Vierzehn, fünfzehn, sechzehn, siebzehn, achtzehn, neunzehn, zwanzig, einundzwanzig

Friday December 5th, 9 AM :: Neue Wache :: Description

The Neue Wache is the place

where we commemorate the victims
of war and tyranny.

We honor the memory
of the peoples who suffered through war.
We remember their citizens who were persecuted
and who lost their lives.
We remember those killed in action in the World Wars.
We remember the innocent who lost their lives as
a result of war in their homeland, in captivity
and through expulsion.

We remember the millions of Jews who were murdered.
We remember the Sinti and Roma who were murdered.
We remember all those who were killed because of their
origin, homosexuality, sickness or infirmity.
We remember all who were murdered
whose right to life was denied.

We remember the people who had to die
because of their religious or political convictions.
We remember all those who were victims of tyranny
and met their death, though innocent.

We remember the women and men
who sacrificed their lives in resistance to despotic rule.
We honour all who preferred to die rather
than act against their conscience.

We honour the memory of the women and men
who were persecuted and murdered
because they resisted totalitarian dictatorship
after 1945.

Sei, sette, otto; Nüün, zää, elf; Twaalf, dertien

Massive amounts of twittering has occurred (http://twitter.com/felcearto) and while the frequency of these travel posts isn't much different (or maybe it's better) than the frequency of my regular semester posts, I'm switching locations so often that it feels like it's been far longer than a week.

So… Amalfi area, Rome, Florence, Venice (Uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei, sette, otto)
Then culture shock myself out of Italy through
Zurich (nüün, zää, elf), Amsterdam (twaalf, dertien), and tomorrow: Berlin!

And then?

Culture shock myself back to the U.S. on December 11th. I can't wait!

And since I'm arriving at LAX at night… methinks I'll request In-n-Out for my first meal back because I know there's one nearby.

No scoffing. The familiar holds a very strong pull after three and a half months of the unfamiliar.

I hate to admit how many times I've been tempted to go into a Starbucks or McDonalds or Burger King solely because I was tired of being uncomfortable or unsure about what to order or what to do.

Thus far, what have I learned?

Cinque

Day 5 :: Florence :: Appreciating Art

• Saw Fra Angelico's cell paintings, Masaccio's Trinity, all of Florence from the top of the duomo, Donatello's Mary Magdalene, Michelangelo's Pieta and more.
  
• If that made no sense to you... well, we studied a lot of these things in art history this semester.
• It was really exciting for me to be walking (fairly speedily) through a museum and suddenly stop and recognize a statue (out of a bunch of similar looking statues in a room) and remember (vaguely) what I'd learned about it. And sculptures especially look quite different in real life!
  
• It's never really hit me so hard before that when you teach someone about something, they'll actually care about it. Something to remember the next time I get mad at someone for not caring...

To Venice tomorrow... here starts the real test of how well I navigate. I've been to Rome and Florence before so I at least had some idea about how to get around and what I wanted to do. Bring it on!

(Trying out Twitter since texting access is far more likely than internet access! http://twitter.com/felcearto)

Uno, Due, Tre, Quattro

I had written out a nice longish report on my first three days but I have no way of getting it on this computer... flash drives not allowed in internet cafes... bah!

Hence, the short version as far as I can remember it.

Day 1 :: Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi :: Saying goodbye

• Too many goodbyes said as all of us went our separate ways.
• I learned that 'home' is something I'll never take for granted again, even if 'home' is just a place to stay for the night. In this case, I had a place to stay AND the company of two amazing gals, Laura and Emily D. It was such a relief to navigate and whatnot on the first day on my own with the knowledge that I had them to go back to!

Day 2 :: To Rome! :: Winging it

• Unlike my normal plan every moment self, I decided which train to take and bought the tickets only after I checked out of the hotel and didn't have a clue about where I'd be staying once I got to Rome.
• I never really appreciated 'accommodations' listings until this day. Thank goodness for Lonely Planet! I picked the hostel closest to the train station and, thankfully, it worked perfectly.

Day 3 :: Rome and the Vatican :: The Pope

• Rome rocks because there's so much to see everywhere that I can easily navigate from the hostel to the Vatican by way of sight hopping rather than trying to remember street names. Went to my first mass. In St Peter's in the Vatican. Whoot! (Even though I had no idea what was going on)
• Left mass only to see a massive massive massive crowd in the square. Couldn't figure out where the heck the Pope was except that it was up since everyone was looking up.
• Became a sardine as I tried to make my way into the square. I've never been so smooshed in my life. Person behind you moves, so do you. Sardines to the max.
• Saw the Pope! When he had less than a minute left in his blessing. But still! I saw the small dot that was the Pope! And I have a picture. A blurry picture but a picture nonetheless. Whoot!

Day 4 :: Rome. :: Old Rome.

• Went to the Colosseum only to find that I had forgotten to put my memory card back in. Colosseum. No camera. I did it oldschool and broke out the sketchbook. aww yeah.
• Went to the Palatine and the Roman Forum. And got massively rained on. And learned that I should never wear my grey pants if rain is predicted because they get slightly see through when wet. Oh dear.

To Florence tomorrow!

On saying goodbye...

I'm very much a person who needs to mentally prepare, anticipate and "preview" the future in my head. I need a lot of time to say goodbye to places especially since I usually end up far more attached to locations than I initially realize.

Though the coming of the end of our time in Cortona snuck up on me, at least the realization came with enough time for me to start mentally preparing for our departure.

But for Westmont? I have one semester left until graduation. I think there's been a parallel process going on in my head between Cortona and Westmont: physically saying goodbye to Cortona and mentally picturing myself saying goodbye to Westmont.

I went into town this morning to send a tube of all my drawings and my prints home and to visit all the little shops in Cortona that I haven't been in. I accomplished the first goal, but didn't quite get around to the second.

Somehow I ended up at top of the comunale steps where I sat and sketched for about an hour. With only two and a half days left here in Cortona (We'll be in Siena all day tomorrow and we're leaving on Tuesday morning) it just made more sense for me to sit, sketch and watch instead of shop.

The view from the steps

Drew and Sally Ann eating Molesini sandwiches lower down on the steps... they left a few seconds after I started sketching them though. On the right is the view on Via Nazionale as you approach the comunale steps I was sitting on.

I had similar thoughts for the whole process of leaving Westmont. I pictured myself going to all my favorite places (the pond, the rock by the library, the trails, the stairs of death behind VK...), the dorms I've lived in (Clark and Armington), and the places I've spent a lot of time in (the physics building, the art building, the DC, etc) and sketching them and just sitting there and being there...

I was already having issues in my head about what it would be like to go back and have everything look "drastically" different with all the construction going on. I was sad enough when they got rid of the tree in front of the DC (last year?) and when I went back over the summer and saw all the trees behind VK and the VK alley parking lot area chopped down... Yeah, I really do get attached to little things like that.

So after a morning of Cortonese immersion: drawing Cortona, laughing at the swarms of students flooding the piazza and having two high school guys ask to take a picture with me (it was very random - they were sitting on the stairs near me eating lunch with a bunch of friends when they looked at me and asked "photo?"... twas highly amusing! I only wish I had thought to get their camera wielding friend to take one with my camera too.)... I went to Cafe della artista for lunch with Eunice, Madeline, Katrina and Sarah K only to get the news that Westmont is burning.

It was a shock to say the least.

I'm guessing this is Mark the RD's house. It's right next to Clark G where I lived freshman year... I heard that's completely burned too.

It was a relief to hear that no one was hurt and all the people were safe. So what got to me the most, even more than Clark being gone, was hearing that the physics building was gone.


Apparently I'm far more attached to the physics building than I had thought. I've spent so much time in there between regular classes for the past 3 years to working there for 2 summers. I had mentally imaged myself there next semester taking my final physics class with all the boys and with a goofy Dr. Kilhstrom standing and lecturing behind the desk (that doubled as an offering table when Dr. K lay on a bed of nails on it at the end of first semester physics). It's a bit of a mental jerk/twist/squeeze to correlate that picture to what there is now...


(I've been watching LA FOX news streaming online... a tad frustrating since the audio and video stop constantly. But yeah, I took screenshots because I'm a dork who needs records of everything...)


In the grand scheme of things it's not exactly a significant building... being the old garage of the former estate and doubling as a nursery for conference groups in the summer and all... but it's still a huge part of my Westmont experience.

I can't quite wrap my head around how different the campus will be next semester or what the students are doing right now or how Westmont will run for the rest of the semester with dorms and classrooms being completely unusable or entirely gone.

I'm saying goodbye to a different Westmont than I knew before leaving for Italy.

I guess there's just been a lot to think about in the past few days... Leaving Cortona, Westmont burning, getting into a car accident two evenings ago... (No worries, we're all completely fine.) I suppose the latter occurrence could have very well been saying goodbye to life. But it's hard to think of that in the same context as what I experienced...

We had a very fun filled day of hanging out of trees and olive picking. On the way back to our dorms, the car that I, Marissa, and Kiersten were in ran off the right edge of the gravel road and flipped over.

It was a shock and it was entirely surreal but it didn't seem like a near death experience in any way, even though in my head, being in a car that runs off the road and flips over should be equated with a brush with death.

But life goes on.

I think that's what has struck me most through all of this. Something happens but the world keeps going. Some events like the fire in Montecito register with a wider crowd... for many it's a news event but nothing personal. For those personally involved and there, I can't imagine what it's like. For others like me, watching from afar, it's a huge shock and it's hard to not stay at the computer all day and watch the news constantly.

But I'm not there in Santa Barbara even if I've been on that side of the world in my head all afternoon. I'm here in Cortona where two art history papers are calling my name (and I've been ignoring them in favor of processing the accident and the fire, packing, and spending time with people and with Cortona). And here, life goes on like it does all over the world...

The Cortona experience is a hugely significant to me and this coming Tuesday (when we leave) looms large in my mind.

But for the locals? Life goes on... we're just another group of students that comes through; just one group in the who knows how many that have come through in the past 38 years.

For me it's a very important portion of my life. I tend to divide my life into distinct categories based on where I've lived. There's the Glendale/Pasadena segment, then the Malaysia segment, then Lubbock, San Francisco, Lubbock, San Diego, Westmont, now Cortona, then a last short Westmont segment...

Maybe that's why I need so much mental processing when I'm leaving a place because in my head, another major section that I'm fully invested in is about to close. But again, life is continuous, time keeps going (as far as my finite mind needs to consider at least), and all these categories are just mental constructions in my head.

No lovely note to end and linger on. Just thoughts on the processes of goodbyes...

It's a voting post!

It was a rainy, dreary day when Fern got out of bed to vote for the very first time...


That is, last minute first time voting from Italy by fax. Oh yeah.

I did get my absentee ballot a few weeks ago but decided that I didn't want to risk mailing it. Italian post has a pretty shoddy reputation. And I figured I'd use those few weeks to research the twenty-eight freaking offices and propositions on the ballot.

As usual, everything else got in the way and, aside from a short stint of reading the information on Prop 1-4 at the very beginning, I delayed really reading everything until last night and this morning. Procrastination isn't just for schoolwork apparently.


But I'm also cheap and didn't want to pay for my fax so I had a short two hour window between 10 and noon to get my ballot faxed from the UGA offices. So, I stuffed my ballot down my shirt to keep it dry and headed down to town in the rain with Eunice.

Gasp!! FAILURE! After photocopying the long double sided ballot into 4 faxable pages and attempting to fax it twice, we had to admit defeat. The fax number was correct and it was connecting, but it refused to receive the fax. Granted, it was 2 AM in California, but really now, is it THAT difficult to leave the fax machine on before voting day!?

Rather crushed, I went and splurged on Italian leather. 30 euro of gorgeous dark red and brown Italian leather. (To make books of course!) A man at the shoe store (where we bought the leather) was reading a newspaper and commenting on it to Stefano, the shoe store owner. Eunice and I didn't understand anything until he said "Obama," at which point I got excited and peered at the newspaper (as if my eyesight is good enough to read small print from 5 feet away and as if I'd be able to understand the Italian newspaper even if my eyesight was good enough!)

The man then looked at us and asked something along the lines of whether we had voted. (My Italian vocabulary covers food, common introductions, and 'where is the bathroom?' It definitely hasn't extended into the realm of politics yet!) I responded by grinning, pointing at my ballot and saying "ahora, uh... adesso! Fax!"

Translation: Now [in spanish], uh [crap, wrong language], now [in Italian]! Fax! [Yay for crossover words!]

As we left, Stefano asked us something else and I had no idea what he said but he said a word starting with a 'v' so I figured it might have something to do with voting. So I jabbed wildly in the dark an said something like "vote. Uh, votar. Er, voto!" blank looks. Uh, [repeat v word that he had said, but said it with an o ending to conjugate for the first person form]. Blank looks and a grin at my failed attempts. Oh well... shrug, Obama, ciao!

I am such a master at communication. Hah!

After an afternoon filled with art history classes, I bundled up and headed back down to town in heavier rain and wind to find a fax machine.

To Nocentini! (The art supply store.)

I walk in to the very back and see Signora Nocentini... "Fax?" I ask her. Yes indeed there is a fax machine!

She takes my six sheets... zero zero uno. Otto cinque otto. Quattro nove cinque. Cinque uno sei sei.

I wait nervously.

She says something about humidity or rain and gestures her hands outward. Ah, the rain infiltrated my bag and made the sheets expand. Fax machines don't like humid paper...

Suddenly the fax machine sucks in all 6 pages at once even though she's holding on to the top 5. She makes exasperated noises and jerks viciously at the 5 pages.

I shift nervously. Don't rip my vote!!!

The 5 pages are saved from the jaws of the fax machine but the vicious jerking has misaligned the top page.

Suddenly she's viciously yanking the first page to make it feed straight.

No! Don't do that! That's my Oath of Voter form with my signature! I'm quite sure it's going to reach the other side looking like it just got photographed by a mac's photobooth. Oh dear.

"The ballot cannot be counted unless accompanied in the same transmission by this oath and your signature."

Well, they didn't say the page couldn't be artistically distorted.

Beeping. What on earth is going on!?

Three pages through and it stops. She calls for Signor Nocentini. They proceed to talk, or yell, loudly in Italian: Did you put in 001?!?! Si!! Si!! How many pages!?!?!? Tre, tre!!! Why does it say four!?!?...

Yeah, they're an interesting old couple to be sure.

Somehow my three pages (including the page with the all important President and Vice President category) got registered as four and now my last three pages have to be sent in a second transmission.

"The ballot cannot be counted unless accompanied in the same transmission by this oath and your signature."

Oh. Dear. Oh. Dear.

I snuck a picture of this momentous nail biting occasion. Here's Signor Nocentini at the fax machine. Not bad for a snuck picture where I couldn't actually see what I was taking.


Just to make conversation I said something about Obama (I'm assuming that the words I made up for "I'm faxing my ballot and voting right now" were completely off the mark.) Signora Nocentini responded in the typical expressive Italian way about ___ Obama, ___ McCain, ___ secreto____...

I think she was saying that Americans go around blabbing about who they voted for but Italian voters keep their votes a secret. I was also told earlier by Enza (the local UGA adminitrator helping me fax my ballot in the morning) that Italian voting is also different in that faxing would never be an option (though I don't know how many states in the US actually allow faxing in votes) and that in huge elections like this, only the main contest for president would be on the ballot versus our ballot where 28 things are stuffed onto a ballot. (I think I'd much prefer that.)

Finally everything went through and, according to my two Report Trasmissione, the risultati are "OK" so I'll just assume that the potentially wonkily distorted Oath of Voter page and the double transmission and the 1 ballot split into 4 pages still work out to a successful vote.


Back out in the rain, I stuffed my ballot back into my bag and skipped down the main street of Cortona singing "I voted! I voted! I voted!" Yay for the rain... it means my surge of excitement was largely unseen by local eyes! (This was to make up for the fact that I don't get one of those spiffy "I voted" stickers. Hrmph.)

I can't wait to go and snag a copy of an Italian newspaper with the election results tomorrow morning! (7 am here = 10 PM PST!)

(An addition at 12:15 AM: Several of us are watching CNN streaming through Emogene's slingbox program on her computer... the first polls are closed but they have yet to report the results. Says Drew: "This is one of the things I really wish I was home for... That and free Krispy Kremes, Starbucks and Chick-fil-A." Hear hear! Take advantage of all that election-related free stuff (Ben and Jerry's too!) all ye who are in Stati Uniti!)

Be thankful for your tvs... we're watching on a tiny screen...

And when the internet connection starts to slow down to a sluggish pace so that CNN's Campbell Brown becomes pixelated and stuttery... we do the finessing fingers to encourage the internets to speeds up!

It's the watching-the-election-progress-from-Italy version of a rain dance!

(Day after the election edit at noon: A bunch of us headed down to the newsstand and bought some Italian newspapers... I was told that la Repubblica leans more to the left while Libero is more to the right. Take a gandar!!)

On being an artist…

I've never really thought of myself as an artist until this semester.

Maybe it's being completely surrounded by artists (if you're sitting still for any length of time you're probably going to get drawn!). Maybe it's being in Italy (and visiting copious amounts of art museums). Maybe it's being completely immersed in art classes (no physics related courses for the first time in 5 years… my brain is awfully confused!). Maybe it's just that whipping out my sketchbook feels entirely natural. (It helps that this is the first time where I've been confident that my sketch will actually look semi decent!)

Whatever it is, this is the first time I actually feel like an artist, whatever that actually means.

Our field trip this weekend was to Volterra (blue pin) and San Gimignano (green pin)… Cortona is the yellow marker. For cities whose names you'll recognize… Pisa and Florence (Firenze) on the upper portion of the map!


I met an awesome artist named Antonio Breschi in San Gimignano. His store was very well set up and visually very appealing. (It had his sculptures and drawings as well as clothes by a designer named Louise Moller-Breschi. )

…Sei l'artista?
(trans. Are you the artist?)
...Mi piace [gesture to a beautiful image on the wall]!
(trans. I like [point at wall]!)
I missed the class on the use of piacere because I was sick so I have no idea if I said that correctly or not.

I got much farther with this conversation in Italian than the last artist I tried talking to in Italian in Arezzo a few weekends ago… Though that's probably due to the fact that Antonio spoke English (and understood when I accidentally slipped into Spanish) while the artist in Arezzo didn't speak any English at all. In Arezzo, the conversation got as far as me saying that I'm an art student (una studentessa d'arte) in Cortona and the artist saying that there's a great exhibition in one of the churches in Cortona. But when I attempted to say that I had just gone to see the exhibition two days ago and enjoyed it, I was entirely stumped and resorted to English with hand gestures, ending with a shrug and a laugh at the communication failure.

Antonio asked who I thought would win the election and at that point I abandoned all attempts at Italian. I can barely talk about politics in English much less try to take my fumbling and rather elementary thoughts about it into another language.

The conversation naturally turned back to art. He made a very good point about the whole "starving artist" concept that I really loved. An artist who isn't making it financially may be starving monetarily but there are many other ways that a person can be starved…. They can be starved culturally. They can be starved creatively. They can be starved by NOT doing what they would really love to do or what they would feel fulfilled by. So why is it that so much emphasis is placed on one form of starvation?

Well, that's not the best way to phrase it. Food and habitation are rather essential for actual physical survival. When I'm comparing monetary "starvation" to cultural and creative starvation I'm not taking the first "starvation" as literal starvation but as not having the job security that one would go into a "practical" major/job for. I'm writing about this entirely conceptually with no experience of having to worry about my day to day essentials entirely on my own. Maslow's hierarchy at work here. I'm in a privileged position. How can I even talk about comparing starvations?

I've just typed myself into confusion.

Basically, I never thought to think about choosing what to do with your life in terms of "starvation" in any area beyond the image of a poor starving artist. Take what you will from that.

Antonio studied to be a civil engineer. (I'm double majoring in physics! I told him excitedly, delighted to find another crossover.) He said something about how life and work are one thing and that you have to go into what you have a passion for, whether it's art, physics, politics, etc.

I'm not hugely passionate about art like some of the students here on the program or like Antonio. I definitely had issues with that at the beginning of the trip… lack of artistic self confidence if you will… feeling like I didn't really belong here because I'm not really an artist in the limited sense of someone who HAS to create art to feel fulfilled in their lives. I love and enjoy art but I hardly ever draw or do art outside of the classroom unless it’s a gift for someone. And to top it all off I am perfectly willing to create artwork geared towards what sells. (San Diego Comic Con art show anyone?) I had asked about some small works of Antonio's sitting off in a rather hidden corner and he had said (with a hint of bitterness) that he had put them there on purpose because he wasn't happy with them. When I asked why, he said it's because those pieces were his compromise to make something that sells and that he didn't like repeating himself and wanted to work with original ideas even if old ideas prove to sell better. I had actually been eyeing those little pieces because I could afford them at 10 euro rather than the gorgeous ink drawing on linen up on the wall that was going for 400 euro. And yes, I really would consider buying that piece. (I was very tempted to take a picture of the store (and conveniently the drawing as well) as I left but felt that would be disrespectful… Sad that he hated the idea of reproductions. I would definitely have paid for a postcard of the piece! Heh. I kept my mouth shut about that though.)

But... I'm learning more and more to accept myself as an artist outside of my initial limited idea of an artist. It's basically finding my own style of being an artist both in terms of what my art looks like and how I approach art. I had trouble sketching and drawing at first because I kept trying to follow styles that I liked of of other students whether it was linear, realistic rendering, graphic rendering, beautiful shading, etc… I'm a lot better now at just drawing without being so constrained by what I feel I should be doing. It's a lovely feeling! Stick my quirkiness into my drawings without thinking and suddenly things just work.

As far as being an artist, I think I need something a bit more diverse and combined than just art for the sake of art. (I went on a rant last week about art being pointless, self serving and too focused on innovation. I was in a bad mood. Don't mind me.) I also found myself missing physics a few weeks ago. Yes, me, actually MISSING physics! Remind me of that when I complain incessantly about Mechanics next semester. It was quite a delightful moment for me, realizing that I actually do like physics enough to miss it, and that I wasn't deluding myself the entire time that I was solely a physics major. I think the left side of my brain is starving right now. Britney (computer science) and I commiserated about this a few weeks ago... give us some freaking math/science problems to solve before our brains atrophy! Please!

My current thought: 3D animation seems like a very good fit for me. It's got technical aspects, physics, art, acting (if it's character animation at least), and stories and entertainment (if I go into animation for film).

It's definitely going to be weird to go back to Westmont and be surrounded by non art majors. I'm still going to whip out my sketchbook and draw anyone who's sitting still though (watch out studying people!). On the bright side, I'll be getting a good mix of areas to keep my entire brain happy! Several art classes (publication design, senior seminar and the senior project), mechanics (which probably applies to animation better than the majority of my other physics classes), acting (finally!) and scuba! I'll have an 8-5 Thursday with the addition of scuba, but since I have no Friday classes (a physics major with no Friday classes? Whaaat?), scuba is basically my end of the week fun. Whoot!

We have 26 days left before the program ends. 3 weeks left in Cortona. 2 weeks before the final exhibition/show of our work. Where has the time gone? And how on earth does one choose what to focus on with so little time left? My art? Learning more Italian so I can actually talk more with the locals? Soaking in as much of Cortona as I can? Spending as much time as possible with the wonderful people on the program? Sitting in the park and on the wall overlooking the valley and just being?

All of the above...

Because this post that was intended to focus on thoughts on being an artist ended up wandering all over the place. But that's just how it works... ramblings, a collection of my recent musings … all of the above!

On sickness stages signs...

(I'm getting over a day and a half of bed- and bathroom-ridden stomach flu. No worries, it didn't hit me nearly as hard as it could have (i.e. as hard as it hit others).)

Signs that you're sick...

• Your bed is your nest. You don't leave. Ever. Unless you're going to the bathroom to... er, yeah.
• But you hate your bed after a day. (Whaaa? Hate your bed? Never!)
• Your voice comes out in a soft breathy not entirely present, I'm-a-very-little-girl pitch. (Yes, I'm 21 and I've been speaking for almost that many years. Nice to meet you!)
• Your roomies kindy ask if you want dinner brought back from you and instead of replying with "Aww, you're so sweet! No thanks. I appreciate it though," your immediate response is "OH GOODNESS NO!!" (My words exactly!)
  
• You assume odd positions on the bathroom floor, next to your bed and on your bed. (Roomies shoulda taken a picture of me every time they came in the room!)
• Aforementioned roomies take showers and use the bathrooms at the other end of the dorm and sleep in a different room. (Sorry roomies!)
• Everything involves too much effort: Simply playing music involves reaching over for the ipod, grabbing the ipod, moving it to your side, feeling for the earbuds, placing said earbuds in left ear then in right ear, hitting play... And possibly opening your eyes to read (read!?) the screen during that process. Yeah. Too much effort.

• You have to move the plate of bread kindly put there by concerned roomie to the end of your bed then below the chair at the end of your bed in order to not get nauseous at the sight and smell.
• You know you have an amazing package waiting for you downstairs from your big seester (and a vote by mail ballot!!) but walking downstairs (or even thinking of walking downstairs) is just not going to happen.

• And other sorts of unhappy ewww inducing stuff that shall not be mentioned here.

Signs that you're recovering...

• The sight of yummy goodies from your beeg sister sends you into a fit of giggles rather than a fit of nausea.

• You can stand up - straight! And sleep lying down on your back - straight!
• Your bed is made (i.e. you weren't in it when the cleaning ladies came by)

• …and your bed is being used as a desk (again).
• You can nibble on funky Italian faux toast and even contemplate dinner!

• You can use the bathroom without having to leave the lights (and hence, the more important element, the FAN) running after you're through… Yeah, poor roomies and their noses!

• You're seen OUTSIDE of your room! What a thought!
• You stick your head outside the window only to have a look of surprise cross your face at, what's this now?, SUN! and BREEZE! (I exaggerate. But only a little!)

Signs that you haven't fully recovered…

• You run to the restroom at every little warning sign… just in case.
• You request that your roomies bring your dinner back so that you don't have to make the trek down and UP that crazy hill.
• It takes you half an hour to make your way through the aforementioned tiny piece of Italian faux toast.
• Leaving the building (What a thought!) to go slightly down the hill to Severini (the studios and classrooms) to the printmaking studio aaand taking a chisel to soft wood is more effort than you can even begin to comprehend.
  

• You spend all afternoon replying to long overdue emails, facebook posts and letters (and writing a blog post!) because you don't want to read for class…

Then again, the last one could just be me returning to normal and finding every reason to procrastinate. Hey, at least it's productive procrastination!

It's a late birthday post...

My creativity and energy are being horded by my classes here, hence, no recent posts. Not that I didn't try… I've been attempting a post on food and another one on dessert forks and just couldn't get it out. If I can't write about food and dessert, I REALLY must be drained of all creative juices! Oh, art...

Hence, a picture post, three days late, on what the Fern did on her 21st birthday, as halfway promised to her dear parents!


Had SEVEN hours of class.
(Printmaking, Drawing, Italian)

(Here's part of my attempt at landscape during Drawing. You can kinda see the lake on the upper right of the next picture...)

Finally satisfied my craving for fried eggs and soy sauce!

(This is going to be my self portrait for Drawing.

And yes, I'm sure I baffled many tourists as I ran out to the wall with a camera and plate of fried eggs in my hands and a massive bottle of soy sauce under my arm. Not exactly a common sight in Tuscan hill towns! Then again, short asian girls with afro-like-porcupine hair isn't exactly a common sight either...)

Watched another gorgeous sunset...

(Cortona beats everywhere else I've been for best horizon sunsets, but Lubbock, Texas still wins hands down for full-sky sunsets.)

Visited one of my favorite spots… the park!

(I can usually be found perched on the steps to the right of the lamp and below the leaves on the right side of the picture. Excellent people and dog watching spot!)

Sat on the steps of the Palazzo Comunale in Piazza della Repubblica...

(ya know, the steps where the choir sang during a chilly winter night in Under the Tuscan Sun)

…and watched cute old men socialize (hehe).

Bought some pesto, foccacia bread and pecorino fresco cheese from the Molesini alimentari

(which are pretty much grocery stores the size of a single aisle at Wal Mart)

Then bought fruit and tomatoes from the corner fruitissima...(It's actually a visual feast in daylight. Dusk lighting + indoor lighting makes for confused cameras and oddly colored pictures.)

Enjoyed the view of the valley on the way back up to the dorms…

(Again, this doesn't even begin to capture the view.)

Then headed back down to Tonino for dinner with the entire University of Georgia group (as we do every weeknight) whereupon my camera decided that it didn't like the batteries that I had just put in that morning.

But it cooperated for the picture taking of food!

For the first course, fun hat-shaped suction cup pasta with not quite so fun meat...

(it suctions your tongue sometimes!)

For the second course, yummy fish that was incredibly well presented…

(Look, Christmas!)

And then lights out for an incredible fun and raucous round of the Happy Birthday song and a HUGE deeelicious birthday dessert!

(This picture is pretty bad. I assure you it looked (and tasted) far more amazing in real life!)

Aaaand... the birthday celebration ended on the wall overlooking the night lights of the entire valley below with a bottle of dessert wine (vino dolce, not dolce vino) served in white plastic cups (for which I had to pantomime since my attempts at asking for "Coppa, per favore. Otto coppe? Coppa?" failed miserably.)

Oh, and you can't forget us singing "Little Bunny Foo Foo" and bopping people on the head with my happy bouncy green balloon from Dolce Vita (which Amber so kindly procured for me)!

(Yes, we sang Little Bunny Foo Foo. Yes, this was my twenty-first birthday. Shush!)

Yay Italy!

On the Butcheration of Language

The brain only seems to have two tracks when it comes to languages: Native and Foreign.

Try to say something in a non-English language and the brain just latches onto the most accessible foreign translation.

The most commonly latched language? Spanish!
. . . Joanna asking for two pieces of fruit in the market: ¡Dos!
. . . Me to the waiter: Gracias.
. . . Me to someone I bumped into: ¡Ay, perdon!

Others aren't so predictable in their language-latching and mix up multiple languages:
. . . Sarah at the Vatican: Bonjour! Dov'è, uh, post office?
And in case you didn't catch that, she just covered French, Italian, Groan of despair, and English!

Or there's the whole forgetting of the rules of pronunciation:
. . . Me at the fruit store asking for apples and a peach: Due mele e un pesche, per favore.
. . . In translation, if I had pronounced it correctly: Two apples and a peaches, please.
. . . But since I had said 'peshay' instead of 'pesque' I really said: Two apples and a fish, please.


Hah!


I've been trying to learn Italian by assuming no one speaks English (so that I won't be tempted to just speak English). But the Italians don't quite cater to my mental approach.

Take this short exchange between myself and the local organizer of the Cortona Fortress art exhibition at the opening of the exhibit:
. . . Me: Come si chiama?
. . . She: ____. And you?
. . . . . . (Yeah, I forgot her name. Bad Fern!)
. . . Me: "Mi chiamo Fern."
. . . She: "Nice to meet you."
. . . Me: "Piacere!"
She then laughed at how, in this exchange, the American spoke Italian and the Italian spoke English. "I'm trying to learn!" I explained--in English, because I have no idea how to say that in Italian.

At the gelato store a week or two ago, a similar situation occurred where the Italian would only speak to me in English. (I suppose my accent when I'm attempting Italian clearly gives me away as an American!)
. . . Me: Stracciatella in una, uh, coppa, per favore.
. . . . . . ('in' being Italian, not an insertion of English!)
. . . She: Which size?
. . . Me: Uno quaranta.
. . . . . . (as in the 1,40 euro size cup)
. . . She: Uno ochenta?
. . . Me: Uno quaranta. Um, quarenta. Quaranta?

I finally just pointed (gestures do wonders!) and gave up my Italian-only attempts.
. . . Me: Do you say "coppa?"
. . . . . . (In reference to the gelato cup.)
. . . She: COppa
. . . . . . (i.e. I was far too monotonous in my pronunciation!)
. . . She: Or coPENta.
. . . . . . (Which has worked wonders for me at gelato stores since it seems to refer to the smallest available cup.)
. . . Me: Ah, grazie!

But really, non-verbal gestures do transcend the verbal language. At a bar/restaurant in a non-touristy area of Florence, a cute little dessert that looked like a fruit tart caught my eye.
. . . Me: Come si dice {jab finger in the direction of the delectable dessert}?

I hear the woman behind the bar say 'pignon.' I even repeat 'pignon' and receive an affirmative nod. So I take my newly learned dessert word and head to the cash register to order:
. . . Me: Un pignon, per favore.
. . . She: Un mignon?
. . . Me: (with incredible emphasis on the P) Pignon!

She gives up on this foreigner and resorts to gesture, forming a small hole with her thumb and index finger and giving me a questioning look.
. . . Me: (excitedly grinning and nodding) Si!!
I get the receipt. It says 'mignon.' Whoops. It's a good thing I didn't try ordering with a word-for-word Italian translation of "fruit tart."

I frequently wonder what my broken attempts at Italian sound like to native speakers. How painful my butchering of their language must be to their ears! It's not just the constant mess-ups in grammar, gender and the like, it's also the butchering of the accent and the lack of musicality of American attempts at Italian.

We could just take a different route and embrace the meeting of Italy and the American South (since this program is through the University of Georgia) with this hilarious but sometimes cringe-inducing phrase adorning our dorm's message board:

"Ciao Ya'll!"

Note that almost all the requests are for blankets... It's getting chilly here! And look! I'm reflected at the bottom!

It's a miscellaneous post...

...Striped sacred spaces continue...

Last Saturday we had a black and white striped Duomo in Orvieto. This Saturday's color combination of choice? Pink and white stripeys! (At the Basilica di S. Chiara in Assisi.)

...And today's dose of graffiti...

Mirys was here at a scenic spot overlooking the piazza next to the Lower church of the Basilica of Saint Francis in Asissi and the surrounding countryside. It's just a few weeks old. (Not a few centuries old like last week's graffiti!)
And EMO with a handy dandy pronunciation guide (IMOH!!) just in case you're tempted to Italianize it by incorrectly saying "ay-moh." Heeh!

And art!

There's an art exhibition that opened today at the Fortezza (i.e. fortress) of Cortona and we University of Georgia students were invited (on very short notice, may I add) to submit work for it. So here I am with my very first woodblock print at today's opening reception!

My print is handily positioned next to the wine and snack table =)

We can now say that we've exhibited our work in a show in Italy.

How's that for a resume entry? =D

On Great Art and Graffiti

Apparently I'm the art major who doesn't care about amazing art done by various masters of ages past.

Art on a wall, in a museum, in a cathedral, and so on... they always seem to be outside of time. They're preserved, restored, roped off, and often seen outside of their original context. And after a while, it all looks the same.

Some art does inspire me. But other times, most notably after visiting the Ufizzi Museum in Florence, all that art just made me never want to create art again. We clearly have too much of it so why on earth should I add more to the clutter? ART OVERLOAD!!

We went to Orvieto this past Saturday and saw the Last Judgment fresco cycle by Signorelli in the Duomo. (Which, on a side note, reminded me of a fun house due to the black and white striped marble exterior!) According to the New York Times Travel section, this is "one of the Renaissance's greatest fresco cycles." Good to know.

Inside the chapel that housed these great Signorelli frecoes, everyone stood around, heads craned uncomfortably, to get a view of all the flesh and decay of Signorelli's work. (Take a gander! Here and here.)

I looked. And my neck hurt.

Other art students took out their sketchbooks to record whatever details struck their fancy. I whipped out my sketchbook (well, journal) but for an entirely different subject.

Graffiti.

From the 1500's!

Now THAT'S history - a far more fascinating expression and mark of presence than a great Signorelli.

So I spent the majority of my time in the chapel staring at two walls (conveniently at eye level for the salvation of my neck) copying graffiti. I pointed out the scratches to several others but no one else seemed to find it as spiffy and mind blowing as I did.


Dasvbbiano? Dasubbiano? From Arezzo, I'm guessing, in 1540! Or Francescho in 1536. Who were these people? What were their lives like? What did they look like? Did they get in trouble for scratching their names into the wall? Was the chapel a sacred space for them? Or maybe they were bored kids tired of going to church with their parents? When did that space become a look-but-don't-use-or-touch place you have to pay to get into with barriers set up to prevent a wayward viewer from getting too close to the now revered walls?

The 400+ year old graffiti made me notice every bit of modern graffiti I came across while wandering through the streets of Orvieto.


How about some "Hello moto!!" on recent public art? Or declarations of love to a pursued Pulcina scattered around several buildings in the town?


Apparently the human desire to leave a mark of presence, to somehow or another mark a location as a place that you were physically at, is hardly a new phenomenon.

Is the creation of art an expression of that same desire?