tumbling down
what exactly can I say... the time since I left london has been a whirlwind. the pisa airport was closed, so we landed in genoa and were loaded onto coach buses. zain was already at pisa waiting for me, so he took a bit of a nap to pass the additional two hours till i arrived. finally made it to florence, found parking, carried my bags up to apartment and crashed out completely, well . . . ya know. the next morning, we were awoken insanely early in order to drive to bologna, where I was dragged to the Ducati factory (apparently the motorbike equivalent of a ferrari). It was actually alright, pretty amusing to watch how much the guys drooled over them - it was such an overt example of cliche testosterone! Anyway, the rest of the weekend we just lazed, ate yummy food at some nice restaurants, saw Closer on monday night (loved it) followed by dessert at AquaDue, and wednesday we had a lovely meal at Quattro Leone, walked along the arno, went home, curled up around my laptop (god that word makes me really sad now...see below) to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
In the morning, got up went to school, was going to head directly back to his apartment, but both of their cars had been towed so zain had to go all the way to Prato and pay 93 euros per car. They finally got back, I hopped in the car with him and went to the us consulate so he could pick up his passport with his us visa, drove back to the apartment and hung out while he finished packing. We'd wanted to have some time just to chill out before he left, but thanks to the cars being impounded, that opportunity was squandered. I was left to watch all the baggage as Zain and Med brought the cars around, went to the airport, where both of them had to pay ridiculous fees because their bags were overweight. Med checked in, leaving Zain and I to say goodbye in private. I thought I'd be okay, you know?? But, it was a lot harder than I thought, especially when I said that I'd miss him and he said he'd miss me even more.
Fuck, you'd think the day would have ended there, but no.
I rode to bus back to the station and began walking home, all the while uber-aware of holding onto my computer case securely. Then, i decided to stop off on the way to check my email. I sat down, place my purse on my lap, my computer squarely between my feet and placed a canvas bag with some random shit in it on top of my computer. At some point, I felt someone's presence much too close to me and I turned around, looked a scruffy middle-age man directly in the eyes as a way to say back off! He moved away and I went back to my email. When I went to get up, it took me a few minutes to register what I was seeing. It was gone, just gone. I don't know how, but he must have already had my laptop by the time I looked at him. It's just all gone, four months of major research plus everything I did in London, all my personal thought and writings, all my photos, all my music, everything. No record at all...I never carry my flashdrive in my computercase, but on thursday I had slipped it inside, not even thinking about it, plus eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, and a gorgeous costume jewelry necklace from the 20's. I'm not sure I can do it justice, I am completely heartbroken . . . I keep such exquisite care of it, it was my baby, and I was so accutely aware that I had it with me. I was being careful, how in the world he managed to slip it out from underneath the otherbag without anything hitting me, I will never know. But, what I do know, is that I wish no good upon him, I know exactly who he is, I looked right into his eyes and he robbed me of four months of precious work.
Now more so than ever, I cannot wait a moment before restarting my research. I spent friday morning at the caribinieri (a form of police) filing a testimony. then translating it into english so that my parents can send it to the insurance agency. saturday, mom and dad spent outraced the storm to the mall so that they could go to the apple store and get me a new system. there is no way we can wait until hearing from the insurance, so hopefully we will be getting some money back on it. Not only are they fedexing my system to me this afternoon, but i guess on saturday my sister's computer had a total meltdown. Literally. Some kind of liquid came out of it... i can't believe that we're having to buy two computers in a single week. this is fucking ridiculous.
I mean, in all of this, I do feel incredibly lucky. If I had to choose a way in which to be robbed, I would have it be like this. In that, it happened without being accosted, threatened, or physically hurt... it could have been so much worse. Yes, it is a huge violation of everything I hold dear, but I'd rather that then be hurt on top of that violation. And as far as my work goes, I have a few (precious few) things printed out, not enough to pick up from where I was. So, I will be writing a massively different paper than I had planned. And I don't know, I guess I'm just seeing it as an indication that perhaps I was reaching too far. I will return to it and write my original paper, but maybe it needs to be written at a point further into the future, with more space for the kind of professional research I wanted to amass. I don't know, it disappeared on thursday, its been four days and if was going to be returned, I'm positive that would have happened already. There doesn't seem to be much else to do except accepting its loss and getting on with the rest of my work. Besides the fact that, unless I truly cannot help it, my new computer will NEVER, EVER be leaving my room ever again. And i'm getting a big ext. hard drive, new flashdrive, new case, blah.... at least apple helped us out a bit when my parents brought in the police report.
God do I hate this.
Ugh, I really wish i were in new orleans with zain right now...its the one city in the south that i've always wanted to visit, and, i really miss him. Its strange, stranger than I thought. I don't know when I'll see him again. He's back in europe at the end of this week for a small break in athens and then he goes directly to erie for four months. I might be going there for part of spring break (but, now that I have so much research to do-over, I probably will not be taking a break of any sort) and he gets one trip over to europe each month as part of the job, but he's gotta see his family too.
okay, i'm just driving myself insane right now.
tomorrow night we're going to the opera to see "Where The Wild Things Are", thursday night is an apertif hour with some friends of cosimo and elena, and this weekend we should be going to Napoli unless the trains end up having the strike which may or may not happen.
In the morning, got up went to school, was going to head directly back to his apartment, but both of their cars had been towed so zain had to go all the way to Prato and pay 93 euros per car. They finally got back, I hopped in the car with him and went to the us consulate so he could pick up his passport with his us visa, drove back to the apartment and hung out while he finished packing. We'd wanted to have some time just to chill out before he left, but thanks to the cars being impounded, that opportunity was squandered. I was left to watch all the baggage as Zain and Med brought the cars around, went to the airport, where both of them had to pay ridiculous fees because their bags were overweight. Med checked in, leaving Zain and I to say goodbye in private. I thought I'd be okay, you know?? But, it was a lot harder than I thought, especially when I said that I'd miss him and he said he'd miss me even more.
Fuck, you'd think the day would have ended there, but no.
I rode to bus back to the station and began walking home, all the while uber-aware of holding onto my computer case securely. Then, i decided to stop off on the way to check my email. I sat down, place my purse on my lap, my computer squarely between my feet and placed a canvas bag with some random shit in it on top of my computer. At some point, I felt someone's presence much too close to me and I turned around, looked a scruffy middle-age man directly in the eyes as a way to say back off! He moved away and I went back to my email. When I went to get up, it took me a few minutes to register what I was seeing. It was gone, just gone. I don't know how, but he must have already had my laptop by the time I looked at him. It's just all gone, four months of major research plus everything I did in London, all my personal thought and writings, all my photos, all my music, everything. No record at all...I never carry my flashdrive in my computercase, but on thursday I had slipped it inside, not even thinking about it, plus eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, and a gorgeous costume jewelry necklace from the 20's. I'm not sure I can do it justice, I am completely heartbroken . . . I keep such exquisite care of it, it was my baby, and I was so accutely aware that I had it with me. I was being careful, how in the world he managed to slip it out from underneath the otherbag without anything hitting me, I will never know. But, what I do know, is that I wish no good upon him, I know exactly who he is, I looked right into his eyes and he robbed me of four months of precious work.
Now more so than ever, I cannot wait a moment before restarting my research. I spent friday morning at the caribinieri (a form of police) filing a testimony. then translating it into english so that my parents can send it to the insurance agency. saturday, mom and dad spent outraced the storm to the mall so that they could go to the apple store and get me a new system. there is no way we can wait until hearing from the insurance, so hopefully we will be getting some money back on it. Not only are they fedexing my system to me this afternoon, but i guess on saturday my sister's computer had a total meltdown. Literally. Some kind of liquid came out of it... i can't believe that we're having to buy two computers in a single week. this is fucking ridiculous.
I mean, in all of this, I do feel incredibly lucky. If I had to choose a way in which to be robbed, I would have it be like this. In that, it happened without being accosted, threatened, or physically hurt... it could have been so much worse. Yes, it is a huge violation of everything I hold dear, but I'd rather that then be hurt on top of that violation. And as far as my work goes, I have a few (precious few) things printed out, not enough to pick up from where I was. So, I will be writing a massively different paper than I had planned. And I don't know, I guess I'm just seeing it as an indication that perhaps I was reaching too far. I will return to it and write my original paper, but maybe it needs to be written at a point further into the future, with more space for the kind of professional research I wanted to amass. I don't know, it disappeared on thursday, its been four days and if was going to be returned, I'm positive that would have happened already. There doesn't seem to be much else to do except accepting its loss and getting on with the rest of my work. Besides the fact that, unless I truly cannot help it, my new computer will NEVER, EVER be leaving my room ever again. And i'm getting a big ext. hard drive, new flashdrive, new case, blah.... at least apple helped us out a bit when my parents brought in the police report.
God do I hate this.
Ugh, I really wish i were in new orleans with zain right now...its the one city in the south that i've always wanted to visit, and, i really miss him. Its strange, stranger than I thought. I don't know when I'll see him again. He's back in europe at the end of this week for a small break in athens and then he goes directly to erie for four months. I might be going there for part of spring break (but, now that I have so much research to do-over, I probably will not be taking a break of any sort) and he gets one trip over to europe each month as part of the job, but he's gotta see his family too.
okay, i'm just driving myself insane right now.
tomorrow night we're going to the opera to see "Where The Wild Things Are", thursday night is an apertif hour with some friends of cosimo and elena, and this weekend we should be going to Napoli unless the trains end up having the strike which may or may not happen.