Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Roots

Ciao :)

This week is absolutely flying by.

Yesterday I had voice, movement and philosophy. In philosophy we had an amazing two hour conversation about this Karl Marx reading. The article is called "Estranged Labour". It discusses capitalism, workers vs non workers, the alienation that man has from his community by becoming a wage worker, the value system, and the relationship between labor, value, and beauty. A factory says, "make this" and the factory workers comply. In doing so, the worker becomes a machine. The object he makes is completely outside of himself. There is no inner creation or inspiration - it simply fulfills his job. Example: Cartoonists for Walt Disney. Disney says, "I want you to draw the best cartoon of this". The artist does so. That artist is then selling his own imaginative ability/time to the labor. He has been bought. He is a thing. From this, we brought it down to the basics: Everything has value. Everything. People buy clothes. People buy ideas. People buy sex. Everything is made into a commodity. In a capitalistic society, even love is a commodity. (Valentine's Day). Is it even possible to just freely create anymore? Or does everything, in the end, get a value? Can artists be simply artists and not commodities? Sadly, the answer is no, because we all agreed on a value system - and therefore everything has value. If we didn't have value, our world would be a mess - but having "values" makes it a mess too because at the end of the day, it's all about money. There is so much more to all of this. I could go on forever....ai yi yi.

Yesterday after class I walked into the city and studied Italian with Kadie at a coffee shop. It was SO nice to study in town! We never get the chance to because our classes usually run a lot later, but our classes have let out earlier this week. Studying Italian while listening to people speak Italian makes the studying way easier. I may have also bought this incredible pair of shoes...but we don't need to talk about that.
Last night Claudia (movement teacher) showed us some videos of her performances. She was on tour throughout Europe for quite a while doing circus/acrobatics pieces with a man. Man -I always knew she was a rockstar but these videos confirmed it. She's insanely talented.

Today we had voice, movement and Italian. We are studying past tense in Italian right now and we had to write a short story today based off these images that Monica gave us in class. It was really fun. I'm a dork like that.. Here is the story that Emily (one of the dancers) and I wrote based off the images - - sorry you can't see the pictures we had to use.

Marisa e arrivata all'agenzia viaggi per pianificare un voyaggio e ha comprato un biglietto a Roma. E entrata l'aeroporto e e passata la biglieterria. Poi, Marisa e andata sull aeroplano e e partita per Roma. Marisa e arrivata a Roma e ha detto "ciao" all'uomo chi ha guidato il tassi. Ha visitata la Colosseum e ha fatto le fotografie. Ha visto la fontana e ha commencato a pensare di Gino. Ha corso a telefonarlo e ha sorriso a sentirlo parlare. Gli occhi hanna incontrato dalla via e hanno deciso a mangiare alla bar. Hanno mangiato e sono innamorare ancora. Ma, catastrofe! Marisa ha devuto partire. Lo ha detto: Ti Amo! Dobbiamo vedere come vanno le cose e e scappata.

Marisa arrived at the travel agency to plan her trip and she bought a ticket for Rome. She entered the airport and stopped by the ticket counter. Then Marisa got onto the airplane and left for Rome. Marisa arrived in Rome and said bye to the man who was driving the taxi. She visited the Colosseum and took pictures. She visited the fountain and began to think about Gino. She ran to the telephone and she smiled to hear his voice. Their eyes met in the street and they decided to eat at a cafe. They ate and fell in love again. But, catastrophe! Marisa had to leave. She said to him, "I love you! We'll have to wait and see" and she ran away.

I couldn't do all the accents (because I don't know how on this blog site) and of course there are several mistakes but hey...after only a month I'd like to think I'm doing pretty well. If only I could speak it like that.

I got WONDERFUL news today. I've been trying to figure out what to do for my spring break. Because I am in Europe and exploring my Italian half, I thought it might be fitting to explore the other half of me - Norwegian! My Grandpa's cousin lives in Norway. I met her and her son when I was about two or three but I haven't seen them since. Well...that is about to change :) Seriously, this whole Europe adventure is becoming quite surreal. From March 6-14 I am flying to Oslo, Norway and staying with my family: Kirsten, Rolf, Kristian (their son, 30) and Tore (their other son, 18). Talk about going back to your roots.... - - AHHHHDGHDJHNW#YJAQ@#YARGB I am SO excited!

A Domani!
Baci!

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