The End/La Fine.

going home....



The end of my time here is arriving like imminent death. Sunday i leave for portugal for a week, and when I return the following weekend, I will only have 6 more days before going back to the US. Even though there are still 2 weeks before I leave, in the scope of a 10.5 month stay, that's little more than a deep breath.

Unfortunately, I'm one of the most nostalgic people I've ever met (does that make sense?) and given that my third year of college and first year of living abroad are quickly winding down, I've clearly had a lot to think about lately. The black-hole vortex-esque feeling I've had that 'someone's about to pull the rug out from underneath me and finally I'll find myself on american soil again' is really quite unsettling, mostly because I can hardly fathom or believe what has happened this past year, let alone accept the fact that it's really over and i'm really going back. It's absurd that here and now I find myself already in June 2010, about to embark on a new chapter of my academic life (how dramatic...) when just a year ago around May, i had severe pre-anxiety for middlebury, i was still in a year-long relationship, and was so incredibly far from an italian-speaker. Time. fucking. flies.

Member the post I wrote about pride (don't bother reading the whole thing if you haven't-its way too long,a total ramble) well, recently I've been thinking about how going abroad is really one of the more wonderfully selfish and prideful things that students can do. I mean, as much as I'd like to think that I've left an impression and mark on the few friends I've made in italy, I think the reality is that the majority of people go abroad to enrich their own existences, to see new things, to understand themselves in a new way by experiencing new contexts. And i don't even think that's a bad thing--anzi (rather) it's an incredible privilege that i think even gets taken for granted, or not taken advantage of enough.

In any case, from a purely egotistical, self-centered perspective, this year couldn't have been any more of a success. I hardly remember anything about how i felt before embarking upon this experience, except that i was nervous, anxious, unsure, anxious, and anxious. and nervous. Now, I'm as happy as a clam (btw, where the f does this saying come from?) in Italy, i couldn't really be any more comfortable. That's not to say that I blend in here, or that I'm completely culturally assimilated. In fact, I'm not, I actually feel like quite an outsider, but somewhere in the course of all the italian conversation this year, the fear and anxiety and nervousness of being misunderstood and not understanding and having dysfunctional communication and not being able to make friends melted away and because of it, I've sort of been able to take control of myself and my feelings with initiative and faith that I didn't really have before. That's not to say that I believe in myself and yay Italy made me a better person...but more to say that i've just changed a lot this year and i can feel it. I don't even know if I will seem normal (did i ever? haha) when I find myself smack dab in the middle of american college culture in the fall because I really have lost myself in the midst of this cultural whirlwind that is not just italy but all of the people i've met, stories i've heard, places i've gone.


The point is that this will be my last post from Italy for a long time. Normally, after a trip, I enjoy debriefing people in person, but given that the order of my life has been so weird since last summer, that's a luxury I don't have with most people in my life. (ironically, an example of this is i'm seeing new friends from this semesters study abroad group and last summer's middlebury program this coming summer all before seeing my family, california friends, and wellelsey friends again, most of whom i haven't seen since may and june of 2009) So, as a post-trip 'fill-you-in' kind of thing, I've made a huge list of the things that have characterized being in Italy the most for me personally. I figured this would be more concise.


-1 year w/o shower shoes
-forming walking routes/street patterns/bus habits
-walking on the same streets people have been walking on for thousands of years
-having a 'sisterhood of the traveling pants' style friendship with 3 incredibly different and amazing italian girls.
-learning to cook, learning to cook for one, and learning to live better
-learning to drink in public (piazzas, bars, and clubs)
-getting stir crazy when I didn't leave the country at least once a month
-impossibly slow internet that did not permit the use of any security sites (https:// ie banks, certain emails, any useful information for life)
-the wonders of italian espresso
-opposite of studying
-serious decline in eloquence in English
-serious decline in study endurance
-learning to relax and not feel simultaneously guilty
-extreme personal artistic isolation
-the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas-blues you have never seen. pictures don't cut it.
-having to fight bureaucratic fights in another language, alone, not sure if i was making myself understood or even if i was understanding what was being said to me
-being asked "are you german" repeatedly because no one believed i could be american given the italian i spoke, and the resulting EGO STROKE that i experienced every time after
-talking to italians and responding to their questions about American culture and life when I couldn't even remember what it felt like to be there anymore.
-falling in love
-falling out of love (and writing music to cope)
-falling in lust
-wondering if another year in the same country will be amazing or boring.
-The too few and far between moments when the stars align and best friends from other continents found themselves in my kitchen and I didn't even want to start to believe they were really there because i knew that soon they'd be leaving anyway.
-becoming more attentive to fashion, and allowing my style to be revamped for the 4th or 5th time in a few years.
-Leisurely Reading, a lot, in 2 languages
-All the embarrassing mistakes and hilarious linguistic flubs that happen in the struggle for fluency in another language
-having a new experience at least once a week, seeing shit i'd never seen, meeting personalities I'd never encountered.
-Considering not following through with my plan to stay for a year
-Spending so. much. money.
-feeling, and likely being, so out of touch with everyone.
-Not having a therapist for the first time in 4 years
-living for the random postcards, phones calls, and pleasant surprises of unexpected people getting in touch that occasionally trickled in because signs of life from America made me miss the people and the culture so much more
-hours, and hours, and hours, and thus by extension days, weeks, and finally a year of meeting Italians, slowly constructing my idea of their nation and culture and all the while losing the idea of my own.
-Being challenged and scared by professors, feeling incapable, and surprising myself in the end.
-Never knowing how to respond when people asked me "But do you miss California? When are you going back? Why aren't you going home for the holidays?"
-Having my heart warmed by the familiarity of Bologna when coming back from a trip, and then realizing that for the first time in a long time, I felt at home.
-Listening to music while I showered (without fail. every single day, at least 2nd term. now i'm probably incapable of showering without something to dance too)
-PASTA
-always having a 'why not' mentality, and thus losing my DSLR camera, going to the north pole, dating someone for a decidedly short period of time, hosting a stranded american and doing a lot of other crap i NEVER would have done otherwise.
-coincidences. like woah.
-babysitting 3 bilingual italo-american boys.
-First time in college studying in a "practical" musical environment (meaning not theoretical, where the classes aren't hands on) even though it was one of the most impractical environments I'd ever been in.
-going to a university of 75,000 students and being in lecture halls twice the size of the house i lived in for most of my life.
-feeling like a year lasts a minute
-Dancing
-Learning to Photograph
-realizing slowly and clearly just how old this part of the world and its cultures are
-starting to seriously enjoy and contemplate art (specifically contemporary)
-complete and utter lack of new music to listen to, specifically american music that wasnt pop, since thats all that arrives in italy
-a rather dramatic hair cut in december
-seeing a country the size of california in all 4 seasons
-Trains and validating tickets
-Losing things
-Finding very interesting ways to explain concepts and nouns to italians to get them to help me figure out one single word that would change or complete my sentences.
-The unfiltered joy I would experience when italians learn or experience things about America that really blow their minds, like the fact that native americans exist, and even live near my hometown, or that there are sharks in the pacific ocean, or that the marshmallow sandwiches they show in the movies really do exist and are called smores and the look on their faces when they finally try them for the first time.
-Singing in/Hosting concerts
-The dull ache in my chest and my side that I slowly learned to realize was homesickness, and which would intensify as soon as I noticed it. (its like playing the 'game', how you have to say 'i lost the game' when you think about it)
-Changing many, many, many, many of my mannerisms (unintentionally--italians have a strong influence, and awesome body language)
-Owning earth's jenkiest and shittiest cell phone, and actually using it for a year

and last, but surely, surely, surely not least:

-Learning to recognize, love, and embrace my americanness, and starting a few amazing friendships with americans that I hope will traverse the atlantic without changing very much.


Thanks for following while I've been gone. I've missed you all dearly and can't wait to see everyone soon. Ciao

Ali