Tests, Exams, and Laundry

Ciao everyone, and happy Thursday morning to you all, although it's almost 5pm here. What have I done with my Thursday? Well, I got up for class and got ready, rolled out to class and finished day 9 of 15 of the practicum, which is good. Today also marked our second of three compositions in class that we had to write, which was good as well. It had to be 100 words, and I feel like I did a pretty good job on it. Got to love learning Italian.

After it got out, I wandered back in my very last clean T-shirt (yet I have about 10 long sleeved ones clean, it's just too hot to wear them) and got everything together to make a laundromat run.

Laundry machines are the same here in many ways to those in America. I mean, they have a place to put your clothes, a place to pay for the load, and a few seats to sit on while they wash. However, this becomes much, much more difficult with Italian signs that read water temperature in degrees Celsius, do load sizes by kilograms, and the soap conversions are in tablets to soap, and I was lost pretty quickly.

To make matters worse, I had only a 50 Euro bill from the ATM (or as they are known here, the bancomat. Say it with me now, Bahn-KO-maht. See? Not too hard) and if you remember my conversations on this matter earlier, people here at stores HATE giving change for large bills. I mean, I understand why, but come on, don't roll your eyes at me. I mean, if I could choose 2 20s and a 1o every time, I would. Trust me! But I can't!

The laundromat had no way to break that fifty, so with a huge sack of clothes, I went 2 blocks to a pizza shop and ordered some pizza and a drink to break my big bills. But it was a neighborhood pizzaria, meaning they spoke no English whatsoever. A problem? Not with 9 days of Italian under my belt! I asked for the size, got a drink, and paid and apologized for the lack of small bills, counted my change and went back with my clothes to do my laundry.

I did my laundry, and talked to a fellow laundromat-er in broken Italian (I did pretty good though, I've gotta give myself credit) to figure out how they worked the machines and started my load, which was a double machine load, and cost 5.50 euro to wash. I sat down with my pizza and watched some MTV that was on. Now, MTV over here does very little reality TV and a whole lot more music, but it also serves as a--wait for it--anime channel. Yeah. Anime. Japanese anime shows, dubbed in Italian. What a treat for my Thursday afternoon! I just watched tv and studied a bit of Italian, watching my clothes all the while, and 40 minutes later, I loaded up all my wet clothes and treked triumphantly back to my apartment a few blocks away with a bag full of damp (yet clean) clothes.

Hey, I wasn't about to pay 5 more euro, or a dinner out, to dry them when it's so warm here. I did this about 2 hours ago and they're getting pretty dry pretty quickly. Gotta love the weather for that anyway.

Now, television commentary from yours truly. To sum it up: it's pretty much the most awesome, hysterical, and sad happening I've had since I came here. Italian TVs don't work the same way as American ones, you have to insert a channel number when you turn it on to get it to work. We didn't know this, so we assumed our TV was broken.

2 weeks later, I fiddle with it, and voila, it works. Cool, so now we've got TV. But what's on, you ask? Well, I am glad to inform you that we get about 20 channels, 3 of which are newsy in Italian, CNN international, and a bunch of network style channels that show a few American shows dubbed in English every night. Good ones sometimes, like Friends or the Simpsons, and other times . . . well . . . like the early 90s tv show Renegade. Yeahhhh. No wonder Italians have such a skewed view of what Americans are like. I've never seen it before, but after a little research, I am simultaneously humiliated and patriotic that such a terrible, terrible show could ever be shown (and get 5 SEASONS? WHAT?!) in the U.S. I mean, Vince Black and Billy Sixkiller? Are you kidding me?

Hysterical, moving, terrible. Renegade!

But after the laundry, I just watched Sarah Palin's speech to the RNC because hey, I give equal time to both sides to make their case, even if I know who I support. She spoke well, and she did a pretty fair job up until a point I dropped my jaw in disbelief and went on a ten minute rant to Bert, an apartment mate of mine, about how screwed up it was. She said 'our opponent is more concerned with someone reading terrorists their rights' than bringing them to justice.

Wait, what?

Hold up.

You just spent half an hour talking about how the founders wanted this and that from our country, and what America stands for, and how we should be proud no matter what of our country and its history, and here you are slamming a guy for wanting to ensure that the laws of the Constitution--something our Founding Fathers actually wrote and therefore we can know they believed in, unlike say abortion. I was so angry, I still haven't calmed down. Listen here, honey: you are lucky to be born in such a country that you must have your rights read to you. You know them at any time, and you know exactly what you're charged with the second you're arrested. Wanna know how important the founders thought THAT was? Um, let's see, ENOUGH TO WRITE AN ENTIRE AMENDMENT FOR IT! I mean, seriously: slam him for what you will, but upholding the highest and holiest document in American law is NEVER something that you should be slammed for. Ever. Period. End of story. Your son is about to go off to war to support these very rights we are so lucky to have in a country that we supposedly went to war believing they needed, the ones that your opponent is so convinced need protecting. I bet if your husband were pulled over for another DWI you'd want him to have his rights read and stand trial, wouldn't you?

If you think you could write a better Constitution, one that you could say no to sex education while your daughter gets pregnant from a lack of knowledge about protection, one where you can create all the pollution you want and make it a law the global warming can't happen, and one where you can arrest people and throw them in jail without habeus corpus, then go back to your original party of Alaskan Secessionists.

EDIT: Oh, and just for fun, check out this:

http://ccinsider.comedycentral.com/cc_insider/2008/09/jon-stewart-ann.html

Best. Video. Ever. END EDIT.

Rant over. Sorry about that. I just hate when people say things like that. Our country is so amazing because our rights are protected, Sarah Palin. And may we never forget that.

Anyway, off for today, and until next time,

Ciao.