Thursday, January 31, 2008

Just like a teenager

Italy, evening

I feel that I am living now my second youth. Or something like that. More precisely, I am living my second teenager stage. I guess that because of my PhD and my lack of life in Germany I am feeling now like if I was still 25....The problem is that I am a bit older than that since I am 32. At this age, all my friends are married, or getting married, or thinking about getting married and all involved with kids. I am not even close to that. I am way far from that. I don't feel the getting old pressure, the biological clock pressure. Nothing. I can feel stressed for a lot of reasons, but not for that.
The first symptom of living an age regression was how easily and how much I get bored when someone of my friend starts to talk about kids/marriage. The second symptom was how strong is my desire to have fun, a lot of fun, and enjoy life (which still I am not doing that much). Nothing too wild, but also not being a zombie. The third sign that I may regress instead of moving forward in my behavioral age was when I saw the movie "N: Napoleon and me" of which I wrote a blog some days ago.
In that movie, Elio Germano plays a key role, being one of the main characters. Basically what happened is that after that movie, not only I started to appreciate him as an actor (I already though that he was a good actor in "Mio fratello e' figlio unico"), but I also started to notice him as a cute guy, until getting slightly obsessed by him. Ok, maybe obsessed is a big word, since I didn't start to put pictures of him on the wall of my room, but I have been looking for the other movies where he plays, I have been reading his bibliography and I have been looking for him on YouTube.....how would you call this?
If this is not a sign that my brain is regressing to the age of 20, I am not sure what it is then.

rain

Lucca (Italy), morning

It is raining today. I don't think I will go anywhere...but in one of the next day I would like to go to Rome for a day.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Vecchiano and Marina di Pisa

Lucca (Italy), evening

I am taking it easy lately. It is already some day that I am almost not working and instead I am spending time outside (also thanks to the nice weather). I needed a break. I was just keeping being stressed about work as when I was in New Haven. Not the reason why I came here. And my family, even if not voluntarily, but often finishes to stress me (or better, I absorb easily their stresses).
Today even if there was some heavy rain, I decided to go to the beach of Vecchiano. I like there because it is near the San Rossore Park, so the whole area is pretty wild and natural. Fortunately when I got there, the rain stopped and I could walk on the beach without umbrella. That beach is always beautiful and in winter, with only a few people walking there, is even nicer. There were a lot of things washing out (a lot of shoes, maybe I can bring my sister there for shoes-shopping :-)) and I found a lot of Sepia eggs. To get there, I saw a bird of prey and a lot of herons. I have no idea which kind of herons they were.
After the Vecchiano beach I decided to go for an ice-cream to Marina di Pisa, still on the sea. All the time I was thinking about how much time I spent in the past years just working and getting stressed about work and how much I missed of the outside work. I like a simple life. I don't need too much, neither too expensive things, but I like to have a good quality of life. The man of the ice-cream shop in Marina di Pisa was nice, really friendly and I thought of how nice it would be to live close to a beach, to walk there in the morning before work or in the evening when you come there. In a place like Marina di Pisa, not fancy or anything, just a simple sea place.
I have to remember what I like and what it is important for me to enjoy life next time before to accept a job offer. I am getting more and more convinced that I did it right to not accept (for now at least) any job offer in Germany.
I have one life to live and there are too many nice things outside there to see.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Lake di Porta

Lucca (Italy) afternoon

In my search for animals, I got the advice to visit the Lake di Porta, here near by. Basically it is a lake really close to the sea, so to the Versilia area, something like 30 minutes from my home place. It is a lake/river/swampy area, famous among birdwatchers. Of course, this is not the right time of the year to go to look for birds, but I was curious to see the area anyway. It was also such a nice day to be outside, that a nature walk was just the best way to spend a day (below a picture of the area next to the river and of the swamp).

It was not the right season to find many animals, but I anyway saw a triton, a bunch of frogs (one below), a clutch of frogs eggs (picture below) and quite some birds. I used for the first time my new binocular to see better two cormorants, then I saw an heron, I heard a woodpecker (too bad I didn't see that), and saw a lot of ducks.

So, it was a nice relaxing walk. I love so much to look for animals and being outside.
But I have to admit something....I still cannot understand very much birdwatchers....They cannot really appreciate the animals they see, since the animals are always far or hidden somewhere or recognizable by the way they sing (which for anyone who is not of the field is a nightmare), the way they fold their neck when they fly (even worse than the singing behavior) or the color (of course for the females and males often the coloration is different and sometimes you just see the bird flying quickly in front of you and I want to see how you can really be able to detect the color)....It is still not my thing. I can appreciate a few bird, just because I like them and they are less shy than others...but definitively not my thing....But I enjoy their songs anyway as a background and I love to hear woodpeckers!

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

my sister' eyes

Lucca (Italy), afternoon

This morning my sister got a laser surgery to her eyes. She lacks, or now I should say lacked 2.50 from each eye and she decided to get a surgery to get rid of needing glasses. Beside the fact that I think she looks good with glasses, so in terms of fashion she could have avoid the surgery, I also wouldn't have done it not even if they would pay me to do it. I am too afraid of anything concerning my eyes. I cannot even use the contact lens. Just seeing someone putting them in their eyes makes my stomach going upside down.
The surgery went well and now my sister is here at my mum's place, so that I can take care of her in case she needs something, since I am at home working. It looks like we are playing some kind of game since the whole house has to be in the dark since the light disturbs her. She also moves around with dark glasses. A kind of a "diva" sunglasses. So, the whole thing together seems quite funny, especially for me when I am trying to walk from one room to the other with no light. Are we going to have a romantic dinner tonight with candle light?
The only negative part of this thing is when my sister tells the story of the surgery to someone. She doesn't avoid to tell all the smaller bloodier particulars of the surgery...like before she said that during the surgery she smelled something like a burned chicken where her eyes were....and then she said that they had to scratch the lens of the eyes........bleahhhhhhhh...............just the thought of it makes me feel like I need to vomit...I don't think I would have the stomach to do that too. I am such a wimp.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Yesterday

Lucca (Italy), afternoon

I was just thinking that yesterday Iacopo made me incredibly happy. He showed up here, at my mum's place, unexpectedly. And he was alone. So, we had a chance to talk about a lot of things, like the old times. That made me really happy. It was such a nice surprise. I think this is one of the best way of being here, the fact that I can see and do things with my friends and family when I or they want, without the need of concentrating everything in the few days I am here.

Hiking with Vasco

Lucca (Italy), afternoon

I went hiking with Vasco today. I cannot explain why when we decide to go hiking, there is probably a meteorological karma that acts like it has always to be a bad weather, otherwise we cannot hike. So, today it was incredibly foggy (see below Vasco, I and the fog), but at least it was not raining.


It was a nice hike on the Monti Pisani. I realized that I am completely out of shape...or maybe I am just relaxing too much, because now I am deadly tired and I feel just like sitting on the couch reading a book or watching a movie from Verdone.
Anyway, it was nice and it was good to be outside, walking in the nature. Of course, when we got to the top, we found three jeeps with the engine on even if all the passengers were out of the cars. These people, who I would called using the Italian dialect word "coatti", tried hardly to ruin the nature atmosphere, also trowing stuff on the floor....before to get in a bad mood, Vasco and I decided to keep walking and stop to have lunch in another place (which was much nicer, Vasco below preparing his lunch sandwich).The only animals I saw were one bird (I have to admit it was a nice one, in Italian called pettirosso) and two worms...that's it...
Vasco told me that the view from there was quite spectacular, but of course due to the fog, I couldn't see anything. But I enjoyed anyway. Below another picture of the place where we had lunch (Vasco was falling :-)).

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Dancing in Lucca

Italy, morning

Last night I went dancing with my sister, her boyfriend and a friend of my sister. She said "I am coming to pick you up at 11 and then we go to Montecatini (a place close by)". At 11 sharp they were here and incredibly I was ready (even if I was at the same time getting ready and watching the special on Lorenzo Cherubini and his last album recorded in Los Angeles).

We left here at 11. First stop a coffee place (and I asked them completely surprised "but are we going to dance here????"), a few drinks (for the others, I don't drink), a few cigarettes (for the others), a bit of bla bla bla (this time me too, since I found two of my oldest scuba diving friends). On the move again. Time: around 12 am. In the car again, driving in the fog. By the time we left the coffee place from 4 people we became 7.

We then get to this place in Montecatini, "La Bella Vita". Time we got inside: 12.45 am. Nice place. Full of people. Nice place for a study. I keep believing that if I wouldn't have became a biologist, I would have been an anthropologist. Age range of the people inside: 12-50. Average: 30. Clothing: this is a chapter apart. I will shortly describe it later.

First thing that I noticed. On the top floor of this disco-place, people smoke. I ask my sister: isn't that by law it is now forbidden to smoke in closed public places? and my sister "Yes, but since the emergency door is open, in this way they can say that the room is an open space, thus people can smoke". The open door was a small emergency door, only in the corner of one side of the room. Basically, it would be like you are at home, you open the house door and then you convince yourself of being in an open space.
And then people wonder why in Italy nothing works...pretty obvious I would say. Make a law and in two minutes, Italians will find 100 and more way to escape it.

The music was nice, so I started dancing (actually, I started dancing since I entered the place and I heard the music) among other people just standing, walking, pushing. Not the best conditions to dance. But ok. After two minutes since I began dancing, my sister and I had a crowd of guys around us. I can be pretty unfriendly if someone disturbs me when I dance (I make an exception only for people I know), so those guys left after a few minutes. The problem is that there were too many guys, so once these left, other came. My sister told me that a really ugly guy was staring at me for almost all the time we danced there. Ah, I forgot, my sister likes acting like a match-maker, so she is trying to find a new boyfriend for me when she has the occasion. Unfortunately, beside the fact that I don't need her to find someone for me, we also have completely different taste for men.

And finally, let's talk about the clothing and the men there. I think it is really fashionable for the Italian men to wear a shirt with the first 3-4 buttons completely open, probably thinking that showing some chest hair work as an aphrodisiac for women (which may be for the others, but for sure not for me). The other version of the above described one, is the shirt with 3-4 buttons open and an hair-free chest. I don't want to enter too much in the psychology of the Italian men, but after spending so many years abroad, on the average I have to say that they act a lot, trying to convince the women around that they are the coolest animals on Earth. Of course, once they are out of the dancing place, they run home, where they can find some protection under their mothers' roof. Of course, this on average. Not everyone is like this, otherwise we would extinct pretty soon.
Another extremely interesting character was the hair style. I think the '80 are back also in the hair style for men. Ugly. Ah and I forgot that I always remain kinda of shocked when I see men hugging each other, touching each others etc...but here it is pretty common. I think it has something to do with the animal recognition. You know, some animals smell each other to see if you belong to the same "clan", Italian probably substituted the smell with a bit of touching.
My sister defined the women there "cows", but I think she was a bit too exaggerated...for sure they were not all ladies, but there were some pretty interesting figures too.
Maybe next time I will go out dancing I will bring a camera and some piece of paper to take notes (can you imagine me taking notes and pictures in the middle of the crowd? probably they would call some psychoanalyst to bring me away...)...
But I had fun....

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

N

Lucca (Italy), afternoon

Last night I saw a movie from Virzi' "N: Napoleon and me".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462002/

Beside the fact that I already liked the other movie that I saw from Virzi' ("Ovosodo"), beside that I am from Tuscany and whatever time he paints a character from Livorno it seems to me to see my neighbor and I like that, this movie is even more than that. I didn't want to watch it when it came out (2006) because I thought "mmm there is the Bellucci, another movie in which she plays the beauty and all the movie moves around that". Then, a few people told me that it was actually a good movie, with great actors and Daniel Auteuil is in there (he is Napoleon) and I absolutely love him (as an actor, of course). So, I got it in dvd. And I liked it. A lot. Elba and Portoferraio especially are beautiful, the dialogues are funny without any excess. Bellucci is more than the beauty around whom the movie is plaid. And the rest of the actors are incredibly good! Auteuil is a perfect Napoleon, dramatic and charming as much as he needed to be. Germano is a great main character. I would say that Germano is one of the young Italian actors I like most.

Good, good movie for a relaxing evening at home, while outside was raining.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

song

Lucca (Italy), morning

It is raining, today too.
I just heard a wonderful song "Living Darfur" and I bought it from ITunes. I saw the videoclip and I felt a strong desire of leaving for Africa. I remember my trip in South Africa as one of the most wonderful place I saw so far. It is probably true that Africa stays in your heart after you visit it once. My ex-field work colleagues are in Madagascar now. I would love to be there too. Being in the field, catching animals, no emails, no pressure from anyone, just nature and myself, it is something that makes me feel in the right place at the right time.

The other day while I was cleaning I found a card from Claudia. The card was from 1997 and already 11 years ago she wrote me that she wished I could realize my dream of traveling and seeing all the different places in the world that I dream of seeing.....I didn't remember that it is since so long that I have this strong passion.

Monday, January 14, 2008

empty inside-escaping desire

Lucca (Italy), afternoon

I should work, finish up things for work. I should relax also. I should take it easy and I should have fun. A lot of things I feel I should do for myself. Instead, I don't manage to really do anything of those. To relax I need to get to the end of something, the work left over, the unresolved situations, the inside conflicts. To finish up the work, I need to force myself, since I feel like I don't know enough to finish anything and I feel like a failure. I got an email from my ex-boss today and even if there was nothing negative, seeing the email was enough to freeze the blood in my vein, to paralyze me.

I am so instable that I feel like leaving again, moving. I cannot find some peace in myself and I feel I have to move, change again, hoping to find the peace that I cannot find in myself somewhere else. I cry and I don't even know why. I just feel all this responsibility for the work left that I cannot even just spend my days reading and doing things that I enjoy. And to finish some work I need help because or like in one case it is one thing I strongly don't want to work on and I don't have any idea of how to finish it or in the other cases, it has been so painful to fight for them during the past year, than now every time I open one of the files I feel like vomiting.

I thought of coming back to New Haven, so that there, even if I don't go to the lab to avoid to meet my ex boss, I can ask someone for help for the work things I need or I can ask for some motivation. Here almost none can understand why I am at home alone all day working when none pay me or care for what I am doing. And even the people who still don't understand, but support me, cannot actually help me if I need something. I think I am too corrected. I feel responsibility for things I started or someone forced me to do and to do in their own way, when I could and I should just say fuck. So, I am paralyzed by the desire of giving up on all these things that make me so stress for one or the other reason and the sense of responsibility in having to finish them. And since there is no peace inside me, there is no peace no matter where I am and where I go. And I keep thinking about the movie "Into the wild".

The last year had been so difficult that yesterday when I was talking with my grandma about various things, works, dreams, future projects, I just couldn't avoid to have tears in my eyes.
And I have to be strong for everybody here, they need me strong. No matter where I am. By phone calls or emails I am the one who always can listen to them, because they need to talk and take out their worries. And I want to be there for them. And they are so troubled these people that I don't want to give them my problems too. So, I built up this barrier in which outside I am this happy/ok myself, and inside I am just in a lot of little piece.

I just would like someone to take me in their arms and keep me there and convince me that everything is going to be ok, that everything is going to be fine and that I am not alone in this and that it is a moment and it is going to be fine again and that they love me and they can go trough this with me and help me. I am becoming more and more close that I feel none knows how I feel or what it is inside me.
I would like to feel loved.

I know my mum loves me. But I cannot give her more worries, she has already too many. I am her joy, having me here now, I know it is a joy for her, like for my grandma. And I want to be there for the people I love and need me, but I also feel I need someone to convince me that I will find some peace and that it will get better soon.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

7 years ago

Lucca (Italy), afternoon

Just for a change....it is raining now....I arrived here on December 23 and since then I had only 2 days of sun....
I have been walking a lot in the past days. From my mum's place to downtown and back, walk everywhere it was possible, just to move a bit, even with the rain. And I think Lucca is boring. Really boring for me now. It is not that I want to complain about every single place I live, but there are two factors to consider: 1) the more I live abroad, the more there are things I like (and I don't like) of the places where I live 2) last time I lived for long time in Lucca was 7 years ago.

I left Lucca when I was 25, when I was working in a discopub to get some money, when I had full of friends more or less involved in relationships, but basically also with a strong desire of just having fun, when I had a full life in which the only negative point was the frustration of working at the University of Pisa.
I left everything here to start a PhD in Germany, where on the other hand, I had no friend, I didn't speak the language (neither I spoke english at that time), I had nothing and I didn't know anything of what I was starting to work on (at that time I didn't even have a clear idea of what evolutionary biology was). During the 3 years and half I spent in Konstanz (Germany), I changed boyfriend, I saw friends leaving, people who I thought to be friends using me, I had to strongly change my behavior to adapt to the Konstanz environment, I had to survive to a bossy boss and I had to learn what it means to have no life and work until 2, 3 am in the morning. Of course, Konstanz also had positive aspects, but in all those 3 years, I spent a lot of time thinking about the kind of personal life I had in Lucca before to leave. And in Konstanz I was not happy, basically due to the lack of friends. In the mean time I got older and my friends from Lucca some disappeared and some got married and had kids.
Then I moved to Amsterdam and I loved the city. But my boyfriend was in Konstanz and the only friends I had in Amsterdam were my roommates, two at the beginning and then one since Ulli moved to Luxembourg. The olandesino, came to see me quite often and I was also going back to Konstanz to see him often, but due to the lack of friends, the fact that the only two people I knew were working a lot and the fact that I lived my relationship on skype, I didn't have so much life either in Amsterdam.
The same in USA, with other negative and positive points about New Haven.

I thought that coming back to Lucca would have meant to get my life back. My life of 7 years ago. But the reality is that for how close I am to my old friends, for how close they can be to me and even if being here makes easier any communication (see previous blog), I grew up in one direction and they grew up in another. They have families, kids, stable relationships, jobs. They don't live too much as an individual anymore, as the people I remembered but more as the role that the have in their life, a mother, a father, a wife ect. The life I hoped to find coming back here, was my fun personal life of 7 years ago. It is like my personal life stopped at that time, while all the rest moved forward. Even the city of Lucca changed a lot in the last 7 years and now at 8 pm if you walk downtown, the city is basically dead (the fact that it rains continuously doesn't help of course). Maybe I needed to realize this to start to really live my life in other places too. Of course it is great to have found my old friends again and having the chance to spend time with them, without rushing every time. But the life I can have here now, it is not anyway the life I left, I remembered and I dream of having back of 7 years ago.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

sizes. In Italy and USA

Lucca (Italy), evening

I am going to buy a pair of pants. I normally wear a 42-44. I mean, if it was some years ago, I would certainly wear a 42 here in Italy. In Holland I wear an 8. In USA I am not sure.
The question of sizes is a tricky one. None basically could buy me pants since it would be difficult to know exactly which size is the right for me. Fortunately, since I always wear larger pants, there is a range of size that could potentially work and then save who would like to buy a pair of pants for me.

The problem is. In Italy the size 44 of some years ago now shrinked so much that I don't know why a girl size 44 cannot wear it anymore. This makes you feel awful when you go shopping for some pants. You enter the shop, you ask for a 44, since until some months before you were a size 44 and you are 100% sure that you didn't gain any weight and then you get in your hands a 44 that seems made for a Barbie with no shape. The thing is. I am Italian and as I already stated earlier in my blog, I am shaped like a pear. Thin waist and large bottom. All this years ago would fit in a size 42-44 if I wanted larger pants. Now it simply doesn't. And not that I gained weight, even if my first reaction was to panic and think that (but I checked that and it is not the case). No, the company just decided to shrink their sizes. And this in a world in which there is an alarm to highlight the problem "anorexic". The sizes shrinked, so if you still want to think and say that you wear a size 42 or 44, you probably have to starve, loose weight and wear a size that some years ago was probably a 38-40.

Now, I went to buy jean in a Banana Republic store in USA. I tried on my jeans. Size 8. Too large. Large everywhere on my body. Just not my size. Weird, I thought to be a size 8. Then size 6 and? STILL LARGE! So, you go to size 4 and they fit perfectly. Just perfect. Right perfect size. Result? a boosting for my self confidence, a lot of smiles from me to whatever person was in the shop and the feeling of looking good. Not to bad right? So, Hurra for the USA..............................................................................Too bad that in general in the USA they don't have too many nice clothings for a cheap price....

Monday, January 7, 2008

Weather

Lucca (Italy), morning

But does it always rain in this place? I am here since December 23 and since I am here I saw 2 days of sun.................and this is Tuscany....................

Saturday, January 5, 2008

wedding dress

Italy, night

Saturday night. I had a full day today. With my sister, with my mum, with Chantal. A nice, enjoyable, full day. Now I am alone in my room with some nice music as a background.
Chantal today told me something and this something was that I choose a career and this means that I gave up a family or a personal life. And she is convinced about that. As she is convinced that every place I go, I can forget the person I am with and start a new relationship. The truth is that I wish in some case that what she said can be true. But it is not.

I still struggle for a person I loved so strongly, for the person I had dreams of having a future with, the person I saw myself getting old with. I am slow. I am slow in getting involved with someone. I am slow in moving on if it doesn't work. And this because I don't need to officially marry this person, because in my head I am of this person and this person is my half. But then, I started to feel that something was not going the way I wanted, the way I lived it in my head and then I just woke up and tried to escape from reality in some less painful way.
And this not because I felt that the person didn't love me. I have this idea of the romantic and independent love. This idea for which you fuse with the other person but you also keep yourself, your independence. You don't disappear into the other, you just fuse with each other and you are both of you and even more because you are together. It is a subtle equilibrium, extremely fragile and if one of the two is stronger, it is easier for the other to disappear. You have to be a team for which the team can be stronger only if you both work together giving yourself, but also maintaining yourself.

I feel I failed in both my important relationships, since they didn't work out the way I wanted. And I am just so, so afraid of believing again in something that could be for a future, that could involve someone else, something that doesn't depend only on me. And every time I am disappointed in my personal life, I focus all myself on my work, because until now I felt I can control that and avoid the failure. But the last year showed me that it doesn't exactly work like that, and that I can also hate so much what I loved so much. Now I feel like I don't know where I am going and what I want. I just feel so insecure that I am afraid of moving the next step forward and I move only with little careful, calculated steps, hoping in this way to be able to control everything as much as I can.

For more than 3 years the olandesino has been my life, my home, my save place, my ONE. I am not light in these things, I know. I didn't need a ring. I didn't need a wedding. He was my half for me. And what Chantal told me today hurt me a lot. Because I would have loved to have a life with him and not only a career. But when things go wrong, my safe place became more and more my work. And the more I suffered for him and the more I felt the need of feeling safe and my safe place was my work. But I wanted to have a life and a work I liked. Because I believed that it is possible to have both, even if with some sacrifice.
And then in the last year and half everything crashed. And now I don't know in what I believe or not anymore or what I want or not anymore. And I am just really afraid of being happy again and then hope and suffer so much again.

This morning I went with my sister to help her to choose her wedding dress. She was so nervous and excited about it that I thought that even if we are both survivors to my father and outside we show this thick layer to protect us, at the end we just both need to receive a lot love. All the love we never had from our father. We just need that all the rejections we had from him are going to be balanced with equal and more love. We need our little happy island. And this morning, even if sometimes don't get along, my sister and I, I saw her as a strong and fragile person like I am and in a need of someone who loves her and hold her hand and tell her "don't worry, I am here and no matter what happens, I am going to be here for you".

My sister is going to be beautiful the day of her wedding. All brides are beautiful, but she will be gorgeous. She is naturally beautiful and she choose a wonderful, simple, elegant, dress. And I am happy I shared this moment with her. Just us.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

DVD

Lucca (Italy), morning

Last night. Cup of the and a cartoon. A nice one. "Spirited away" from Miyazaki.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/

I already saw some of his other cartoons. Scott likes them and we watched some of them together. And I love cartoons. I am kind of a cartoons addicted. Anyway. I had all the intentions to enjoy this one. My mum was sitting next to me, curious to watch it (she is more into Walt Disney/Pixar cartoons).

Great cartoon, except for the fact that the DVD was scratched and I saw the second half of the movie all with the fast forward or fast reverse to avoid the scratches and the points where the DVD was not working. So, basically I saw a nice old lady and Chihiro calling her grandma, when in the previous scene the old lady was bad and Chihiro for sure wouldn't even dream of calling her grandma and hugging her. After going back and forth a couple of hundred times, I was able to reconstruct the whole story and understand that there were two old women and that they were twins....Of course, the DVD was badly scratched at the end, so I don't know how the cartoon ends....So, I spent about 3 hours and half to try to see this cartoon and at the end I didn't see the conclusion of the story....Which means, I will try to find the DVD again and watch it over....But it seems a nice cartoon.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Thought

Lucca (Italy), evening

It is so painful when you hope for a nice word from someone and all what you get is nothing or less than nothing. It is just frustrating and it makes my stomach going upside down.... It is not a nice feeling. Not at all.

New Year's Eve

Italy, morning

After hours spent trying to clean my room, plus removing and trashing old stuff, now I am ready to start to work....and it is lunch time....however, since I had breakfast around 10.30, I guess I can wait to have lunch.

Cleaning up old stuff is always bitter-sweet...you always end up finding old pictures, old cards and memories keep coming to your mind. So, I found cards of my first boyfriend, my platonic love. Lots of cards....really sweet.

Uh. I just had to take a break to dance some old old '80 dance music...I am listening to old cds to decide what to do with them...I couldn't avoid dancing....This is part of the memories too, since there are often people or situations associate with songs ...Honestly, I am not sure what is related with this dance music, except maybe when I was going to dance almost every week, 3 days a week....and it was not even when I was working in the discotheque...ah, good time!!!!

So, about my new year's eve. Here a picture of the group (of course I was not there, I was taking the picture). In the picture, Chantal, Moreno, my mom, Roberto and in front Olimpia and Sandra.


The concert was really nice, it was classic music, opera, Italian '60-'70-'80 with everyone singing alone. This is a view of the old church were the concert was and of the orchestra.


It was something different than my previous new year's eve, but it was nice and the company good. I should go out with Olimpia and Sandra more often. They seem nice (it was the first time I saw them, they are friend of Chantal). Basically we stayed at the concert until 4 am. Then we came back here to my mum's place where everyone started to eat again. There was so much food, that my mom had to distribute it to everybody (including my grandma). I made a dutch apple pie for the occasion. My mom made a lot of food, like always (she is always afraid that there is not enough food for everyone or that the food is not good enough). While she was preparing some vegetable-balls, the plate with some of them decided to land on the floor of her kitchen.....I was in my room working and I heard a laud scream. I thought that something bad just happened, so I ran to the kitchen and this is what I saw (the green stuff on the floor were the vegetable-balls). Of course, I started to laugh....


....and of course the cats were really happy about the food on the floor....
At the end, I went to bed at 6 am yesterday....I enjoyed.