Rocca Fellows Evening

On Monday I went to the Rocca fellows get together. There were about a dozen people, mostly Rocca fellows, but also some Italian friends. About 8 people gave brief presentations on their research. At 15 or so minutes each, they were all relatively interesting, especially since the topics really varied, from medical imaging technology to learning compilers. I learned a few more of people's names. All the presentations were in English, so I only heard a little Italian...

In the mean time, I am looking at places to stay in Milan online, and sending out a zillion emails about it. The best website so far has been easystanza.it. Most of the other sites I've used including idealista.it haven't gotten any responses or very few. It's stressful to try to find a place with no recommendations and no way to check them out in person! Wish me luck!

Rocca Fellowship!

Good news, I got the Rocca Fellowship for the next couple of months. So I will be going to Italy! Now comes the hard part... Finding a place to live! I have been trying to find a room in one of the grad dorms just to start, but it sounds like everything is full... Nati suggested calling one of the housing representatives that she knows, which I did. She said she will look around for me, but that the one place she thinks might have an opening is probably too far to commute to the section of campus I want to go to. I looked it up on google maps, it said an hour and ten minutes of commute, including a fair amount of walking. Not that I mind walking, it's just that a train, a bus, and a good chunk of walking is a lot of different stuff to go wrong. Reality is that the commute could be an hour and a half. So... that's kind of sub-par, even if the rent is not bad and the university apartments are not bad.

Next, I looked for studio apartments monolocale and rooms stanze on idealista.it, the major newspaper of Milan's website. My office neighbor Andrea suggested it, and so far, it has had the most listings of any rental site I have looked at. I am learning so many new Italian words! Arredato furnished, affita for rent, piano floor, ascensore elevator. I've sent out emails through the listing site for about a dozen places. Hopefully people will be getting home from work and looking at their emails soon...

So, how about it? Does anyone here know some folks in Milan who are looking for a flat-mate soon? VERY soon?

And, do you think I should buy the plane tickets before I have a room arranged? I am not sure, since the only person I know well enough to impose on in Milan is Marcello, and I am sure it would be a big burden for his family to have me at their place...

Triumphant Return?

I am back from my trip to Florida... I ignored my Italian lessons entirely while I was gone. This week I should hear about the Rocca fellowship options. I'm getting excited. I'm trying to schedule a call with my Polimi host for tomorrow. We're both into Skype, it seems like the best way to do international calling if both parties have good internet. I don't have a headset, I think I will have to get one!

Rocca Fellows Lunch

The current Rocca fellows at MIT have get-togethers every week at lunch. It's pretty casual. I went to this week's on Tuesday. It was pretty cool. I met five of the current Rocca fellows, including one who is a good friend of Nati's. I remember several of their names, which is pretty good for me. I have to work on Italian names. Flavia and Giovanni are pretty normal Italian names, so I remember them. I got some impressions of Politecnico and the like, and we played some foosball. (Which I am told is actually popular in Italy!)

Rocca App In!

Yesterday I handed in the final part of my Rocca fellowship application, and chatted with the program administrator about timelines and visa issues. Actually, I am going to be in Italy for a short enough time before the holidays, I won't even need a visa. (US students staying for 90 days or less do not need a visa!) I will have to get a visa when I am back over the holidays, though. This is complicated... Well, at least I have my application in place now! I am trying to convey to my Italian colleagues that it's important that things are in place for my arrival, we gotta organize stuff with Politecnico!

Pimsleur Italian 1 Lesson 16-17: Just when Rosetta Stone was catching up, now we are doing more numbers in Pimsleur. Up to sessanta "sixty". More work on figuring out prices, how much to give someone, change, that sort of stuff.

Fellowship Application

I worked on my fellowship letter last week, and sent it to my future advisors in Milan... I want to submit it next week, since the fellowship program supervisor will be returning from her vacation then. What I need for my application package:

1. My letter of intent.
2. A letter of support from one of my hosts at Polimi.
3. A letter of support from one of my MIT advisors.
4. My resume.

4 is easy, I just finished up a first draft of 1. Gotta convince everyone else to write up their parts!