Virus

Lucca (Italy), afternoon

I think I got some intestinal virus....I am sooooooooooo sick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Relaxing day

Lucca (Italy), evening

I went to the beach today. In a WWF oasis near by. It was wonderful. A perfect day to just lay down and read a book. After so long time spent just in front of my computer or being stressed for work, for my personal situation, or from whatever other thing, today I just spent hours lying down and reading. And then walking on the beach. The sun, the sea. I enjoyed it. Everything. And for a few hours I was without my ghosts, without continuously thinking about the past and the future, without being worried about something.
As soon as I got back, my ghosts came back and I felt and feel lost again.

The body shop

Lucca (Italy), evening

I like the Body shop products. I like their philosophy and I absolutely love their olive shampoo and conditioner. The only little problem is that finding The Body Shop shops here in Tuscany seems a bit of a challenge. The ones in Lucca and Pisa have been closed. Apparently it is not too popular here. I found that there is a small one in Florence (I guess there are enough tourists there to buy their products). Anyway, today I just felt like shopping at the Body Shop. So, I jumped into the train and I went to Florence, just to go to the Body Shop. I enjoyed it. It is my relaxing therapy. Obviously, I got the shampoo, the conditioner and the shower gel of the white musk. Then they also gave me a present with other small products. It was worthed to go to Florence for that. I just relaxed and enjoy it. And the weather is so beautiful here, that no matter where you are, it is just too nice to be outside.
On the way back, I walked on the wall to get back home and I saw a beautiful fat gecko :-)

evening

Lucca (Italy), morning

Yesterday evening I went on the walls to rollerblade a bit. It was so cool. Today I feel my muscles, especially the ones of the butt.....any chance that I am going to get a Brazilian butt :-)?

Waiting!

Lucca (Italy), afternoon

Finally, at the end of May, the movie of Sex and the City will be in the movie theaters! I was planning to go to the USA just to see it as soon as it comes out and in original language. Unfortunately, since I have to be on May 31 in France, I cannot do it. The movie is coming out on May 30. It may sound stupid, but I am excited about it.

Check this out:
http://www.sexandthecitymovie.com/

It's incredible

Lucca (Italy), evening

My English is probably bad today. I spent the last 2 hours writing emails in French. I guess I will need to take a course to refresh my knowledge of French. One thing is reading and understanding it, another thing is to think in French and write it. I think in English or maybe in Spanish or in Italian, but not in French, so every time I have to translate what I want to say from a different language.

But anyway. It is not about this that I wanted to write. But about the fact that often one little event can definitively change the course of our life and our present and future. One little event can often make me jump of joy or fall into deep sadness. Now, I am in the second mood. I feel stupid and I think that sometimes we make our life much more complicated that it could be. We are just not ready to take the occasions that are offered to us. We don't "carpe diem".

good news!

Italy, morning

Terrible weather here today. But yesterday afternoon I got a good news, so I am happy!
I got one year grant to work as a postdoc in France. I will start in June!!!!! Really happy about it.

Britney Spears

Italy, lunch time

I feel like I miss to know how a friend is doing. The thing is, in the USA, whatever magazine I was opening/reading/giving a look at contained a picture, a page or an article about Britney Spears. And this for the entire year and half I was there. I was always looking at magazines while I was at the gym on the step or the cyclette. I was also looking at them at the supermarket. So basically, I could get updated about Britney Spears' life and ups and downs minimum once a week. I also managed to get different sources of information, since at the gym, as well as the supermarket, there were always different magazines. So, I knew when she lost her kids, when she shaved her head and so on. I got so familiar with her life and disgraces that even involuntarily I felt like hoping that she would get better. And American magazines are so good in making you feel part of famous people' life. They give you so many details about everything and pictures and opinions. You just cannot avoid to know everything about them. So, at the end, you get attached to them and start to follow their life even more.....
Now, after I came back to Italy, I miss all this. I wonder how she is doing. I should probably check that out on the web :-)

a lot of frustration

Lucca (Italy), afternoon

I have to say that what I will write it is quite depressing. So, if you are looking for a funny blog, this is not the one.

Nothing new. Absolutely nothing new happened. Not good emails, not nice emails or messages either. Nothing. And some days in which the only thing to do is to sit and wait are more difficult than others.
In the last years I invested all my energies in my work and in my relationship and now in neither my working or private life anything is going the way I want. And I invested a lot in both, all myself.

And I am scared about the future, I am scared about not getting grants to keep working on what I like or in places I would like to live, I am scared of not being able to have a relationship that makes both of the people involved happy. I am scared, I am just scared about the future. I fall already a lot of times in my life and all the time I got up on my feet again. But now this insecurity, this struggling for everything, having nothing to hang on, some days it is just too much to have the energy or the desire to do anything. And I don't see the end of this.

weird things

Lucca (Italy), morning

This morning, like every morning, I was looking at the job advs. on the blog of the biodiversity and conservation biology jobs and I found someone who left a message under one of these job advs...... The message was about her (I guess this person is a she according to the topic she wrote about) blog. The blog contains only one blog, about cellulite. I have to admit that even if I am a bit fan of anything concerning how to remove forever my cellulite, not even me would have thought of having a blog about it.......People are really weird....

http://eliminando-a-celulite.blogspot.com/

Socks

Lucca (Italy), night

I love to be in my bed writing here. I just find it cozy. A bit of music, soft light, my pc and my thoughts. Extremely relaxing.

I was thinking about one scene of the movie I saw the other day "Tutta la vita davanti" and I started to think about feet and socks. Everyone who knows me also knows that I have a light obsession for feet. I think that my feet are one of the most beautiful part of my body and I pay a lot of attention to feet and socks and shoes and the way people walk and put their feet when they walk. It is something that I do automatically. My brain record the information, and I formulate thoughts about it even before to realize what I am looking at.
So, in one of the scene of the movie, the main character, Marta, have sex in the car with Elio Germano. And till here, nothing weird or wrong. The thing is that in that scene, you see a foot of Elio Germano up in the air (well, still in the car of course). Nothing weird again. Except for the sock he was wearing in that scene. It was gray/blue. A normal sock color for men I guess. But he was moving the foot in such a funny way, the toes especially from what I could see from the sock, that I ended up not only paying a lot of attention to it, but I also keeping thinking about it. The scene with the sock was probably not more that 5 seconds.
I know, I pay a lot of attention to not significant details, which end up becoming significant in my life since I focus so much on them...
So, I have this thing with men and socks....My first boyfriend had a passion for sporty cotton socks, no matter with which kind of shoes. It was something that I just couldn't look at it. You really have to love someone to be with him when he wears sporty cotton socks with elegant shoes. Then of course when I moved to Germany, it was even a more dramatic experience. They just like to wear socks with sandals. They don't care about it. In three years and half, I never got used to it and I always looked away. In Holland it was better in terms of men and socks....but then in USA....Oh, the USA......In Italy we use to recognize Americans from the shoes they wear and their socks. If you see someone with white sporty shoes (and not sneakers, but something more like running shoes), shorts and long socks (preferably white again), then you could bet they are 99% of the time from Florida. And then often outside Italy you see men wearing short socks and short pants, so that when they sit, you can see a piece of their leg....which is not a sexy thing at all, especially if the socks are white.
This is one of the thing that I love of the Italian style. Men socks. Long, colored (no pale colors, not white). That is how it should be. If your pant goes up, you have a nice dark sock. If you wear elegant shoes, then the socks perfectly fit with that.

I remember a conversation with a good friend of mine, German. She thought that an half dressed man in boxer and long socks was not looking as sexy as a man with boxer and short socks. I couldn't disagree more on that. Beside the the top for me would be a man with well made feet and no socks, but if I have to go for the socks, VIVA the long socks!
We both anyway agree that the "speedo" underwear for a man is extremely not-sexy....that kind of underwear is still popular for men here in Italy. Unfortunately.....

Tutta la vita davanti

Lucca (Italy), night

E' troppo tardi per scrivere in inglese, il mio cervello lavora gia' male in italiano, figuriamoci in inglese adesso....
Stasera sono andata a correre con Vasco, per muovermi, per distrarmi e per riossigenare la mente dopo una giornata passata al computer a lavorare. Poi sono andata al cinema (chiaro prima ho fatto una doccia ed ho cenato). E' arrivato a Lucca il film di Virzi' e siccome Virzi' come regista mi piace ed in piu' nel film recita Germano, ero estremamente motivata ad andarlo a vedere.
Risultato. Il film e' una fotografia della realta', uno spaccato della societa' italiana di questi ultimi anni cosi' vera e cosi' vicina a me da far venire i brividi. Non posso dire che non mi sia piaciuto, perche' mi e' piaciuto. Ma da' una visione cosi' pessimistica, cosi' senza via di scampo che una volta usciti dal cinema resta da pensare "ma chi me lo fa fare di andare avanti visto che e' proprio cosi' come nel film la realta'?". E' chiaro che non e' cosi' per tutti. Ma lo e' per me e lo e' stato.

Il film comincia con la protagonista, Marta che si laurea. Una commissione addormentata, che anche se lei avesse raccontato una favola sarebbe stato lo stesso. Una burocrazia nell'ambiente universitario che ti scoraggia subito anche dal provare una qualsiasi cosa. Un ragazzo con un contratto di ricerca da 350 euro al mese e costretto a fare altri lavori part-time per arrivare anche solo a pagare un affitto. Un darsi da fare a mandare il curriculum a destra e manca per cercare di trovare un qualche lavoro che si addica a cio' che hai studiato, tante porte sbattute in faccia, tanti sorrisi e tanti le faremo sapere. La gente che ti guarda dall'alto in basso perche' una laurea in questo paese non conta niente e le possibilita' si danno solo a chi ha le conoscenze. Il momento in cui trovi un qualsiasi lavoro che ti fa sentire fortunata, non importa che lavoro sia, anche il piu' umiliante, solo perche' almeno qualcuno invece di rifiutarti ti ha dato una possibilita'. Ed alla fine ti perdi e quando te ne accorgi a volte e' stato troppo tardi. La mia fortuna e' stata andarmene quando ho avuto l'occasione, prima di appassirmi qui e perdere ogni minima stima di me stessa a forza di prendere portate in faccia e no come risposte.
E' difficile capire forse per qualcuno. Ma quando non sai come arrivare a fine mese, quando vedi che i soldi scarseggiano, vai anche avanti a mesi a mangiare riso e carote e quanto di piu' economico riesci a trovare al supermercato. E non solo questo. Io ad un call center ci ho lavorato. Io, la mia mamma e la mia sorella. Ne avevamo bisogno e quello era cio' che siamo riuscite a trovare. Almeno lavoravamo insieme e ci tenevamo compagnia. Ma la gente se lavori in un call center ti guarda dall'alto in basso. Almeno guardavano me. Ma avevo cominciato un dottorato e non mi pagavano ed io invece dovevo pagare le tasse. E mi ricordo quelle ore al telefono come un incubo. Quelle ore indimenticabili, chiuse in una stanza. A telefonare a delle persone che non erano interessate, che non volevano stare a sentire, a cui dovevi raccontare delle storie per fissare un appuntamento, perche' il tuo riuscire nel lavoro dipendava da quello. E tutta quella povera gente a cui telefonavamo senza saperlo. C'erano quelli malati a letto, le persone anziane, i depressi. E tu, solo perche' telefonavi, diventavi un telefono amico. E si lo so, non potevamo perdere tempo con questa gente, perche' non avrebbero fissato un appuntamento e ci facevano perdere tempo. Ma io alla fine mi immedesimavo troppo nelle loro situazioni, soffrivo con loro, non avevo il distacco necessario. Ed alla fine arrivavo a fine giornata distrutta, come se insieme al mio sentirmi una nullita' vivessi anche le vite ed i problemi di tutte queste persone.
E nella mente per andare avanti si creano meccanismi strani di autoprotezione. Che a volte sono pericolosi, perche' ti portano a giustificare tante cose, a perdere di vista i tuoi sogni, a credere che sognare e' pericoloso. A credere che sia meglio volare basso, che se ti schianti, ti schianti da piu' vicino a terra.
Non so come io, mia sorella e mia madre siamo uscite da questo circolo, da questo lavoro a cui ti attacchi come una cozza perche' e' sempre un lavoro e ne hai bisogno e chissa' quando troverai il prossimo. Ma ne siamo uscite. Ma viviamo ancora tutte e tre vite lavorative insicure. Io e mia sorella per scelta, mia mamma per forza di cose. Ed e' una vita che consuma.
Io inseguo i miei sogni. Ma a volte come stasera, quando vedo un film come "tutta la vita davanti" mi ricordo di come sia stato prima, di cosa ho passato e di tutti i lavori piu' o meno piacevoli che ho fatto. E mi spavento. Perche' so che adesso non avrei la forza di ripassare attraversi questi momenti. Perche' io sono una che e' riuscita a realizzare un sogno ed e' difficile tornare indietro dopo. Ti poni nuovi obiettivi, nuovi sogni e pensi che quella fase del call center, dei lavori sfruttata per fare qualcosa che non ti piaceva, quella fase, e' finita. Ma poi appunto capita che vedi un film, capita che pensi al tuo presente e realizzi che quella fase potrebbe tornare. E che questa volta non saresti brava come prima a passarci attraverso, sopravvivere ed uscirne fortificata.
Se c'e' bisogno si fa tutto. Ma se c'e' una cosa che adoro dell'America e' proprio la filosofia di dare una possibilita' alla gente. Qui a volte non si ha scelta. E non importa quanto uno abbia studiato, non importa quanto uno sia bravo o sarebbe bravo nel suo lavoro. Non importa.

My father

Lucca (Italy) morning

I guess after yesterday evening my father is actually out of my life. I guess I will meet him again at my sister's wedding. According to him you can be a good father just giving money. Beside the fact that I am not sure to which money he was referring to and to whom he gave them, but I never thought of a relationship father-daughter as a commercial transition. I guess this says a lot about him......

Toilets

Lucca (Italy), morning

Yesterday I had to go to the Spanish consulate in Genova to hand in a grant application. I obviously took the train, first because I love trains (and to love trains here in Italy we need to be kind of brave) and second because in theory it is the easiest (and more environment-friendly) way to get to places. I fortunately got an earlier train of the one I was supposed to take. Fortunately because the one I planned to take had an hour delay. This blog is not anyway about my train trip, but more about the toilets in the Italian trains. There is something I don't understand about it. I am not tall, but I am also not that small. I guess that is compared with the Italian average height, I am of some cm above it.
I can see why when I was in Holland the toilets where always too high for me and I needed to stand in some weird position to be able to pee without sitting on it (I never sit on public toilets. Bleah!). Dutch people are on the average much much taller than I am and so of course they make toilets for the average sized person and not for someone shorter like me, but in Italy................I am wondering how people shorter than me can pee using the toilets of the Italian trains. Probably they just wait to get to the final destination and once there they run to the first public toilet, where the toilet sits are of a "normal" height. I am not a man, so I cannot just pee standing and if I don't want to sit on the toilet (never!), then I always have to find a way of peeing while touching as less as possible of the bathroom and climb to a position in which I can pee into the toilet and not on my pants or on the floor, all this while the train has the classical shaking movement. I have to admit that this is a challenge. I wonder of how other Italian women deal with this problem. Maybe I should start a survey across the country to see if there is a gradient of toilets' height from North to South and how they are in other countries.....

how are you?

Lucca (Italy), night

My nickname should be "The masochist". I went to watch a girl movie "27 dresses". I was looking for a light romantic comedy and this is what I got. Which was fine. What it was not that fine is that in the movie, the main character, Jane, has a sister who ends up engaged with the same person Jane is in love with....And this sister is so much focused on herself and just herself to see anything beyond herself. And this is not because she doesn't care of Jane, but just because she is concentrated on getting what she wants and needs at that moment. Of course, the movie has an happy ending, with Jane getting married to a much cuter guy than the one she thinks to be in love with. The point is that this was not one of this movie after which you get into some deep thinking. But I did. Because even if I want to be strong and fight all the difficulties that cross my road in life, even if I keep thinking that if someone was not sure about me in my last relationship was part of the game and I should move on, the truth is that I am actually a person who hopes that romance really exists in life. Not the kind of romance that needs a lot of fireworks, pink things everywhere and to call each other "pucci pucci, my love or my sweetheart". I am actually allergic to these things. But I am extremely sensitive if someone calls me just to ask me how am I doing, if someone unexpectedly let me know that he is thinking of me, in that right moment and wondering what I am doing. I feel uncomfortable with compliments and big things, but I melt down when the person I love shows some true, simple interest for me and makes me feel important in his life.
This movie was not romantic in the way I mean. But it was in some way similar to what happens to me. A person who is living her life dreaming of something, her sister who actually get to live her dream first and does not have the sensitivity to see how she hurts her sister, some relatives who catch the perfect occasion to say how sad it should be for Jane that the younger sister gets married before her and so on. The dream of my life is not necessarily to get married, but for sure it is not to keep being alone dreaming of something which clearly doesn't seem to come any closer than sometimes ago. But yes, my sister will get married before me and even if I am happy for her for this, in one way or another, without reason, she ends up hurting me right there where now it hurts more. Telling me how inadequate I am for finding someone who I love who would love me back to want to be with me. I already wrote about her complains on my clothing, my life style, the things I like and what I am and I am not, so I am not going to write about it again. But this stupid movie reminded me of that, of my relatives telling me that I live a life which is not real and based only on a work that has nothing to do with the real world (which I guess is the world where most of the people live), of my sister hurting me without seeing it, of me feeling really lonely sometimes.....and I wonder how longer do I have to wait for the happy end?