The Adventures, Mishaps and Musings of Me

Text message received at 5:30pm:  Hey Vice Chief, I'm really sick so can't make it to the student union board meeting, could you please go on my behalf?  It's tonight at 6pm.

*checks watch, checks message, checks watch*

Self:  I'm just about to cook dinner and read that chapter on Macroeconomics I should have read three weeks ago; the last thing I want to be doing is going out in the dark, cold and wet in order to spend two hours arguing noisily in the SU in a meeting of which I don't even know what is to be discussed.

But, on the other hand...

If I don't go on exchange next year, and instead stay in Italy then I definately want to have the position of Chief Editor of the student magazine... something that should be handed to me when the Chief steps down at the end of this year...   Still, that's not an absoloute given, and it definately wouldn't be a good look out as Vice Chief to refuse to attend a meeting...  Besides, it would allow me to talk to the very, very top of the SU... getting on the good side of the SU President would definately be a plus...

Text message sent at 5:31pm:  Of course.  What room is it?

I would tentatively, tentatively say... Good god, I think that went well.  Really well, in fact.  I'll admit, I'm not particulaly great at telling how well I've done, or not done in exams, but... I think I knew what I was doing for every question (except one freak question on the parameters of linear correlation coefficents, but for one mark I'm not exactly crestfallen!).  It almost seemed... simple.  Perhaps, that's a bad sign, but I'll just have to wait and see.  I'm certain (ha,ha) that I reached the pass grade of 60%, so really it's a matter of seeing how well (or how badly) I passed.  

Regardless, the October/November exam period is over - YAY! 

Also, I've just realised what a dump my dorm apartment has become - when you no longer have exams, suddenly your living conditions go back on your priority list - thus I have a fun filled afternoon ahead of me, involving the removal of the model leaning tower of Pizza from the sink; washing all the clothes that have decided to become one with the floor, plus attempting to locate my desk somewhere under the swamp of
paper!

EDIT: Damn it!  My shirts have all shrunk in the tumble drier.

So, it's the night before a maths exam - the first of this year.  Traditionally I would be, about now, whacking my head against my paper, formula and tea cup littered desk, and writing something adolescent on LJ along the lines of "I hate Maths" (which is silly because my whole degree revolves around maths, I can hardly hate it).

But, I'm rather bored of that attitutude.  So I'm instead taking an apathetic line of  "If I fail the exam?  Ah, well, I'll just have to take the January exam instead."  A far more relaxing way of looking at things, definately.

Right, I'm off to get a good night sleep.  Buona notte!

P.S. Happy Bonfire Night Britian!

Must study math... Must study math... Must study math...

OMGYOUTUBE Alexander Marakulin singing in Italian!! SWOONING-FANGASMIC -JOY!!!

Ahem.

Must study math... Must study math... Must study math...

Man, I forgot how insane taking an exam at my Univeristy could be. 

Firstly, they announce to you what room you're going to be in the day before on your 'internet student diary', but I completely forgot to check and only remembered on waking up this morning in an instant panic... At which point the announcement had disappeared.  I only found out which room by hurridly phoning up friends who are close to me in the alphabet, otherwise I would have been completely roomless.

Of course, once you've reached the correct room, then we have the exam itself.  The two assistants that were overseeing it seemed to assume that all students are cheating little bastards, and thus were positively militant in their anti-cheating policies.  I had one of them barking at me for writing with my paper slightly to the left of me (because obviously I was trying to give the people behind me a better view.)  Certainly, it was not a de-stress situation as they glaringly marched up and down the benches.  Once you'd finished, it was very much a matter of making sure that you didn't do anything that could possibly be construed as cheating.  I managed to solve this dilemma by taking a nap on the desk!

The most ridiculous thing of all was, that for all their keeness to stop people from cheating during the exam, they didn't actually check people's identity when they came in.  So, clearly their line was anyone is allowed to take your exam, but whoever that person is, they absoloutly must not cheat!!   

All that aside though, the exam went well.  For Financial Markets, surprisingly so.

Hopefully, I can say the same for Statistics on Friday...

Why is it always the most used verbs that are the most irregular?  For instance, "to have" and "to be" decide not to follow any logical congregation in pretty much any language (feel free to point out exceptions), and yet those are likely the two most used verbs... so why must they be obscure? 

Honestly languages, why can you not be a bit more orthodox and actually follow the grammar rules?  I would get far better marks if you did.

This weekend was made of awesome.  Utter awesome.

It involved going to 'Gardaland'; one of only two theme parks in Italy, thus a few of my friends had never been on a rollercoaster before, which thus led to alot of amusing male screaming as we took on the many corksrcews, loops and upside down bits of the Blue Tornado, Magic Mountain and Death Drop.  I literally have purple bruises on my shoulders because of the horrible harnesses combined with my stupidly thin t-shirt.  Damn my lack of protective shoulder fat.

After Gardaland we stayed at a friend's parent's Villa (that happened to be parent-less for the weekend); a Villa which is complete with Sauna.  I had never before done the "sauna gauntlet", but I can now safely say that it is utter insanity.  You sit semi naked in a small box at a temparature of 65 degrees, so hot and steamy it literally burns your lungs to breath, for about fifteen minutes untill you have reduced yourself to a sweaty blob.  You then stampede out of the sauna, run outside, dive into a freezing cold swimming pool, swear alot at the cold, drag yourself out and run back inside to the sixty five degree steamy heat of the sauna. 

And repeat.

Please note, this took place with an outdoor swimming pool, at around midnight in the latter half of October.  Yes, utter insanity... that everyone must try when they get the chance!

To make the weekend even sweeter, after the sauna gauntlet, sitting snug at room temparature, I watched with two Italians and a Russian a whole series of 'Blackadder' (one of the greatest and most brilliant British sitcoms ever made).  Once they got the wordy British style humour, which took half an episode, the subtitles being turned on and a bit of pausing and explaining, they loved it!  One of my favourite things, and greatest pleasures, about being an immigrant living abroad is that you get to share the great film/music/TV gems of your nation that are completely unheard of outside its borders.  And that, by the same token, you get to share in the film/music/art of other nations that you simply would never have heard of had you stayed in the enclosed media circle of your own country.

Long live culture!

If God was omniscient, he should have known the human race was a bad idea from the start.

I've lost the electronic key to my dormitory.  Damn.

I'm spending the weekend at a friend's villa.  Yay.

It is so c-c-cold in my d-d-dormitory.  N-n-no central h-heating for another m-m-month.  I'm wearing my entire w-w-wardrobe and its n-n-not helping.  I didn't s-s-sign up for the st-st-student cryogenic freezing experiment.

T-t-think warm thoughts... Think warm thoughts... Think warm thoughts...
...

About now is when I rethink going to Russia on the exchange next year.

EDIT:  Nooooo Evil Cleaning Lady!!  Don't leave my window open letting all the freezing cold air into my room!!

In the canteen of my University they serve up, everyday, four types of pizza, four types of pasta, a million types of panini and tubs of overpriced (yet delicious) salad.  Yesterday, on walking past the menu attached to the wall, I spotted that the "Pizza del Giorno" (pizza of the day) was the never before served "Americana". 

Mio Dio, I thought to myself, are the Italian's getting off their culinary high horse and serving American style pizza??  Going over to the pizza counter quickly answered that question in the negative.  The pizza the canteen had fondly named "Americana" was Italian style, thin based pizza simply with french fries (another question, why are they called french fries?) baked on top.

...

American stereotypes of Europeans are often pretty absurd and silly.  The same is clearly true the other way around as well.  Seriously Italy, I've been to America twice, and however sugar and chemical filled their food may be, they at least have the good sense not to bake fries on top of a pizza.

Apparently, the Italians don't.

It's come to that point in October where Italy's extended summer abrubtly drops into a sudden cold autumn.  In other words, it has come to that point were I wish there was a radiator in my room. 

At least this means no more mosquitoes.

Today, I found out (randomly) that in some countries the population is under legal obligation to vote in elections, and that to not vote actually leads to prosecution (generally a fine).  I honestly didn't know that this was ever the case, but it started me musing on what would happen in the British elections if the public were actually forced to get off the sofa and vote.

Not that I think forcing people to vote by law is a good thing.  People should always have the freedom to abstain, and voting should remain voluntary on principle - if you start forcing people to vote, then it would be a slippery slope down in forcing people how to vote.

Nevertheless, if the public was forced to vote then I think this would lead to the smaller parties i.e. the liberal democrats, the green party and the British nationalist parties etc. benefitting the most.  Those of the public who don't agree with either Labour or Conservative parties would find themselves having to give an opinion instead of simply abstaining with the thought that to vote for anyone else wouldn't change anything anyway.  If those people actually voted... well, the "small" parties would certainly be less small.  Now, if more votes would actually translate themselves into seats...

My 20th birthday FUCKING ROCKED!

It marks two things: One, I am officially no longer a greasy teenager - can't think of anything else I can do now, but still... one more year till I'm legal to gamble in Las Vegas and buy alchohol in the United States!  Two, it was my first birthday of which I've not been home/gone home for some part of it.  Note to self: Must remember to phone Mum at some point today otherwise she will cry.

I should also probably wash off the "20" that's been maker penned to my face.  Kinda ruins the image of sophistication my collection of twenty years should have brought me. 

I think it shows how image concious the planet is in that it would be incredibly offensive for a thin person to say to a fat person, "For goodness sake, STOP EATING THE CAKE AND LOSE SOME WEIGHT!!!"  Where as it's not seen as rude for a non-smoker to preach to a smoker that they should "QUIT SMOKING, YOU'RE KILLING YOURSELF!!"

And let's not even get started on the biggest of all hypocrites: The drinker who has the nerve to criticise the smoker. 

I've just been appointed Vice Chief of the International Student newspaper!  Mhahahaha! My power in the International Student Union is growing.  Sure, it's just Vice Chief for now, but I'm sure the Chief Editor could have a nice meeting with some of my Siccilian and/or Russian friends...

I made good use of a "vote communist/vota communista" poster today:  Rip them from the wall and then use them to historically decorate the front covers of your Russian class notebooks.

One of my "New Academic Year Resolutions" was to religiously attend all of my Italian lectures.  However, evil forces were at work to make this resolution as hard to keep as possible.  Evil forces here meaning the Time Tabling department.  My two Italian lectures are scheduled, one as the fourth and last lecture on Tuesday at 6pm, the other at 8:45am on a Thursday with three lectures to follow it.  Horrorific.  Honestly, how could anyone manage the motivation to attend those?? 

End of self justfication.

( Meme )

Red wine + White wine + More red wine + Vodka + Cocktail = Sunday morning hangover over of doom = Swirling room, sick stomach and insincere vows never to drink again, blah, blah, blah, etc. etc. etc.

One strange facet of drinking, I find, is that although alchohol causes your mother tongue to rapidly disintergrate, unexplainedly, second languages seem then to roll off the tongue with far more ease.  Or perhaps that's just an appearance. 

Or perhaps it's just that everyone involved becomes fluent in the international language of drunken gibberish.  

Apparently, it is more politically correct to refer to a "foriegner" as an "alien".

...

At least foriegner implies you are from earth.  Quite frankly, if an Italian referred to me as an "alien" I would want to give them a good kick.