Update-Patience,Ultimate,Nice cashiers,man purses

Sorry if a little long-

So yesterday I was feeling pretty awful. I was sick, and I took a 3 hour nap plus I went to bed at 9:30 or so and I have lots of crazy Italian work and I had computer issues. I am forgoing night time activities for the time being so that I can just go to bed really early and hopefully recover faster. I'm doing pretty well, my head just hurts some and I'm a little snuffly. Anyway today was a good day I'd say. Its not ridiculously interesting, but here is why....

Leigh and Milano!
I bought my bus tickets to go see my friend Leigh this weekend and the woman with the tickets was down right rude and nasty I'd say so I'm glad that's over. I am very excited about Milan, Lake Como and especially my friend Leigh! Meeting new people and building friendships is great and all, but its also exhausting, and after a month and a half I'm ready for a familiar face.

Learning
I realized today that I was learning something very important here among other lessons. Today in our EU economics class we were listening to our professor that doesn't speak very good English and it was exhausting because I had to pay such close attention and we had to help her with words concerning European union courts and law (which is kind of boring to me anyway) and I found my mind wandering, but then I thought about how I sound to Italians. Its the same if not worse. And its very hard to be patient with people especially when it concerns communication. But people are generally patient with me, and I need to be patient with others. I also need to be patient with myself. While this is an amazing experience and all of you are right to say I should appreciate it thoroughly (because I do), studying in a foreign country with people you don't know and don't understand is really really hard. Its hard to adjust mentally and emotionally. I am constantly pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Not just daily but probably hourly. This for me is probably one of the more difficult situations I've had to deal with ever. I love Italy, but I can say now that I will be so ready to come home in Dec. I need to remember to give myself some slack, its ok to not feel awesome all the time every day. So patience, its an obvious thing to say that you need to have, but seriously how many of us are actually that patient with ourselves, others, or machines even? Sometimes you just need to slow down. We live in a fast paced world that hardly fosters patience. So I'll mark that up on my credentials of skills learned and practiced while abroad...

Ultimate Players in Siena!
Today I also found some Frisbee players! I was so excited to come upon some other American students playing Frisbee so I stopped to talk to them and I ended up throwing around with them for awhile. It was really exciting. I realized this summer even, going on my little adventures, that Frisbee is really important to me because it helps me connect to people. I kind of like the identity I am given when I say I play ultimate. People know oh, she must be pretty cool and laid back and fun. Well maybe I am those things, at least I like to be. ( :

Grocery Store
My other funny event this afternoon that made me happy occurred with a simple visit to Conad, the largest "grocery store" here. So I may have mentioned before, you have to pay for grocery bags here and you have to bag your own groceries, not an easy thing when you're trying to pay and there is a line and the check out lady is really short with you and kind of rude. So its best to just bring cloth bags and put the stuff back in the basket then walk away and bag it in peace. So tonight I went to the side to go bag my groceries and the usually rude checkout lady came up a moment later and handed me my pesto which I had evidently forgotten with a smile. She had left her counter to find me and was really nice to me! it was amazing. It was just one of those times that someone did something simple but so nice surprisingly. I love being surprised by the goodness of people. And I will try to think a little more fondly of the check out lady.

International Paper
We got the international news paper today, which I like reading. Its interesting to read about what they say about the US. They have mostly been talking about the election and financial stuff. It was kind of sad though today I read something about how in Ohio a guy was quoted as saying he and his friends weren't voting for Obama because he was black and they didn't trust him. They also said they didn't like him because he was Muslim. What?! I mean seriously. Its so sad that we are still in that place. And these people were vocal about it, imagine how many people think or feel uneasiness about his race and don't express it. And Muslim? One, that shouldn't technically matter even if he was, but I understand the underlying tension toward the Islamic culture in the US. Anyway though I'm pretty sure Obama is baptist and was raised by his white mother and grandparents. I'd say baptist is pretty far from Muslim. I hope you all knew this whether you like him or not. Any way I was just kind of appalled that these interviews were in the international newspaper.

Man Purse
Last thing, I bought this cool little leather strap purse that I had my eye on at a antique/thrift store. It was really inexpensive, but I'm pretty sure its leather, its pretty old and smells like leather and perfume. The perfume smell reminds me slightly of Aunt Margie I think. Just kind of a fun thing. I tried to look up the brand- Scandiano but all I found out was that it was a town/city in Italy. Its convenient though, everyone has little bags like these. Even men. A friend of mine and I have a hypothesis that because men's pants here are so much tighter here than in the US, they don't have the pocket space for their wallet and phone and whatnot, so the man purse had to become socially acceptable out of necessity. Just a thought...haha. I said, "I like it, if I were a guy I'd get one", and my friend (who is a boy) said, "that's because you are a girl not a guy, of course you think that's cool" it was all in all a good conversation. I still think its cool-perhaps you disagree. Maybe it will catch on in the US if men's pants become tighter.

Have a lovely day everyone! Do something fun and relax a little!
Bacio!
Melanie