Next year

"See you on August 2nd!" says the voice at the other end of the phone, all sing-song-y for all that it belongs to the Dean of Admissions.

"Yes, great!" I manage to enunciate weakly. Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit, now what? The calendar in my head flips rapidly through the weeks between now and August 2nd. There are not many: five weeks teaching here, and then August 2nd is only two weeks after that. My brain recommences with the repetitive chanting of expletives as I picture myself landing in America, driving down to Philedelphia - wait, no, first stopping at home to dig all of my old college furniture out of the basement - donning a white coat and a stethescope and being marched on stage to be proclaimed an MS1. (1st year medical student, in student-speak).

I've been planning my escape (in the form of a deferral request) in a sort of abstract way for weeks - discussing medically-related opportunities with my boss and things like that. But suddenly it's all very real and very relevant and not at all abstract. I wander downstairs, absently photocopy something (which later turns out to have been from the wrong book) and set about chopping up something else on a papercutter.

"You okay?" says one of my awesome coworkers.

"Yeah." I narrowly miss chopping off the end of my pinky finger with the paper cutter. "I got into med school, though."

We celebrate with pizza and birra (in moderation, though, ragazzi) and gelato, which is fun, but doesn't change the fact that August 2nd does not loom in the distance or anything poetic like that. It looms right over my shoulder.

Anyway, slightly less than a week later, I've finally got my act together and have sent in a two page email explaining my reasons for wanting a deferral, and am lying on bed during a rare afternoon break, attempting to read a book, but really watching my inbox out of the corner of my eye, waiting for it to refresh. And refresh again.

It does, eventually. "We can defer your acceptance..."

I smile. I walk to work under the sun, not minding the heat or the trickle of sweat down my back that usually really irritates me. I smile at Conad, at the industrial yuck that is the area where our school is. I smile at the evil painters who are currently painting our school (more on that later). I smile at my student, who probably wonders what's wrong with me.

Now it's "notte rosa", which apparently means that people are entitled to play music in Piazza Prampolini until all hours (surely they'll stop at midnight, though? on a Wednesday?), but even that doesn't make me grumpy, because I have another whole year here. Yay!

(Yeesh, so maudlin. Grow a pair, Self.)