Leaving Italy Behind

Things I've missed most while abroad

• American parties and dancing (Italians love to talk, pretty much whenever and wherever they find an opportunity, including at parties despite the presence of a DJ or a band which just requires they talk with more volume and greater expressiveness.)
• Root beer
• Big warm drinks in the winter time (Think a cup of TeaLuxe to go?)
• Hugs (I hate this fluffy European cheek-rubbing deal. But at least I know that English people hug each other, so at least there is some culture on this side of the Atlantic that appreciates the feeling of arms around one’s shoulders and chests pressed tightly, if briefly, together in a show of friendly affection.)
• Chunky peanut butter (Thank goodness I managed to transport some from the US to help me survive my time abroad.)
• American optimism, hope, and focus on the future (There is a certain attitude, an energy, a work ethic, and a spirit that seems to be quite lacking in Italy.)
• A male population that generally permits me to wear heels and still be shorter than my date (Who knew Italians were so short?)
• Blue eyes (At least wherever I choose to study, be it Paris or Lausanne, I will find them much more readily when walking down a sidewalk or into a crowded room.)
• Cafes with comfy furniture where purchasing a pair of drinks is all it takes for you and a friend to command a set of armchairs for several hours' conversation (For the evil empire it may be, Starbucks does have some things going for it.)

Things I’m missing now

• My wonderful, crazy friends. I may have met them horribly late in my time in Europe, but I will never forget them. And I will most certainly see at least some of them again
• Italian coffee, especially, believe it or not, caffè al ginseng
• Cobblestone streets (They are adorable, though I won’t miss them when I want to wear heels.)
• Castles, cathedrals, and old architecture
• The good old Leaning Tower
• Sleeping enough, or at least way more than I will when back at MIT
• Easy travel between cities
• Those incredibly awkward and amusing lost-in-translation moments
• Living in a different culture
• Getting to hear English accents on a daily basis (Am I allowed to say that was a guilty pleasure?)
• Being mistaken quite regularly for a French woman

Things I’m not sad to have left behind

• Italian secretaries
• The phrase, “Piano, piano” which gets you nowhere in life and is the excuse for copious amounts of laziness and procrastination. It may sum up Italy all too well.
• Italian men
• Italian “efficiency”

Arrivederci!

All good things must come to an end, and so today I had to say goodbye to some of my dearest friends here in Italy. It was bittersweet: on one hand I felt incredibly fortunate to have had them in my life, but on the other hand it seemed unfair to have to leave them all so soon after we'd met. Still, we made the most of our last night together, sharing dinner, drinks, an evening out, and a very late night of YouTube videos to compare national senses of humor. By the time I found myself in lab at 8:30am, I felt incredibly exhausted but had a smile across my face and my heart. We always say at MIT that you can only pick two of the following: school (or in my case, lab), sleep, and friends. I felt as though I were back in my MIT environment and had obviously made my selection last night and this morning. After so many months away from the sensation, it felt good in that masochistic MIT way. This afternoon I dragged my suitcase with me to the cafeteria and had the good fortune to eat lunch together with my friends one last time. Afterward, my closest friend even accompanied me all the way to the bus stop and gave me a couple wonderfully appreciated hugs. It touched me that as I closed out my six-month stay here in Pisa I didn't have to take the final steps out of town alone.

I can't deny I'll miss them loads, but leaving them puts me that much closer to the seeing my old MIT friends for one last term and it also brings me that much closer to my return to Europe. I'm certain some of us will meet again. As it turns out, I already have an invitation for Thanksgiving 2009 and several guests who've promised to visit me next September in Paris. Pisa's been wonderful, but I suppose it's time to close this chapter of adventures and open the next. After all, I'm not flying home until January 18. As they say in Italian, arrivederci, which means to the next time we see each other!

Proud to be an American

Across cultural, political, and geographic divides, we can all sing along to Born in the U.S.A., all cheer on the same Americans at the Olympics, and all feel pride when we look up at our flag on the Fourth of July. Though much may seem to divide us on a daily basis across the US, as Obama said in his acceptance speech, we are the United States of America. We share a sense of unity one may never find within the European Union. Think back to September 11, for instance: When the twin towers toppled, it wasn’t New York that was under attack but America. We all felt touched by the horrors of that day, whether from an urban central or the most rural stretches of America. I do believe our money reads well E Pluribus Unim: from many diverse backgrounds, we are one nation.

My Austrian friends were talking about how funny it seems to them that Americans are so proud of their nationality. They’re proud of being Austrian too, they said, but it’s not such a big deal. Just last week my Spanish friend was talking to me about differences between national responses to terrorist attacks in the US and Madrid and he too said that it seemed strange that Americans responded with such nationalistic pride, with flags suddenly appearing on windows, cars, and many articles of clothing. It is true: after the terrorist attacks, I proudly, perhaps even defiantly, placed a flag on my window and began wearing the stars and stripes with some degree of regularity.

It occurred to me that for us, nationality isn’t just something we were born into, and it’s not just something we can take for granted. Sure, I was born in New York, and my parents and even most of my grandparents were born into this citizenship, but in the not-so-distant past most Americans’ families made (and many are still making) great sacrifices so that we could call our country home. Our nationality is something earned.

And it was interesting to think about my nationality in this way. For goodness sake, the governor of California, as my friends pointed out, is an actor from Austria. The president-elect’s father was a Kenyan immigrant! Did you know that this year Kenya declared Thursday, November 6, the day after Obama’s victory was announced, as a national holiday in his honor? It sounds funny, but think about how powerful of an idea that is—you too can move from a country as small in the international political arena as Kenya and raise your child to be the leader of the most powerful country on earth. How many times in human history has this been possible?

Ours truly is a nationality unlike any other. There is no American “face,” no American genotype, and even fairly little in the way of national history and traditions. We are united in our differences, in our belief in the ideals upon which our nation was created, and in the faith that there will always come a brighter tomorrow. It’s a nationality which brings people together not so much around a shared past as a common focus on the future.

I think our nationality offers a fresh, exciting launching pad from which to explore the world. For us, anything is possible. True, this means that perhaps only in the US can you find laws such as the one in Pennsylvania which forbids citizens to sleep on top of their refrigerators on their front lawn. For more entertainment, you can always check out dumblaws.com as I did with my Austrian friends. America may sometimes be quite silly, but it’s also quite optimistic. We see ourselves as living in a land of endless possibility, an attitude which fosters a national optimism on which I thrive. Even if my country has made some awful mistakes, even when my government shames me and I watch my fellow countrymen maintain an embarrassing image of us overseas, I am incredibly proud to be an American. I am most certainly an American at heart and I always will be, no matter where I choose to live.

Mes Amis Allumés

Italian culture does not support or encourage quirkiness. Perhaps it exists somewhere, but even within the walls of the Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS), the Harvard of Italy, it’s hard to find. I’d been thinking that it must just be me and a run of bad luck until I finally fell into a group of foreigners scattered throughout the different SNS colleges (dorms) who all confirmed my observations. In the US, we have a time in which people can exist between childhood and adulthood, those few years known as college. This period of limbo when we experience our first taste of freedom but are not yet burdened with the full responsibility associated with adult independence does not exist broadly in Italy. Most Italian students live with their families throughout their undergrad years, and their universities do not have campuses or extracurricular student organizations. This leads Italians to not fully understand or appreciate the young, energetic culture on which many (American, at least) college students thrive.

Fortunately, I finally found some kindred spirits, even if it took a fair bit of time. In mid-November, one day while in line for dinner at the SNS cafeteria, I caught a few words of English while my iPod was switching between songs. Slipping off my earbuds, I realized I was standing right in front of a couple British students. After a bit of internal turmoil as to whether or not it would be too awkward to interrupt their conversation with an obviously American "Hi!," particularly after having stood in front of them for the past ten to fifteen minutes, my urge to converse with some people who shared my native language got the best of me and thus I turned around. The two, Jack and Lucy, happen to be Italian literature students from Oxford and Cambridge spending the year abroad. We ended up eating dinner together that night and though we didn’t see each other again for nearly two weeks, Jack and I caught up again over my Thanksgiving feast. From there our friendship snowballed into something that’s colored my entire experience in Pisa.

Soon I met all of their friends, a group of literature, history, art history, and film students from France, Spain, and Germany. Conveniently, we’re all at about the same linguistic level such that, though they don’t help my Italian like native-speakers do, they make for a much more balanced conversation. Furthermore, we all have some sort of a working knowledge of almost everyone else’s native language such that at times our communication can become somewhat of a linguistic mélange. Together, we’ve shared many meals, afternoon coffees, and several very random adventures including a three-legged racing competition through the Florence train station which I’m proud to say Ivan and I won! I wish I could have met the group sooner, but I feel so incredibly blessed to have fallen into this crowd at all. We’ve clicked wonderfully. They’re all absolutely crazy in a wonderful way, or allumés, to borrow a quite adequate French adjective. I haven’t laughed so hard or smiled so much since I left the US. Suddenly Europe seems a lot less big and the prospect of coming back next fall seems much less intimidating.

I Concerti della Normale

The Scuola Normale Superiore is currently in the 42^nd annual season of its concert series. For the first time, I found some friends who felt like going together and so I took advantage of my final opportunity to attend a performance, an organ concert entitled Teatro Religioso hosted in the Duomo of Pisa, the cathedral right next to the Leaning Tower. Though I’ve walked past this building many times since the day of my arrival, I had yet to walk through the giant wooden doors. Inside, I was amazed by the splendor and very pleased to be accompanied by some new Anglophone friends.

While sitting in a pew together listening to the music, I slid on my glasses so I could get a better view of the building itself. I wondered how many lives must have been devoted to simply constructing this church where so many generations wept and sang God’s praises, a church filled with art so beautiful and detailed that it could, for financial reasons, never be made in its magnitude today. I pondered how many organists’ fingers had run across those keys and how very many notes had been played in this church since it first opened. It was a sensation somewhat like looking up to the clear night sky and trying to count the stars after the campfire has burned low. It made me feel so insignificant, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I find I experience this fairly regularly in Europe, surrounded by so much history. I can name every one of my ancestors who was born or lived in my native country. Many Americans can, and so in our national memories each of our lives takes on a much greater significance. Our lifespan is still comparable with that of our nation. One’s whole existence seems to take on a whole different significance in the face of such aged splendor. It’s quite eye-opening and I cannot deny it brings with it liberation. There comes the realization that we may each truly be but a speck in history. If likely each of our life stories will be lost in the oblivion of human memory shortly after our passing, then rather than worrying about our every step, why not allow ourselves the freedom to chase our happiness, to follow our own dreams, and to shape our futures to the best of our abilities? If few people in the course of history may even realize that you ever existed, then the least you can do is let yourself know, as often as possible, that indeed while you are here you are most certainly alive.

Made in Italy with Love

Over the past couple months I’ve occupied myself with a side project when I haven’t been busy with research, exploring Europe, evenings out with friends, my independent Italian studies, grad school applications, a collection of novels, and catching up on all the sleep I missed during the past three years at MIT (and four in high school and three at West Hollow…) Okay, maybe I’ve been a bit over-ambitious but if I weren’t, would I still be the Mimi/Em/Emilienne you know and love?

In the end, here is my completed MIT Senior Ball gown.

As sewing is my art, I’d like to dedicate this gown to my Mémé.

From the time I was little, my Mémé always took joy in sewing me outfits. I’ll never forget the Christmas pajamas she made that I donned each year on the night most filled with anticipation. When my Mémé gave me a large check for my sweet sixteen, she suggested I buy a watch but I don't think she disapproved when that money went to my first sewing machine. Only a year and a half later, my MIT application essay began with the words

“The light from my window slices the cool night air. Inside, a dull whirring filters through my bedroom door. My house is fast asleep, all but me and my sewing machine.”

By the time I’d begun making clothes, my Mémé’s eyesight had already become so poor that she could no longer make anything herself, but she took a silent, reserved pride in watching her love passed down to another generation, her namesake nonetheless. My Mémé and I have followed very different paths in life, but we both came together in our love for sewing.

When she passed away in September, I returned to the US for a few days. During that time, I purchased the pattern for this gown and some notions. I had a layover in Paris on the way home, and it seemed only appropriate that my first time using French while fabric shopping should be for a gown whose memory would be inextricably tied to my grandmother. It was, after all, for her that I began to study the language I now love. I purchased ribbons and a few final notions in Italy, quickly turning this dress into an international project.

Even the international nature of this project could be tied back to my grandmother. Having been given her unusual (and unpronounceable) name, I must always explain in introducing myself that I am, in fact, American, but named after my Canadian grandmother. Constantly recounting her story instilled within me the idea that you should never be afraid to seek your most fulfilling future, even if it takes you alone to a new country whose language you hardly speak. That’s what my Mémé did when she was only twenty-one years old. And though I may have long outgrown the pairs she actually wore, I have finally grown to walk in my Mémé’s shoes.

Dreaming

Claudia once asked me about the language in which I dream. What a bizarre question, I thought. She explained that as one of her foreign friends adjusted to life in Italy, she found that she began dreaming in Italian. This morning I woke to realize that I too have begun dreaming in Italian. To be honest, I recall there was some French mixed in to fill the gaps, but one thing’s certain: last night, for the first time, I discovered I could dream in languages other than English.

Thanks to packrat-pro for the free clip art!

An Assortment of American Goodies

If you had the opportunity, in the middle of a 210-day stay in Europe, to swing by home and pick up a few things, what would you take? There are a lot of things you might never realize are exclusively American, and I found myself with an interesting opportunity to grab some of these things and share them with my Italian friends. So here’s what I took home:

• 5 jars of crunchy peanut butter
• A jar of grape jelly
• A jar of raspberry jelly
• Lots of gum
• 2 four-packs of Stewart’s root beer
• A four-pack of Stewart’s cream soda
• Pumpkin walnut bread mix
• Pumpkin scented hand soap in a Halloween-themed dispenser
• A pumpkin-scented candle in a pumpkin-shaped terra cotta jar (sensing a theme, here?)
• Godiva chocolates
• Godiva chocolate-covered dried raspberries
• Reese’s peanut butter cups
• 2 Starbucks travel mugs
• Some American cash
• 2 jars of cranberry sauce (for our Thanksgiving feast!)
• Bath and Body Works stuff
• Aloe-filled pink and blue socks (Thanks, Aunt Annie!)

Au Revoir, My Mémé

-Pope Paul VI

Marie Emilienne Repak
November 10, 1917 - September 22, 2008

Remembering and Moving Forward

I can’t believe it’s been seven years since that sunny morning when I was sitting in English class wondering just how I was going to write my blue-book exam. A knock came at the door. Does anyone in here have any family or close friends working in the World Trade Center? There were only ten students in the class, and none of us did. And for some reason that was a good thing. Then our teacher had us put away our exam booklets; we’d finish tomorrow. Great! I thought. Until we pulled open the internet browser. The picture seemed surreal. The second tower hadn’t even been hit yet when I first learned. Oh my God. What was this? And what was next? The Sears Tower? Los Angeles? World War III?

We were under attack. We spent the rest of the hour crowded in a closet listening to the radio. We heard the first reports come in of a possible plane crash in Washington, DC. Later that day, I learned about another plane in Pennsylvania that none of my teachers here on Long Island seemed to care or know much about. But it was only my dad’s second day at work in the financial district of Philadelphia, and I could hardly sit still aching to know how that city was faring. It was the second week of school and over lunch that day one of my friends, a new student from Hawaii, asked, Does this kind of thing happen often here in New York? At that moment, with the palpable tension crowding the halls of our school, my other friends and I just burst out laughing. It felt really amazing to be able to break a smile, and that’s probably the only time I did so that day. I came home from school, turned on the TV (something I never do), and just sat there for hours watching the towers get hit over and over again.

I could hardly believe it. I wanted it to sink in, for it to finally feel real. But all I could understand was that suddenly the world felt a lot less safe. I remember the Senators lining up along the steps on Capitol Hill that evening to sing the national anthem and the emotion this stirred within me. Who can forget the pride, strength, and comfort of the phrase United We Stand, which suddenly began appearing everywhere? I remember the following days when we weren’t allowed outside between classes as the dust from the towers blew over the island. I remember the sounds of the fighter jets flying low across Long Island while there was still a ban on all commercial air traffic, and I can still feel the split-second of fear that shot up our spines every time we heard an engine overhead. I remember that very Friday, September 14, when there was a call across America for a nationwide candlelight vigil at 7pm. My friends and I had planned to see a movie together that night, but it didn’t matter. We stuffed candles in our purses and, at 7 on the dot, we stood outside the theater, used a match, and held our flames for a while not knowing quite what we should do or say.

I’ll never forget how in the following months, pages of Long Island’s newspaper, Newsday, were dedicated daily to each and every one of the victims of the September 11 tragedies. Each person got a paragraph. It was beautiful to see how our culture cared enough to honor each individual, but at the same time each whole life was condensed into this, a mere paragraph. Some ink and paper were all that remained of so many lives cut short.

Today I sat at my computer sifting through old articles about the tragedy on NPR.org, trying to make some sense of it all. Yet seven years later, where have we come? America had nearly the whole world on its side on that day in September, but turned face and quickly managed to alienate itself from many of its strong allies. What have we learned? More people have died senselessly in the aftermath of the attacks than on that fateful day. I remember Bobby, my old neighbor with whom I used to go biking as a child. It shocks me still to realize that he, like so many others, will never have the chance to gaze into the eyes of a beloved, to bring a new life into the world, or to even share another sunset after a perfectly beautiful day.

The state of affairs makes me feel so powerless. I can take this feeling to the polls via my absentee ballot, but I wonder how much that will do. And if nothing changes, I feel that all those lives will have been lost in vain. Thinking about everything that has happened still makes me shake a little, and I have to consciously steady my breathing. This was the perfect opportunity for us as Americans to try to understand just why someone might want to attack us, who we are in the national arena, and what we can do to foster better international relations. But it’s been seven years, and I don’t think we’ve learned much.

Thanks to freefoto.com for the beautiful photograph.

Multi-lingual Relations

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about the new relationships I’ve made over here, and perhaps learning to look outside my country’s borders is a very appropriate topic to consider as we approach another anniversary of 9/11 if we hope to learn anything and move forward to a brighter future.

This might sound silly, but I’ve discovered I really enjoy forming relationships with people who speak other languages (especially if they have some working knowledge of English). I find it helps me grow so much. People who are raised speaking another language seem to have some fundamentally different way of conceptualizing even the most basic ideas based upon how their language presents and formulates these ideas. This linguistic phenomenon seems to run even deeper than, though it's also intertwined with, culture. I, as an American and English-speaker, am often unaware of basic attitudes I take towards certain practices and ideas. But someone else from another language and culture can open my eyes to these things. In the end, language is a human-made and thus flawed method by which we can try to express emotions and experiences which do not innately have words to describe them. Though language barriers create challenges in communication, they also open our eyes to the artificiality of the assignment of certain words to experiences. When talking with another English-speaker, I can complacently take words at face value and may not seek to understand as fully what is truly captured in each statement. However, communication with a person who normally uses another language opens doors to a deeper and potentially even more fulfilling form of communication.

Thanks, Designed to a T !

My Half-Birthday (and what I’ve learned over the past six months)

I had my first Italian coffee today (aren’t you proud? I don’t even drink coffee. Actually, it’s been a personal goal to never once resort to coffee during all my MIT sleep-deprivation years), and I have more firsts planned for later tonight! This all makes me laugh; Italy is certainly a learning experience. So much has happened since I turned 21 years old. My life has been turned upside down, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve learned so very much about growing up, about life, and about things I had never even contemplated.

I’ve learned

• of what being American means, and in what ways I am, and am not at all, classically American
• of how lucky I am that English is my native tongue
• of languages, most especially Italian
• of how one cannot ever really perfectly gauge just how many words a non-native speaker may truly be understanding, and of how easy it is to not be conscious of the depth of one’s primary vocabulary
• of city public transportation systems and travel (and its risks and expenses)
• of friendship and keeping in touch and the joys of the internet. (How did my immigrant ancestors manage without this?)
• of Italian culture and learning when I can afford to be a bit more laidback myself
• of controlling my emotions and recognizing when they’re taking hold of me
• of alcohol and its use in various cultures
• of being a powerful and independent young woman
• of carpe diem, or living in the moment
• of heartache, heartbreak, and love
• of science research, its pace, and the Italian concept of summer vacation
• of my research interests for grad school, and why
• of what I hope to get from life and what I value most
• of saying no… and yes
• of self-respect
• of religion and spirituality
• of effective communication
• of youth hostels and really living the backpacking-across-Europe dream
• of surviving on a tiny budget, of being hungry, and of completely losing all appetite
• of eating well and enjoying each bite
• of family and their place in my life
• of my own inner strength and will-power
• of my intelligence and how I think
• of how to study but still make time for fun
• of how to laughingly embrace life
• of being grateful
• of how to open my heart completely and how to take a chance
• of how to keep interactions free of emotional responses
• of trains, planes, and buses
• of booking low-budget trips
• of prioritizing
• of noticing small gestures and taking pleasure from the simple things

I am learning how to truly stand on my own two feet. I can smile just for the sake of smiling, laugh when life tickles me, and take my disappointments in stride. This is life, and this is my turn to live it. And that’s precisely what I am doing.

Thanks to allposters.com for the image.

Just to hear your voice

I love living here in Italy, don’t get me wrong, but there are times when it can be quite isolating. Living in Italy can feel like I’m swimming in very rough waters and just hardly keeping my head up enough to gasp. I have all the words needed for survival, but not all the vocabulary for deep, meaningful conversation. Sometimes I wonder if I’m ever going to really learn, or if I’ll just keep afloat long enough to get flushed out into calmer waters next January. Through dinners, late evenings, movies, the radio, and phone calls, my Italian has improved drastically over the past few months. Still, I never realized just how precious your voices all are to me. I miss you guys.

Thanks to telephoneart.com for the free clipart!

A Visit from my Sisters (and... 4 days and counting!)

This weekend, for a change, I didn’t venture out of Pisa. Having a lot of busy-work to do and plenty of preparations left for next week’s adventures, I decided to hold the fort in Via Pasquale Galluppi. The highlight of the weekend was welcoming my sorority sisters Ploy and Yuri (my adoptive little sister!), who spent Saturday night in Pisa. We toured the city (for the whole fifteen minutes that required) and went out for pizza with Ramòn. (I had salmon and mascarpone—wow, delicious.) We got some gelato which was, as always, wonderful. I’m not sure how I will ever be able to eat in the United States again. The food here is just consistently… fantastic.

Anastasia and Alex arrive in four days. It's pretty incredible that we only met a year ago, and just because of the dumb luck that I ended up spending a summer in LA and my mom happened to remember that we had some relatives on the West Coast who "might be worth meeting for lunch one day." Exploring Europe with them will be an experience of a lifetime. I can hardly believe they’re almost here!!!

"Il Mio Ragazzo" Moves In!

If you've been reading the blog regularly, by now you should know Ramòn. Just in case you haven't, he's one of the two MIT interns working in Pisa for the summer. We've been hanging out a lot. It's good to have a friend with whom I can speak English at a normal speed, especially one who's interested in exploring Italy with me. Ramòn's problem: the dorm where he's been living closes in August (much like everything else in this entire country). It's not so easy to find a room to rent in Pisa for just a month, not unless you have some Italian friends who are going on vacation for the month. Conveniently, I happen to have three of them. Ramòn and I chatted with my roommates and worked out an arrangement for him to rent a room in my apartment for the month. The only catch: he won't be entering into our contract. Therefore, we needed a back-up story in case the landlord noticed a funny guy hanging around a lot. The solution: il mio ragazzo! (translation: my boyfriend!) So I'm not single anymore... for now. But somehow I don't foresee things going so well. In fact, I'm predicting a break up in about a month. Hahaha. :)

La Famiglia Repak in Italia

This week my family visited Italy! They spent their week here doing the tourist thing. (No, I have not yet submitted myself to a classic tourist-holding-up-the-Leaning-Tower photo. But I still have five and a half months…) They swung by my apartment on Sunday, were thoroughly impressed by the view from just outside my front door (see photo of me with grandparents), and then swept me off to their spacious mountain home in a remarkably large vehicle. This car served as our silent alarm to notify all local drivers that Americans were in the vicinity (because, come on, who else would select such a beast of a machine to transport 6 people?). I was stuck in lab while they toured Italy, but it was still cool to get to see my family on this side of the ocean!

The Things We Take for Granted

My grandmother was hospitalized today. My Mémé: a woman who braved a new country to make a better life for herself and her progeny, the woman who sparked my passion for the study of French, the woman whose name I call my own.

I may never have another chance to tell her I love her, to hold her hand, or to give her one last au revoir. It's all those little things taken for granted that living overseas can steal.

Take the time to tell people you love them. You never know which chance may be your last.