Lauren's Animation

Alla Fine

Ciao tutti! Sono negli Stati Uniti con la mia famiglia, pronto per una vacanza! E sono felice.

Anyway, my written grammar isn't good enough to sustain a written blog in its entirety, so here we go in English!

I'm back in the United States with my family; life's been pretty relaxed for the past two weeks, but next week the real work starts. Internship time!

My stay in Italy was absolutely amazing. My spoken Italian became very good, as well as my listening and reading skills. I never got too great at written grammar, but that didn't stop me from writing a twenty page conference paper in Italian for my language class. (It was based on the Decameron, which is the Italian story that Chaucer read and based his Canterbury Tales on). Surprisingly, my other two conference papers were in English, so that was much easier than I had thought it would be. I finished the papers two weeks before they were due, giving me the much needed time to study for my art history exam (at least 1,200 slides, each with artist, title, material, location and date to memorize for the 12-slide/three short essay exam) and Italian exam (exams!?! for an SLC student!?!) . Both went rather well, I like to think. I have yet to get back my evaluations, however, so let's keep our fingers crossed.

All in all, the year finished up well. I loved my Italian class (which I expected to hate), made great new friends (most of whom are American...), and now have an Italian family that I love deeply (and hope to go visit often).

The trip back to the states was uneventful. I cried when I had to leave Giovanna, my Italian mamma and best friend while I was in Italy. (I cried again when, halfway over the Atlantic, I opened the gift that Giovanna gave me before I left.) I watched Slumdog Millionaire (way to go Danny Boyle!), slept and then was home. Oddly enough, on the flight I was seated next to a girl who had studied in Spain and knew a girl--not only from SLC--but from the SLC program in Florence. As there were 18 of us in total, I guess that proves that it really is a small world.

Now that I'm back in the states, I hope to see you all soon! There may be another blog entry with pictures (so keep checking back here!), but that really depends on if I ever unpack to find my camera....

Bella Londra!

Ciao tutti,

It's been a while since I've written, and in all probability this will be the last time I write while I'm still in Italy. I'll do a wrap-up when I get back to the states, but after this post, it's nose-to-the-grindstone-conference-time.

I'v been having a simply amazing time. After Naples, I had a short week at school (in which we learned the conguinctivo) and then I was off to London! While I had a terrible travel experience--here read: airport closed; went by bus to Rome; was forgotten at Rome by airport and wasn't given a flight until 6 hours later--I still got there (albeit a day late) and met up with my mom and daddy in Hyde Park.

Two weeks of utter bliss passed in which I hung out with my parents (my best friends in the world--the only way it could have been better would be if my sister had been there too), saw the sights of London (including Obama's contingent going to Buckingham to meet up with the Queen during G20), saw the protests, went to the zoo with my darling friends Victoria and Mark, went to mass in Westminster, saw Wicked, saw Dimetos (starring Johnathan Pryce and Anne Reid; not a great play, but then again I hadn't actually intended to go. Too long a story to write.) and so many other things. I have officially ridden on a double decker, eaten a Cornish pasty--lamb and mint; sooo good--eaten fish and chips, shopped at Herod's, seen the London Eye, tracked down and researched the Gherkin, went to every museum that I could imagine, and had a blast.

Some highlights: Mervyn Peake's self portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, Sutton Hoo at the Museum of History, Botticelli's Venus and Mars at the National Gallery of Art, Wallace and Gromit at the Museum of Science, and the Church of Santiago (mold) at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

But highlight of all highlights: Cardiff.

Yes. I got on a four hour bus with my parents to get to Cardiff for about five hours so we could get back on the four hour bus to return to London. But while in Cardiff, we made our way to the Red Dragon Center in Cardiff Bay and found the Doctor Who Museum. If you know me, you know my slight obsession with Doctor Who. (If you don't know me, WHY are you reading my blog?) So I was in heaven.

I saw Daleks, Cybermen, the Ood, David's red Chucks, Chris' leather jacket, the TARDIS, Trin-E, the AnnDroid, the angels from Blink, psychic paper, the clockwork man, the bug from Turn Left, K-9, Adipose, Family of Blood, the Titanic, radio-controlled Santas; I can't even go into it all. Basically the only thing missing (besides Chris and David themselves) was a sonic screwdriver. And seriously. How did they forget that? (Would have been cool to see the squareness gun, but I'll live.) But really, guys. Screwdriver. Slightly sonic. That's a BIG THING to miss.

After I went through the museum twice (I'm still wearing the entry-wristband) we took a tour around Cardiff Bay, which was amazing. All my favorite episodes happen to actually occurr in Cardiff; I've got a picture of me standing on the entrance to Torchwood, pictures of the restaurant where Chris took the Slitheen, etc. And yes. Could I be a bigger nerd? Absolutely not.

Now I'm back in Florence. Easter was really nice, but I was missing my parents terribly as we had just left each other again. The trip back was, again, disasterous, but I'm back and that's what's important. I'm almost done with one of my conferences, ready to start the next and then will have almost two weeks to do the third.

Wish me luck! I'll be back in the states soon!

Art History

Vesuvius from Sorrento

Puppets (Mantova)

Pisa

Calcio

Milan

I have recently taken to resetting the high-scores on Minesweeper with the names of the classes' work that I'm avoiding while playing. There's a few Italian scores, but the majority of the scores are set by Art History. Updating my blog is no different. I have two very simple, very short papers to write for class tomorrow, but I simply cannot bring myself to do them.

So I'll update anyone who cares to know on the current aspects of my life instead.

Since the trip to Viareggio, I have been to Milan (and two smaller cities outside of Milan that are so tiny that I can't remember their names), a partita di calcio, Pisa, Mantova, Napoli, Pompeii, Herculano, Vesuvius and Sorrento.

These were all amazing trips. Milan, unfortunately, failed to impress as the point of going was to see infinite examples of Futurism (which I think of more as a paint-filled-sneezing-period than art....) But each of the others was incredibly fun.

At the partita, the game was between Florence and Palermo. My Italian prof knew all of the words to each of the chants and fight songs and battle cries, so it was great fun watching. The fans from Palermo were caged--literally caged--and when Palermo won, we saw why. Florentines wouldn't have minded killing their own team after they lost, let alone killing the Palermians for having won.

Pisa was a day trip that I decided to take spur of the moment. Although I've been told that it's a boring city, I had more fun than I've had in a really long time. I bought the ticket for the Duomo, Basilica, Cemetario, Opera dell Duomo and Museo di Sinopie. Each was more amazing than the last, and the Sinopias will be very useful for conference. It cost 15euro to climb the leaning tower, so I decided against that, but it was an impressive monument from the ground at least!

Mantova was a school trip for art history; there we saw Montagna's frescos and a fresco/sinopia by Pisanello which I'm looking at for conference. It was quite amazing, but the best part was when two girls from the school found hand puppets in a market and spent the rest of the trip doing funny voices. Priceless entertainment.

And then we have Napoli. Napoli, Pompeii, Herculano, Vesuvius and Sorrento. I can't describe how perfect this trip was. I left on Friday and got back at 3:00am Monday morning. Everything was ideal. I achieved a life goal in seeing Pompeii, saw art I never thought to see in person in Napoli, overcame my phobia of volcanos by climbing up a dangerous one known to destroy cities once in a while, and met some of the nicest people (one Brit, two Brazilians and a Californian). Then to top it off, I went to the beach. Perfect. Perfect perfection.

This Sunday I'm flying to London to meet my parents, and then it's two blissful weeks of spring break in a country where they speak English. Life couldn't get any better.

And now to my papers.

Carnivale Ancora!

Here are some more pictures of Carnivale--what can I say? It deserves some extra space.

Washing machine kid: window was filled with actual soapy water.

David Bowie blowing bubbles. Bacchus' hand trying to pop them.

Dead cows. What more do I need to say?

Italian drag queens! They were FABULOUS.

And some more political floats. Yes, the Joker is frying politicians, Obama is a blacksmith, and (at the very top because the pictures are impossible to reorganize on blogspot) a politician has been squewered and is being roasted. I can't describe how many children were crying by the end of this parade.

Carnivale!

I've begun to do actual work with the Count on my independent research project. There are approximately 200 pages of documents that I'm supposed to be looking at; this is a picture of the first letter. It's better conserved than most of the rest. The ink has eaten through the parchment on a lot of the pages, it's blackened with age--all of those classic primary document problems. The hand writing ranges from nice and neat to completely hurried and messy (the first page is an example of the nice and neat version.)

I think my process is going to be basically transcribing the writing to the computer, and then attempting to translate from there. Unfortunately, there are a good number of abbreviations that were very common in the 1500's but which I can't make out for the life of me. There's also a tendency to use German letters every once in a while, but their use is definitely not standardized. Fun!

I'm not going to end up using this project for any class-conference, however. Last week I showed up to work with him and instead of bringing me down to his library he took me out to a wine tasting, which was incredibly fun but ever so slightly unproductive.

Last weekend I went down to Sicilia to visit a good friend of mine. She studies in Ortygia, the tiniest little island town connected to Syracuse. Her school (consisting of 30 people) represents nearly the entirety of American presence there, and it's a shock to travel from Florence, where even if you speak in Italian the Italians respond in English, to Ortygia, where if you don't know the Italian word for something, there's basically no hope of getting your point across. Of course I had no idea what was going on half of the time because they were speaking Sicilian (drastically different from Florentine) but it was great fun. They also have some of the best food I've ever tasted there, and I still miss the freshness of everything they made.

Unfortunately, I have no photos of my trip because I ran out of batteries, but just imagine the bluest water you've ever seen surrounding the quaintest little Italian town with winding streets and marble alleyways and you've basically got it. Also, imagine having no heat in your apartment at night and you'll REALLY have it. I don't know if I've ever been so cold or enjoyed myself so much.

Yesterday the school took us to celebrate Carnivale in Viareggio. There was a gorgeous beach (although I got sand in my trainers, which is never fun) and I rode a Ferris Wheel and ate cotton candy and all of that typical carnival sort of thing.

The floats for the Carnivale parade are generally political (i.e. Obama, pictured above), and whenever you see pictures in newspapers or tour books, they also look light and fun. I thought it was basically going to be an Italian Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. But it turned out that a good number of the floats (see below) were completely terrifying.

There were devils and angry clowns (I've never understood coulrophobia before) and squewered, roasting people and nudes in a frying pan and I don't even know what. I've never been quite so scared or quite so entertained before. All in all, I had a wonderful time.

Capponi

I have another page of translation to do for Italian tomorrow, but as a reward for having finished the first four, I'm taking a break to update the blog.

Unfortunately, the Italian Sign Language class is not going to happen. I have the Italian way of life to blame for that. Last semester, they told me to wait a semester to acquire the Italian spoken language before I started learning the sign. So I waited the semester, worked hard to learn Italian, and asked about the classes again this semester. Well, of course, it's great that I want to learn and that I've got the spoken language to start with, but (silly me, why didn't I know this?) I had to start learning sign last semester to be eligible to enter any classes this semester. Oh, the wonder of the Italian system. I feel like throttling someone.

Ma meno male. I probably wouldn't have had time to do another class this semester anyway. My getting bumped up in Italian class has doubled my work (as I have a one-on-one class every week to catch up to the other students) and Art History is entirely in Italian and monopolizing my time with trips. (I just got back from a daytrip to Rome, and I believe I have some form of trip planned every weekend I'm here.)

And then there's the Count.

I may have mentioned that the school introduced the students to the Count first semester through a wine tasting, and that I met him again at Thanksgiving dinner where we sat and talked all night, and that we met again the next day so he could show me his house along the Arno. At that third meeting, he offered me use of his library in research this semester. And I took him up on it.

I am about to begin an independent archival research project with our dear friend the Count. Last semester in the tour of his home, he showed me a stained glass window from 154-. In his archives, he has the letters and journals surrounding its creation, as well as other documents concerning the patron--his great great great grandfather or uncle or something of that sort. The Count and I will be meeting on Wednesdays to read these documents, and he will compile an additional bibliography for me to read, so that I can write more or less a history of the window's creation and its patron. He suggests this paper to be twenty pages long, which I can easily do if I get through the research. (I only hope he meant twenty pages double spaced, because single spaced will be a good deal more difficult in the time that I have.)

I recognize this as an amazing opportunity, and I'll throw myself into it as well as I can, but I'm still terrified. (And thrilled.)

Next weekend I will be going to Ortygia, where a dear friend of mine is studying. I consider this my calm, relaxing vacation before the tempest of work I'll have to get to this semester. Of course whether it proves to be at all calm (nota bene: I needlessly stress when I travel) only time will tell, but at the very least I'll be with a good friend.

I hope to get pictures posted soon, but that would first entail me getting the pictures off of my camera onto my computer. This hasn't happened in months, and probably never would but for the fact that a friend needs some of my pictures to use as support in her thesis. So hopefully pictures will be soon to follow!

Italia di nuovo...

I'm back in Italy, and I've been here for a week. Not much has happened, really, but updating seemed like a good idea anyway.

I'm still sick, and would probably have taken a semester off for health, but unfortunately my school would only return the money I've already paid for the semester (or transfer it to the payment of an alternate semester) if I had bought their insurance policy. I recieve absolutely no financial aid to attend my school, and (surprise!) can't afford to buy their insurance--which costs an extra thousand dollars per year--on the off-chance that I'll need to take a semester off. This also means I can't afford to lose the money already paid to the school for the semester. If I did, I wouldn't be able to afford to graduate. Bravo, Sarah Lawrence's financial policies.

And if you don't think it's crazy that they won't give me financial aid or that they won't let me transfer my money to another semester on account of health without paying an extra thousand dollars a year, check this out:

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20081106152853440

But on to events.

I came back to Italy to find that I've been transferred to an intermediate Italian class. When I arrived in Italy last fall, I spoke about three words of Italian. Now I speak well enough that I've been placed in a class that knows at least three more tenses than I've officially learned and which is held completely in Italian (whereas my beginning class only had instructions in Italian sprinkled here or there.) My vocabulary is advancing rapidly.

Art history has also been put into complete Italian. Unfortunately, this is a specialized vocabulary dealing with the Renaissance and its artists, and my notes go something like this:

War...lots of war...Renaissance...butterfly!

Actually, they're a little more complete than that, but not much. Additionally, my professor is something of a mumbler. She sounds rather like her mouth is full of marbles. It was hard enough to understand her when she mumbled in English with a thick Italian accent, but now I find it nearly impossible to understand her. But there are no other classes I'm interested in and I believe that the period for switching out of classes is over (if it ever existed at all.)

Art Restoration is in half-Italian, half-English. Currently there is a 1:1 teacher to student ratio (one professor for lecture, another for studio to two students), but after the span of a month there will be a ratio of 2:1. (The second student in the class is going to be transferred to a class at the University of Florence.) No pressure.

Currently I'm working on applications to summer internships (although there aren't many whose deadlines didn't pass while I was completely incapacitated with sickness) and trying to find an Italian Sign Language class. No luck yet, but I've not yet given up hope.