a mountain from a molehill

for the past few weeks i've been feeling like everything is finally catching up with me. when i first arrived back in italy it seemed as though all of the pain of pete's death was far away from this place. milan and school seemed like a shining golden opportunity to bury myself in a productive place in which i could forget the painful circumstances of my life and focus on taking positive strides toward the future.

as you may have guessed from the first sentence of my post, this is no longer the case. of course school is exciting and i am taking major steps toward realizing my goals, and i'm getting excellent grades and performing as well as i could have hoped. my state of mind outside of school, however, is the real problem.

i'm just sad. i'm sad all the time. the real shit of it is that i'm constantly torn between knowing that the sadness IS in fact the reason for my disproportionate overreactions to just about everything these days and that there is a world full of people around me who still look at me and see only the things that i do and not what sadness is brewing behind my actions (and overreactions as it were).

[i realize that i should probably re-phrase the preceding unapologetic run-on, but i just don't feel like it.]

so these days, every little upsetting thing, already magnified by my distance from everything familiar and my husband (who soothes me better than anyone else) becomes ten thousand times bigger than it should or needs to be. everything pains me. my insecurities are enormous. i commit social suicide in my head on a daily basis. group dynamics, which are normally already difficult for me have become virtually impossible to navigate. even my ability to judge character, which is normally something on which i pride myself, has gone completely out the window. so basically, i'm a big fat mess.

i'm sure that i'll feel better tomorrow (or at least i hope i will), but today---

fuck today.

has it really been this long?

it's a bit hard to believe that it's been a week and a half only/already...

time is moving very very quickly again, which, considering my workload of late, is totally unsurprising.

i feel like i have tons of things to say, but then nothing at the same time. so today i'll go with nothing...

stay tuned.

this week...

this week has been quite busy for me. i took an exam, visited two companies and got my grade back from the first exam of the year (about two weeks ago) and i got wireless internet in the house!!!

i took the accounting exam on monday. i think it went pretty well. i'm actually sort of amazed at how much i really enjoyed the accounting class, ridiculous right? we mainly focused on managerial accounting, which is concerned with how to allocate costs in order to get a very clear picture of the financial impact of decisions. interesting indeed. yes, i'm a big nerd.

we visited the fratelli rossetti factory on tuesday. it was a really amazing visit actually. we got to see shoes actually being made. duh rachel it was a factory. they really make such beautiful things. then, of course, as you would expect, i bought a pair of shoes...really really beautiful green patent leather loafers...i love (love love) them. the best part? 80 euro...from like 250 or something in the store. designer outlets in italy rock my world.

then we had a couple days of class (blah blah blah). just kidding. i'm still enjoying classes a lot although right now the subject matter is a bit dry...finance and statistical data analysis: both interesting subjects, but taken together are a bit much in the way of technical/interpretive number play. i got my exam grade back from our first test...five out of five (although rounded up from a 4.83). not bad. it's funny though actually how much pressure i'm feeling now to get perfect grades. i just feel like my professors and classmates would expect me to and if i don't they'll look at me funny, as if to say, "i thought you were smart, but i guess not." it seems stupid, and generally i don't discuss grades with classmates anyway, so it isn't really that big of a deal. it's just a strange thing about being in school as an adult, when i have a much larger emotional, financial, and intellectual stake in being at the top, not to mention the ego.

yesterday we went to milano unica (which is one of the biggest fabric and trend shows in europe) and then to the dolce and gabbana headquarters in legnano. in their facility there, they take a garment from a sketch to a sample. i'm not going to outline the entire process here, but if you're interested, email me and i'll tell you all about it. they made a special presentation for us on the structure of the company from an hr perspective and then gave us a walking tour of the facility. we actually got to see the clothing that will be going down the runway in the beginning of march. let me just say, that both the dolce and gabbana and d&g shows will be very good. on an interesting side note...did you know that there's actually a specific verb in italian that describes walking on the runway? "sfillare" is to walk and refers only to walk on a runway during a fashion show. it can describe both clothes and models, so in italian, the clothes literally "walk down the runway."

i love this country.

my return to the blogosphere

as you have probably noticed, i've been quite lax about writing in the blog for the past week and a half. it's mostly due to the fact that life has settled into a fairly comfortable routine here. i'm in school all day every day during the week, and weekends pass without major fanfare, although i've spent some really nice days doing this or that around the city.

yesterday a friend and i went out walking around to do a bit of research for a project on the handbag industry and ended up sitting in a salon together getting our hair cut. it was a really nice experience actually, as it had been some time since i've seen the inside of a hair salon. the woman who cut my hair understood english well enough for me to explain what i wanted, and then we conducted the rest of the conversation in italian. i'm pretty much conversational now in italian without stressing out too much, but occasionally needing a repetition, or explanation. i think i got a pretty nice haircut, but it's hard to know exactly what it will look like because she did this totally masterful blowdrying that now involves some curls and swooshes and the like...see photo for reference.

tomorrow i have an exam in accounting, which, surprisingly enough, is a subject that i quite enjoy. then on tuesday morning, we're going to visit the fratelli rossetti (high end shoe company) factory...for me very very exciting. then, more class all day wednesday and thursday, and then friday milano unica (one of the biggest trend and fiber/fabric fairs in europe) and the dolce and gabbana factory (for samples only). also very very exciting. so, things here are moving along. it's snowing a bit outside right now which for better or worse reminds me of home.

love love love.

things are looking up-

today was a good day. i was very tired because i stayed up late last night with friends, but as a stranger in a strange land, it's a good reason to miss sleep. i am absolutely in love with school. the classes are incredibly interesting, relevant and challenging enough to keep me on my toes with a healthy sprinkling of epiphany and self satisfied understanding. the professors have a really broad range of experience and influence that i'm looking forward to absorbing (and hopefully capitalizing on) over the next year (and more for job opportunities).

i'm also finally making progress on resolving the last of my loan issues with sallie mae, aka, il diavolo, and securing full time internet access (yay skype availability!!). so, check back for further updates on those as well. i love and miss you all dear readers. drop me a line and let me know you're still here.

much love.

domenica

it's been kind of a tough weekend. i've been thinking about pete a lot and crying a lot (because i've been thinking about pete). it's easy to be so far away and to convince myself that i'm ok. clearly, i'm not ok. i'm functioning, doing well in school, making friends, blah blah blah. but my feelings have been a little wacko lately. i'm sure that he's the reason.

i feel like i should write, but i don't really have that much to say at the moment. i was elected as one of the two reps for my class...that's pretty cool. i basically act as a liaison between the class and the administration and i think greet guest speakers and stuff. so, not bad. i'm looking forward to it.

otherwise, things are moving along. school is interesting but feeling a little slow to me at the moment. i'm sure that i won't feel that way a week from now. i still have a fair amount of free time and have been making some more friends, so that's good too. i'm waiting to see what the dynamics of the people in the program are really going to be like. i know that it took a while for people to feel comfortable enough to be themselves in the precourse and it seems the same here. the feeling each other out process is always a bit strange for me and this is no different.

all in all though, so far so good.

xoxoxo