the sabbatical logs

​I am STILL waiting for Mr. Rizzo’s contact.  I am getting the impression I will not hear from him.  No worries.  I already have a lot of the info I need from the article and the sum of the stories I have already recorded. 
I emailed Alessandro Portelli in regards to my visit to Rome and setting a time to meet with him.  He responded, ‘d’accordo.  Ok, agreed.’  Not sure how to take his response.  I will email him again before departing.  I will be in Rome for about a week.  I had originally planned to be in Rome for an extensively longer stay but due to situations back home in Chicago, I had to shorten my entire stay in Italy.  Before embarking on this trip, I had my home under contract for its sale.  Two weeks before the closing, the buyer cancelled and I had to rearrange and change my time and stay in Italy.  I had planned to stay in Italy 4 to 6 months and had to shorten my stay to 3 months.  I was hoping to stay in Rome for about a month but due to an opportunity to visit France and interview my friend’s grandmother, I again rearranged and changed my time and stay.  I plan on doing the bulk of my project back home in Chicago and hope to finish it up in Italy, returning in the month of April.  We’ll see…day by day—I am learning that’s the only philosophy I can truly follow.  I can plan but with a day- by- day philosophy it becomes easier to accept change and be flexible when life happens.
 
I contacted Roberto, the owner of the B&B I will be staying in while in Rome.  I got confirmation for the dates.  I will be taking my aunt with me as well.  She has been living in Italy, specifically, Sicily for over 30 years and she has never seen Rome—I am excited to share this experience with her!
I also spoke with Marlene S who was going to be in Rome as well and we planned on meeting at the B&B. 
 
 
 
I also have started on creating a website for my project on Weebly.com
I am still working out the details in regards to how I will design and incorporate the project into the site.
 
I prepared for my trip—made a brief outline of possible questions in order to have a bit more focus when I interview Professor Portelli.  I sent him another quick email about my arrival in Rome and I got a response back.  Sandro, as he likes to be called has always responded in a very timely manner.  I respected that.  However, what worried me were his words:  ‘These are busy days…but I am sure we can find a moment.’  I was a bit confused as to why he hadn’t communicated this to me before.  He gave me his number.  I planned to use it! I was a bit confused, perturbed and surprisingly NOT at all shocked by his email response. My gut was telling me something was off about this encounter and dare I say it, this man.  I quickly wrote back and used direct words; direct words that I was not getting from Portelli—I’ll call you when I get to Rome on Tuesday October 13th…and I look forward to meeting you. Period.