From the Mixed Up Files of L. Scamperle, Hermit Esq.

It's Tuesday, about 1 pm. I've been in my apartment since Friday afternoon. I haven't lost my mind yet! I've also managed to sleep a huge amount despite minimal exercise. This morning I could barely wake up even though I was approaching Hour 11 of sleep.

I am greatly impressed/somewhat horrified. Are my homebody tendencies really this bad?! I can spend endless hours in bed and not go insane? Maybe it's the way I have fought off cabin fever with my activities.

Normally, I get stircrazy so easily. I think it's because I feel guilty for doing nothing when I am able to be doing things. However, I finally have an excuse to just lay in bed and watch tv for hours. I'm pretty darn relaxed.

"How To Not Go Insane In Confinement":

the accidental findings of L. Scamperle, Hermit Esq. 

1. Skype and talk to anyone! I really lucked out. I got to Skype with Dana, Anna AND Louise. Also, thank God for facebook chat and messages. I am so grateful to everyone who have been great correspondents, it's been essential to my sanity. I LOVE YOU ALL. 

2. Remember that life goes on... and you should maintain excellent hygiene. Cleanliness is next to Godliness. Or rather, you feel gross when you are gross. Simple. 

3. Give yourself tasks that you normally are too lazy to do. I tried to learn how to curl my hair with a flat iron. Fail. Ok, that's not completely true. I got 3 amazing curls... and then the rest looked like sad bent hair. I also did my nails! My graduation app got started. So. Much. Left. 

4. Find a TV show that lifts the spirit. I would like to thank The Big Bang Theory for keeping my disposition on the more cheerful side. Sheldon and Amy? I love you. 

5. Finally watch the movies people make fun of you for never seeing. On Day One of Confinement, I watched Super Troopers. My next movie is Shawshank Redemption... but I don't think they will have the same effect on me hahaha. 

6. Keep perspective and DON'T feel sorry for yourself. This is essential to not going insane. This week of confinement is a blink in my life, a tenth of a blink in eternity. Things have been less than ideal. I've had great opportunities to be upset... but I haven't been as emotional as I thought I would have been. 

7. Have awesome friends like Rachel and Sigrid who will bring you food. The worst part of this whole thing is feeling helpless and asking for help. Rachel has been a sweetie and brought me kebabs, haha! Sigrid brought me cookies, chips and chocolate milk. MMMmmm. I've eaten so many cookies already, Sigrid. THANK YOU. haha. No one else has come by, but if you plan on doing so and you are reading this, bring me junk to eat, haha. I will reward you someday with endless affection/alcohol. 

8. Sweatpants. Need I say more? 

Update on ankle: I haven't gone to the doctor yet. Wait! Hear my reasoning before you yell at me. Yesterday was Monday. I talked to Umbra and they said I would have to go to the ER. Yet yesterday it was raining so I didn't want to go. I knew I was going to get drenched and fall on my butt. Today is St. Costanzo, the patron of Perugia. There's a festival, no Italian school and most businesses are closed. Umbra suggested today would be a bad day to go to the ER because their staff would be limited. Alas, I am going tomorrow morning at 930 am. I have a lot of fears... for awhile there, I was excited to leave Italy but now I want to stay... argh. We shall see! I'm trying to stay positive and remember no matter what, nothing will change, only my knowledge of reality. I'm hoping to score a walking boot and no cast. Casts are the WORST! Showering with a cast is bad enough, but in an Italian shower? Kill me. 

Pray for me! 

That Time My Professor Force-Fed Me Cake For The "Pain"

I find this blog difficult to write sometimes, hence the lack of consistent entries. I want to give you all a rounded idea of what I am doing... but I dread filling out the boring details to the point of simply not writing anything at all. Sorry if this blog seems abrupt... but I find it impossible to write a novel here.

The latest news in my life: I'm lying in bed with a swollen ankle propped up and iced.

<<Che è successo?>>, you ask yourselves with grave concern. Did Louisa beat away a gypsy woman with her ankle from stealing an infant? Did she slide into home base at the wrong ankle (oops, I mean, ANGLE)?

I wish. That sounds kinda dignified.

Nope. I opened the door to my classroom, knowing there was a deep step immediately past the door frame, and fell down anyway with a GIANT SNAP to my ankle as I went down for the count.

Oh, and it gets better. I started crying out of pain and shock to the sound of all my classmates jumping out of their seats to help me. Did I mention I was interrupting class because I was 5 minutes late from the break?

So my Russian classmate Sergei is my new hero/doctor/official class badass. Once I identified my ankle as the source of my misery, he got my shoe off in record time, ripped off my sock and felt it to see if it was broken. Fortunately, I had a PERFECT PEDICURE STILL (yessss, some remaining shreds of dignity) and clean socks on.

My classmates are absolutely gems. They all instructed me how to take care of my foot, whether it be ice, Italian icy hot gel (my professor wrote the brand name ON THE BOARD and then Sergei copied it and gave it to me with the instructions "twice a day"), and elevation. My Korean classmates stuck a special Korean bandaid on my foot. The best moment was when Sergei noticed it and said, "What is this?!" as if he was actually saying "What is this bit of nonsense in this time of gravity?!"

But because we are in Italy, we sent for the university doctor... who had already left for the day. It wasn't even 2 PM yet. Someone went to the cafe for ice... they didn't have any. My Irish classmate Avril went across the street to get a synthetic ice pack at the pharmacy across the street.

Throughout this ordeal, I couldn't speak Italian. I was so shocked. I was supposed to go to Verona in 2 hours. What if I broke my foot? I'll have to leave Italy. How the hell am I even going to get back to my apartment if I can't walk? How the hell will I get that damn gel if I can't walk? Oh, I'm so embarrassed right now. Everyone is looking at me. I just want to disappear.

 So I sat at the front of the classroom with my foot on a chair, a blank face with tears sneaking out every 4 seconds. My professor tried to keep teaching, I guess to distract me? She brought cake that day and she kept offering me some and finally I took it so she would shut up haha. She said I should take some to help my "dolore" (pain/sorrow/suffering). That at least made me laugh.

My American classmate Bill, who is a dad and used to his kids injuring themselves, was so kind to me. He helped me get out of the building and called a cab so I could get home. He tried to get me to go get an X-ray but I couldn't bear the thought.

I turned to him and said, "So, Bill, what do you like? Wine, food, chocolate?" which made him laugh.

This happened yesterday. I've been icing it, put the gel on it, wrapping it, elevating it...

...and it still hurts whenever I move it or try to put some weight on it. Normally, 24 hours of a wrap helps sprains. I'm worried for sure. If it isn't better by tomorrow night, I'm going to go get an X-ray and hopefully a boot of some sort. If I can't go up a flight of stairs easily... I might just go back to the US. (If I can't get to a grocery in under 40 minutes, living here will be my personal hell. How could I do anything?! I live on a flight of stairs. I'm not kidding.)

That seems super dramatic to me but I am oddly not too upset. My sole regret would be that leaving Italy closes the door on my Italian fluency goal. I would probably get a refund of some kind since I got injured in a university building haha. I don't need the Italian credits for a degree, but personal enrichment. Ironically, the 24 hours before I fell, I had thought quite seriously of staying in Perugia for an extra 2 months...

Awesome!

I'll be home all weekend, possibly until Tuesday! If anyone would like to Skype, now would be a great time!

A Jarful of Nutella Helps the Bitterness Go Down!

Well. Perugia is being a pain in my ass. You heard me! I didn't think re-entry would be so difficult. The problem is I have a new apartment... which I HATE. I miss my old apartment. It was practically perfect compared to this place. In my old apartment, I always had hot water, I rarely got splashed by the sink, the heat worked consistently and there was more living space. My new room is a third of the size of my old one. My shower is half the size- which I didn't even know was possible. And I can't wake up to natural sunlight because my shutters are on the outside of my windows which face a street. Counter space? What is this mythical creature of whom you speak?

I cut garlic today with a dull steak knife in a sloped plate because I couldn't find a sharp knife or a cutting board.


ARGH.

The hardest part of living in Italy is the living.

School is going pretty well. I've discovered that I've learned and retained so many things. I like half of my classmates. I enjoy the material and most of my professors.

I haven't slept enough though. Today was a trial. I slept for 5 hours and then woke up at 4 am. I was awake until my first class from 8-11, my tutoring from 230-430 and then my final class from 5-7. Ready to drop dead!

But the fun never ends. I found out my schedule is utterly incompatible with the world. I cannot audit a class at Umbra. I am missing orientation for my internship that is apparently very far away. So I will probably do neither of those things.

So much for filling up my spare time with more education and activities. WHY IS IT SO HARD TO BECOME NERDIER HERE?! Pooh pooh ca choo.

Thank God for this jar of nutella and this spoon.

Good News: I Remember How to Speak Italian

First day of school again...

I've had a lot of jet lag issues.  Yesterday I finally got to Perugia around 11 am. After eating something I decided to lay down because the apartment was freeezzzziiinnnggg. Next thing I know, I've slept for 5 hours. I only got up because I had to go to evening mass. After mass, I went to Sigrid's 20th birthday dinner. The restaurant we went to had some "Tex Mex" options, such as burritos, enchiladas and tacos. I had just said on our way to the restaurant that I would never get Mexican food in Italy. I resisted ordering them... and I'm glad I did. The enchiladas = fajitas in flour tortillas without any sauce. Burrito = soft taco. They made me sad. Fortunately, the girls who ordered them enjoyed them a lot.

So I've been in Perugia for over 24 hours and I still haven't gone grocery shopping. I'm an idiot. I keep putting it off because I'm tired. Also, to go to the store, I'll have to go up the stairs right outside my house. I. am. that. lazy. I also don't want people to see me dying on the steps. Hey, I didn't get to exercise at any point over break. I've got to get my stair muscles back for sure.

Since I have no food, I went to class without coffee or food. I had class from 9-2pm. It was kinda rough. Plus, I had to completely recollect how to speak Italian! Reimmersing yourself without caffeine = rough. But I pulled through! Huzzah!

My class is... funny? There's some smarmy men who think they are God's gift to our class. But they make me laugh because I can't understand them and they make mistakes when they read. I'm such a brat. They are cocky he-men so I get to giggle at them.

The other classmates seem cool. There's a good mix of nationalities. My favorite classmate so far is this older man from San Diego (of course, Sigrid, he's my favorite after you ;) ) . He's a professor/teacher of music theory, I think at a Methodist school, and is on sabbatical. His Italian is so good and he wants to only chit chat in Italian. It's great practice. He's staying in a Catholic monastery in Perugia so he could have a Christian community.  So we chatted about theology and such.

After class, I tried to unpack. Mistake. My new room is a third of the size of my old one and maybe a third of the storage. I tried to organize for over an hour... no such luck. I got upset so I took a break.

Aaaahhhh I kinda want to die. I'm so tired. But I truly cannot postpone shopping any longer.

But I discovered today I remembered a LOT of Italian and I can still speak. YES. I mean, SI!