enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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Find the courage. Find the courage!

Italia lovers and NOT Italia lovers alike, you must read this article about local Italian food: Or not!

I forgot to mention something quite interesting earlier. My friend Sabrina wrote to me today, so I spent a good half an hour this afternoon writing back to her in French. (I've been so lazy lately, and how is my French ever going to improve if I don't practise?)

THen I started reading Baudelaire's Le Fanfarlo, which was funny in and of itself.

But that's not the point. Sabrina already speaks Italian pretty well as although she was raised in France her dad was Italian. She's an intermediate speaker of English.

I'm not exactly sure what her motivations are - she seems to be interested in pursuing new options, is just getting through a horrible depression she fell into a few years ago after her father died suddenly, etc., etc. - but she wrote to say that she wants to go back to Italia (when I met her she was on a two-month holiday). She wants to go back to study Italian properly at a university. She also has a plan to come to North America for six months in order to work on her English (it's intermediate - she can communicate, but choppily).

She wrote to me on Tuesday to say that she was thinking of these things. I suppose for her that these are an investment, as she works as a professional guide in Paris. Plus she's only in her early 30s (33, I think, which now seems incredibly young to me :)). Anyhow...I won't fret about that. :)

So the point of this is that she wrote to me today to tell me that she had been looking into universities in Perugia and Siena and that it is cheap to study Italian there, even if you are a straniero (foreigner) - only 900 Euro for 25 hours a week for three months. Seems a deal to me.

So I started thinking. I don't want to go to either Perugia or Siena (I don't particularly like Siena, though it's OK for a day trip - too gothic almost, small). But certainly there is a school that I could go to in Florence that wouldn't cost the earth. I could also do a homestay in order to learn Italian properly, or rent an apartment. And I started thinking this: I can only really afford this two years or more from now, but really can I afford NOT to do it sooner? I really believe that life is short and it is to be lived. If I wait two years exactly I will be over my next promotion hurdle and that would be a good time to go, but if I do it before then it will only delay my promotion slightly and I will have that wonderful experience to look forward to. I sort of view it as something I'd like to do from October through Christmas and New Year. So it's looking like the target is autumn of 2011. Of course, going in summertime is awful, but for work that would be the best time given that things are quiet in the office over the summer. I suppose I could do May-June-July.

It's a scary thought. If I take that 3 months they might not guarantee my exact same job when I return. And of course I'd sort of lose position, as other people take over my projects. That's the problem with career.

But heck - I am not going to be taking any parental leave or anything, so why not go ahead and take my time.

11:01 p.m. - 2010-04-11

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