Sunday, August 30, 2009

Very un-cool

France, morning

This morning I am in a blogging mood. Maybe because last night with these three girls we discussed about a lot of things that I thought interesting.

One of them was Facebook. Ok, I am officially un-cool and "antique". I am not on Facebook, nor I intend to be there. For a lot of reasons, among which:

- It promotes a "voyeur" behavior. And because I am not better than anyone else and I know myself very well, I know that I would end up abusing it and checking about all the people I know (especially ex-). This would ends up torturing me and actually making me feel sad.

- For sure, as everything else, it all depends on how you use it. But the information you put in there will remain there even after canceling your account, linked to your name. I don't like this. I don't need people (even friends of a friend) to know what I am doing, seeing, thinking, ect. Of course, with a blog, I share these info too. But none actually knows who I am and the ones who do, they know anyway what I am doing, seeing, thinking and most of the times they don't even check my blog.

- It wouldn't make me feel more connected. I actually believe that it would make me feel more lonely. I am an old-fashion person (as I have been defined yesterday). I still write long letters to communicate. And I have a few very important people that count a lot in my life. The other, are just people that pass by in my life. The ones who matter to me, are the ones to whom I send emails, and/or letters, and/or cards.

- I don't like the fact that everyone assumes that I am on Facebook and so I know what it is going on in their lives, saw their pictures or whatever they put or write there. I got to know that a friend of mine had a bad accident almost a month after he had the accident. Why? because he wrote about it on Facebook (well, his brother did it for him) and none bothered to tell me about it as they thought that I would read about it on Facebook.

- I would spend too much time on it and I would feel left out if I am not updating it, checking what it is going on etc. Now that instead I am out of it, I don't feel left out (even if anyone else yesterday asked me this "don't you feel left out?")

So, I enjoyed to read this article on the NewYorkTimes this morning.

The second choice

France, morning

I went out with three girls yesterday. Very nice people, I never met two of them before. Of course, one is leaving next week, one in a week and one at the end of the month. Our lives of people moving continuously around the world..... when you find someone with whom you would get along well, they are moving to another place.

And this goes for romantic relationships too. It takes sometimes to build something and then with the gypsy kind of life that we have, when the relationship gets strong enough and you are deeply in love for each other Puff! it is time to move. And distance relationships are painful. I don't know how people manage them. I had a relationship when I moved to Germany and it soon became a distance relationship and the distance was killing me and it was very painful. It was not fun for anyone at the end.

Then I had a very long distance relationship with the olandesino. We managed for very long time, across the world, even with an Ocean in between. But I don't know how many times in the relationship I felt heart broken, I felt that I couldn't take anymore, I felt that I would leave my job, my dreams just to be with him. I don't know how many hours I spent on skype just to talk to him and see him with the web cam. I don't know how many hours I stared at the computer screen wondering why I had to be so far from him, why we couldn't find a job in the same place, why we had to keep moving all the time, why we have to have only short contracts or short-term fellowships that wouldn't allow us to make any plan.

Distance relationships for me could work only if they are limited in time and if the distance is not so much to allow to see each other often enough. Often enough being for me at least once or twice a month. Otherwise, it will just became a growing pain and a struggling.

How did I get in this status of mind? Because one of the things I talked about last night with these girls was exactly this, how to deal with distance relationships. And the positions were pretty much clear:

- You block yourself, avoid to fall in love for anyone and get attached
- You keep having "fun" relationship with people who are ok but for whom you don't feel that much, so that when you will leave there will be not pain and something to carry on with a distance
- You try anyway, even knowing that probably will hurt you like hell at the moment that you will be apart

If you didn't try a distance relationship, you can't understand what I am talking about. And I am not writing this out of arrogance. But because I heard so many times from my friends and family things like: you have to be strong, it is not so bad, at least you have each others, I think I could do it, I think I could manage, you suffer only because you are too needy....and things like this.

I may be needy and probably I am. But meeting more and more people with a life-style similar to mine, you understand that it is not just you who can't deal well with distance in a romantic relationship. They are just hard to deal with if you love someone very deeply. Someone manages them (and they have all my admiration).
Someone decides that she/he can't take it anymore. And if this goes with the thought that the person you leave was the "person you wanted to spend your life with" then you will keep loving this person for very long time.

One of these girls yesterday told me that his ex- was the person she thought just right for him. But it didn't work because they were apart for so long that it was hard to keep a healthy relationship. So, finally she realized that she had to give herself a chance and move on and try to find someone else, even if this person would probably ends up to be a second choice. Even if she will never stop to love her ex-. Even if she will miss him. Even if she will have moments in which she will thinks "why?".
Until one day in which she will find someone that from just being a second choice will became so important in her life that she will not want to be with anyone else but him.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

slowing down

France, afternoon

I don't think I got the job in Germany.

I am a workaholic lately. I am consuming myself working all the time, till my eyes are burning, till I don't even have the smallest energy left to think. I have these phases sometimes, when I don't want to deal with things that are not going the way I want or when thinking would only make me worried.

Since the beginning of August, I already wrote two diaries...if I would use better my imagination and my need and desire of writing, I could do something a bit more productive than just writing diaries. But I guess the good thing about writing diaries is that they are just for me. I write for myself. Like a therapy. And I have to say that it works.

I have been feeling very lonely lately. But I am also avoiding to see people or do random things with someone else. I am trying to do only the things I really want to do and if I have to do them alone, it is fine. But, I am feeling lonely and I guess I need it now. It is not necessarily pleasant. But it is necessary, I feel. I am living a bit in a limbo lately. And it is ok. Not good, not bad, just ok. Just how it should be now, probably.

Do you ever have this feeling of being suspended? of walking in the air? of being out of time and space? This is how I feel lately. Of course, conciliating this with a working life that requires to show up at a certain precise time for a meeting, it is not always easy. But fortunately in my work I am pretty much my own boss.

Week ends are anyway mine! They are just mine. My time, my space, my needs. It is all about me and fortunately, it can be, since I have none else next to me to have to take into account. So, today I just walked around, with my head totally up in the air. I sat for a juice at the English book store and wrote a bit. I finished a book and enjoyed it and took the time to let the story sinking in me. I wrote a bit more. I ate of course, a couple of times already. I let my thoughts go. I let myself feeling down and sad and hurt, without needing to push these feelings away, because I have to smile, because I have to interact. And I found a melancholic music that goes with my current mood. I wanted to download the album, but first, I wanted to listen to it a couple of times. And here I am. I think I like it. Not danceable, very melancholic. To listen to it, I guess.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

I love gadgets

France, morning

I am going to work with my new skate. I love it. I got it for my birthday. Don't say, don't even think that these kind of things are for kids, that I am too old for that, etc. etc. I am never too old for these kind of gadgets. They just make me happy.

It is super-cool and even if I am not that good yet to be able to jump and do a lot of different tricks, I enjoy very much just to ride it here and there. Of course, I don't use the helmet. I can't tolerate the helmet. You think that I should have learned something from all the times I badly fall from the bike and hit my head against the ground (and twice I got a head concussion too). You may think that for someone like me, for whom the brain is extremely important for my work, I should be more protective toward it....but not....I feel too cool to drive my skate around with my hair flying in the wind (well, I am not going that fast, but anyway, the image looks good), all smiley.

The only small problem so far is that I didn't consider 1) how much energy you have to use with this gadget and 2) how out of shape I am.....so, after a bit I have to stop, catch some breath and start again. It also happened that it was so much work, that one day I got to work so sweaty that it looked like I just ran some marathon.....very charming.....

But it doesn't matter, riding this gadget makes my day....

What can I say? I am just an old kid! I love toys. A few Christmas ago I also got as a present a balance board....for me it is another perfect therapy for when I have my down moments. Get there, try to balance without falling and I have no time to think about anything else than that!!! it works perfectly for me....

Now, I have to run to work with my skate. Bye. Swooooooooooooooooooosh (this is the noise of me running away with the skate :-) )

Saturday, August 22, 2009

a very very rich winner

France, night

I just read it....

Somebody finally won the Italian lottery, which means a lot a lot of money.....

Unfortunately that winner is not me....otherwise I wouldn't probably be here blogging now.....

I hope that the winner will do a good use of this incredible amount of money....by the way....if you are reading here and you are the winner and you really don't know what to do with all that money, well.....just pass a bit of them here!!!!

Thursday, August 20, 2009

My head and the planes

France, afternoon

I still have to have lunch today. It is so hot that I could fry an egg on my head....I am surprised that I don't see smoke coming out of my ears yet.

I got back from Germany. By the end of my first day there, I started to like the place where I was. Nice people, a lot of green spaces, clean, cheap and good food (I managed to also get something without any milk product!!!)....so, not bad overall.

I don't think I will get the job...unfortunately...they were looking for someone like me but also with more experience in another field...and they also got a lot of good candidates for the position...we will see...

Anyway, I got back by plane. The plane trip cost me more than going to Thailand probably and back. Europe in the summer...crazy expensive! I was also so lucky that I had to spend 6 hours at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris to wait for my connection. CDG airport is probably one of the worst big airport of the world....badly designed, uncomfortable chairs, not enough things to do.....By the end of the second hours there I was getting in the status of mind of leaving and probably losing my suitcase and got on a train to get back home...Fortunately I had a good book with me and so at the end I made it.

At the interview they asked me if I was married. I got very uncomfortable with such a personal question....but after that, as I new other people there and they also knew the olandesino, they asked me how he was doing....Delicate topic. I am still not able to talk about it, and just a simple question makes me get tears in my eyes and of course when you are among colleagues, you don't want to look over-sensitive....pfffffffffffffffffff......

Today I am in a day of total frenzy to avoid to think.....

So, I got back by plane and I managed to hit my head badly in parts of the planes multiple times. I don't know if this happens frequently also to other people. But for how much I like planes and flying (and I do like both things a lot), my head can always find some extremities on which to bump into very strongly. Yesterday was not so bad. But I should learn to be more carefull, after that I already experienced a bad head concussion for a similar accident on my way back from South Africa some years ago.

Because of the concussion, not only I had terrible headake and problems with body balance, but I also had days of bad nausea. I got quite scared. I had to spend a few days in bed, without any kind of stress. Of course that was not my first head concussion and it will be not probably the last one. It seems that I have a great talent in badly bumping my head against walls, plane parts, and any solid structure that happens to cross my way............

Maybe this can explain why lately I can't remember things anymore and I feel that my intelligence is rapidly decreasing :-(

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

ohne butter, ohne kase

Germany, lunch time

When you are allergic to something and you have to travel to a country where you don't speak the language, where they don't speak any of the language that you know and where they put this "something" everywhere, eating can became quite a challenge.

I don't speak German. I just know a few words here and there. And as it is lunch time, I was trying to get a sandwich without butter and cheese. It turned out, this is a very complicated task. Much more of a challenge than doing the same thing in France, where at least I speak the language.

I ended up buying just some plain bread and water, after getting something that I thought to be harmless (I asked "was is das?" what is that?, and then "mit or ohne butter und kase?" thinking that they could understand that I was asking if it was with or without butter or cheese) and intead turned out to be made with butter or containing milk....because, and here my mistake, asking if it is with or without butter or cheese doesn't
1) include milk in the list and
2) mean that I am also asking if it is made with some of these ingredients....

So, I got sick....a few hours before my job interview....not too bad, not too bad....

If I will have to move here, I will definitively learn German as quickly as possible if I don't want to spend every day sick.

In any case, being in Germany again after many years and being in another part of Germany, made me realize what it makes me easily sad here. Everything is, or looks, perfect. Well organized, functional, clean. It crushes against the messiness of my life. This country would work perfectly for my mom. But I am more of a far from perfection person and being here just makes me feel even more out of place than I normally feel. My Italianiness doesn't fit with this perfection. Of course, when I lived in Germany I loved the fact that things were working the way you hope they would. That people are professional, that things are clean, that there are plenty of green spaces and bike roads....but when in a country everything seems to work so well, what is it left to complain about? sure it makes your daily life easier, not always worrying about a possible coming strike that would paralyze the entire country for months (like in France) or not being able to see a dentist for weeks because in August nobody works, but still....I need a bit of "out of perfection"....

I guess that this is one of things I loved most about living in Holland. Things work and yet, you also get the feeling that the rules are not so strict and feel a bit free to be messy or different in your own way....

In any case, in France I always tell everyone how great was to live in Germany where daily things actually work. And here, I feel that I miss the messiness of France....I guess that this says a lot about me.....

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

This is a non-smoking place

France, evening

I don't smoke. I tried once when I was 18 because I wanted to impress a guy and I thought I would die. I inhaled the smoke deeply and felt a burn inside my body. I can't remember for how long I coughed.

I don't need to say that I didn't impress the guy at all.

That was my first and only experience with the cigarettes. I actually turned up hating the smell of the cigarette smoke. I hate it so much that I am trying to convince anyone I know who smokes to stop. My sister and my best friend for example.

In any case. Being in France and being a non-smoker doesn't look cool. Everyone here smokes, and a lot. Women even more than men. Or maybe I just notice them more. There is no safe place where to escape the smoke. Even inside restaurants and pubs, there is always a little opening from where people hang on to the outside to smoke. So, passive smoke became an hobby for me here.

But they all look healthy. Very healthy. At least from the outside. I never checked their lungs....

The person who said that smoke makes your skin looking pale and grey probably has never visited France in his/her life. Have you seen the French? smoking one cigarette after the other and still looking good (mmmm, not men...I can't find French men looking good, with or without cigarettes).

Smoke is bad for the circulation.....I haven't seen any French with heavy legs full of visible veins.

I still can't stand the smoke of a cigarette....but maybe the French have the good genes to not only smoke and smoke a lot, but to even get some benefit out of smoking.....

This needs to be investigated more.....
To be continued....

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

two months vacation

France, night

I am back to France. The good thing of just needing a computer to work is that I can work wherever I want. The bad thing of that is that I basically keep working all the time. In any case, I am back to France. I got back last night.

This morning I wanted a fresh baguette for breakfast. The closest bakery was closed. The next bakery was closet too. The grocery store where I buy fruits and vegetables was close too. I had to walk a long way before to find something open. At the supermarket where I normally go (the main one downtown), they will not have fresh fish for a month because they are in holidays.

I came back to France with a very annoying tooth pain. I called the dentist this morning. He is in holidays, he will be back at the end of August. The bakery near by will open again on August 20. They are in holidays since July 18. The following bakery will open again on August 29. The University is closed too. I need a permit to go to work there.

I never saw a country where things generally work and yet people are able to have about 2 months vacation, almost all at the same time of the year. How the country doesn't stop to run it is still a mystery to me. Everyone here really has to hope to not need anything urgent......I hope that my tooth pain will go away soon.......