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Chakravada
Oct. 31st, 2007 12:31 pmHappy Halloween/Samhain/All Saints Day, everyone! Florence is a wonderful city for this time of year, seeing as it is almost entirely focused on the past, on reflection and dark stone and bone-white birch trees. Sadly, there is no such thing as Halloween over here: we have All Saint’s Day, but that’s completely different. One of my classmates got a package filled with Halloween candy from home, and I lamented. Candy corn and Reeses Cups, I miss you! Apple cider, I shall write you s longing ode!
I can’t believe it’s the end of October already. The early part of the month found me in unhappy places, culture shock fully setting in. I thought it wouldn’t happen to me; oh no, I said, I’m already used to enough strangeness, enough non-stereotypical American behavior. Culture shock? Bah!
Yeah, *right*. That attitude wore off pretty quick when I realized that I felt utterly helpless, essentially lost, flailing in a sea of dirty urban streets, perverted old men, gelato and traffic laws that make no sense whatsoever. I wanted to kill every person that laid eyes on me. I wanted to throttle them while screaming NO PARLO ITALIANO. I was, ah, a little stressed.
Then midterms! Nothing like a good bout of panic . . . or not so much panic as mild interest . . . to get me back in gear. Actually, I attribute my feeling better to two things, the first being that instead of studying I spent the weekend before midterms *writing again*. Man, when I get going, I don’t fool around. 40 pages of story later, I was feeling inspired and excised. Why did I *ever* stop writing, aside from lack of time/intimidation felt due to nearby presence of awesome writers?
Number 2 was fall break, in which I shopped (Calvin Klein feather down coat, check. Dark brown mid-forearm Italian leather gloves, check. Gorgeous blue and purple Pashmina scarf, check. Sweet hematite and gemstone swirly sparkly, check. Utilitarian but comfortable black sneakers so I can throw away my nasty ass old Sketchers, check), and more importantly went on vay-cay.
Guess where I went?
( Read more... )
I can’t believe it’s the end of October already. The early part of the month found me in unhappy places, culture shock fully setting in. I thought it wouldn’t happen to me; oh no, I said, I’m already used to enough strangeness, enough non-stereotypical American behavior. Culture shock? Bah!
Yeah, *right*. That attitude wore off pretty quick when I realized that I felt utterly helpless, essentially lost, flailing in a sea of dirty urban streets, perverted old men, gelato and traffic laws that make no sense whatsoever. I wanted to kill every person that laid eyes on me. I wanted to throttle them while screaming NO PARLO ITALIANO. I was, ah, a little stressed.
Then midterms! Nothing like a good bout of panic . . . or not so much panic as mild interest . . . to get me back in gear. Actually, I attribute my feeling better to two things, the first being that instead of studying I spent the weekend before midterms *writing again*. Man, when I get going, I don’t fool around. 40 pages of story later, I was feeling inspired and excised. Why did I *ever* stop writing, aside from lack of time/intimidation felt due to nearby presence of awesome writers?
Number 2 was fall break, in which I shopped (Calvin Klein feather down coat, check. Dark brown mid-forearm Italian leather gloves, check. Gorgeous blue and purple Pashmina scarf, check. Sweet hematite and gemstone swirly sparkly, check. Utilitarian but comfortable black sneakers so I can throw away my nasty ass old Sketchers, check), and more importantly went on vay-cay.
Guess where I went?
( Read more... )
