The Adventures, Mishaps and Musings of Me

There are times and places where the tangy scent of sweat can be sexy as hell.

However, crampt on a hot, stuffy one hour bus journey from the airport is certainly not one of these occassions.  Alas, the demand for deodrant is rather low in Italia.

Within the first five minutes of my Grandma coming to visit me, she instantly starts telling me all about her busted knee operation.  And, if that wasn't wonderful enough, raising her summer dress to give me a good look at the area of thigh in question.  Now, my Grandma is a large blubbery whale of an old woman, and out of all the things I wanted to see just before dinner, an exclusive viewing of my Grandma's wrinkly rolls of post-operation leg fat was lower on that list then a puddle of vomit.

At the end of this display, I suddenly realised she had left a pause for me to say something and the only word I was able to communciate was, "lovely". 

So, I'm home in England again.  Uneventful journey, except for the strain of dragging 25kg from my dormitory in south Milan to the train station in north Milan, which morphed the short walk to the tram stop into a desert expedition and thus caused me to become a sweaty blob ready for the airport. Naturally, the bag I was using to transport my luggage had to have a broken handle and, of course, all the escalators in the Metro where out of order.  Fun times indeed!

I also managed to insult an elderly British couple on the plane by asking them, in Italian, if the seat next to them was free.  They stared at me in silence for the moment, then the women in tone of complete disgust said, "I beg your pardon!" as if I'd just uttered profanity at her.  This was my re-introduction to the British public.

In other news, I just got the results for a poetry competition I entered about a month ago and I won it!  I get to have my poem published in the sponsers summer edition of their poetry journal - huzzah for being able to claim myself as a "published poet"!   

So tomorrow, I'm flying home to England for a few days before the July exams.  Amongst the many things on the family itenery, we're going to London to see "Waiting for Godot" with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart.  *Fangirlish excitement*

It's about time I flee to England, because something very strange is currently taking place within Italy.  Something strange that I first noticed on the weekly shopping trip a few weeks ago: There were blond people in the supermarket.  Not just one blond person (that would be disconcerting enough) but many of them, in the pasta aisle, confusedly weighing fruit and clogging up the cheese counter.

"Very strange", I thought to myself as I waded my way through the masses.  More strange was that all the blond people carried a degree of sunburn, as if they had too much time on their hands to lay about in the sun.  At first I thought blond hair dye must have suddenly become Milan fashion and sun tan lotion out of fashion, but then, as I found myself in the queue for the checkout surrounded by non-Italian speakers, the dramatic and frightning truth hit me - They were all on holiday.

( The Dramatic and Frightning Truth Continued... )

You know I complained ages ago about having a mosquito bite on my eye lid?  How it was the most itchy, irratating thing in all itchy, irratating things ever?

Well, I stand corrected: Having a mosquito bite just under your eyelid is the most itchy, irratating thing in the history of all itchy, irrataiting things ever.

ARGH!!!

In other news today, I found out that I passed the accounting exam.  Yay for unexpectedly good grades.

Pop songs often have such dark subtext, wrapped up in soft, fluffy, packages of colourful music videos and catchy melodies.  For example, "Kiss with a fist" by "Florence and the Machine" that can be viewed on You Tube here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpsDegqioVA

To be honest, I find that far more disturbing then anything Marilyn Manson has ever produced.

P.S. I love Marilyn Manson.

You know how they say people learn from their mistakes?  For instance, drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth leaves a disgusting taste in your mouth.  I know this.  I have experienced it many, many times.  Yet did I just now brush my teeth, then ten minutes later pour myself a glass of orange juice to drink?

Yes. 

Was it disgusting?

Yes. 

Will I learn from this?

Unlikely.  I've done it a hundred times in the past and I'm likely to do it a thousand times in the future. 

... So much for learning.

The user responsible for today's meme madness is: t3h_w0lfy 

YOU'RE ON MY FRIENDS LIST. I want to know 28 things about you. I don't care if we've never talked, never really clicked, or if we already know everything about each other. You are obviously on my f-list, so let me know with whom I'm friends with!


( Clickity Click for Meme Goodness )

So, I have to sit my dearily, dreadfully dull exam in Accounting today.  My prediction is that I will do reasnobly well on all topics with the exception of "consolidation" of which I shall be murdered by. 

But, at least this exam brings with it the joy of never having to study Accounting again.  Huzzah for silver linings

POST EXAM EDIT:  Yep.  Murdered by consolidation.  Crap.

I am absoloutly sickened by the European election results.

Really, if the party in power, masquerading as socialists, makes a complete mess of things, does the population (an unsettlingly large proportion of it) truely believe that the answer is extremist, down right racist, right wing politics?  Has 20th century history taught us nothing?

Apparently not.

Comparitively, in Italy, the exact opposite is taking place, but from a similar reasoning.  With Berlusconi venturing far into the right wing of political policy, left wing extremism is raising its equally ugly head, gathering supporters, and thus Milan is currently covered in "Vote Communist" posters.  Fabulous.

Tea, while in the process of being drunk, should be contained safely in a tea cup, and not spilt all over my University notes.

...

Damn.

It is never a good sign when you open the milk bottle... and it lets out a fizz.

Victor Hugo's writing never ceases to thrill, amuse and amaze me. 

Usually.

However, in reading Les Miserables, as soon as the character of Fantine was introduced and described along the lines of "blond and innocent" with the company of a somewhat dubious boyfriend, my mind immediately thought, "She's going to get pregnant and abandoned."

Low and behold, five mini chapters later: Pregnant and abandoned. 

That'll teach you to be blond and innocent.

In the Britsh Labour Party's declaration of policies and things achieved, it states, and I quote, "Violent crime is down 40 percent."

In the Tories own list of policies, it states, and I quote, "Labour’s top-down approach to fighting crime has failed... Violent crime has increased."

Neither quote their sources for this 'information'.

Oh, politics, why must you be fuelled on bull shit?

It's official, when studying accounting class, I have all the attention span of a seven year old child who has eaten too many Smarties.

Let's face it, 90% of fan fiction is utterly tedious teen trash.  Seemingly, no matter how much advice that is given, no matter how much you mention the existence of punctuation, sentence structure and the source material: Fic persists to suck majorly.  Because of this writing injustice, (but mostly to distract myself from revision) I have decided to take a stand (of no consequence) on the issue.  Ladies and gentlemen, for your pleasure and amusement, I present the '30 Point Guide on How Not to Write Fan Fiction'.  Because what you can say in a constructive, friendly, helpful manner, can always be better said using condescending sarcasm.  

I think it shows how little I paid attention in accounting class by the amount of utterly bizzare spelling mistakes that are in my hand written notes.

Honestly, "Investory" instead of "Inventory".

"Cahe" (or perhaps "cake", I can't quite tell) instead of "cash".

"Prefredd" instead of "preferred" - what?!

Apparently, I was strung out on financial statements and lost the ability to form words.

I went to a seminar on Development Economics yesterday and, while expecting to be completely depressed by it, by the end I was completely uplifted.  Good news concerning the third world doesn't tend to come around often, thus I feel compelled to recount and share.

The lecture was held by a Swedish proffessor who is, as she put it, the marine core of economists in that she with her team, sponsered by the world bank, carries out field research in sub-Sahara African countries.  The Ugandan minister for health approached her to investigate why, after he had invested so much money in free health clinics all around Uganda, the mortality rates of the population had not changed at all and were still diabolical.

After much reseach, the professor and her team found that, although villages had access to free, fully equipped health clinics with trained doctors/nurses, they were not functioning at all as they should.  Doctors/nurses being idle, ignoring massive lines of people outside in order to sit and chat and receive their paychecks.  The system was completely corrupt in that if someone wanted to get treament from the free public health clinics they would have to pay cash to the doctors.  However, the people in the villages who were subjected to this system knew there were problems and were eager to get them solved, simply had no empowerment to do so.

Thus, the Swedish professors team set up an experiment in 25 clinics in which, with as little White intervention as possible, talks were organised between the villagers and the Health workers (who were also part of the village) in order to sort through the issues.  Simply talking and coming up with solutions together.  After this had been carried out and conclusions apparently reached, the Swedish professor left the villages for a year before coming back and investigating if there had been any improvements.

Mortality rates had cut by a third.  With such staggering results, the Ugandan health minister is planning to carry out the same procedure in all health clinics in Uganda.

Just by communication, no extra money, funding, nothing, that great evil of corruption and idleness was majorly overcome.  Perhaps people aren't as bad as I thought?

Poem ahoy!  Slightly satirical take on national pride.  I fear that this is a rather bland poem in which the very nature of the concept limits vocabulary to give a result that is somewhat lacking.  Ah, well.  Feedback is always appreciated.

( Proud of my Plot of Land... )

I spent the weekend over at a friend's mountain town Villa, chilling by the pool, drinking good wine, eating good food and getting sun burnt in temparatures well over 30 degrees.  On Sunday night there was an insane lightning storm - no thunder, no rain, just a bit of a wind and a hell of a lot of fork lightning.

We managed to take some photos of this insane power display of nature alla below:


Around midnight, while watching the lightning storm, I was struck with the realisation of just how inconsequential my life really is.  Even with a glass of wine in hand, it was a rather sobering moment.