Introductions

1.9.2025

I’m buzzing and I’m aching– in my stomach, heart, and head, but most of all in my feet. Last night, a classics major in the group of students I grabbed dinner with pointed out how the cobblestones under our feet are older than the United States. The only sneakers I brought are a pair of low profile, beaten-down Diesels I bought off Depop, which last about four hours before I can feel the mileage seeping into my knees. A slow burn that only reveals itself once I’m back in Candia, no longer distracted by the surplus of ancient stimulation. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be a Roman, donning soleae without the respite of public transportation (solea provided virtually no foot support, made of a thin layer of cow hide sole fastened to a strap). I count my blessings. 

I checked my phone this morning at 4:57AM. I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I tried to find a day-spa to celebrate my 21st birthday tomorrow. Several times I made it to checkout before I backed out, anxious that there was another option hidden somewhere else that would be more affordable, more scenic, more worth my time, better. I abandoned the task altogether out of frustration. Andrew Ward taught me that I am a maximizer to my core, which contributes to my type-A tendencies, and chronic dependence on Lexapro. 

It was only my third day in Rome. I had some orientation activities, it was 58 degrees and cloudy, and there were still first impressions to make. I chose all black: a Muji turtleneck and maxi skirt, which looks like an asymmetrical leather mini layered on top of a pleated, nylon maxi. I wore jeans under that in case I got cold, and my Diesels. 

I joined a short walking tour through my program, led by a local university student. I learned that fettuccini chicken alfredo is not the beloved Italian staple we all thought it was, after someone’s mom asked if it “was a thing here.” I got talking to some other cool students, and realized that I have something in common with everyone else in the entire world. Upon returning to campus, I learned that the student leader of my program was in a performance for the late Italian pop cultural icon, whose music I have developed a steady appetite for over the past few years, Raffaella Carra. I sat for a while and chatted with some alumni who work at the program. We stepped out for a smoke, and shared our love for coming from and living in big cities. 

I grabbed lunch at a nearby osteria, eager to write down everything that had happened over the past four hours. As I crossed the street, a man stepped in front of me and put his arm out as an invitation for me to grab. I ignored the intrusion and sat down at a table, after which the same man and his friends congregated a few feet away and watched me eat my food. I was annoyed at first, until I felt my heart begin to race and my hands begin to tingle, then go numb. My thoughts coagulated as I slipped into a mild panic attack. The waiter, either in an act of sympathy or flirtation, brought me a complimentary glass of limoncello.

I had 30 minutes before the last orientation meeting, so I sat at the cafe next to campus to make another attempt at narrative attribution. As I waited in line, feeling the limoncello course through my veins, I had an idea for a collective of artists and scientists, a sisterhood, to cultivate this intellectual symbiosis and contribute to each other projects. I ordered a jasmine tea. If I had ordered a coffee, I genuinely think I could have gone into cardiac arrest.

It was 3pm, and my last orientation activity of the day was for the internship course. I noticed the boy in front of me reading a book on the Art of Power. I asked to see it, and he said I could have it in two weeks, since it was from the library. We split up into groups depending on who our internship coordinator was. I shook her hand and introduced myself, mentioning that I had met with my boss this morning and was incredibly excited to begin working. The rightful borrower of the Art of Power reapproached me and presented the book. “Don’t you need two weeks?” I asked. “Nah, I got what I needed already.” 

I was finally free. I left for Monti to visit some vintage stores, with hopes that retail therapy would soothe my overactive mind (It always does). The sun was beginning to set, and it wasn’t twenty minutes before I had two bags of clothes on my arm. I took the B line from Cavour to Termini and switched to the A to Ottaviano, where I stopped at Flying Tiger to buy a glue stick for my journal. I scootered back the five short blocks to Candia, a guilty indulgence to save myself from the hike.

I’ve been writing this entry for the past two hours in bed. Soreness dissipated from my feet to my knees to my thighs, moving up my body, imprinting the steps I took into a walking memory. But I’m grateful for this type of pain. Gravity, married to the shape of cobblestone, forces your foot to submit to its curve. The less support in your shoe, the more painful, as you bend more intimately to the stone, the way higher degree taylor polynomials will approximate a complex function more accurately. You yield to the city, you yield to Rome. I should get a pair of soleae.