| | Fall break starts tomorrow!!! I'm skipping the country and heading to Lugano, Switzerland for the four day break. Really excited although my friend just told me, about 12 hours before I jump on the train, to bring a Halloween costume. Um...hmm. I think I have a do-able idea I just need to locate a cardboard box, markers, and stuff that would sit on a bedside table. Maybe I will post some pictures of the final product.
I am having Moleskine fever! I see the beautiful, simple, sleek notebooks everywhere in every different size and I just want to buy them all and fill them up with stories and essays and meaningless jabber. Throughtout my years at Smith I have had one of the smallish-sized, unlined notebooks on my person at pretty much all times. I write down random thoughts that pop into my head, memories, and quotes. This has turned out to be one of my most cherished possessions. I date everything I write down and then also a little note about what context the quote was said or where I was when I thought about a certain something. It is nice to flip through and add to. My courses here in Italy, which are very history and discussion based, have sparked a creative bone in my body. I just want to sit in the sun, eat my pistacchio gelato, marvel at the people strolling through the city and then write about it!
This spark of creativity was also catalyzed by a book I read this summer "I Was Told There'd Be Cake" by Sloane Crosley. It is a histerical book of really witty essays. One day recently I was procrastinating and surfing the web when I came across the amazon.com page for her book. I read the reader's responses and was a little miffed at some of the harsh and negative critiques. So I went to her website and sent Sloane Crosley an e-mail telling her how wonderful I thought her book was when I read it over the summer and I really look forward to more. And guess what? She wrote back! This was so exciting and totally made my day! It was just nice to get a little human contact with this woman who I thought I knew so well from her autobiographical essays.
I have been keeping an eye on the forecast at Smith. One day I noted that in NoHo it was 46 F and here in beautiful Tuscany it was 77 F. What a hard life...
Speaking of a hard life...the phenomenon of the "sciopero" (strike). In the past week, there have been two HUGE strikes here in Florence which center around the law the government is trying to pass that would make all universities in Italy private. This in turn would cause all students to pay around 3,000.00 euro each year for school, which is currently free for them. I know what you're thinking - why can't tuition in the US be like this- but it is a very big issue among students just like us. Literally THOUSANDS of students organized themselves with chants and banners to send the message loud and clear that this law cannot be passed. Tomorrow, Oct. 30th, there will be a NATIONWIDE strike in Rome. Italian students from all over will take busses and trains to Rome to fight this law. Some have said that strikes here in Italy are like a national pastime, but I think it is wonderful that so many people can be passionate about change.
I'm sure everyone is counting down the days until next Tuesday...I'm getting some rest and my homework done before then because I'm pulling an all-nighter for sure!
Ciao! |
