Forswear it, sight!

I've been wanting new glasses for ages. I'd had my frames since I was 18, when I wanted to look "more mature" (this seemed to mean "dull").

Calabria was full of women with olive skin and long hair and really, really cool glasses. I'm working on my tan, I've kept my scissors away from my head lately, and when I strolled into a glasses store in Reggio, I did something about the glasses issue.

I've got a new prescription now and my head's almost used to it. Jamie says (and she means this as a big compliment, trust me) that I look like a mad scientist. I feel really, really cool. People I know keep taking a few seconds to recognize me. It's the tan. It's the glasses. If only I had bought hair extensions while in Reggio!

ciaociaociaociao

I've said a fond farewell to Calabria. I had a great time. I have a tan. I am left with insatiable appetites for spicy salami, hard cheese, crusty breads, cheap wine, grappa. Not that I didn't have these appetites before. Visiting Calabria just confirmed that I am genetically predisposed to loving these things.

I also have plans to defect to Calabria and become a cleaning woman at a coastal hotel upon handing in my thesis on June 11. I may not have learned much about literature at Oxford (blame me, not the university) but I do know a thing or two about making beds. And sitting by the sea.

Back in Oxford now and it's difficult to get back into the swing of things (was I ever in it to begin with?). I bumped into an MStud classmate outside Hertford/the Bod yesterday and he gleefully told me about the manuscript he'd been reading in the Duke Humphries library while I desperately tried to change the subject. I suspect Trinity term is going to involve a lot of conversations like this. I suspect Trinity term is going to involve a lot of lying on grass and drinking Pimm's.

Lynne & Pierre arrive tomorreve. I can't study when my parents are in town... right?

ital

so i am/we are in Italy and it's beautiful and it's cold and it's hot and it's sunny and it's cloudy and it's poor and it's rich and it's built-up and run down, coastal and mountainous, gorgeous and ugly, quiet and busy... generally: wonderful.