I'm not dead... I'm actually a year older

Well 20 some odd days older since my last post but I did just celebrate my 24th birthday :)
So yes. I am not dead. I've been consistently working away at two jobs (which keep me rather busy, most often working 7 days a week) and trying to balance out my life now that the dust is settling.
It's taken a while for the dust to settle though. I think I was affected by both failing my board exam and what ever we want to call what would have happened with Cesare (the Italian boy). I found myself constantly wanting to go away and even toyed with the idea of moving to Hawaii for a year. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on the perspective), I've got the finances of a newly graduated student so flying off to paradise to live for a while couldn't happen like that. So here I am. Still in Vancouver, trying to find this fine balance.
Work is picking up and I think I'm finally starting to have a somewhat predictable pay cheque... this kind of makes me want to drop my 2nd job (its purpose was to give me a steady pay cheque when job #1 wasn't busy). With only having one job, I'd be able to have more time to study for board exams take II. I also might have time to clean my room (right now there's a path that goes from my bedroom door to my bed and there are little clearings here and there for me to stand, tip toed, to reach my closet/couch/drawers if I need something that isn't on the floor) or to clean my study space (I think my lap could use a break from being radiated by my lap top).
Though out all this, I've been able to go to the gym consistently (I've lost 4' around my ribcage! Unfortunately, that was the only base measure I had and that's only because of bra size) and I've kept up with my salsa dancing lessons. I've found that the perfect gym time consists of half an hour to an hour of cardio, an hour of weights/squats etc, twenty minutes to half an hour of salsa dancing practice and finish with fifteen minutes of stretching. The girls and I have also gotten in a wonderful routine of meeting up on Friday nights for drinks, dinner, and/or dancing. Last week, we celebrated mine and Maja's birthday on Saturday and had an absolute blast! This Saturday we're all dressing up for Halloween and going dancing :)
Now even with all that, I've managed to go to dinner with a couple of guys... though I can't say I'd call these dates (or maybe they are). This is when I realized that I was a lot more affected by the Italian Boy then I would have hoped. I didn't find this out on my own. I was actually waiting for one of the guys when my girl friend Margaret called and when she asked me how I felt about this guy, I kind of hummed and hawed and said that I wasn't too sure. But then I stopped and thought about it and realized that I had no reason to feel iffy about said date and realized that I was kiboshing my 'dates' before they even got off the ground. Margaret reminded me that my last romantic situation (or what ever those last escapades should be called), I felt quite confident that everything was going to work out (so much so that I bought a ticket for Italy) but then he just vamoosed! So it's understandable that I have to learn to trust my feelings again. The dinner did go well. We closed down the restaurant and had great conversation. We even met up a couple days later and went dancing... but it petered out after that.
As for what happened to the Italian boy... After I canceled my tickets, I didn't e-mail him or anything. I figured that was that. End of story. But one day, I get a panicked phone call from Maja. She's on fbook chat and Cesare sent her a message saying hello and asking how she was. The plan, to talk to Cesare and see if he mentions anything about why he ran off. Eventually he mentions that he became scared and that's why he fell off the face of the earth. Not much else came from that conversation other then Maja telling him that it would probably be a good idea for him to contact me and at least apologize. He said he wants to but needs time (what ever that means). Still, I've received nothing. I sent him a last message a couple months back saying that it was unfortunate that our communication ended the way it did but I still look back on my trip to Hawaii and our time spent together with great fondness. I wished him well and left it at that. So essentially, nothing much has happened to the Italian boy but in case some people were wondering... that's the latest (and most likely the last). Yes, while celebrating my birthday the thought did cross my mind that I could have been in Milan. And yes, I guess it hurt. But here I am trying to find the careful balance between work, play and studying for this damn exam.