Calender Of Important Events

Wings
09Feb - Florence Field Trip
16-18Feb - Rome Field Trip
23Feb - Assisi Field Trip
02March - Siena Field Trip (Delayed!)
04March - Class on a Friday
06-10March - Venice Field Trip
12-20March - Spring Break
23March - Orvieto Field Trip
25March - Class on a Friday
27March - Easter
28March - Italian Holiday Dinner Served
30March - V. Lante Firenze Field Trip
(Changed to Terni/Perusia Field Trip)
31 March - Siena Field Trip Rescheduled
06April - Pienza Field Trip
13April - Florence Field Trip
15April - Class on a Friday
15-17April - Cinque Terra Weekend Trip
16April - JereBeth's Birthday! Whoop! Happy 20th Darling!
18April - Rescheduled Field Trip to Ravenna
20April - San Gimignano Field Trip
21April - Muster
25April - Project Deadline One
27April - No Field Trip... Work Day
29April - Project Deadline Two
02May - Final Project Deadline
03May - Studio Cleanup
05May - Program Ends
06May - I get on a plane home and arrive in Houston at 1:50pm

Arrivederci Italia

04May2005 – Wednesday

I woke up when I woke up and got showered and dressed. I believe it was around 11:30am because I was thinking about lunch. Well, after I got dressed I discovered that since it was Wednesday we weren’t having lunch as we are usually on a field trip on Wednesdays. So instead I managed to find a small group of people heading out to the Garden Underground and tagged along behind them probably somewhere around 3 to 3 and a half hours later I’d eaten and had some rather interesting conversation as well as a lot of relaxation and enjoyment. When I returned I packed some more and pretty much finished all of my packing except for the clothes I was wearing at the time and the toiletries I needed for the following day. After the packing I more or less just lounged around on my bed listening to music on my laptop (man my speakers have a kick!) and napping on and off until dinner time. At dinner time I went and ate for a bit and then after dinner I ended up in the lab chatting away the night. I think I went to sleep somewhere around 4:30am.

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05/05/05 – Thursday

I got out of bed around noon and showered and dressed in time to make it to lunch. It wasn’t really the most appetizing lunch we’ve had (no surprise there) and then afterwards I went upstairs to my room. For the next few hours I cleaned everything up and finished packing and did a lot of things on my laptop in my room as far as pictures, music, etc. went. At about 5pm I got checked out by Deb and got my deposit back (Whoop for cash!) and then afterwards I ran into Melanie (the T.A. for anyone just joining us) who was ravishing in her newly styled hair. We were going to go to the Garden Underground together and hang out but as soon as we walked outside she feared rain and messing up her new do, so we decided to watch a movie instead. She wanted to watch Fight Club so we got it from my room and headed downstairs only to find that they were about to start another movie, Rushmore. Neither of us had seen Rushmore so we just sat down and watched that instead and I must say I enjoyed it. Was directed by the same guy as The Royal Tenenbaums and had very much the same humor. After the movie I went upstairs to put Fight Club up and decided to go ahead and drag my mammoth suitcase down stairs as well. Soon after it was dinner time and so I went to eat my last meal here at Santa Chiara (tear). It was pretty tasty and I had a good time and then after dinner I came up here to write my final entry while in Italy. And so, here it is. The last entry I shall write while still in Italy and I have to say, I can’t quite decide how I feel about it. Either way after I finish journaling I may chat for a little while before joining everyone at The Velvet for a little conclusion celebrating and then by 1am I should be on the bus and getting on my way to Rome. We should arrive in Rome somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30am and then our flight leaves Rome destined for France and the Charles De Gaul Airport at 7:20am. We have a short layover in France before boarding our long flight home and then I should arrive in Houston Bush Intercontinental airport sometime very near 1:50pm Friday the 6th of May, 2005. And thus, my adventure shall conclude. I’m not exactly sure when I’ll be able to do so, but I do plan on journaling again when I am home and settled in and give the details of my flight back as well as some closing thoughts. As for this journal, well a lot of people when they finish with them tend to delete them completely as if they never existed, but I see no need for such a course of action. This isn’t costing me anything and as far as I’m concerned this journal can live here in cyberspace for as long as it is allowed. So if you’re only just now discovering my ventures, fear not, for they shall remain until removed by force. Well, that is really all I have to say at this point. Thank you all for the e-mails, comments, and messages and I will see you shortly I’m sure. I love you all and miss you. Ciao Ciao!

Studio Stress Suppressent

02May2005 – Monday

I woke up around 10:30 before my alarm could have its way with me and go showered, dressed, and headed downstairs. When I walked past the studio there were a few people still milling about inside, but no one from my group so I decided to go to the lab and check my mail. I found some extremely late owls online from back in the states and had a chat with them for a bit till Kim wandered into the lab and asked me if I’d mind finding a compass for our drawing, we hadn’t put one on it yet. So we found on that we thought would suffice and printed it out and then I got offline and traced and inked it onto our drawing. Ah… completion at last. Andrew and I spray mounted it onto the frame we were required to make for it and then we were absolutely finished. And, luckily enough it was getting pretty close to lunch time as well. So I went downstairs to lunch and while he first course was definitely my least favorite thing here, the second course was the baked or fried fish they have, I’m not sure which, and I was ravenous for it. I think in the end I ate about 6 pieces of that fish and it was splendid. After lunch we all went to studio and put things together getting ready for our review at 2:30pm a mere half an hour away and soon we were there and things had begun. Four looooong hours later it was over. Thank God! Our groups review went pretty well, although one of the reviewers – some ^&%$ from The States who thought he was big ^%$# – tried to pick a fight with me, but all in all we kept our cool, stood our ground, and things went well. After the review I was in heaven and didn’t know what to do with myself. It was finally all over. No more studio, no more school for the semester, no more worrying about anything, no ore stress, no more negativity of any kind! Whoop! After that I didn’t really know what to do with myself till dinner so I just bummed around and chitchatted with random people here and there. Finally dinner came along and while it wasn’t the best thing id ever eaten, it was baked chicken and it certainly wasn’t bad, so I ate that as well. After dinner I played spades with Jon, Jason, and Jess and Jon and I won. Then it was back up to the lab for some chatting until around 11pm when we went out to celebrate the end of studio at Regiro’s. I ended up eating a pizza there and it was delicious as well as sharing some laughs and taking lots of pictures and generally having a good time. I came home around 2am and drifted away to dream land for the night.

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03May2005 – Tuesday

Today was clean up day. We were all supposed to meet in the studio at 11am to start to clean the horrendous mess we called a work space and get things organized and put up for our studio exhibit for the next 2 days I think. We’re having kind of an exhibit of all of the work we’ve done this semester so that everyone in the center can come through and see all of it for the next few days and I think they are inviting the mayor - who we saw at the bar last night, lol – as well as some other VIP’s. So this morning I awoke at 10am, again before my alarms sounded its sleep destroying blasts, and showered and dressed and was downstairs no later than 10:45am. Immediately we started cleaning and right up until noon that’s exactly what we did. The studio looks very different now, and soon after we were finished cleaning we went to lunch. Today was tomatoes and cheese, so I didn’t really eat more than a small bowl of ‘noodle soup’. After lunch I believe we were supposed to be hanging and putting up all of the models and etc. that we had cleaned up for, but seeing as how I was one of few that were actually still around cleaning the last half hour I think I’ll let some other people handle the rest. So now, here I am sitting at my laptop once again, I finally got her back, and I feel more relieved and stress free than I’ve felt in a long time. Later this after noon we’re going to go down to see Bruni and stone carving one last time and then I’m not sure what I’ll do with myself for the remainder of the night. I know I need to start cleaning the room up and packing, so I’m sure that will be at the top of the list of things I do, but perhaps I’ll watch a movie or something as well… who knows? Tomorrow I think I’m going to attempt to go to Florence to acquire that pair of Euro-trash shoes I’m longing for and I guess we’ll see how that goes. Then Thursday is our final day here. We are scheduled for check out of our room at 6pm Thursday evening and then at 12:30am we are loading up the trucks with all of our bag and things and by 1:30am we’ll be on a bus and on our way to Rome to get on a plane and say goodbye to Italy. Exciting stuff huh? Well, I guess that means 2 and a half days left? Man… it feels weird to be leaving after having lived here for so long and having immersed myself so much into this Italian culture. I think when I get back and have some time I’ll do some sort of a summarization of my thoughts and feelings about this trip and what it ha meant to me, but now…well, now is not the time, lol! I hope you all are having a fantastic week so far and I can’t wait to see you! Ciao!!

A Rather Relaxing Weekend

I woke up at 10:30 to my alarm clock ringing. Hmm… that’s a first for a while. I had gone to bed last night around 3am after working in studio and talking online for the night. I got up and showered and got dressed and headed downstairs to studio to find Kim and Andrew already there for the day. So at around 11:30am I began working. I started tracing and redrawing and finalizing and etc for the next few hours till around 2-ish when the group decided wed accomplished quite a bit. So the three of us decided to go to Garden Underground for lunch and ran into quite a few people there. It’s very quickly become quite the hangout because the weather here as been just amazing the last week and a half. Anyway we ate and then Kim and I wondered over to a market that had taken over the main street in Castiglion Fiorentino overnight and perused through all of the little stands. I’ve decided that the shoes I brought over here are now ragged and to rectify this situation I am going to buy myself a pair of stylish euro-trash shoes before I come home. So I looked for shoes, and she looked for presents I think and then after id given up I decided to head back to the center and the studio. So I enjoyed a beautiful sunny walk back the long way (which is rather scenic and goes back past the Garden Underground) and made my way back to Santa Chiara. Once I got here I checked my mail quickly before getting back to work. Now this project we are working on is a drawing, and well… my group partners are admittedly not the greatest drawers on the planet, and since I trust myself quite a bit and had already been doing some rather nice drawings in my opinion I kind of persuaded them to just let me do things and it’s all worked out fine so far. ‘We’ started tracing onto the really nice paper after lunch and then took a short break before ‘we’ dived into the inking process and after some actual constructive discussion we decided on the best course of action for style and whatnot. Right about dinner time ‘we’ had finished inking the essential parts of the drawing and it looks pretty good in my opinion. I’m actually quite pleased with things right now and today has actually been quite leisurely and pleasant. We took a break after inking and before we started the hardest part of color and went to dinner and well… as the semester has progressed the dinner staff has started taking longer and longer time gaps between courses and once I had my ¾ plate of pasta and waited for 15 minutes my hunger was most sufficiently sated and I retired to the lab. I’ve now been writing this entry for the last 15-20 minutes and now I’m pretty much finished, lol. So once everyone else finished their dinner I am borrowing some markers from different people so that we have the colors we decided we needed and then I think ‘we’re’ going to go ahead and get started putting color on this thing. I say ‘we’re’ at this point because I’m sure I will have a major role in how the coloring is handled, but I think the other two are more than ready to get their hands in on this project now after watching me draw all day and I may have to relinquish some of my power… Ah, well, such is life. So anyway, I don’t actually think it’s going to take us all that long to finish this up, maybe a few hours, and then we should be pretty much finished with studio. I’m thinking about photographing the model I made for the last phase because I’m quite pleased with how it turned out, and I may even try to pack it up to bring home somehow. Also I still have some adjustments I think I’ll make to the drawings that I did for the model and the previous phase, so I might work on those things tonight before bed. Other than that I believe I am pretty much finished for the semester. All I have left to do now is pack and do some more shoe shopping and I think I should have a relatively relaxing final 5 days here. Well I hope you all have had a marvelous weekend, as I know I have, and hopefully a stellar week to look forward to. I love and miss you all and I can’t wait to see you soon! Ciao!

The Longest Day Yet

I did end up working in studio Wednesday night for quite some time. And after talking to Marcel shortly I was feeling much better about my project and the direction I was headed in and decided to just get to it and start the project. I started some drawings but around 1am I decided to go to sleep for the night and start the exhausting studio work the next day.

28April2005 – Thursday

Thursday I got up at 7:30am and decided to get online for a few minutes before starting my exhausting studio work. Around 8-8:30ish I went to studio and began the longest day I’ve had here yet. I started working on drawings and after about an hour I decided to go on to the model and resolve more of the issues and details in 3d space and then fix the drawings from there. Before I knew it, the time had ticked away and it was 11am and almost time for Paolo’s class. I knew right away that I still had much too much work to do to spend time in a lecture so I quickly asked Paolo for permission to not attend his lecture that day and he gave it. So back to studio I went, and I worked through lunch, all the way up until dinner, and then after a 30 minute dinner continuously until about 3am when I could no longer see really and decided to take a short nap and hopefully lose the fuzziness from my sight.

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29April2005 - Friday

At 7am my alarm woke me from my slumbering and grumpily I got out of bed, showered, and made it down to studio at about 7:45am and decided it was best to eat something so as not to die from starvation knowing that I wouldn’t be making it to lunch. About 8:15-8:30ish I started working on my project again and did so through lunch as I knew I would and finally finished my model at about 3:30pm. We were scheduled to be reviewed by the Profs at 4:30pm so I quickly started to retrace my drawings and finish all of the details I had finally worked out through building the model. Well the Profs had scheduled us so that each group was to have 20 minutes and then move on, but as we all knew it would, it ended up taking each group between 45 minutes and an hour and I had time to retrace and clean up the 3 drawings that I had by 6pm when we were finally up for our turn. We ended up talking to the Profs for about an hour and I’m still not exactly sure how my review went. They had good things to say at first but as the time they talked to me progressed the comments only got to be more bad and criticizing and they just kept talking longer and longer. Anyway once we were finished it was pretty much time for dinner and I was glad the dadgum project was finally over - well that phase at least. Dinner was good because I was pretty hungry and after dinner I got online for a while before going to my room and watching Win A Date With Tad Hamilton on my laptop. After the movie I was more awake than I should have been after only 3 hours of sleep for the last 40 or so hours, but none the less it was midnight and I was awake so I decided to use one of my handy dandy phone cards and call home. I talked to Kimberly a little and then my mom for about half an hour and then after I got off the phone I went back to my room. I think I finally ended up falling asleep somewhere between 1:30am and 2am.

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30April2005 – Saturday

I slept until about 11:30am and then got up to use the restroom and upon deciding that I didn’t feel quite finished, I got back in bed and slept till around1:30. I got up and got showered and then went to see what everyone was up to for the day. I found a lot of people down in the courtyard sunning and relaxing so I went back to my room and changed into my shorts and went down to join them. I actually took my shirt off and sat in the sun watching some guys play spades and talking and laughing for at least a good hour before Gilbert and I went up to the Garden Underground to grab some lunch. The Garden Underground is this new place that opened up last week and was supposed to be pretty good so we gave it a try and it actually was pretty good. It’s in the main park of Castiglion and has a nice view of the park and right off the side of the mountain. After we finished eating we just sat and talked for a little while until I saw some girls heading to the gelato place around the corner and decided to follow them. I got some gelato and had a nice chat with them before walking back down to the center with Lauren and back to studio. I got to studio in perfect time to find Andrew and Kim just starting to work for the day on the next phase of our project that’s due Monday and it was about 4:30pm at the time. Well we argued and worked and I fixed some aspects of my model that the Profs suggested I change and we finished all of that at about 7pm. We decided at that point to take a break until after dinner and then meet again to finish arguing and fixing our master plan so that tomorrow we could start working on it and hopefully finish it tomorrow night. Now its 7:30pm and time for dinner so I suppose I’ll go eat and then head back to studio for yet another night of torture. I do plan on going to bed at a reasonable time and then, well, tomorrow I’m sure I’ll work all day long. So here’s to studio! ::Sigh::...
I hope you all are having a good weekend and will continue to have a good one. 7 days and counting... Ciao!

Festivus!

Sorry I haven’t really written in a while, but here’s a recap of my weekend and the first half of this week.

23April2005 – Saturday

I worked in studio all day long minus meals and going to sleep pretty late. I got online a few times randomly throughout the day, but for the most part not much else happened.

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24April2005 – Sunday

See Saturday.

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25April2005 – Monday

I decided to sleep in until just before lunch when I got up and showered and dressed, etc. After lunch I went and worked in studio up until class time. I just happened to be the first person seen by Peter because Peter started from the bottom of the roll and Marcel started at the top and they worked their way through alphabetically. Well by the time Peter was seeing me I had successfully built 2 rather large models, and had plan, section, and site drawings for both schemes. I hadn’t quite made it to a third variation like I was supposed to though. I had started one, but hate it so scrapped it altogether and decided to just focus on the two. Well, my review went pretty good. It went very well actually. Peter liked a lot of aspects of both variations but felt that one worked better and had more potential. He ended up tearing apart my model, which rather upset me, but apparently he was in a destructive mood that day because he ended up doing the same to every one else’s that he saw as well. Anyway, we talked about ways I could improve it and the new direction he wanted me to take the design to improve on it and then I talked to a structural engineering guy that’s his buddy and he invites to a lot of our reviews about my structural ideas, etc. By the time we were finished I felt really good about things and decided to blow off the rest of the day. I didn’t do much else after that really, I went to dinner and after dinner I watched people play spades for a while and talked on the internet a little before going to bed.

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26April2005 – Tuesday

I got early before my alarm clock and decided to talk online till I had panned to get up. Then I went and took a shower and got dressed and ready for class. When I got to class I found out that Paolo had some things come up suddenly that he couldn’t get away from so instead Debra (one of the head staff here) took the time to have us all do class evaluations, and paperwork we needed to complete for the end of the semester coming up. This ended up taking most of the class time and then we went to lunch. The day was really gorgeous and after lunch a lot of us just went outside and hung out in the courtyard in the sun. We played with the turtles and listened to music, and some people played music and we all just had a good time. Also, the students here were putting on a Children’s Festival that evening in the main city piazza so I helped some of the people with laboring work such as moving chairs and boards and booths and things up flights of stairs and helping Jen to wipe down and clean chairs and things like that. Finally at about 3 we decided to go ahead and make our way down to stone carving and we had a beautiful walk. The day really couldn’t have been much more gorgeous. We took a lot of pictures in stone carving that day and had a really good time as we worked for our last day there. When we left we had talked to him about coming back next week and I think we’re going to. I got back in time to go straight to the Children’s Festival and had the time of my life. All I really did was wonder around taking pictures of everything and soaking up all of the joy that the children were producing. They had a fantastic time and the whole thing ended up being a huge success. It really was an indescribable experience, I love children so much – they really are the true joy in life I hope some day I have a bunch of my own! After the festival we pretty much unloaded everything wed loaded up that afternoon and then went straight to dinner. I wasn’t really feeling hungry so I didn’t eat much and then after dinner I watched Forrest Gump with a big group in the student lounge. This was the first time I ever really realized how sad that movie really is and I really did come close to crying multiple times throughout it. I guess the times and things we are going through in our own lives affect how we view things on the big screen huh? Well anyway, after the movie I talked online for a while before Jon roped me into going to The Velvet with him. Surprisingly, I did have a really good time and a lot of nice conversations and stuff before making my way home and to bed around 3am.

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27April2005 – Wednesday

Today I slept till right noon and then got showered and dressed and met with the studio. The Profs took us to lunch today down at a pizzeria/café at our site for the project and we ended up having a nice lunch till about 4pm when I got back. At this point I was still dead tired so I took a nap until 7pm at which point I got up and came down here to get online and then decided to journal. I wasn’t too hungry tonight because I was still full from lunch so I skipped dinner and once I finish updating here and my pictures of Tuesday I plan to work on studio and perhaps call home for a bit. Well that’s really all I have, hope you are all having a good week, we’ll see how the rest of mine goes, but either way as of tomorrow I only have 8 days left till I’m home! Ciao!

Blah Day

22April2005 - Friday

Friday… I woke up on my own and yet again deprived my alarm of pleasure showered and got dressed and was finished right on time for my meeting with Paolo today. Everyone in the class scheduled a time on Tuesday to meet with him to talk about how we felt the class was going, the trip, whatever. My time was around 10:10am this morning and as I walked up they were opening the door and ready, so I’d say I had good timing. Either way the meeting lasted all of about 5 minutes. In which time we discussed the things previously mentioned and he informed me that based on what I’d turned in and how I’d performed on the test I’d be receiving an A in his class. Nice. Now I know that I’m going to get an A in for sure in 2 out of my 3 classes this semester which is good news. The third class, however, is my studio and well… at this point I would gladly take a B although I haven’t a clue how it’s going at all. Anyway, after my meeting I went to studio and worked for a while until lunch time and then I went and ate lunch. After lunch I was feeling kind of full and sleepy so I took a nap for a few hours and then returned to studio to work some more. I could only do it for about an hour though because my desk faces a wall and I get so blah just sitting there staring at a wall that’s 2 feet away while I am trying to work. So I ended up moving to Andrew’s desk for the time being since he won’t be back till Monday. After that I felt better because then I could see people, sunlight coming through a window, life really. Well I worked for a little while and then I got distracted and lost my motivation and decided to go get online and write an e-mail. I ended up chatting right through dinner, although from what I heard I wouldn’t have eaten much anyway, and up until about 9pm here. After that I decided to give studio another shot and shortly after gave up again. I decided that I needed some mental stimulation so I started watching Fight Club on my computer. Finally I got some inspiration and some ideas after laughing a little and relaxing some and I started to draw some more and around midnight I talked to Melanie about my project some and she helped me a little. Around 1:15am I decided I’d had enough for the night and came in her to journal and maybe chat a little before I go to bed and start this whole studio thing again tomorrow. So now I’m finished, another day has passed, and I pretty much have one of my three variations decided upon. Hopefully by midday tomorrow I’ll be finished with it and be able to start my next variation, and hopefully finish that before tomorrow is over. Man I hope I get some divine inspiration and motivation. Well either way, that’s all I have for tonight. I love and miss everyone and as of today I believe I have 14 days left, so let the countdown begin. Ciao!