My Brief Stint as a University Lecturer

12/1 – The Speech / Seminar

I prepared for about twenty-five minutes on the day I was to speak, scrawling notes on a loose sheet of printer paper as I waited for the metro. It’s not that I was brashly over-confident; in fact, I was a bit nervous, and at the same time revelling in that giddiness of pre-performance anxiety, a feeling I haven’t felt since my last piano concert. No, the reason I prepared so little was that I had given this talk many a time before to passing cars, olive trees, and street signs. Pause with me a moment and envision that: I’m giggling as I write it, because it’s not literally true, but I bet you understand what I mean.

I had it all set out straight, a logical argument that bulldozed its way with inexorable clarity toward a dazzling horizon, a brand new way to approach tourism in Italy. It was sleek, modern, and unique, easy to apply and eco-friendly, honest and culturally sensitive. And when the time came for me to speak, not a single tourism student showed up. Lots of reasons surfaced later: transit strike, rainstorm, last day of class was the day before, they had just finished exams and were anxious to get home, etc.

And you know what? I was totally 100% fine with it, even when I still hadn’t heard all the excuses. Sitting alongside Nancy, we held an academic conversation with five of her literature students and my faithful friend Carlo, who had come to support me. As these things always go, I touched on some of my points but not all of them, and not in any logical order. The Minister of Tourism did not sneak in with a recording implement, sitting in the back row to catch my pearls without being noticed. Nancy and I chatted, I watched with extreme satisfaction as the students opened up, grew more engaged, laughed at my stupid jokes, and even ventured questions. And the best part, I think, is that I got it all recorded, over 80 minutes of 25-year-old Pat speaking in Italian, nearly choking with passion as I urged these students to look around, go hiking, catch a train to a new place, and be proud of where I live. I’m just barely past wetting the bed; let’s leave speeches with large audiences for when I grow up, and actually know something.

By miracle, Carlo still wanted to be my friend after hearing me rant, and even braved three hours of disgusting transportation strike traffic to help me find new shoes. We went 0 for 2, and I still had holes in my shoes as I walked through puddles to the Metro back to Nancy’s place. But that’s fodder for a different story.

While I was out shoe shopping, Nancy had whipped up a delicious Chinese food meal using leftover turkey (oh, the ingenuity), and I savored my last family meal of the trip. Then, as I packed for my train, David, Matt, and Nancy found lightweight calorie-heavy snacks to give me. I can’t tell you how moved I was when Matt, beaming like a child, presented me with a family-sized glass Jar (with a capital J) of Nutella. Of course, it weighed more than I did, so I had to turn it down, but I was moved by his spontaneous act of generosity all the same. Good man, that Matt. We dumped the Nutella into a Tupperware container, I said my goodbyes, and Matt drove me to the station. From there, I walked, then ran, to my 11:10 train, arriving breathless and fortunate at 11:09. Did I ever mention that I love walking because the only thing you have to catch is the sunset?

I laid out across three seats, called Nancy to say I had made it (surrogate mothers worry, you know), and slept five and a half hours before pulling into Lamezia, and by regional train, to Pizzo. And that’s the whirlwind Thankgiving-blog update-University talk Rome trip, in a Nutella shell.