Yet Another Short, Apologetic Update

So I thought I was doing well with updating on Italy, etc., but then the full force of summer hit me--and not the "fun" summer force. This one was more a combination of obligatory seasonal mood downswing, boyfriend moving away to BFE, silly but essential paper due the first day of school (ridiculous and frustrating, by the way. Worst thing I ever churned out) all glued together with the overwhelming, stifling heat of a particularly nasty Louisiana summer. It has all the charm of living in an overenthusiastic armpit.

Anyway, these things have significantly dampened my drive to... well, do anything. But now that school's back in session (yay?) I'll hopefully have the drive and (pray god) the free time to actually get stuff done. Me-stuff, like this blog, as well as icky school papers.

This ramp of excuses is, of course, leading up to yet another promise: will update soon, and yes, with pictures.

Retrospective Italy Update, Part II

Went on several more excursions, especially while we were based in Bologna. Some of the more notable ones (i.e. the ones from which I have pictures) are these:

Ravenna. A smaller town, with a weird hodgepodge of really, really old stuff and ugly industrial stuff. Was seat of the Western Roman Empire for a

while, no big deal. Lots of super old churches like this one: San Francesco, built 4th c. renovated 10th c. Where Dante had his funeral and was buried.

Speaking of which, saw his tomb as well. There was something moving about it; I was standing in the presence of Dante's final resting place, just as I was reading his (albeit hypothetical) account of the afterlife. It would have been a really great experience, if there hadn't been a line of 50 people behind me, all waiting to also have their solemn bonding moment with Dante's remains. All the same, a worthwhile pilgrimage.

Ravenna is also famous for its mosaics, especially these in San Vitale. They are pretty damn intricate and appropriately Byzantine, considering they were commissioned under the rule of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. Poor Ravenna's been reconquered about as many times as Poland, but these and others like them in the city have luckily stayed in pretty good shape, encouraging tourists from all over the world to take frustratingly blurry pictures of tiny patterned tiles.

Then: Florence!

View of Florence and the Duomo from its belltower

The Fountain of Neptune in front of the Palazzo Vecchip

View from the Ponte Vecchio

Love locks along the Ponte Vecchio

Duomo and the Baptistry

Facade of S. Maria del Fiore (aka the Duomo)

Florence was, of course, beyond beautiful--and incredibly exhausting. I didn't stay long enough to get museum fatigue this time (in fact, I didn't even get to see all the museums I wanted to go to!) but the sheer amount of bumbling tourists, street vendors, and other assorted annoying people made me want to lock myself in the hotel room and watch the Fairly Odd-Parents in Italian (apparently the show is much-beloved over there; it came on three different channels every night). And I didn't even run into the cast of Jersey Shore (though quite a few of my classmates did, the lucky dogs). When I return to Italy, it will definitely be in the winter--less heat, less tourists.

Finally, went to Siena to visit my friend Jade

Siena is a beautiful (and incredibly steep) little hill town with tasty food and a crazy annual medieval horse race in the main piazza. Unfortunately, I missed the Palio by just a few days, and I only got to spend an afternoon in the city. Ah, well, something for me to hit up on my next trip!

Up next: Rome

Retrospective Italy Update, Part I

So, it turns out I have been studying in Italy for five weeks! Unlike some people, I am not capable of keeping an up-to-date travel blog, so let me just do a quick overview:

It was beyond awesome!

(But next time I return to Italy, I will do so in the winter)

Maybe more details later, but my schedule is incredibly chock-full of being lazy for the next two months or so, so we'll see. In the meantime, some pictures:

Here's Bologna, the first town we stayed in (and my favorite by far). It's pretty awesome-- a university town, but it's university is the oldest in the world. So it's full of hip ragazzi (young people) but also assorted neat old stuff. And the best part of it is that it's in Italy, so you can pretty much walk to everything. And if not, there is legitimate (mostly) functioning public transport.

Here's some of that neat old stuff:

Ridiculously detailed Madonna mosaic

Former Merchant's Guild, now home to Bologna Chamber of Commerce

Statue of Neptune in the Piazza del Nettuno

Some delicious products produced in the nearby Emilia-Romagna region. Our first week we visited a Parmesan cheese factory (they actually call the real stuff parmigiano-reggiano, but who has time for that when there is cheese to be eaten?) and a balsamic vinegar place. There was many a delicious sample consumed.

Also: Wine is pretty popular in Italy. Each region kind of does its own thing, but everybody has a local wine. This one is made by the balsamic vinegar place in Parma-- a frizzy white, quite refreshing! The typical hang-out thing (especially when we were in Bologna) is to grab a bottle of wine and socialize on the steps of some historic building. It's a really nice way to pass an evening, actually. Oh, did I mention that wine is also incredibly cheap there?

Went to Venice our first weekend:

Honestly, didn't expect to like this city... but I did. Everything, including and especially the architecture, is ridiculously decadent. Our obligatory gondola ride just before sunset was pleasant and charming, despite a distinct lack of singing from our gondolier, and the dinner we ate at a restaurant over the Grand Canal was lovely. Don't think I could live there (it's way too touristy) but I would love to have a rich people house there!

Alright, selecting pictures to post is actually kind of an exhausting process (I took literally thousands), which I'm guessing is why I haven't done it so far. So this update will be broken into parts. Up next: Ravenna and Florence!

Stomping Grounds

So my neighborhood is a pretty cool place. It has got a pretty nice population mix, lots of neat and aesthetically pleasing houses, and is a great place to bike and/or run and/or take a walk. I quite like it, and it is a big reason I'm staying in my current digs instead of moving to some slightly more convenient and economical place on State Street or thereabouts. Also, it has its own character, some little spice of self that is distinctly missing from places like the behemoth Suburbia of Shenandoah. Recently in my strolls through my nice little slice of the city, I have noticed a couple of things:

1. It seems to be a trend around the neighborhood to hang windows outside in mid-air where there are no walls (Also, doors, but these are rarer but usually not hanging). This is especially prevalent in the yards of the clearly "quirky" houses, which are generously sprinkled about. Having windows where there are no walls, e.g, just suspended from a tree branch, is somehow slightly disturbing to me, but at the same time it looks kind of neat. Is this a thing? Should I start scavaging for orphaned windows?

2. The cheerily aggressive children selling lemonade streetside are legion. As mentioned previously, I walk around the neighborhood quite frequently, and will go well out of my way to avoid these manic little entrepreneurs--but they are always there. There seems to be an unusually high population on my street especially, which has on multiple occasions kept me inside when I was about to set out for a run. I just can't handle dealing with their smiling, gaptoothed, money-hungry little faces (It is worth noting that I usually range from awkward to mediocre in dealing with salespeople and children, but when you combine these traits I am useless). I understand that this is apparently a common thing throughout Suburbia, but I grew up in a rural-ish area with a dearth of passerby-as-potential-customers, and thus my entrepreneurial spirit was crushed; the ways and manners of these tiny merchants are foreign to me. I tend to deal with them the same way I deal with panhandling bums: awkward smile, sorry, no, um, I only have my card?

Just a couple of observations. Less than a week until I leave for Italy! (Still not ready, I think.)

Ubi est Roma?

Leaving for Italy in less than two weeks, and I am excited but definitely not ready. I still have a giant list of things to attend to and buy, and for some reason my mind cannot wrap itself around the concept of five weeks--"How long is that? Wait, how much...how much stuff do I need for that? That's kind of longish time?"

Not to mention that my grasp on Italian has weakened substantially. I swore up and down that (having finished my language sequence in the Fall) I would keep up with it this semester, watch Fellini movies, read Italian news sites, etc. Surprise--didn't happen. So now I'm struggling to remember how to form the past tense and ask where the bathroom is. (Ok, bit of an exaggeration there, but I really couldn't remember how to say "bathroom").

I've managed to stage off the inevitable freak-out so far, but oh, it's looming. I hate travel. I mean, I love being in other places, especially Italy, but I can't stand actually getting there; it brings out my neuroses like nothing else. Maybe I'll take up meditation real quick?

I CAN HAZ THESIS STATEMENT?

Since I am now officially done beating my brain into a pulpy mush to extract papers, etc. (at least for this semester) and griping about it, I can now get back on an ivory-soap box and talk about why it is important to be able to construct coherent sentences from your brain-mush.

Even if you are not a giant geek like I am, flying into giddy fits over discovering the shared etymological root of punch (the drink) and punch (the flying fist)*, it is pretty obvious that yes, words are important. You use them every day to convey important (or trivial) ideas, and you need to organize them properly in order to convince your professor (and friends, and later on your boss, coworkers, lover, parole officer, etc) that you are not a flaming numbskull. You take advantage of this skill (or lack thereof) every time you open your mouth. Fortunately or unfortunately, we cannot aways rely on the Gift of Gab (and all the relevant "like"s and "y'know"s that tend to fill conversational/logistic gaps) to help us out. Your words at some point have to take the form of squiggly little letter on a page (or screen). They are there for longer than are soundwaves in the air, and give your audience time to reread, process and criticize what you have put forth. Opportunities for judgment are increased exponentially. So please at least attempt to make yourself sound like a functioning human being (but don't try too hard--overwriting is pretty damn agonizing to read as well).

This article on Salon by Kim Brooks does a pretty good job of expressing the frustration I often feel when I encounter the writing of my peers. And, as I will almost inevitably be teaching a chunk of composition classes at some point in my life, the same article is incredibly depressing to me. I have over the course of my education been blessed with some fantastic English teachers, both in high school and in college. And, were I ever (*shudder*) to end up in the same position, I can only hope I live up to the standards they set. More likely, I think, I would be driven to drink. Because I have also had my share of shoddy English teachers, But, looking around at my classmates, I couldn't always blame them for their apathy or their rote, heads-down approach to the curriculum. Teaching is hella hard. But even so, I'm going to hope that some attempt is being made to wedge Critical Thinking and the Production of Ideas and Discourse into this/my generations head. Because even the small slice I've personally witnessed is...well, unacceptable.

Okay, I'm stepping down of my "elitist" soapbox. But goddammit, I'm not asking everyone to go out there and write the Great American Novel, or even develop an appreciation for the Mediocre American Novel(s). JUST MAKE YOUR WORDS WORK.

*[In case you're interested, by the way, the etymology is from the Indo-European root penk(w)e-, which is where we get the word "five" (cf. Greek pent-)-- punch traditionally had five ingredients, a punch is made from the five fingers of a fist. Ta Da!]

More Procrastination via BritLit Villains

It's a struggle to bring myself to start my final essay/project for BritLit, even though my professor basically told me that no matter what I turn in, I'm getting an A in the class. Despite this and her insistence that I needn't stress over this at all, I've fixated on the idea of each character being written in an imitation of the style of their original work. This is possibly a mistake. I can probably pull off some old-school alliteration for Grendel, but am I really going to take it upon myself to imitate Shakespeare? And Milton, in all the glory of his squirrley syntax in twenty line sentences?

Yeah, I guess so.

Basic outline (major paraphrasing):

[Grendel, Iago, Mephistopheles, and Satan are iin Heaven, with yellow VISITOR passes looped around their necks]

Grendel: RAR! GORE AND VIOLENCE THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR FTW!

Satan: Maybe that's not the best way to do things.

Iago: Yeah, I remember somebody who tried to straight-up bring an army to bear on his Almighty creator, and if I recall correctly that didn't work out so well. Should have gone my route with some servile subterfuge.

Meph: Hush your mouth, Iago.

Satan: You were just following the path I laid out when I successfully employed deception to bring about a little thing known as, I don't know, The Fall of Mankind.

Meph: Laid out so successfully that millennia later I could use the same lure of knowledge and flattery to damn Faustus, a son of Adam who by all rights should have learned from his parents' Fall. (Sucker.)

Satan: Thank you, my good fiend. And we, already bent as demons, had to worm our way into the domain of our victims, we did not have the luxury of being cozily ensconced in their nest, as you were.

Iago: Yeah, I set myself up pretty sweet on the inside, didn't I? And I probably earned a pretty good place in your little kingdom of sinners along the way, huh? But you have to hand it to me-- I set up my lies completely from scratch, unfounded--- I had no demonic side-show tricks or magic fruit to follow through with--and that "valiant" Moor still killed himself and his little lady while his domain went to pot around him.

Satan: You indeed have a deep spot in my legions. A traitor's place is always guaranteed.

Grendel: YEAH, BETRAYAL IS PRETTY INTENSE. CAIN THE FIRST KIN-SLAYER WAS MY GREATGREATGREATGREAT GRANDDADDY SO I'M A MONSTER. ALSO FROM HELL I WATCHED HROTHGAR'S CLAN TURN ON EACH OTHER AND HIS SUPER-FANCY GOLD HALL BURNED UP. I WAS LIKE HAHAHA.

Satan: And surely we can agree on the effectiveness of the "divide and conquer" strategy? Simple Eve was won when Adam's guiding "manly grace" was elsewhere distracted.

Meph: Faustus as well was taken in solitude, no matter how scholarly; he himself had walled off his well-intentioned friends

Iago: I convinced Othello to abhor and discard his nearest and dearest (excluding, of course, yours truly) by implying my poisons in opportune moments when, just the two of us, the reason of others would not stand in my way.

Grendel: I SURE DO LIKE TO MUNCH ON A HEAP OF THANES BUT IT WAS BEST WHEN THEY SCATTERED AND HID IN THEIR OUTHOUSES AND I KNEW I WAS RULING THE ROOST

Satan: Pitiful humans just can't keep their wits about them, can they?

St. Peter: Well, I think you've sufficiently demonstrated to the junior hosts the nature(s) of the threat they face. Off you go back to hell then!

[Scene]

Well, that was helpful. Time to go actually write the thing, I suppose.

Two more days and I'm free.