“I want movement, not a calm existence. I want excitement and danger. I feel in myself a superabundance of energy which finds no outlet in quiet life.”
--Leo Tolstoy
Name: Kaitlin
Obsession: Italy
That is everything you really need to know about me to understand this blog. But I am more of a touchy-feely, people person than that, so a nice “getting to know me” entry feels all together appropriate and necessary to satisfy my compulsion for introductions.
It’s been 15 days since I “graduated”. Technically, I have one semester left to go. I’ll be returning to Miami alone, my friends spread by the four winds to new cities with new jobs--and shiny new friends. It isn’t easy being left behind.
But rather than pity myself, I choose to see things with a glass that is at least 51% full, if not more. As my friends toil behind desks or pursue higher education at universities far, far away, I will explore la vita al sole. Life in the sun. The Florentine, Roman, Milanese, Neapolitan and Sicilian sun. I have one final, true summer, and I can’t wait to be emancipated from my Kentucky home.
Thirty four days. That is all that separates me from the beginning. The beginning of an adventure I’ve dreamed of for two years. Michelangelo’s David. Il Duomo. The rugged, majestic cliffs of Positano. Cinque Terre’s charming towns connected by winding nature trails. Seven weeks of studying (my first priority, as I have been reminded dozens of times by my exuberant program director), with traveling, wandering, sight-seeing, and eating (Oh the gastronomic delights! Gelato, gelato, gelato...)all having their fair share of my attention.
And in between weekends of traveling, wandering, sight-seeing and eating, I have a huge task to achieve-- my Honors Thesis. A 30 page exploration of the Italian life, from a native’s point of view... At least, that’s the goal. I just need to find someone with a story. Who can speak decent English, seeing as the “Learn Italian” CDs haven’t exactly made me fluent. (If my car could talk, it would tell you that my Italian is, in fact, limited. Very limited.)
Dr. Tobin, my incredibly brilliant mentor, has given me two books to read to prepare me for my narrative nonfiction journalistic journey into the Italian mind. One, I hate (Jon Franklin’s “Writing for Story”. He didn’t hold his ego in check, and the book literally drips with egoism). The other I haven’t read yet, but Tobin assures me that I’ll like it. I can only hope.
Thirty four days.
*****