AG1 At It Again

Today was such a waste. At our last team meeting on Monday, Ashley suggested that we meet today at 10am to work on the presentation, so of course Rita and I arrived on time ready to go. Kathleen was the only one there when we arrived. Folks trickled in between 10 and noon, but no one was working together. At around 11, Ashley walks in and says to me and Rita "if you guys get a chance, can you take a look at the interview questions and narrow them down...blah, blah, blah"....I was completely tuned out. Anyone who walks in an hour late and then tries to give orders gets the deaf ear from me. It turned out some guy she has a connection with (who's supposedly "the most influential satirist in fashion" according to her...sorry, I'm not impressed) has agreed to do an interview with us. Ashley mentioned him at our first client meeting and they had no clue who he was but they gave us discretion to interview people we thought were relevant. She wanted us to take a look at the questions and see if we felt they should be tweaked for him. Now, this made absolutely no sense to me. I'm thinking, if he is her connection, clearly she is going to interview him, so wouldn't it make the most sense for her to tweak the questions, if anyone? We won't even mention the fact that none of us even know who this guy is except her. Or the fact that anyone who conducts an interview should know to make sure the questions they are asking are applicable to the person they are interviewing. The fact that she felt a need to even discuss it was amazing to me. I flat out told her to do it herself. Don't get me wrong, b/c Ashley is usually one of the most capable in the bunch. But today she had a moment.
When I asked if we were going to work as a group on the presentation, Ashley's response was "well I'm going downstairs so Marco can help me shorten my slides - if you guys decide to meet, let me know." Ummm, I thought that was the whole point of meeting today. I could have worked on my slides at home. I was annoyed, b/c last night when I was having a migraine, I got up explicitly to work on this project. Had I known I would spend the whole day today working on it at Bocconi, I would have gone back to sleep. So, I sat there and checked email, and looked for furniture, and did all the random things I do when I'm bored. At one point, I got up and left the building. I walked about two blocks to a cafe to buy some M&Ms peanut. They were so good!
At 2:30, we went to Italian class and since today was our second to last class, Susanna had us finish up Rita's family tree then she started teaching the past tense since Rita really wanted to learn that before our classes are over. Even though I really didn't feel like being there today, class was actually fun, and I realized that I'm going to miss Susanna. She's such a sweetheart. She told us that her birthday was on Monday and I wanted to get her a birthday card but I don't even know where to find one here (not that I would know enough Italian to pick a good one). If I had some construction paper and crayons, I could take it back to pre-school and make one :-) I also wanted to get a thank you card for Simone. Maybe tomorrow I will stop by the bookstore and see if they have any.
After class, we didn't even bother checking back with the group, we just left. We walked instead of taking the tram since Rita wanted to check out this store near the school. They had a skirt in the window that she's been admiring for a good week now so we stopped by. Apparently she didn't like it as much close up. They had some really cute clothes and accessories for very reasonable prices - I was surprised I had never noticed it before. Rita picked out a black and white bag that she wants which I didn't fight her about (practically her entire wardrobe is white and black so she told me not to let her buy anything else that is black and/or white - I let the bag slide since she didn't actually buy it). I was in the mood for crepes today (it's been several weeks since my last crepes episode and I'm a bit in withdrawal) - I figured it would brighten my mood since I was feeling a bit in the dumps earlier in the day. Today marked my third unsuccessful attempt to have a crepe filled with strawberries. I'm not sure what's going on. Rather than skip it altogether, I opted for a crepe filled with bananas, chocolate, and rice krispies (same as last time) which was yummy, but not as yummy as it would have been with strawberries.
I lounged in the apartment the rest of the day, and just relaxed and ate. I just finished watching "Be Cool" with John Travolta (I love him!) and Uma Thurman. The funny thing is, I saw this movie in the theaters and remember thinking it had no real plot. Watching it again tonight though was a whole new experience. That movie had me cracking up! It's really a funny movie. Andre Benjamin is hilarious. And Vince Vaughn? He had me laughing so hard, my sides were hurting. There's nothing like a good comedy. Anyway, I'm taking it down now. I have no clue what's going on tomorrow. We have no official meeting set up (you would think we would since our presentation is friday), so I'll send my revised slide out for the final presentation first thing in the morning. I wouldn't be surprised if they try to call a meeting at the last minute. So it goes. Four more days in Milan. Wow. I can hardly believe it. Ciao!