Week Thirteen

Right, this week I am going to stick to the Diet and really starve myself. Financially, I mean. The only trouble with starving yourself like this is that after a while you will be so starved (of joy) that you will totally go out and binge on something you should never have bought. Like Glamour and Cosmo, for example. Oh how I miss magazines!

Saturday 5th April

Wake up and potter about doing my Saturday menial tasks that I love so dearly. Midmorning, a thought enters my mind - had the forbidden twix met it's stomachy grave yet? And if not, I was fully intent on seeing to it that it did. I opened the fridge and what do ya know? It was gone! I woke Roommate immediately and demanded an explanation. In a sleepy Polish daze she told me she couldn't help herself - "I'm prone to Twix Attacks". "No!" I gasped, "Surely you cant be serious?" Lie down there now I told her, she needed her rest, lest she be struck down by another Twix Attack. She reassured me that it wouldnt happen again for a long time. They come at her thick and fast, but then she eats 7 Twixes and its gone for a few months. But little did I know what was lurking around the corner.....

Later that day she comes home with her Lidl bag. And pulls out a Snickers multipack. Needless to say I almost died of shock to see a Snickers in my house. And a BRAND NAME Snickers as well, not a let-on one. "Whats going on here Bajszcsak?" She looked up at me "Snickers Attack". And sure enough, three cups of tea later and they were all gone.

I head out to do my own shopping, which proves to be an extremely arduous task given that I am cutting out dairy for a while. For the past few months I've had a continuous pain in my ear like it is full of water, but when I went to the doctor he said there's nothing in there, just scars from when I used have ear infections as a little'un. So as dairy allegedly clogs you up will all mucus and basically turns you into a snot factory, I decided to knock it on the head for a bit and see what happens, as a sort of experiment. But not a fun one, like the ones on Mythbusters.

For those of you who dont know this, I LOVE dairy. Like, I LOVE it. Cheese shines a light onto my life, and Im not just talking about the light on my face when I open the fridge door, oh no. I LOVE dairy. I love yoghurts they are so amazing they make me feel good inside. Oh dairy, how can I live without your milky goodness? Head to Esselunga and buy a litre of soy milk for the rock bottom price of three euro. Eddie only let me off with it because it was for the good of my health. He's as good like that.

Head off down town to the library to watch America's Next Top Model. I mean, how can I really be expected to live without the internet, people? I have NEEDS!

Sunday 6th April

Wake up with the world's worst indigestion which is always a sign of the stress attack to come. Totally freaked out about my exam that I was due to do the following Tuesday. Didn't freak out enough to actually DO any study, because I thought lying on the bed succumbing to my palpitations would make all my problems go away. A tried and true technique of mine.

Midway through the day I decide I have a primal NEED for a can of coke. Unfortunately, on Sundays the world stops turning over here so all the shops are closed. I express my desires to Roommate and she seconds them wholeheartedly. What to do, what to do? Suddenly, a thought crossed my mind - wasn't there a coke vending machine on the street on Ugo Bassi? A mere 30 mins slog away? By jove - I'd got it! Get dressed Roommate, I said, we're gettin us some coke.

So we walked the half hour into Ugo Bassi, got two bottles of coke, and promptly turned back around and walked home, laughing the entire way about what a pair of total knobs we were. Later that evening I was just whingeing to Roommate about how crap it was that the internet was on the blink "in this day and age" and she said "you only think that because you're from the future", and then continued on to explain to me that every time I return to Ireland, Im actually returning to the future, or going "back to the future" if you will, and that here in Bologna it's actually many years behind my time. We got a good half an hour out of that one.

Monday 7th April

And lo! The day dawned and she arose from the leaba at 6.45am to go for a jog. "Whats this madness?" I hear you asking? Decided to even out my waist-to-love-handle ratio and so am embarking on a new regime to get myself back to mint condition. Shouldn't be too difficult. It doesn't take long to polish a diamond, like. Head to the local park behind the church under cover of the crack of dawn so noone has to witness the visual nightmare of me huffing and puffing my way around the basketball courts. Literally, I have to battle every step of the way. My oesophagus is ON FIRE, and afterwards, Im ashamed to say, copious amounts of phlegm were coughed up. (The result of years of dairy abuse?) It's all good though, and I head back to the house elated.

My day gets even saintlier as I do large amounts of study, but only because I have an exam tomorrow. The exam is on Dante's La Commedia. It's a one-hour oral exam in Italian. Whoop dee doo! I study my BRAINS out over Inferno and Purgatorio and by the evening time I'm so wrecked that I just don't even open Paradiso. I've read the entire work like twice, but I havent studied any of the Canto in Paradiso in detail, but tell myself I'll be fine. God, it's the Leaving Cert all over again. Which I still have anxiety dreams about, by the way.

Then engage in a spot of verbal sparring with Roommate, which goes the way it always does (Jenniky: Whatever, Lesbian. Roomate: Whatever, Fatty) She then says that I should write about our exploits and entitle my work "Two Idiots in a Small Space". Oh, Roommate. If only you knew.

Tuesday 8th April

Wake up, heart racing over the exam and quickly get ready and head in for the fusillade. Roll call is at 9am, after which people go in one by one for an hour each, making my time about 12ish. Everyone is sitting outside the lecturer's office seriously shitting it, but thankfully I have a little vial of something special for such an occasion. Calm and collected, I just randomly swot up on Canto 17 of Paradiso before I head in, praying it will go well for me, then give myself some powerful good vibes, like The Secret taught me.

He calls me in and I am seriously having a shitfreak. I mean there is only one image I can use to describe how up in a heap I was; and that image is a profusely sweaty arse crack. I sit down and promptly forget every single word of Italian I have ever known and actually have to mentally slap myself across the face before I can go any further. He then opens up the his little mini Commedia and hands it to me on Canto 2 of Inferno. "Great", I think to myself, "this can totally make up for when I havent a notion of the Paradiso canto he asks me later". So I go on about that for a bit, and then he asks me my DREAM QUESTION. I couldn't believe it. So I went on to describe the last voyage of Ulysses - without words, mind. Picture lots of "woahs" and "WHOOSH"es and "AAAAAAAARRRGH"s and his little delighted head on him sitting there thinking I was all passionate about his life's work when really I only like telling stories with sound effects. So that was Inferno and Purgatorio sorted.

Then he started flicking through Paradiso and I was like "how am I going to get through this?" And he was sitting there going "now this is a very important canto, vital to the theme of prophesy blah blah' and I was sitting there thinking "shit shit shit shit shit" and then he hands me the book. I couldnt believe it. Canto 17, that I had literally studied half an hour before. I swear to God, it was like the Lord came down and said "this ones goes out to my home slice j-dizzle". I went on and on about that, delighted out of my head, and he actually stopped me and was like "great, great. I can see you really understand the concept of the work blah blah." And I was just thinking oh my god please just pass me. and then he said "I would give you 30" (marks are all out of 30) and I was like YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS and then he said "but.." and I was like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, and then he went on to say that he would have given me 30 if my Italian was better, but he would give me 27 for now, but if I came back to the next exam in a month's time after improving my Italian a bit he would give me 30. Little did he know that I don't need the marks, I only need the the 18 out of 30 to pass so I was like "eh, yeah, about that..." and he got all excited and took his little diary out of his little man bag and started showing me dates and things but I was like "I cant do another exam, I have 2 next month" and his face just FELL. I felt TERRIBLE. But that didn't last for long as I skipped merrily out of the room, a really difficult exam done, and done well at that. G'wan Jenzer!

Head home and decide to treat myself to the slobbing about that I deserved and sat down and started reading a mag, but after a while I had to head to bed because I wasn't feeling well at all. Every single part of my poor little bod was hurting me. This must be the fourth time this has happened to me since I came here. It must be the stress just contributing to my COMPLETE LACK of an immune system. Fall asleep and have those terrible black and white sick-dreams about Tramore that you get when you have a fever.

Wednesday 9th April

Needless to say, no jog for me today. Stayed in bed all day drifting in and out of a fitful sleep. Mammy!

Thursday 10th April

Woke up and was under the false impression that I had my strength back and decided to get up. However, halfway through my shower I was like "this was clearly a big mistake". Head back to bed, where I was in that horrible place where you're too well to sleep all day, but you're too sick to get up, thus increasing your chances of dying a gruesome boredom-related death by 78%. I solved this problem by lurking around on the internet all day.

Friday 11th April

Woke up and knew that today was the day I could finally get out of bed. Had my appetite back and felt so much better. Treated myself to my dearly beloved menial tasks like putting lovely fabric conditioner-scented sheets on the bed, folding laundry etc. God, I LOVE domestic life. Forget the whole languages thing, my ultimate goal in life is to be a housewife. A hot housewife, obviously. Ah, I can see it now...... (cut to scene)Waking up in the morning in my gorgeous bed with large and hairy husband next to me (one green eye one blue, big sexy beard, forearms the size of thighs. Enjoys Sunday walks and kissing me at traffic lights) Send husband off to work after morning shagathon. Do a general scrub of house from top to bottom, luxuriate in the shower, then do myself up to the nines and head out to lunch with "the girls". Return home, bring dog for a walk, calling into both my mother and his mother (keep her sweet, like) bringing freshly baked goods, of course. As it's Friday in my dreamlife, I wont put on the fine dinner I usually do, cos Fridays are when myself and my hot bearded husband go out to dinner and then to the pictures. Instead I'll sit down in my Jenniky room (oh there'll be one) and read all the books I want, cos i've got the time, people. Iron a few of his giant shirts (a large man, is my dream husband) before doing myself up in wait of his return from work. He walks in the door, we have a smoochfest, probably a sneaky quickie then we'll do ourselves up and head out for our lovely Friday evening, and then return for another shagathon. Hopefully. With a bit of luck. Please?

Return to reality and myself and Roommate head to the pictures which is my favourite pastime in the world. Went to see what we thought was a comedy it turned out to be one of those comedies that has a moving part in it that you learn a life lesson from. Cue me in floods of tears, snot flying everywhere. I look sideways and Roommate's face resembles a wet blimp. When the credits come up, we leg it out under cover of darkness, to hide our swollen red heads. Walk home arm in arm with our hair covering our faces, frequenting the vending machine on Ugo Bassi on the way. Good times!

Another proud week for Eddie. I bought a ridiculously overpriced imported magazine AND went to the pictures, and I was still within the budget. But that was only because I couldn't eat anything for 4 days. On a different note, any large and hairy men looking for a wife? Any takers? No?