Alright, there is a reason I am posting this before "The Italian Job: Part Two" - actually, there are three. 1) I don't have all of the pictures of Rome yet, 2) I don't want people reading this post as much, or at least don't want it to be at the top of my blog for too long, and 3) I'm a little ashamed that some of the contents of this post have been flooding around my brain for so long, and I want to get them out of my system so that I can focus on both studying and enjoying my last month in this truly amazing place.
With that said, I want to talk about the following things:
- Travel
- Study Abroad (including Italy, class, language, and more)
- Work
- Friends
- Girls
- Me
TRAVEL
I owe a lot of you a big apology. If I've ever whined about travel inconveniences or disappointments, I am very sorry. I'm ashamed of myself and how narcissistic I have become at times in the last two years. A world at your fingertips does that to you, but that's no excuse. I've justified my immature thoughts and words with myopic emotional appeals - I can't remember how many times I've told my friends, "getting there is only half the battle." It must be such a pain to listen to me at times. A friend of mine who is much wiser than his years unassumingly reminded me of my folly: "but, Andrew, getting there is half the battle." I don't know when I lost my bearings, but I have. Here I am
in Italy! ...whining about travel...
Oh, I had my psychological crutches. I had my injuries to which I could boast. I could travel on a shoestring and then look around for a podium to receive my award and give an acceptance speech. I was proud of the fact that I could sleep on plywood, go a day or two without food, or run three miles in place of taking a taxi. I thought myself such the Spartan in terms of travel - yet a Spartan would not notice these things. And a Spartan
definitely wouldn't whine (while thinking he was boasting) about these things to his dear friends. But such was my cocktail of pride and narcissism, so that when I did start whining, I'd scarcely noticed.
I recently went to Rome round-trip using Ryanair. I remember vocally whining to my friends about the following things: credit card fees, check-in fees, distance of airports from the cities, ghettoness of the airports, prices in the airports, line to wait in at the gate, the colors of Ryanair's print material, the second-grader font, the website, the flight delays, the non-recline seats, the annoying electronic song that played throughout takeoff/landing, the false advertising regarding ticket price, the ugly flight attendant uniforms, the ugly flight attendants, the kamikaze-style landings, and the general ghettoness/sketchiness/cheapness of the whole operation. Now, a mature person would have just kept these comments to himself, and elected to not fly on the airline again. But no, I had to let the world know (arguably still do). No wonder my friends spoke to each other in Spanish so much.
I was at the tram stop the other day waiting, when I overheard the conversation of some other American exchange students. They were all whining to each other about a million different things - and they never even took a second to stop. Ten minutes waiting for the tram, and then twenty minutes on the ride to our dorm - they never stopped. I could barely stand it - even though I wasn't in the conversation. I thought - how can that be your life?! How can you listen to yourself talk like that? It wasn't long though before I realized that I have done the exactly same thing at times. How can we whine so easily and so obliviously? I don't know, but I do know this - that there is absolutely no reason for it. Don't like the flight? Don't fly that airline again. Don't like the weather? Either go somewhere else or put on an extra coat. Don't like waiting for trams? Then bring a good book or run home. It seems so simple - how have I not seen this until now? Imagine going an entire day without complaining once - would you lose anything? In fact, imagine never whining again ever! Would your life be any worse? Might it even be better? How has this habit so enslaved us? Enslaved me?
The problem with studying abroad is that there is always going to be someone who does it "better" than you. Somebody who has the money, has the time, and has the focus to make the perfect trip every weekend. My friends have left me alone in Milan to visit Ireland, Scotland, Norway, England, Brussels, Paris, Barcelona, Lisbon, Santander, Barcelona, Morocco, Sicily, Capri, Budapest, Amsterdam, Interlaken, Vienna, Prague, Venice, Dubai, Munich, Zurich, Geneva, Poland, Greece, and Istanbul - all places that I would have loved to have gone to. I have made two overnight trips since arriving in Milan - a weekend in Tuscany and Rome each. I will go to St. Moritz for the first weekend in December. I don't know a person who has traveled less than me. The sad irony is how easy it is to forget how lucky I am to be in Milan.
God has blessed me beyond words to describe. With important things - life, family, Him - and not so important things, yet blessings all the same - the privilege to study abroad, friends from all over the world, the ability to fly practically anywhere in the world for just a few hundred bucks. Lord, please help my heart be thankful - I have absolutely no excuse for anything else...ever.
STUDY ABROADOne thing I'm not looking forward to when I return is the question: "So how was it?" Don't get me wrong, I still want you to ask me it, because I love talking about happy things just as much as people probably like listening to them. However, the question just seems too simple. If you didn't study abroad, I imagine it feels like the awkward, "So how is school?" question you always get from friends and relatives when you come home for break. The question just does not do the subject justice.
Truth be told, I've had experiences that are worth more than money can define, amazing stories, sights, and occurrences that I'd like to relive over and over again. Those cannot begin to be addressed in the question "So how was it?". On the other hand, there are a lot of things that would honest answers to the same question that I have no desire to even think about, let alone address to my listener. Things and choices that you would pay anything to do over again - and not to relive. Eye-opening experiences, lessons in maturity and growing up that make you realize just how blissful ignorance is. Disappointments - too often things that you could have changed. I'm trying to forever let go of some of them in this post.
My biggest disappointments have to my ineptitude regarding immersing myself in the local language, culture, and community. Relationships (community) is a big topic, one that I will hold off for the most part until my section on "Friends". But it is related to the others. I have made one Italian friend. One. Not two. One. And I can barely take credit for it - he mostly reached out to me, a true friends indeed. I think that I have spoken conversational Italian (more than 100 words) three times. I think that is about the number of times I have hung out with Italians in a group setting.
Outside that, I've found my community with internationals: I live in an English-speaking dorm, I take my classes in English, I teach English for a living at an American country, and I go to an international English-speaking church. Now, none of those things are inherently poor decisions - particularly the later ones in the series - but I don't know how it happened, but all of them sort of came together to encapsulate me in the English-speaking bubble that I vowed to never embrace. Sure, I met people from all over the world - I made good friends with Brazilians the first month, hung out with Spaniards in Tuscany, Peruvians in Rome...I was actually very successful at avoiding the "American bubble". Yet, I feel like I have gone to a gelateria and sampled every single flavor but have had far from a scope. I do not mince words when I say that this kills me right now - the number one thing that I wanted in a study abroad experience was an immersion environment. Looking back, sometimes it feels like it would have been better if I went into this particular program with a consumerist, touristic attitude - at least I would have had some better snapshots.
The thing with this disappointment is much of it came from decisions that I made. Nothing can take away from the positive experiences which I have had here, but there are definitely some things that I would have done differently:
If I could study abroad over again...I hope this comes out right...but I would not have gone to Italy. I would have gone to Spain, or another Spanish speaking country. I was already at an advanced level when I started learning Italian. I thought that the transition would be easy, but learning Italian without mastering Spanish ended up cannibalizing both languages. Now, I had some academic parameters that I needed to fill, and only Madrid offered me what I needed of the Spanish-speaking options. Milan was more appealing than Madrid, so I switched to Italian. However - I recently found out that I had more options than I originally thought. And even if I decided on Italian, I would have elected to reach an advanced level before departing, and I would have registered for classes in Italian. Either way - I would have made sure that I avoided that English-speaking bubble.
Given that I went to Milan, I would not have lived in the Arcobaleno Residence (which I recently learned means "rainbow" in Italian, which I find hilarious). It was the international dorm - and given that it is half an hour from campus and 45 minutes from city center, I severely underestimated the cultural isolation that it caused. At first it was really neat hanging out with people from all over the world, but I never spoke anything other than English, and relationships were always so superficial. Over time everybody sort of started self-segregating into their respective national groups. If I could do it over again, I would have tried my hardest to be a part of a home-stay program, or at least stay in one of the main non-international dorms. It might have been harder at first, but my friends that did that are better off because of it.
Given that I would have brought a higher level of Italian to my study abroad experience, I would have tried to find an Italian-speaking church. I love my current church to death, but I did not come to Milan to go to an American church. Given my circumstances, it was the right decision, and I have made some awesome friendships as a result. However, I feel this is yet another instance where I chose convenience in place of an opportunity to get the most out of my study abroad.
But the biggest thing that I would change is that someway - somehow - I would have tried to befriend Italians, spend time with Italians, get to know Italians. It would have been better if I put in the work to learn more Italian before coming - and I have no one to blame but myself for that. However - even if I brought just basic language skills, that should not have stopped me. The few times I did hang out with Italians I had a wonderful time - they were such friendly, exciting, jovial people. Yet I did not pursue anything - in fact, sometimes I would pull away. I don't know why. The language and cultural barriers intimidated me a bit. I think that is so sad, because that makes me a coward. So here I am with less than a month left in a beautiful country where I barely know the people. Sure, I know that Italians are always late, incredibly friendly when giving directions, smoke a lot, and have an incredibly good sense of fashion. Sadly, I don't know much else.
WORK
Partly because of financial need, partly because I wanted to keep busy, partly because I thought it would look impressive on my resume, I decided to find work when I got to Milan. Not many people do this when they study abroad, so I developed a little bit of pride and a little bit of frustration as a result. With what I knew at the time, I think it was the best decision, and even looking back now I think it will help me in the long run. However, forces largely uncontrollable caused a little bit of trouble for me.
When I accepted the job offer of being a Berlitz English teacher, I was told that I would be working around 20 hours a week, which would have given me somewhere around 3k euro over the course of the semester. It also would have made missing the first week of class for the required training a lot more justifiable. Unfortunately, the reality was that I was not assigned any work until October, and even then only about 5 hours per week - scattered on Wednesday and Friday evenings, and Saturday, blocking out weekend plans. I was told that the financial crisis is largely responsible for the lower demand for language services at Berlitz.
If financial problems prevented me from traveling around in September, much of my lack of travel since then is attributed to work commitments on weekends. To further aggravate things, often my lessons would be canceled up to 24 hours before the fact, in which I would receive no pay, and as a result have no opportunity to reclaim the travel opportunities that I had previously passed up. My October check was a meager 180 euro. November will be a little higher, but not much. I'll probably make about a third of what I was originally promised I would make.
Now, I am thankful for the work I have received and have developed and gained a lot of new skills in my communication, personality, and time management that have more value than a dollar (or euro) amount. The job also looks very good on my resume, currently starved of work experience. I wonder what I would do if I could do it over again, knowing what I know now. Currently, I think that I would have just focused on school, building relationships, and maybe talked to my parents about borrowing money to cover travel. Again, I see this is just another piece of the English-bubble that I built around myself.
I'm elaborating on all of these hindsights for two reasons: 1) thinking them through helps me to make better decisions in the future, and 2) if for some reason there's still somebody still reading this monster of a bore, maybe it will help them too.
FRIENDS
Um, there is a lot that I want to talk about here that I cannot, because this is a public forum. So now that I've thought about, there isn't much for me to talk about. However, in short, I've learned a lot about friends and relationships through studying abroad. I'll talk about two friends that I've met here. And I'll also talk about family.
Gabriele is the only Italian friend that I have. Meaning he is the only person who I can be really honest around, the only person at this point that I will be going out of my way to stay in touch with and visit, and the only person who I make regular attempts to hang out with. He largely went out of his way to befriend me when I went to Tuscany. We share a lot of common interests (skiing, music, etc.) and only speak in English (his is very good, he went on exchanges to Ireland, Australia, and UCLA). He goes out of his way to invest in people - someone I want to emulate.
David is probably my truest friend that is not Italian. He's American, and goes to Emery. We don't have so many common interests, and his personality is much different than mine, but we care about the same things. He's also in two of my classes (which, of course, I did not figure out for the first month or so :). He travels a lot more than I do, but always comes back with good stories that he is able to share with complete thankfulness and humility. He's in Morocco right now, probably camping on the Sahara sand as we speak. He's also Christian, and it shows in his life - he's also someone I want to be more like.
Other people (not all inclusive) that I am blessed to have as friends here include Kenzo (Singapore), Diego (Peru), Adam (Canada), and Vini (Brazil). I have not hung out with several of them enough. A lot of it is my fault.
I have mentioned only guys. I'm learning that it is very difficult for guys and girls to be friends. You can never tell each other everything - there is always, always that conversation between the lines, no matter how platonic you swear to yourself and each other the relationship is. Once we're honest with ourselves, it is impossible to look at or speak with a friend of the opposite sex without at least for some piece of time picturing yourselves together - physically, emotionally, spiritually. For some reason girls like to deny this more than guys do, but it is so painfully obvious nevertheless. Not to say that I don't have good and valued female friends - but it's just not the same, it can never be , and it takes a healthy frame of mind. If you have a really deep friendship with a girl, that's called marriage. Outside of that, it's all just fun and games.
Without going into details, I've learned from being abroad that some friendships (both here and back home) exceed expectations, and others disappoint. Which makes me think of the beauty of family. The blessing and the curse of family is that family is here to stay - and this is mostly a blessing. My cousin is now a father - I got to see the prize little rascal just a few days old via Skype last night. I got to virtually share a Thanksgiving with family through cyberspace. I cannot tell you how happy I felt. I usually pride myself on not getting all emotional about these things, but I can tell you the more I am away from home, the more I value my family - and the more I cannot wait to have a family of my own someday. I guess more than anything, I want to start investing in people - not just experiencing people. I feel like it should not be an either/or situation - God help guide me in finding not the balance but the fusion of the two ends. I think the first step to the process has to be me dying to self a little more.
GIRLSOh, girls, such fascinating creatures! They confuse me...I mean, they're just a compilation of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and other material just like anything else...I mean, what's so special about them? What makes them beautiful? I mean, you know that they are. But when asked to describe "why" they are beautiful, it becomes rather difficult. Especially when asked to describe why some girls are "more" beautiful than others, or why some "types" of girls are more beautiful than others...namely Italian girls.
I heard that Italian men are obsessed with American girls, especially the California blonde surfer chick. I guess you always get used to what you have and covet what you don't. I find DEDSI's (dark-eyed, dark-skinned Italians) irresistible. Even the long, distinguished Italian noses are just sooo beautiful to me - they complete an exotic aura, where all the parts come together to create a masterpiece! They dress so well, so sensually modestly - note to Americans: if you think that bare legs/shoulders/belly looks sexy, it definitely is not! And also note, never underestimate the sex appeal of a good pair of boots.
I also found that the girls get better the further south you go. I'm convinced that I saw the most beautiful woman in the world in a bakery in Pompeii. Any attempt to describe her will just end up a miserable fail, so I won't. She was literally numbing - so beautiful that to look at her was literally terrifying! And the weird thing about Italy (for better or for worse - but definitely different) is that it seems that the most beautiful women occupy the most common professions. I could not believe that I saw this one girl in a bakery. Later in Rome, I saw another 10/10 carrying heaving boxes out of a truck on the street for some packing company. Last week, I woke up to this stunning house-cleaner, not more than 20 year old, cleaning my dorm! I don't understand it. There were many times that I thought that I would settle for nothing less than an Italian.
But this was all scenery to me - superficial admiration. I had very little interaction with Italian women. In fact, my interaction with women from anywhere was very shallow and superficial. At one point I think I liked girls from at least ten different nationalities (let me check: American, Canadian, Italian, Brazilian, Mexican, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Salvadorian...yep, that's enough) at the same time! Well, obviously if you like ten women at the same time, that means that you don't like any of them - you just like women in general. And even if I had opportunities to specialize, what was the point? Oh, yay, in three months I'll never see you again. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
My pathetic lack of relationship experience has paradoxically given me a unique, valuable perspective on girls and what they're like and what they want. However, I'm still retarded in figuring out my place in relation to them. I never try to pursue anything because I always have a million excuses not to - does that make me overly patient, overly choosy, or overly cowardly? I have the ability to see incompatibilities before they happen. I just wonder if I'm losing, missing out on a lot by avoiding the inevitable.
At very least, I am getting a very good idea of what I want in a wife - the type of person that I'd fall head over heels for right now, in my mind. She'd have to be a little crazy (to deal with me). She'd love sports, value physical activity, and at very least appreciate music. She'd be spontaneous, insatiably driven to exploration and new experience. She'd be completely confident in herself, too focused on others to ever be self-conscious. She'd be if not smarter or wiser than me, at least wiser than her years - somebody I could lead through emulation. She'd be beautiful beyond description. And she'd be madly in love with God, bent on worshiping him with every breath she takes. (Being Italian is a bonus :)
Maybe my standards are too high. I don't think so - I've met girls that had all of these characteristics collectively - I've even met girls that had most of them, and it near drove me crazy (there's one now that is near everything but Christian - sooo hard). Why shouldn't there be a girl like this in the world? Or, why shouldn't there be a girl so amazing, so compelling that I throw all that stupid list out the window? I think people settle too often. This does two bad things: 1) it doesn't give people their best, and 2) it doesn't make people their best. I want the best. And I want her to expect the same out of me. And I can wait. For her. For me.
MEI have changed. For the better, and unfortunately for the worse. I wish I could keep the good and get rid of the bad. I told a friend of mine this, and she didn't believe me, asking me to elaborate. It was difficult at the time, but if I break it up into the good and the bad, a few things come out.
The good...- I have gotten more control over my physical appearance. I am in some of the best shape of my life since I have been eating healthier. My acne is starting it's slow retreat into the photo albums of yesterday. I am putting more effort into personal hygiene and am dressing better to boot (still raggedly by Milanese standards). I'm also not getting sick as much.
- I have had my difficulties, but I at least see the value and am improving in making a healthier daily routine. I often get to bed before midnight. I make virtually all of my own meals. Tardiness - once a chronic infection with me - is making slow but market improvements.
- I am weighing my words more. I don't say things that I regret nearly as often as I used to. I better understand that complete honesty is not a virtual in itself, and that there is a time and a place to say most things, and that some things should not be said at all.
- I feel like I'm chiseling away some of the rough edges of my personality. I can't describe it anymore than that.
The bad...- I've become more solitary. Not just in the time spent alone. But more in my content when I am alone. And not content in a satisfied sense. But almost content in a preferential sense. Almost a throwback to my days of being ultra-introverted pre-2004. Later in high school and at Penn, I could not say no to a social invite - I jumped on any opportunity to hang out with people. Here I find myself turning down invites to parties, clubs, bars, dinners, and other events - not because I'm unavailable, but because I don't feel like making the effort to go. This makes me very sad. For one, I feel that affiliation with our fellow man is the number one practical calling that God gives us on earth. Secondly, I feel that it was the people and social interactions that made my last years of high school and college up to this point as valuable as it was. I feel like in the moderation of my personality, I'm losing that. I don't want to, but I can feel it happening. Does it have to be like this?
- I feel like I just let time pass with a lot more ease than I used to. A friend of mine said in a blog post how he remembers when he was young, time seemed so slow, so eternal, so precious. And how later in life, it just passes you by without you taking notice. Why is that? I don't want that to happen. I hate it, but it's happening to me. Is not an hour right now just as precious a gift as an hour ten years ago was? Is there not all the more that can be done with it? All the more reason to cherish it? I don't understand, but being stripped from my American home has allowed me the privilege of looking at my life almost from a third party perspective, from the outside looking in. There is so much that I don't like in what I see. And not things of circumstance, of want, of preference rooted in selfishness - but rather things that I can change in myself, my life, my worship for the better - but don't. The sad irony is that my biggest mistake has probably been spending way too much time thinking and way too little time doing. I feel like I've settled with taking the class of life pass/fail - and somehow find myself dangerously close to failing. I now know how much I want an "A", but live like I'm shooting for a "P".
Sooo...I think I'm done talking now, I've said most of what I want to say. I actually feel a lot better having taken the six hours to write all of that. There's probably no way you've made it this far, but in case you have, I'm sorry for writing such a bummer of a post. It will be the last of its kind. A friend of mine told me that she rarely heard people talk about their honest thoughts in their travel blogs. C0nsider my name cleared of that offense :)
In spite of my crime of over-thinking everything, I'm honestly having an amazing time here: my next couple posts should settle any debate there!
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