Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Eva: Sono stanca. Lizbie: Does that mean who farted?

I can honestly say I have never been this sore in. my. entire. life.
Dance rehearals, working out, being a nymph and hopping around on all fours in The Tempest this summer at Great River (for those of you reading who may remember that..) hell - even car accidents; nothing compares to the immense pain I feel throughout my body.
But it is the best pain in the entire world.
Movement this morning was rough. After waking up feeling the way I did, I had no idea how I was going to do acrobatics, so I wrestled with my body for two hours and managed to do alright. We did yoga today, which was nice...but then after yoga we did headstands and basic tumbling. HA. Nothing like being sore and then throwing your body on the ground.
We also did partner-rolling, where one person is in child's pose and the other person literally does a roll over their back. Amazingly enough, that actually felt really good. But then after that Claudia said, "go down the entire mat rolling as fast as you can" - - - aaaaaa hahahahahahahahahaha. Hopefully I'll feel better for next class. I was talking with this guy named Brian (he is a guest instructor from Ireland..teaching the MFA students, but we do a workshop with him in a few weeks) and he said he knows these big macho guys who live by the motto: Pain is weakness leaving your body. ha. I am getting stronger, I know that..but I wish it was less painful! :(
After movement was lunch (lasagna!) followed by our first day of Italian. (In the beginning of class, we were all sitting with our pants down rubbing Icy Hot on our thighs. HOTT.)
Our Italian class is going to be an absolute blast. Our teacher is Monica (I mentioned her in an earlier post). She's in charge of student life here and she is from Arezzo (born and raised) so we are learning damn good Italian. The best thing about our class is that unlike other foreign language classes where you learn a lot of bullshit sentences you don't need to know like, "Will you help me mow my lawn?" or "My dog smells really bad", we are learning things that we will immediately be able to learn in the city. In fact, for right now she's skipping a lot of the formal stuff because she says, "Nobody speaks Formal Italian. We aren't formal. We don't care." Thank god. Not only that, but because it's a small class we are able to ask a bunch of questions.
One of the main things about Italian: every letter is pronounced (with the exception of H..when H begins a word). Because of this, Monica says that I should go by "Ava" in Italy, because "Ava" is what their Eva would sound like. She said it will save me a lot of trouble...because if I say Eva they will think I'm saying "Iva". So I am now Ava. Hi. Dad this is for you: you know how people always mispell Balistrieri? Well you probably know this...but when you say it with the Italian pronunciation it sounds like it is spelled! We should just say it like that in America! It would make life a lot easier. Balistreeairy.
Allora..
Ciao! Mi Chiamo Eva. Sono Americana. Sono studentessa di teatro a l'Accademia dell'Arte. Sono Stanca, Iper, e pazza.
Capisco?

:)
Pretty sure you can figure out the first part, but the second is I am tired, hyper, and crazy because during class I was all three. We all were actually...I think because all of us (dancers and actors) are incredibly sore and we had just eaten lunch.
I was talking to Monica about how to say "I'm tired." (Monica, come si dice "I'm tired" in Italiano?) and she replied with "Sono Stanca". At this moment, Lizbie (dancer...awesome...) comes up and says, "Does that mean, who farted?"
Probably sounds stupid, but being as tired as I was we all cracked up. It's going to be a hilarious class, to say the least.
My favorite discovery of the day: In Italian, Consonanti doppie (double consonants) for example, SpagheTTi (the two t's) are really important to pronounce, because if you don't, certain meanings for words can change. Also, accents are important to pronounce differently. The best example of this: (seriously this is good...)
Papa
Papa (with an accent on the last a...but I don't know how to do that on here)
Pappa.
If you don't pronounce them differently.....it could be a catastrophe.
Papa = pope. Papa with an accent = dad and Pappa = baby food.
Can you see how that could be horrible? :)
Anyway, those were our only two classes for the day (pretty easy day!) which was good because I don't think we would have been capable of much more.
I had rehearsal for that scene I'm doing for cabaret for an hour, and then we had dinner. I spent the rest of the night doing philosophy homework, Italian homework, and reading Commedia in preparation for our Commedia classes which start next week. EEK!
Alright, time for bed.
Buona Notte, amici!
<3

2 comments:

  1. Pazza? Si! But it's a good crazy. I'm really glad to hear about all you're doing. Certainly seems as if it is going to be worthwhile. Love you...miss you...can't wait to hear more. (Sometimes we do pronounce B correctly here...).

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  2. Ava e pazzaaaaaaa!!!!!!

    <3 Lezbeeay :)

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