Eating was more fun before the diet After my last vacation I decided to start a diet. To be clear, my girlfriend decided that I had to start a diet. I'm 1.83 m tall and I weighed 93 kg; I didn't feel so much fat so I didn't see the need to start a diet but, to stop my girlfriend to annoy me almost everyday, in the end I surrendered to her. At the beginning the diet wasn't so bad as I thought: I ate six times a day (three main meals and three snacks) and, even if the amount of food was very small, I ate a lot of vegetables and fruit. I immediately felt better and I lost weight very quickly, I also started going to a gym to complete the work started with the diet. Now six months have passed, I weigh 76 kg and my body has completely changed. I also had to renew all my clothes because of my new size. Now I feel more confident with my body and I'm noticeably healthier than before, but there is one thing that makes me feel bad: I miss the junk food. I miss burgers, chips and hot dogs, I daydream sweets and cakes, I'm thirsty of cola, orange soda and all kind of soda drinks. Thanks to the diet I improved my appearance and my health, but eating was more fun before.

I hate to change profile photos It's always the same story...every time I have to change my profile photo I waste a lot of time. Also today, to upgrade my personal profile on italki...the subject was different but the script was always the same. First I tried to track down a good photo among all my albums scattered on my laptop and on my mobile phone, but after a long and unsuccessful hunt for the perfect shot I gave up (time wasted: 15 minutes - photo taken: 0). Then I tried to take some snapshots, but after a lot of attempts I realized that the problem wasn't me, the problem were my clothes (I was in my homewear). So I changed my clothes trying a few outfits and since I was there I also took a shower (time wasted: 40 minutes - photo taken: 0). After the shower I tried once again to take some photos, but the result was the same: “this photo makes me look fat”, “in this one I came with closed eyes”, “in this one there is a strange light that doesn’t convince me” so at the end I deleted every one of them (time wasted 50 minutes - photo taken: 0). I was then discouraged, I put on my homewear again and I lost other 10 minutes to tidy up all the mess there was in my room, when I decided to play my last card: I asked help to my sister. I went to her room, explained the situation and she, with her mobile phone always in hand and completely ignoring me, started to tell me a funny episode happened to her. After 5 minutes she stopped to talk and with a big smile on her face showed me a beautiful photo of myself she had taken while I was listening to her story. Results: me - time wasted: 1 hour - photo taken: 0 my sister - time employed: 5 minutes - photo taken: 1 beautiful photo I hate to change my profile photo...

Why I started watching Doctor Who A few days ago I was wondering how to improve my English skills when I suddenly realized that, in a certain way, I had already improved my comprehension of written English without noticing it. For years I've read English forums about movies, books or videogames, initially struggling a bit, but now I'm able to understand the overall meaning of almost anything I read whitout problems. So I decided to apply the same strategy to improve the other abilities, i.e. writing, listening and speaking. In particular, regarding to the listening skill, I've chosen to enjoy a good TV series. Obviously my choice fell on the best-known British series: Doctor Who. I'm now watching the season two and I love it. The first episodes didn't thrill me enough, but going on, I started to love the characters and to enjoy the plot. Now I have to quit, it's time to watch another episode!

Guidelines to improve my English A few weeks ago I decided to improve my English skills so I drew up a sort of study plan. According to this plan I'm now focusing on reading, writing, listening and speaking using four different approaches: -regarding to the reading skill I read everyday something different: a comic strip, a feature story or everything captures my attention. I'm also thinking about to buy an english book (any suggestion?) -to improve my writing skill I planned to write a few lines every day (this is the reason why i'm now writing this note) -to enhance my listening skill I started to watch TV series in English, I've recently began the Doctor Who series (for the moment I'm still watching it with subtitles) -speaking instead is my weakest point so I've choosen a less aggressive strategy: to begin I started thinking in English describing what I see or what I do, trying to link every sentence to make a continuos speech, but when I'll feel more confident I'll start to talk to someone here on italki. I've just described the guidelines of my study plan but obviously I'm open to any suggestion that might help me to reach my goal

First words in a new language make me feel awkward Here I am, writing my first "public words" in English. I already wrote in English before, I think back with pleasure on when I wrote my Master Thesis in English few years ago, or when I've struggled writing my English CV (with regard to this I'm currently updating it and making it more appetible by simplifying and clarifying it, then maybe I would need some help), but this is completely different. It's awkward to express my thought to the web in a language different from my mother tongue, and it is even more to have a little talk with someone else. Obviously this is only the beginning of my journey and I'm aware that constantly practicing, I will improve my English skills and all this will not be anymore so unusual, so I will make my voice heard soon.