The Adventures, Mishaps and Musings of Me

Walk-Tram-Underground-Bus-Plane-Car-Home!!

2009-12-17T13:25:10Z

OMG Snow is everywhere! This is going to make dragging my luggage on the public transport voyage - from my dorm in south milan to the train station in north milan to the airport - a bundle of fun.

England here I come!

I'm Not even Going to Call This "The 5th Opera Attempt".

2009-12-15T21:55:35Z

I overslept.

I cannot believe it. I overslept. I overslept!

Four weeks into the Dymaxion sleep cycle, and although I haven't got it quite perfected yet, I do sleep and wake up from my four naps a day with ease, am able to function completely normally during the day and well during the night (although, the 2am - 8am stretch is still a bit tricky). The only thing I have left to iron out is my habit of dropping asleep unexpectedly for a few extra hours every couple of days... Like this morning.

Sitting on my bed at 9am, I was just thinking to myself, "Right, I have one hour before I need to leave to go queue for Carman, so shall I spend the time reading a chapter of Financial markets or a chapter of-" *Zonk* That is the last concious thought/memory I have before waking up again to find it 12:50 and a million-zillion missed calls on my mobile from people wondering where the hell I was (especially when I'd been so adamant "Be there at 11am - for God's sake do not be late!") ARGH!!

...

So, despite my best efforts, no Carmen for me. Ah, well. No level of disappointment could compare with Sunday's, so... let's move on. The Opera House isn't going anywhere, so without a doubt I'll get there one of thses days ~~(I just really wanted to see Carmen... *sniff*)~~

In other news, after almost four solid months in Italy, I'm going back to England on Thursday night. Yes, I'm quite excited to be going home. Note the use of the word "quite". I guess it's one of those last transitions into adulthood when you stop considering visiting your family house as "going home" and just consider it "visiting". I'm pretty sure (unless life really gives me a good kicking) I will never permanently reside there again. Over the last year and a half, the city of Milan really has become my home to an extent I never would have thought possible (haha, regardless of the fact I don't have the right paperwork to live here).

Of course, there are things I miss of Britian, which I am really looking forward to: Fishnchips, roast dinners, bacon (yes, OK, the list of food ends here), "the news", just being surrounded by people who speak my mother tongue, British style humour, British TV (I don't own or watch television at all out here) cider, people who have the ability to form orderly queues, and just, in general, the attitudes of the British public compared to Italians. Both get wearing after a while, but a change is always good.

And, of course, I am looking forward to staying with my family. To see my brother, sister, and my old school friends again; to take my dog for walks; to be mothered by my Mum and have meals and clean clothes handed to me without effort; to breath clean country air; to relax on leather sofas(I only have a bed and an uncomfortable wooden chair in my room - I miss sofas alot); to hang out in London; to not being surrounded by prostitutes; to not have to be crushed on trams and the underground whenever I want to go places and, simply, looking forward to everything Christmas that you can only get at home.

But, then there is also the downside to "My Family". Firstly, the ever widening chasm between the political opinions of the adults in the family and my own. I'm not one to shy away from political debate, but I'm doomed to lose any that is started just because, although I know I rebut the ideas of my family, I haven't got fixed in my mind yet what ideology I follow instead. It is impossible to fight a corner if you don't know what it is yet, thus I end up with only half an arguement, and looking utterly weak minded. Fun.

Second, although there are members of my family who I am very affectionate towards, there are also those members who I consider, without exaggeration, the most evil failures of human nature I have ever met, whose only life purpose is to hoard as much cash as they can get their arthritic fingers on, and then defy death just to spite the world. Playing "inheritence" to such relatives is unfortunately inevitable...

So, in all? I'm going home on Thursday: I'm both jumping excitedly and grinding my teeth about it.

Ive Been Taught My Lesson on "Punctuality".

2009-12-14T08:29:18Z

My last entry could be called "Counting my opera tickets before they're sold." Painfully, my friends got to see the opera because they were all on time at 5:30 to collect their tickets (or rather the slip of paper that would later be turned into a ticket). I, the person who got everyone together in order to make the trip in the first place, was late coming back at 5:30, and thus could not. My friends tried to collect my ticket for me, but they are strict on only giving out cheap ticket slips to people who can represent themselves in person. Thus, in my fifteen minutes of lateness, the ticket slip that had my name on it was sold (with German efficency) to the cancellation line. Little to say, very black disappointment followed.

There were three reasons for my lateness when it came to returning to the opera at 5:30. Firstly, my shirt. I knew passing the dress code could be problematic so I took special care in selecting the one out of my three shirts to wear that was most suitable. Not my electric blue shirt, not my stripy silver shirt, but my plain black shirt. Sensible, one could say. However, last week I had (very comedically) spilt hot chocolate down my black shirt while trying to run for an elevator, thus I had to spend 2 hours putting the black shirt though the wash and tumble dryer to have it ready. This time spent meant I was cutting it fine to travel from my dorm to the centre of Milano, but providing there were no setbacks all should have been fine.

Which brings us to the second reason: Trams. The word "tram" should explain lateness in itself. Also, to put salt in the wound, I realised at this point that because of the coat put over the top of my jacket and shirt, when I entered, no-one would have been judging the style of my shirt in "how well I was adhering to the dress code" anyway. Thankyou logic for occuring to me too late.

And then the final reason, the real nail in the coffin in terms of my lateness, that without I may have still made it: There was a "We love Berlusconi" rally going on in the cathedral square. In other words, crowds of mad, flag waving, right wing Italians blocking the way between my tram stop and the opera house. Alas, I over estimated my crowd pushing strength and tried to take the supposed quickest route to cut right through the middle of them. However, it soon became apparent that this was an impossible route, thus I doubled back and decided to go the long way around the sickeningly patriotric crowds. At this point, my firends had phoned me to tell me that my ticket was in peril if I didn't come quickly, so I started running along the edge of the square. Yes, I was one of those mad women that we all laugh at who run in completely impractical shoes. I simply didn't care.

But, it was all in vain, and my ticket was gone by the time I arrived. I had reached La Scala only to celebrate my fourth failed attempt at seeing opera in Italy. Or, opera at all for that matter. The only mildly satisfactory consolation is how some person, during Belusconi's rally, threw a metal cathedral souvienier at him. My friends asked me afterwards if it was me. I told them to speak to my lawyers.

Moving on from wallowing at how unfair it all is, blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda, there is one final performance of Carmen that I could go to, before I go home for Christmas, on Tuesday. I would have to skip all my classes on that day to go, which, because I'm a lousy student, really doesn't bother me. However, the problem is trying to find some friends to take with me, who also don't care about missing class on Tuesday...

Well, when there is a will, there is a way.

How to Make Trousers Elegant.

2009-12-13T15:15:08Z

OMG I'm on The List!

The 4th attempt to get cheap last minute tickets for La Scala opera house, involving two and half hours of queuing in the freezing December morning cold and we made it to The List! We're on The List!! This is seriously the furthest I've ever got to holding Scala tickets. Me and my friends are not there yet, we've still got to go back at half five to "confirm" being on The List, then go back at half seven to collect the tickets and then, providing all has gone well, at 8pm? CARMEN!! - My first ever live opera.

Providing, of course, I can get over that last hurdle, which is presented by the damn dress code. Difficult, considering I have only a wardrobe full of indy student-y clothes. But, I do own a pair of sexy Italian leather boots (that I bought last year with the intention of opera) so... I'll go from there.

I will probably also have to put down the flashing neon sign reading "over-excited" that I've been carrying around with me all day. Just not chic...

Damn, This is Painful...

2009-12-11T17:51:47Z

It's pretty obvious that if something is "sugar free", then to make up the sweet taste a load of other chemical crap has to be put in it instead. Of course, as long as you don't drink/eat the thing in excess, then you'll get no short term bad effects from it - with all the regulations on such things manufacturers couldn't sell it if it did. However, if you do have an excess of a sugar free substance i.e. if you become reliant on chewing caffinated and sugar-free gum (specifically "Burn" gum) for a couple of weeks, then...

Well, put simply, I've developed sores on the inside of my mouth. A little bit of research tells me that it's one of the chemicals that replaces the sugar that's caused it.

So, yes, treat sugar-free stuff (I use "stuff" and not "food") with care. Now, I'd rather have the sugar, and just clean my teeth with a little extra vigour afterwards. Something being "sugar free" is certainly a selling point I no longer value.

In other news, this is my final weekend in Milano before going home for Christmas: BRING IT MILAN!! ~~(mouth sores or not)~~

Happy Illegal Immigrant Day!

2009-12-10T04:50:58Z

So yesterday marks the fact that I've been in Italy solidly for three months, and that, now those three months are up, I'm not *cough* technically *cough* supposed to be here. Let me explain, since both the UK and Italy are in the EU it means I can happily live in Italy for three months without filling out a single piece of paperwork. However, if I stay longer then three months I have to get hold of a "permit of stay" - fill out paperwork, hand in a load of documents to the city hall, be interviewed a couple of times, blah, blah, blah, all in all, a very, very tedious thing to get hold of. I did initially in my first year try and get the "permit of stay", but after seeing the list of things you need to apply for it, I decided it better to exploit the very large, and obvious loophole that surrounds the "three months" of free stay time. The fact that if you leave Italy at any time, for example just cross the border into Switzerland, then the three months reset themselves. This is great... except that this semester I haven't left Italy once. Oops.

Though, it's not really much of a problem. I've only got one more week till I go home to England for Christmas (^_^) and the only way it's possible for me to be found out is if I have sudden dealings with an institutional body that would require a paper work show... so basically as long as I'm not admitted through the healthcare system all will be well (although, I did narrowly avoid being run over by a bloody ambulance today). This isn't...er... the first time I've overstepped the legal limit for staying in Italy, and have done so without a hitch.

Man, a British person being an illegal immigrant in Italy... It could only be more ironic for me to be an illegal immigrant in Poland!

Italian Administration: An Example of "The Beautiful Mess"

2009-12-08T19:56:07Z

Italians produce fantastic food, cars, fashion, and generally excel at anything that requires passionate input. However, when it comes to administration and organistaion, the country is an absoloute disaster. England, a country that often views itself as beauracratic, is simplified bliss in comparision. After my year and a half of living in Milano (Yes, Milano, not backwards Napoli), I have many, many examples, so let me tell of my most recent run in with the joy of Italian administration...

So, all students at my University have to take a compulsary little 3 credit course in computing, which is supposed to take place at the end of the first year. This is fine: I attended the classes last year, and it was all easy spreadsheet oriented stuff that I, and most everyone else, had done before. What is not fine, is that BEFORE you can be allowed to take the exam for the course, you have to first earn an ECDL qualification in computing as a pre-requisite. This basically translates itself as becoming a little money earner for the University as all students have to pay 120 Euros to take the ECDL modules through the University. It seemed absoloutly ridiculous to me to have to pay additional money (on top of the already extensive Uni fees) to take an exam in computing, in order to be able to take your ACTUAL exam in computing, which most of us already find a piece of easily-consumerable cake. I suppose the only point in gaining the ECDL first is to train your skills if you would have trouble with the normal exam. But, if this is the case, surely you should just... study the actual exam harder? Eager to avoid having to pay out any additional cash, plus avoid wasting my time in general, I thought that since I already have several computing qualifications from Britain, surely I could use those as a substitute pre-requisite instead of the irratating ECDL.

I thought this was a good plan (oh, naivite), so last year I went down to the computing office to suggest it, of which their response was "send us a copy of the certificates and syllabus of your course, and we'll inform you in a couple of weeks whether it can be used to substitute the ECDL."

Two weeks? Three months of reminding emails and visits to the office later, and they finally emailed me a one sentence response to say "No, you must do the ECDL modules." Thankyou very much: Could you not have set me straight on that from the beginning? At which point it was too late to do the ECDL exams anyway so I couldn't take my computing course exam when I should have done. Peachy. This is what happens when you try and resist a silly system.

Anywho, it's year 2 of my course, and after discovering a few weeks ago that I can 'retake' the computing exam this February, I have had to sign up to do the ECDL modules double quick. Or at least, I would have liked to. This year, they have new payment procedures so you pay your 120 Euros online instead of in the office in person (perhaps to avoid bribes). This would be fine except that the online payment form isn't compatible with international non-Italian bank cards due to having to insert the "card name" into two fields instead of one. Argh! After many failed transactions, I went off to the office again to see what was going on, for the office-man to say cheerfully "Oh, yes, this is a problem many international students have."

So, if it's a problem many students have had, surely they've created a solution? "The only thing I can suggest," the office-man continued in a maddeningly friendly manner, "is to get an Italian friend to do the transaction online for you [NB: A payment of 120 Euros], and then pay them in cash for it." I offered to pay him in cash, but he nervously refused: You have to do these things through the proper channels... apparently, of getting a friend to do the payment in your name for you.

Well, I did just that and have successfully signed up for the ECDL modules (I have four of the exams tomorrow - Yay). But honestly, if this is a recurring problem for international students, and my Uni likes to prides itself on being a completely International Uni, then why are you not doing anything in order to solve the problem properly instead of encouraging perverse methods to skip around it?

~~I'll stop here before I get any more ranty~~.

Yes, if There Really Was a Fire We'd be All Screwed.

2009-12-07T12:29:52Z

OH GAWD COULD THE FIRE ALARM PLEASE SHUT UP!!!!!

The firealarm has being going off for two hours straight. Usually, you can't get through two days of living in this dormitory without the fire alarm going off at some point due to everyone smoking in the rooms. But, God alive, it's now completely malfunctioned and has being going off continuously for two hours. After the first half hour of it, I came to the conclusion that there may have actually been a fire, but after a bit of investigation this was, of course, not true - the alarm in the halls have just gone completely bonkers.

Wait, it's stopped.

And now it's started again. And stopped. And started again. And stopped.

Ugh, I forsee a painful headache coming on...

EDIT: Three hours of fire alarm and it's finally stopped. Phew.

Apologies for Publically Mentioning "Finance Textbooks".

2009-12-06T12:32:58Z

It's fun to read American financial textbooks that were written and published before the financial crisis. Especially when you compare their hard line capitlist banks-do-it-best attitude of a few years ago to the we-need-government-intervention attitude of now.

Dymaxion Mid-Week 3 (A Very Long Overdue Update...)

2009-12-02T10:32:22Z

So, it's week 3 of attempting to adapt to a dymaxion sleep cycle.

According to the few sources available, it should take 2 weeks to adapt... Blast.

However, that is "two weeks that don't contain a horrible, horrible dose of flu", so I think I should have some time allowance for that. Still, progress is... limited. It's very much a situation of one step forward and then a swift step back. Let's recap the last week and a half...

After seeing Tosca on the Saturday before last (great show) I missed my nap time by three hours, which utterly destroyed me for the two following days. I can't begin to tell you how much I overslept (I could approximate "a lot") because I was so disoriented I wasn't consciously aware of time I spent awake compared to being asleep. One second I'd be sitting upright at my desk and check my clock, the next minute I'd check the clock again to find three hours had myesteriously passed in the blink of an eye. My memory of that time has, well, many disconcerting holes in it... Still, after those two days of complete mind-buggery, I rallied myself to get back on track with the naps, and towards the end of the week it really started to seem to be sticking, with only a little bit of oversleep and the ability to be relatively productive during the night.

On the plus side, I stopped shaking with cold whenever I woke up (although, I think that may have been an early sympton of my flu...) and, through the use of to do lists (writing down everything I wanted to achieve between 8pm and 8am, and ticking it off through the night) I found I was really able to focus my mind well. However, I still have great problems with waking up on schedule (there was a point during the first week when I started waking up by myself, but post the Saturday night crash that is no longer the case). My IPod alarm will always stir me awake when it goes off, but this depends on it actually going off. There have been times when I've fidgeted too much in sleep and dislodged the ear phones, and other times when it simply doesn't go off for no reason that I can place other then the fact that my IPod is just plain unreliable. I think it's these random periods of two hour oversleep dispersed through the week that is stopping me from properly adapting.

And then we have last Monday night...

At 2am in the morning, the thought did occur to me that I should be sleeping, but in the midst of a Chinese karoke bar with a mind slightly addled by too much beer and bad foriegn language singing, this was a thought that was impossible to put into action besides going home, something I was loathed to do at the time. However, because I missed my nap by (again) three hours, I then had to spend the following day (yesterday) in a complete state of mind-buggery, like I did after Tosca, resulting in missing all my classes on Tuesday. Oops.

And then we have today. Wednesday. I've had one succesful, refreshing nap, since the disastor of Tuesday, and I'm feeling good (albeit I've had so much random overlseep yesterday I don't have any excuse for feeling tired). I've had to think how long I can continue to try to adapt to this without success, and I think I will give myself (unless there is some dire circumstance) up to the beginnnig of the Christmas holidays to do it, otherwise I'll go back to the drag of 8hr sleep. At the Christmas holdiays, it is absoloutly essential that I am in my right mind in order to study hard for the January/February exam onslought, thus if I haven't got this to work by then... well I can't afford to keep experimenting at the expense of exam results.

But, for the mean time... ever onward with my crazy sleep experiment! Regardless of my so far level of failure, I have learnt alot about what works, and what doesn't, so I'm still eager to suceed, and confident that I WILL manage this. The few days that this has properly worked for me have been great, productive days, I've just got to attain a level of consistency and REALLY stick to the damn schedule... regardless of Chinese karoke bars... and the cute Danish guys that can be found within them...

The Making of Said Wallpaper was Kinda Ironic...

2009-11-30T17:18:47Z

I decided I needed a desktop wallpaper that was a little more motivational towards study. Just the gentlest, teeniest of nudges towards my text books...

But, Hell Yes, I Want to Learn how to Make Good Pancakes!

2009-11-29T17:11:39Z

If you type the words "how to" into google and hold off typing anything more, a little box comes up with (presumably) the ten most common searches beginning with "how to". I was amused by the following list, replicated here (exactly) for your own enjoyment:

-How to write a CV
-How to kiss
-How to get pregnant (!!!)
-How to lose weight fast
-How to make money
-How to get rid of spots
-How to lose weight (twice?)
-How to make pancakes
-How to get a six pack (Yeah, because only girls have an insecure body image...)

Are these really the top things that the human race wants to be able to learn to do? Most of them all revolving around ones looks? It has to be said, we really are an insecure lot...

I'm in One of Those Psychodelic Dymaxion Dream Trips, Aren't I?

2009-11-26T07:21:39Z

So I got my mark back from Financial Markets exam. I got 29/30.

29 out of 30!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Literally, the message came up on my internet student diary saying "Financial Markets: 29" and I thought it meant a room change. Only on a second glance did I realise it was an exam result of which I then sat for a minute staring open mouthed at the screen. 29 out of 30!?! I mean, yes, I thought I did reasnobly well on the exam, but not THAT well. I kinda think there may have been a cock up in the administration, but hey, I'm not going to be the one to draw their attention to it (that can be the job of the poor bugger who thought he sat a near perfect exam to find out his grade said he failed it).

I also got my maths grade back at 19/26, which is pretty good and more importantly on target to reach the grade to get on the student exchange (something I desperately want to go on - the chance to live outside Western Europe for six months? Gimme, gimme, gimme!) I've only got three weeks left of class untill the Christmas holidays and then the painful onslought of the January exam session. The final exam session before the exhange selection preocedures, so I really need to pull my (currently crap) grade point average up out of the mud.

To summarise my thoughts on my progress with each class:

Financial Markets: Good - as long as I don't let my first mark go to my head... (too late)
Law: Good.
Math: Behind.
Macroeconomics: Very, very, VERY behind.
Russian: Good.
Italian: I have this paranoid feeling that I'm going to get ensared in picky grammar exceptions. But, I find such paranoia is a good thing providing you act constructively on it...

And I'm also wanting to re-sit my computing exam in January. "Re-sit" is a misleading word here because I never sat it in the first place, when I should have done last year. To cut a long story short, administration wouldn't let me because of missing documents. Of which I still need to get sorted... but, first a nap. Toodles!

My Saturday: From Racism to Musical Theatre...

2009-11-22T18:14:11Z

Before I start, let's get one thing straight : Italy is no more racist then any other country on this planet. The lower ends of the working class cannot deal with the idea of immigrants - a characteristic that is true of pretty much every nation. This is not simply constrained to an "Italian problem". So, with that in mind, let me account my Saturday night...

"This doesn't look like a nice area," was the remark of my (very, very camp) Idonesian friend when we got off the metro... with a 2km walk ahead of us through an unknown area, on the outskirts of Milan. "Yes, doesn't look like the type of place you'd expect an opera house to be," I replied, marvelling at the sheer amount of graffiti, litter and abandoned warehouse buildings. I mean, my dormitory is situated on the edge of a pretty rough area filled with prostitutes, but this was a whole new level of "ghetto". Nevertheless, we set off... using a roughly sketched map copied from Google as our guide. Couple that with the fact that both me and my friend look pretty exotic compared to Italian standards - he's clearly Asian and I've got pale skin and red hair - we might as well have been carrying a flashing sigh reading "NOT FROM AROUND HERE!". Boy, did we feel safe.

At the first road we had to cross, a drunk guy on a moterbike drove past, yelling immigrant insults at us. You would have thought that 8pm was too early for drunk guys to be yelling and driving moterbikes, but not here! We walked further, more people drunkenly yelled at us from moterbikes and cars. Frankly, as long as they didn't stop, we didn't care.

"Wait, is that car up ahead slowing down?"

Oh, crap.

Two possibilities instantly came to mind: The man was going to get out of the car with a baseball bat, or be offering money in order for us to get into his car (quite seriously, this has happened to me on multiple occasions in Milan). Obviously, one is far more prefable then the other - you can refuse a guy offering you money, it's far harder to 'refuse' a guy with a baseball bat. But, surely, this is just jumping to conclusions??

"He's pulling over. Shit."

At this point my Idonesian friend starts power walking away, but I was far less skittish (or far more stupid) and waited to see what the man in the car wanted... directions to the same theatre we were going to. *facepalm*

Eventually, we seemed to cross an invisible line to take us out of "ghetto land" and back into the cleaner, architectually beautiful areas of Milan (and where the police exist). Phew. We then had gorgeous Italian hot chocolate and cake in a bar as we waited for the rest of our friends to arrive (who had far more sane journies then ours).

The show itself "Tosca Amore Disperato" was amazing, and like all Italian musicals a complete abstract visual feast. And Vittorio Matteucci? I can now see why the man is so beloved in Italy - he has a huge amount of charm and stage presence, espicially when embodying a flamboyantly psychotic character who is utterly love sick (no, not Frollo). Not to mention, that the show features the rarity of a lead female character who is *gasp* interseting, and actually drives the story instead of just being the victim of it. Musically I don't think it was as good as Notre Dame de Paris (my now benchmark for Italian musicals), but narratively I think it worked better, due to the fact that there are less characters to try and focus between.

Also, and very importantly: Caberet of stripping, fornicating Catholic priests! So on that note, have some photos:

Our jealous, jealous, jealous heroine with her lover Mario (boring, drippy male lead, but with voice of Apollo) for the last time (aka the beginning of the musical), before things start to all go wrong.

The moon lady, who had no other function in the story other then to randomly appear and try and justify the actions of the characters in the name of love and lust. Very, very Italian...

Do these Catholic priests look sexually repressed to you?

The priestly strip and fornication routine, while singing all about the wonders of Catholicism and shining the repeating word "Dio" (God) as a backdrop. Fantastically blasphemous!

Apparently, in this depiction of the 1800s there were TVs with naked ladies on them.

More TV's set to channel "beautiful lady" (and Matteucci kneeling before them). Seems weird, but it worked really well on stage.

Dude, you're chances of getting laid tonight are low.

So, yes, all in all, it was a Saturday of ups and down: Gratuitous drunken yelling on the one hand and fantastic Italain musicals on the other.

Such is life.

Dymaxion - Day 7 (The Bed is the Enemy)

2009-11-19T23:51:29Z

So, I feel like shit that's been through a mincer and then sat on by an elephant. Apart from the whole "only sleeping two hours a day" shindig, this is by in large because I'm sick. Not sick caused by ridiculous sleep deprivation, but flu that has flying around the University and has decided to introduce itself to me. No doubt the sleep schedule is making it worse, but I'm attempting to ignore the flu symptons and carry on with the naps (I've spent a week adapting to this schedule I'm not going to give up now). To dope up on pills would wreck my napping, so instead I'm trying to cope with the flu by binging on tasty fruit and attaching cold objects to my forhead... Success is limited.

On the bright side of Dymaxion, I've finally solved my oversleeping issues. Simply, I've stopped napping on my far too comfortable bed. Instead, I just take the pillow and put it on my desk to rest my head on and nap in my chair. Little to say, my cleaning lady was confused this morning when she came in to the room to find me asleep on the desk with a pillow! But, this method of napping makes it far easier to wake up and get going. The problem with napping on the bed was that I was in such a sleep deprived state, I would wake up to the alarm, turn it off, and before I could make another movement the fact that I was laying down comfortably would send me back off to Neverland in seconds. Not anymore! Although, I still have the whole "wake up freezing cold" issue, which is horrorific. But, I have started waking up on my own without the alarm, so the adaption finally seems to be taking hold. ~~I would really like to think.~~

In other news, I have tickets to the theatre on Saturday night! It's a musical adapted version of the opera "Tosca", retitled "Tosca amore disperato", supposed to be amazing and stars no other then Vittorio Matteucci. Little to say, I'm excited! Hopefully, the flu will have subsided by... the day after tomorrow, and I'll be completely well to see it! The theatre is in on the very far opposite side of Milano from the University, in an area me and my friends have never been to. It's so far north it's not actually on my city map, but with the help of Google maps I've drawn an infallible diagram to navigate ourselves from the not so nearby metro stop. Yes, utterly infallible.

.

Really, is it too much to ask to have an Italian theatre trip that doesn't end in madness?

Dymaxion - Day 6 (The Day of Nap Induced Tripping)

2009-11-18T19:41:05Z

So, entries of late have got very rambly and uniformative (more then usual I mean). The following continues that trend!

Usually, I don't dream at all when I sleep, but my God have I had the craziest, most vivid dreams the past few naps. Firstly, I had a dream COMPLETELY in Italian, which was utterly bizzare. As in, dream me spoke and thought in Italian (seemingly better then real me speaks and thinks in Italian). I was talking to the receptionist lady in my dormitory who was trying to explain to me something about payments and reciepts without using words like "reciepts" (except in the dream, of course, "ricevute") because she thought I wouldn't understand, so instead was describing the 'tricky' nouns, instead of using them. Dream me got very annoyed with her and tried to exlplain that I would understand her if she used the actual words instead of just describing them. She wouldn't listen. Dream me got cross.

I'm not sure how that one resolves itself, because my subconcious decided to move onto dream number 2 (in English language this time). In which I was in the entrance hall of my university watching a girl (that I have had somewhat of a feud with during the past two weeks) cutting up copies of the student magazine. To give a bit of background information, this girl is one of the section editors of the student magazine and I'm now the Vice Chief. I gave her alot of (fully justified) comments on the lack of quality of her section for the last issue and how lots of articles needed to be cut for length and waffle, which she for some silly reason took personally. Anywho, in the dream I went up to her and tapped her on the back to ask her what she was doing and she turned to me with the sissors in hand and said, somewhat Devilishly, "I'm cutting articles!"

And then we move on to dream number 3. In which I was being chased through a warehouse of somesorts by something supernatural and deadly. I burst through a door to find myself in a stairwell, one staircase leading down to dark and very spooky gloom, the other upward to somewhere that seemed safe. Dream me literally paused for a moment and thought "Hmmm... this is somewhat symbolic," before remembering I was in the middle of a life or death chase and picking the upward staircase to run up. I heard snarling up above me (in the supposed safe place) and some kind of demon dog pounced on me forcing me to fall back down the stairs...

And then, of course, I woke up.

Dymaxion - Day 5

2009-11-17T18:43:43Z

How to sum up my current mental state? At around 4am I started listening to the Les Mis soundtrack. I got to track three "Valjean's Soliloquoy" and... started weeping uncontrollably at the tragic beauty of Jean Valjean, as embodied by Colm Wilkenson's forsetto.

Yeah... I'm tired.

Dymaxion #Day 3 or Day 4 - I've Kinda Lost Count.

2009-11-15T10:03:32Z

Problem 4: The Saturday night nap sceduled in at 11:00pm. What am I supposed to say, "Sorry guys, I can't come out tonight I've gotta nap?"

I tried to keep this whole weekend free of anything that would take me from my dormitory in order to try to adapt properly, but when a friend text me on the night about a party... temptation to socialise (after spending upteen hours on my lonesome) was too much. Out to the bar! Actually, it wasn't as disastrous as it could have been, as after the bar, around 11pm, me and a few friends went back to a dorm to prepare for clubbing, of which I was able to go and kip on my friend's bed. BUT, in the 6am nap back at home this morning I overslept by three hours. CRAP. The alarm woke me up, but I just turned it off and immediately passed out into sleep again. I've got to be stricter with myself on this. Maybe set my normal alarm clock for fifteen minutes after I'm supposed to wake up, just in case of such lethargy.

Other then that feeling pretty good (but, I have had a naughty extra three hours sleep, so that's not surprising). Actually, the part of me which seems to be suffering the most from this is the eyes - keeping them open for 22 hours a day, does tend to make them ache. ~~Though, maybe it's due partly to the fact I got shampoo in them yesterday.~~

Anything else strange... I tend to be absoloutly freezing whenever I wake up from a nap. Which is I suppose expected because it's November , and I'm living in a badly heated dormitory. The best way of getting around this I find is to leap up immediately (which I didn't do this morning) and start jumping madly around the dorm to warm up (and wake up).

Dymaxion Sleep Cycle #Day 0 - Day 1

2009-11-13T15:45:25Z

Or, in other words, I'm a student - watch how crazy I can be.

So, this is an idea that I believe came off katoki's blog of which I've since been completely intrigued by, and now am going (or rather, am in the proccess) of trying it for myself. The basic principle is that instead of sleeping (or trying to sleep) a full 8hrs, you take a series of naps throughout the day, and are able to cut down the hours you have to ~~waste~~ spend asleep. There are several different systems of doing this, but I am going to try for 4x30min naps a day, aka one thirty minute nap every six hours, aka the Dymaxion sleep cycle. Now for the question you're all asking: If you are only having two hours sleep a day how are you possibly going to have enough sleep to function properly? That, my friends, is the beauty of it.

For a bit of Layman's science on the thing (that is no doubt better explained else where on the net), there are five stages of sleep that you go through in a night. Only in the fith stage of sleep (REM deep sleep) do you recouperate energy, something which lasts approximately 1hr30mins in a standard 8hr sleep. The Dymaxion sleep cycle works by having your body skip out the first four stages, and jump immediately to the fith stage, thus in the two hours a day you spend asleep, you spend 2hrs recouperating energy and thus, in theory at least, you should be more refreshed and alert then if you slept a full 8hrs. How does your body learn to do this? In adapting to the sleep cycle (i.e. staying awake all night and only sleeping in 30 minute slots) your body gets so sleep deprived it "realises" that it has to make use of the thirty minutes you are staying asleep to rejuventae ~~otherwise you'd eventually pass out and die.~~ Thus, 8hr sleep can supposedly be left behind in the dust.

After timetabling my naps around my classes (easier said then done), figuring out a (ha, ha) foolproof alarm system with my IPod and, finally, stocking up on Kit kats, sucky sugar sweets, tea bags, and, only to be used in emergencies, caffinated chewing gum (caffine filled, but apparently 'sugar free'), I was ready to give Dymaxion a try...

Firstly, I'd forseen three possible problems that had to be avoided in order to succeed.

Problem 1: Over dependence on caffine/sugar to stay awake, thus destroying all ability to get any sleep through the 30 minute nap. One's first reaction to "how can I successfully stay up all night instead of sleeping?" would be to dose on caffine, caffine and more caffine. Remembering though that you have to be able to get to sleep every six hours, such a strategy would be disastrous. No one could make use of any nap with large amounts of caffine sitting in the blood - Italian coffee (the equivalent of being injected with a needle full of stimulant) is certainly out of the question. The caffinated gum is only to be used as a last resort, i.e. to stop myself passing out in the middle of a class.

Problem 2: Alchohol. I drink to excess on a regular basis. To do so while attempting to keep a Dymaxion sleep cycle would again be suicidal, and totally screw me over. I will have to cut back for the time being. Shouldn't be too hard, it's not as if I have a problem or anything... Oh, wait...

Problem 3: Oversleeping. My normal alarm is too easy to sleep through (many a Monday morning lecture has been missed for this reason!) however I'm instead going to use my Ipod as an alarm - you can set it to play at any song at any volume when it goes off, pumped directly into your head via earphones. I'm picking insensibly loud Russian rock opera - not even I could sleep through that.

And so with all that in mind, and with my final 8hr sleep under my belt, yesterday I began to attempt the transition. At 9pm I took the first half hour nap and... overslept by half an hour. Fantastic start. The poxy alarm didn't go off! Thankyou IPod. Nevertheless, I popped awake and, a cup of tea later, successfully stayed up reading the Financial Markets textbook ~~maddeningly slowly~~ to get past the temporal hump presented by the hours of 1am - 3am to get to my next nap.

This time the alarm worked, and my God... there is nothing more horrendous and traumatic then being forced awake by a Russian bartione thundering on about desire in your ears. I literally spasmed out of bed and onto my feet before having the good sense to tear the ear phones out. Nevertheless, I had successfully woken up at the correct time and, after a bit of mad jumping about, was pumped on enough energy to go back to studying at 3:30am. With a flourish, I finished up my Russian writing homework at about 4:30am! I then read through it to find that my ability to write in the Russian alphabet had somewhat subconciously disintergrated as I had absentmindedly written bits of some of the words in English characters. Oops. A bit more wild jumping about, and onto Italian and the very labourious, and long overdue task, of updating my "list of obscure, but useful vocab" that sits on my laptop. I must have added about 100 words to it, scattered through my notes, to reach sunrise. Two hours of math questions later and it was 8am. Time for my final nap before Friday class: A 3 hour lecture on Macroeconomics - I suspected I was going to have to crack into the caffine gum to get through it. And yet...

I took the nap, woke up to more Russian rock opera (though at a slightly lesser and palatible volume) and felt... good. After a shower I felt bizarrely refreshed, and after less then two hours sleep during the night was able to sit alert and awake in my 3hr Macroeconomics lecture. Possibly the most attentive I've been in class all week. This is weird. I honestly can't believe that after one day at this I can be benefiting at all from the thirty minute naps - it should take two weeks to adjust, and during those two weeks you should be utterly zombified...

I can only be suspicious that I'm about to hit a serious wall in the next 48hrs. Bring it - I have caffine gum, opera and a large stack of studying to get through it. Besides, I'm a student. Ridiculous, potentially harmful experiments that may end in hospital is what we do.

Italians vs Europeans

2009-11-11T07:49:15Z

I saw this video yesterday with my friends (both Italians and non-Italians) and we just laughed and laughed and laughed. Everything in it, every comparision, is unbelievably true (especially all things roads/queues/smoking/beauracracy)! Seriously, watch this video and you will understand how things work over here in l'Italia so much better!

Totally Late for This

2009-11-10T12:10:23Z

Many countries require all citizens to fulfill a mandatory period of service in the armed forces. Do you agree or disagree with this policy? Do you think the current recruitment system creates or sustains socioeconomic inequality?

Submitted By jeepgirl77

View 607 Answers

Let me put it this way. One of my best friends is Russian, and thus should have done a year of national service. He didn't because his rich Daddy was able to give a brown envelope containing $20 000 (yes, that is dollars not rubles) to the "correct authorities". He tells me that this is standard procedure for all kids of the Russian elite.

So, equality?

I also have another two Russian friends who got out of national service. One who was so nervous in the medical exam they thought he had a heart condition, and another who should be doing national service, but is hiding in Italy and hoping the Russian police don't find him (so far they haven't).

From a purely economic point of view, it seems to me a collasal waste of government funds to train people for the army who simply are not suited for it. Funds that could be used to deal with social problems instead. Besides, ~~from a bleeding heart liberal viewpoint,~~ what right does a government have to interfere in the lives of it's citizens so much as to force them to put their life on hold and, essentially, give up a year to the government?

Tradition be hanged.

A Sample of the Poignent and Intellectual Thoughts of Me.

2009-11-09T20:33:19Z

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?

Writing From a Post Exam Daze...

2009-11-06T12:51:03Z

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.

The Model Student.

2009-11-05T22:14:25Z

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!

Damn You Distracting Internet...

2009-11-04T13:40:59Z

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...