Friday started like every other day: being woken by Raza. Although this morning he told us the reason why gets up so early: because he likes the shower floor to be dry when he gets in. Now I know you’ve got to be tolerant of different cultures but really? Anyway like most mornings I got up and checked my emails in the day room while eating one of the fresh bread rolls that are delivered to the school every morning.
In economics my general feeling of being ill hit as in the morning you’re generally too tired to notice, unless I’m coughing. We carried on with looking at micro and macroeconomics and how they are related and also I learnt how to maximise the use of unlimited nose-blows and limited tissues. I also managed to take some comfort in the Italians doing a very good take on the personality of the annoying person I have talked about previously, as they don’t like him either. Although as someone else was saying we will probably just get used him, and hopefully he will change too. In my free block I went straight to my room and managed to finish the second exercise of the introductory maths booklet, with enough time to check my emails, which was something of an achievement.
In Italian, we went through the homework we had been set and then revised what we have covered over this first week of lessons. At break I went to the Italian equivalent of the French tabach, something like tabacheri, as here and the bar/café near the school, Mickey’s, are the only two places that sell bus tickets. There is a machine by the bus stop, but it tends to be on permanent lunch break. I bought four tickets, as I was anticipating going into Monfalcone to get some essential supplies after lessons and I knew that the shops would all be closed until about 4. I also discovered the concept of going into Tuttidi, the local mini-supermarket thing to get a break time snack (think sandwich bar but with fresh ingredients and also the option to by cakes as well, I suppose like a better quality Italian version of Greggs…). However the quesue was too long and I didn’t want to be late for history, especially as I got the opinion that Eunice was disappointed with me not saying much, although again this was probably just me being paranoid.
We started the course proper in history, and we basically started talking about how the rise in nationalism with the European states also brought about a rise in imperialism, for example in the newly created nations of Italy and more importantly Germany, there was not much unconquered, so to speak ‘available’ land to colonise, so it would have to be taken somewhere else. Annoying person again proceeded to talk much of the lesson, and this meant that we didn’t really get much done.
Maths after was quite hard I thought, as (and I know I’ve mentioned this before) we are a class made up of people who wanted to do standard maths and people who wanted to do higher but couldn’t because the timetable didn’t fit it. Sitting next to someone from Hong Kong also didn’t help, as he did the questions in seconds and then even though I’m sure he wouldn’t mind, I still didn’t want to ask the teacher. I think next lesson I’ll sit next to Davide, who helped me with the maths a few days ago. We looked at the background knowledge booklet and most of it I understood, but I should try and find Tim (the teacher) separately to clarify a few things. Fortunately, even though we were in an extended period, which means that the teacher can have the lesson from 12.20-13.15 and then 13.15-13.45, we finished at about twenty past one, which was nice, as most teachers use the full extended period. I suppose we will in the future when the workload is more.
Since we were let off early me and Raymond checked the bus times to Monfalcone and then went to mensa for a relatively early lunch. I asked Delawa (Afghanistan) if he wanted to come with us too, as we were by then inviting anyone who wanted to come, and also I’d noticed that he (I think most probably because of the language barrier: he speaks English well but only slowly, the same with understanding English) which I think he appreciated, as he’s finding the weather a bit cold, so needs a jumper!
There was supposed to be a meeting (optional) at half two about project week, but I just got into emails and unfortunately couldn’t be torn as I was on a role. At around three I remembered that we had to confirm our social service with the coordinator, Simone, so I went to his office, only to find that he wasn’t in. So I went into nearby old offices (a residence, actually the smallest one, I know I said Shultz was, but Old Offices is smaller, about 12 people) and found Andrei from Romania (a secondo of questionable intentions of following the UWC rules all the time) and borrowed a pen, only to find that Simone was back in the office. Simone told me that although social services don’t start until the week beginning the 20th September, mine (working with disabled people at a centre) probably wont start properly due to a training session on what would be our first time. I also offered to be part of the international affairs college service (college service is basically what every student does in the college, helping with life, eg recycling, locking up the main buildings, checking printers for ink and paper etc, helping organising cultural trips, pretty much everything) where basically you help to organise the focus sessions held on Sundays (although we haven’t had one yet) where you present a specific issue about your country. You also help to welcome speakers and arrange other events and logistics to do with having speakers or hosting any conferences (that last bit about conferences I think). On the way back from Simone’s office I realised that it was now really hot, a complete contrast from the dark sky and wind and rain of the morning. Hmm.
At half three (or 3.34 to be exact, or naturally the bus was later than that) about 10 of us got the bus to Monfalcone to Emisfero, the large shopping mall/giant supermarket thing. On the bus I happened t sit with Joao from Brazil (oh yeah I forgot to mention the other day when we were doing the orienteering in the forest near the coast and the trenches he described the forest as denser than the Amazon as in the Amazon the trees grow up, which made feel like a true explorer…) and INSERT from Uruguay and Joao asked INSERT about Uruguay’s independence as basically Uruguay were one of the few South American countries that didn’t receive assistance getting independence from Britain. It turns out that Britain (naturally) wasn’t doing this out of the goodness of its heart, but because it would create new markets. Anyway, I basically needed lots of office supplies (folders, files, notebooks, poly wallets, paper clips, post-its, sellotape, blu-tack, etc) as well as other stuff like INSERT HERE. At Emisfero I ended up taking a lot longer than I thought and also I bumped into a bunch of the Italian primi who had also made a later trip. This was actually quite good as they found me all the multi-buy deals and offers that I wouldn’t have normally noticed, and knew whether something was overpriced or not. Since Delawa and I had missed everybody else whom we came with (as in they got the 5.40 bus, like we agreed), we got the next one at 6.10. Then a rather odd thing happened, or at least it was ridiculously confusing for us, travelling home on the bus (a bus in which I even had to ask where the buttons you press to stop were, it turned out they were the alarm bells like you have on a place to call the steward), when we reached the turn-off to the small village nearby, Villagio del Pescatore, the driver simply carried right on and did a full turn to be going back to Monfalcone. Then at the start of Monfalcone in the car park of a container port he did another U-turn and carried on as normal. Half the Italians looked baffled and half just carried on as normal, or maybe this is just general Italian protocol. Anyway, I think it must have been something to with timing, as as we approached the turn-off again, an automatic voice said ‘blah blah blah Villagio del Pescatore’, so somehow between Monfalcone and Villagio (as it’s known) the driver had made up an extra 8 minutes. Strange.
After mensa in anticipation of an early start, I decided to at least go to my bedroom early. Raza was there studying, and eventually I managed to speak to my parents on my phone and them on Skype (as it is a lot cheaper than calling with a phone, even if the connection isn’t always great). It was really nice hearing their voices again (and Jake’s as well, if only for a short bit, as he explained about starting Gosforth High School. Actually it’s really sad that I don’t get to watch him going to the same school as me every day, even if he can be annoying!). After a good half hour chat, dad suggested that we stop as I should go to bed. I think probably because when you are ill it’s when you most miss your parents, you don’t have your mum to say ‘oh just stay in bed, one day of school off is fine’ or your dad to say ‘I’ll be at work but I’ll have my mobile on (and in fact both of those can be reversed who says it for me, although perhaps dad is less easy to say ‘have a day off school’!) and I know that you have to be independent some day etc etc blah blah blah but really it’s hard when you can’t just hug your family if you really want to. So after the call I just lay there for a bit and for the first time in Italy I properly cried (I cried on the journey, especially saying goodbye at Stansted, but that doesn’t really count, also on the first day I was homesick but there was enough going on to distract me) as I just wanted to be at home, in my bed, with my family nearby.
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