Gay Paris!

Wait, did I really go to Paris?
Yes, yes I did. I hung out with/ran into no fewer than a dozen different Middkids plus some other friends of friends, and generally had a blast. The hostel was kinda dirty, but also friendly. The food was good, except for that wok place that made me sick (you don't want to know the details). Traveling was hell. We walked EVERYWHERE, and got to have fun on the metro systtem, but I feel like the vast part of my time was spent just enjoying the company of the people around me. The sights of Paris were almost secondary.
Okay, the Eiffel Tower was pretty sweet. We were there for four hours, it was damn cold, I didn't have a jacket and we did not get to have dinner until ten and it was awesome. It lights up! Sparkly! And you can totally stick your head out of the grating.
Also the Louvre was great, although I am disappointed that the tags on all the pieces are only in French. I mean, it's a huge cultural center of Europe (the world?) and I really would have appreciated being able to have those little tidbits of information. Nonetheless, some of it was decypherable, based on all the Romance languages being actually the same thing. Anyway, I got to wander it alone for a few hours (with the map written in Italian!) and ended the trip with the Mona Lisa (La Gioconda). Seeing that painting, and seeing that crowd... it just felt good. I smiled a little smile a lot. Che gioca giochi, Gioconda?

Mensa society

Thursday, February 8, 2007

I have been in Italy for a month. One month. Thirty-one days. Shit… I only have five more of these.

University classes begin on Monday. I need to figure out what exactly I want to take, which might be a little bit confusing. For the Italian major, I’m supposed to take a literature class, of which there is currently only one, which conflicts with the Etnomusicologia course that looked like it could be awfully interesting. There are two theatre courses that I might be able to take: Drammaturgia, and Comunicazione teatrale. The former conflicts with Storia della lingua italiana, which I’ve heard great things about.

Interruption of thoughts

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Back again on my computer. This time in the mensa – it’s basically a cafeteria for university students. I’m eating what appeared to possibly be but isn’t baked beans, and a plate of penne. Yesterday I went to General linguistics, and then Glottologia. General linguistics is an intro course with maybe fifty or so students in it. It was interesting, although I feel like I might already know a lot of the things that the course covers, the professor was great, and overall looks like a do-able class. Glottologia, on the other hand, was terrifying. There were four Italian girls and me and a slightly scary old professoressa. I didn’t always understand her, and I don’t think I totally understand what the course was all about. I also feel that it probably would be a big help to have a more solid relationship with Italian and Ferrarese, the local dialect, because it seems like they are what the material will be related to in class. So, I’m not taking that class.

Today, I went to Dramaturgy, which was also kinda scary. There were eight students in this class (me, six Italian girls, and a German girl) and it lasted three hours. Also, we were supposed to have seen a show that was performed last week. I hadn’t seen it since I had thought that it was this week. The professoressa spoke very quietly and had a cold, so I frequently couldn’t understand her, either because of what she was saying or how she was saying it. I might take this course.

After lunch, I’ll go to Filologia, which is required for the major, and seems to be a field I could be very interested in. It’s like historical linguistics, I think: looking at the development of a text through its various editions, publications, etc. Then that should be it for today. I’ve still got History of the Italian Language, and Theatrical Communication to look at tomorrow.

I’m starting to think that the Italian system isn’t as disorganized as they tell us it is. The Italian students certainly understand what’s going on and manage to stay well-informed. I will be blaming most to all of my confusion on the director of our program, Rosa Cuda, who seems to be actually causing most of the complications, whether in her error-filled hand-outs, her incapacity to explain things clearly or succinctly, and her unwillingness to put any effort into her job. Yeah, we don’t really like her.

You know who I do like? Italians! Especially the ones that Ellen is friends with. For the month of January, she lived with some Italians, one of whom is Manuel, who has stayed in contact with her after she moved to the apartment she’ll be staying in for the rest of the time. He, Luca and Marcello came to our apartment the other night with Ellen, Jen and Taber, and we had fun playing slightly violent card games. Spoons, anyone? Except we didn’t have enough clean spoons, so we used plastic forks and knives. So much bad idea. The Americans began to gorge ourselves on gelato and Nutella, but the Italians were kinda hesitant to join in, so we calmed ourselves a bit until they left. Then we brought out the sweets again and had at it. Adam bought a 3 kilogram jar of Nutella Friday, February 2. As of Sunday, it is empty. We’re beasts. Okay, yes, we’ve had large groups of company three times, but still. 3 kilos in nine days? My dentist would not be proud.

Anywho, Adam, Ellen and I also went with Manuel and another friend of his (whose name could be something like Gianpiero… or something… I didn’t really catch it, and couldn’t find an opportune moment to ask Manuel) to go ice skating! Wow, it’s been a long freaking time since I’ve done that. But it ended up being fun, and I only fell once, though I regrettably did not take the bambino who caused the accident down with me. I hope that I get to see more of those Italians, because they seem really nice, and might also actually like me! Score! I also might be able to befriend some of the girls in the Dramaturgy class, since they kept on looking at me. Kindly. Not in the ^wtf?^ way. We’ll see.

I think that’s it for major interesting updates. Classes do have me kinda flustered, but I’m sure I’ll be able to settle down into a schedule. I also need to see more of them, since I’ve only seen three so far, and was only really comfortable in the first. Hopefully some of the others will be different.

I’ll be going to Paris on Thursday, so hopefully I can talk about that in the next post!

Peace,