ultimamente...

getting sick makes me grumpy and upset, i have discovered, evidenced last week by my unnecessary and excessive frustration over classes, the kids, and the school.  sure enough, last weekend i got sick, complete with a cold, stomach issues (partly induced by an incompletely-digested panna e prosciutto pizza that i'd eaten for dinner), and a slight fever.  after my week i decided i needed a short vacation, and since monday was a holiday and i decided to not go in to work on my two hours on tuesday, and then always have wednesdays free, i had from friday to wednesday free, spent leisurely and lazily in rho.  i staved off a bigger immune system attack with cocktails of vitamins and italian medicines, the later of which, i have discovered, are potent little things.

life the last few weeks has been a normal rhythm of school and weekends in rho, punctuated by evenings of spritz and wine, a trip to cremona, and english lessons.  the last couple of weeks at the rho/milan convention center there was the 'fiera dell'artigianato', a massive, incredible fair complete with food and craft booths and restaurants from all the different regions of italy and the rest of the world, as well as businesses and companies advertising their wares.  simo and the guys in the house were hosting two sardinian guys who were at the fair with their sardinian booth, so we went to the fair a couple of times and each time stopped off at the sards' booth for some huge chunks of pecorino and wine, and always went away happy and glowing thanks to the latter.  i am obsessed with pecorino cheese and this fair was my paradiso, as you can taste about a million kinds of pecorino as well as other foods.  the sard's gave me some major discounts on a couple of amazing chunks of pecorino, and i bought about a kilo of provola from another vendor, along with some other traditional food items from different regions.  the fair was so big that we spent about a cumulative 12 hours there over two weekends and would have needed another 3 weekends like that to see it all.  

this week is the last push before the holidays.  four more teachings days and then i'm off from the 19th to the 8th.  i'll be in rho for the holidays, and then we might be going to tino's place in the terme for new years.  vacation will be spent sleeping, reading, relaxing, cooking, baking christmas goodies, a bit of traveling if my budget permits, and hopefully starting an online TEFL course.  i'm also moving out of my apartment on friday, so my room is in a state of mild disarray as i pack up yet again.  simo's going to come get me and all my stuff on friday, but hopefully i'll be able to leave all but what i'm going to use over the holidays at the new place so my two giant 100-pound-each suitcases don't have to spend the holidays with me. 

i'm also scheming as to what i want to take from the apartment.  basically the landlord, amidst the continual dramatic apartment saga from day one, has told us she won't reimburse us for a 150 euro pipe we had to replace in the heater.  without going into the complex mathematical aspects of the situation, we're refusing to pay for the pipe as well as the rent which we're giving directly to bog, one of my roommates, so if the landlord dips into bog's very hefty apartment deposit, he'll still have his money.  we've worked our way around it by deciding that if the landlord wants to take money away from us, we'll just take bog's money back in stuff, ie pay bog.  so far i'm buying a couple of mattresses, some kitchen items, and maybe some chairs for the new apartment.  this is sort of how things work around here; tu inculi me, io inculo te, especially when you don't have a signed contract.  i'll just be glad to be in the new place with nate, where we know the landlord, will pay ridiculously low rent, be in the center of the city, and where there will be many-a frequent dinner over good food, wine, and company.

and while around here you learn that it can all change in the blink of an eye, for now that is life in this little corner of crema.

rome wasn't built in a day...

...and neither was the english club at crema.  in the end about 15- 20 students were supposed to come and only 4 showed up, along with one of the caretakers of the school.  it was a small step, and i'm hoping that the next weeks will see a growth in numbers as word-of-mouth spreads around a little love and more people become interested. 

but it's deeper than that, more than creating a simple club where we do activities and watch movies and have conversations.  it's about challenging a mentality, about fostering a new one, about taking young impressionable brains and trying to plant seeds that will bear some sort of positive fruit.  yesterday we watched "in america", one of my favorite films, that has layer upon layer of social, psychological, and philosophical messages, and i was trying to get that to come out in the viewing and meeting.  yet one of the teachers saw me yesterday right before the start of our first english club meeting, and when i told her that i hadn't seen any students yet, she said that i have a lot of nice ideas but "it's the students".  if i hear that one more time, if i hear "this is italy" or "this is Sraffa for you" or "the students are like this" one more time, i think i'm going to explode.  the point is not always to find interest and then take advantage of it...the point is to TEACH interest, to CREATE interest, not to put our hands to our chins and "mandare a fanculo" those who we think will just never get it, ie like i feel like many teachers in this school do.  maybe i'm completely off my base, maybe i am just an ignorant american who takes for granted that she has been raised inside a completely different system.  but if something works better in one place, and something else doesn't work, why not try to impart some of what is positive into that which needs some revitalization?  apathy breeds apathy, and i think that this is what happens here...it's contagious.  i could  go on and on and on...but i'm trying to keep the negativity down and keep the positivity up.  it's amazing what a thank you, a smile, and a nod can do around here,  yet that doesn't mean that i won't fight back...i'm just learning the balance between the fighting and the heaping burning coals thing.  and also how to appreciate the small steps, to hold back, and not expect an immediate return on my investments.

this month has been full of other challenges as well.  i'm learning what it's like to have zero recourse to money.  after paying two months of rent, a one-year health policy, an apartment deposit, and food, 600 euro are pretty much gone.  this month has been painfully tight, and i spent every last centesimo i had last week.  finally yesterday i did an english lesson and earned 15 euros and felt like a queen.  i hadn't gone grocery shopping in a week, but on my way home stopped and got milk, spent 1.87, and felt extravagant.  this month is extraordinarily tight, and won't always be like this, and i'm hopefully going to get reimbursed for the health policy since that's 80 euro that i buy groceries with for a month.  english lessons are a good way for money, but aren't always consistent.  i do have an interview with an english institute later today, though, so that's another possibility for extra work.

but i'm actually enjoying this quasi-poverty thing.  it's making me appreciate a good meal, helping me to cook creatively, and use what i have in the fridge and cupboard instead of going out to buy more food.  more than anything it's amazing what kindness and generosity i've seen this month.  i told the caretaker who came to the english club meeting, and who i've become friends with and give english lessons to, that i earn 600 a month and hadn't gone grocery shopping for 2 weeks (it was a challenge to myself, and i was telling him about it laughing, because i had had fun with the challenge).  he took it seriously though, and since then has given me tons of food, like amazing leftovers from the meals the kids in the hotel program prepare, as well as other leftover and unused goodies.  and he also invited me to eat whenever i want in the school "restaurant" where the kids prepare and serve and eat everything they make (last thursday one of the dishes they prepared was an amazing pumpkin and telaggio cheese risotto in baskets made of grana cheese that still makes my mouth water when i think about it).  it's humbling and gives me goosebumps at the same time, all of this... humbling in that even without a centesimo i am still wealthy compared to most of the world, still have a full stomach, and still have a warm roof over my head as well as a family who will run to my aid if i ask, and goosebumps because i see that there is Someone who cares for me even in the moments that seem the bleakest.

and to add to all that, i have found a beautiful apartment from january-on at an incredibly low price, have two americans here who are amazing and becoming fast friends (one of whom i'll be in the new apartment with), have an italian boy who smothers me in affection, food, and entertainment along with his crazy roommates, and a beautiful sun that has decided that a month is long enough to stay away.  this journey is unpredictable and incredible, even in its simplicity, if you only open your eyes to the Magic.

making lemons out of lemonade

it's been far too long since i've left thoughts in paradise.  not that that means that there have been none, but instead that there have been far too many that the thought of sitting down to attempt to write them in some fashion that makes sense was too overwhelming.   not to mention that my english syntax and lexicon have begun to suffer the effects of my speaking italian.  today i'll attempt to take a little bite out of the elephant.

the time here is flying by at incredible speeds, as lately i have been living the weeks in anticipation of the weekends.  i have been finding my solace in fridays when i escape from this apartment (which i will have to be out of by december 20th) and go to Rho.  there, from friday to sunday, i immerse myself in camaraderie and affection, way too much good food, incredibly long and funny grocery shopping trips, adventures in Milan, and small dogs who shower me with slobbery kisses.  now that simone's been working different shifts, all that will change a bit...the friday to sunday thing, not the rest of it.  his roommates are straight out of a movie, and together with the masses of people that are in and out of that house constantly, they often keep me laughing.  i've told them i feel like snow white and the seven dwarves.  

by now i'm into my 6th week of teaching, and am still enjoying it as much as the first week, though as time goes on i've come to see the many-faceted aspects of teaching and this school.  while some teachers are great, and some students as well, other teachers are less than inspirational and some students hardly human.  but this is the mix that keeps me on my toes.  there is never a dull moment at Sraffa, the school with a rap here in Crema.  i've gotten responses such as "you're teaching at Sraffa!?"  the thing that makes me so disappointed, though, is that i feel that so many teachers have given up on these students, or didn't even care in the first place.  i see the situation of mutual disrespect as a cycle.  granted, there will always be the students who don't give a care and make all the noise as possible and will be as disrespectful as possible.  but when there are teachers who in front of students talk about how much less capable this or that student is, who talk about the low levels of the students while students are walking ahead of them within ear-shot, when teachers yell, are rude, and are mean, what sort of incentive is there to study and be good?  one teacher one day before halloween was asking students, in english, about their plans for all-saints' day, and went so far as to rapid-fire english questions at students about their dead relatives.  one girl started to cry when questioned about her deceased grandfather, and the teacher didn't even stop to ask why or if she was ok, and then shortly after landed on another girl who's father had died and continued asking her questions regarding her father and his death.  i was near tears at this point myself, and thank goodness the bell rang a few moments later.  if these students are treated like this, and have already been given up on, what's the point for them?  people rise or sink to the standards they are given.  

so talking with mom the other day, i decided to channel this frustration and attempt to do something about it.  i am acutely aware of the fact that i could be stopped short and this enthusiasm curbed by the stinginess and apathy that seem to be rampant in this school.  however i want to try to form some sort of english club with frequent activities for the students, be they 5, 10, or 100, so i can get them out of a classroom setting and try to impart cultural and linguistic awareness in them through other channels than the oftentimes lousy classroom environment they're in.  i made up a mock poster for a "first meeting" of the english club, in which we would watch an english movie and discuss it in english.  italian schools are unlike american schools in that there are no sports teams, no extra-curricular activities, and i have yet to see a guidance counselor.  i'll have to present my idea to mariella and will see how it's received, especially since i don't even want to think about all the bureaucratic hurdles i would have to jump over to do something like this.  but i want to try because i cannot, for another 7 months, do nothing around here.  i've also decided to try to be more confrontational with the teachers, albeit respectfully, and also with the students, telling them what i think about teachers' lesson plans, telling the students honestly and respectfully what i think of their behavior.  we'll see where all of this takes me, but i can't imagine it would make anything worse.  i would rather be remembered as someone who sort of broke rules and was active and at least tried to do something rather than someone who minded their own business and did what she was told.  all this not to mean that i expect to create some sort of phenomenon such as in films like "freedom writers", and i'm certainly no pollyanna, more often tending towards pessimism than optimism.  but i have to throw myself into this one...this one's calling my name.  potential failure is a welcome alternative to inaction.

this is the tip of the iceberg.  stay tuned for updates! 

novita'

today marks a month ago that i left the US, and so far it has all fit like a glove.

that's not to say that the past month has been without its potholes.  i had problems with the apartment situation in the past week, since first i wasn't able to be in my room for two weeks, then, as it turns out, we are most likely not going to be able to stay here past the end of december.  meaning: i either need to find a new place now, or i'll have to stay here til december and find a new place from january onwards, a near impossibility to find seeing as i would then only need to stay through june.  the frustrations and drama over the apartment came not necessarily over the situation itself, but how it was handled and how i was told of the situation (or not told, as the case was).  three days of drama, arguments, and sleepless nights finally gave way to an armistice that put us all more at ease until we could solve the problem.  right now it stands that we're going to maybe try to go to the owner of the place and see if we can just stay here til june anyway, as was the plan before the owner pulled a fast one on everyone, though the owner wants to sell the apartment soon, so we still have no clue what's going to happen.  

at the very least, my italian continues to get exercise on different topics, this time: apartments and contracts.  this is what happens when contracts are "in nero" as they often are in italy... no one is really held to anything, and the owners can pull the rug up from under you when they want.  plus, through this apartment mess i've met some great people, so i can't say it has all been negative.  more than anything, i was so excited to be able to stay in one place for more than a few months, as has happened over the past few years, and to learn i might have to move again in a few months was really disappointing.  i'm still keeping my fingers crossed that we can stay til june!  for the moment though, i still have about 2/3 of my stuff in suitcases.

yet besides all that, i feel i'm finally getting some direction for the future.  teaching/assisting so far has been an awesome experience.  before starting i wasn't really sure what i would be doing exactly... what i do isn't necessarily actual teaching, but more assisting in many classes.  i float around to different classes helping out with the english aspects of the lessons.  so if the lessons range from sociology to catering, i do the english part, but always with the principal teacher there so i'm rarely by myself.  i found that i absolutely love being up in front of a classroom.  i think sometimes these kids have teachers that are a lot older than they are and are used to having to take a heavy hand with all of them because of the nature of the school (a professional school, so the students aren't as good, don't study as much, can be loud and noisy, and sometimes can be downright horrendous), so when someone younger comes in and can joke around and be fun and still teach them something, they have seeemed to respond.  there have been a few classes that have been worse than others, one which was simply awful and which i probably won't be returning to, but for the most part the kids have been great.  the people and teachers at the school are great as well, and i feel like i've already made friends with many.  the best part is, discovering that i really love teaching opens up roads for the future that i was still unsure about.   

besides working, i'm hopefully going to be able to volunteer at an association that does horse therapy with disabled children and adults, right in the center of crema.  that'll take up a bit of time and be really good i hope.  other than that, i've been traveling around, seeing old friends and new in trento, padova, peschiera, verona, and this coming weekend bologna, and generally just soaking up being here again.

the amazing part about my second time in italy thus far is that it didn't come with the same sense of awe and wonder that my first experience did.  this time, i find myself less in awe, but also less afraid, less hesitant, less unsure.  i waltz up to people and ask questions and make comments in italian like i never did before.  i'm not taking myself quite as seriously this time, and i'm letting it all roll off my back more quickly.  i find myself able to express myself more freely like i wasn't before, and my linguistic and personal barriers have fallen and continue to fall to the wayside.  i feel like i know this place better now, and more fully understand how it ticks and moves, how it all works.  seeing it all with a balanced view of the bad as well as the good gives me a more profound and realistic respect for this place, not an overly sugar-coated, gushing appreciation.  it's like it all fits together this time, and the decisions i'm making are more serious, thoughtful decisions that reflect the fact that since being in italy last time, somewhere in there, i've grown up.  this summer was good preparation for what was to come here, and taught me so much about letting go, about being myself, about accepting others and that which i cannot change, and just about being content where i am in a particular moment. 

and even in uncertainty after uncertainty, there are a few little sureties that shine through: the people who love you unconditionally, true friendship, italian coffee, and gelato.  these will rarely fail to impress.

it's the small things

coming back to a place after being away for more than a year means that it is easy to forget the subtleties that encompass that place's identity.  

take italy for example.  it is easy to remember the gelato, the food, the extremely attractive men (who never seem to be ugly, be they 5 or 50), the wine, and the small cars.  however, as i was walking around crema the first day, i realized i had forgotten about the small things that make this place unique.  like the overt displays of affection that are a given here.  girls with their underwear hanging out of their pants, sitting on top of their boyfriends in the public square, as they make out passionately for the rest of us to see.

something else is how you have to buy your own grocery bags.  an ingenious way to make people either use less plastic or make sure they re-use it.  maybe LA should try that instead of banishing plastic altogether.

then there is paying (dearly) for bathrooms in many public places, like train stations, or at least never being able to use a bathroom unless you patronize the locale.  and the strange way that toilets flush, be it by turning a metal lever on the wall, turning a plastic handle on the wall, pressing a metal or plastic button on the wall, or simply flushing like our toilets do in the states.  there is the milk, that never comes in bottles larger than a liter.  the eggs, that never come in dozens.  the sirens of the ambulances that are tinny and short. 

and then there is the staring.  oh the staring.  you could be purple in america and they wouldn't stare at you so much.  i'm not dressed like an american, and am not doing anything strange, they just simply stare at you as you walk by.  in the states we might glance at the person walking by, but never scrutinize them closely.  i have come to the conclusion it at least partly stems from the culture of openness here, and the fact that your business is others' business, including loud, public telephone conversations on topics from credit card problems to going on ad infinitum over what a horrible person your boyfriend is.  public and private spheres collide here, and that which is your own simply becomes that of your next-door neighbor, the person in the train seat next to you, or the individual walking down the street.  my first time around i took it personally, but since have realized i can't approach it that way - it's simply a part of who they are and will just be one more thing to get used to again.

getting to (really) know you

i've barely been in italy 5 days, but they already seem like a month.  what never ceases to amaze me is that the moment you go looking for adventure, it finds you right back. 

the trip over here went incredibly smoothly, almost laughably so considering the amount of work it took to get here.  five trips to the consulate and 3 months later, by tuesday afternoon i had my visa in hand.  ninth-hour drama at its best, more like a bad movie than anything.  i was also able to say bye to erika, mirona, mauricio, and several other people at the coop before rushing back to san diego to finish packing my bags.  the next morning it was up at 3.30 am, and the flurry of activity hasn't stopped since. 

what surprised me most about my uneventful and seemingly-short two-leg trip over was that as i approached italy, i wanted less and less to be in those planes.  maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe it was the exhaustion after the emotional uproar of thinking i wasn't going to be leaving on wednesday then, oops, by the way, you're leaving on wednesday thing.  but i was getting more and more emotional, wanting to turn back the plane the more we approached milan.  by the time we landed at 6 am, i was in a down-right bad mood.  i couldn't remember why i had wanted to come back in the first place, why i would decide to do 9 months here with no break, why i would want to leave family and friends for a place that is foreign and not my own.  nonetheless, there i was, having just gone through the passport checkpoint, and there was no going back on a one-way ticket.  i had my 95-pound and 85-pound pieces of luggage and a duffel bag around me, pondering my next move.  i decided to go outside and look for the bus instead of waiting for the ticket kiosk to open, and i realize that had i decided one second earlier or later to do so, the next part of the day might not have happened. 

an hour and a half bus ride later, i am at the train station in milan, pulling my impossibly heavy bags out of the bus, and a guy comes up with a dolly and starts putting the bags on it.  at first i protest because he's going to want money, then i concede, considering that i was not looking forward to dragging those things wherever i had to drag them.  as we walked to i didn't-know-where, still not having decided on how to get to crema because taking the train was one of my only possibilities, if not the only one, except that i would have to change trains twice with the aforementioned bags.  i then ask him if there's a bus that goes straight to crema: no.  the train's the only option: yes.  or taxi.  so, on to the taxis. 

what ensued was what lifted my spirits and showed me why i had decided to come back to this place.  we stand there, as i ask one of the taxi drivers how to get to either treviglio (to avoid a train change there) or crema.  he then tells me to ask another driver, but soon the two, and another guy, are all discussing how to get to treviglio, crema, train this, taxi that.  soon we're off in search of a taxi, one that will hold my massive luggage, not an easy task in a country full of couch-sized cars.  soon all the other drivers are involved in the search, and the whole taxi area is abuzz with activity as the first driver starts dragging one of my suitcases around as i follow helplessly behind him with the other, all the time looking for a taxi.  finally, at the end of the taxi area, is a guy who looks like the youngest of the bunch, who has a car that is big enough, and in the luggage goes.  we get in, and i'm still not decided on whether or not to go to treviglio or straight to crema.  yet the moral of the story is, i'm convinced that few are the places where an entire team of taxi drivers would crowd around you and argue with hand motions over the correct way to arrive at your destination, all while dragging your luggage around.

we decide on crema, and there the adventure really begins.  there's horrible traffic at 8 in the morning, and what should have been a 70 euro cab fare soon turned into much more.  after an hour of traffic-filled roads, we arrive in crema and first went to my apartment, while simone (we got on a first-name basis quickly - him smoking, me chomping on goldfish in the traffic) waited for me while i knocked to see if there was someone there.  of course there wasn't, and of course my italian cell phone was dead after a year of disuse.  so, back to the taxi it was, where i make a few unsuccessful phone calls on simone's phone, while he smoked another cigarette.  he then took me to the school so i could look for my tutor who's guiding me throughout this internship.  all the while the taxi meter is climbing higher and higher, past 110 euro, and i have only 95 in my wallet.  at the school, there are what seem like hundreds of formidable-looking italian high schoolers milling around while i, the american in flip-flops, explain my desperate situation in a garble of stressed-out italian to the first person who looks informative.  finally after checking with a couple of other people we find my tutor, mariella, who is the sweetest person, and completely welcoming despite my unannounced arrival (i was supposed to call her to pick me up in the afternoon from the train station in crema, thinking i was taking the train).  we then go back out to the taxi, where simone is smoking another cigarette, and has by now stopped the ever-climbing meter.  we drag my luggage out of the car, and i hand my meagre 95 euro to simone, who i think is by now enjoying himself, along with my number as asked for, as sort of compensation (though i ended up having to get a new sim card so poor guy won't be able to reach me at my old number).  

i then waited at the school while my tutor had a meeting, then we went and ate lunch at her house along with her three adorable daughters, two 7-year old twins and a 9-year-old, who, after lunch, showed me their gerbils, the dog, and then made me simultaneously watch cartoons and listen to italian music on their walkman as they brushed, played with, and put ribbons and headbands in my hair.  in the meantime i had gotten in contact with my roommate, who was coming back to crema from milan shortly, and after lunch my tutor dropped me off at the apartment.  

the apartment was another adventure.  once there, i was informed that the person who was in my room before me and was supposed to have vacated was...still there.  meaning i couldn't move in there right away (when all i wanted to do was make my bed and fall asleep).  one of the roommates was going to belgium for the week though, so i've been staying in his room, and the my-room guy should be out in a few days.  the guys are amazing, one a sicilian, vincenzo, who was teasing me within 5 minutes and vice-versa and with whom i was downloading music by the end of the night, and the other a romanian expatriate, dany, who's been here so long he's practically italian, is very sweet, speaks english incredibly well, and took me on around on his vespa and on a tour of the city after i got there.  the apartment needs a bit of a feminine touch, but it's big and spacious and my room is enormous.  there's a grocery story around the corner and the train station is a 15-minute walk away, as is the center of town.  i am hoping, and know, that i will like this place even more once i get to know it.

if the journey really is what counts, and not the final destination, that first day was a true example.  in one split second the events were plotted, as i walked out into the chilly milan morning and onto that bus.  and what was frustration and confusion coming off the plane dissolved into a multitude of examples of what had made me want to come back here in the first place.  that is not to say there will not be ups and downs, but simply that i have never wanted boring in my life, and boring, for better or for worse, i have never gotten.  and that was just the beginning.

one big maybe

i find that i regularly end up suspended in places between yes and no, black and white. this, perhaps, is a testament to how life is really just one big maybe.

case in point: wednesday came and went with an alleviation of my visa frustrations when i finally succeeded in applying. yet, psych, the date it will be ready remains a mystery. the women at the visa office sent me on one more run-around mission on tuesday, asking for another fax of a document they already had, then finally calling in the afternoon to tell me i could apply at my convenience. my convenience was actually 2 months ago, but the next day would have to do. so up to LA it was again. this time it was laughably simple. a 2-hour drive, a 5-minute wait, a couple more banally probing questions from the visa goddess, who, upon seeing me for the umpteenth time quipped, "my, you are persistent, aren't you?". and that was that. she said she wasn't sure it would be ready by tuesday, though would try, seeing as "these things usually take at least 2 weeks". as if i hadn't been trying this entire summer. i'm going to make a phone call to them first thing tomorrow morning to see if it will be ready by tuesday. i know there are other consulates that issue visas within 3 business days, so i know it would be possible for LA to do so if it so deemed.

yet despite all the uncertainty, in a strange way i wouldn't have it any other way. it's fly-by-the-seat of my pants excitement with no entrance fee and no strings attached. not that clear-cut answers are unwelcome, but sometimes life needs a little bit of spice in the mix.

here's to hoping that 'yes' loses its crisis identity in this case.

the next epic tragedy?

lo and behold, the second, and third, visa appointments at the consulate have ended. you guessed it, unsuccessfully. the second, because they found that in the documents from the school where the stipend they're giving me is mentioned, it doesn't say per month, so it looks in writing like i don't have enough financial support for the duration of the visa (naturally it's a monthly stipend, but the documents just don't say it. fabulous). that revelation initiated a flurry of phone calls to the boston consulate, emails to the program, boston trying to get a hold of the visa office in LA to explain that the stipend really is monthly, and finally, in the school promising that they were going to fax some sort of verification to the consulate by monday, today, which was my third appointment. of course, by my 12:20 appointment time, there was no fax. surprising? not at all.

this means one of several things. i emailed the person at the school in italy, asking what happened with the fax, so option one is that the consulate gets the fax and i can try to apply again. problem being, though, my flight is a week from wednesday and there's almost zero chance of getting the visa by then. so, i could change my flight, costing me over 250 dollars, but even after changing it i wouldn't necessarily be sure of getting the visa by the changed date. at this point, the best option seems to be to leave without the visa and deal with the repercussions when in italy. even the program admitted the possibility of some of us having to go over there with no visas, and this has happened with other interns from the LA jurisdiction, so it's not the end of the world to go without. though after 90 days i either would have to border-hop or come all the way back to california to attempt, potentially unsuccessfully, to obtain the visa yet again. a mess? slightly.

so for now i'm awaiting a response from the school to see what they say about all this and what the next move should be. i definitely can't say i haven't tried, despite being completely unsucessful. and as long as i avoid riding a bus without a bus ticket (or getting caught riding, rather), causing public disturbances, and doing anything else that might require the display of a visa, or lack thereof, i should be, and am told such by other people who have gone without visas, totally fine in italy.

it is enlightening, though, to gauge the changes in my reactions every time something has gone awry in this awful, horrid process. the first response after the first attempt was to try to argue with the visa woman, get upset, and want to break things. the second time there was the temptation to just hunker down and crawl into a hole and forget this business. and this time around, i had almost zero response, as if i had finally reached a threshold of frustration. this time all i could do was laugh, unphased, as if finally coming to the realization that i am simply a tragic character in a very darkly-comical play. unbeknownst to me, obviously.

today was simply the climax in the plot, underscored by such events as missing bus stops, almost having one bus break down in the heat of LA, not eating all day, and finally digging into some corn flakes at 8:30 pm only to discover that a maggot has decided to take up swimming lessons in my bowl, along with who knows what other friends of his who had already been ingested. yet early today, realizing my own tragedy gave me a strange sense of overwhelming peace and connectedness with fellow bus-riders and the people i came into contact with. as if reaching new lows broke pride and walls, leaving only a sense of how my destiny, however different from the next person's, is still caught up in everyone else's.

it has not, granted, been my day, my week, or even my month. but, cliches aside, i am where i am supposed to be. at the moment i am a tired, frustrated, visa-less, maggot-eating, soon-to be "illegal" in italy. but i've since realized that that works just fine for me.

here's to hoping it's up from here.

vanquishing the bureaucratic minotaur

this visa business has long become the nightmare i feared, and was warned, it would be. after weeks of unanswered phone calls, emails, and faxes to the LA consulate, with an email response finally coming from the consulate of boston (contacted since LA wouldn't respond) saying the quotas had been opened for fall, i headed hopefully up to LA last thursday night, stayed over at auntie ann's, and marched into the consulate early friday morning, nervous as all get-out. i felt as if i were immediately cast into a little version of italy, and was given a half-hour before my appointment to observe how the consulate employees were all terse, fast-paced, and not willing to dilly-dally (or often even give people the opportunity to speak). my turn came, and my smile quickly turned to a sinking heart when the woman told me she knew nothing of the quota being opened, followed by her telling me all about how she's so busy, the only person there, etc etc. she was pretty awful and said some rude things in several instances, acting more like a carefully-trained government robot than a human being. but in the end she took one of my copies of my painstakingly and painfully-prepared application and pile of supporting documents saying she would look into it and see if she could find the notification from the ministry of foreign affairs, and told me she would get back to me by monday or tuesday so i could either mail the application or come back in (not so easy since i'm in san diego....at one point i said it was difficult to come back since i live so far away, to which she sarcastically responded, "well, do you live on this WORLD?" yikes.)

needless and unsurprisingly to say, monday, and tuesday, and an email to her, rolled by with no word from her. finally, praying with all my might that she would pick up the phone (like she hadn't done the last 100 times i've called the visa office over the past 2 months), lo and behold, "italian consulate of los angeles visa office" was the response. whew! she gave me the ok to either send off the application to her, or to make another appointment and come in. she did have one more nitpicky concern, that the 600 euro stipend the program is giving me wouldn't be sufficient proof of financial support. i was unsure after she said that, as i have seen figures ranging from requirements of 850 to 1000 dollars per month on different consulate websites and university study abroad websites, so i told her i would look into it. in the end my bank statement and a letter from the bank will be acceptable supplements, i hope.

so i made my 2nd appointment for september 3rd, the first date i could get in. i hope that between going up there in person, her seeing my pleading face, and stressing my september 17th leaving date, she'll somehow acquiesce to hurrying my visa processing along. if not, i'll just have to change my flight date by a week or so, and hope for the best. needless to say, this process has been more than a nightmare. in speaking with a guy from the visa office at the boston consulate, who talked my ear off for a good 10 minutes about the woes of working for the italian government and consulates and issues with visas, etc, one sees it's not simply a problem isolated to the west coast, and it's not really even their fault. it's a product of the system.

yet this whole ordeal has made learn how to deal better with difficult people (and learn to speak faaaar slower...speaking more slowly, one of my very weak points, makes people feel less nervous i have learned, even if my brain has to switch down 5 gears and put on the brakes just to do it). normally i would have overreacted and perhaps gotten into fighting matches with the two individuals at the respective visa offices when things got heated, or when they underhandedly insulted me, or when they made snide comments. but instead, in considering of the gravity of the situation (perhaps along with a bit of required fear of their positions) as well as having empathy for what i'm sure they suffer, judging from how much i've suffered, i learned to listen, offer my condolences, perhaps butter them up a bit with some adulation for their persistence, and feathers were smoothed over. naturally, they're still prickly monsters underneath, but that side stayed under wraps a bit more.

here's to hoping a visa is at the other end of this labyrinth.

firsts

this is my maiden voyage on blogger.  i've been blogging on xanga since 2002, but my xanga has long since transformed itself.  from inane posts in 2002 that highlighted what i had done, or not done, in a day as a young girl, to pithy and cryptic posts in 2008 that underscore the changes a person goes through in their adult life, that blog has become a place more for poetic and nostalgic writings than opinion and mundane pieces, an unspoken hush cast around its html that, for me at least, makes it a rather sacred place reserved only for what i need to express in a certain way.  this place, however, will be where anything and everything goes, a more "grownup" place, if you will.  because as much as it's hard to swallow at times, grownup-hood has more than ushered itself in, and that comes with as many responsibilities as it does privileges.

heaven forbid that means that life becomes boring.  all it signifies is that those self-same responsibilities that accompany all the good stuff mean that everything is more contrasted, stark, and meaningful.  i want to be able to look back on this time in my life, and, whether i laugh or cry at myself or not, see what this person thought, what she loved and hated, what she wanted to change and how she changed it.  how her passions developed and took action.  a way of keeping tabs, of watching the notches on the doorpost of life to see if it all measures up.  because measurements are simply a way of knowing, of tracking, so adjustments can be made.

so on this, my maiden voyage, being grown-up means a facelift, ie this blog.  here's to what's in store.