Slave of Duty

I've decided to begin facing this summer as if I am the average, bright-eyed bushy-tailed American college student out in big wide world for study and travel abroad. As an 11-day stay in Italy has just been tacked on to my summer itinerary, this should give Halfwhat some fodder, since, once again, my fellow bloggers appear to have been rendered incapable of posting because their fingers claimed by gangrene or some freak accident involving margarita glasses, piranhas, and a lot of silly string.

By nature, I'm perpetually bashful and afraid--I don't like to make a stir, I don't like to have public trouble, I hate to be late, and I don't like it when my answers don't fit in the squares or the choices provided on applications--and I can't quite decide which sort of foreign excursion would bring out the best in me: one in a country where I look like everyone else, can linguistically pretend to be a native as far as describing what I like to eat and where I'm going, and have family and friends scattered here and there; or one in a completely enchanting and novel place where I can't speak a word, look a tourist (four-fold, with my family at my side, and perhaps more on tours), and don't know what there is to eat or where I'm going. It's comfort versus curiosity, and I wonder which one I care more to satisfy.

In France, I believe I shared a tiny tale of watching five big Americans plop themselves down in a cafe near Notre Dame Cathedral and butcher the French language as the waiter replied to them in English. I know that the only thing that kept me going in Paris was being able to figure out the Metro system, reading the map, and having an elementary French vocabulary; at least "Pour aller au..." and the sense to say "s'il vous plait" and "merci" as often as possible. (Also, it probably also saved me to be able to say, "How much is all of this?" when I accidentally knocked over a basket of asparagus in a grocer's shop while I asked him how to get to the Funiculaire of Montmartre, which we didn't ride.)

I'm terrified of not knowing Italian, of being Taiwanese, and being in big groups of tourists. Apparently, trips in September are calmer than the overdrive months of June and July, but I know I still will be wrought with the guilt of being an intruder and an ear and eyesore. I guess I can comfort myself with the fact that I'll contribute to their economy both by buying things and probably by being robbed.

To pay some attention to the here and now, I have a test for which I am not prepared and an assignment to do which must be done now or never. It's rather ridiculous that even with only one class, I still seem to avoid devoting the proper amount of time to studying.