6 days and counting..

I can't beleive I'm already finishing up y first semester of college! I feel like I've been here forever and like it's just started. I have my apartment for next semester with my lovely roommate Meaghan. It has 2 floors a big ol' couch and normal sized kitchen and I'm so excited to move in and have my own space(and a queen size bed). 

The last 3 and a half months have been a whirlwind of change and growth for me. I've been immersed in a multicultural  environment constantly which is exactly why I wanted to come here, while at the same time, it is nothing like I imagined. I've realized that we don't all have the same general idea for life, which sounds trivial but I've really learned from the other cultures surrounding me and the amazing and different people I've gotten to know. 

My classes were overall all fantastic this semester. Art of Renaissance and Baroque and art of Modernity (however stress inducing their final papers were) were the perfect way to introduce me to art! I loved everything about the classes,  from being on-site weekly to being encouraged to delve into the tiniest detail of a painting. 

I spent my fall break in London and Paris and although it was a short trip, I got a taste of the cities and can't wait to get back. Now that I'm thinking about travel, I'm really looking forward to taking a trip next semester to Florence and Venice(hopefully for Carnivale).- I am ridiculously lucky to have the chance to even think of this experience and my mom and dad are incredible people to give me this chance.

I've finished my 3 final papers that had been haunting me and now I'm counting down! I can't wait for so many things- thai noon, crepes, burgerville, skiing, mom's christmas decorations, all my special people(i.e. claire molly, char, simon), especially my family.

Now four finals, packing up, then home free!

Hungary for Turkey

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL!
I have a 4 page paper due in an hour and a half so naturally I'm sitting on the internet. What am I thinking? It's Thanksgiving and my first away from my family. Sure, I've been homesick off and on but on such a family oriented day I'm really appreciating all my loved ones.

Things I miss most about today:

-Cowboy cookies

-Pumpkin Pie

-Grammy's Lap

-Dad sleeping in the middle of the floor after we eat :)

-Brendan telling stories

-Unkie in the kitchen with Jerry

-Cathy & Mom laughing together

-Auntie Jan listening intently to everyone's stories

-dried fruit

-the comic books under the coffee table

-FAMILY.

I'm going to a AUR hosted dinner tonight, but I hear they might not even have turkey! I'm making my own pumpkin pie tomorrow and am going to Assisi for a day trip on saturday.

Essays galore.. procrastination is my downfall.

VS.

GOBAMA

PRESIDENT OBAMA

I'm still in shock, and I'm so happy!

It's unbelievable hat we all came together to take a 

great turn for America! I'm so proud of us, and electing Obama is already changing out international status.

I wore my "Barack & Roll 2008" shirt yesterday on the bus from London to Paris and I was congratulated 5 times! Ev

ery newspaper I saw in london and Paris the couple days have had Barack & Michelle Obama on the cover, one cover said "Yanks very much!" hahaha...

September..

So I have survived my first month here in Rome!

I've been so preoccupied getting acclimated to life here, I've abandoned the blog! I live on Villa Pamphili, a 15 minute walk from school, where I walk to every morning around 9 and get a cappuccino and cornetto for breakfast. From school it is a 10 minute bus ride to the Colosseum! -buses are my main mode of transport if I'm not walking. there is A LOT of walking..-

It is so incredible and unbelievable to be able to take a bus to Piazza Venezia and just start walking, you will undoubtedly run into a beautiful historical monument or church, not to mention the fact that everything around you is history!

My art classes, Art of Renaissance & Baroque and Art of Modernity, are exactly what I hoped for when I pictured coming here. My renaissance & Baroque class (which is taught by a Professor Borghese!) is onsite, so we meet in a new location each monday and walk to churches, museums, etc. for three hours- the first class we met at the Colosseum and this monday we met at the Pantheon! My Arts of Modernity class is also three hours, but we are in a classroom. As impossible as that sounds, my Professor is unbelievably passionate about each piece he shows us and each class is overwhelming in the best sense.

My other 3 classes are Beginning Italian, Writing Workshop, and First Year Seminar class. 

I'm loving them all, and really enjoying the time in between them- it's a lot easier to keep on top of the work!

<3

Art of Modernity, 1st Analysis..

Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare

(1781)

Formal Analysis:  Fuseli’s Nightmare depicts a young woman in a sinuous white dress stretched across a simple bed asleep. Her body from the shoulders up gracefully hangs loose at the end of the bed, her left hand resting on the floor. Her face is not quite upset, but in an unsettled and dreaming state. The way her head lies, leaving her neck fully exposed, she is completely vulnerable. On the woman’s stomach sits a disturbing and rotund gargoyle-like creature, staring dangerously at his audience. Peering from behind a deep red drape is a strange blind black horse with a wild, wispy, mane and vacant, haunting, white eyes. There are three distinct figures in this piece, but your initial glance is almost balanced between the harsh white figure and the unsettling creature that haunts her stomach. The woman’s bright white body separates two deep red fabrics that naturally adorn what could be blank space. The light yellow fabric that lies beneath the woman is a balance to the creature’s pale brown and stone-like coloring on the other side.

Narrative Analysis:  The way that the woman lays, it is obvious she has become distorted in her sleep. The horse and creature on her stomach are figments of her imagination, possibly what she dreams of. Being asleep and sprawled out so honestly, the woman is completely defenseless to the demon sitting directly on her womb, which may symbolize anxieties with infertility. The wild horse (nightmare) was irrelevant to me at first sight, but besides the feeling of balance he gives to the composition of the piece, he gives the scene an unreal sense, which ultimately gives us the impression that it is a dream. The Nightmare is said to be one of the first surrealist paintings, perceiving an image of what happens inside the mind. Being a “precursor” into surrealism, it was most definitely part of the Romanticism movement. It is said that Fuseli paved the way for many artists to follow (Goya) by being the first to reveal the human subconscious.

At the starting line

12:20pm in the Schipol Amsterdam, waiting to board for Rome! I’d have to pay for internet in the airport so I’m going to wait until I’m at the school. The 13 hour flight was super easy, I slept for the majority of it -thanks to pulling an all-nighter to pack the day before. Leaving PDX was hard- walking around my house, thinking about my parents and familiar faces, and especially when I realized I wouldn’t be back in my vegetable dent in the couch watching crud t.v. for four months -four!

I can almost imagine being away on a vacation for a whole month, but it’s difficult to see myself being settled into an apartment with now unknown roommates and (successfully) cooking for myself, once I run out of the 15 pack of Annie’s mac & cheese that now line my suitcase.

I’m now excitedly anticipating my arrival and meeting some new people, who are –I’m hoping- as enthusiastic about this as I am, and hopefully not falling asleep into my plate at the presidents reception dinner tonight.. thanks jet lag.

Now to search for an electrical plug adapter..