Thanksgiving

Ello everybody! Happy Thanksgiving / Buon Ringraziamento one day late! (how ironic that Italians actually have a word for it) Boy oh boy was yesterday some sort of roller coaster of zee emotions. So. To my great delight I had to go to the sede (the Smith center, pronounced say-day, not seed) early to make up the oral portion of the art history exam I missed when I was sick :). I had gotten less than 5 hours of sleep the night before. I was nervous out of my SKULL. When the professor had finally set up the slide of the painting I had to talk about, I was pleased to say that I knew what it was, who painted it, the date (to the exact year thank you very much) and its significance more or less. What I didn't know is that she would be asking me about the nature of Raphael's commissions and to compare it to other paintings by him and others that I could barely remember let alone talk about without seeing them. Apparently I did NOT take enough notes in class. But it's not like I didn't KNOW stuff. It's just that the combined pressure of being confined in a chair about 5 centimeters from a professor who is judging you (and whose lip liner is distracting and who I cannot help but compare to Jennifer Coolidge), while having to speak in Italian and just the general fact that if I know somebody is waiting for me to answer my brain literally goes blank and only produces such helpful thoughts as "I NEED TO THINK OF SOMETHING SHE'S WAITING SHE'S WAITING THINK OF SOMETHING SHE'S WAITING"......that makes me a wee bit nervous. She concluded by saying "It seems you have a bit of a difficulty speaking, combined with fear. You should try to connect your thoughts more smoothly, especially for the university exam." I said "K THANKS!" and skipped out the room with a grin from ear to ear.
And then I got to see this same professor for the next 2 hours straight while we had our class. At first not even the stunning masterpieces of the Uffizi could cheer me up. When the words "I just need a hug" came into my mind, I was then reminded that if I were in America I would be receiving many many hugs from all my family members. And then it became even harder to contain tears. Oh and I forgot something hilarious. Before we entered the Uffizi the professor all of a sudden asked, "Who has their presentation in the Uffizi today?" I'm pretty sure we all misunderstood her at first. At least I thought she was asking who was writing their final paper on a painting that is in the Uffizi (we didn't have a choice in the matter, a few weeks ago we were just kind of randomly distributed low-quality black and white photo copies of paintings and apparently the one we got was to be our final paper topic). Anyways the girls whose paintings are in the Uffizi (myself included) raised their hands. To make a long story short, it turned out we had been expected to GIVE A PRESENTATION IN THE UFFIZI. When we arrived in front of our painting. That very day. Not a single one of us had even the FAINTEST notion that we had to do anything REMOTELY like this. And so we exchanged looks of bemusement and shock and the professor scolded us for not having read the syllabus while we all silently scolded her for not having uttered a syllable of this before that day. A great kick-off to the class.
But yeah I eventually forgot about my misery because I grew bored and hungry (as usual) and tired. And instead of sadness I felt extreme irritation. For the past 3 weeks I've been thinking "man this week sucked. Luckily there will be less work next week!" Lies. And now I am just DROWNING in it. Luckily I was able to make up my 2 exams (uhh...we'll see how I did) and midterms are done. It was really great (at this point you can probably already tell I'm going to be sarcastic) because the day after I took my Fashion/Costume exam, the professor told us she was giving them back. But not just that--she was going to give them back to us one by one, individually, privately, to discuss our errors, with the door closed. So I waited around in sheer and utter terror for about a half hour while she called every girl in except me. To make a long story short, she hadn't gotten to my exam yet. But hey, I appreciated the unnecessary anxiety. No but I was cheered up soon afterwards when I HAD A REAL. AMERICAN. SANDWICH. OF REAL. AMERICAN. PROPORTIONS. Me and two of the other Smith girls (who are subscribed to my blog! shout-out to Breana and Sera, haha) went to an American diner! It was SO delicious and exactly what I needed. We got vanilla cokes. They came about halfway through our meal so I was dehydrated and very eager to take a sip. Of pure liquid vanilla sugar. Yeah I didn't realize you had to add the Coke first.
RETURNING TO THANKSGIVING! After the Uffizi I ate lunch in the sede and hung around until three other Smith girls announced they were going to the university class that I had found last week (SUCCESS!!! my fifth attempt but SUCCESS!!) and I decided to go with them. We left an hour early because it was extremely boring and there was a couple that was getting rather intimate and Christine was making me crack up and it was just absurd all in all. Then I went home. A few hours later I changed and Camilla and I made our way to Giovanna's apartment for Thanksgiving :). It was absolutely the best meal I've had in Italy, possibly my LIFE. I can't even begin to describe how amazing the feeling of being full was in that moment. My stomach had visibly expanded by the end of the night. It's something that hasn't happened in far too long. I'm beginning to realize the food we have with our host family is just....not.....great. I'm often hungry. I was looking forward to this meal with GIDDINESS. And rightly so. There was: the best cornbread of my life (usually I don't even like cornbread), pumpkin/squash (it's the same word in Italian) soup, potato puree, amazingly tender turkey with gravy, cranberries, CRANBERRY SAUCE (cranberries are virtually nonexistant in Italy so I was SO happy and surprised when Giovanna brought out the cranberry jellies...they are my favorite), green beans with cashews, corn, yummy stuffing, and some garlicy squashy salady thing that was as amazing as everything else. Oh and pumpkin and apple pies with homemade whipped cream. I think I was actually high I was so happy. There was tons of laughing and picture taking and Giovanna's husband played the fiddle and we all sang. Oh and all the professors were invited. I didn't even care that I had to see the art history professor yet again. Well ok maybe a little when I had to sit next to her buuuut I'm not one to damper the Thanksgiving mood. All in all it was a 100% perfect Italian substitute. And when I got home I had a hilariously wonderful skype chat with my whole family in America. So by the end of the day I didn't feel so sad. :)

Ammalata

It would seem as though I am sick. It's 3:45 and I'm lying in bed in my pajamas still with a headache and stuffy nose and cough and exhaustion. I'm just surprised it took me until now. Props to my brave little immune system for sticking it out so long. I think every single one of the Smith girls was sick during the past few weeks, including both Giovanna and Monica. Sitting in an enclosed classroom with the germs constantly spewing and circulating in the air....it was BOUND to happen. On Monday towards the end of Fashion I started to feel unbearably weak and faint and dizzy. I had to lie down on the couch while Giovanna and Monica and some of the Smith girls tended to me. At least the Fashion professor saw me so she could be certain I wasn't skipping her class on Wednesday. Yes, I missed school on Wednesday. I decided that given my state the best thing to do would probably not be walking a half hour to the center to take a long and stressful exam. In any case I wouldn't have done my best work on it if I had. Same goes for today. I am slightly less congested but I decided against going to my (yes, second) huge stressful art history exam because my work quality would probably not have been up to par. Monica and Giovanna have been amazing, of course, calling to check on me twice each yesterday and twice so far today. My host mom even sent me a text from work and their housekeeper gave me some weird fizzy fever-reducer tablets or something. And Camilla brought me the beeeest wonton soup, exactly as I was craving. And Lord knows there is nothing remotely like that to eat in this house. Basically it's been a pretty awful week and the next one doesn't look like it'll get much better because now I have to worry about making up the 2 exams in addition to a ton of other work. :( Italy's charms are absent right now. SIIIIIGHH. Back to sleep

Daaaze

Also sort of like "days." Because I am so creative it hurts. I am back with something that is definitely worth writing about. It occurred this very day! Alright. So one of the things that I think we're supposed to do here besides take classes is get an internship or volunteer position or something of the like. And of course the amazing Giovanna and Monica help us figure out what we want, search for our perfect match, and arrange the entire thing. I had told Giovanna that I would probably want to work in a museum or gallery, which is what I did this summer in Boston and is literally the only thing I can picture myself doing. She ended up finding an internship that a girl who (funnily enough) lived with our host family last year had. Cataloging old sheet music and books in the Biblioteca Nazionale. Just, you know. She told me she'd tell me when she heard from them. I skipped merrily along my way out of her office and then many weeks passed and nothing had happened. Not that I was PINING for it to begin...but it was slightly weird. And then yesterday I happened to see Monica in passing and she just casually mentioned that I would be meeting with the internship people with Giovanna the next day (today) at 2. Now I couldn't go to my (FREAKIN' FOURTH TRY) University of Florence class, which would have been perfect. Oh well I think I've put up with enough frustration from that silly university so really nothing else can push me over the edge because I am already over the edge. I am rappelling the cliff. Still need to find a permanent class though...hum dee dum. I digress. So today Giovanna popped her head into the classroom and told me to meet in her office at 1:30 so we could go. I found myself with about 10 minutes to get lunch after class and before the meeting, so me and Camilla hastily purchased disgusting salty sandwiches. When I came back Giovanna was talking in her office. I did not want to interrupt. Until 1:45 when finally the professor left her office and I awkwardly entered. Giovanna saw me and she bolted to get her things and we walked slash sprinted to the library. We got lost so she stopped to ask at a hotel. We had walked RIGHT past it. It was kind of hard to miss. haha I'm glad to know someone else has just as poor a sense of direction as I do. We entered with about 2 seconds to spare. Giovanna chatted with the friendly security dude at the desk. I think he thought I was her daughter or something? Because we both have red hair? Maybe? Because Giovanna said "non, non e la mia!" (no she's not mine) and laughed. Then the woman who I guess will be my boss appeared. She was very small with a cartoon-ish voice and big red glasses and was very nice. She seemed to be kind of gushing over me. She said I looked like a "true Bostonian"....I don't really know what that means but let me tell you I have never felt so cool to be from Boston in my LIFE. You tell Italians you're from Boston and they think of a magical far off land home to the Red Sox and Celtics (er at least this guy at a discoteca on Friday seemed to have this impression...) Then the woman brought us to the music room, which was very small and library-y, with about 3 people studying. She introduced me to a man whose name I do not remember but it's ok. He thought my name was "Elisa" and Giovanna clarified ("Ah-lee-zone"). Throughout the whole encounter Giovanna kept nudging me forward, physically encouraging me to get closer and see everything first. Then the woman (oops I forget her name too) took out some keys and showed us to the room where my OWN SPECIAL PROJECT is located. The room is named after Luigi Dallapiccola, a composer. It was small and we were all quite close together. She told me the history of it but I promptly forgot. Still I could not help but smile when she revealed a PIANO! That was hidden under a tarp. That (I think?) Luigi Dallapiccola himself played. The piano had the date "1900" carved in gold. She let me play a note. The sound quality wasn't great (when oh when will I find a nice piano) but the piano itself was obviously incredibly special. She said I could play it. When she left the room Giovanna said that I had to christen the room and play something, make sure it was in tune. So I played the notes of a chord. When the woman came back in she said "not today" and it was slightly embarrassing but whatever. haha. So all these scores haven't been cataloged and this is what she wants me to begin. Kind of like a once in a lifetime opportunity I would say. Then she gave us a tour of the library. At one point she opened a door and we were outside overlooking a square courtyard with arches designed by Michelotto (I think?) and it was so typically Italian and Renaissance-y and stunning. Giovanna decided to take pictures of me, one with the woman [oh by the way she also randomly took one of me signing papers...]. She said she knew we didn't like it when she took our pictures but in 10 years we would think they were precious. When we left and had hardly taken 3 steps out the door Giovanna grabbed my arm and said in English "isn't this fantastic??" Proof that 1) For people who know English and another language, English is the language that allows you to express yourself so much more easily and precisely. I often think of this when I am frustrated with Italian. 2) Giovanna is one of the most amazingly supportive and amazingly amazing people I have ever met, and 3) I am going to be working to catalogue never-before-catalogued old sheet music and books in the Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze. How is my life real.