I do believe in faeries

This is the news that you have all been waiting for. We are coming home after only a year of living in Italy. First, I want to say that we are enjoying ourselves very much! Friends, travel, weather, the country...all great. We have met some really great people who I will be sad to leave. We haven't seen everything we would like to see yet. It is warm, but many days, not overly so. Naples is not the worst city on the planet, but there are certainly better ones in Italy and we have seen several.

But the thing that is just intolerable is the reason why we are here: the PhD program. We were lied to from the very beginning and nothing is as I was told it was going to be. I am not getting the stipend I was promised. I am not in the lab that I was promised. I am not even in the building that I toured, the Tower. Instead, I am in the building that has apparently been feuding with the Tower for years and the animosity shows. Getting paper towels is like searching for a kidney on the black market and I am not so good in dealing with lawful evil people, especially in a language I don't completely comprehend. But even in a different language, I know when someone is lying to me.

Other things that are wrong with the lab/building:
1. There is a hole in the wall that opens to the outside in the cell culture room.
2. The air conditioning in the cell culture room is TURNED OFF over the weekend. WTF??
3. Antibiotic resistant Mycoplasma.
4. Ancient autoclaves that I just don't trust.
5. Ancient equipment in general.
6. Open windows in the lab.
7. I ordered supplies in FEBRUARY that still have not arrived.
8. 2,000 Euros per month to spend on a lab with seven active workers, yet they still insist on doing
everything with kits which are very expensive.
9. Seven people in a lab that should really have four.
10. Nobody works the entire month of August. (okay, so maybe that is not a totally bad thing, but it
freaks me out)
11. Because of #10, the cell incubator is turned off for the entire month, so I couldn't do anything even
if I wanted to.
12. I am beyond frustrated that it takes months to get supplies.
13. The lack of any semblance of organization is more than overwhelming to my OCD nature.
14. Because of these conditions, I can't trust any of my data.

There is more, but this will suffice I think. The really sad thing for me is that every morning I wake up in a good mood and go into lab thinking, "Today will be the day that I get the hang of it. Today will be better," but inevitably something goes wrong and I come home sad. Further, I don't want to waste my time with a degree that I can't respect even a little. So, now the life plan has to change. My goal was to be a lecturer at the university level, but without a PhD, that is almost an impossibility, which is terribly frustrating. Just because I don't have a degree, doesn't mean that I don't know the material and conversely, just because someone else has a degree, doesn't mean that he is a good teacher. I know I am a good teacher. I have taught karate, aerobics, genetics, intro bio and cross dressers how to do their hair and make up and I have enjoyed every minute of it. But now I am whining, so I will stop.

When will we be home? Not certain as to the exact date, but it will be late December or early January. My student visa expires on January 18th, so that is the latest that we can leave. When we have exact dates, I'll post.

See you all soon!

Bastards.

So, Bart and I went on a little trip last week. First to Cali to visit my friends, then to Washington to see my mom, then back to Cali to see the friends we didn't see the first time. While we were up in Washington I got an email from the consulate saying that they were denying my visa application because I don't have an actual diploma yet and that they are sending me back all of my paperwork. I gave them two pieces of paper saying that I finished the Master's program and will be getting the diploma in May, but this was not good enough. The thing that REALLY sucks about the whole thing is that when I was there in person, I told her that I wouldn't have the actual diploma until May and asked what I could do as a replacement. I gave her the documents she asked for then she said that they weren't good enough!!!!!!!!

So, I sent an email to Prof. Vecchio at Naples telling him what has happened. He writes back that he is "literally astonished" with the behaviour of the people at the consulate. So he calls his boys at the embassy in DC and they contact me the next day. Today I spent almost three hours faxing the all five billion pages to the embassy. At some point during this three hour odessy, the very nice lady at the embassy calls to make sure that I include a copy of my passport in the fax, which is good because I hadn't thought to do that. During this conversation she comments that she is amazed by the amount of detail that I have provided to the consulate! No shit! Me too! But the thing is, I have only given them what they asked for!!! What is the deal? Did they ask more of me than they do other people?!?! Now I start to growl because I am beyond irritated with the people in Philly. Bart laughs at me, which only makes me growl more.

At some point during the faxing, I realize that the consulate hasn't sent back the FOUR copies (two English, two Italian) of my acceptance letter to the University of Naples, so I have to call them and ask for them back, but when I do call, the office is already closed. Damn time change.

Any way, it looks like I have to wait to hear back from the embassy, then fly out there to apply in person, but when I do, I should get my visa the VERY NEXT DAY!!!! Can you freaking believe it? Whatever. I think while we are there, we might try to take over control of the country. I don't think it will be too hard.