it's been a while

I've been doing a lot of everything...sleeping like it's my job, playing soccer and frisbee, and of course working on the studio project. We finally finished the first part and that's collected and graded, so now we're moving on to designing the plans, sections, and fronts of the building. I think I'm going to go skiing this weekend, so I guess I'd better get moving on that too. I haven't done a whole lot, but I have worked on a new and hopefully improved resume (although that's not finished, darn it) and taken pictures of projects and *even* edited them on photoshop! Wow, that's a lot for mwe. I think I'll be setting up a new website to post the photos nicely so I can show the link to the site on my resume, and hopefully I'll post a link on my blog too so you can check out what I'm actually doing in school! I also got some reservations made for spring break. It's definite that my dad is coming from the 12th-20th; then I'm going to head out and meet Yacintha in Lourdes for 2 days before taking the train from Lourdes to Angers to meet up with Elise. I'll spend a couple of days there and then we're going to travel to probably Germany or Switzerland, or both for the weekend of Feb. 25-27, and then I have a flight to Dublin and I'm going to go around Ireland with a couple of other arkies until March 5th, when we fly back to Rome. Phew. I'm actually going far fewer places then a lot of people- but there is no way I could plan to go see any more places than what I have already. It's only just starting to fall into place now for me! Well I think that's about all I have to say; I'm helping to cook a dinner at the North American College tonight (it's a seminary, and the seminarians come over once a week to have a faith formation, and we had a faith formation dinner for them once, so they're returning the favor, but I think we're still cooking, so it's mostly just the favor of using their apparently very nice kitchen) so I'd better beat street. Ciao chicas!

Bronchitis

So I just looked up the symptoms of bronchitis, since my cold isn't really going away, and it's suspiciously like last year when I had the cold that lasted forever and it turned out to be bronchitis. According to emedicinehealth.com, I have several of the symptoms. From my wonderful internet sources, I believe that the stage of acute bronchitis has past and I am now in a stage where I have "a dry nagging cough that lingers for several weeks." Great. I don't know if I should see an italian doctor or not, apparently most cases clear up naturally, but since my last case dragged on forever I don't know about this one. Grrr.

ouch

This past weekend was amazing- it was all sports (yes, I know this is a very Claire-ish post), but I'm feeling the effects of it today! On Friday we had arkie soccer for 2 hours which was a ton of fun as always, and I scored my first goal! Some other people showed up too, I think there were a couple of students from Romania or someplace like that who study at the university in Rome, and another italian named Emiliano who also plays frisbee. He was also on the Italian national junior team or something like that, but he got hurt, so he's really good but doesn't compete anymore. He was on my team for soccer though, and he kept saying "you have to score!" So he kept trying to pass the ball to me if I was open, and finally in the last game I did get a goal! Woohoo!
Saturday the arkies had "sports extravaganza" day, so almost all of us went up to Villa Borghese and played football with a couple of marines from the US Embassy. I scored 2 touchdowns, because for the first several minutes I just ran the same route over and over, so eventually the girl who was defending me just jumped that route and kept jumping it for the rest fo the game, leaving me wide open whenever I ran something different. So I pretty much was open on every other play after the first 10. We then tossed around a frisbee, kicked around a soccer ball, and lost horribly to the boys in kickball. I scratched my leg up pretty badly sliding into second in kickball, but luckily we had a first aid kit in studio so I got some antibiotic ointment and it's doing fine, just ugly.
Sunday was ultimate frisbee day. A couple of other people had also come with me on friday and saturday, and we were all hurting, but we didn't want to miss out. We ran and ran and ran up and down that field because a lot of people showed up. Today I was pretty much immobile, although better than I thought I would be. I just can't be in one position for long or I get really stiff. It was a lot of fun to get out and run around that much though, and it made me feel pretty darn in shape-although I've done a great job of compensating by eating a lot of nutella!

musings and mind wanderings

I'm getting- or have gotten, I guess- sick. It started with a sore throat and went pretty quickly to a deep cough and a manly voice which is very attractive...(just kidding). I am taking medicine and vitamins though so hopefully it will leave soon. As long as I get enough sleep it's not that bad except when I wake up. I miss benadryl! Considering some of my classes though, it's probably not a good idea to have benadryl anyway.

Classes: I've been seeing a lot of updates on people's classes, so I guess I'll give a rundown.
Monday- I have the morning off, but the afternoon from 1:30 (or 13:30 as they say here) till 6 pm is studio. Studio is studio, it's a ton of work. We did a project already, just working on taking measurements and showing how to put dimensions for details and stuff like that, but unfortunately I tried to put a background color on my sheet that came out as a bright orange. I managed to salvage the project, but the professor still got in a comment "um Claire, I think maybe your background is a bit too orange... I don't know what happened." Yeah. I've heard the professor is the hardest too, and I think he probably is. He's pretty demanding, but I don't think he's unreasonable, just sometimes unrealistic about what can be done in the time allotted. I think he will be a harsh grader, but on the other hand he really wants you to learn and he'll stay late and stuff to answer all of your questions and offer advice to make the project the best possible. So, a lot of work, but I think it'll be ok.

Tuesday- In the morning I have Urbanism. The teacher is Ettore (that's the italian version of Hector, but I can't pronounce it), and he's really cool. In fact he came with us when we went to watch the Roma soccer game (more on that later). I think this semester should be pretty neat because we are studying social housing, so basically how to build spaces that encourage commmunity, give people what they need, and can be built quickly and cheaply yet look nice. I think I'll probably be a very relevant class, so I'm excited. No afternoon class!

Wednesday- Again only a morning class, this time Architecture History. I think basically we're doing Baroque, which is really cool. We basically spend 3 hours walking all over the city, and I think our teacher, which rather spacy, really knows her stuff. She basically wants us to learn characteristics of things so we can look at something and give an approximate date, which I think is way better than memorizing buildings. Yesterday we saw the statue of St. Theresa in ecstasy, which is fantastic-probably one of my favorite things thus far. Sorry this computer won't let me link, but check out
http://www.boglewood.com/cornaro/xteresa.html
to see it and read a little bit.

Thursday- my longest day. I have watercolor class in the morning so I can learn how to make and send you all cards...actually right now we're starting with still lifes and moving outdoors later when it's warmer. I also have my studio teacher for this class, and then again for studio later in the day. So it's pretty much from 9-6 with the same teacher. I hope I don't get sick of him, but he does seem to know his stuff so I don't know how much I can complain.

Friday- I'm OFF!

OK, so the soccer game. It was very cool, a bit scary, mostly exciting. We were in the section next to the Milan fans, and they had plexiglass barriers and carabinieri (policemen) in riot gear lining along that. People still threw bottles and fireworks above that though, and the police didn't seem to care! It was ridiculous. So we dodged some of those and learned some bad italian curse words too. It was an exciting night!

And the last bit of randomness... on a more serious note. I was thinking a bit more about Tara the other night, and someone totally unknowingly said "the attitude is gratitude". Which is true, and I had heard that same thing on the retreat in Assisi. Really, I what I had in knowing her for a few years was a gift that I just don't have now, but it's not like I had a right to keep Tara around or anything. So I guess my final note is that I'm going to have to work on being thankful for what I have now, because there's no guarantee that any gift I have will last, or that I deserve to have it last.

And that's it. I can't be that serious for too long, I'll leave you with a picture of my studio group on the Gianicolo hill with Roma in the background. Ciao!

Hehe

You scored as Art. You should be an Art major! How bohemian! Mathematics 83% Psychology 83% Art 83% Dance 75% Engineering 75% Philosophy 67% Theater 58% Biology 58% Anthropology 58% Journalism 50% Chemistry 50% Sociology 50% Linguistics 42% English 33% What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3) created with QuizFarm.com

An art major? What an idea! I thought it was funny that I got the same thing as Claire, from whom I stole the quiz, but that my tiebreak was with math and psychology. If you knew me in high school, you probably heard me complain about psychology every day...I hated that class. At least I didn't get that as my major. Art is very acceptable.

Pictures!

I just painted these pictures the other day, and I liked both of them so I thought I would share them. The first one isn't that great in a picture, and it's not my best painted either, but in person the colors are more vibrant. It's a postcard size, and I'm sending it out to my grandmother. In case you couldn't tell, it's St. Peter's from across the Tiber, so if my painting is really that bad just pretend you recognize the scene from the picture!
This second picture is the card I painted to send to Tara's family. I figured it was pretty appropriate to make one since I was in art class with her, and I really liked the rose. I'm really proud of how that one turned out. The whole time I was working on it I kept thinking it wasn't going to turn out, but it finally did and it's one of my favorite things I've done so far, especially in watercolor. I really don't want to send it out, actually!

Friday the 13th

Yesterday was probably the most exciting day yet here. I spent the morning going to our site for the next project, which is on the Janiculum hill (Gianicolo in Italian)... we walked around and looked at the embassies along the neighborhood, but the best part was at noon when we walked by the US Embassy to the Vatican, which happens to be above the area where they fire cannons at noon to mark the hour! That one cannon was LOUD. Honestly, if I were in the Civil War or something, and there were hundreds of cannon firing at me, I would be running so fast in the other direction. No way would I still be charging.

After that, most of the excitement occurred that night, when around midnight Biz (one of the arkies, we're actually pretty good friends) announced that she had just dropped architecture and was leaving the next morning at 10! So we had 10 hours to say good by and let her pack before she left to fly back to ND and begin classes on Monday or Tuesday. Before those 10 hours elapsed, we found an arkie who had had too much to drink in the bathroom with a cut on his head and blood everywhere. He had no idea that anything was wrong, but I go to go into lifeguard mode! I actually didn't do a whole lot, just got the first aid kit and handed gloves and gauze etc to Katie, who was actually doing the work, but I did recognize symptoms of shock and communicate a little bit with the Italian ambulance drivers. So I think that was my lifeguard work for the year; hopefully I won't have to use those skills again! He's back now though and he's fine...hopefully a little wiser!

haha

A man and his wife were sitting in the living room and he said
to her,
"Just so you know, I never want to live in a vegetative state,
dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever
happens, just pull the plug."

His wife got up, unplugged the TV and threw out all of his beer.


I got quite a laugh out of this one- definitely the funniest thing I gathered from my time on the internet today. CNN's headline is "Hajj stampede kills hundreds" (I would link if this computer had that on the toolbar...). Islam, and I guess religion in general, keeps amazing me with how it motivates people to do things that seem so completely irrational. The same thing could be said about Christianity in the Middle Ages too, I suppose, but somehow now with the war in Iraq, Iran possibly building nuclear arms and threatening Israel, the focus is all on Islam. Stampedes and suicide bombs and 9/11 just show the fanaticism that seems so prevalent in that area- and it's just scary.

My other scary piece of news for the day came from Turkey, where they now have 18 cases of bird flu, and where some arkies are traveling for spring break. I know a couple have had second thoughts about it now, and I wish they wouldn't go. I think this is probably a case where losing your money might be the wiser move. I guess the risk of getting bird flu from Turkey is relatively minimal, especially since I wouldn't anticipate the arkies traveling to more rural areas, but if you get it the recovery percentage isn't particularly high... the risk/reward ratio is a little too high for me. I can't really do anything about it though, so I guess I'll just have to hope for the best. I always thought of Turkey as so far away, but looking at a map the other day I realized it's pretty close, just an ocean or sea or something away.

I also realized that my concept of Europe is seriously flawed. IF you handed me a map, I could find all the major bigger countries, and probably deduce some of the others, but if you asked me to draw a map of Europe from what I imagine in my head it would come out totally different. England and Ireland never seemed so far north- and when did Germany get that big? Geography is definitely not my strong suit!

uggh

I think all the latest news is colliding and slamming me in the face. Between coming back to Italy and being a foreigner again, being around people 24/7, hearing about Tara, and starting school, I feel depressed. I want to go to sleep for as long as I want... and not be in Rome, or school...

I guess I have confidence that I'll be ok in the end, but right now I just don't want to deal with everything.

Uncreative moment

You know the funny thing about school? Nothing else could possibly make me as tired. I got about the same amount of sleep the past 2 nights, but the day when I had class all I wanted was to go back to sleep. I restrained myself though... and I even paid up to go see a Roma soccer game. It'll be freezing I expect. We planned it so that we'll be sitting in the section of Rome fans that are closest to the Milan fans, so that we'll be closest to the police that separate the two groups. This is so we are hopefully in the least crazy section because the fans for both teams routinely go nuts I've heard.
In school news, we got another project. We have to basically take exact measurements of something ( I chose a staircase) and redraw it PRECISELY. Not that hard, except that it's due in a week. So far though the hardest part was trying to remember what to measure. I think I forgot one already, and we've only had the project for a day!

Tara Howard

Yesterday I found out that one of my friends from high school died in a car crash. I don't really know what to say... I'm a little down because she was such a great person. We were in the same art class for several years and we sat around and joked, because that was the best part about art class- you could talk during class and have fun as long as you worked as well. We both enjoyed it, especially Portfolio class with Lanciotti. I remember Tara's love for art, and her talent for it.

What I really remember about Tara though, and what I would like most for others to remember, is her caring. The particular episodes that come to mind were during my junior and senior years. Junior year, one of the English teachers lost her daughters in a tornado at University of Maryland, College Park, and Tara would stop by her room after school most days for the next two years and help the teacher clean up after the day and get ready for the next day of classes. She would come in at the end of the year to help put things away and at the beginning of the year to help set up as well. I don't think she ever said why she was really there, but they both knew.

I don't think there's a better memory, for Tara, or for anyone.

I'm back!

I flew out yesterday around 1:30 and now I'm here. Not a whole lot of sleep, and I'm definitely not ready for classes tomorrow. I unpacked one suitcase but I still have to unpack the other one I left in studio over the break. I'm so not ready for a new semester of classes. I did meet an Italian couple on the plane who were like grandparent age and I talked to them a bit-they live in Sicily and they gave me their number and address and said that I could come with a friend a stay in Sicily for a little bit. I might take them up on it. Free place to stay in Sicily sounds pretty good, but I don't know about when to do it or how to get there, so I'll have to work that out I suppose. I think that's all I have to say now before I unpack and crash for the night...I'm starting to recover my remnants of Italian, so ciao to all!