2/18/09
Um, that past couple days have been great! I slept like a maniac on Monday night, and woke up feeling much better. It was the coldest it has been here yesterday! I have Renaissance Art Tuesday mornings, and yesterday was an “on location” day at the duomo here. This meant starting outside to look at the architecture. I was raining, so we were all having trouble writing notes and keeping our fingers from freezing, until it started to snow huge flakes, at which point Rocky (our professor) said, “Ok, this is ridiculous. Go get a coffee and meet back here in a ½ hour and we’ll go inside.” Which is exactly what we did. It was quite nice. It was still cold inside the duomo once we came back, but at least it wasn’t raining and we were able to sit down while we took our notes. I didn’t know the cathedral had so many architects! People kept dying off and getting fired, not to mention a little something called the Black Plague right in the middle of everything and the Opera procrastinating on building the dome. I always love going to that class. Besides (or maybe because of) the lovely voice in my ear, I learn a lot about the marvelous-ness that was the Renaissance. Plus, we usually get out of class a little early. Molto bene! Italian was also good, because we moved on from Passato Remoto, though the battle continues and so far I’m losing against the evil tense. We’re (re-)learning pronouns, which isn’t easy, but not nearly as hard as Passato Remoto. With the afternoon free, I went to the library to return some movies and, who would guess, but Sciusià was in! Honestly, it was quite possibly my lucky day. And I managed to have a whole conversation in Italian with the help desk person, though I’m sure she was humoring me. She did think my movie choice was “impressive” though. The only downside to my day was that I bought some juice, and when I got home I realized someone had already opened it and drank out of it. Yuck. So I had to go back and get a new juice. The conversation with the clerk consisted of me saying “someone already drank this juice” and him asking “was it yummy?” Eventually I communicated that it was not I that drank the juice, therefore I do not know if it was yummy, and it had been drank in the store. I got a new juice. Colleen, Emily and I headed across town to see Amalie Rothschild speak, and it was bbbbaaaalllllllllllleeerrr. She photographed at the Fillmore East from 1968-1971 when it closed. She met, hung out with, and photographed The Who, The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Tina Turner, Ray Charles, The Band, Jimmie Hendrix, John Lennon and mmoorreee. It was basically two hours of me being really excited. I must say one of my favorite parts was a film clip of Yoko singing terribly and somebody put a bag over her onstage. I laughed real hard. Her stories about the Grateful Dead trying to spike everything with acid entertained me as well. She took some incredible photos and I’m going to look into getting her book. After that I came home, chilled for a bit, then Keyana and I went to Red Garter (connected to House of Sizzle) for some good times. And good times we had. I don’t normally go out past, like, 11:00 on weekdays, but it was totally worth being exhausted today. I’d do it again. Eventually I made my way home and slept like a rock.
Morning came too soon, but I was surprisingly on time to class and able to participate. It was literature class, and it was mostly presentations, so all I really had to do was ask questions about Futurism, which isn’t too bad. We didn’t even talk about the reading, but we will next week. Then we watched a movie about two authors, but I couldn’t tell you the name if I wanted to. Hopefully we’ll finish it next week and I’ll know then. Half of Italian was spent talking about books, which made me happy. I’m always up for a discussion on Faulkner, Fitzgerald, or Foer, which I happen to be reading at the moment. Tonight looks like it may be a big night again, so I’m resting this afternoon. I’m going to dinner with some friends, then meeting up with my Italian class to go see a movie that’s entirely in Italian. Good idea? Not sure. I think it’s a distinct possibility that I’ll sit there staring in confusion for 90% of the film. Good learning experience, right?
Now my M.I.A. jam just came on.