Weird

This week was decidedly weird.

For starters, courses have just been going OK. At times the professors can be quite wonderful and accommodating. In my Urban Policy lab we went for a tour of a few sites on the outskirts of the city that we are going to later study in group projects. One of these sites was the recently shut down Alfa Romeo factory in a city called Arese. The mayor of the city, who got on our tour bus, talked about the values of the site, and later went on to make projections for how he envisioned the sites development citing mainly the construction of a highway and a shopping mall. This clearly through a wrench into my idealistic plans of learning sustainable design and planning from the Europeans.

So much for being idealistic. Since now I'm apparently learning urban planning in a city that hasn't updated its master plan since 1961, clearly I'm going to have to revise my goals.

Also, in Italy, I've learned the hard way that there are no secrets. In my residence on the second day I was already getting "oh, YOU'RE the American that speaks Italian". This is all well and good, and at times it can even be somewhat fun to stand out. The other day however, I went to speak to an advisor about the possibility of taking courses in Italian. Going through the list, he cited the professor that in a past post described English as a barbaric language. Now, the advisor continues by saying that "oh of course you wouldn't want to take HIS course"... meaning that he understands the plight of the poor international students who have a hard time understanding how discussing the theoretical role and definition of citizenship has anything to do with planning, so I naturally continued to voice my concerns. Sure enough, when this professor arrived in class in the afternoon, his first question to the class was,

"Mr. Arancio, I hear that you have some criticisms of my program... would you care to voice your concerns right now?"

He clearly had it out to see me squirm. Did I mention that he is also the head of the Faculty here... ouch.

This weekend there was also a party in my residence. For all you McGill people in the audience, I am living in the Politecnico's equivalent of New Rez (this, I figured out when I was incredibly hungover to the point of being debilitated; let's just say I had a lot of time to think...) In any case, the residence is very nice, and the students tend to be of the conservative, wealthy breed from smaller cities in the north of Italy one to two hours away from Milan. Most actually take the train home for the weekend and live in the residence only during the week for courses. Anyway, they had a party of the first year students in the cafeteria. When I arrived at dinner, some students asked me if I would be going. When I replied "Of course", they promptly retorted with a cuddly "You're not going dressed like that...right?" I thought my Amero-casual Gap outfit was fine for a residence party, but, man, was I wrong. People were decked out in heels and Armani, sporting Polo shirts and shiny jeans of the tight European cut. In any case, my favorite part of this whole endeavor was when they had a fashion show to choose Mr. and Mrs. Residence. People were trying to get me to hop in line, but I promptly refused to speak or admit to understanding Italian. Playing the stupid international student card is always an excellent defense mechanism. In any case, no one was dancing. The whole time I was wondering if I had somehow fallen through a time warp and was suddenly returned to high school. It only gets better because afterward, I went out with a few friends from my program to a Centro Sociale. A centro sociale is basically a house that has been taken over by squatters; you make a donation when you enter and are by no means allowed to take photos. The space on the inside however, has been opened up into a series of rooms with bars, dance floors and practice rooms for jam sessions. It was very cool and probably the polar opposite of the Mean Girls Mr and Mrs Residence competition that I attended earlier in the night.

This week I was also witnessed to by a student from Opus Dei, a very conservative Catholic movement. He spoke mainly of a recent experience staying up for 48 hours to work on an architecture project with the aid of a friend.
I said, something to the tune of,
"Oh, that's nice that she offered a helping hand. It's good karma because I always see you around saying hi and making nice conversation with everyone... those points build up after awhile."
He promptly and vehemently disagreed that it had anything to do with karma so I knew I had touched a nerve.
"No, no, not literally karma" I said fumbling desperately to save myself, "just more like, good gets done unto you when you give good out...right?"
I mentioned having similar experiences, but he was really pushing hard to the basket about mirroring the image of Christ through his trials and tribulations.
I said I though that was amazing and could appreciate where he was coming from, then mentioned that I had gone to not one, but two World Youth Days.
Clearly he was impressed and invited me to dinner with his reading group. I think my only way out now is to say that my family is actually Jewish on some level. I mean, I'm faithful, but what this karmic episode clearly proves is that I'm a little unorthodox. Whatever. The whole conversation was lost somewhat in translation and I really didn't know what I was getting myself into and agreeing to do until it was all said and done.

All and all, between hangovers, fighettoni (preppy kids) in my residence doing parading around in Gucci, centri sociali, encounters with professors where my McGill bullshitting skills where thoroughly put to the test and getting to the meat of planning (or lack there of in Italy), it's been a week full of introspection.

Today, after the hangover hellstorm that was yesterday, however, stuff took a turn for the better. I had an excellent birthday. I had lunch with the Favarò's who made a delicious home made tiramisù (what I judged to be the envy of Martha Stewart fans across North America). After, I went to the theatre to see A Midsummer Night's Dream presented by an Italian theatre company; it was part of a festival that has been running all week and was staged at the main theatre in Milan (The Piccolo). The best part is.... that it only cost 3 Euro.