ABOVE ALL

I have been faithful in going to the Sunday morning service lately (if going there twice in a row could be called faithful, that is). Knowing that my weekends in Italy will be (likely) spent travelling outside Perugia, whenever I found myself ‘trapped’ in this city on Sunday, I woke up early, fought against the drowsiness, to walk alone to the church for about 30 minutes, passing through the empty piazza and walking down inside my favorite place Rocca Paolina, where you can find a mixture of antiquity (the ancient city below the ground), and modernity (lots of escalators inside it).

Though I haven’t known anyone (yet) there, I always enjoyed the service (though sometimes, it felt longer than the ones in Indonesia). It is different, yet felt so familiar, thanks to the songs they usually sing. They have a perfect combination of old hymns and contemporary songs, similar to the ones I used to sing in Indonesia. The difference is, of course, here, they are all translated in Italian. And they’re so beautiful in my ears, that every time I came too early, I was busy copying the text into my notebook, or, while we were worshiping, I secretly recorded their voice with my cell phone.

They have a holy sacrament every week, when the congregation eat bread and drink wine from the same cup. And they don’t have a worship leader, only some musicians and singer in front, and the members of congregation, one by one, call out a song that they want us to sing, adding prayers in between. Once, the sermon was conducted in Romanian and translated in Italian, and I had to really concentrate to understand it all.

But when it is delivered in Italian, I usually can follow quite effortlessly, and manage to learn some new terms every week. Last Sunday, the sermon really struck my heart. I’d never thought that listening to a sermon in another language (especially the third language), would be so moving, but it did. The elderly preacher took the first passage of John 5, about the healing at the pool. He reminded us that too often, we acted in the same manner with the people around the paralyzed, who said to Jesus, “Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” He said, we might be sitting shoulder to shoulder with someone, without realizing that he/she might feel that she had no one. And that we needed to be more caring to the sufferings of others.

And I could relate both to the paralyzed and the people around him. At times, it also happened to me… the feeling of having nobody, or at least, no one around me, that is available when I could use companionship or encouragement. And I also realized that, being absorbed in my own problems and worries, I often acted indifferently towards others, who might be in need of my companion, assurance, encouragement, or even, merely a smile and ears that listen.

I was having a rough time with two of my few real friends here. I had been upset, angry, sad, and afraid of losing them, thinking that they were also mad at me, for some reasons. And sitting there in the back pew of the church, fighting back my tears, I realized that it was not fair to place myself as the paralyzed and them as the indifferent people around. On the contrary, it could have been me who failed to see and understand their problems, their suffering.

I’m never good at confronting people, at saying sorry, or starting a conversation after a ‘cold’ war. I’d rather let it ‘cool’ naturally. Yet that day I was so compelled to make the first move, and despite a fear to be rejected by them, I felt relieved to find my own heart filled with affection and forgiveness to them, leaving no trace of anger and disappointment that I had felt before.

That same day, two ‘almost broken’ friendships were healed. In fact, strengthened. And forgiveness, I think, is essential in loving others. Below is the Italian version of Lenny leBlanc’s ABOVE ALL, one of my favorite songs, that reminds me of how much I have been forgiven.

SEI DI PIU’

Su ogni potenza, sopra ogni re

Più di ogni cosa creata intorno a me

Su ogni sagezza e vie che l’uomo ha

Tu eri qui già nell’eternità

Sopra ogni regno e autorità

E meraviglie che solo il mondo sa

E piu dell’oro che in terra so che c’è

Nulla può valere più di te

Sei di più

Di tutto quel che ho

Vissuto per morire così solo

Fiore che è gettato via

L’hai scelto tu

Pensando a me

Solo tu

just curious

maybe this is the reason the previous note was accidentally posted twice... cos it was automatically imported from my blogspot.
Let's see

EPIPHANY

After over than two months residing in Perugia as a foreign student, last Friday was the first time I toured the city as a student slash tourist, i.e. having a guide slash Italian language teacher explain the historical arches, buildings and streets around Perugia, in the first outing session of our cultural class (after two months learning in a classroom only!).
Knowing more about the stories behind those buildings (dated thousands years ago), I could not help imagining how hard life must have been back then, when people lived in constant fear, of the enemies, of the war, of being killed—so much that it seems to me, all their construction technique was based on security reasons. They had narrow and winding streets to facilitate escaping on foot (and avoid the enemies’ arrows), they had a kind of stairs that they could fold afterwards, to make it harder for the enemies to invade their house, etc. And as I passed those streets and absorbed the historical facts, I wondered if back then, there was also a girl like me, with the same passions and lots of things in common, who could have been my close friend, had we lived in the same period of time.
And my imagination, like always, did not stop there. It went on and on and on. But the thing that struck me most was, I’d never felt so inspired like that before, even since I arrived here in Italy. I have passed those streets and seen those buildings lots of time before, and yet I took them for granted. They have grown familiar and usual for me, to (almost) lose their (historical) meaning, and I am so glad that now I can see them in a different point of view.
Of course, I don’t blame myself for being ‘blind’ for the first two months. Being in an adaptation process in almost every aspect of my life, plus fighting against the loneliness (that every now and then assaults me, esp. when I feel so cut out of the life of my beloved ones in Indonesia—skyping regularly ain’t enough to cover their absence around me) and having to go back and forth to the questura (immigration office) to apply for my stay permit, left no much space for any creativity or curiosity.
And I have been a slug in writing, something that I enjoy a lot and I want to do all my life. I don’t even write my journals faithfully anymore, while there is so much to tell and so many things and feelings I want to remember afterwards.
So, the outing last week was not only improving my knowledge in history, but most of all, it inspired me. It recovered my curiosity and enableb me to (once again) imagine. And despite of our laments of too much sun and being hungry, I think I would love to repeat the tour, maybe by myself, and allow myself to see once again the locks that the lovebirds put in the lamps near the market where you can view Assisi, or pass the Street of Peace, where two arguing people (or families) made peace.
It’s so amazing what an outdoor lesson can do to you after spending so many hours in the classroom. I think we should do it more.

BETWEEN ‘ippopo-TAAAAAAAA-mo’ AND ‘ippo-POOOOOOOOO-tamo

I’m (starting to be) frustrated with my Italian, period.
I thought being here would boost my language skill instantly. In fact, I knew more Italians in Jakarta than in the whole Perugia, which, as far as I have seen, is packed with foreigners. Foreigners are everywhere, in my house, in my school, out in the streets…..
Not that I have anything against the foreigners here, really (I’m one of them too)… I love making new friends. In fact, I always make serious efforts to get to know my classmates better. It is so fun to observe each of them; how the native English speakers have difficulties in rolling their ‘r’, how the Chinese students get confused distinguishing ‘l’ and ‘r’ (which is fatal, cos both sounds are used widely in Italian and contrast to each other), or how the Russian and Portuguese speakers often pronounce ‘d’ as ‘dz’. The Europeans usually speak more fluently, in a faster pace than the Asian ones, who prefer the slower professor and are too fond of writing everything (that my prof often seizes their pens in order to get their attention). One of the most outstanding Chinese students is named Lin (the girl who said that she liked me instantly, remember?)---I suspect she studies for hours everyday, reading lots of books and memorizing new words every night. She is so studious and brilliant, and yet she demands me to teach her two new words everyday, thinking that I (who don’t feel studious or brilliant at all lately) know more than she does. I often have to rack my brain, cos almost every time I come out with a relatively difficult word, she already knows it. And yet, I am perplexed to find her sometimes struggling with the words that I consider simple and easy, like entusiasta, atmosfera, and other words which you can guess easily.
“How come you know all of them?” she asked me one day. “Well,” I said, a bit confused. “Cos they are similar to English, and also to Indonesian.”
And then she explained to me that between Italian and Chinese, there are no similar words, not even one. And so it opened my eyes that it must be hard for her and other Chinese students to study Italian, not mentioning the struggles in pronunciation.
Indonesians, I think, are a lot luckier. We can roll our ‘r’ easily and most of the sounds in Italian are the same with those in our own language. My biggest problem is the accent. I don’t know (yet) how to ‘press’ in the right ‘place’….and I still have to learn a lot to singsong my pronunciation… (for instance, taking from my friend Daniel’s example, not to merely say ‘nutella’, but to singsong it into ‘nu- TEEEEEEEEEEE-lla).
And now I have just found out that pressing the wrong syllable could draw incessant laughter from the Italians. In Jakarta, I was reprimanded once for saying ‘FEEE-lice’, rather than ‘fe-LIIIII-ce’. Now luckily I have a help from an Italian who is willing to yell at me every time I ‘hit’ the wrong syllable. But the problem is, my memory is too short to memorize the right ones. At first I made a hypothesis that most of the accent falls on the penultimate syllable, but then I found out that in some other words, the accent could fall in the first, or second syllable. There is no fixed rule really… all I have to do is to get my ears used to it and to imitate how the Italians speak. Now, in the class, I’m always busy marking the accent below the words as the professor speaks. And I have a plan to record the voice of a native Italian saying a list of Italian words to analyze the ‘rule’ (if there’s any). And of course, among the list there will be the beloved word IPPOPOTAMO (hippopotamus)--- and when I have gathered enough proofs, surely I’ll try to formulate the rules to it (I’m sure they exist!!!!!!!!)

ON TRANSPORTATION

Though most of the time I walk to everywhere here in Perugia (that at all times feels like hiking), there’s a lot to be said about the public transportation here. I have taken most of all, which includes train, bus, and mini metro (Jakartan friends, do not assume that mini metro here is like metro mini there haha!).
Mini metro is the newest of all, the rail was launched in January 2008. I took it with my American friends, and they said it reminded them of the capsules in the Incredibles movie. My Russian classmate said that when she first saw it, she was taken aback and said to herself, “Wow.. Perugia is high-tech!”—it is handy for her because she commutes everyday from Fabriano to Perugia (which I think takes about 2 hours by train), and then from the train station, she takes Minimetro to arrive to the campus. However, according to our Italian professor, the Perugians are divided into two groups, those who love it and those who hate it—the latter group is a lot bigger. It is because the establishment of it took a lot of money, but the route is relatively limited. So those who have paid the tax for it and yet do not have the privilege to enjoy it became angry.
The city buses are handy too… and a lot of time, people just don’t pay for it… I just realized that two days ago, when I had to go to the Agenzia delle Entrate (sorry I don’t know how to translate it, it’s an office where you can get some official documents done) to get my codice fiscale (national insurance number) with all my roommies (who are all, but one, Europeans, but I wont mention any name or country here), because the house owner really pressed us to do it asap. So off we went by a city bus, and when I asked them why we did not buy the tickets first and whether we would pay it directly to the driver later on (just like I had learned and had done faithfully before that), they just grinned and said nothing in the bus. And when we finally arrived, they just got off and I followed them (because they had stayed here longer so I thought, they must had known what they were doing). On the street, one of them told me that people just do it because they never check whether the passengers have the tickets or whether they stamp it in the machine or not. But I actually did not feel right about dodging out the responsibility (yeah, call me goodie goodie) because it is the Italian government who pays for my scholarship here. Anyway, on the way back, for some unknown reasons, they all chose to buy the tickets.
The stamping regulation is also applied for the train. When I took it on my way back from Florence, I had to run because the train would be leaving in a minute. Unfortunately, I forgot to stamp it (which they call ‘validate’ here), and had to run back to the machine for being afraid to be fined. Luckily I could hop into the train before it departed and was thankful to hear again and again, the threat of 200 euro fine for those who travel without the ticket or not have their ticket validated. There was also a scene I would not forget. From my window I could see a pair of youngsters smooching as they boy would leave the girl soon. The train conductor was trying to remind them that the train was about to depart but they ignored him totally. When the train finally moved, the boy ran and tried to open the door, which the conductor sternly refused to open. So, he just missed the train from smooching too long, and I had to chuckle to witness it—it was more stupid than romantic, I think.
The next day, when I told my professor about my travel (only the stamping rule, though), he said that next time I just don’t have to worry about it because they will never fine a foreigner for not observing the rule. And like my friend once advised me, if they ever try to, just pretend you don’t understand Italian and explain in English that you have just arrived there and know nothing about the rule.
Still about the bus, even since I arrived here, I’m always stunned to see how gorgeous most of the Italian bus drivers are. I really mean it! Some of them could easily come to Indonesia and get a role in the sinetrons (kind of Indonesian soap opera). I have this crazy wish to take a picture of each of them and compile them and then put them in an album on facebook—just to let my Indonesian friends see them and convince them that I’m not exaggerating. The last bus I took was when I went to Gubbio. As I sat in it and stared at the Tom Cruise looking driver, I thought about my wish and planned the words I might have to say to him to have a permission to take his picture. Maybe something like, “Sei bello, posso fotografarti?” (you are goodlooking, may I take a pic of you?)—but I was afraid that it might sound like a cheap pick up line. So I thought I might just say “Posso?” (May I?) and then click my camera and before he realized it, I would have gotten off and run.
Well, I did not have guts to do neither of them. In fact, when we arrived in Gubbio, all I could say was, “Grazie e ciao!” (thank you and goodbye!), with the camera still inside my bag.

A FUN CLASS ON GOOD FRIDAY

It is strange for me that we have a class on Good Friday in Italy, while most others have a week off for Easter (it’s not fairrrrrrr!!!).
Anyway, out of the three different classes, my favorite is the main one—grammar. And most of the grammar classes are held in the campus near my house too, so it is convenient to walk there, probably only 3 minutes. The others are oral exercises and a class on Italian culture, held in a farther campus. To reach it, I have to walk for 20 minutes, passing a busy street and then a winding path down to a kind of valley, with flowers blossoming everywhere. It’s beautiful, but after a long day, climbing up to go home is very tiring….
And I did not enjoy at all the first two encounters of my Italian culture class, because the professor talked too much, and I found it extremely hard to keep my eyes open, let alone to concentrate. After our first meeting, I had to drag my feet to the second. And today, on Good Friday, there was also her class at 11.00-13.00.
Sometimes, I am tempted to skip this class (like many other students do), esp. if it is held in the afternoon when napping or strolling around the centre is much more appealing than sitting in a classroom, but I keep telling myself that I am here to study and I have to be faithful even in small things like that. Even if it means killing my feet walking to the campus more than once in a day.
Anyway, today I had fun because the teacher found another way of teaching us. She said we would play a game, then she wrote five random words and asked us in group, to write a passage using the 5 words. And then, each group should present the story one by one. And at the end of the reading of each group, she threw a chocolate to each member of the group, and the lesson ended an hour earlier, maybe because she also wanted to go home faster since it is Good Friday.
And I was just amazed because all of my classmates seemed to be really good at writing, and their stories were beautiful, even much better than mine!


ps. here i attached the view from the window of the restroom of the farther campus

MY FIRST DAYS IN PERUGIA

It’s been over a week since I first came here, and my studies at the University for Foreigners just started two days ago.
I remember that when the bus we took from Rome’s airport arrived here, upon seeing nobody out in the streets, my first impression was that Perugia must be a dead city. It was beautiful of course, but dead empty. No car, no people, just silence. But then I found out that it is because on Sunday, people here just rest and don’t usually go out. But on Friday and Saturday, people flock the piazza until past midnight---so crowded that it is impossible for any car to pass the city centre.
My first week revolved around trying to get rid of the jetlag effects and deal with the registration/enrolment procedures—which involved preparing lots of documents and standing in a long queue. And oh, the placement test too… on the third day of my arrival. I did not bring any book here so I did not study at all for it. And on that day, I was not feeling so well. To make things worse, there was a Korean student sitting behind me, reading each question with a loud voice and ruining my concentration (which was already distracted by fatigue). I wanted so bad to turn to him and yell, ‘silenzio!’, but I changed my mind for not wanting to make any enemy. There were around 5 sets of questions, which increased in difficulties, and the students should stop when they found it too difficult to do. I stopped at the fourth, which consisted of a passage, and then the students should paraphrase it. Sadly, it should be my strong points, because I love writing so much. I understood the text completely, but the words just did not come to me, and my head started to spin. So I just gave my answer sheet to one of the supervisors and then came back around an hour later to have my result and a short interview. The funny thing was, every time the supervisors called out a Chinese name and nobody raised hand, they always came to me, stared me into the eyes and called the name once again, and I had to shake my head a lot.
There are 6 levels of the Italian courses here (ranging from the lowest to the highest): A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2. They told me that I made it to B2 and then asked me to go enroll myself to the secretariat, where all other students also went.
Rather than spending much time in a long line, I decided to look for the office of Prof. Silvestrini, the director of the university slash a good friend of my previous Italian professor, Prof. Contardi, as he had suggested before, to just say hi and present myself as his ex-student. He was very friendly and said I could come to him whenever I needed help. He was kind of expecting that I would go to C1, but I said that the fourth set of questions was too hard for me and I did not finish it. He put me in his class and said that I might skip the next level (C1) and go directly to C2 (which lasts for 6 months), so by the time my scholarship period ends, I will have completed all levels and get my diploma.
After talking with Prof. Silvestrini, I went back to the secretariat where the line was still long, though had became a lot shorter than before. I stood there for a while, thinking that I might faint anytime, cos my head started to spin again. Luckily he appeared and without saying anything, snatched all the documents I was holding, went inside the secretariat, and came back 5 minutes later, beckoning at me to leave the line and follow him to his office once again, where he handed me my student card---all ready in less than 5 minutes! (wow, talk about power!).
There are 30 students in my class, 11 of them are Chinese—which I thought too many at first, expecting a more international class. But apparently I am luckier than Betty, who becomes one out of three non Chinese students in her class. And even Mehdi, my Afghan friend, said that he was once in a class where all other students were Chinese. Well, knowing that, I am really happy with my class, where there are also students from Germany, Cyprus, Brazil, Venezuela, Czech, Australia, Spain, Korea and Japan. On my first day, I struck my first conversation with the Czech girl and Australian boy (all in Italian—proud proud! ;), and then a Japanese girl sat beside me, pointing at my Batik gown and said that her sister loved that kind of clothing. Today, the second day, a Chinese young girl intentionally moved from her seat to sit next to me. And then, after a brief greeting, she said, “Yesterday when you introduced yourself to the class, I don’t know why, but I instantly liked you, because you seemed so sweet.” – I was so touched by her words, esp because I don’t think I’m sweet when I’m nervous!
So after all, my first days are not so rough… in fact, they went smoothly. I even got a chance to be visited by my friends (one of them I had not seen for three years!) and to travel to nearby cities (Assisi and Florence) on my first weekend in Italy. The most challenging things are the weather (which I still find too cold for me—even when there’s sun!—I always wonder how come a sunny day can still feel cold), and the winding, up and down, all similar alleys/roads. I often find myself panting, esp when dragging grocery bags. And I keep getting lost….and maps are no help at all because I can’t read them!

But umm… other than that… I’m really fine… and so thankful for facebook and skype—which allows me to connect with my family and beloved friends back home.

Buona notte!

MY FIRST FAUX PAS (OR WHATEVER YOU MIGHT CALL IT) IN ITALY

For the second time, I woke up around 4 am (though last night I went to bed around midnight) and could not go back to sleep. So, I thought, rather than tossing around in my bed, maybe it’s better for me to share my (first) experience(s) in Italy while eating an apple and facebooking.
Well, I should say that I seem to be losing my confidence in speaking Italian among those who speak it so fluently. I always get tensed and nervous whenever they talk to me too fast, and it worsens my understanding. And to come up to a stranger to ask something, I still have to summon my courage first, and plan my words ahead of time. I’m so lucky to have some people here who are available to help me and of course, to have Betty with whom I can suffer the confusion together and laugh at our mistakes afterwards.

Well, here are some examples of my faux pas (which surely will keep adding on in the following days)

1.I went to the right side of the car of my friend Fabio (who picked us up at the bus station) while he went to the left side to open the door for me and Betty, and suddenly realized that I was no longer in Indonesia when he motioned to me to enter the car from the left side. And then, when he asked about the number of my lodging, I said centotrentacinque (135) instead of the correct one centocinquantatre (153). Only after he called the owner of the house, we ‘got’ the right number, which was clearly written on the identification tag of my bag!

2.When I went to the tabaccheria (tobacco shop that also sells postcards, phone cards etc), instead of saying ‘possiamo comprarla qui?’ (can we buy it —the SIM card— here?), I said ‘possiamo venderla qui?’ (can we SELL it here?)

3.Just as we were about to enter the hall of the university to meet Mr. Rondelli, the person who’s in charge of the scholarship, we were stopped by one of the elderly ladies with lots of keys in her hands. We thought it was an important thing, so we listened to her, but it turned out that she was offering us a room to rent. She insisted that we had to at least look at it because it was cheaper than the room we ‘d already rented and it was very near. Though I preferred to meet Mr. Rondelli asap, I just could not say no to her, cos she was old and I had pity on her. So up we went to her house and after looking at it, out of courtesy, we asked for her phone number though we had decided that we did not like it. And just as we were about to enter the hall for the second time, another elderly lady stopped us and said the same thing. Well, this time we knew better and continued to look for Mr. Rondelli inside.

4.Following the instructions of the two security guards, we went further to look for the secretariat office but we were stranded in another room with a waiting lounge. The people inside seemed to be busy talking with some people so I went to the only Italian looking guy seating in the lounge and asked where we could find Mr. Rondelli (in Italian). He stared blankly at me and in halting English, explained that he was German and did not speak Italian at all. He was pretty stressed out himself because he just wanted to enroll for a course and he did not know what to do or where to go because when he came to the front office to ask for some information, they only spoke Italian or Chinese. Then I decided to use my eyes rather than my mouth in finding our beloved Mr. Rondelli and finally could spot the word segreteria, which was nearby. And yes, Mr. Rondelli was there and was really nice, especially because he spoke Italian really SLOW and CLEAR—a very understanding man! In the front office, while we asked for the form to ask for the stay permit, we were helped by two patient Chinese girls –who answered in English every time I asked a question in Italian, and answered in Italian when I asked in English. Well, at least , finally half an hour later our forms were completely and appropriately filled in.

5.After that, because we did not have any food supply yet (cos we were too tired to shop the day before and just wanted to crash in bed and unfortunately had to say no to a very nice invitation to a Birthday party extended nicely by a friend of Vlad and Voica, our Romanians roomies), we did not have anything to eat for breakfast and thought we would be okay cos we had some instant noodles around 4 am. But around midday, we were hungry (Betty even said she was started to tremble), so we rushed to a pizzeria-which was not even opened yet. When finally we found a place which sells some pizza, I just pointed to one and Betty, wanting to know whether there was meat in the topping, tried to remember the Italian word for meat. But we did not know how to say ‘topping’. So we were standing there, pointing to a pizza and like two idiots, asked to the puzzled shopkeeper, ‘ Questa e’ carne?’ (is this meat?)

6.Our two Indonesian friends, Edwin and Flora, laughed at my choice of gelato flavors. They said fruity flavors didn’t match with chocolate ones. But I actually do not consider this as a faux pas cos I enjoyed it no matter what eheheh

Now my apple is finished and so I will try to get back to sleep!