JYSim for jobless-yokel Sim

Taken 4 minutes before lesson lapse and the Christmas holidays begins. Names, as far as I can remember (Jun Yi is damn bad at names, please forgive his absolute stupidity, it won’t affect world peace anyway):

Standing, tallest - Beatrice (pronounced Be-ar)

Standing, second tallest, black hair - Paola.

Standing, second row, first from left - Julia Pasquale. Centre guy - Ales. Beside him - Irina (Romania).

Standing, first row, first from left - Roberta (J.K.Rowling-like girl). Girl in blue dress - Elisa. Half-sitting half-standing, centre girl - Anna (best English-speaking person in class, though she misunderstood a bookshop as a library and vice versa). Beside Jun Yi, dark-blue sweater - Marta.

Sitting, first from left - Francesca. second from left - Lucia.

Person(s) missing - Luca (performing rock and roll in school gym), and 2 other girls I just can figure out who.

Buon Natale 2005. JYSim.

p/s: This pic reminds me of Christmas. It’s actually my RM65.00 scarf, bought in Gurney.

In general…

1. Cool people come to school late, while geeks stumble into the school 40 minutes before lesson starts with their 7-tonne school bag.

2. Bartenders (regardless of men or women) and bus drivers (usually men) are good looking, while the check-out girl at the supermercati are ugly.

3. Most Italians are computer illiterate. The most they know is how to install and load a game.

4. They speak in such a high-pitched and loud voice you’ll think they’re quarelling over whom should inherit the family estates. However later you’ll see them bear-hugging each other and planning the next skiing trip.

5. They like small change compared to big notes. There’s a small-change machine in school and it’s never alone. Even if the vending machine is able to return the excess credit, they just won’t let it.

6. When the teacher enters the class, students will do either one the following:

Buried deep in their books which isn’t the subject the teacher is supposed to teach now

Standing beside the heater and chatting while chewing Mars bars in a very casual way

Untie their scarf, unfold it, flip, flop, fold it, and tie up again

Check if a new SMS has arrived, or trying to snap the scribblings on the blackboard with their camera-phone

Write spotted answers on their palms, arms or pieces of unorganised paper, later stuffing them into their jackets before being called for interrogations (oral tests)

Try to communicate with the boy from Malaysia through broken Eng-Italian, which is a new language involving no more than 1,000 vocabs in English and Italian and A LOT OF body gestures and sign language

Check if your glasses are stained, even if they aren’t, steal a piece of tissue from the neighbouring student and ‘pretend’ to clean it, so that you won’t be asked to clean the blackboard

Teach the new boy from Malaysia some really complicated Italian (i.e. Briòsh (it’s French actually), Mercoledi, tutto bene etc). And Goodness, he’s so lame and untalented in languages. I wonder how he says he can speak in English, Malay, and Chinese.

7. They show much more interest in Chinese than Latin. Elaboration: In Latin class today, Irina asked Jun Yi to write her her boyfriend’s name, her name, her grandfather’s name, her friend, Lucia’s name, the History teacher’s name etc etc. all in Chinese.

8. Jeans are much more prefered than slacks or long bermudas.

9. Nike, Fila, Addidas shoes (which are so small and compact you’ll wonder how they don’t feel cold when the temperature is -4C) is more prefered than Scholl or Camel (Jun Yi’s) expensive leather shoes.

10. 97% of cars on the road are hutchbacks, in which 70% of them uses diesel. Therefore, when a hutchback (usually Fiat, Audi, Skuoda (we don’t have that), Opel or Toyota) passes you, you jolly well hold your breath, or else the poisonous gases will suffocate you and stays in your breath for the next 6 hours.

Enclosed herewith some photoes taken during the orientation. You should be able to spot Jun Yi among the crowd. Even if you can’t, please tell a white lie and say you could, and say also Jun Yi is damn attractive. Or else no souvenirs for you.

3 centre figures being Italian AFS coordinators (well, that’s obvious isn’t it?)

Chaira - the so-called Sandra Bullock looking lady.

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quoting from a Chinese proverb: a shining red dot among the wholesome purple surroundings

KLIA: KLIA is damn hugely bulky and we nearly missed our flight. Walking from the main atrium to terminal C24 took about 15 minutes while the airport speaker keep retorting "Flight KL 0810 announcing final call. Passengers please proceed to Gate C24 for immediate boarding" and its counterparts in English and Mandrin (they have Mandarin announcers now). It’s a Boeing 747 (applause). Before that the air-stewardess in the check-in counter gave us much troubles. Having a group-fare ticket means toeing the line strictly. Eesh’s (you don’t know her anyway) luggage was 23 kg and she was forced to re-pack (limit: 20kg). However, mine was 27.7 and all the air hostess said was "it’s heavy" and quickly tied the airline baggage sticker and lumped it to the railings. Anyway, the aircraft was a little packed and stuffy. No personal TV screens but a small 14-inch on the aisle, one for every 3 rows (so the next time if you’re going to Amsterdam, i would suggest using MAS). Food serving was small, and just moderately appeasing. Jun Yi was quite tired and having ebing reminded of jet-lag he slept for 3/4 of his journey, while the plane fly across a large portion of India and the northern regions.

Airport Amsterdam Schipol: Having heard of how organised and comfortable the hub of Europe was, Jun Yi was disappointed to see how dull the colours selection turned out. It looked more like a hospital than an airport. However shopping facilities were widly avaliable, even at 6 in the morning. There’s a casino (we’ll never have that in M’sia), LCD departure/arrival screens and a lot of vending machines. Immigration officers have such a weird slang I actually answered "thanks" when they asked "where’s your final destination?". Sector Amsterdam/Roma takes 1 hr 50 mins, in which the new air hostess are quite friendly and the food are much more nicer. Boeing 737.

Aeroporti di Roma: The design is much more dashing than in Schipol, but Rome was showering that day. My luggage was soaked, and i hesitated whether or not to report to the lost and found counter. "It’s soaked Madame, and God knows the €3000 laptop inside is still working. You should take good care of it you foolish! See this ‘priority’ sticker? I’ll sue you if you don’t compensate me!" Anyway, AFS coordinators in Italy are just cute. I’ll save the orientation and much more 3-course lunch and 6-course dinner in the hotel. It’ll bored you to death by then.

Aeroporti di Torino: Alitalia have much more catching-up to do if they were to emerge as good as MAS or KLM. Anyway, the next day the sky was cloudless, and sitting beside the window i think i saw the whole Peninsular of Italy. Turin (Torino being the Italian name) Airport is cutely comparable to Penang Airport, except that it’s under renovation for the Paralympics 2006 and all you see are grey cement pillars and signboards in Italian with a lot of exclamation marks. Picked up by an AFS volunteer, who later become my coordinator. She didn’t spot how tired I am and drove round the city of Torino once (which took about 20 mins) before deciding to head for the highway for Cuneo (my host family’s town). As mentioned, snow is only fun when it’s pure white, and sadly much of it aren’t. Generalisation: Italians drive frantically fast, even on one-way streets when at any time there might be a car coming up from the opposite side. Anyway, if you’re crossing the street, you don’t have to ‘pandang kiri, kanan, kiri dan lintas’, just do it straightaway. Chances are they’ll stop for you (if you’re fortunate enough, though).

Anyway, i observe that this blog is too damn long, so i’ll just stop here. I pwomise i’ll shrink the next (if you care to read after all).

1. Find a job, that sounds lame, but that’s the only way you can shut your parents up while filling up your time with some useful activities.
2. Go shopping (’purchasing’ being the masculine term). When you find you don’t have enough money for some extremely-expensive things which you like a lot (i.e. a notebook, or a Royal Selangor goblet), keep staring at it, and ask ridiculous questions abt the item. ("How do you think of this item?", "how much is the cost, do you know?")
3. Go shopping (again, ‘purchasing’ being the masculine term). Tell the enthusiasted salesgirl "I’m not going to buy anything today, but can you show me the other colours for this scarf?" (Note: observe her facial expression while you say your script).
4. Hang out with your friends, and later being told about staying in the place for an extended time because someone is meeting you to buy you something (you won’t be that dumb to ignore the gift). Got a friend promise you to stay together with you and later walk with you to another twin complex. When the gift is being paid (the host’s paying), you receive an SMS telling you that the friend is not going to come with you because he finished his purchasing first and is going to drive to the twin complex. Moments later he SMS-ed u again telling you to go from 7th floor to Basement-2 to buy a sponge, which doesn’t seem to exist. You give up, fuming, walking up another 2 floors to go to G, and exit, walk another 750 metres to the twin complex. Entered, and realised that they didn’t tell you where they will be. Call them, and FINALLY catch a glimpse of them shooting virtual monsters, ignoring a friend who’s carrying 2 bags and a huge envelope.
5. Perhaps if you think of how your books served you for the past 2 years, you wouldn’t bear to burn them. So you sort them out and cram them all into boxes, seal the boxes, and name your decendants for your books. Before sending them off, you told your books to serve the next owner as good as they have served you. (No kissing goodbye, please)…

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