The dial on maximum, the cremation of some poor carbon-based entity was taking place. Rather than open the oven and fill the room with smoke in a vain attempt to rescue this dish, I left it so the smoke could subside. Apparently my roommates arriving home at 6 in the morning after a night's partying, had seasoned a salmon, placed it in the oven, turned the temperature all the way up, and promptly gone to sleep.

The black mess remained in the oven for a week until the landlord cleaned it up.

Before continuing, let us rewind to the moment I stepped into the kitchen. The first thing I noticed was not, in fact, the smoking oven.

Apparently Pietro had made good on his promise to fumigate the kitchen, for what I saw, scattered across the kitchen floor, were precisely six black cockroaches, belly-up and writhing. Black articulated little legs, twitching and struggling ineffectually against invisible neuro-toxins.

Two more had escaped the kitchen. One had made it to the hallway before succumbing to the poison, and the other, as far as the bathroom.

I suppose the heat had flushed them out. Who knows how many more remain decaying in the dark recesses between our appliances.

That day, "I would like to find a new apartment." I told my agency.

Partly as an experiment, and partly through indignation, I left the cockroaches in place, stepping carefully to avoid them when making use of the room. The numerous cockroaches would be a clear indication to my roommates that our lifestyle was beyond squalor; that it was time to reform. Perhaps Pietro would stop by and reach a similar conclusion.

Nothing.

It was as though the roaches were not there. It was as though it was simply common to live and eat with a carpet of dead insects. They kicked them, stepped on them and entirely ignored them. They even brought girls to the apartment with the dead squashed creatures still scattered across the floor.

Eventually I swept up the dead cockroaches.

As I had said to my agency, "I would like to find a new apartment." The next day I was put in touch with another of the models who showed me the place he was staying. He actually was sent to viale Umbria 64 upon his original arrival in Milan. Impressed that I had lasted almost a whole month in the apartment, he was able to bare only one night before escaping to a hotel.

To my surprise, when I arrived at the new apartment, I found my friend Vasco there. I also knew his roommate Noah, and the prospect of moving into a really nice place with my friends obviously lifted my spirits.

Another model from my agency in Calgary had just moved to Milan on the weekend and it looked like there was space at his nearby apartment too.

Already with two options, the guy showing me the apartment put me in touch with another girl who potentially had a room for rent. So I phoned her.

After investigating this third option myself, it was this third option I chose. The apartment is near a school in a residential area, surrounded by green space. The owner would be away in Paris until the end of June, so I would have the whole place to myself. Peace, cleanliness, and privacy. The antipode of my Brazilian slum. At the same price.

Already with my outlook changed to positive, I went to the infamous "kissing" casting. I was also scheduled for another casting that evening.

When I arrived at Studio Lipari for the second casting where this time, the same as last time, and the same as every other time, a million models are waiting to be told "thank-you".

At the end of the queue for studio 2 was a girl I knew. Not well enough to greet her by name, for in our single previous encounter, I never asked. But well enough to start chatting.

In our single previous encounter, she was leaving Studio Lipari as I was arriving. She had asked me for directions on how to get to the station by bus and I willingly obliged.

This time, the long queue gave us plenty of time to converse.

Leaving the casting together, we discovered (with no contrivance on my part) that we were going in the same direction. She had one final casting at seven PM to which I agreed to accompany her. Being seven already, there was no reasonable chance of making it on time. By half past, she was ready to concede temporal defeat and skip it. I convinced her she had nothing to lose by trying. The casting we just finished ran late and there was a good chance that other models would also be late.

We arrived at the hotel where the casting was held and found the casting taking place in the lobby. It was a mixed casting! I was expecting only girls, but the handful of remaining models were mostly guys. All had books from (the agency) Why Not.

Every day you get a list of casting appointments. Some are given with a single time, and others are given with a beginning and end between which you are supposed to arrive at your discretion. Often models from the same agency have the same castings, but will occasionally differ for callbacks or special requests. The schedules for models from different agencies can coincide or can be completely different. Models sometimes go to other models' castings.

I was considering attending this casting, but the absence of male models outside of Why Not would make me painfully conspicuous as a charlatan. I was also late.

As I waited for my friend, a couple of American girls arrived from the last casting. When they asked if I was next I explained that I was still deciding whether or not to try for it. With true American brazen, they talked me into crashing the casting.

The panel of fashion looking people must have known I was not supposed to be there, but they did not look surprised or question me on it. The casting went smoothly and, as I got up to leave, one of them stopped me to make sure I had left a composite. I had, but it is still a much more positive sign than the situation where you have to remind them to take one.

The next day when I stopped by the agency to pick up new comp cards, an exciting, unexpected message awaited me. I got a job!

As I punched the air in elation, Frederica tried to tame my enthusiasm with the addition that it was only a small job, but to no avail. It was my first job and no matter what the size, it was to me the most important job in the world.

I picked up the printout from the printer with the job details. Out of all the details, one was most striking: the location. It was the hotel where, the night before, I had crashed the casting!

Though the rest of the details were somewhat a mystery to me at the time; the magazine being unknown to me and with the single ominous instruction "da solo", come alone, I have since done the job. It was for an eight page editorial in the Dutch women's fashion magazine Avantgarde. The photographer, Allard Honigh, and the rest of the team were fun to work with and the clothing fabulous (if occasionally tight in the pants).

You will, perhaps, not have the opportunity of seeing this magazine on the stands of your native country (lest that country be The Netherlands), so I will post the pictures here when available.

Thanks, everyone, for the wonderful support when things were down. The luck you have been wishing me is working and things are now decidedly better.