What kind of cookie am I?

Oh my, the junk that's out there for bloggers: post-padding for times like today, when I'm thinking too much to actually write.
I did a test to find out what kind of cookie I am. I was hoping to get "Tough cookie", but the answer I got is actually creepily on-the-spot.
If you take the test, let me know what results you get.

You Are a Black and White Cookie

You're often conflicted in life, and you feel pulled in two opposite directions. When you're good, you're sweet as sugar. And when you're bad, you're wicked!

Kind of fun, anyway, and you can find more at Blogthings, if you wish.

Smarty pants

This is not a see-through skirt, people: it is printed like that, according to the latest trend in Japan.
And such a great trend too. Can you believe we dumb Western girls wear thongs to avoid pantylines showing? Only we then wear our jeans so low that thongs sneak out in full view.

P.S. I wrote to other 4 people yesterday, to ask for comments on the topic of my dissertation, and got 2 positive replies (yes, universal justice and karmic balance are restored once again).

And my wonderful wonderful wonderful friend Paola invited me for pasta alla carbonara last night, just because I was a bit sad over nothing. Thank you!

Booklovers love books, all books

"Literature should be something that makes you want to read more."

Hopefully I am linkig correctly to this article which I completely agree with, except for the love of Stephen King's books.
I read one, was impressed by how quickly I got through the mass of paper, and that's about all I remember about it.

"Something that can touch you, move you, change your life to the extent that you no longer see things the same way after the last page is turned" might be a little much to ask; but - Ah, the resoluteness, the passion, the idealism of booklovers!

Pout

Since I'm a really nice girl, I get annoyed when people won't help me.
It's not that I can get my way with a bat of the lashes, but I ask politely for what I need and - actually - don't ask for much.
I'm bummed that a self-publishing author with a personal website and rather intense forum activity has refused to write a couple of lines to give me a comment I could quote in my dissertation. Why?

Perhaps I should e-mail him explaining that when short people can't reach the high shelf in a supermarket, they get my help with a smile. Same for those who can't see without their glasses, or are buying a gift for someone who "looks about your size". Damn, I was waiting for the green ligth to cross over a road once, and an old man asked if I could fix the collar of his coat and sweater because they were all jumbled with the scarf he was wearing. If it's raining and we're waiting at the same bus stop, I'll offert you half of my umbrella. And if you're not helping me I presume you have your reasons, give you the benefit of doubt, and just leave you alone. But you've ruined my day, and that's BAD karma!

Wild thing

All of a sudden, I feel the urge to learn to do something well. Play an istrument, some kind of sport, cooking, something. I want to go back to studying literature. I want to read anything that's ever been written on... Japanese. Graphology. Fuzzy logic (sounds cute). My discipline needs somewhere to run wild.

And I'm happy this exists too

I'm thinking about getting a digital camera, since everyone seems to have one and I do like having photos to look at after a while. But good friends send me the good ones anyway, and oddly enough I'd feel shy about taking someone's picture. Such a minimalist's dilemma.

I'm thinking about where I'll go running once I move back to Italy. I was looking at the area around the new flat, and Boyfriend seriously said "Torino is not Oxford, and I am not sending you to park so-and-so by yourself: end of discussion." Daddy is that you?

I'm thinking Oedipus should be calling soon, you know, to ask for his complex back.

So, Freddie...

I don't watch football, or soccer, or whatever you want to call a game in which 20 grown men chase after the same ball (you'd think with what they earn they could afford to buy one each). But I'm happy Italy one today, and I'm happy this guy exists.

Coffee reading

Tonight was Titika's Greek dinner, for us people who helped her move to campus earlier this month. I'll get my eating and sleeping patterns back on track by monday, and keep them there for a while; but when I stare in awe of the culinary abilities of people who otherwise are similar to me, my jaw droppes and food just enters by default.

I finally got a chance to try Turkish coffee, so that Duygu could read my cup. I'm not picky about caffeine, but I don't like having to chew it.
I'm open to different cultures, but I know what I like and what I don't: love sushi, hate wasabi; love oreos, hate marshmellows. Don't like Turkish delight either, but I digress.

First of all, you leave some residue in the bottom of your cup; Julia goes "You have no sludge!", and all of a sudden I feel like a kid being pointed and laughed at for being different. Great, I don't even know what sludge is or whether that's how it's spelled. I just figure she's saying it's not going to work and I drank that stuff for nothing. But Duygu says it's ok, so then you put the saucer over the cup and shake it... in horizontal circular motion, holding it with your right hand, the thumb over the saucer. There's got to be a better way to explain this, but that should be clear enough. Ivonne and Julia said I wasn't shaking vigorously enough - so I have no sludge, and no muscle either, just leave me and my loser coffee-residue alone.
After a while (and someone taking my picture while shaking, big freak show I am), you turn over the cup and saucer and set it on the table. If you have a ring, you put it on the up-side-down bottom of the cup, and wait for the whole thing to cool off.

Duygu saw a million things in my cup. First of all, there was a bubble: something to be excited about. And a little coffee-free spot on the saucer: "Is one of the rings you're wearing a gift?". Yeeeah, blush, giggle, hee hee hee.

There was a person taking me under his or her wing, someone I feel attached to by three things; there was a small fat fish: a gift, a job, some money. A little material something coming my way.There was my family having to make three payments, with an impact on our finances. I'm hoping this means I'll buy a new car or something, but the first thing I thought about were medical expenses for my dad, which is creepy. I really shouldn't get my fortune told, I get too scared something bad is going to come up.And it did, in a way. Duygu saw me in the form of a goat, which was bad enough even before she told me it simbolizes stubborness: someone lying in front of me, whom I will sacrifice to get what I want.

I thought maybe I'd be leaving Enrico for a job opportunity too good to pass up; but a little turtle said I will reach my career goals with slow and safe steps, and I'm not that stubborn about work. Duygu saw him climbing a mountain and asked whether he's due for a promotion.Maybe I'm giving up the relationship I had with my parents, to live my own life despite them not approving.

I am confused now, but will clear things up in "units of three": three days, three months, maybe three years. There were a lot of triangles, apparently.

There was a pale girl with messy hair, who misses me and wants to give me something nice to drink. I think it's my little cousin Claudia: I can see her blond wisps of hair escaping her pony tail.There was someone, a permanent presence in my life, with authority ("Is anyone in your family involved in politics?", nope), not liked very much by the family, who would get angry.There were two people speaking to each other and one of them giving the other something, and a third person looking at them and being upset about that. That's got to be one of my parents breaking down and helping me out, while the other is feeling resentful for being left out.There was me discussing something "like a snake, with no solution, but it does have an end" with someone who's name has an 's' or starts with an 's': my sister Sarah? The discussion would be difficult and tiring.There was a man looking at Duygu, who has something to tell me but won't. Michele I bet; I left him because he wouldn't open up to me.There was something I recurrently think and worry about, which is not really as harmful as I fear.There were short trips, but no long-distance travelling: either Copenhagen or Cotswalds in August, in fact.

I made a wish and Duygu did something with the last drops of coffee: my wish will come true only very slowly and in time, more time than I thought. It's ok, because it was kind of a long-term wish anyway.

I thanked Duygu, and then Titika then told me that if you thank the fortune teller you actually blow the whole future she predicted away. So screw it. It's palm reading next time, though, unless someone can read my cappuccino.

Oh god (only I'm an atheist)

Oh god (only I'm an atheist), I have no clue as to where this blog is going.

It's 70 days to September 2nd, before you start wondering. Which is when I wake up at down, drag my suitcases to the coach station, take the National Express and sit in Luton for a couple of hours (if I can get to the airport on time despite the extensive road works). Then I climb the wobbly metal staircase and board the white'n'orange Easyjet trap to Torino, all the time debating whether to be cool and rational or dwell in the drama of it all.
A year in Oxford, now writing the dissertation for my master's degree, and then I move back home; only I'm not going back to my parents' house, I'm moving in with my boyfriend. Only he's not the same guy I dated for 8 years before coming here last fall, but enough about that already.




I liked this link. It's a nice break from the usual under-the-belt internet humour, got me back to listening to power metal, and reminds me there are talented and dedicated people out there - and I want to be one of them.