Too Far Behind

I was going to post about politics, but there's just been too much going on and not enough time for me to post. I have articles that I emailed to myself from a week and a half ago, so I just decided to finally post after feeling guilty about not posting in a while.

I got a job on campus, and basically all it's been so far is me buzzing people in to one of the villas on campus, and me doing my homework for four hours. But I'm getting paid $8.50 per hour to do my homework, so I'm not complaining. I just got a part in this semester's play, "Lysistrata," but I don't know that any of you have heard of it before (I hadn't). In case you're curious, I'm one of the two "Male Chorus" members that narate the play. I didn't want a lead part, and specifically told thm that, because I don't think I would have time for it, so I'm glad I got that part. Three out of five of my roommates are also in it, and one of my roommates (the one from San Francisco) got the lead.

Other than that, not much has been happening other than studying. I had my second Italian test today, and have written a couple of papers per class. So far I love my writing class, and my social and cultural classes aren't too far behind. I think Italian is my least favorite, but I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just because we have to go to it every day.

So much news, but too sick to post.

There's so much news going on, but I've been too sick to post. Sorry. I'll get to all of it this weekend. Out.

This Most Wonderful Teacher of the Second Grade

Freewriting: sitting down for 10 minutes and writing whatever comes to your mind at that time. There's only one rule to freewriting, and that is to never stop writing for that time period. Anything else goes. Here's what popped into my mind the other day during freewriting, and I thought it was something I could share, because we all have our own version of my second grade teacher in our lives.

There was a fire in stilled in me at a very young age
By this most wonderful teacher of the second grade.
She had shiny black hair, a warm, welcoming face,
All of the students loved her dearly and with well-deserved grace.
There was her method of teaching, her story times too;
A little lava lamp on her desk behind me, easily in view.
She taught us how to multiply, subtract and divide,
And about the unfortunate Abe Lincoln and just how he died.

Friday sing inspired me to join choir, and it was more fun with her at our side,
When she walked she looked graceful, with a rather unique stride.
After her as a teacher no-one else would do;
But with the fire growing ever stronger, I didn't have to worry about "who."
The fire helped with our illness in a way no doctor could,
It kept burning and burning as I'm sure she knew it would.

As I sit here today I remember my past,
All those years ago when I first sat in her class.
My friends all around me all remember her too,
How easy it is to place her in the category of the few.
If I meet her again I will thank her and hug her so tight,
For the gift of fire she gave us that melts away all fright.

Buon Giorno, Italia!

I consider myself extremely lucky to be studying in the city where the name of the crayon "Burnt Sienna" came from (it's the distinct color of the rooftops here in the city that every building by law must use for their roofing material). I am studying in a place whose soul and core culture revolve around oil, bread, and wine. I go to school in a place where morals still exist, and Sunday really is a day of rest because everything closes for business. Religion is deeply rooted in Florence and throughout Italy; Romulus killed Remus, the founder of Rome, just as Cain killed Able. There is an almost indescribable harmony that exists in and around the city, and seems to course through it like the lifeblood. You can actually walk by yourself downtown after the sun has set. You don't need a car, or even public transportation to live, and Wal-Mart mentalities don't exist when it comes to stores; every store has its own specialty. Bookstores, clothing stores, wine shops, cheese shops, meat markets, fruit stands, grocery stores, cell phone stores, stores devoted solely to speakers, gelaterias (ice cream parlors), and little convenience stores called Tabaccis (tah-batch-ees). Things are so different here, and I think that's a nice break to the industrialized, cold, culture-lacking, isolated, sparse, consumer oriented society that we live in, in the states. I'll miss lots of creature comforts during my year abroad, but this is a gratifying extended vacation to be enjoyed, remembered, and cherished for years to come.

Buon giorno, Italia!

Ford appoints Boeing executive as CEO

You know the American car industry is hurting when Ford Motor Company appoints Alan R. Mulally, a top executive at Boeing Company, to be its CEO and president. Although Bill Ford held onto the Chairman title, he relinquished the majority of his power to someone who has never worked in the auto industry, but who is familiar with aircraft instead. This has only been done by one company before, Fiat, of Italy, and they made the transition fairly recently. Who knows what will happen in the coming years; either Ford will continue to lose its ground in the industry or they will somehow miraculously recover from the major pitfalls they've experienced in the past 5 years or so.

I personally don't think you can fix what both Jacques A. Nasser (two CEO's ago) and Bill Ford have done with the company. Ford cars are pieces of crap; just ask anyone who owns one and they'll tell you. They're in the shop more than they're on the road, and have become a disgrace to the auto industry. I hate to see such a great company go down the drains so much so that Toyota was able to overcome them in US auto sales, to be the number two selling car company in the country, behind GM. I hope Mulally can work his magic as he did with Boeing, and can turn around America's car company. [Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/business/06ford.html?th&emc=th]

Picked up my books, went to church

I went to church at Il Duomo yesterday, and because I had missed the mass in English Saturday evening I went to the mass in Italian and basically muttered the English equivalent of what the priest was saying under my breath. I could understand everything here and there, but my Spanish failed to help me understand the homily, especially. Then today after my first class (which was amazing, by the way, and sounds like it's going to be really cool) I went into town to get my books from the English bookstore, and it ended up being about a block away from Il Duomo. I haven't gotten 4 of my books yet, but I was able to get 17 of them (I got everything I need for my classes for first semester). Here's the laundry list, if you're interested, or are curious and want to compare our books for freshman year:

The Story of Art - Gombrich
Oxford Study Bible - Oxford
St. Thomas Aquinas on Politics and Ethics - Aquinas
The Analects - Confucius
The Odyssey - Homer
The Inferno - Dante
Metamorphoses - Ovid
History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides
The Politics - Aristotle
Confessions - Saint Augustine
The Koran
The Annals of Imperial Rome - Tacitus
The Lost Days of Socrates - Plato
The Republic - Plato
Gilgamesh - Stephen Mitchell
The Bacchae and Other Plays - Euripides
The Wasps/The Poet and the Women/The Frogs - Aristophanes
The Republic - The Laws - Cicero
La Pietra - Olivares
...and last but not least:
Tao Te Ching - Stephen Mitchell

Well, I have my Intensive Italian class at 6:00 pm (it's 4:31 pm right now) and we're going to go play volleyball at the campus net (If you haven't seen my pictures of the campus yet, just email me and I'll email you the link to the pics).

Oh, and I heard about Steve Irwin (or however you spell his name), and I think it's really ironic how he didn't die from a croc or an alligator, but instead from a sting ray. People seem to think that's funny, but I don't agree. Just thought I'd express that. My prayers go out to his family and friends.

Latest Updates from Firenze

Basically, I've been too busy and lazy to post on here since I've gotten here, partying almost every night (well, we watched a movie last night, but still we were up talking until 3:20 am) and with orientation it's even less time to be on here. So I'm just going to copy what I wrote my parents to tell you what has been happening the past couple of days. Bear with the wording, because I didn't direct it to a general audience, and a lot of the stuff has been edited out by me. (too personal) =)

------------------------------

.......Sorry I didn't log on last night, but we were out busy
buying groceries with a huge group of people after all of our
orientations, as well as getting cell phones and doing research about
them. So yes, I bought a cell phone yesterday after being strongly
recommended by the administration here to get one. It wasn't too
expensive, only € 75,00 with the € 10,00 pre-paid card. I haven't yet
set up the voicemail because all of the instructions on how to do so
are in Italian, but once I call Vodafone (the service provider, if
you're interested their website is Vodafone.it and there's luckily an
option at the bottom to read the site in english) to get them to
switch all of the programming into english I'll set it up. But my cell
phone number (calling from the US) is 011 39 3466191534. One really nice thing about it is
that incoming calls are free (for me of course) and you can buy more
pre-paid minutes from the phone as long as you're in the vodafone
service area (the best coverage in all of Europe and GB). Oh, and the
phone I bought isn't anything special, but if I were to switch to
Cingular, Sprint, AT&T or Tmobile in the US I could use it back there
too. (Verizon is a pain because they have internal SIM cards, and use
a different network than in Europe, which uses GSM, so my phone
wouldn't have worked over here even if I had brought it). Oh, and the
other thing I learned at the cell phone orientation yesterday is that
the calling card I have requires you to dial a 1-800 number in the
states, and that's not possible from anywhere but inside the country.
Complicated, I know, but I'm just mainly going to use the phone for
emergencies, text messaging (only 15 cents to send text messages,
which is really cheap; incoming are free) for incoming calls, and if I
somehow get really lost and need to call friends to get directions.

In other news: I bought batteries at the grocery store yesterday, so
my camera is back in operation (finally)! Today in about 15 minutes
our CRA's (Community Residence Assistants) are taking us out into the
city on a walking tour to all of the best grocery stores, the best dry
cleaning places, the best gelaterias, the best restaurants for bargain
prices, etc. So I'll be sure to take lots of pictures for that.

Survival Italian yesterday was very interesting; our orientation
teacher spoke only Italian to us and I was actually able to understand
most of it when she spoke slowly. I was able to find out that her
husband is from Los Angeles, but they've lived in New York for the
past 7 years (all in Italian). The cell phone orientation was good,
and that's where I learned all about the phone networks, plans, etc.....

------------------------------------

2 days ago

....Ah, it was nice actually hearing all of your voices again, and I can't
wait until I can see you all again (hopefully soon!) I still haven't
had a chance to go into the city to buy batteries for the camera, but
if you could see the room right now you guys would be impressed at how
clean it is, even though there's 5 of us in one room. Well, our room
has also become the "hang out" room for a bunch of us in Natalia. I'm
sorry to hear about Sandy and her strange behavior, and I hope she
realizes that I'm gone soon so she'll stop. I'll definitely say some
prayers for the business...that sounds good! Well, after all of the
orientations tomorrow I'll have to send you an email/chat with you.
Once classes start on monday, and I find out whether or not I'm going
to work on campus, we should be able to set up a schedule to
(hopefully) video chat. Well, I'm getting ready to go to bed, because
survival Italian is at 9:30 tomorrow morning after breakfast...