when i was a young boy

I dont ever write in this. I do apologize. Numerous grande events have occurred in the time that has passed since the last post, way too many to remember, but surely among the notable were the trip to Milan, also known as the best week of my life, and the long struggle through to Easter break, which is happening as i speak. My situation right now: sitting at the enormous dinner table, windows open and nattie light filling the air, alone in this house, my host family off on some distant beach in the desert, and im nursing a bit of a sore head from last night, but overall im the happiest of the easter clams. I only just got back yesterday, this whole weekend ive been away in Galatina (a neighboring town, which looks like it should be on the seaside but isnt) with the family of my host dads sister. Jacopo, their firstborn child, is thirteen and hangs out with large herds of kids that look younger then him but make a lot more noise and are very very middle school. But nice kids, who basically spun my head around with all their faux english questioning and such. All the girls were just so enchanted by my tall american blondness, and Jacopo tells me "Funzionare!". Word. So my prepaid wireless is full of numbers to girls in this little town whose names i cant match to the faces. But anyway, Jacopo and i excuse ourselves from the umpteenth gathering of excited children, and we go to the easter church service, starting at no earlier then eleven pm. I was actually pretty interested in it, because we all got to light little candles that dont drip wax on your hand, and the preists sut off all the lights in this huge ancient church, and its really atmospheric and a little bit creepy, with the chanting and the jesus all backlit in this dark musty chiesa and everyones breathing and then they kill the mood and switch all the lights back on and we have to stand there for the next two hours. and im no good christian, but i was being a good spot about it, but jacopo starts nodding off after like fifteen minutes so we edge out of there in search of the car. The next few days i spent at the beach house of the family friends, everyone together feasting far too much, with this awful storm raging all around the pier, because you know we were really on the tip of italy, so all the wind and clouds break on that little town of Leuca from all the farthest reaches of the Mediterranean. I mentioned we ate far too much delicious food, what else was there to do. But i did get back to sleepy Lecce, for a fun evening where Andreas and i went out and found this bar run by this enormous man with NO neck, just fat, but he fixed us up with these little glasses with green stuff in it, that hey you can light on fire! little fairy on the bottle. Warms you right up. Outside i met this blonde young woman who talked to me in english very well who was here with her international friends and we talked all over the place and she conceded that america is better then italy and we went around the whole night and andreas got philosophical, which proves right there that he has come 180. And now to figure out how to download music, more skins, and then to go out for some fruit and no study. i always want

Having the big breakfasts we deserve

My weekend was really, really good, and necessary.

New project for Attenborough: doc on the sedimentary city of Lecce

Thats whats up, february, gliding along toward the big seventeen. saying it makes me shiver a little. all this year people see me and i guess im a huge and they see my five oclock blonde shadow, more of a five oclock glare, and their eyes go wide when they hear oh yes hes only sixteen.. well its time to face my years, though i feel for this past one i should be turning at least eighteen, because at least two yeras of life have been shoved in five months. five months. the halfway point people, the PNR, so to speak. my little jaunt in matera caused a bit of afs trouble, they really do have spies everywhere, i dont even know how they aquire all their information. i think their are people who get paid off just to check up on us in random public places whenever we go out.
you cant trust ANYONE here. not in a sinister way of course, just live like youre saying everything directly to an afs volunteer. for all their italian lazyness, theyve got an eagle eye. so anyway, because of my mode of travel (a not so cleverly phrased misinterpretation of the parental accompanyment rule, in other words with erinn matthews) they made a big fuss and threatened to send my ass back home. so of course what would i do if i actually was going home? now that it hits me, im not actually ready yet. it would be like throwing a tadpole who has developed grotesque little rubbery legs straight into the rainforest. no way josè...
i do enough reminiscing for an old greek man, but my life here has realy got a hold on me, and im definitly not ready to abandon it. that, in my opinion, qualifies me as a successful exchange child. student doesnt really count, because it implies studying. and thats typical mr. raymond, what are you doing ?oh yeah, fantasizing about the future, the glorious things that are going to come after a year of skin toughening real life in the bosom of europe. as, before that, i dreamed of living here, so much better then my california life. i need a big slap, and well i guess the afs run -in was a series of baby slaps, at least ten of them though.
Very sick of the teachers, namely science and history, they have so much merda in their brains
its not worth talking about how unsuccessful they are at teaching and inspiring a thirst for knowledge in their pupils. But on the other side of the barbwire, all us chickens are united against these tyrants, and all we can do is suffer together, like POWS for five hours a day.
Big things have changed, time passes so slowly yet any time you care to look at the entirety of this year put up with everything after it, after im back in america, the year is sifting away.
i wish this school had theater, i would really like to stop being myself for a while.
speaking of theaters, the workers digging in the old apollo theater in lecce discovered a huge cavern underneath it, and concluded that there is an entire city under this one that over time has just been mushed down to new developments right on top of it. like a city sedimentary.

back to reality

All the festivities have gone away, left me with a large sack of candy and books all over my room, the sounds of karaoke filling the home with an eighties power ballad feel, and school has begun in the year 2009.
This coming week i have two oral exams, more like three, because professor lofari declared that it would take up at least two periods to grill me properly. so i have been halfheartedly preparing, feeling a little guilty about not having studied over the break AT ALL, but it was way worth it.
Two weeks of relapse have done wonders for the boy.
Saw the family back home on new years eve, which was very heartenin, and recieved lots of nice things from everyone. I finally have enough to read.
The christmas festivities were a familial affair, a feasting affair, and lots of cheek kissing and auguri giving and a quiet happiness residing in my belly. A happy time, no dout about it.
New Years would have been fulfilling if i hadnt been expecting to be out with friends, but as it was i had to stay home with fam and eat myself into oblivion, and then throw some lightweight explosives off the deck.
Sicily was what ive really been waiting for, not needing to stress about expressing myself, surrounded by fun people who i now have by default more in common with then anybody else in the world, and baisically too much fun to sleep, for four days. there are pictures of us on about the second day pretty much passing out on the lunch table in a restraunt in some little sicilian village. Sicily is a beautiful place, and i would love to live iin palermo. So much hubbub and roudiness, like a big pirate village teeming with dogs and indian dudes and mafia influences. Mary told me that it is actually true that they run the place, and some times have been known to withhold water from neighboring regions in time of drought, and keep it to themselves. nobody can do anthing about it! Seemed like some kind of movie plot to me, but its realer then real.
The sicilians keep to themselves mostly, the most we got from them was angry yelling from youths on motorbikes, and angry drunk bums throwing tangerines at us. it was raining always.
The fun to be had made me miss vacations in the bay but also find joy in how accustomed ive come to living in such beautiful places, especially when i finally got back to lecce at two am, and a profound relief settled over my bones, like i knew where i was and it was great to be back there.
four months in and six to go, i am hating school but not wanting to rush the year by.. i wish i was untouchable by chemistry and dante, but i know ive got a series of really tough schooling, more so when i get back!
thanks to everyone who sent wellwishings and prezzies of anykind, tanti auguri e un felice nuovo anno

I HQ also i um darth

Now this weekend was a series of unexpected surprises, most of them happy and actually very humourous, and as always full of really dangerusly good sweet treats. Friday kicked it off, with a dissaproving grumble from the host sister, (who now is pleasant twelve percent of the time.. i am growing on her), i was swooped by davide and we were off the a little christmas gathering with the post seniors. He listens to what i think is called harcore ska, which is almost unbearable to hear but i didnt care because i was speeding along in a little warm fiat instead of on my clanky bike.
at the parent-vacated apartment, there were people from my class, as well as lolo and lala and sasa. cant make it up, and then davide turned into gesu, because we passed around his drivers license from last year and he had a very long, bushy mane that to me resembled diego montoya more then jesus, but there it was. and i am called casco by this ska jesus man, which means helmet, which is how they pronounce emmett. and lolo said dirty things to frederica in italian, and grody beer was swigged, and a large pannetone was consumed.
saturday was when we in lecce of foreign lands had to congregate in a greek church and supposedly sing christmas songs in our native tongues, but we werent having it and so i read the grinch, and then guess what there was a table full of .. PANETTONE. whos general shape is what my stomach resembles. a big lumpy belly. and here i met a woman who looked like my seventh grade science teacher mrs. fischer, except not totally cracked, and she was from san fraaansisco, and we had a long chat about everything which was a bit scary to unearth all then things that made the bay the bay, and then the pannettone didnt feel so good, but there were no really strong heartsting pulls, which is another sweet sign that emmett is on the road to a skin of gator hide.
sunday i conducted a pancake breakfast at the pisano home, and all the americans, germans, kiwis norweigans and even italians enjoyed the magic of banana pancakes with real maple syyyrup and it was all radiating with cheer and the thousand lights on the christmas tree, which is also decked with red srystals, icy looking crystals, and a whole host of regal silver ornamentos which made me miss our "country" style tree at home, as mary would say.
and then sunday we the lecce stranieri were visited by the homeschooled, very perky and a bit
ohh man ive got to go to class, so sorry i must end this because there is a good story coming up, which explains the title of the post, but there it issss

Dopo un pò

Well well
it has been a long lòong time since i wrote anything in this blog. I thought at first that it was a good thing, because it meant i was busy and too preoccupied to care about it, but now i think its a good thing to do, to write and remember and ponder the things that go on around here.
and so much to do! its christmas time, officially, which for me is like half the schoolyear, even though its not, but it is fantastic anyway. three whole months man! ive got a preresolution to regard the course of my travel in a positive, optomistic way, which i will not stick to but here goes nothing anyway.

i cant even remember where i left off, but there wasnt anything that i was exploding to write about. the past month and some have been progressions on what id already been working towards: per essempio the language is getting better, i can now understand probably 70 percent of a slow conversation, but the speaking is still sounding like sludgy chum coming from my mumbly, lazy american oral cavity.
i am on the whole feeling good most of the time, though the weather is bloddy terrible. all rain and greyness, with a cold dark wind. mary and i resolved to eat less then the usual two pounds of daily pasta, which is customary, and to munch more rabbit food. with the coming christmas feating, however, this may need to take a sidestep. christmas is a whirlwind of delight over here, filled with deliciousness, and i want to get the full monty out of it.

ive got this strange social situation going on, which is sort of frustrating but ultimately working out quite well. the mahority of the time on the weekends (and sometimes during the week) i hang out with andreas and our friends from the other school, who dont do too much but are on the whole pretty fun to have a party with. But on the typical weekend night they dont do anything really, just walk around and eat something which isnot that fun. ive experienced that part of the youthly culture and i am ready for more. so andreas and i, being fellow stranieri, thus share a synch in our mentailities that makes us feel like doing similar things and having similar experiences, though we couldnt come from more diverse places. ( we lives on baisically the top of a freakin norweigan mountain and sluggs a lot of vod and shoots things). but we all evolve together, and so we go.

and what what! now that i do english class with the relative seniors of the school, who know decent english and are by far my favorite people, invited me out to get some kicks and drove me in their car, which was the first time i have not had to stamp around with damp feet on a sunday night. we have so much to give each other, and why do i feel so much more at home with people two years older then me? oh, right, i know the answer already.

i do not feel too homesick anymore, or as much like a leeching vagabond american downer, and it has hit me that the year is going to go by like im riding on a zipline over a pool, and just when summer hits and ive gotten into full swing- WHAM ill hit that little stopper on the line and then splash into the cold pool of the reintegration process.
so much cheer is on the way, the chistmas lights are on all over the city, the windows are cloudy, the belly glows with pannetone, the lifesize cresh is almost done down in the ampitheater, and i was just so looking forward to spending it with a certain halfway spanish ex-vegan, the greatest one in the world, but it looks to me like that is going to be catzo blocked as WELL. one can dream though. id be extremely curoius as to the getting on in a different part of europa.
and after ths weekend, where the family will drive to rome, ill ahve a better idea of the many cultures of provincial italy! rome is extremely large and noisy, and i am going to take bigtime tourist photos of the colosseum. get ready.

Sherry and Giggles

Early this week the first genuinely funny thing Giammarco has done occured. I was sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea (twinings... cant live without it in California, and the riles havent changed), reading Cannery Row. Giammarco is in his study, reading his italian textbook aloud, like he always does, to help him memorize things. All else is quiet. He definitley did not know i was in earshot, because some sudden surge of joy caused him to burst out from dreary italian history to a highpitched, singsong keening. Wavering between native american tribal chants and Bollywood head bobble music, i heard him make this noise for about five minutes, and i began to worry, for his voicebox was sure to implode! I sat in stunned shock, which gave way to hapless mirth. It was quite a laugh... marking the first time in a month (gasp.. a month) that i have been relaxed enough to find a choice moment such as this as funny as it was. He and the fox from Milo and Otis should make a band.

i may not be able to do Anything in design class, but i found out that i have other artistic "skills" that are unknown in italy. during the latin test i doodled away to the sound of "breathe" in my ipoded ears. doodles along the lines of what we did like all last year, Avery... no reason or meaning, just random patterns and images and whatever else randomness we thought of. People saw it and just could not get over it! it was passed around to probably the entire class, too cooing of "che beeeello" ... it made no sense why they thought some doodles were the beez kneez when they were designing cathedrals, but a tip of the hat to Maverick for getting me into that.
I encountered my first real anti-american joke that day as well. The froglike science teacher was i guess thinking of how much he was hungry and how much he disliked americans, so he put the two together and said to me (translated) " goin home for some lunch at mcdonalds" with that toady sneer. Offensive YES. he will get nothing but the stinkeye from me.