Especially if you go to America, the bureaucratic process is so long and complicated that it almost never ending. More than anything else, it makes you come across a great distress.
Ti seems that the days shorten, there are too many things to do and remember before leaving, too many paperwork to sign, agreements to take … it’s like when you go on vacation for a weekend and you feel strongly that you had forgotten something. And usually, when you arrive, you discover that it was a toothbrush. Here is elevated to the nth degree, and began to feel months before leaving. I really hope to forget just toothbrush this time.
The most irritating thing is … I do not know whether to call it ” incompetence “of the people, because it seems to me exaggerated and even a little ‘bad. But I can’t find most suitable terms. As you begin such an experience, you hope you can count on people for any questions or requests. But this is a mere utopia!
In my case, having won a scholarship through the university, the staff of reference is that of the ‘ Erasmus office . Mine is not an Erasmus course, but there’s a lady in the office that is in charge of scholarships ISEP (I leave you the link to the site)
This woman is really nice and friendly, could not fault it. In the first weeks of continuous coming, she saw me with any requests or concerns, and she never laughed in my face. For me, it’s already so much !
but if you can not bear the office, and have the need to write an email, hell broke loose! There is no hope that she answers! But not because she’s not in office or has more to work with; the next day, probably, you will receive an e-mail on another topic, those with multiple sending to all the winners of the scholarship, and yours will be completely ignored.
As long as I’m in Italy, to be precise at the moment I’m in Milan , at my house, nothing serious: in a few days I will return to Urbino and pass by the Erasmus office to talk to her directly. But I panic when I think that this woman will be my main point of contact for anything when I’m in America, every university issue on her computer, the validation of the claims, the questions I might have about the courses, until my doubts about timing of the thesis. And I can not wait to go home and do things quietly, I just can not, because I would just come back to graduate, to avoid the risk of going off course and pay taxes they do not need. For this reason, I can not afford mistakes. And I can not even put me to call her from California at 3 am to catch his working hours and to have an answer to my questions!
Contact personnel in America has not turned out so much more available. My ISEP Contact at the college where I will go, a man with an unpronounceable name that I hope to never having to say in front of someone (ps: I found out later that person was….a WOMAN!!! Imagine my face….!), was quick to respond to my email, but so synthetic as to be uninformative!
I had contacted him for clarification on the operation of the receivables; because in this college (and only in this apparently, because from what I can tell everyone in America, “is by itself”), each exam equals … 1 CREDIT! My exams are worth an average of 10 … so it is clear that there will be some problems of transposition ! Erasmus office was not able to give information, so I wrote a beautiful, exhausting, very complete email in English to this gentleman. His answer, after about 4 hours from my sending (I was in disbelief, in fact!) Was terse. Four lines (count, huh), against fifty I had written, which made no mention of how to convert the credits or what system they used for the assignment, and I would say only that ” you’ll have to get 30 Credits 4X1 to take exams . ”
Someone can translate? Not for the English, of course that is not a problem, but because it did not give me any answer, basically! If my exams are 10 credits, and 30 credits for 4 exams … I have to give an exam means that the American worth 7 credits… but what the hell does that mean?!? Method is that!?! How do I set?!?
If you’re wondering how I solved these doubts … well, I have not solved them. Here were and remain here.
Now there is the next step: make an appointment with the U.S. Embassy for an interview, so I can get my VISA . I still have not moved in this direction, because I was waiting for the modules and also, I confess, for a certain amount of anxiety. What I do know is that I have proposed a rather complex drawing . With calls from $ 15 in which falls the line, numbers on numbers to be typed before getting the right office, impossible dates for the event … and finally, to the interview, I will have to prove that ” I love my country and I do not want to run away and live in the United States . ”
But how am I supposed to do? I need to cry in front of the console and shout that I do not want to leave? I have to go dressed in green, white and red? Many many questions … no answer.
I‘ll find out just by living, I think. Meanwhile, it’s getting more and more real and more frightening …
I believe, however, that part of the spirit of this trip is also this: I, and it is very Italian, I have a tendency to procrastinate, to let others do , to bury my head in the sand waiting for someone to solve my problems for me …
The things that scare me I do not take for chest: I leave out, I say “I think tomorrow,” and many times they stay there Thus, waiting until just are not buried by other problems, and that’s it. This time you can not. This time I have to face problems with order, and not to leave anyone behind … and I can only do it myself. Growing up means many things, and it also means this.
leave you with a phrase that struck me right from dell’ISEP blog , in a post that collects the best quotes about the meaning of to gain experience abroad. I found it not only very real, but absolutely perfect to describe what it means and, I hope, will mean for me.
” Why do you go away?
So That You can come back.
So That You Can See the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors.
And the people there see you differently, too.
Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. “
– Terry Pratchett
