter at all in five, or even three year's time. It is time to get wiser.

I know i have to think for myself, my future, my career, my development, my life; he is merely a chapter, one that I can see the end fast approaching, surely and eventually.

I do not want this to be my life, it just can't be. I can only tell myself to 'think of this as a reality show' for so long. I don't want to look back when i am on my death bed that I settled for mediocracy, that i wasted my life, that i could have done better. It just came back to me something Antonia said when i first decided to stay with him in Mestre, she had said that she thought i 'could get more ut of life'. How wise she is. It has taken me six months to wake up and realise that she is right. I know i've been blinded by romance ecc. I know i have been missing even the most obvious things.

Each time i hear him say 'it's enough that i make X eur', that he 'had more important things to do like making money to buy a car/ travel etc. than going to university'.. I realise we will never think the same way, agree on the big things in life, that he will drive me up the wall with his complacency. I have to remind myself that I am made for bigger and better things, i have aspirations, i want to strive for excellence, i want to dream because i know i have what it takes to realise it. I don't want to be told that i should be happy enough, i don't need to be complacent. I want to get the best out of life. And i won't be able to do that with him.

My heart will ache, it will miss him, of course, that is what the heart does. I will need my head to take charge for awhile; i need courage, and i will need to have a clear vision of what my path should be.

Here i am sitting at the waiting dock at Accademia, waiting for the 'N TRONCHETTO' vaporetto to pull in, i'd get on, take two stops, get off at San Tomà, to my home in Venice. This has become my nightly ritual, it is the fourth night when he works the night shift, and i have arranged the home-stay accommodation i.e. a single room at someone's home. I have found it hard to justify the logic behind my decision, because there isn't any; he suspected that i did it to be in Venice when he works at night so I will be closer so be able to control what he gets up to. I denied it, of course. Deny, deny, deny. I stuck to the 'i don't feel safe alone in the house' version which is the one i tell everyone as it is the logical one (the one which makes me at least sound somewhat mentally sane, though the truth is far from it!). He suspects it though and asked me if i'd agree subconsciously i basically just want to be in Venice to keep an eye on him. I said 'anything of the subconscience is possible'. Deny, deny, deny.

Yesterday when i had gone and switched off his phone while he was sleeping, and realised what he'd say shen he wakes up and find the phone off (i hate it when his friends call, and i was afraid his bl**dy loser best friend will persuade him to go to that tacky beach. I was going a bit gaga and indulging myself in the fantasy world, i told myself i have two best friends these days: Lia (lie) and D. Nile (denial). It's not because i am insincere, it is just easier to say the right thing to maintain the peace, then to disagree on everything and fight from morning to night without any result.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

I am now at the hotel where it all started. I feel like a fool. I'd never had never imagined it to turn out like this. The romance is dead, every last shred of it.

All around here are losers, pathetic men who work in this 'disneyland' as they call it. When it's not tourist season, they smoke (and that's not just cigaretts) and drink their lives away. And this is the environment i am finding myself in. I am the tourist who stayed behind, the one who got to see Venice as it truly is.

Advice to tourists worldwide, never get carried away by a holiday romance. Reminds me of what Carrie said to Big in SATC regarding the red wall in his bedroom, 'it is a good idea in theory, but it just doesn't quite work..' It's a bit like that, although i guess in this case, the idea has never been all that good even in theory.

As a usual 'control-freak' it seems to me now that everytime i throw caution to the wind, i get burnt. Or perhaps i just don't calculate the risks very well beforehand.

It is almost midnight. His shift will be over when the night porter arrives. And i will go home with the concierge who i fell for, back to Mestre where most workers live.