OMG THE EURO IS DOWN TO $1.28!!!!!!!!
Seriously, everybody, party. Like, for realz.
mercoledì 22 ottobre 2008
sabato 18 ottobre 2008
What did you do tonight?
I got all gussied up and went to La Scala.
And saw Le Nozze di Figaro.
For 10 euros.
Oh, and did I mention I sat in the THIRD ROW?!
Yeah, yeah, I did.
So good. So happy right now.
And saw Le Nozze di Figaro.
For 10 euros.
Oh, and did I mention I sat in the THIRD ROW?!
Yeah, yeah, I did.
So good. So happy right now.
mercoledì 15 ottobre 2008
Hahaha!! Part 2
http://www.slate.com/id/2201342/pagenum/all/#page_start
So beautiful it made me cry.
I have a running list of things I need to blog about. I promise they will all happen.
Meanwhile, if you would like a postcard from some unspecified Italian location, send me your address.
So beautiful it made me cry.
I have a running list of things I need to blog about. I promise they will all happen.
Meanwhile, if you would like a postcard from some unspecified Italian location, send me your address.
giovedì 2 ottobre 2008
Wow. I'm a sucky blogger.
Hi all. Hi. Hi. If you're still here. Hi.
I'm so, so incredibly sorry that I've been incommunicato for so long. That was unacceptable and I apologize profusely.
Things I must cover:
1) Trip to Venice
2) Trip to Aosta
3) Life so far in Milan.
Since #3 is on my mind right now, I'll start with that and then tell you about Venice and Aosta.
I've become a lot more accustomed to life here, and I've come to think of it as home, but I'm still not entirely comfortable and settled. I don't feel like a local yet, and I don't know if I ever will. Part of it is I still don't know the city very well, despite being here for a month now. I don't really know what's out there, where to buy basic daily/school/work supplies that I need, etc. Which is entirely my fault, my shyness and my inability to just get myself out there and look around.
But I have begun to get used to the non-existence of skim milk, bringing your own bags to the super market, mopeds everywhere, everyone (I mean EVERYONE) smoking, people staring at me (because I look, like, SO incredibly American, I guess), Italian accents, the metro system, communicating with my broken Italian, and everything taking twenty more steps than it should.
Although, as for the accents, my art history professor is genuine American, and the moment I heard her speak, I realized that I have not heard an adult speak English without an accent for a month. Her un-accented voice was so refreshing.
To tell the absolute truth, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but living in an apartment here has made me realize just how much of a people person I am. To understand this next fact about me you have to understand something about Italian univerisities: there is no such thing here as a "campus." The buildings of Cattolica or any other higher education institution are not in one central place. There is one main building at Cattolica that houses the library, medical center, cafeteria and most classes, but there's no big green lawns, no quad, no flowering trees under which students sit and read, no red brick buildings, and most importantly, no recognizable hang-out spots.
This is a big deal for me. At Harvard, I had certain places to which I could go if I needed to be around people (read: all the time). I had 12 dining halls, 90 libraries and a band room to choose from. Here, I have none of the above, and thus, in short, I feel extremely isolated from everyone and everything when the only place I really know to go just sit and do work or nothing is my apartment. I really, truly need to be in a place with people in order to feel like I'm doing anything worthwhile, even if I'm not interacting with anyone. When I'm alone for too long, I honestly start to wonder what in the world I'm doing wrong, where everyone else is and why I'm not doing what they're doing. Honestly, they're all probably out grocery shopping, in class or doing homework, but my brain doesn't register this at the time.
I need to fix this, because it's driving me nuts. I need to find a new place around people to just sit and do nothing/homework. And no, a cafe will not work, because there are no electrical outlets there, nor do people use cafes to do work here. Cafes are for eating and socializing. So basically I need to find a library, or find out where other people go/what they do when not in class, and whether or not anyone else has this same feeling of restlessness that I do.
Moving on...
Classes only just started at the beginning of the week, so everything's sort of still chaotic and getting settled. I'm taking Italian and History of Opera. Those are basically my only two real classes, although I'm considering dropping Hisotry of Opera in favor of an art class about Leonardo Da Vinci that I'm currently auditing which is much more entertaining, and has more people in it who I like. Other than those two, I have my two private lessons (which I'll get to in a second), and the Music Performance Workshop, which is basically four hours of low-stress music fun every week. I'm also auditing a class on Italian methods of psychoanalysis which is SO interesting, and another course on Italian cinema, which already has me looking at cinema in general completely differently. The psych class already has me questioning whether or not Rorschach inkblot tests are all that useless. As for cinema, all the Italian films I've ever seen have been very artsy and depressing, but this class has me looking at movies like Ocean's 11, a film I've probably seen about a dozen times, with absolutely fresh new eyes. It's great, despite the fact that no one in the class with speak up! I've seriously been relugated back to the role I had in high school: The smart girl who answers all the teachers questions before anyone else gets a chance.
Music: Had my audition today for I Civici Cori di Milano, which went fine. They can't not take me, I'm an alto for crying out loud. Orchestra I'm a little more concerned about, but I haven't heard anything about those auditions yet.
Met my cello teacher yesterday. He is not what I was expecting. First of all, his English is about as good as my Italian, which leads both of us into admirable but foolhardy attempts to speak each other's language. Choice sentences include "Penso che posso make it on venerdì, ma a che ore?"
and
"What have you been heard about la posizione dei sui mani?"
That said (well, sort of), Silvio Righini is, second of all, probably one of the most eccentric(ly dressed) cello instructors I've ever had. When I met him, he had a half-smoked cigarette in his mouth, plastic Ray-Bans on his face, thining grey hair, and was wearing tight black jeans with black cowboy boots, a leather jacket, and a very low-cut red shirt reavling a chest that he probably shaves.
Voice lessons are going very well. We've had I think four so far and I can already tell that I'm improving, but they are definitely the most difficult and physically exhausting lessons I've ever had. Not only does she continue to do the chinching-me-around-the-waist-with-her-scarf, but two times ago, she actually had me lie down on the floor, and then proceeded to put her hand on my diaphram. "What on earth can this be?" I thought.
"Did you know your diaphram can lift and support up to 50 pounds of weight?"
Do I didn't and I don't think I want to trrryyyyaaaaargh!!!!
Yes, yes, she put her hand on my diaphram and proceeded to push down. It wasn't 50 pounds. It probably wasn't even 10 pounds, but still, her leaning above me and shouting "Push! Push back! Breath!" did add anything to my level of comfort.
Here's the amazing thing: It worked! I final-friggin-ly figured out what she was talking about and how exactly she wanted me to breath. In the US she would have been sued for abuse but it gosh-darn worked! No wonder no other voice teacher could ever get me to actually understand what they wanted me to do, because they weren't allowed to touch me! Hallelujah, I can finally sing!
I'm so, so incredibly sorry that I've been incommunicato for so long. That was unacceptable and I apologize profusely.
Things I must cover:
1) Trip to Venice
2) Trip to Aosta
3) Life so far in Milan.
Since #3 is on my mind right now, I'll start with that and then tell you about Venice and Aosta.
I've become a lot more accustomed to life here, and I've come to think of it as home, but I'm still not entirely comfortable and settled. I don't feel like a local yet, and I don't know if I ever will. Part of it is I still don't know the city very well, despite being here for a month now. I don't really know what's out there, where to buy basic daily/school/work supplies that I need, etc. Which is entirely my fault, my shyness and my inability to just get myself out there and look around.
But I have begun to get used to the non-existence of skim milk, bringing your own bags to the super market, mopeds everywhere, everyone (I mean EVERYONE) smoking, people staring at me (because I look, like, SO incredibly American, I guess), Italian accents, the metro system, communicating with my broken Italian, and everything taking twenty more steps than it should.
Although, as for the accents, my art history professor is genuine American, and the moment I heard her speak, I realized that I have not heard an adult speak English without an accent for a month. Her un-accented voice was so refreshing.
To tell the absolute truth, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but living in an apartment here has made me realize just how much of a people person I am. To understand this next fact about me you have to understand something about Italian univerisities: there is no such thing here as a "campus." The buildings of Cattolica or any other higher education institution are not in one central place. There is one main building at Cattolica that houses the library, medical center, cafeteria and most classes, but there's no big green lawns, no quad, no flowering trees under which students sit and read, no red brick buildings, and most importantly, no recognizable hang-out spots.
This is a big deal for me. At Harvard, I had certain places to which I could go if I needed to be around people (read: all the time). I had 12 dining halls, 90 libraries and a band room to choose from. Here, I have none of the above, and thus, in short, I feel extremely isolated from everyone and everything when the only place I really know to go just sit and do work or nothing is my apartment. I really, truly need to be in a place with people in order to feel like I'm doing anything worthwhile, even if I'm not interacting with anyone. When I'm alone for too long, I honestly start to wonder what in the world I'm doing wrong, where everyone else is and why I'm not doing what they're doing. Honestly, they're all probably out grocery shopping, in class or doing homework, but my brain doesn't register this at the time.
I need to fix this, because it's driving me nuts. I need to find a new place around people to just sit and do nothing/homework. And no, a cafe will not work, because there are no electrical outlets there, nor do people use cafes to do work here. Cafes are for eating and socializing. So basically I need to find a library, or find out where other people go/what they do when not in class, and whether or not anyone else has this same feeling of restlessness that I do.
Moving on...
Classes only just started at the beginning of the week, so everything's sort of still chaotic and getting settled. I'm taking Italian and History of Opera. Those are basically my only two real classes, although I'm considering dropping Hisotry of Opera in favor of an art class about Leonardo Da Vinci that I'm currently auditing which is much more entertaining, and has more people in it who I like. Other than those two, I have my two private lessons (which I'll get to in a second), and the Music Performance Workshop, which is basically four hours of low-stress music fun every week. I'm also auditing a class on Italian methods of psychoanalysis which is SO interesting, and another course on Italian cinema, which already has me looking at cinema in general completely differently. The psych class already has me questioning whether or not Rorschach inkblot tests are all that useless. As for cinema, all the Italian films I've ever seen have been very artsy and depressing, but this class has me looking at movies like Ocean's 11, a film I've probably seen about a dozen times, with absolutely fresh new eyes. It's great, despite the fact that no one in the class with speak up! I've seriously been relugated back to the role I had in high school: The smart girl who answers all the teachers questions before anyone else gets a chance.
Music: Had my audition today for I Civici Cori di Milano, which went fine. They can't not take me, I'm an alto for crying out loud. Orchestra I'm a little more concerned about, but I haven't heard anything about those auditions yet.
Met my cello teacher yesterday. He is not what I was expecting. First of all, his English is about as good as my Italian, which leads both of us into admirable but foolhardy attempts to speak each other's language. Choice sentences include "Penso che posso make it on venerdì, ma a che ore?"
and
"What have you been heard about la posizione dei sui mani?"
That said (well, sort of), Silvio Righini is, second of all, probably one of the most eccentric(ly dressed) cello instructors I've ever had. When I met him, he had a half-smoked cigarette in his mouth, plastic Ray-Bans on his face, thining grey hair, and was wearing tight black jeans with black cowboy boots, a leather jacket, and a very low-cut red shirt reavling a chest that he probably shaves.
Voice lessons are going very well. We've had I think four so far and I can already tell that I'm improving, but they are definitely the most difficult and physically exhausting lessons I've ever had. Not only does she continue to do the chinching-me-around-the-waist-with-her-scarf, but two times ago, she actually had me lie down on the floor, and then proceeded to put her hand on my diaphram. "What on earth can this be?" I thought.
"Did you know your diaphram can lift and support up to 50 pounds of weight?"
Do I didn't and I don't think I want to trrryyyyaaaaargh!!!!
Yes, yes, she put her hand on my diaphram and proceeded to push down. It wasn't 50 pounds. It probably wasn't even 10 pounds, but still, her leaning above me and shouting "Push! Push back! Breath!" did add anything to my level of comfort.
Here's the amazing thing: It worked! I final-friggin-ly figured out what she was talking about and how exactly she wanted me to breath. In the US she would have been sued for abuse but it gosh-darn worked! No wonder no other voice teacher could ever get me to actually understand what they wanted me to do, because they weren't allowed to touch me! Hallelujah, I can finally sing!
mercoledì 24 settembre 2008
Sorry sorry sorry I'm behind
Hi all,
Sorry x a million. I'm behind. I have one more Italian test to get through tomorrow and then there's lots of fun adventures in Venezia and Milan coming up.
Sorry x a million. I'm behind. I have one more Italian test to get through tomorrow and then there's lots of fun adventures in Venezia and Milan coming up.
lunedì 22 settembre 2008
!!!I HAVE A CELLO!!!
*happy dance happy dance happy dance happy dance*
c'mon, everybody sparkle with me!
*sparkle sparkle sparkle sparkle*
(with apologizes and thanks to Amanda for stealing her line)
c'mon, everybody sparkle with me!
*sparkle sparkle sparkle sparkle*
(with apologizes and thanks to Amanda for stealing her line)
venerdì 19 settembre 2008
Weekend
Off to Venice, city on the water. Literally, on. And sinking everyday.
What are you sinking about?
What are you sinking about?
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