8-30-09: Carrboro

I have been sleeping on my friend Martin's couch in Carrboro for the last week and a half. Tomorrow I am flying around the world to Italy. I am very excited.

This blog will follow my exploits as I explore Italian cities, towns, and country roads. For the next ten months, while my friends are finishing their senior years of college education at UNC, I will be embarking on a science exchange program to Italy, a country full of history, art, art history, etc. I will buy a bicycle and a train ticket when I get there and use them in combination to venture into the countryside to see the vineyards and talk to the people.

I have been planning for this trip for a long time. All of my senior year of highschool I wanted to be a writer. I took humanities courses and learned about Western European Culture, British literature (before AND after 1600), and poetry. In general, my head head began to fill with clouds and dreams. After reading a lot of Hemingway, I developed this ideal world where I would live in a hotel in Italy. Every morning when I awoke there would be white curtains blowing in a breeze and a view of light brown rocks jutting out of the water in the distance. My day would consist of coffee, exercise, and writing, and at night I would go out on the town with other writers. Hence, after entering college, I decided to learn the language whose cadence, the rise and fall of each syllable, makes it sound like a song.

Since those days of my youth, I have changed course quite a bit. I came to Chapel Hill with a new belief that I could do more for the world as a scientist than a writer. I began to study problems related to the environment, which I feel are the most crucial to be addressed for my generation, and I began to move towards water quality and allocation issues because water is the most essential resource for the existence of mankind. For the last three years, I have worked for the UNC Geography Department studying streams and I have taken off each summer to participate in programs across the nation in Washington, Montana, and New York. Now, I hope to extend that experience internationally with my trip to Italy.

I have been preparing for this trip for a long time. One of the primary goals I have for my college education is to become bilingual by the time I graduate, and after taking four semesters of Italian at UNC, attending Italian Conversation club, and taking an Italian culture course, not to mention talking to people outside of academia, I feel I am ready for this next step. I am ready.

Months of preparation have gone into this decision. I have completed applications, looked for hours online at potential rooms and apartments, and attempted as yet in vain to unravel the intricacies of the Universita di Bologna website. However, after my experience in scientific research, which never goes as planned, I feel I am adequately prepared to face whatever challenges this new world will have to throw at me. I also plan to write. On the train or in a cafe, I plan to record what I have done so that there is a story behind the pictures I take. I will be taking two science courses (geology, marine science, or ecology) courses and two art/humanities courses (Greek mythology, early Renaissance art, you name it) each semester. On the weekends, I will take the train across the country and bike along roads surrounded by vineyards a rolling hills, but I also hope to meet with Italian scientists so that I can begin to get a sense of what is required to cooperate internationally in the field of water resources.

Basically, I have lots of plans. I have stayed up very late for the last three nights spending time with friends before I leave. I have spent the last month visiting my family across the East coast. I have spent the last year filling out applications, the last three years trying to decide what I want to do with my life, and I have been thinking about going on an adventure like this since I was born. I may not get another chance so I am doing it now.

I will miss many people. I will miss my parents Chris and Susan. I will miss the delicious food that comes from my mother's garden, the color of the light when it wakes me up in the guest bedroom of our little house, the sweat drenched hike up to Pinnacle Peak in Sylva. I will miss my best friend Alex, miss longboarding and making food and sharing symbolic beers. I will miss seeing him learn the guitar. I will miss having long talks with my friend Yorick at 3 cups on a lazy Saturday morning. I will miss seeing people go by on the Bolin Creek greenway while I'm doing dishes in my old house. I will miss my bicycle, Red Bean, which flies like the freakin wind whenever I want to go anywhere. I will miss my friend Martin, who has put up with me these last couple of weeks, taught me how to ride a motorcycle, and cooked amazing food on several occasions. I will miss doing field and office work for the UNC Geography department, playing in streams and doing my best to boost morale while students write up their theses. I already miss Seattle, I miss Montana, I miss Lexington Kentucky and I miss the rocky shores of Friday Harbor. I will miss helping to lead the Environmental Fraternity into the next generation, an organization full of awesome young students with a true desire to improve the world.

I will miss my grandfather who I drove to Atlanta to visit this month. He might not be around when I get back.

BUT, I will NOT miss all the art. I will not miss the wine and the cheese and the pasta. I will not miss the decadent structures of ages past or the soaring towers and cathedrals. I will not miss the hours spent in museums or the grueling rides to the top of hills to see the Italian countryside spread out before me like a green folded carpet. I will not miss long dinners with Italian students waving their arms desperately in an attempt to get questo americano to understand.

Some people think I am crazy taking my senior year off, but this might be my only chance. Who knows when something may come along and set the course for what I do the next five, ten, twenty years? I should have done this last year, but that is how things turn out. This is a great opportunity for me not only to see the beautiful cultural and historic relics and monuments that Italy is famous for but also to learn how to cross linguistic barrier, to learn to collaborate with foreign scientists, and to test my ability to adapt in an incredibly confusing situation.

So arrividerci everyone. I will attempt in the future to make postings to this blog in both English and Italian for the Italian club. For now, though, I am still on this couch, still in Carrboro, and still looking forward with some trepidation to what will happen after I get on the plane domani.