Catching up
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 8:54 pm
Well, well, where to start? ...So, I've finally gotten myself employed, after quite a while of non-employment after my hellish time at Wal-Mart. I don't know how well I'll like this new job, but it's bound to be a less grueling experience than hauling shopping carts around a parking lot. And a lot more rewarding. (Mmmm, money.) I don't start till November 8th, though... but it's just as well, I need to adjust my sleep schedule to something more reasonable for a day job.
The reason I don't start till then, though, is because I didn't want an upcoming trip to interfere with any new employment. My parents and my great-aunt are going to Italy later this month, to visit the village where my great-grandfather was born, and after a lot of persuasion from other family members and a lot of worrying over how much money I'd have to spend, I eventually decided to go. After all, it's quite possibly a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and I've never been out of the country before, so I went for it. I likely won't have Internet access while I'm away, but I intend to get many pictures taken and to keep some sort of account of what I see and do, so that I have stories to tell when I get back.
But it won't be all fun. An optional but desirable objective of the trip is to find out more about my great-grandfather's family... which, aside from a few names, we know nothing definite about, though we can guess. Since I'm the only one in the family to have taken college Italian classes, I have the unpleasant feeling that I will be the one called upon to try to pry information out of people... this, in a country where many old records are kept in parish churches, and where local priests are not considered particularly cooperative in looking through them. Ah well.
At any rate, none of this goes toward explaining where I've been lately, for which I have no real excuse. I have been trying to teach myself how to carve a decent-looking wand out of wood, though.
The reason I don't start till then, though, is because I didn't want an upcoming trip to interfere with any new employment. My parents and my great-aunt are going to Italy later this month, to visit the village where my great-grandfather was born, and after a lot of persuasion from other family members and a lot of worrying over how much money I'd have to spend, I eventually decided to go. After all, it's quite possibly a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and I've never been out of the country before, so I went for it. I likely won't have Internet access while I'm away, but I intend to get many pictures taken and to keep some sort of account of what I see and do, so that I have stories to tell when I get back.
But it won't be all fun. An optional but desirable objective of the trip is to find out more about my great-grandfather's family... which, aside from a few names, we know nothing definite about, though we can guess. Since I'm the only one in the family to have taken college Italian classes, I have the unpleasant feeling that I will be the one called upon to try to pry information out of people... this, in a country where many old records are kept in parish churches, and where local priests are not considered particularly cooperative in looking through them. Ah well.
At any rate, none of this goes toward explaining where I've been lately, for which I have no real excuse. I have been trying to teach myself how to carve a decent-looking wand out of wood, though.
