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!