74 Days til Italy

...but who's counting? I am! It seems like tomorrow and it seems like forever away that I'll be landing in Rome. I feel incredibly unprepared and haven't started listening to my "Learn Italian" CDs because I don't know where they are (surprise, surprise) and I feel terribly unfashionable with all of my last season clothes because I'm trying to save money, so I'm not going out and buying this season's hottest trends... skinny jeans, flats, long shirts, big belts-- wait, is the 80s?

Today is tech Sunday of Carousel (meaning we open in 4 days) and it is chilly and cold and rainy outside, and of course all I can think of is Italy, as per usual. I wanted to recount the story of how I came to the decision of studying in Italy because I think it is important. I don't want my grandchildren to ask me one day (when we spend Christmases in my villa in Umbria) how I decided to come to Italy, and all I can say is that I just wanted to... because really, it was much more than that.

A year ago at this time, a little seed was nesting in my brain to study in Paris. I'm fairly confident in my French-speaking abilities, although they're not great, and I haven't taken any college courses in them (maybe I need to work on my confidence levels-- bringing them down, that is). So I decided, hell, I'll go to Paris, why not? But I never got overly excited about it because the deadline seemed far away, I was frustrated with school, and I had no plans to take any French classes. Last spring it was announced that Hal Prince would be coming to Elon in the Spring of 2007 and I decided then and there that I would not be going abroad, because I was so focused at the time that I didn't want to miss out on all the goings-on here at Elon. Then it was announced that Andrew Lippa was coming, and then I started thinking about SETC, and a summer without regional work, and all hopes and dreams of a stint in another country became null and void (even after a gorgeous Frenchman named Jean Claude befriended me --online-- don't worry, I didn't take him up on any offers, just practiced my French). Then in September it sort of all came crashing to a halt. I was sitting in my office one night looking at the International Studies website, just out of curiosity, and I saw that the application deadline was in 6 days. All of a sudden I was enraged with myself for not taking French classes, for not preparing more, and for not taking advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. How moronic of me. I scanned the programs that were still open and none of them interested me except Perugia, Italy, but I didn't speak Italian, and I hadn't brought it up to my parents in so long, and it sort of seemed like a closed subject. Then I saw that you don't have to speak Italian to do the program, and I slowly picked up the phone. I was literally shaking with adrenaline-- you know when you get so excited about a subject that you just tremble with glee? So I shakily dial my parents' phone number. Mom answers and I immediately said, "Mommy, I am so conflicted..." and told her the situation. An hour and a half later, I was basically sold on going, and she was thrilled... she spent a summer in France when she was about my age and has insisted, my entire life, that I do something similar. The next step was to tell daddy, who was on a business trip, so the next morning I spoke to him and he was incredibly receptive as well. He even suggested I stay in Europe for the summer after the semester is up (which is now my plan). The application process was quick and fun, although there were many late nights that week working on a ten-page paper for it. It was worth it. I was accepted and now I am going.

It's odd-- I feel like many of my friends who have gone abroad didn't like it, or weren't incredibly changed by it... I think these people, somehow, couldn't let go of themselves enough to be open-minded and give in to the vast culture around them. Somehow, I know this is going to change me in huge ways. As I grow older, I become less and less glued to my ideals, what I hold as truths. The world has so much to offer me... our tiny, tiny world... it contains so much, and for me to think I know everything there is to know now, at such a young, pink age, is just absurd. In the scheme of things, I know nothing (but by knowing that, I still know more than many others).