Field Trip coming up!

Another week will have to go by without updates... we are traveling as of 6:45 AM tomorrow (ahhh)
The schedule:
Day 1: Bologna
Day 2: Parma
Day 3: Mantova and Verona
Day 4: Verona and Vicenza
Day 5: Vicenza and Venezia (Venice)
Day 6: Venezia
Day 7: return to Roma

I just finished up with our most recent project and had the review. I have mixed feelings about this project- I feel mostly negative about it I guess because I was in a group with three procrastinators, which was bad. I did a lot of the work and it didn't turn out very well, and since so much of it was last minute it was high stress. I feel on the one hand like I did I very good job with my individual sheet and rowhouse design, but our overall group design and presentation was embarassing, and the group part was 50% of our grade, so I don't know how that will turn out. We'll be switching groups for the next project, and hopefully I'll get in a group that fits my style of working a bit better. The next project takes the rest of the semester, so it's pretty in depth- I think it's going to be exciting to be able to go in depth with the design and pace yourself to paint as well as you like. That's what happened with this last project- I paced myself so I had a lot of time to paint my sheet as well as I liked, but the group didn't leave enough time to paint the overall sheet well at all.

I've also been trying to pick up some italian- some of the people I meet on a regualar basis can see that I want to be able to speak some italian, so the guys at the panino store will speak to me in italian and try to help me understand- and if I get really confused they actually speak excellent english! The janitor in studio (his name's Pino) speaks no english, but he's realy nice, and he'll hold conversations with you, and try to help you out if you get confused. I got him to tell me how to say 'same' the other day by holding up two spoons and comparing them and saying the spanish word for same. It took a while, but he finally got it and told me the word was "iguale". There's also a chinese resturaunt up the street, where I learned that chopsticks are "pastancini". That's about the total of my italian knowledge lol, but I signed up for an italian class that will start after the field trip, so hopefully that'll bring me a bit further up to speed.

Totally unrelated to studio- I think I got into the Assisi retreat! They said they had a spot open and I replied and signed up. It's 20 euros for hotel, transportation, breakfast, and dinner for a weekend, which sounded great to me, and Mara will be there so that should be amazing! I'm so excited about that- it's November 11-13 and I'm ready to go now! OK, I have to get my laundry and get to sleep so I can wake up for the bus tomorrow. Ciao from Roma for now!