Hi my loves.
So much has happened - I don't have time to talk a bout it all because unlike usual I forgot to prepare my blog post ahead of time, before I actually got to the internet. The days when I could spontaneously blog... well, those are gone. =)
My honors project got approved, Professor Perrin is most likely going to direct it although there are a few wrinkles to iron out, I will be living and working on campus over the summer (and I so look forward to seeing all of you that live close - we need to make weekend trips to the beach or something! Or perhaps the Ren Faire, Lucy?), and most importantly of all (which I almost hesitate to talk about), there's a doctor who thinks he knows what Dad's sick with and thinks he can fix it. So! =)
Things are full. Woodblock printing class is amazing, I love Katie and Elena and am so glad I'm living with them next year, I got to hang out with a Franciscan monk from Assissi this afternoon, I'm consuming vast quantities of gelato and coffee (the best place to get internet is, ironically, at a bar, and since I don't want to consume copious amounts of alcohol, I consume copious amounts of coffee whenever I try to connect with the outside world via teh interwebs). Graduation is approaching for all of you Messiah-ites... I wish that I could be there! I'm missing all of you, and I'm so looking forward to the days when I can see you all every week at least (even if we're nuts as seniors and can't see each other every day. And even if maybe our group has grown to fill up with people I don't know). Where are you all living next year? Katie, Elena, and I are living in Mellinger.
Tonight we're going out to dinner at a really nice place... nonna amelias? I'm not sure how to spell it. But it sounds vaguely like that. Oh, and Lucy - I met Lucy and Charley from the Oxford semester - they came out to visit Jeff and Orvieto. And also, Prague got cancelled, so what weekend would work good for me to come out and visit you or vice versa? We will have to plan. 'Cause I really do want to see you this semester! My schedule is very open - just let me know what works best for you, because it sounds like you have an actually intense academic semester, where for me it is mostly just messing around. =D (Shhhh.... don't tell Skillen I said that! I heart him, but I get distracted way too easily here in Italy.)
So, loves, until I have time to do a real post.... I heart you! Don't leave me next year! Let's all be back together at least sometimes! I'll host weekly pro tempore dinners? Yes?
Kenzie
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
Hey loves!
Yet another update from the land of Italia, where the sun is getting brighter every day, the wisteria blooms are dropping off, and some new kind of white trees are blooming, along with some other kind of yellow bush-things whose blooms look a little bit like orchids. Sorry, I’m not really a horticulturist. But I have been drying some flowers and using them in my sketchbook, which is kind of fun. I haven’t dried flowers since I was really little - good grief, probably not since I was twelve and someone gave me a little plastic flower press for Christmas one year. I wonder if I still have that? The poppies are also blooming, and Katie apparently loves poppies, so we went on a poppy-gathering expedition around the cliff this week. Unfortunately, Marlene, Elena, and I couldn’t precisely find the way back when we wanted to, so all our poppies died in our hands (well, Marlene really only had a cornstalk in her hand, and she just got sick of carrying it and threw it away). But those went into the sketchbook too, so I suppose it’s alright. It served a purpose.
Could it be that I am coming to terms with the color pink? I walk into my room and I’m not positively revolted by the pink flower on our sill (and it is, let me assure you, an electric pink). Nor am I positively revolted by the electric pink of my bedcover, although I did turn it over so that the gray side is foremost. The nice thing (and it may be the only one) about pink is that it casts warm shadows.
If spring is this warm, though, here in Italy, I think I may die when summer comes. Or at least take three cold showers a day. Elena and I have started running early in the mornings, now, when it’s still chilly, because neither of us can take the heat in the afternoon. It’s actually been good. I like seeing the world when it’s new, and when I get up early I don’t have to listen to Alexis interminably hitting her snooze button (the one thing that is a bone of contention between us - otherwise I think we make great roommates). My mood, frankly, has been great every morning that I wake up to my alarm going off just once, and getting out of the room for some untalkative time when everything is beautiful and fresh. Today I’m sore, but it’s still good. Would you be ridiculously shocked if I came home and kept on running? (I think I would be! But it would probably be good for my cholesterol? Lord, we eat so much cheese here that it’s ridiculous.) I don’t know - I just feel better about myself when I know I’ve gone running, so maybe that’s worth keeping, regardless of whether it actually helps me regulate my weight or not.
I have conceived of an unholy passion for asiago cheese, artichoke hearts, and honey. Not all together, of course - that would be interesting, but odd - but oh man, in separate dishes, or (in the case of asiago cheese) just by itself.... I swear, when I get back to the states I am learning how to cook artichoke hearts, and I am using asiago cheese whenever I can. And I am going to try and find some honey without all of those ridiculous preservatives and texture-regulator things in it. I like the texture of real honey, although not in or on everything. Also, sheep cheese is pretty good. I love just spreading it on a piece of toast (‘cause it’s kind of soft). Nutella is also pretty rocking, but that at least I can get back in the states.
I went out and bought a little espresso maker, too, so that I can have easily-made espresso back in the states. I’m so excited! Whee! We can make some seriously good coffee drinks now. I am so looking forward to it. As soon as Laura teaches me how to use it. =)
I don’t know that there’s really a lot to tell - I got to get in some good solid reading time yesterday, so that was nice. I ended with mainly negative feelings about the book (White Oleander - she wielded her language well, but the reason it sold so well is probably because it’s filled with sex. What the author thought was real in the story was not what was real in the story, and so when it came time for her to wrap up at the end, she fell flat. No belief in narrative, as Skillen would say. So yeah, I guess I just feel like the author kind of lost her way along with the character. There was an ending there, waiting to be found, but the author forgot to find it.), but just being able to sit down and devour a book in a day again was great. You know what I got a hankering to read, the other day, though? The Sabriel books again. So genius. Someday I want to be Garth Nix. Except I still want to be me. So basically, I just want to steal his brilliance. Someday when I am a master thief. =D
This weekend is great, because it marks the end of Italian class, and the end of Renaissance history class. I’ll be a little bit sorry to see the end of Renaissance History class now (although I freely admit that it drove me completely bonkers at first, and I still bear no great love towards Renaissance art. I’m just more intellectually piqued by it I suppose), but I’m so darn excited to get back into the studio. Sure, it’s a higher pressure environment in terms of comparing myself to other people, but I’m ready to keep learning and keep pushing myself and getting back to making something with my hands that I actually care about. The Italian class I’ll miss just in terms of impetus to continue learning Italian, but I think I’ll be able to manage without that. I’ll certainly be able to manage without those stressful tutoring sessions.
Alright loves, it’s such a beautiful day that I just can’t sit inside typing on my computer anymore. I’m thinking of going to the park near the fort, or heck, just sitting on the terrace and doing some writing.
Kenzie
Yet another update from the land of Italia, where the sun is getting brighter every day, the wisteria blooms are dropping off, and some new kind of white trees are blooming, along with some other kind of yellow bush-things whose blooms look a little bit like orchids. Sorry, I’m not really a horticulturist. But I have been drying some flowers and using them in my sketchbook, which is kind of fun. I haven’t dried flowers since I was really little - good grief, probably not since I was twelve and someone gave me a little plastic flower press for Christmas one year. I wonder if I still have that? The poppies are also blooming, and Katie apparently loves poppies, so we went on a poppy-gathering expedition around the cliff this week. Unfortunately, Marlene, Elena, and I couldn’t precisely find the way back when we wanted to, so all our poppies died in our hands (well, Marlene really only had a cornstalk in her hand, and she just got sick of carrying it and threw it away). But those went into the sketchbook too, so I suppose it’s alright. It served a purpose.
Could it be that I am coming to terms with the color pink? I walk into my room and I’m not positively revolted by the pink flower on our sill (and it is, let me assure you, an electric pink). Nor am I positively revolted by the electric pink of my bedcover, although I did turn it over so that the gray side is foremost. The nice thing (and it may be the only one) about pink is that it casts warm shadows.
If spring is this warm, though, here in Italy, I think I may die when summer comes. Or at least take three cold showers a day. Elena and I have started running early in the mornings, now, when it’s still chilly, because neither of us can take the heat in the afternoon. It’s actually been good. I like seeing the world when it’s new, and when I get up early I don’t have to listen to Alexis interminably hitting her snooze button (the one thing that is a bone of contention between us - otherwise I think we make great roommates). My mood, frankly, has been great every morning that I wake up to my alarm going off just once, and getting out of the room for some untalkative time when everything is beautiful and fresh. Today I’m sore, but it’s still good. Would you be ridiculously shocked if I came home and kept on running? (I think I would be! But it would probably be good for my cholesterol? Lord, we eat so much cheese here that it’s ridiculous.) I don’t know - I just feel better about myself when I know I’ve gone running, so maybe that’s worth keeping, regardless of whether it actually helps me regulate my weight or not.
I have conceived of an unholy passion for asiago cheese, artichoke hearts, and honey. Not all together, of course - that would be interesting, but odd - but oh man, in separate dishes, or (in the case of asiago cheese) just by itself.... I swear, when I get back to the states I am learning how to cook artichoke hearts, and I am using asiago cheese whenever I can. And I am going to try and find some honey without all of those ridiculous preservatives and texture-regulator things in it. I like the texture of real honey, although not in or on everything. Also, sheep cheese is pretty good. I love just spreading it on a piece of toast (‘cause it’s kind of soft). Nutella is also pretty rocking, but that at least I can get back in the states.
I went out and bought a little espresso maker, too, so that I can have easily-made espresso back in the states. I’m so excited! Whee! We can make some seriously good coffee drinks now. I am so looking forward to it. As soon as Laura teaches me how to use it. =)
I don’t know that there’s really a lot to tell - I got to get in some good solid reading time yesterday, so that was nice. I ended with mainly negative feelings about the book (White Oleander - she wielded her language well, but the reason it sold so well is probably because it’s filled with sex. What the author thought was real in the story was not what was real in the story, and so when it came time for her to wrap up at the end, she fell flat. No belief in narrative, as Skillen would say. So yeah, I guess I just feel like the author kind of lost her way along with the character. There was an ending there, waiting to be found, but the author forgot to find it.), but just being able to sit down and devour a book in a day again was great. You know what I got a hankering to read, the other day, though? The Sabriel books again. So genius. Someday I want to be Garth Nix. Except I still want to be me. So basically, I just want to steal his brilliance. Someday when I am a master thief. =D
This weekend is great, because it marks the end of Italian class, and the end of Renaissance history class. I’ll be a little bit sorry to see the end of Renaissance History class now (although I freely admit that it drove me completely bonkers at first, and I still bear no great love towards Renaissance art. I’m just more intellectually piqued by it I suppose), but I’m so darn excited to get back into the studio. Sure, it’s a higher pressure environment in terms of comparing myself to other people, but I’m ready to keep learning and keep pushing myself and getting back to making something with my hands that I actually care about. The Italian class I’ll miss just in terms of impetus to continue learning Italian, but I think I’ll be able to manage without that. I’ll certainly be able to manage without those stressful tutoring sessions.
Alright loves, it’s such a beautiful day that I just can’t sit inside typing on my computer anymore. I’m thinking of going to the park near the fort, or heck, just sitting on the terrace and doing some writing.
Kenzie
Friday, April 13, 2007
alora....
This so not a great picture of the bangs. But here it is anyway! I'm sure we will be taking many more pictures, so a good one with teh bangs will go up here eventually. I'm holding a plant because... well, I'm not sure why. Alexis was just like, "you should be holding flowers!" So I was like, "OK, Sure, grab that one by the window!" The end. And as a bonus, you get a few other pictures of random places! Venice mostly, I think. =)
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
My loves,
So Mom, you remember when you said once upon a time that you thought I would look cute in bangs? And you remember when I was talking about cutting my hair really short? Well, I compromised a little. I didn’t cut my hair really short, but I cut my bangs pretty dramatically. It’s kind of a funny story, actually (cue kitschy 80s cartoon theme music):
I went for a run with Elena yesterday evening after tutoring, and I was in a super good mood. Like, ridiculously, ridiculously good mood. Like, Elena and I took the first quarter of our run a little too fast and talked the whole time in a good mood. After the run I was in a good mood too - I stopped only once, at the top of the hill, where we always stop to stretch and take a look at the valley spread out in front of us (I figure, that’s not laziness, that’s just ensuring that there’s something on the run to look forward to in terms of beauty). And I ran up all of the stairs this time. And I wasn’t even dying! I was pretty ridiculously proud. And excited that this week I might actually enjoy going for our brief run every day (it really is brief - maybe half an hour or something, and we probably go only a mile, or maybe even less).
And of course, I always look forward to the shower afterwards. Frankly, the shower is the best part! It’s a challenge to be disciplined and keep the showers to the brief 5-minute limit that is recommended at the convent (to ensure equitable distribution of our limited hot-water supply).
So, I dunno, it was all really good, and when I got out of the shower, I was looking at myself in the mirror, and I just kind of thought, “What the hell? Why not?” And I got my scissors and chopped my bangs off.
Only I only had my big desk scissors, which aren’t very sharp. And as everyone who knows me well will know, I suck at anything involving straight lines.
Next thing I know my roommate is back, and there are suddenly five girls in my room going, “Wow, your bangs! When did you cut them?” So I started laughing, a lot, and trying to explain the whole run-shower-what-the-hell-cut-my-bangs sequence in between breaths and bouts of laughing hysterically. And then when they all told me they liked it, I thought I should get an honest opinion, so I started running down the hallway yelling for Katie and Elena, because I wanted to catch them before they left for their tutoring session at the champagneria.
So there’s me, running down the stairs to catch Katie and Elena, and there’s a group of about seven girls gathered down on the landing (including Laura, the actual 22-year-old Italian who sort of adopted us this semester and who already thinks I’m a nutcase) and they just stare at me, and Elena starts cracking up and Katie says, “How did you do that to yourself?”
I just busted out laughing again. “Honest opinion,” I said, “Should I ever do this to my head again?” Oh man, it was hysterical. Especially when Katie actually noticed the bangs. She thought my hair was really crazy looking, which it was at that particular moment in time, since it had partially dried and was frizzing and flying out behind me as I ran down the stairs.
Then, later that night when they got back from tutoring, they busted into my room and we had a hair-cutting party. They straightened out my bangs for me and adjusted them a little bit and showed me how to use a hair dryer and a round hair brush to make them stop parting in the middle as they used to do (thank goodness for Katie and Elena! And you know the best part? They don’t make me feel stupid for not knowing things like that). And they decided that Jeff’s hair needed trimming again, too, so we had Alexis’ and my desk chairs set up and we had a hair-cutting party involving six people in my room (which is so teeny! When you see the pictures, you’ll understand how funny this whole proceeding was) until 1:30 in the morning. Then Marlene came in and all seven of us piled onto our beds and had a great conversation about the political system, group dynamics this semester, and what really constitutes spiritual maturity. We kept talking until I literally started falling asleep where I was leaning against the corner of the bed and the wall.
Professor Skillen was really funny when he came in this morning to breakfast to check on Marlene (she’s been having the worst tooth troubles ever, and now it turns out that her root canal has to be delayed again until Friday, because the dentist was on vacation for Easter at the beach and on the way back his car broke down and he’s stranded). He noticed right away, and said, “You cut your bangs?” And I said yes, and then in classic Skillen style he said, “Well, I think that - well, I always come across wrong when I’m saying things - but I think there’s something nicely old fashioned about bangs, but I don’t mean to say that you look old-fashioned; I think it’s avant-garde in an old-fashioned way... It looks good.” Considering that I apparently already look like a librarian and have a librarian glare (totally unintentional, but something I mean to take advantage of know that I know about it), I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not - but he meant it as a nice thing, and I appreciate that. Professor Skillen really is like a fun, hilarious, slightly awkward father figure this semester, and I love him to pieces. He’s so great. He even lets us call him “Skills” (or “Skill-set” as Alexis affectionately calls him) and “Skillano” (if he really was Italian, we decided, his name would be translated into Skillano, and Mrs. Skillen could be Mrs. Skillana). And he gives us extensions, and loves it when we have charades games based on the fresco cycles we’ve been studying (“That’s a professor’s dream,” he said, and I so loved that we make him laugh). And when I was trying to get my phone interview and it wasn’t working out and I was really about to cry he pulled up a bunch of pictures from past semesters (“Look at that Greg Snader,” he said, “doesn’t he look like he’s having a great time? Look at that smile.”) and I think he was trying to cheer me up a little. He’s just so cute, and genuine, and pretty amazing.
So that was a little bit of a tangent. I’m posting a picture of the new bangs (at some point, when the stars align and I can upload it from a faster computer - I was going to today, but there were issues), and you can honestly tell me if I should ever do this to my head again. I’m not insulted if you think the haircut sucks - you don’t have to see me all semester, and I can totally have them grown out again by the time I go home. But you know how it is with new haircuts, and everyone says they look great even when they don’t? Yeah, I’m paranoid about that. So I depend on you guys to tell me the straight truth about how it looks.
I so love this semester. I don’t know what I’m going to do when it comes to be summer and I have to leave everyone here. I love them! I have the best roommate in the world, and I get to talk to amazing women like Marlene and Juanita every day, and have crazy conversations with Jeff on the terrace, and sunbathe, and run along the most beautiful cliff, and talk to Italian high schoolers, and learn from Professor Skillen every day, and wash dishes with the nuns, and have Suar Therese laugh that my name doesn’t really mean anything because it’s a last name.... I just can’t even tell you how much I heart the nuns, and Professor Skillen, and ‘my’ group of students here.
At least Katie and Elena and I are going to be living together. I was realizing that we really only have nine more weeks in this semester, and I just had a little flip-out moment. I really honestly can’t believe we’re almost halfway through. I’m just starting to really love it here and fit in. Of course, I couldn’t imagine leaving my housemates last semester either, and look how wonderful Italy has been... but you know? It’s so beautiful here, and these girls (and Jeff) are so amazing, and I feel like I’m learning so much (not really academically, but you know. On a personal and community growth kind of level). I so love it and I so want to be intensely in every moment from now until the end of the semester. I don’t want to miss out on a thing. And I want to do every crazy thing I can think of, like cutting my bangs off, just because I can and I’ll never have another chance to try these news things here, at this time, in Italy.
All that goes to say, I’m doing fabulously, even if I decide these bangs don’t suit me at all and I can’t wait for them to grow out. This semester really has been “redemptive” (to use Marlene’s new favorite word) in a lot of ways. I don’t know how much of this I’m going to be able to keep and use and continue to grow with back in the states, but I’m treasuring up every bit I can in hopes that I won’t forget.
The wysteria here is blooming madly, and the smell is drifting into our little convent room, Alexis is finally typing up her Mary paper (it was originally due last Friday), I’m about to go down to the coop for groceries with some of my favorite people ever, and if this semester gets any better, my heart is going to rupture from happiness.
Love,
Kenzie
So Mom, you remember when you said once upon a time that you thought I would look cute in bangs? And you remember when I was talking about cutting my hair really short? Well, I compromised a little. I didn’t cut my hair really short, but I cut my bangs pretty dramatically. It’s kind of a funny story, actually (cue kitschy 80s cartoon theme music):
I went for a run with Elena yesterday evening after tutoring, and I was in a super good mood. Like, ridiculously, ridiculously good mood. Like, Elena and I took the first quarter of our run a little too fast and talked the whole time in a good mood. After the run I was in a good mood too - I stopped only once, at the top of the hill, where we always stop to stretch and take a look at the valley spread out in front of us (I figure, that’s not laziness, that’s just ensuring that there’s something on the run to look forward to in terms of beauty). And I ran up all of the stairs this time. And I wasn’t even dying! I was pretty ridiculously proud. And excited that this week I might actually enjoy going for our brief run every day (it really is brief - maybe half an hour or something, and we probably go only a mile, or maybe even less).
And of course, I always look forward to the shower afterwards. Frankly, the shower is the best part! It’s a challenge to be disciplined and keep the showers to the brief 5-minute limit that is recommended at the convent (to ensure equitable distribution of our limited hot-water supply).
So, I dunno, it was all really good, and when I got out of the shower, I was looking at myself in the mirror, and I just kind of thought, “What the hell? Why not?” And I got my scissors and chopped my bangs off.
Only I only had my big desk scissors, which aren’t very sharp. And as everyone who knows me well will know, I suck at anything involving straight lines.
Next thing I know my roommate is back, and there are suddenly five girls in my room going, “Wow, your bangs! When did you cut them?” So I started laughing, a lot, and trying to explain the whole run-shower-what-the-hell-cut-my-bangs sequence in between breaths and bouts of laughing hysterically. And then when they all told me they liked it, I thought I should get an honest opinion, so I started running down the hallway yelling for Katie and Elena, because I wanted to catch them before they left for their tutoring session at the champagneria.
So there’s me, running down the stairs to catch Katie and Elena, and there’s a group of about seven girls gathered down on the landing (including Laura, the actual 22-year-old Italian who sort of adopted us this semester and who already thinks I’m a nutcase) and they just stare at me, and Elena starts cracking up and Katie says, “How did you do that to yourself?”
I just busted out laughing again. “Honest opinion,” I said, “Should I ever do this to my head again?” Oh man, it was hysterical. Especially when Katie actually noticed the bangs. She thought my hair was really crazy looking, which it was at that particular moment in time, since it had partially dried and was frizzing and flying out behind me as I ran down the stairs.
Then, later that night when they got back from tutoring, they busted into my room and we had a hair-cutting party. They straightened out my bangs for me and adjusted them a little bit and showed me how to use a hair dryer and a round hair brush to make them stop parting in the middle as they used to do (thank goodness for Katie and Elena! And you know the best part? They don’t make me feel stupid for not knowing things like that). And they decided that Jeff’s hair needed trimming again, too, so we had Alexis’ and my desk chairs set up and we had a hair-cutting party involving six people in my room (which is so teeny! When you see the pictures, you’ll understand how funny this whole proceeding was) until 1:30 in the morning. Then Marlene came in and all seven of us piled onto our beds and had a great conversation about the political system, group dynamics this semester, and what really constitutes spiritual maturity. We kept talking until I literally started falling asleep where I was leaning against the corner of the bed and the wall.
Professor Skillen was really funny when he came in this morning to breakfast to check on Marlene (she’s been having the worst tooth troubles ever, and now it turns out that her root canal has to be delayed again until Friday, because the dentist was on vacation for Easter at the beach and on the way back his car broke down and he’s stranded). He noticed right away, and said, “You cut your bangs?” And I said yes, and then in classic Skillen style he said, “Well, I think that - well, I always come across wrong when I’m saying things - but I think there’s something nicely old fashioned about bangs, but I don’t mean to say that you look old-fashioned; I think it’s avant-garde in an old-fashioned way... It looks good.” Considering that I apparently already look like a librarian and have a librarian glare (totally unintentional, but something I mean to take advantage of know that I know about it), I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not - but he meant it as a nice thing, and I appreciate that. Professor Skillen really is like a fun, hilarious, slightly awkward father figure this semester, and I love him to pieces. He’s so great. He even lets us call him “Skills” (or “Skill-set” as Alexis affectionately calls him) and “Skillano” (if he really was Italian, we decided, his name would be translated into Skillano, and Mrs. Skillen could be Mrs. Skillana). And he gives us extensions, and loves it when we have charades games based on the fresco cycles we’ve been studying (“That’s a professor’s dream,” he said, and I so loved that we make him laugh). And when I was trying to get my phone interview and it wasn’t working out and I was really about to cry he pulled up a bunch of pictures from past semesters (“Look at that Greg Snader,” he said, “doesn’t he look like he’s having a great time? Look at that smile.”) and I think he was trying to cheer me up a little. He’s just so cute, and genuine, and pretty amazing.
So that was a little bit of a tangent. I’m posting a picture of the new bangs (at some point, when the stars align and I can upload it from a faster computer - I was going to today, but there were issues), and you can honestly tell me if I should ever do this to my head again. I’m not insulted if you think the haircut sucks - you don’t have to see me all semester, and I can totally have them grown out again by the time I go home. But you know how it is with new haircuts, and everyone says they look great even when they don’t? Yeah, I’m paranoid about that. So I depend on you guys to tell me the straight truth about how it looks.
I so love this semester. I don’t know what I’m going to do when it comes to be summer and I have to leave everyone here. I love them! I have the best roommate in the world, and I get to talk to amazing women like Marlene and Juanita every day, and have crazy conversations with Jeff on the terrace, and sunbathe, and run along the most beautiful cliff, and talk to Italian high schoolers, and learn from Professor Skillen every day, and wash dishes with the nuns, and have Suar Therese laugh that my name doesn’t really mean anything because it’s a last name.... I just can’t even tell you how much I heart the nuns, and Professor Skillen, and ‘my’ group of students here.
At least Katie and Elena and I are going to be living together. I was realizing that we really only have nine more weeks in this semester, and I just had a little flip-out moment. I really honestly can’t believe we’re almost halfway through. I’m just starting to really love it here and fit in. Of course, I couldn’t imagine leaving my housemates last semester either, and look how wonderful Italy has been... but you know? It’s so beautiful here, and these girls (and Jeff) are so amazing, and I feel like I’m learning so much (not really academically, but you know. On a personal and community growth kind of level). I so love it and I so want to be intensely in every moment from now until the end of the semester. I don’t want to miss out on a thing. And I want to do every crazy thing I can think of, like cutting my bangs off, just because I can and I’ll never have another chance to try these news things here, at this time, in Italy.
All that goes to say, I’m doing fabulously, even if I decide these bangs don’t suit me at all and I can’t wait for them to grow out. This semester really has been “redemptive” (to use Marlene’s new favorite word) in a lot of ways. I don’t know how much of this I’m going to be able to keep and use and continue to grow with back in the states, but I’m treasuring up every bit I can in hopes that I won’t forget.
The wysteria here is blooming madly, and the smell is drifting into our little convent room, Alexis is finally typing up her Mary paper (it was originally due last Friday), I’m about to go down to the coop for groceries with some of my favorite people ever, and if this semester gets any better, my heart is going to rupture from happiness.
Love,
Kenzie
Friday, April 06, 2007
back in action
Hey loves!
Just another weekly update from the land of Italia. My Italian is growing by leaps and bounds, although my grammar frankly sucks. But I am learning! I know more this week than I did last week, and I know a thousand times more today than I did the first day. I can definitely tell a difference in its improvement since we went to the high school to hang out with the kids and talk about Dante in Italian, both in my ability to form sentences and in my motivation to learn. I hope that I continue to get better and better over the next four times we get together with them. I’m still anxious, and I know that I probably sound like a complete idiot, but I’m also thinking that it will be good for me.
I’ve been pretty disciplined, lately, about doing things that will be good for me. For instance, I started running. All the health-nuts out there would be so proud of me, except that mainly I’m just running as a form of self-defense against the ever-present nutella, chocolate, Laura’s mom’s cake, and all those delicious varieties of pastries and gelato that are everywhere (If I could pack up one thing that you all need to try from Italy, it would be yogurt&nutella gelato with caffe gelato - and also coconut gelato). Elena, Juanita, Maria Louisa and I have been running every day this week (except I missed one day). Just short runs, maybe a mile, but it’s good. Or it will be good, as soon as my body stops hating me.
This semester is striking me as an example of the perfect artist’s colony. There are people here that I love, a beautiful setting, and everyone is so very creative. We’re all feeding off of each other and growing in tremendous ways, on personal levels at least, and I think also on artistic levels. I know that I’ve been challenged to keep a better visual record of this semester by Katie and Elena, and I really appreciate that. Also, the workload is not absurd. I have time to hang out, time to write, time to read a little, time to run, time to have long lingering meals, go for hikes, and still make things. It’s good. I can only imagine that it will get better when this Renaissance history class is over, and we’re back in the studio.
I am all registered for classes! I may have to rearrange my schedule a little, depending on if my application for honors in English gets approved or not (last I heard, my application was the only one the department had received, so my odds of getting someone to advise the project are good, even with the deadline being extended). If it is approved, I’ll be taking eighteen credits and working at least ten hours a week. It’s going to be crazy, though. I have senior seminar for the art major, advanced two dimensional studies for the art major, and then hopefully my honors project class, as well as linguistics, post-1900 lit, and newswriting. Then next spring I’ll have my senior exhibit, my capstone writing course for the English major, and hopefully the last half of this honors project. I’ll admit, I’m flipping out at having to deal with so many senior projects all at once. But somehow it will all work out... right? I’ll just keep telling myself that I wouldn’t trade either of my majors for the world. I would, however, trade some of the coursework away. It’s ludicrous.
It’s Easter, and the liturgical calendar is quite full. Last night there were Maundy Thursday footwashing services, and we had a sort of Italian sedar (how do you spell that? Cedar? Say-darr?). Today is a fast day, so we had simple food, and we’re doing the stations of the cross later today with both the Anglican English-speaking congregation and the town as a whole is doing a via croce procession at nine. I hope to go to both, although I will miss Vespers at 6 tonight which is kind of sad (I go at least once a week, and I wish that I could go more). I am really excited to be able to catch, a little bit, the rhythm of the liturgical calendar on such a town-wide scale. We’re also having the traditional Italian picnic-feast on Monday, and I’m going to the midnight Easter vigil on Saturday night/Sunday morning.
Somewhere in there I also have to fit in working on my paper. And to think that my first weekend here was boring! There’s always something to do, but I don’t feel overwhelmed. I love it. It’s good. Va bene. And hopefully even the paper itself will be good. I just need to cloister myself and work on it, and not let anything interrupt me other than meals, church services, and possibly occasional bathroom and sleep breaks.
Lots of love,
Kenzie
Just another weekly update from the land of Italia. My Italian is growing by leaps and bounds, although my grammar frankly sucks. But I am learning! I know more this week than I did last week, and I know a thousand times more today than I did the first day. I can definitely tell a difference in its improvement since we went to the high school to hang out with the kids and talk about Dante in Italian, both in my ability to form sentences and in my motivation to learn. I hope that I continue to get better and better over the next four times we get together with them. I’m still anxious, and I know that I probably sound like a complete idiot, but I’m also thinking that it will be good for me.
I’ve been pretty disciplined, lately, about doing things that will be good for me. For instance, I started running. All the health-nuts out there would be so proud of me, except that mainly I’m just running as a form of self-defense against the ever-present nutella, chocolate, Laura’s mom’s cake, and all those delicious varieties of pastries and gelato that are everywhere (If I could pack up one thing that you all need to try from Italy, it would be yogurt&nutella gelato with caffe gelato - and also coconut gelato). Elena, Juanita, Maria Louisa and I have been running every day this week (except I missed one day). Just short runs, maybe a mile, but it’s good. Or it will be good, as soon as my body stops hating me.
This semester is striking me as an example of the perfect artist’s colony. There are people here that I love, a beautiful setting, and everyone is so very creative. We’re all feeding off of each other and growing in tremendous ways, on personal levels at least, and I think also on artistic levels. I know that I’ve been challenged to keep a better visual record of this semester by Katie and Elena, and I really appreciate that. Also, the workload is not absurd. I have time to hang out, time to write, time to read a little, time to run, time to have long lingering meals, go for hikes, and still make things. It’s good. I can only imagine that it will get better when this Renaissance history class is over, and we’re back in the studio.
I am all registered for classes! I may have to rearrange my schedule a little, depending on if my application for honors in English gets approved or not (last I heard, my application was the only one the department had received, so my odds of getting someone to advise the project are good, even with the deadline being extended). If it is approved, I’ll be taking eighteen credits and working at least ten hours a week. It’s going to be crazy, though. I have senior seminar for the art major, advanced two dimensional studies for the art major, and then hopefully my honors project class, as well as linguistics, post-1900 lit, and newswriting. Then next spring I’ll have my senior exhibit, my capstone writing course for the English major, and hopefully the last half of this honors project. I’ll admit, I’m flipping out at having to deal with so many senior projects all at once. But somehow it will all work out... right? I’ll just keep telling myself that I wouldn’t trade either of my majors for the world. I would, however, trade some of the coursework away. It’s ludicrous.
It’s Easter, and the liturgical calendar is quite full. Last night there were Maundy Thursday footwashing services, and we had a sort of Italian sedar (how do you spell that? Cedar? Say-darr?). Today is a fast day, so we had simple food, and we’re doing the stations of the cross later today with both the Anglican English-speaking congregation and the town as a whole is doing a via croce procession at nine. I hope to go to both, although I will miss Vespers at 6 tonight which is kind of sad (I go at least once a week, and I wish that I could go more). I am really excited to be able to catch, a little bit, the rhythm of the liturgical calendar on such a town-wide scale. We’re also having the traditional Italian picnic-feast on Monday, and I’m going to the midnight Easter vigil on Saturday night/Sunday morning.
Somewhere in there I also have to fit in working on my paper. And to think that my first weekend here was boring! There’s always something to do, but I don’t feel overwhelmed. I love it. It’s good. Va bene. And hopefully even the paper itself will be good. I just need to cloister myself and work on it, and not let anything interrupt me other than meals, church services, and possibly occasional bathroom and sleep breaks.
Lots of love,
Kenzie
Monday, April 02, 2007
and the convent is...
Hello loves,
This week you are just going to get a short update from me, rather than a tome as usual. I am somewhat overwhelmed recently with this Mary research paper, Italian vocab lists, and the desire to socialize at any and every opportunity. There are such fabulous people here, and I don’t want to miss a second of them. Nor do I want to get terrible grades. Nor do I want to come back from Italy without being able to speak some Italian!
Last night I got out of the shower at about 10, and was settling down to read “Mary, Grace and Hope in Christ” for our Mary research paper, when Katie knocks on my door. “Mackenzie!” she mock whispers at me with the excited smile which is the epitome of Katie Ness, “Come with us! We’re going to sneak up to the terrace and look at the stars!”
I didn’t understand why we had to sneak out to the terrace, seeing as it’s common property for all the students, nor did I understand how we were going to be able to see the stars when the kitchen lights were shining out there. But sure, why not? I’m in for anything involving excited smiles this semester. It’s been my resolution. “Openness is the operative word,” I tell myself, and my inner English-major chuckles at the alliteration.
To my surprise, we don’t go right down the hallway to the sala and the kitchen and the students’ terrace. Instead, we turn left and sneak down the portrait hallway where the piano is. Katie even took off her shoes and went barefoot on the cold floors so that she would make less noise. At the end of the portrait hallway there are a few doors, which I just always assumed led to closets or something. But the leftmost door, at least, leads into another hallway, and from there you can see a small chapel and stairs on the outside of the building. These stairs lead up on the outside of the building to a small roofed-in terrace overlooking the cliff. It was a beautiful view, and the moon was full. Apparently Alexis goes there in the early mornings for devotions. (Alexis is full of surprises - she’s super spiritual, and motherly, but also gets locked out because she forgets curfew, dances hip-hop excellently, and sneaks around the convent exploring before anyone else is up. I so love rooming with her.)
So maybe that made a lousy story. But it was a great experience: five of us sneaking through the hallways of the convent at night, stretching out into forbidden territory for a glimpse of something shining. And at the far end of the terrace, there’s a small niche with the Madonna and child in it, and it lights up with a small spotlight if you can find the switch. It’s totally kitschy, but it also somehow fits, at least with the silliness of us sneaking around to find it.
I feel like I am growing a lot this semester, I guess especially in coming to terms with the amount of my own courage. I’ve been afraid, as far back as I can remember, of the most ridiculous things. I lived in fear of our bathroom mirror for years, all because one of my little friends told me some ridiculous bloody mary story back in the fourth grade. I mean, seriously, there was never much courage there. So to be here, in a situation where once again everything is scary and new, but to be having fun in spite of that, and sometimes because of it? To be discovering that I like breaking the rules and venturing into scary territory sometimes? And to discover that placing myself in new and scary-as-hell situations can be a generative thing, that out of that comes a lot of creativity and new thinking is... well, freeing. Not that things are becoming necessarily less scary for me (although some things are, through simple repetition), but I feel lighter, and maybe a little bit fuller. And to be frank, this semester has involved stretching out into some new relational territory too. I find myself having to re-order a few threads of my twenty years’ worth of thinking, and I am finding some of it to be very good and some of it to be a little freaky. If it’s only April, and the semester has already been so full of growing things, will you recognize me by the summer?
It seems fitting that in a semester where I am coming to terms with so much of myself and my fears, Juanita calls me “the little black spider.” Because spiders, after all, were my worst childhood fear. And if I can conquer that this semester, well, I could pretty much take over the world.
This week you are just going to get a short update from me, rather than a tome as usual. I am somewhat overwhelmed recently with this Mary research paper, Italian vocab lists, and the desire to socialize at any and every opportunity. There are such fabulous people here, and I don’t want to miss a second of them. Nor do I want to get terrible grades. Nor do I want to come back from Italy without being able to speak some Italian!
Last night I got out of the shower at about 10, and was settling down to read “Mary, Grace and Hope in Christ” for our Mary research paper, when Katie knocks on my door. “Mackenzie!” she mock whispers at me with the excited smile which is the epitome of Katie Ness, “Come with us! We’re going to sneak up to the terrace and look at the stars!”
I didn’t understand why we had to sneak out to the terrace, seeing as it’s common property for all the students, nor did I understand how we were going to be able to see the stars when the kitchen lights were shining out there. But sure, why not? I’m in for anything involving excited smiles this semester. It’s been my resolution. “Openness is the operative word,” I tell myself, and my inner English-major chuckles at the alliteration.
To my surprise, we don’t go right down the hallway to the sala and the kitchen and the students’ terrace. Instead, we turn left and sneak down the portrait hallway where the piano is. Katie even took off her shoes and went barefoot on the cold floors so that she would make less noise. At the end of the portrait hallway there are a few doors, which I just always assumed led to closets or something. But the leftmost door, at least, leads into another hallway, and from there you can see a small chapel and stairs on the outside of the building. These stairs lead up on the outside of the building to a small roofed-in terrace overlooking the cliff. It was a beautiful view, and the moon was full. Apparently Alexis goes there in the early mornings for devotions. (Alexis is full of surprises - she’s super spiritual, and motherly, but also gets locked out because she forgets curfew, dances hip-hop excellently, and sneaks around the convent exploring before anyone else is up. I so love rooming with her.)
So maybe that made a lousy story. But it was a great experience: five of us sneaking through the hallways of the convent at night, stretching out into forbidden territory for a glimpse of something shining. And at the far end of the terrace, there’s a small niche with the Madonna and child in it, and it lights up with a small spotlight if you can find the switch. It’s totally kitschy, but it also somehow fits, at least with the silliness of us sneaking around to find it.
I feel like I am growing a lot this semester, I guess especially in coming to terms with the amount of my own courage. I’ve been afraid, as far back as I can remember, of the most ridiculous things. I lived in fear of our bathroom mirror for years, all because one of my little friends told me some ridiculous bloody mary story back in the fourth grade. I mean, seriously, there was never much courage there. So to be here, in a situation where once again everything is scary and new, but to be having fun in spite of that, and sometimes because of it? To be discovering that I like breaking the rules and venturing into scary territory sometimes? And to discover that placing myself in new and scary-as-hell situations can be a generative thing, that out of that comes a lot of creativity and new thinking is... well, freeing. Not that things are becoming necessarily less scary for me (although some things are, through simple repetition), but I feel lighter, and maybe a little bit fuller. And to be frank, this semester has involved stretching out into some new relational territory too. I find myself having to re-order a few threads of my twenty years’ worth of thinking, and I am finding some of it to be very good and some of it to be a little freaky. If it’s only April, and the semester has already been so full of growing things, will you recognize me by the summer?
It seems fitting that in a semester where I am coming to terms with so much of myself and my fears, Juanita calls me “the little black spider.” Because spiders, after all, were my worst childhood fear. And if I can conquer that this semester, well, I could pretty much take over the world.
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