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"

I'll be back

From the email of a really good friend of mine:

[...]
"how is going? did you move to helsinki? you are really crazy girl ;))
i miss you too much!
take care my lovely friend"
[...]

The crazy girl is moving, and she is just so busy that now she does not have time to breath. She promises that she is going to come back to this blog in a month. Let her arrange her life.
Soon she's back with new, fresh adventures ;)
ciao!

Italy vs Finland

frozen spits

funny when outside is -10 or -20.
If sea and lakes get frozen, imagine what happens when people spit on the pavements.

"How disgusting, you just stepped on someone's puke!"
"Really?! But my shoe is clean"
"Well, it was frozen."

(some) women at home

I have always been wondering why most of the men like despotic women and end up marrying them. I mean: how can they be totally dominated by somebody that unrelentingly gives orders?
I first thought it was a matter of excuses. It is always credible for them to say that they can't go somewhere with friends just because their women do not want. It is always easy for them to say: "hey, we cannot come cus my wife is tired". So, I have always thought that men enjoy beeing victims.
However, there is another explanation, which is much simpler. Men miss their moms, so they need somebody to tell them what to do.

cars and owners

Have you ever noticed that dogs always look and behave like their owners? Well, another natural association I made recently is about cars and owners in Italy.

Generally, who is the owner of a Mercedes Class A? A woman of any age, that generally thinks that the driving mirror is really useful if used to check the status of her make up. A woman for whom it takes 20 minutes to park the car in a place where a truck would fit. A woman unaware of traffic and roundabouts: a woman that can't drive.

Smart! Yuhu! Smart-car is practical if you live in big cities. In the town where I live, smart is used by "wanna be cool" people who think that the dimensions of their vehicle allows them to be pirates.

Mini: any student of business who uses a little amount of fantasy for choosing clothes and ends up beeing like all the other stereotipical Bocconians: jeans, Gucci shoes, Tommy or Ralph shirt, Fred Perry jumper and probably Dolce&Gabbana underwear.

The SUVs like the BMW X5: people that need to feel important and need to be noticed. Generally short women or men with a small device in their pants.

Yesterday an idiot with a Mini bumped into my car. Guess what he looked like!

my new friends

"do italian archers just shoot? I mean, is it their job?"
"yes."

The guys that shoot for the finnish national team go shooting at 6 in the morning. At 8 they have to leave to go to work - the real one.
After work they go again shooting, helping eachother with the training.
"I have worked myself on my technique" explains one. He must be proud: his shot is beautiful to see and his results are excellent.

It must be difficult to be an analyst or an auditor during the day and a good archer during the night. But passion gives strength. And it makes dreams come true.

I absolutely love cooking.

It feels like preparing a potion or like making art. I especially like to use colours: sometimes there is some yellow missing or sometimes some green would fit with the rest of the ingredients. Today I made an onion pie. I happened to put red, yellow, green and white.

But it must have been smelling good, since SOMEBODY got interested:

The meaning of the yellow traffic light (in Milan)

Hei dude, make the tyres screech and go!

While looking at the moon, it can happen to stumble over a pebble

I still can't believe that I am finishing university. It sounds weird. It sounds as if I am finally going to become an adult. It feels like jumping into something you don't know.

[....]
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink ;
Water, water, every where
[....]
*S. T. Coleridge

Questions questions everywhere! And everything feels dipped in uncertainty, in a moist of dreams.
Is this fear of growing adult? I guess sometimes things sound more complicated than what they really are.

Another home.

It is funny to realize that I know Helsinki better than Milano.
It has been nice to go to my former workplace and meet everyone there, go to my favourite shops and realising that people there start to know me and welcome me with a warm finnish smile. In the metro, I just read my book and realize that I don't need to pay attention at the names of the stations: I just go out automatically. I'm not feeling too cold and tomorrow I'm seeing a friend for lunch. The first friend I have made here, who has not seen me for 3 months but that has started to jump towards me when she realized it was me who rang the doorbell.
In the supermarkets, I know what is the brand of toilet paper or of detergent that I need to buy.

Does this all mean that I am ready to call this place home?

colorful death

Orange and yellow and red and green and brown and blue. I love this explosion of colors. I love the autumn in Finland.

P.S.:

soon departing to Helsinki.

Bye bye, summertime!