The Negotiable Red Light.

Dearest friends, family, friends of family, family of friends, Rotarians, Italians, South Africans, or guests.

This blog is the medium through which I plan (note: not promise) to update those who are interested, of my year abroad in Italia.

The title of the blog is a quote from a book I am reading entitled "La Bella Figura - An Insider's Guide to the Italian Mind" (Severgnini, Beppe; 2007). The translated extract reads, "Do you see that red light? It looks the same as any other red light anywhere in the world but it's an Itlian invention. It's not an order, as you might naively think. Nor is it a warning, as a superficial glance might suggest. It's actually an opportunity to reflect and that reflection is hardly ever silly. Pointless, perhaps, but not silly." The page continues to detail the 17 different potential meanings behind a red robot, but then, "Note that these decisions [the consideration of which reds are okay to cross, and which are not] are not taken lightly. They are the outcome of a logical process that almost always turns out to be accurate. When the reasoning fails, it's time to call the ambulance. [My host-sister told me she got ran over by a scooter - she must have crossed at the 'not-quite-red'] This is the Italian take on rules of whatever kind, regarding road discipline, the law, taxes or personal behaviour. If it is opportunism, it is an opportunism born of pride, not of selfishness."

So, as I write to you all about myself, feeling slightly hindered by the fact that I don't know if anybody is in fact interested in my life, I do so out of pride - pride of having the balls (please note, there will be no censorship in this blog - sorry, mom) to come to a foreign country, to study my ass off (there we go again) to learn a language in which I can currently only curse (both at the language, and in it), to stay with new people (thank you, so far, famiglia Locatelli), to use a new transport system (who knew trains could be this complicated?) and to go to a new school (despite having finished already - ok, no seriously, WTF am I doing here?)

I am stuck here for 1 year: "stuck" because my parents have paid for my flights and the Rotary programme binds me to the year contract, but I am here voluntarily and plan (note, again, not promise) to grab every opportunity and to share the details of every result.