the north wind

what do you want to be when you grow up? a question engrained into the mind of american kids. adults, as if they don't know what else to talk about with someone half their size, ask this question just as readily as "what's your name?". as if planning your future at five years old should be just as important as constructing legos and playing with dolls. ambition and competition and self-made-ness are all fundamental principles in the united states, but all tend to put more than a little pressure on young people to decide what their future will be. young people who, most of the time, graduate long before their european counterparts and often have careers and families before they reach the age of 30. yet there's the flip-side. being a free spirit, living year to year and place to place to the point where you reach the age of 25, looking at it all a bit perplexed as friends nurse fledgling careers, get engaged, have babies and buy houses. what exactly did i want to be? and more importantly, what do i want to be? present tense.

i've always thought that life was a series of graduated stepping stones, leading up to more financial security, more maturity, more wisdom, a greater appreciation and understanding of life, a secret you understand more and more the longer you participate in the game. i am in no rush to reach these milestones, knowing i will reach them when i'm ready. i always thought that they would be put underneath me magically, like when mario jumps different levels in video games, an invisible hand setting out solid blocks underneath him. after graduating college, i've gone down a path completely different from the one i'd imagined. and i find myself here, three years later, longing for something more fulfilling and impacting on a personal and societal level. content, but not satisfied, as if i've consumed only the beginning of a sumptuous meal.

the problem is, the idea of a desk job is unappealing, teaching at the moment saps me. yet isn't there a world in between? perhaps it's my cancerian dreamer tendencies that lead me to try many things and stick to few. or perhaps it's the fear of attaching myself to one activity or truly committing, out of fear of failure or confronting my imperfections in a stable, constant job that would lead me to form connections and maintain them. existential questions plague me - do i have to be passionate about my work? is it a requisite, a right? or is it something we do regardless, plunging ourselves into our passions and interests in the free moments, the moments when no one can tell us what to do or how to do it?

while i would like to search for the "perfect job" (if only they would write that on the job description) i remind myself it doesn't exist, this much i have learned and know. what i am searching for is something that uses my talents and traits for a greater good, something that reaches outside my sphere of influence and positively touches others. social work? translation? advocacy? NGOs? non-profits? continue teaching, but in a different environment? all blended with the complicated aspect of being american, native-english speaker, and extra-EU citizen with documents that easily expire just as soon as you get them. but with my heart and soul attracted as if by magnetism to this place, i can't give into challenges and succumb to frustration. it's a waiting game, a test of patience.

and in the absence of clear answers and directions, i continue upon a path i've carved out for myself, despite the uncertainties. so far, mario's done pretty well, the stepping stones always appearing despite the distance below.

where the heart is

after 2 and a half months of waiting and 10 hours of flying, i am now back on US soil in atlanta, georgia, awaiting my connection to SD. an eventless flight and scarily easy customs pass, so easy in fact that i probably could have brought that bresaola after all, and i was on my way. i'm passing away the time until my connecting flight, a whopping 5 hours from when we arrived, sitting in the food court, listening to jazz piano and utilizing free internet while sipping on my first "caffe americano" in about 6 months.

the first few hours back in the states for me are always peculiar, as my ears re-adjust to hearing english all around me, my tongue disentangles itself from the italian language, and my brain wraps itself around english syntax, all while my eyes take in the sights and smells and sounds of this strange place called "home". these should be my people, my food, my restaurants, my language, and yet they feel so foreign.

home isn't simply where the heart is, though i come to appreciate the adage all the more the more time i pass away from the US. it's also where there is the familiar, the comfortable, the quotidian that becomes an integral part of the passing of time, as if its presence were taken for granted but felt the minute it's taken away or replaced. and it's in moments of reflection, of silent observance of the "new" as it passes all around you, that once again takes you back to that which was normal.

when i am there, eventually i long to experience here, and when i am here i long to go back there, a conundrum which often leads to soul-searching. i don't have to make commitments to one place, but do know what when i'm away from there too long i begin to miss the sights and smells and tastes and experiences, the constant pique of emotions and senses. i can be away from here longer than i can from there without feeling incomplete. perhaps because i know that here will simply always be here when i want. and while i love to be here, occasionally revisiting it all, partly in an attempt not to forget, in the end all i know is that by now, there has melted into a sea of normalcy, into home.

compass north

the chocolate cake was s smash hit. the only sugary part was the cream cheese frosting with powdered sugar since i didn't have any more sugar substitute. primary ingredients: zucchini, chestnut flour, almond flour, coconut, agave syrup. and you never would've known it didn't contain a trace of gluten or sugar.

yet this cake has done funny things to me. in the past year my creative side has run rampant in the kitchen and i've found myself delighting the taste-buds of many unsuspecting italians, baking away to see how they would react to such desserts as lemon-meringue pie, real american cheesecake, muffins, cupcakes, apple crisp and more. this has led me to foster fleeting ideas of an american bakery here in italy. and this new cake, along with the plethora of other healthful recipes which i've been finding in my research, have caused these fleeting ideas to become more solidified and well-defined: an american bakery which offers gluten and sugar-free options, both of which are lacking in italy. while my entrepreneurial side has reared its head more in my desire to tell others how they should run their businesses (poor mom when i visit home and the cafe), this time it's bitten me rather seriously. and i'm not quite sure how to approach this new desire which has been hanging around for quite some time, seeing my new age (25 - not sure how i like that number just yet), my educational background (political science and italian studies) and my current financial status (student loans: still lingering). this all leads me down a rather precipitous, soul-searching road, seeing as my vast desires have led me in many different directions, and knowing i've had many other ideas throughout the years as to what i want to spend my time doing long-term. those ideas, as much as they've not materialized, have brought me to this point. and sooner or later the compass has to point to north.

sometimes i feel trapped in a strange time warp in which for the united states i'm considered old enough to have long discovered my path in life, while by italian standards i'm far ahead of many youth who at my age haven't even graduated or left home. this has led me to the conclusion that i must disregard both concepts of time and continue to construct my own idea of gait and stride. i still haven't figured out "what i want to be when i grow up," but strangely, the more i grow up the less i feel so, as if maturity catches up with itself. i'm not the all-knowing person i assumed, as a young girl, that all 25 year olds are. i've come to see that there are some who still haven't discovered exactly what they want from life, but aren't sure it has to be just one thing. i'm willing to give myself time to discover exactly what it is i want to and should do. and if it turns out to be an american bakery in the middle of milan, i'd say, who would've thought.

sweet change

how i have neglected you, blog. but while posts are absent, thoughts are never far from my mind.

this year has been a cycle of ups and downs, and looking back i see footprints of 3 steps forward, 2 steps back. we're still making progress. this year has been full of sentimental ups and downs and finally leaving behind my relationship with simo, changing apartments 3 times in 9 months, immigration issues and health issues. and while immigration issues still linger, i have seen the fruits of my hard labors this year and am finally coming to appreciate a rotund bank account. buying and spending do not equal happiness, and the endorphins of the moment aren't worth the long-term loss.

in june i wrapped up my second year of teaching and am headed back to the states for 3 weeks in a month. in that month i will have to re-apply for my visa and hope for the best. the school i interned at this year was fantastic, and the teachers and director amazing. so amazing that they've been working incredibly hard to be able to keep me next year. yet between lawyers and trips to the police stations, no one has been able to accomplish anything yet. now we're going to try an "autonomous worker" route which means i'm technically not a hired worker but a freelancer with a temporary contract. at this point i'll take anything that'll help me to stay here. i just can't quite picture heading back to the States right now.

another big change this year came a couple of months ago, on the heels of several months of feeling not my best. i went to the pharmacy next to the pub for a few blood tests after the pharmacist, who comes to the pub every 10 minutes to drink an espresso, told me i had a bit of swelling around my thyroid area and i should come in for a few tests. everything looked ok, until we got to the blood sugar levels. they were at 207, or diabetes level. we did it again and they were 146, the first most likely beind a fluke. yet 146 on a fasting test is not indicative of a healthy body (levels should be between 60-80) and this sent me into a tizzy of research for ways to bring down blood sugar, in particular seeing as poppa had diabetes and it runs in the family.

i almost immediately cut out all sugars, caffeine, processed foods, cow milk, grains, and carbs except for those found in cheeses, yogurt, fruit, and vegetables. i also found research that indicates that cinnamon lowers blood sugar, and so attempt to drink about a 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon water around meals. after eating like this for a month, i went back in to test my blood sugar and it was down to 98/100. something was working. still not normal but far from the 146 levels of a month previously.

my new, healthy way of eating is actually not the burden i thought it would be, as in the first days after the test i found myself desperately trying to understand what exactly i could eat. i was preparing myself to say goodbye to sweets and treats and all things i considered "yummy". my breakfast in the morning of a caffe latte and several of these amazing cereal cookies...gelato, pasta, bread, pizza, cakes, muffins and so many other things. i occasionally allow myself a gelato or a taste of dessert, but my eating habits have radically changed. why would i want to eat processed stuff that hurts my body? eating low-carb actually gives you the ability to eat more fats and proteins and so i've indulged in my love of cheeses, olives, greek yogurt, and meat. fresh fruits and vegetables are never far from the fridge. almonds and ground flax seeds have become integral parts of my diet. while i had to leave behind some of these foods, i've gained so many other amazing ones. this also means spending more money for food seeing as meat and cheeses, fresh fruits and vegetables, and organic products cost more than pasta and rice, but i realize that i have to eat a diet that works for my body and not just for my wallet.

and while sometimes it's not easy forcing myself not to reach for the bread basket at lunch, in researching i've found a plethora of blogs and website by people who have discovered substitutes for ingredients in the most tempting of desserts and breads and other treats and have been able to recreate some of the favorites i thought i would have to leave behind forever. the other week i made almond meal and flax seed blueberry muffins sweetened with agave syrup and they were to die for. tonight i'm going to make a cake for my birthday with zucchini, chestnut flour, and agave syrup. who woulda thunk. and what is most comforting about this way of eating is that i know it's good for me.

so while 25 is just a day around the corner, i feel that i can turn a quarter of a century with new goals. this year will be full of experimentation, saving more, eating better, and living better. i personally think it will be quite yummy.

welcome back

the new school year has begun with a rush of cooler temperatures in milan, and i am finally posting several months after my last blog.  as my pots of homemade chicken stock and lentil soup simmer on the stove and keep the cold outside at bay, this will be the first of an attempt, no, a resolution, to post as prolifically as my little fingers can handle this coming year. 

i am now happily in central milan, where everything is faster, a lot bigger, and there is no more smell of cows to greet me in the morning (despite how charming tiny crema was).  the move to milan was definitely what my inner adventurer wanted - a place where the sights, smells, food and culture of a more cosmopolitan italian city could overwhelm my senses.  so far so good.  i moved here in july after having searched hopelessly for work for 3 weeks before stumbling upon a job in an english pub working as a waitress during their 11-4 lunch period.  though deliciously under the table and slightly underpaid, it (barely) paid rent and food for the duration of the summer before my internship started again.  more importantly i am content and have met some incredible people.   

as far as my permesso di soggiorno and visa, while it seemed as though i could deal with everything from italy, 2 months after all of my papers expired i was told by the questura in crema that that was, indeed, not the case.  though not really a surprise, it left me reeling as to the reality of the immigration system in italy that gives you an appointment for your permesso di soggiorno after said permesso has already expired, and furthermore makes you wait 2 months to tell you that indeed, what they had told you is not actually true.  my options were waiting months for the permesso to be potentially renewed after transfers of papers from city to city all the while without a single document to justify my presence, or going back to california to re-apply for a visa.  so i found myself at the first week of september, after two separate trips to the questura in crema, buying a last-minute ticket to SD.  in the grand complex of things, i have realized that i still don't understand well enough the perfect harmony and significance of events.  in being "forced" to go back home by an impossible immigration system, not only did i have my visa in hand 9 days after applying for it, but i had a blast working in mom's cafe for 3 weeks with some great people and saw old friends and family who after a year were beginning to think i was never coming back.  and most importantly, i was able to spend some wonderful last moments with my grandfather and say goodbye to him before he passed away, as well as attend his funeral.  looking at the individual threads never allows an appreciation for the garment.

and now life marches on to the beat of a different drum, which currently means teaching at my new school (which is small, catholic, almost private, has only two amazing english teachers with whom i'll be working, and is an incredible breath of fresh air after my experiences last year) 12 hours a week in the morning before heading to the pub til 4 with a dose of lucrative private english lessons on the side.  exhausting?  when i walk in the door in the evening and plop down on my bed, yes.  not exactly what i envisioned 6 years ago when i started college?  not really.  but i smile when i realized that this is what i wanted, somewhere deep down.  not necessarily to be recently graduated, not knowing where i'll be after may, but broadening my sphere of influence, meeting amazing people, having adventures that are more difficult if not impossible at retirement when most people permit themselves the time, and teaching kids and adults not only english grammar but a way of life, waiting tables as a covert american on the side.  not exactly what i had envisioned, but perfect for the moment.

tutto fa brodo

it’s almost the end of february. as i’ve been going along in this internship i haven’t really been thinking of how eventually it will come to an end. i have been living days that run into days, class by class, punctuated by evenings and weekends. but it will all come to rest at the end of may at sraffa, and in the middle of june at the liceo artistico. after that my crystal ball has no answers, no responses beyond the infinite black that stares back up at me.

yet there are constants right now that lead me to make a fairly easy decision. my love for this country, my adoration of the italian language, my fascination with european culture, my wanderlust, and, on a practical level, the weakness of the american and world economies which makes teaching english abroad comparatively lucrative. now that things have settled down at the liceo artistico and my schedule at sraffa is calming down once again, i’m going to actively start looking for another job for september, closer to or in milan where the opportunities are manyfold, and closer to where simo is. preferably in a private school or english institution where the desire to learn english is the result of a personal decision and not an obligatory academic requirement.

i realize that some of the above-mentioned constants in and of themselves have the ability to be inconstant, but i have to make my decision, jump in, and hope for the best. i also have friends who are in italy and europe teaching, friends who are applying to this program for next year, laura and nate are thinking about staying in italy, and i have many italian friends throughout the country. i know i want to stay for at least another year, and beyond that i will have to decide at that point where the diverse factors stand.

i have also grown up a little more beyond the 21-year-old who was here the last time. i used to be intimidated by natives, by my lack of perfection in and knowledge of the language, by my unfamiliarity with conventions and traditions. yet that is all but disappearing, melting away as i stop seeking perfection (as much as a perfectionist can stop seeking perfection) and seek a natural rhythym, harmony, and connection with this place. and the more i let go, the more i receive. now at times i even forget i’m in italy, in a country thousands of miles away from ‘home’, in a country which has not bestowed citizenship upon me, upon whose soil i have lived for a mere two years, a place which has unwittingly adopted my heart and soul. now, going to the grocery store is no longer fascinating, hearing italian spoken around me no longer stimulating, rushing down the freeway no longer an experience, walking down the cobblestoned streets and gazing up at ancient buildings no longer a history session.

it’s a life lesson that teaches that eventually, tutto fa brodo. eventually all is seen for what it really is. eventually, it’s all the same in the end. the difficulties and frustrations come out from behind the scenes and onto center stage, and sometimes it’s even difficult just to get out of bed when the alarm goes off and all you have to do is confront another day. even that which glitters and shimmers becomes ordinary and quotidian at best. it’s no longer gelato and pizza and wine, the golden fields of wheat bending in the wind and the sun that shines upon your face that is italy. it’s the tired bus driver, the bum who ask for change in the train station, the saleswoman who barely looks at you when asking if you want bags for your groceries that cost you 5 cents each, 4 euro shampoo, walking up and down the central street in town on saturday evenings, the piazza as a meeting place, the economy which never seems to let people get ahead, old women on bicycles, the banks on every corner, the different academic system, the kids you try to inspire, the crucifixes in public schools, the piercings and ripped jeans and wild hair, the lack of a concept of a proper line, the postal post-office workers, the lack of clothes driers, the tiny fridges, the fiercely-strong family bonds. all that and more, as well as the normalcy of getting up in the morning, drinking coffee, and going to work. and it’s bittersweet, that crossing of the invisible threshold to a place where the wrong can’t always be made right, where normal often goes unnoticed, where abnormal becomes absorbed. it is bittersweet because i’m not able to look at it all with the same eyes that i once did. it has simply become a part of who i am.

yet there are some days, like this morning, that i get glimpses of how it was all over again. it’s days like this, the sun making a rare winter appearance, rising above the various colored buildings around me and rays hitting off the side of my balcony, that old stereotypes come back to visit and forgotten feelings are stirred. reminding me of a time when this was how i imagined it all, when the complexity of it all was limited to what i had learned in text books and films. and it’s days like this that i relish in the gaiety that envelopes me, the delight that surrounds me, the particular bounce in my step as i walk down the cobblestoned streets, staring up at the buildings that seem to lean in a little closer, that have something important to tell me today.

catching up

i have been a bad blogger.  i've learned over the course of the years that you know you're a blogger when your thoughts are constantly turned into posts in your head.  yet even the best of intentions often get left to the wayside, and as life has been incredibly busy lately i haven't been good about writing.  that will change, however.  i want to remember these thoughts and events and emotions and what they mean in the moment and in the larger scheme of things.

to catch up since i last wrote, the holidays came and went.  they were bittersweet, as i enjoyed being in italy but would have loved to be home with family and friends.  yet i enjoyed my almost month of total relaxation that largely consisted of sleeping in til 11 and 12 and eating.  simo and i were alone on christmas after things fell through with other people and others were with family.  had we known, we would have planned better and gone down to sicily to his mom's place, but we only found out on the 24th.  so we solved our loneliness with a 4 course meal which took all of christmas day to prepare and several hours to consume.  we exchanged gifts as well, and were like little kids on christmas morning.  simo wanted to open them up right away that morning, but i wanted to preserve the christmas magic and made him wait until after breakfast.  i had gotten him a pair of sunglasses, the same sunglasses that had been stolen from his car this fall, and a really nice bottle of rum that he likes, and he got me a really beautiful bracelet watch.

after the holidays it was back to crema and into the new apartment.  i spent the first day putting my room in order and assembling my "closet", a sort of hanging apparatus that i got at ikea.  i really love my room, a mixture of antiques that were already in the room, and more modern pieces like the bed and the closet which i bought, with my colorful tapestries hung on the walls.  i have a balcony which will be fabulous for dinners in the spring.  i also have an antique piano which needs to be tuned in my room, and which i can't play and is therefore like torture, but it makes a nice bookshelf in the absence of it's musical capabilities.  the apartment is cozy and cute, with a kitchen that's definitely too small, but when we have more than 3 people at dinner, our entry way becomes the dining room and we put my desk and the kitchen table together.  our system works well, and we've tried to buy stuff to make the place seem more homey.  it is definitely a far cry from my other apartment, where i regularly stayed in my room and didn't get along with my roommates.  this place is drama-free and english and italian friendly, with good food and wine flowing freely and where dinners are frequent.  

over break, i was contacted by the principal of the liceo artistico, the high school attached to sraffa.  one of their english teachers went on maternity leave and they were desperately searching for another english teacher.  i agreed to do it, and after a few minor snafus over my not being officially "legal" yet and other things, i had the job, with another 600 beautiful euro a month at my disposal, january's sum of which, i found out later, i will be getting in mid-march because they're having money issues like the rest of the world.  the job has been interesting so far on a professional level because the kids, while at a "high school" and not a professional or technical school like sraffa, aren't the more eager students i expected.  the english program at the school is an internal add-on, meaning the school has to pay its own money to teach english to the kids because they simply want them to learn a bit of it.  the kids know they're not going to have english at their graduation exit exam, so the incentive to study is very low.  then again, the grades in a lot of classes are low so i try not to take it personally.  however it's extremely difficult not to take it personally when many students don't listen to you during class, you have to reprimand them for not doing homework or bringing their books, when they make disrespectful comments, and when every 10 seconds you find yourself shushing them.  there have been several occasions, both at sraffa and the artistico that i've had to go on rants rebuking them for their behavior.  that rarely works for more than the moment, so i've started a "3 strikes rule": every time i have to call you out on something bad you're doing, it's an x on the blackboard.  at the 3rd x, you get a 'nota', or a write-up in the class register...not a positive thing to get.  that actually worked fairly well yesterday in one of the classes, a younger class albeit, and i'll see if i need to apply it in other classes as well.  

the adjustment to the new job has been difficult as well because my sraffa schedule had to change to accommodate my new 10-hours a week at the artistico.  also, i entered in january, right as the last grades were being reported, the last tests given, and the meetings to decide on final semester grades were being held.  the last few weeks so far i've given and graded several tests in a few different classes, organized and figured out final grades and absences that then have to be inserted in a special computer program, and had 3, 1.5 hours meetings deciding on "behavior" grades for individual students and overall issues in classes with the other teachers of the 5 classes i teach.  there are still 2 more meetings to go tomorrow, so my days have been long and tiring.  i've also been figuring out a lot of stuff on my own in this job, seeing as they don't really have any non-italian teachers in that school, and the other teachers have been in the system since day one so they know how it goes.  overall, it's been an interesting learning-curve, and i have a new-found appreciation for hump day, fridays, and the weekend.  

in the last few months i have realized why i love being here and why i love surrounding myself with different things, ie my experience in italy, and my often-new surroundings and situations.  i have realized that stability is not necessarily something you have to sacrifice in the process of change, and change does not have to be destabilizing.  being in italy keeps my brain constantly firing, constantly moving, constantly active.  in my own culture i often get into a lull, into a complacency and boredom that i'm not at ease with.  and while i constantly slip more and more into a comfortable gait with this culture and language and, my senses are still piqued day after day, my mind constantly working to understand this place, making comparisons, writing notes, filing it all away.  right now it's all still an overwhelming mountain of mental post-its, scraps of paper, and ideas, but one of these days it's going on actual paper.  i just haven't figured out when and how yet.

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.