chronicles of a mission (im)possible

Getting back in a good shape is one of my current projects.

So, today I decided to go jogging. Before that, I read on a women's magazine: "If you return jogging after a break, you may feel OK while running, but if you overdo things, you're likely to feel the effects later. So, when you return to running after a break, always build up again slowly". "bullshit!" I thought.

Well, I have never been so wrong.

While getting out of home, I was feeling very good. Of course: the first 200m are downhill. But then the road starts to get just flat and there I started to calculate: I have been practically 2 years without ANY exercise. TWO YEARS! MAMMA MIA!!!!

More than jogging, in fact, I have been walking and trying to run.

During one of the moment of weakness a gang of 3 kids passed me with their bikes and slapped my fat bum. I think that was not the most encouraging thing to come across, but...whatever!

After this lovely beginnig, I headed home. And the iPod decided to tease me! Among the shuffle songs, why did it have to pick the soundtrack of "mission impossible"????

Perhaps the magazine was right, but I just hope I'm not "feeling the effects later".

ALMOST BACK

See???

I'm back. Of course in this precious hour I should do some homework, but that's a minor detail.

I'm soon back to school, back to work. Damn, I hardly remember how to use my computer!

But it was worth it. M. is a wonderful son. A sunshine. And being his mother is the most amazing experience I could ever have. Now he walks. He points at interesting things saying: "GADDA", meaning "LOOK"..and he HUGS.

All of this - with the digression- is to say that I'll work with a computer and every now and then I will find some time to amuse myself and hopefully somebody else with my everyday life adventures.

I'm now (officially from sept.7, but I have to be mentally prepared) a lousy PhD student that tries to be a good mom for a wonderful boy. However, I'm always the same messy person.

Maternity

Master thesis: done

Dissertation of the thesis: done

GRE test: completed

PhD application: handed in (and now finger crossed!)

And what now: painting home, baking cookies, searching for antenatal classes in english, going shopping for baby stuff, studying finnish, reading newspapers, writing to friends....

My belly grows and grows. There are just a couple of months left. It feels heavy and huge, but it looks rather pretty. The best part is when the inhabitant wants to communicate or simply moves within the boundaries.

I get tired quite easily and I sleep as often as my mam's dog (a very lazy one). I have a hunch that it's good to enjoy some holiday now, since soon there is going to be a lot to do!

However, it is quite weird to have so much spare time. In my rush, I have always made the tyres screech, with no time to rest or relax. Now that I can sit one hour at a terrace sipping a hot chocolate and reading the Economist, I get drunk of relaxing vibrations.

No exams to do, no hurry to get a book from the library, no concerns about the stupidity or perfidity of certain people. Freedom?

Somebody say pregnant women are beautiful. In my case, I guess it is just that life has never been more relaxed.

Puhutko suomea?

I'm studying some finnish.
Funny to see that just by changing the length of a vowel you can say "I kill you" instead of "I wait you".
Anyhow, I try my best, but even in cafés most of the times I get the answer in english. Apparently I'm not a chameleon - yet-.

spring feelings

March 21st.
First day of spring.
Blossoms, sunshine and a clear sky.
Pictures of you, The Cure.
Shy daffodils come out. Nature wakes up and makes everyone feel so light and soft.
It's the start of a new life, of something beautiful, again.

stealing toilets

I still have to get used to live in a peaceful and safe country.

It does not seem real to drive in a smooth, silent and gentle traffic.

When I'm in the metro stations I still have the natural instinct of checking my purse to be sure that my wallet is still there.

Today I was at the supermarket and I had to take the shopping cart. Automatically, I put just 50 cents in it. Why? Of course, because if somebody "stole" it, I would have lost just 50 cents and not 2 euros. Then I realized I don't live in Italy anymore. Nobody here steals shopping carts. But if I was in Italy, my precaution would have probably been right.

In fact, somebody steals even TOILETS! It happened in the metro stations of Naples. People dressed up as plumbers were staging a sort of Oceans Eleven in order to steal toilet bowls. I'm just wondering: what did they do with the plunder?

some crumbs of the journey

Despite the anxiety of my grandma, we made it.

The car reminded those fully loaded lorries that travel from Sicily to Lombardy with all sorts of mediterranean delicacies. However, when looking inside the car, instead of spotting oranges and tangerines, you could see huge transparent plastic bags, saying "SERVIZIO IGIENE URBANA, RACCOLTA SECCO*" full of underpants, socks and other underwear material.

After getting away from the italian cahotic traffic and from the german smooth mororways, we shored in the lovely fairy land that is Denmark for a couple of bucolic moments. There, we stopped in a town whose name made us think somehow of a candy and, with a lot of expectations, we tried to find a place for lunch. Of course we found just a greek pizzeria and an irish pub. Same amount of good luck in Stockholm, while waiting for the ship. The only places open for lunch were a kebab-pizza fast food and a fake japanese sushi bar.

And of course, once in Helsinki, we had a good dish of Italian pasta ;)

* I didn't have any better bag than those huge garbage ones for the "dry waste"