Dreams & Regrets of Italy

I was rummaging through a bunch of stuff in the house the other day, and I stumbled across a bunch of papers pertaining to a trip to Italy back in 2001. See, I was supposed to go to Italy with my choir, the Davis High Madrigals. Oh, man – we were going to sing for the pope at the Vatican, we were going to travel to Rome, Venice. The papers for the flight, the Kingway Tours criteria, including tags for my luggage, were in those envelopes. It just brought back the momentary bitterness I sometimes feel whenever the subject is brought up.

I mean, I was very fortunate, so, looking back, I really can’t dwell on it. After all, I did go to Prague, helping the Madrigals win the Choral competition there. Then, we went to Vienna, and lived the night life in Austria. That was a great time. Just seeing Europe, realizing I was there, actually there. At the time, it didn’t seem to be like such a big deal, but it really was.

That really was the experience of a lifetime – but, then again, so would have been singing for the Pope. And, it’s not like I can do it now – Pope John Paul II died in April. That choir got to sing for Pope John Paul II a few years before he died. And, I can’t imagine the things they did over there. It must have been so cool.

The reason I couldn’t go was because of some stupid immigration issues – I’m a resident, not a citizen, of this country. I need a number of visas in order to re-enter the country, should I ever leave. I’m a Filipino citizen, so, if I were to leave the U.S. without the proper visas, I’d be automatically shipped to the Philippines.

I blame the lawyers on that. They dropped the ball, in my opinion – my parents started the process in September, and they had ten months – TEN whole months – to get the visas processed. They couldn’t do it. I’m still a little bitter about that.

I probably wouldn’t have looked back on it with such regret if it wasn’t for the alternative I was forced to choose. Since I couldn’t go, I wasn’t going to waste my entire summer. So, I joined up with a music camp up in the mountains for a week. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the greatest experience – I was surrounded, mostly, by people I didn’t know, given the responsibility of counselor, and I was thrown into a situation I wasn’t entirely comfortable with. I won’t get into it, I’ll just say this – there were more bad moments than good, and I broke down at some points during the week.

But, hey, what can you do? I now look at that as a Nitschze experience – what didn’t kill me, made me stronger. How it did, I’m still not sure. But, hey, I like to look at the positives in the situation.