About people, my mother and me 3rd and last part
I see that posting here on LJ turns out to be very useful. I could write down my thoughts and analysis of my behaviour on some notebook, or in any other private form, but I can't imagine myself writing something just for my exclusive use. I need to think, at least, that there are potential "others" who read what I write. I'll have to analyse this too, one day.
But let's stick to here and now. I said posting on LJ is useful because, thinking back of my behaviour with my mother, and re-reading it, I was finally able not only to see all the irrationality of it, but even its foolishness. And I hate acting foolishly. So now I know how to behave in similar situations. This is a big improvement.
Now let's move forward.
There is a big "but" to what I said previously about loving being alone, and the fact that it helps me focusing on things to do. This "but" is 1994. Maybe the happiest year of my life. Because 2006 was a very happy year, but mostly on the personal level, whereas 1994 was very fruitful. I was a university student. For three years, I had struggled to understand how university worked. Being a very good student in the past, I expected a triumph in my university years. I was wrong.
I was wrong because I spent most of the time trying to understand just how it worked: which exams I was supposed to do, when, how, when I could choose the professor who would examine me, and so on. As I often say, once you have been able to graduate at Milan's State University, you are ready for Camel Trophy.
That's why it took me three years to pass 9 exams (out of 24), and with not very good results (almost all of them ending with less - sometimes far less - than 27/30). In 1994, in just one solar year, I passed 7 exams, all of them with excellent results.
Was it just getting into the mechanism, at last? Not only. It was especially because I started having fun.
It happened when I started studying with Monica. I already knew her, but we didn't see each other a lot because we had only the English courses in common. My second language was French, hers was German. That's why she regularly went to the German department. As a consequence, when we started studying together, I happened to follow her there. Where, to my big surprise, I met people studying not only German, but anything else. Even students from the Law courses. Because it was a nice environment, a place that the guy who worked there (legendary Carlo, now retired) managed to make so pleasant that everybody wanted to be there.
That's how I started to make friends, after three years. I already had a few, but that was a real revolution: I started planning exams with others, we worked together, in groups, but not only. For instance, if the next exam was History of English Theatre, we went to see Shakespeare, or Beckett. And if it was about Joyce, anything was a good pretext to learn something about Ireland, such as watching In the Name of the Father or travelling to a village in another region to discuss about Joyce with an Irish professor who tried to convince us that Dublin is not Ireland, and that Joyce was a traitor. And, yes, of course, we also spent nights together eating, drinking and making stupid videos.
That's how having a lot of friends (I remember how I was moved when 18 people got together for my birthday gift) and a lot of fun made everything easier and more profitable.
Now, let's have a look at the time it took me to get there. Three years, as I said. Three years is also the time it took me to write my dissertation. And only after three years working in Lyon I finally decided to move there. Now, it's been three years since I have been living here. Something must happen, I must be at some turning point in my life, I can feel it. In the next future, I'll probably have to rely on friends, and I'll be happy to, actually I'm looking forward to it. But not right now. Now, as I said in this year's first post, I need reorganizing. Once I'll have done it, I'll be able to start it all over again.
Yes, I've been very excited lately.
But let's stick to here and now. I said posting on LJ is useful because, thinking back of my behaviour with my mother, and re-reading it, I was finally able not only to see all the irrationality of it, but even its foolishness. And I hate acting foolishly. So now I know how to behave in similar situations. This is a big improvement.
Now let's move forward.
There is a big "but" to what I said previously about loving being alone, and the fact that it helps me focusing on things to do. This "but" is 1994. Maybe the happiest year of my life. Because 2006 was a very happy year, but mostly on the personal level, whereas 1994 was very fruitful. I was a university student. For three years, I had struggled to understand how university worked. Being a very good student in the past, I expected a triumph in my university years. I was wrong.
I was wrong because I spent most of the time trying to understand just how it worked: which exams I was supposed to do, when, how, when I could choose the professor who would examine me, and so on. As I often say, once you have been able to graduate at Milan's State University, you are ready for Camel Trophy.
That's why it took me three years to pass 9 exams (out of 24), and with not very good results (almost all of them ending with less - sometimes far less - than 27/30). In 1994, in just one solar year, I passed 7 exams, all of them with excellent results.
Was it just getting into the mechanism, at last? Not only. It was especially because I started having fun.
It happened when I started studying with Monica. I already knew her, but we didn't see each other a lot because we had only the English courses in common. My second language was French, hers was German. That's why she regularly went to the German department. As a consequence, when we started studying together, I happened to follow her there. Where, to my big surprise, I met people studying not only German, but anything else. Even students from the Law courses. Because it was a nice environment, a place that the guy who worked there (legendary Carlo, now retired) managed to make so pleasant that everybody wanted to be there.
That's how I started to make friends, after three years. I already had a few, but that was a real revolution: I started planning exams with others, we worked together, in groups, but not only. For instance, if the next exam was History of English Theatre, we went to see Shakespeare, or Beckett. And if it was about Joyce, anything was a good pretext to learn something about Ireland, such as watching In the Name of the Father or travelling to a village in another region to discuss about Joyce with an Irish professor who tried to convince us that Dublin is not Ireland, and that Joyce was a traitor. And, yes, of course, we also spent nights together eating, drinking and making stupid videos.
That's how having a lot of friends (I remember how I was moved when 18 people got together for my birthday gift) and a lot of fun made everything easier and more profitable.
Now, let's have a look at the time it took me to get there. Three years, as I said. Three years is also the time it took me to write my dissertation. And only after three years working in Lyon I finally decided to move there. Now, it's been three years since I have been living here. Something must happen, I must be at some turning point in my life, I can feel it. In the next future, I'll probably have to rely on friends, and I'll be happy to, actually I'm looking forward to it. But not right now. Now, as I said in this year's first post, I need reorganizing. Once I'll have done it, I'll be able to start it all over again.
Yes, I've been very excited lately.