Come Significa 'Buffo'?...ehh... I tell you later.

Sorry I haven't written in a couple days. what with uploading pictures online (See my picasa!), and writing for Rollinglobe, that was quite enough. Plus the weekend was kinda chill (good prep for this week!), minus some more orientating bologna, that that was enough.

I'm in the middle of my 2nd day of class, though I've only gone to two classes so far, Italian and Family & Gender during Renaissance Italy. I have one more new one today (European Fascism), and then tomorrow night I'll have intro to european economic issues.

I love my classes so far. liiiike LOVE.

Italian
My professor, Domenico, struts into the room in all black a couple minutes late, looking like a cross between an Italian Jesus and Jack Sparrow. He's quirky, spunky, but more than anything hilarious. While describing how to pronounce each Italian letter, he draws a picture on the board of what your mouth should look like. He makes fun of the girls that are in the wrong room (There's a million sections of Italian), runs out of a the room when an insect flies in, asks a girl for a piece of gum, tells us Italian words that he doesn't even know in English (See title of this blog), and walks up to everyone's desk really close. To be frank, I'm stoked I get to see him four times a week. Although I knew most of the things we learned yesterday (pronunciation, and basic words, questions), I'm stoked for learning more. I wish, with all the time in the world, I could study romance languages. They're really interesting. Regardless, I'm doing my best to think of the Spanish word for each Italian word he teaches us, so maybe one day I'll at least be conversational in two other languages, in addition to english. I also talked to a male for the first time yesterday, so that was lovely.

Family and Gender
She's adorable. She has a really strong accent and you have to pay attention to what she's saying, plus the context of what she's saying, to pick up missing words. like for instance she was saying the word 'vary,' but was saying "Voh-Rie." Just little stuff like that. Regardless, she's so passionate about what she's teaching, and I'm so passionate about what she's teaching that I was pretty much engrossed the entire time. We went over a short document from some Italian dude's memoirs regarding his wedding day. The entire account only talked about his future wife's father, actually never mentioned her once... So we just discussed the implications of marriage during the renaissance that we could gather from this: political, business transaction involving a continuation of family lines, dowries, and powerful connections and potential partners through marriage. Poor women. We also read something from Aristotle about women just being incomplete men, which was a new idea for me. Overall, awesome (I know the majority of you are probably gagging by now, hehe). We take a field trip every two weeks about. mostly around florence which is great because since it's my only 9 am class, I get to often meet her in the city, and not have to come to campus at 8 am. woot. We're going to tons of museums, etc just to learn about the renaissance and women's place in that. At the end of the syllabus, I saw that it said "Having completed this course, do you think women had a Renaissance?" and I got really excited just thinking about spending a semester answering that question. can't wait.

my only complaint is that it's a class of all girls, and a lot of them were bad-mouthing the class afterwards. I hope they drop it. They just complained about the papers and the professor's accent and the fact that the field trip (Oct 1) is when they booked Oktoberfest, and they booked oktoberfest four months ago, so apparently it's not really fair for this professor to have a field trip then. WHY ARE PEOPLE HERE????? okay, i'm done yelling. it's so frustrating though. grr.

So that's it for class so far. You can probably tell how happy i am. :)

Over the weekend, I did something new. I went to Mass at Il Duomo. This is sort of a big deal because not only have I never been to mass before, I've never been to mass in Italian. More than anything it was interesting. I sorta just followed everyone's lead, especially since I had no idea what was being said or done. Overall, it seemed so ritualistic, and I have to say I believe people can have faith or "worship" god in any way they choose, but I'm kinda glad I have a faith where i can believe in god in my own way, without having to follow rituals or other people. Then again, I think the history of it is very interesting and it was cool thinking about how people have done this in Il Duomo for centuries.

Il Duomo itself is gorgeous. Although it wasn't the time for pictures, hopefully I'll be able to get some. the dome has a huuuge mural in the top of it and is one of the prettiest I have ever seen. It's not really made of stone though (like if you think of westminster abbey). the walls are white and holding everything up are large wooden beams. it was very beautiful, but of course I couldn't gape at it while in the middle of mass. haha

Some clergy (?) dude came and talked to us because he could tell we were confused and asked us where we were from and said "god bless you" and was overall very sweet. for some reason, he looked like he was blind, though I think he could see us, but I don't know. haha. the singing was very beautiful, though not very melodic. I did the best I could, I kneeled when everyone else did and let the priest dude stick a cracker in my mouth. Overall, very interesting way to see the duomo. I was overall, really glad I did it.

finally, i guess the last thing to talk about is the play. Amphitryon's Double Trouble, which is mostly Plautus's Amphitryon with some of Moliere's version mixed in. Yesterday I was disappointed that I only got to read one time in callbacks....and then I ended up getting casted in that role, but today, I'm actually really excited about it. Only four people in the cast don't have a double, and I'm one of them. As in for the part of Mercury, there are three people casted. for the part of Alcema, there are two. Jove (jupiter), amphitryon, Sosia, and my role, Cléanthis, are the only parts with only one person casted as them. Although I don't think my part's HUGE, I'm excited to play a role i never have before (an older woman, of lower class), and it's kinda interesting because she's dealing with Mercury posing as her husband, Sosia, and he treats her poorly. that's kinda confusing, but some time soon i'll go over the plot of the play in more detail. anyway, her character is personally struggling because she wants to cheat on her husband because he treats her poorly, but she is a honorable woman. SO. I'm excited to play a role unlike anything I've done before. I think the director's perspective was that if we could act, we could play any role, which i think is an interesting tactic (though i don't believe in it myself), but i'm anxious to test the waters of playing an older character, and one with a serious personal conflict. Though it's not a major role, I think I'll learn a lot, plus, we're working with an actor who's actually in the cast of mamma mia getting started for the first time in Italy in Milan...sooo he's pretty cool, i found a website about him, but it's a little outdated, but you can get an idea...

http://www.set.it/4DCGI/Rec01_34927_18

hopefully that works. we have a read through at five and then after that I think i'm going to go to one of these mandatory upperclassmen sessions, we have to go to at least one and id rather get it done.

the play is going to be wed, oct 13th, in the gardens outside villa la pietra. it's going to be so beautiful. and we have a make up and costume artist working with us so that will be very neat.

anyway, all for now, i have to go find catherine cause i told her i'd meet her after class.

ciao a tutti! i miss you all!

[Edit: Turns out my part is a lot bigger than i thought! :) i end the play! gonna be a ton of fun! ill talk more later about my other classes, i have homework to do!!!]