In which Amber starts class and goes to the opera at long last.
I am still alive! I don't have time right now to go through everything I've been doing in the last two weeks, which I will try to catch up on eventually. I will blame this partly on class starting, partly on the fact that our free wireless at home vanished just as mysteriously as it appeared, and partly on the fact that I am lazy.
Things are still going well, though everything is a lot busier now that I've started content classes. I'm taking Sociolinguistics (MW), Art History (T), Socio-Anthropology/Institutions in Society (T), and of course Italian (TWTHF). Sociolinguistics right now is a kind of history of the development of the Italian language from Latin to what it is today. Later it will deal with different incarnations of the language in different places and among different groups. Art History is fun--we get to visit lots of museums for free! Socio-Anthropology is kind of my philosophy substitute this semester. My hope is that it will give me some empirical data with which to refute some of my "favorite" American...tendencies. Italian class has a new twist, since last week I moved up into the Advanced class. Which is...interesting. Class makes me feel kind of uncomfortable and on edge, which is probably a good sign, because the Intermediate class was waaaaay too relaxing. And we talk a LOT. Which is hard for me--I'm not good at talking in class even when it's in English--but is probably also good for me.
Also, my program is trying to arrange for me to volunteer at the Biblioteca Comunale (Public Library!) in Siena. In addition, I also get to help organize the program's few-hundred-volume library, which is basically a pit of chaos right now, with stuff sort of organized by subject but also having been recently messed up. I get to help come up with the new organizational system, and input every single volume into the computer. This is all made excessively exciting by the fact that almost all of the books are in Italian. So, all of you librarians reading this (and I know you're out there!), feel free to suggest potential organization systems for a very small non-circulating collection for which LC is definitely not appropriate.
In other news, I went to the opera in Florence yesterday! We saw La Traviata (LINK!) by Giuseppe Verdi (admittedly from quite a distance, though they weren't the worst seats in the house--there was a strange fish guts smell that mystified us, however). The music was lovely--my favorite was the second act, where all the exciting stuff (and thus exciting music) happens. I may have... briefly fallen asleep during the first act (my host mom laughed and said no one goes to the opera without falling asleep at some point). And I finally understand why people always think operas are so long. It's not always that the opera itself is necessarily that long. For example, each of the three acts of La Traviata was about 30 min. to 45 min. long. But the two intermissions were 30 min. apiece! So there was only about 1.5-2 hours of opera, which is not that much, but it became a three-hour-long affair. Because that's how they do it in Italy! But it was an awesome experience. Even though the subtitles (or, rather, surtitles) were only in Italian (and antiquated Italian, at that). But it was nice to not have to focus so much on the specific lyrics but rather on the sound of all the music together. It also helped that we had an "Opera Workshop" last week, where we found out the main plot of the opera. Otherwise I wouldn't have had any idea what was going on, surtitles or no!
Quick practical note: My mom brought it to my attention last night that not everyone knows that words on this blog written in blue are actually links to be clicked on, that will take you to other pages (LINK!). So, if you didn't know that until just now, you should probably go back to some of my old entries for the full experience, as it were. Though some of them are silly, there are also links to new sets of pictures. And I will go back to my old entries and add "(LINK!)" after each link so you can find them more easily. And I'm adding a link to that top introductory entry to my general photo page so you can check photos on there, which I sometimes update without writing about it here.
Miss you all! (And I love emails even if I'm terrible at returning them!)
Things are still going well, though everything is a lot busier now that I've started content classes. I'm taking Sociolinguistics (MW), Art History (T), Socio-Anthropology/Institutions in Society (T), and of course Italian (TWTHF). Sociolinguistics right now is a kind of history of the development of the Italian language from Latin to what it is today. Later it will deal with different incarnations of the language in different places and among different groups. Art History is fun--we get to visit lots of museums for free! Socio-Anthropology is kind of my philosophy substitute this semester. My hope is that it will give me some empirical data with which to refute some of my "favorite" American...tendencies. Italian class has a new twist, since last week I moved up into the Advanced class. Which is...interesting. Class makes me feel kind of uncomfortable and on edge, which is probably a good sign, because the Intermediate class was waaaaay too relaxing. And we talk a LOT. Which is hard for me--I'm not good at talking in class even when it's in English--but is probably also good for me.
Also, my program is trying to arrange for me to volunteer at the Biblioteca Comunale (Public Library!) in Siena. In addition, I also get to help organize the program's few-hundred-volume library, which is basically a pit of chaos right now, with stuff sort of organized by subject but also having been recently messed up. I get to help come up with the new organizational system, and input every single volume into the computer. This is all made excessively exciting by the fact that almost all of the books are in Italian. So, all of you librarians reading this (and I know you're out there!), feel free to suggest potential organization systems for a very small non-circulating collection for which LC is definitely not appropriate.
In other news, I went to the opera in Florence yesterday! We saw La Traviata (LINK!) by Giuseppe Verdi (admittedly from quite a distance, though they weren't the worst seats in the house--there was a strange fish guts smell that mystified us, however). The music was lovely--my favorite was the second act, where all the exciting stuff (and thus exciting music) happens. I may have... briefly fallen asleep during the first act (my host mom laughed and said no one goes to the opera without falling asleep at some point). And I finally understand why people always think operas are so long. It's not always that the opera itself is necessarily that long. For example, each of the three acts of La Traviata was about 30 min. to 45 min. long. But the two intermissions were 30 min. apiece! So there was only about 1.5-2 hours of opera, which is not that much, but it became a three-hour-long affair. Because that's how they do it in Italy! But it was an awesome experience. Even though the subtitles (or, rather, surtitles) were only in Italian (and antiquated Italian, at that). But it was nice to not have to focus so much on the specific lyrics but rather on the sound of all the music together. It also helped that we had an "Opera Workshop" last week, where we found out the main plot of the opera. Otherwise I wouldn't have had any idea what was going on, surtitles or no!
Quick practical note: My mom brought it to my attention last night that not everyone knows that words on this blog written in blue are actually links to be clicked on, that will take you to other pages (LINK!). So, if you didn't know that until just now, you should probably go back to some of my old entries for the full experience, as it were. Though some of them are silly, there are also links to new sets of pictures. And I will go back to my old entries and add "(LINK!)" after each link so you can find them more easily. And I'm adding a link to that top introductory entry to my general photo page so you can check photos on there, which I sometimes update without writing about it here.
Miss you all! (And I love emails even if I'm terrible at returning them!)