Wow, that week has been long, and hard. They warned me about the finals, so luckily I was prepared for it. And having guitar club almost every day.. American life was tiring! That Friday I could finally go back home and relax. The landscape was flowing fast lookin’ at it from the bus, and after all, Birmingham was a nice city, even though I have never felt really safe. Seeing riots and crimes under my eyes made me think: why did they sent me here? I could say I was unhappy on how the things were going at that time. I thought that finally I could have the occasion to prove myself, but it did not happen so far. But being busy time flies, so in not a long time I could be back. I was really hungry, as usual, since the guy from my English class kept taking my snacks during lunch. I will prepare a sandwich when I get back, I thought.

Oh yes, that is what I needed! Rain. I wished the bus stop was close to my house. But when I got back to the house I could not find my keys. That must have been the worst day in a while. So I came back to my trail and I found the keys, even though I had to do it under the rain risking to slide, fall and get hurt like almost six times, because I did not have an umbrella, I did not expected it to rain. Well, then everything looked fine. I had time for eating something, watching some TV, and listen to the new Ed Sheeran’s album, I listen to him from before he was famous like he is now. But after an hour and something even more unexpected happened. It was almost 8 pm, so outside it was already dark. I was in my room, and I heard some weird noises nearby the garage, and the doors. Also I thought I saw something moving, a shadow, probably. So I went to the living to make sure nobody or nothing was there. It was not raining anymore. But.. Something was hitting the door. Someone was trying to get into my house I turned my head in the direction of the door insecure on what to do. My heart stopped for one second. So I decided to hide behind the couch. As they could get inside, they yelled to make sure nobody was there, as it looked like from outside. My parents were still at work, so no cars were outside. I sent a message to my dad telling him to come back as soon as he could. I wanted to call the police, but I did not want to be heard by the thieves. They probably took whatever they found in our rooms, and quickly escaped. I was speechless. That day was just terrible. I called the police and they got at our house a little after my parents came back, frightened and worried like never before. The police started looking around into our house looking for evidence while we were outside talking with the commissary. Inside, one of the policeman went to my room. He saw what I was doing: I had the new Ed Sheeran’s album in my phone on Spotify, a video of me singing and playing a self made song, and my guitar on the desk. They did not stay too much, since they could find the information that they needed to help us have our stuff back: the thieves stole a bunch of money, some watches and some jewelry. In the following two days we were still shocked.

Sunday afternoon I was doing my homework for the week after, but I got interrupted. My dad got into my room, someone wanted to talk to me on the phone. It was the policeman, I thought he was going to ask more questions about what I remembered of the thieves. But he said on the phone: “Hey man, how are you doing? The other day I was investigating in your room and I could see what were you doing. Well, you have talent in music. A buddy of mine runs a local radio.. If you want I can talk with him”. Of course I said yes without even thinking about it. At the same I remembered that when I got back to my room, the video playing on the laptop was not the one that I was watching. So I realized that he watched it.

I did not know what to expect from it, but I was excited. So Wednesday the
policeman took me to the place. On our way he asked me who I was, so I told him my story: “I’m an Italian guy, here for an exchange year. I come from a poor family so I’m here because I have enough good grades to have a scholarship that could cover almost all the cost of this experience. The rest was paid by the church that I go to and I play in the orchestra in my town, Orgosolo, Sardinia. Music is my biggest passion.”

When we got there, I met all the workers for the radio. A guy said “who’s this
homeless?” when he first saw me, probably because I do not wear fancy clothes or something, you know. I just hope they do not get conditioned from the first impression. But the director looked excited to see me: “Let me see what you can do” So I played my two best songs, “Self Knowledge” and “Her”. I can tell they liked them. The director of the radio said: “this guy has potential.” He even invited me to go with him to Memphis with him for a pop music festival!

The next weekend we went there and it was truly amazing. I could also talk with
one of the local singers of the festival. He was coming to Alabama to visit family so he decided to stop in Birmingham to see us.

Arrived there, he proposed me to record and release my singles under his label. A dream come true.

Well, the things went fine, since now I’m talking from my studio while I’m ready to record my second pop album after selling thousands of copies with the first. And I still can’t believe how one of the worst days ever was also the one that changed my life.