October 5, 2011

October 5, 2011

This morning my Dante discussion group met at 9:00, before our class from 10:30-12:00. I am really enjoying the discussions, the further we get into Inferno, the more grotesque and controversial it gets. I am definitely looking forward to reading Paradiso and even Purgatorio after this. After class, I had lunch in the classroom and then met with Jodie at 12:30 to discuss the paper we are supposed to write for next Friday for her Medici class. As I am not an art history person, I needed a little guidance on how to go about picking a work of art and also the actual writing of an art history paper. Jodie was incredibly helpful and now I have my artwork picked out so now all I have to do is the research and write the paper! Easy, right? ;) Hopefully I will be able to get a lot of it done over the weekend so I won’t have to worry about it too much next week. My Weaving the Tale class met from 1:00-2:30 and I am loving The Decameron more and more. It really is a lot of fun to read and so interesting to discuss, as well.

At 2:30, my classes for the day but I stayed so Erin could sketch me. All of the students in the drawing class are required to keep a sketchbook outside of class and a lot of them like sketching people. I love doing it and, even more so, seeing the outcome so I have agreed to “model” for many people. I mean, the hardest part is sitting still and (for some people) not smiling. Erin worked on her sketch of me for a little less than an hour and it was absolutely incredible. I mean it looked JUST like me. I was completely in awe of what she said was just a rough sketch. I look forward to seeing what she can do when not just sketching. There really are some incredible artists in the program. After that I used the Internet for a little while, ran a couple errands and then caught the bus home. I DID get off a few stops early, however to get some gelato from Gelateria de’ Medici to celebrate the [hopefully] coming of the cooler weather in the next couple of days. Then I walked home from there.

Once home, I studied for my Italian quiz tomorrow and then, needing a break, I did some reading for pleasure. I don’t have any more homework for tomorrow and nothing that is due until at least Monday so I figured I was allowed to take a little bit of a break. We had dinner at 8:00, of course, and we started with a dish that was kind of mashed up bread with basil, tomatoes, cucumbers, olive oil and some other things. It was actually pretty good. For our main dish we had potato omelets, which were so yummy. Omelets are kind of becoming one of my comfort foods here—and to think, I didn’t even really like them before! We also had bread and cheese, as we often do, and we finished off with pears for dessert. I ate SO much food and I am quite satisfied now :)

As I said, I don’t have any more homework for tomorrow so I might continue my low-key night, do a little more reading for fun and then head to bed earlier. Tomorrow I don’t have class until Italian at 1:30 so I can sleep in, as well! However, I am hoping to go into school a little early and get a start on my research for my Medici paper. I guess we’ll just have to see how motivated I am in the morning :P I can’t believe that tomorrow is already the last day of class for the week; not having class on Fridays sure makes the weeks fly by. Oh, one random thing, strikes are the Italian pastime…there have been SO many bus strikes since we have been here, which is kind of frustrating. Anyway, if the postal service here wasn’t slow enough and unreliable enough, apparently they are going on strike now. I just wanted to warn you because, if you have sent mail or if you are planning on sending anything, it could possibly take quite a while for it to get here. Just a heads up :/ ANYWAY, I’d better get going but I hope all is well. It definitely is here :)

Buona Notte,

Kari