Get up, stand up...stand up for your rights.

Song of the Day/Week:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Greq05zAS9g
81 by Joanna Newsom

Can't believe it's March.

Sunday - went running and then went into Arezzo to study for my Italian midterm.
I went to this coffee shop on one of the main streets in town. There are a million small cafes everywhere but this place is nice because it has huge tables where you can spread out your books. So I sit there, studying my life away, sipping on my cappuccino and I look up because I notice that a pair of feet had stopped outside the window in front of me - and this man was taking my picture with a pretty upscale camera. Apparently he'd never seen a blonde studying Italian before in Italy? Very bizarre.

I left town and went back to the villa to do some philosophy reading and then I met up with Kadie, her parents, Sam, and Emily. We all went out to Mr. Blooms and got wine and pizza. Up until that night I had no idea that Mr. Blooms was actually an awesome restaurant. That being said, that realization was soon dashed to pieces.. (more on that later).

Yesterday we had individual meetings with Claudia in the morning and then Commedia in the afternoon. I was so stressed on my way to class. This big "collaborative project" that we are working on is like pulling teeth sometimes. So frustrating. We had TWO WEEKS away from Michele because of the contact improv workshop that we had, and to my understanding we were supposed to come in with scenes to show him - but the majority seemed to think that he just wanted us to have ideas written down. Learning comes from doing - nothing comes from just sitting and talking about ideas; you have to get up and actualize them. We had nothing for him to see besides a piece of friggin paper that had our outline on it for our improv - AGH I was SO frustrated. I was on the verge all morning but I didn't have time to let it out before class. Well, apparently the universe knew I needed to get something out because as I was walking up the stairs I fell FLAT on my face and of course instantly burst into tears, followed by laughter. It hurt like hell but oddly enough it was exactly what I needed; I was able to get out energy and enter class with a clean slate. I knew Michele would be dissapointed with our "paper" and lack of actual material, and sure enough, he was. Thank goodness - he had us get up and just randomly improvise stuff in class. He said, and I quote, "Get up. Stand up.....(and then with a smirk).....stand up for your rights." Ha. :) (He's always singing songs in class). And, of course, when we actually GOT UP we ended up getting much more accomplished in a half hour's time than we did in the two weeks we had away from him. Man. All of us are on different pages....#@Q*^*YWagklqj23q^A&U$^

I studied more for my midterm last night - from 10 pm until 2:30 am and right as I was about to go to bed, Kadie suddenly got violently sick. She had been to Mr. Blooms (here comes the "dashed to pieces" part...) and she got CRAZY food poisoning. Seriously, I don't know if I have ever seen anyone that sick. I was super worried about her. Luckily, her parents were still here so once she felt a little bit better she went by them. I think that was around...4:00? But then I couldn't fall asleep until around 4:30-5 ish, and then I woke up at 8:00. Needless to say, it's been a long day - - but good news: after a slow morning, Kadie is now about 90% back to normal. Thank god.

We had Commedia all day today. Warm-ups in the morning consisted of the most painful stretches in the world followed by this "shifting weight" exercise - - my body felt SO good afterwards. Then Michele had us do some more improv and he sent us on a mission to find costumes and props. DRESS UP TIME! The dancers were out of class by the time he had us do this, so we were running through the halls asking people if they had, "this" or "that" - - all the dancers were very intrigued by our kindgergarten-like rummaging. Very funny.
We spent the rest of the afternoon improvising through these structures that we had created in the morning. Michele is an incredible teacher - - we are all struggling but learning through the struggle.

Italian Midterm! AH! It was scary, but I think it went okay - and my studying last night proved to be very helpful. Not sure I would have known what was going on had I not spent time over the weekend and last night drilling present tense, past tense, and irregular verbs into my skull. There was a ton of material covered, so we'll see.

We had our weekly film night tonight. It was the first two parts of a ballet choreographed by Pina Bausch - one of the most influential choreographers in Europe especially, but in the world. Stunning stuff. The video was presented by this man who the dancers are working with right now - and he worked with Pina! Jealous jealous jealous.

Anyway, now that my midterm is over I actually have some time to breathe. I'll probably spend the rest of the night reading and going to bed. So tired.

Buona Notte!