Friday, July 11

 
this is rushed and random but i just had to send out this tribute before the weekend:

kimi porter is the most awesome girl ever.

i received in the mail this week a dvd that kimi had made for me. it contained every might ducks finals game i missed. with american commercials (which i now covet like nazi gold.) i was so excited that i started shaking and squeeling, literally. couldn't get back to work for a while because my hands were shaking with so much excitement. god, just knowing that i have that much quack attack in my room makes me heady. so if you know kimi, please give her a high five and a hug for me. if you are kimi, know that you are cooler than emilio estevez.

also:

have a new photo album online (i'm stealing digital photos from trisha.) it's weak right now but you can still check it out at www.picturetrail.com/shannolm.
posted by from shannon at 8:33 AM

Wednesday, July 9

 
so, after nearly a month, nico, italian man of my dreams, has reentered my life. it turns out that he was the guy i said i met the other day with the great northern accent, only i didn't recognize him at the time. and, um, yeah, turns out his name is actually andrea.
posted by from shannon at 8:17 AM

Tuesday, July 8

 
this is a report i made to ben about my status this morning:

have decided that i HATE intern mike. really hate him. but totally have the upper hand because he knows this and is sad about it. HA.

in other news: cute roberto from the snack bar stopped me today to talk about the kobe bryant thing, as he made front page news here in italia. *swoon*.

my italian is on fire this morning at work! after suffering several days of awkwardness, i am rocking and rolling again.

and then, the status report made after lunch:

first, after great linguistic morning, had low point of italian today when, in a moment of flustered frustration, i lost all italian ability and just shoved some 20-year-old kid's paperwork at him and muttered in english, "just take this!"

even worse: just had this totally awkward (VERY shannon) moment, so may have lost some edge, but still believe i have the upper hand.

was eating downstairs with trisha when mike came in and joined us. was pretty cold to him all lunch (disdainful, i like to think) and then when i said i was going to go he asked me to take my laundry out of the wash. i told him i wanted to wait until the dryer was free because they're white delicates (in my head this made sense as they need to be treated with utmost care!) but mike goes, "uh, can't you just put them in a bag?" for some reason this really pissed me off so i give him this stony glare and in a voice dripping with ice, responded, "sure, let me do that for you." then i proceeded to get up without another word, flip my hair over my shoulder, turn and make for the door.

and proceed to set off the alarm.

in my utter rage about the delicates i totally forgot the enter the code to this door and thus as i try to exit the door locks down and this claxon-like siren begins emitting in the tiny, echoey chamber that is the caf. and who has to come save the day? roberto, snack bar attendant of my dreams. it was totally mortifying. predictably, i blushed and dropped my sunglasses. thus my dramatic exit was ruined.

posted by from shannon at 8:11 AM

Monday, July 7

 
the 'hooray, italy!' trip continues. though not very patriotic, the weekend was pretty rad. spent friday tanning and snorkeling in sorrento and positano - otherwise known as the glamorous amalfi coast. highlights included a free train ride out there, awesome gnocchi, and using snorkel equipment in clandestine bond girl fashion to swim around rocky cliffs to obtain illicit use of villa's private hidden beach. radical.

spent saturday and sunday in the imperial city. cannot get enough of rome. day one was a lazy walk around the city, hitting my favorite hot spots (the spanish steps, the coliseum [!], etc.), lazily strolling alone the tibre, and me stopping to pet every horse (attached to carriages) i saw (my strange obsession of the day.) finished up with a cheap cheap cheap (and fun) home-cooked meal, as we four interns had use of a state department-owned apartment. sunday was even better, as was spent alone in the villa borghese, the gorgeous huge park in rome. although the afternoon was spent relaxing and reading with my feet in my favorite fountain there (i'm not strange or dirty, promise), the morning was even better as it was spent AT THE ZOO. it was probably the crappiest zoo known to man, with many animals kept behind sound-proof glass for reasons unknown to me, but me by myself in such an establishment was totally a recipe for giddy chaos. i adore being by myself lately - though trisha and i are getting along quite splendidly i've found that i am mostly indifferent to male intern #1 and actually don't play well at all with male intern #2 (what can i say, he is an immature pretentious swiss bastard and i am, well, charming and adorable. and some might say somewhat confronational, i guess.)

i am in a great mood all around, really. when we got home last night trisha and i met some new italian friends, which is great because i was so exhausted after our last ones left (they finished their exams last week and had to go home for the summer) that i was convinced we would never make any other ones. but these guys also seems really nice and one of them is from verona so he speaks the most beautiful and clear italian i have ever heard in my life (the napoletan accent is very vulgar, i think - picture the godfather talking after a stroke and you'll get what i mean.) and speaking lots of italian always puts me in a great mood.

oh, and the story i

so yeah, this is a very nice feeling. i sort of bottomed out during this last week (not like that was too low - but it seemed like it after i had been skying for four straight weeks.) not sure what it was. just a series of small things that went wrong that added up to some dissatisfaction (not to mention the gabriele debacle - if you are curious and want some good gossip, let me know and i will tell you the story.) so while i still wouldn't say i was homesick, i was more just disdainful of most people and things in my presence. but we're back on top now.

if anyone wants to give me feedback on this thing, btw, i'd greatly appreciate it. it seems like a convenient way to let people know what i'm up to here (if anyone's reading it, anyway, which i hope people are) but when i did this in florence one of my friends told me he gave up on it because it didn't really say anything. maybe i will try to be more emotional next time i update - maybe that would be good. my only major constant emotion here, though, is thrilled. unless it is interrupted by contempt for male intern #2 or utter terror at the thought of my future (or lack thereof, really) or the numerous failures of my recent past (and i avoid thinking about both of those topics at all costs, basically, which i guess says a lot about my state of mind but since i'm trying so hard to forget about that we can't really discuss it because it literally makes me hyperventilate.)

but not to end on a sour note: one of my better italy stories, as i promised to discuss earlier, is about a lecture i received from one of the priests who lives at the denza. the first night we met he lulled trisha and me into this nice conversation, all smiles and soft tones, about how he had lived in san diego for 15 years. and then before you know it, WHAM, he's launched into a lecture about how we are absolutely forbidden to enter the italian boys' rooms here. he goes on for an embarrassingly long time about how the boys need to study for their exams, punctuating his diatribe with such awkward points as "girls are distractions" (note: though he didn't say it, he quite obviously meant american girls) and "you don't know what can happen at night." as my face burned with years of catholicism-induced shame, i stared at the floor and tried to end my misery with quietly uttered indications of understanding, but to no avail. the lecture carried on for a good three or four minutes that felt like as many years. the worst part about the whole catastrophe: though the good father was delivering this paternal address to the two of us, his eyes never left me the whole time. i am obviously emitting "american strumpet" pheromones.

and on that note, buona sera...
posted by from shannon at 9:28 AM