Anyway, too much has happened in the last three months to go into much detail - even if my failing memory permitted it. I was reading my last post and realise that I have been telling the world that I am utterly, utterly unhappy for three months now. Let's start with the good news, therefore. I am completely better, I feel great and am physically in great shape. My illness subsided with the second batch of antibiotics and Olaf's disappeared a few days later. It cost some money and kept us drugged up for a while, but it is all in the past.
I also have the cutest nephew ever, Neo (which ironically in Italian means 'mole'). I saw him in early October when we went over to Holland to visit both our newborn nephews and I must say that I like mine best. And no, I am not biased because he is my nephew. He is beautiful, has the most gorgeous dark blue eyes and is a perfect party baby. Seriously, you can put him in a room with lots of people talking, laughing, drinking and just generally behaving rather loudly and he will just watch and listen and make a cute little sound every once in a while to make sure you remember he is there. What, you don't believe how cute he is? Well, here is a picture to prove it to you:
See? I was right!
Work has been manic yet good. Our company is going through another one of its many financial crises and this has everybody stressing out. Fortunately, I have two colleagues now who do a lot of work, although I still sometimes feel like I am the only one who knows everything that is going on and has the whole picture. I guess that will pass as they get more experience, but sometimes I wonder why people don't worry as much as I do. I am a fan of direct action when necessary and my colleagues are more planners and procrastinators, whereas I can't rest until everything is done. They are also in very different life phases from me (married with children), so it is natural for them to have other priorities, but I miss the 'come on, let's all dig our heels in and push this big boulder out of the way together' attitude.
My own job is very varied which makes it a lot of fun. As the company is very small and I am responsible for all day-to-day operations, I handle everything from course management to invoicing, from initial client contacts to paying teachers, from filing to managing the technicians who are constructing our new database. There is never a boring day at and always a lot to do, especially as we are frantically looking for new clients, have lots of courses to start in 2009 and our database needs to be finishing by Christmas. I speak Italian all day long and am getting better and better at it. For my own personal enjoyment, I also teach an elementary course on Monday nights and have one private student on Wednesdays. Every Friday at 6pm I am as dead as can be but usually satisfied with what I have achieved this week. Minor frustrations with my colleagues and suppliers aside, I am actually quite content and can't wait for next year when everything should be operational and there will be much more courses to manage. I might regret saying this later on, but that's how I feel now.
This does not mean I am not looking forward to free time though. I like working hard and do it gladly, but I realise it is taking up a lot of my free time as well. There are a million things I have to remember and I sometimes find it difficult to stop worrying in the evening and leave things that can be done tomorrow to tomorrow. This weekend will be a long weekend, as Monday is a public holiday, the day of the Immaculate Conception (or 'Immaculate Collection', as Olaf likes to call it). Olaf's doing well, by the way, but you can read all that on his blog. Although he has been very busy as well, he has had the discipline to post a couple of times. He had a job interview in Paris last week and is one of the last 13 candidates (initially there were over 200) and has another one for a job in Berlin in January. We'll see. In the mean time, we don't see much of each other but I we will make up for that in the future.
We enjoyed visits from Stephanie and Marie, and Bard and Selina and when the new Bocconi building (Olaf's university) opened, we were pleased to find out that there would be a Piazzolla concert. Actually it was a combination of a reading of a selection of Jorge Luis Borges' poems alternated by music by Piazzolla. Though I am not a big fan of Borges' work, Piazzolla's music made up for a lot. Then there was Louisa's awesome Halloween party, where we were dressed as Patsy and Eddie from Absolutely Fabulous and were the life of the party.
We got quite drunk and did lots of naughty things and that is all I am saying about it. More pictures can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=675442465&v=photos&so=0#/album.php?aid=60061&id=672566816
I celebrated my birthday party at La Hora Feliz (because I didn't feel like organising anything special - we always go to La Hora Feliz on Tuesdays) and got a lovely teapot and other tea-related equipment, as well as, of course, tea. Two weeks ago, we made a dash visit to the Netherlands in order to surprise Olaf's mother who was turning 60 and though she had already understood there was going to be a surprise party she was genuinely unaware of our attendance. She really enjoyed that party, of which her constant smiling testified. Talking about surprises, I myself was quite flabbergasted when it turned out to be snowing in Bremen when I landed.
Last weekend, we went to a little Christmas market with Stefano and Elke and had our first gluehwein of the season. Believe it or not, it snowed here all weekend and the white roofs and the blurred view of the church through the snow really put me in the mood for Christmas. Olaf thinks it is still to early and I have unfortunately not been allowed to touch any of our Christmas CDs yet. After that we went to see a beautiful rendition of Puccini's Madame Butterfly which I enjoyed immensely, though somewhat less than I should have as I was sitting on a broken seat for three hours. This was followed by Caroline's leaving party (my boss who has gone to live in Rome), where we all got drunk.
That's it really. Here are some things I am looking forward to:
- a three-day weekend including Sant'Ambrogio Christmas and the international food fair in the new Fiera di Milano
- A four-day week followed by my school's Christmas celebration and another three-day weekend in Trapani, Sicily (my birthday present from Olaf)
- Another four-day week and the beginning of our Christmas closure on 20th December
- 2,5 weeks of Christmas holidays including Christmas itself, which we are going to celebrate with Werner and Jose, New Year's Eve and 4 days in Vienna with my mum
- Possibly a trip to London around Olaf's birthday
Dinner is ready and I have got to go. I will try to update more often. Honestly.
