Ciao, part 3

Hi again, just here to report that I'm having a lovely, relaxing weekend, just hanging out here in Siena. Yesterday I finally tried using the ATM at Banca Toscana, and everything seemed to work fine. Yippee. Today I went to the supermarket in the street right next to mine and got some stuff to make salad, since I don't think I've been eating enough veggies. I've been good, though -- I have fruits and everything! It's a good thing Mom thought of me bringing those Centrum Forte multivitamins, though. Good idea.

Did some sightseeing before I came here to use the Internet; just went to look at the Basicilica S. Francesco and some building in some piazza that I forget the name of but looked pretty nice. I'm so glad someone showed me the little bar that's right near res, where you can get té con latte and croissants and whatever else you might want for your breakfast. Or in my case, on the weekends, a sort of late breakfast/brunch since, for some reason, I get up at 8:30 and don't get out the door until more around, say, 10:30-ish. Time flies when you don't have anywhere you need to be...

They have a special kind of pasta here called Pici (pronounced like "peachy"...heh) that's quite good, too. Anyone seen any in Canada?

Someone came by my room earlier and told me that someone's going to be moving into my room tomorrow, so I guess that means they're not moving me somewhere else, after all. Hope my new roommate speaks English...

Anyway -- El, you're really not so good with this whole Internet anonymity thing, are ya? Lol. First you put my name in between quotation marks (for Heaven knows what reason . . .) and then you also include your own last name. Tsk tsk. Guess you don't really get how that works... ;)

K, ttyal. I'm gonna walk around some more. Which reminds me, I need to get some more water. Found a Minimarket on Via di Città that sells 1.5L bottles for 0.50 Euros. Not bad, not bad at all...

Oh, one more thing -- anyone want anything [small and easy to pack in a suitcase] from here that they want me to bring back for them? You know, like I'm looking around for stuff that might make nice souvenirs or little gifts, but if you all give me some more to work with here, that might turn out better. *shrugs* Let me know. :)

Me again (a.k.a. Ciao, part 2)

So...plunk an Internet addict into a foreign country where she doesn't know anyone and has not much to do (for the time being) and what do you get?

...Pretty much the same thing, except that she's got to use this weird keyboard and refrain from picking up the phone every 5 mins. to call all her friends collect ;) I have a card to call the family, so that's covered.... for the rest of you... miss you lots and will be so glad to hear your voices when I get back. :) (Aha! Guess who found the colon key on this wretched keyboard!)

Tomorrow am going to Scandicci (I think that's what it was) and Florence to check out the leather goods industry. Will be away from 8:30ish to 4:00pm (assuming I don't stay on later in Florence after that). Will at least be nice change in scenery. Know immediate Sienese surroundings fairly well enough for now.

Q: Hey, nice to hear you have internet access, how much block time did you buy and how far away is the cafe from res?

Hi, Mom! :D Bought the whole 2h30 b/c is on a declining balance basis -- they write down the time you start and the time you finish. If you take the shortcut to get here, it's between 10-15 mins.

heehee...you should make the most of it and say random things to her like "Have a bichon frise" and "anybody want a peanut?" and see what kind of reaction you get...p.s. I NEED YOUR "camera #", remember? :)

Heheh....I think I'll stick with trying to say things that are constructive, if you please. :) You're such a troublemaker, Suz! *Shakes head in mock dismay* Will send you my camera # right now; remembered right after I left here yesterday!

Thanks for the comments. Appreciate it lots. :D

A presto!

Ciao

Am in Siena. Am at Internet cafe where keyboard setup is different and weird.  Is 4 euro for 2h30min.  Is not bad, except for weird keyboard.

Currently have Italian roommate; communication is a no-go.  She may be leaving next week, but she didn't understand my question when I asked how long she'd be here for.  Was supposed to have Canadian roommate but UofT switched everything around once we all got here. =P  Is sorta annoying.

Not much else to report right now.  Will try to get on again at some point.  All the best to you all and ttys

Arrivederci

So at this time tomorrow, I'll be preparing myself to leave on a jet plane. It all just seems so sudden ... feels like I've just started Summer break, and it's already the day before I have to leave. I'm excited, yes, but kinda scared too. Just because I can't be sure what everything will be like over there; people speak a different language, use different currency, have different customs, and have a different standard of living, which means I don't even know what my residence room is going to look like at all. I mean, in Canada, if you go from one city to another and stay at different university residences, you generally know what to expect about what the res will look like and how comfortable/clean you can expect to find it there. But when you're travelling across the Atlantic to somewhere like Italy, who knows? The rooms there have no air-conditioning. And no window screens. Perfect combo. I hear, however, that Siena is relatively cooler at night, so maybe it won't be so bad.

Ah, and I get a roommate, too. Never really had one before except at camp and things like that. Then there's also that pesky Economics course to worry about; I rather hope that some of the other students haven't done any of their readings yet, because, selfishly, that would make my chances of doing well in the course, relative to them, just a bit better. But no, I don't really wish that, because it would suck to go all the way over there and not be prepared and thence find the course very challenging. Maybe we'll all have study sessions or something. Then again, I'm not used to those, either, because generally I usually study on my own.

I've never been this far away for this long without family or friends before. I don't know how you do it, Andrea; I'm only going for 5 weeks and I'm already all jittery.

And oh geez, I have GOT to stop using so many semi-colons; I'm telling you, that book Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a bad influence (yeah, that's all your fault, Suz. ;)). But very interesting. Much more so than some of those readings I had to do, and BY THE WAY, do ALL business people go to the same school of bad grammar and comma faults?

Okay, well, I still have one or two e-mails I should write, amongst a few other odds and ends to tie up before I go, so I'm going to sign off for now. I may or may not have Internet access while I'm in Italy, and even if I do will likely not have the time to write long, detailed blog entries, if any at all. So in case you all don't hear from me on here -- be safe, be good, stay healthy, be well, keep fit and have fun! ;)

I'll talk to you all in September, and will miss all of you far more than I'd like to. :P :)

Big hugs all around.

(p.s. You see the title of this post? Yeah, that's pretty much all the Italian I know, other than "grazie" and "fettucine alfredo". Ohhh, man. Wish me luck; I'm gonna need it! :))

(oh, p.p.s. I added a bunch of wordsearches for your amusement if you have some extra time that needs to be filled. :) Besides, wordsearches and crosswords are brain exercises that supposedly help you improve your memory...so....you're welcome. Lol. ;))

(p.p.p.s. Q: have you ever seen 'before sunrise', or just anticipating the sequel anyway?
A: Yes, I have. Am I really that strange? ;) )

Course registration, year 3

Well, that was pleasantly painless.

My assigned signup time for course registration today was 9:30am -- an auspiciously early time, letting me get a jump on people with a time later in the day (last year my time was 12 noon).  By 9:40am, I'd signed up for all the courses I need for this year... in fact, I even was able to sign up for a course that, as far as I knew, was only meant to be available for signup as of August 10th... Hmm.  That was probably just some mistake in the university's system, and I'm not the only one who's signed up for that one, but I'm going to keep checking to make sure they don't kick me out of that course and make me sign up again...

Anyway, just wanted to give you all the update.  The oh-so-exciting update.  In other news, this is the first Monday morning of Summer "break" on which I haven't had to head out to work.  Ahhhhh.  Well, unless, of course, you count the Monday when I woke up in Greece.  That was pretty non-work-related.  Heh.

Okay, well guess where I'm off to now?  That's right: more readings.  Whoopee!  And maybe if I get around to it, I'll get a chance to do the stuff that needs to be done before I leave in... (*checks calendar*) ... 4 days.  Oy.

Hehee....
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From TheOneRing.net:

The Elven Barbie and Ken Dolls

It seems Mattel is at it again with their LOTR inspired Ken & Barbie dolls. This time they've victimized, er, chosen Legolas & Galadriel! Click on the images above if you dare.

[edit] p.s. Here are Aragorn & Arwen, too. Hehe.

Man, why am I so much better at wasting time than I am at anything else? *promptly disappears to go back and do more reading* [/edit]

T minus 7 days...

So here I am, and it's my last day of work, and there's still plenty enough work to last me until the end of the day.  I'm so gonna sleep in tomorrow.  I'm bloody tired.
 
...Then again, I can't really sleep in, because I still have a bunch of readings to get through.  And I have to start thinking about what needs to be packed, etc. etc.  Guess there's no rest for the weary (or is that phrase "no rest of for the wicked"?  Well, either way, it works out fine. ;))
 
Anyway, in exactly a week and 3 hours from now, I'll be at the airport to fly to Rome.  For an approximately 9-hour flight.  Oooh, fun.  I loooove airplanes.  Well, they're not all bad.  They do get you where you have to go, generally, and it takes much less time then, say, crossing the Atlantic on some sort of ocean liner.  Hmm.
 
Okay, well I think there's some stuff I'm supposed to do -- and I'm not even sure why, but there's something nagging at me that it needs to get done, and I can't remember what it is -- so I'm gonna go do that now.  Or try to figure out what I'm supposed to do, at any rate.
 
Ttyal.
 
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Q: isn't it funny that you used the font X-files for a LOTR banner? :)
A: er...funny in a ha-ha kind of way?  It is an interesting mixture, though; I mean, on one hand you have the LOTR hippies, and on the other you've got the sci-fi geeks of XF. ;)  I was watching an old Sex and the City episode the other day, and they had two people who were supposedly XF fans who had put an ad in the paper looking for a Dana Scully . . .  lol.
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My head feels like it's about to split into unequal halves. I've got more readings waiting for me to read them right now, upstairs. I just finished writing a really long e-mail reply that, in total, was 17K including the original message.

It's felt like a long day, and i'm tired.
I've got 2 weeks left before I go; 1 more week of work. Maybe I should think about figuring out what to pack. Yeah, maybe I'll think about that when I'm not trying to motor through those readings (and actually understand them, too).

I've only got 2 weeks left, and I'm a little scared. Don't know of what, exactly, just a general apprehension. This is entirely knew new for me. Never taken a summer course, never travelled this far without my family, don't know how difficult it might be to contact family and friends from the Italian phones and Internet cafés. Blimey.

At any rate, those readings aren't going to go away and stop buggin me unless I go and actually read them. Probably then they'd still bug me anyway, but at least then I could say, "Go away! I've already read you!" And yes, by the time I finish reading what I'm supposed to read, I will be talking animatedly to inanimate objects. I really think that's the way to go...

Anyway, like I said. I go read now. You go comment now. ;)

[edit] Oh, and ps. I won't be here tomorrow or over the weekend (I'll be somewhere called Huntsville. With my geographical abilities, I have no idea where that is), in case any of you start wondering where I am... :) Talk to you all when I get back! [/edit]

Psychotic ranting, anyone?

The University of Blogging Presents to juliet_a An Honorary Bachelor of Self Portraiture Majoring in Psychotic Ranting Signed Dr. GoQuiz.com ®

Username:

Blogging Degree
From Go-Quiz.com

Verbatim et literatim, v. 1

In honor of the new title (uh, I think I'll stick with this one), I made a new header graphic. Hope you like. :)

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Man. How I love stumbling across new info about stuff I like -- especially when I didn't know that said info was even available yet.

But there it is. The confirmed title for book 6, which is still being written. Whoo!

Read more about it here.

Eh?

Yesterday was a pretty good Canada Day -- not that there's a lot to compare it to, since we usually end up just staying at home, doing nothing out of the ordinary. This time, the family and I went downtown for a little while; mainly we were in the general vicinity of City Hall. Confused though, because in the newspaper it said there was supposed to be cake there at noon, and there wasn't anything; either we missed the parade that was somewhere-or-other (I forget now), or there wasn't one. Hmm.

Anyhow, after that we went to the Paramount to watch Spider-Man 2 (whoo!), which I reckon I liked, and which was very good, but of course I'm still contemplating whether or not I actually like it better than the first one. After all the contemplation, I'll probably decide that I like them equally or something, anyway. Or, like for The Lord of the Rings, decide that they both count as one movie, although that's not true in this case. Ah well.

Anyway, after that, we headed up to Downsview Park (those subway Day Pass things are quite handy) around 5pm. Never been up there before, or even to those few subway stations north of Yorkdale. Interesting. I got to see Chantal Kreviazuk perform for free (whoo!). I knew all of the songs she sang, except for one that was a special request, "Weight of the World", a song from the Peace Songs album ("Redemption Song" by Bob Marley), and a new song she's just written ("it's called 'Mad'...or maybe 'I'm Mad'...or maybe 'Mad About You'...well, anyway, something like that."). Cool. I remembered that her last album, which came out like, what, a year ago? I remembered I've been wanting to buy that for a while. I should do that at some point . . .

After Ms. Kreviazuk (whoo! 1 degree of separation from OLP! That's even cooler) finished, the fireworks display started. I can't remember the last time I actually saw fireworks in person; certainly not on any New Year's Eve, and certainly not recently. Was quite lovely.

Then we headed home, and more or less I went straight to bed ("more or less" meaning we got home around 11:30, and I got into bed around 1:00) since this morning I had to get up a bit early to get to work.

So all in all, I had a more eventful, interesting, and musical Canada Day than I've had before, and I'm so glad to be a part of this wonderful country.