Seriously Italy, What the Fuck?

Okay, as I mentioned before, my bike was stolen last weekend.

Yesterday I broke down and bought a bike, a shitty bike, but pretty much my only choice available. On the way to class today I was going up a bridge and one of the goddamned handlebars snapped the fuck off. I cut my finger and my shoulder fucking hurts now.

Yay!

Yum. ... I know it doesn't look that bad; this is actually well AFTER the deluge of blood spewed out and a bandage was applied.

My first bike, similarly, one of the pedals snapped off going up the same bridge just hours after purchasing it.

Sometimes I feel like I'm a lone captain sailing a ship called Sanity in a sea of infinite bullshit. .

/not too pleased.

On the other hand, looking on the bright side (about an hour after I initially wrote this)

I took it back to the shop (all the way across town) and he's replacing the handlebars. I'm hoping this means that I will get handlebars made for an adult human, instead of an elf. I swear, I could only get my first three fingers around the damn handles.

**Edit

I went back to the shop around 5:30. The guy wanted to me to pay 10 euro for the "improvements" he had made. HA HA HA. I only wish I were joking.

I couldn't pay even if I had wanted to because I'm so broke, but go figure.

** Edit-Edit

It's been two weeks since this whole thing took place. A day after I had the handlebars replaced, I had to replace the tires, tubes and buy a pump...

A couple of days after that, the pedals started to move in ways they weren't supposed to move (as in... left and right) and the chain kept slipping so I stopped riding -- I didn't want to make my face a permament fixture on the sidewalk ...

You're taking the fun out of everything... making me run when I don't want to think.

My morale has just been boosted about 100%.  

Last week was the easiest/not so easiest week thus far.  Easiest in terms of academics, hardest in terms of everything in the periphery.   Oh well, George doesn't sweat the small stuff, and as they say, it's all small stuff. 

Saturday morning my bike was stolen from in front of my apartment.  Both of my bank accounts were overdrawn because of a multitude of problems, I had to ask my mom to put some emergency funds into my account.  Financial aide had me going through hoops like a retarded monkey.

I didn't have any classes today, I just have a lecture this evening, a panel symposium deal on the current financial crisis.   Because most of the faculty are not from from the United States, so it should be interesting to hear things from their point of view.  

Anyway, today I had two missions... since I'm pretty much paralyzed without a bike (much like not having a car in Texas), I went out to look for a new bike...and to settle financial aid.  I went to the office and they said they had to talk to the university's finance officer to get my transfer approved since it was not on time, so I had to wait.  In the mean time I figured I'd just go find a bike.  There is a guy that everyone goes to, so I went to his shop.  Like all shops in Italy, the hours posted is just a guide to what COULD happen, so I got there when it was supposed to open and ended up waiting about 45 minutes before the guy got there.  Ended up paying 50 euro for a bike that's not as good as my old one.  I swear the pedals and handles are for elves or something.  No gears.   It's going to suck to go up the bridge on the way to my apartment, but oh well walking.  So, yeah, up to this point I was in a pissy mood.   Then I went to the financial aid office to check the status of whatever the fuck was supposed to go on.  Found out that instead of giving me the exchange rate that the loans were supposed to disperse at in September, they're giving me the current rate...which is good... since the dollar is performing marginally better than it had a month ago, something like 8% better, that means I get an extra 700 or so bucks.   Take that financial aid.

Now to blow the cash on honey, gold, jewels, money, women, wine, cars that shine

(I don't know what you're talking about, but I think I've got an idea)

 

(IN HEAVEN, YEAH!)

These idle hands do the devil's work here.

I passed my class.   Looking at it, I didn't take it as seriously as I should have -- I passed with a B, but that's not my style.  Nevertheless, I'm happy because it could have been much worse.

My first class starts tomorrow with the same professor for Macro.   On Wednesday I have my Russian placement exam.  I'm in a strange position -- the people who are taking the Russian class here are either extremely proficient or noobs.  I'm somewhere in the middle... I know enough to get around in survival mode in Russia and my reading isn't absolutely horrible.   So I'm not sure where they're going to put me.   We shall see.  I also have my Post-1945 class on Wednesday.  I started reading the material for it, and I have so far liked it.   Of course, I'm only about 20 pages into it, but still interesting.  On Thursday I have my european economic history class and on Friday, well, no classes until next week.  Rock and roll.   I'm happy with my schedule.  Extremely happy.  

That's about all I have.  

It's weird at this university -- you can literally stand anywhere in this building where there is a group of students or faculty and hear 4 different languages being spoken at any given time.  I can't tell what the group of students next to me are speaking.  I know it's Slavic, but I don't think it's Russian. They don't look Russian either. 

I'm starting to apply to internships.  It's crazy that I have to work right now to insure that i have something lined up for me in the summer.   Then again, I suppose I'm not stranger to this process, that's how I got here in the first place....just that there's so much going on.  I'm going to apply for the state department internship -- but on one hand I don't think I'm going to break my back to get it.  I hope I can get into a post in Russia or at the very least, Eastern Europe.  From my fellow students, I have come up with a list of leads if that doesn't pan out.  There is a serious wealth of connectivity here...Two promising leads is one for an NGO that raises aids awareness in Moscow.  It's not exactly my line of work, but it'd work.   I'm at in a tight situation with the type of work that I want to do because of the political situation.  Nonproliferation isn't exactly what the US and Russia wants to openly engage right now.   It's a shame, so much for progress.