"If you are lucky" should not appear on any message from tech support

Written Friday, March 9
I just cooked myself a delicious, balanced meal. I may have cooked too much, but I ate it all, and my stomach is quite content right now. Chicken nuggets under ziti in a tomato sauce with eggplant, peppers and zucchini. It was simple, yes, but I did it all myself and did it right. I've done good pasta before, but this is the first time that I neither burned nor undercooked the nuggets. And it all went together with a healthy sprinkling of parmegiano cheese. That's a good feeling. Maybe it just tasted so good because it was 8:30 in the evening and all that I had had to eat was two turkey sandwiches at noon. Maybe it was because today was speckled with little things that went wrong and this was something that went absolutely right. Nothing too major, really. Missing a call from my landlady (no big deal, it turned out, she was just calling to tell me that the guy she was going to show around the apartment on Sunday called and cancelled), not being able to figure out how to request a book from the library, the copisteria being closed early when I went to get some packets for a class, dropping some groceries, losing track of time and nearly forgetting to go to class, forgetting to turn off my cell phone in class and getting two (honestly barely audible) text messages, breaking the drying rack, not having the guts to start a conversation with an Italian before class started. Little things, but things that can really get you down. But truth be told, there's really a lot more positive than negative in my life here in Ferrara. The weather's getting much better, and I often go out without a jacket. Tomorrow I'm going with a bunch of other students in the Middlebury program in both Ferrara and Florence on a paid-for-by-Middlebury (minus lunch... whatever) trip to Siena, which is supposed to be gorgeous, though I know nearly nothing about it. After having issues with my computer, reinstalling the hard drive and continuing to have issues, I called Dell again and a guy from Dell Italy came to the apartment, gave me a new motherboard and memory, and I haven't had any real problems since. Seeing as the computer was basically given new life, I have decided to give it a new name. Henceforth, she shall be known as Agatha. She's still old, but hopefully she will indeed be "good". I like all of my classes and professors, and one of the (two) Italians in my music class started a conversation with me the other day, curious about things in America, like how the universities are different. Anyway, hopefully everything continues on this positive trend.