Sorry- this one is old nov.21

Come si dice procrastination nov.21

I'm actaully doing pretty good now, I've written several pages of a rough draft. I haven't been too exciting lately, mostly doing work and everyday things, but I hadn't written in awhile so I figured I should. Last week one of the girl who had been sick in our program earlier in the semester went to the doctor and found out that she was getting worse and needed to go home, so we had a going away dinner for her. She has Crohn´s Disease I believe. It was sad that she had to leave so soon. (Linda, this is Sarah who you met in Venice). I think it made us all think about enjoying our time here to the fullest though because I've heard more than one person same that they are about ready to go home. But then we had to think, Sarah actually has to go home. I will be ready for home, but if I had to leave right now I think I'd be pretty disappointed. One more month! 4 finals, 3 research papers, a trip to London and a Trip to Paris away. Evidently the expression cowlick is similar in Italiano something like te leccate la mucca. I thought that was funny.

Off to a good start with Otago
when I was procrastinating, I emailed a professor in NZ about doing research and she wrote back pretty quickly and was really nice to me. She gave me several options and seemed like she was excited to have me come and work in the department. So me and NZ off to a good start I'd say.

Maternity leave's ulterior motives
We talked about vacation and leave policies plus health care in EU class the other day. She was saying that italians get about 28 days paid vacation a year and more like 35 if they are in a high health risk profession. You also get a paid marriage holiday of 2 weeks if you get married. This along with their other million holidays with Saints. They certainly are laid back here. They also have parental leave policies, but she made it sound like mostly mothers take it. Mothers get at the very least 2 months before the baby and three months after but up to 3 months before and 5 months after leave paid at 80% of their salary. You can take more time but you would get like 50% after that time. They are required to give you your job back. Not too bad I feel like. She thinks they make this so appealing because there is such a low birth rate in Italy. Couples now get married very late and a woman doesn't usually have a child until the age of I think she said late 30s. So they are trying to encourage people to have kids.
Health care was interesting too. So when you go into the hospital everyone has insurance so they just pay a co-pay similar to ours with insurance. If you are unemployed and you have a document saying so you don't have to pay. They do actually also have private insurance that employers can get for people. And that just makes it completely free so you don't have to pay a copay at all. You don't have to legally be married to get benefits from someone you live with either. If you live with someone, and it doesn't even have to be a long time, you can get their benefits. Because she lives with her boyfriend and uses his insurance. We're also learning a lot about il palio, but I will talk about that another time. I'm watching Italian equivalent of funniest home videos with Maria..haha