Everyone knows how much I whine, but moving house is really something worth whining about. If it wasn't a painful process already, my family, as usual, has complicated things even further.
The problem is simple enough: we (my mum and I) are moving across the street to a new flat, but my father has to move to another country for reasons regarding his job. Well, my dad actually already moved two months ago. Thus, our current household has been split up into three parts - one part that went with my dad, another part that has gone to the new flat, and the third part, which is currently in this house has but has to eventually move with us to the new flat. Also, our new apartment is quite small, so most of the stuff has actually ended up going with my father, including but not limited to MY BOOKS.
If this was not complicated enough already, this division of stuff has taken place in three different time frames. The stuff that had to go with my father went about two months ago. The things that had to go to the new flat went two weeks ago, which leaves my mum and me currently living in an almost empty household until the end of this month.
My bedroom has no study table, but a bright lamp; my living room has a table, but no lamp. My mother keeps telling me how my grandfather used to study under candle light for his exams when he was my age, and that I should try doing the same. We don't even have a fridge in this house, which has led to my mother keeping milk and other things outside on the window edge. I don't know what everyone in our apartment block thinks about us, but as my mum cleverly pointed out, we are leaving the apartment by January, so we don't have to face these people again.
Why are we not living in the new flat and why have the movers already shifted our stuff to the new apartment when we are not actually living there yet, you might ask. This is because even though Italy pretends to be an OECD nation, it is secretly worse than a number of developing countries. The company that does the transfer does not have enough people working in December, so they had to move our stuff in the last week of November. However, we can't move into the new flat because the people who are supposed to fit the sink, the bath tub and kitchen appliances are unable to do so until the last week of December.
My stuff is sprawled around three houses and two continents, and I have no idea where anything is anymore. I sent more than 90% of my books and DVDs with my dad, yet I find myself with two huge cartons filled with books and another two filled with university textbooks with absolutely no space to keep them anywhere. My mother is understandably livid. I keep finding things that I had tucked away years ago randomly turning up, and am unable to find things that I was using less than a week ago. I never even realized that I owned so many things, and I haven't even started sorting out my clothes yet.
In other news, I have an important presentation and an exam on the SAME day next week. Additionally, I also have exams all through January and partly through February; you know those life changing, final year, end of semester university exams that your future depends on? Yes, those kind! I also have to give the GRE in March, and have a lot more things in between that I'm avoiding thinking about right now.
My mum and dad are behaving like lovesick teenagers, and it has stopped being cute after the first week. I wake up to my mum talking to my dad, and go to bed while listening to my mum talking to my dad. They have such scintillating discussions on topics ranging from the freshness of fruit sold in supermarkets in the respective nations of their abode to curtain measurements for the new flat. Its so domestic, and would have been adorable if I didn't have to live with it all the time and listen to how country X has fresher and more variety of apples than country Y.
Its snowing today, and this has cheered me up! Milan is such an odd city. We haven't got any snow for the last four years, and then suddenly it snows twice in less than a month. Of course, its not real snow; its more of a sludgy, makes-you-slip-while-walking kind of snow, but I'm not complaining. Plus, I'm at home right now drinking tea and listening to Christmas music on my itunes, that I have way too much of on my hard drive. Its hard to be grumpy when you have Frosty, the Snowman playing loudly in the background.
If this was not complicated enough already, this division of stuff has taken place in three different time frames. The stuff that had to go with my father went about two months ago. The things that had to go to the new flat went two weeks ago, which leaves my mum and me currently living in an almost empty household until the end of this month.
My bedroom has no study table, but a bright lamp; my living room has a table, but no lamp. My mother keeps telling me how my grandfather used to study under candle light for his exams when he was my age, and that I should try doing the same. We don't even have a fridge in this house, which has led to my mother keeping milk and other things outside on the window edge. I don't know what everyone in our apartment block thinks about us, but as my mum cleverly pointed out, we are leaving the apartment by January, so we don't have to face these people again.
Why are we not living in the new flat and why have the movers already shifted our stuff to the new apartment when we are not actually living there yet, you might ask. This is because even though Italy pretends to be an OECD nation, it is secretly worse than a number of developing countries. The company that does the transfer does not have enough people working in December, so they had to move our stuff in the last week of November. However, we can't move into the new flat because the people who are supposed to fit the sink, the bath tub and kitchen appliances are unable to do so until the last week of December.
My stuff is sprawled around three houses and two continents, and I have no idea where anything is anymore. I sent more than 90% of my books and DVDs with my dad, yet I find myself with two huge cartons filled with books and another two filled with university textbooks with absolutely no space to keep them anywhere. My mother is understandably livid. I keep finding things that I had tucked away years ago randomly turning up, and am unable to find things that I was using less than a week ago. I never even realized that I owned so many things, and I haven't even started sorting out my clothes yet.
In other news, I have an important presentation and an exam on the SAME day next week. Additionally, I also have exams all through January and partly through February; you know those life changing, final year, end of semester university exams that your future depends on? Yes, those kind! I also have to give the GRE in March, and have a lot more things in between that I'm avoiding thinking about right now.
My mum and dad are behaving like lovesick teenagers, and it has stopped being cute after the first week. I wake up to my mum talking to my dad, and go to bed while listening to my mum talking to my dad. They have such scintillating discussions on topics ranging from the freshness of fruit sold in supermarkets in the respective nations of their abode to curtain measurements for the new flat. Its so domestic, and would have been adorable if I didn't have to live with it all the time and listen to how country X has fresher and more variety of apples than country Y.
Its snowing today, and this has cheered me up! Milan is such an odd city. We haven't got any snow for the last four years, and then suddenly it snows twice in less than a month. Of course, its not real snow; its more of a sludgy, makes-you-slip-while-walking kind of snow, but I'm not complaining. Plus, I'm at home right now drinking tea and listening to Christmas music on my itunes, that I have way too much of on my hard drive. Its hard to be grumpy when you have Frosty, the Snowman playing loudly in the background.
2 comments:
Your BOOKS are with your dad? Oh my goodness. Personally, I would be lost if I didn't see my books all over the place, even if I'm not reading them. They're MINE and I WANT them!
And I think you should treat all this moving around as an . . . adventure . . . even if you have to study by candlelight like Abe Lincoln.
My mum and dad are behaving like lovesick teenagers, and it has stopped being cute after the first week.
This is the Pan humor I'm used to—it's good to have you back.
Now you've made me miss my books :( I kept all the ones that I hadn't read here with me (hence the two cartons), but its not the same.
Lately I've been trying to study in the kitchen, so I haven't resorted to candles yet, but I think I just might have to start!
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