Lago di Como

Here are some pics from a day trip to Lake Como (where George Clooney supposedly lives):

*me in Como, by Lake Como*

*il duomo di Como*

*sculpture by the bus station*

*an elementary school courtyard*

*roses in the elementary school playground*

*olha and me by a villa on lake como*

*my traveling companions, felipe and olha in a superhero pose*

Neuroscience

For the last week or so I had been steadily preparing myself for the Neuroscience exam we had today. First of all, the amount of information we covered was tremendous. Secondly, our professor told us to just study his lectures, but we heard from previous students that he always puts book material on the exam. This meant reading 9 loooong chapters, resulting in about 300 pages of neuroscience, then attempting to memorize them. A little overwhelming.
The exam was part essay, part multiple choice. The essay question was: "the organization of the motor system." Excuse me, but that's not a question. I wrote a lot, but the organization of the motor system is a very very large topic, so I don't know what he expects. Then there were some multiple choice questions, about 4 of which he never talked about and were based on minuscule details from illustrations in the book. But, I prepared myself as well as I could, and I'm positive that I passed, although how well I passed will be determined by how easy our professor grades...

Now that it's over, I think I'll take a nap :)

*Genova*

*Genova*

The first weekend that I was here, I traveled with several of my classmates to the port city of Genoa (Genova in Italian). It was a beautiful day with warm weather. Genova is known for being a harbor, for its focaccia bread, and for being a former home of Christopher Columbus. We were only there for the day, so we just walked throughout the city, visiting churches and various piazzas. Here are some pictures:

*random street near harbor*

*me in front of the library of the university of genova*

*thinking with a statue (maybe st. carlo?) outside of la chiesa di san carlo*

*inside the chiesa di san carlo*

*outside the church: (L-R) Tom, Weichun, Sorin, Olha, Daria, Olga*


*the cavernous inside of another church*


*the ceiling of the church*


*the harbor, with parts of genoa in the background*


*me in front of christopher columbus' supposed house*

*the whole gang at the base of Genova's lighthouse*
(L-R) me, yifei, weichun, daria, olha, sorin, tom, olga

*pictures-- Milano*

Milano

*my dorm*

*my room*

*my room*

*downtown Milano, statue of Leonardo da Vinci*

*Castello Sforzesco (Milan's castle)*

*outside of il duomo*

*Daria and Olha in front of the gate (I forget the name) which houses all of the pricey shopping*

*Olga and me at Old Fashion (a club). Every Wednesday they have free food (note the fork in hand) and have a country theme, along with a performance and dancing*

*this week was Spain, with a flamenco presentation*

*the dryers were occupied, so I had to hang my clothes on every hangable surface. this was the first time i did laundry in well over a month*

Choir Festival

So, I went to Venice on Friday and Saturday. Came back late Saturday night, and tried to study a bit on Sunday. But, most of my day Sunday was occupied by a choir festival. My church here was hosting a choir gathering of about 8 different churches. I sang with my choir: Noi siamo circondati (We are surrounded... by a great many witnesses) and Io son de bole quaggiu (Just a closer walk with thee). In between every choir, we sang various hymns. Everything was in Italian of course, so I didn't understand everything, but it was nice to hear the choirs. There was an opera singer who sang a few solos-- it was amazing how powerful her voice was.

Then, my classmate let me borrow her camera cord, so now I can post pictures. It might be a bit overwhelming, so I'll try to be highly selective....

couple o'pics

A couple of pictures from dinner last night. Kristina lives in an apartment in the center of the city, so we went to her place to cook together-- it was delicious.

*Olha, Daria, Olga, me, Kristina*

*me, Olha, Daria, Felipe, Olga*

Shout out to mom and dad--- Happy 27th anniversary today!!

*venice*

Tomorrow I will be going here:





I'm very excited to go to Venice-- this will be my first time traveling for more than one day. I'm anticipating a nice time.

Still no package.... so no pictures yet. Still no money from my scholarship.... but about 90% of my classmates have gotten it so I am very hopeful that it is coming soon.

I wanted to share a quote that I heard and liked. It was a quote read in a podcast from Central Avenue Church in Athens. The quote is by G.K. Chesterton in his book Orthodoxy:

"This thing that I'm talking about for instance, can be seen in children. When they find some game or joke they especially enjoy, a child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence of life, because children have abounding vitality, because they are, in spirit, fierce and free. Therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again" to the grown-up person and the grown-up person does it again and again until he's nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exalt in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exalt in monotony.
It is possible that every morning God says "do it again" to the sun and every evening "do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike. It may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them. It may be that God has the eternal appetite of infancy. For we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."

One month update

I have now been in Milano for one month. Here are some recent updates:

1. I joined the church choir.

Last Tuesday, I went to the choir practice in the evening. It was my first time traveling in the city alone and at night, but everything went very smoothly except for being locked out of the church, but I just followed someone else in, so it all worked out. The people in the choir are very welcoming and friendly, as well as being (on average) considerably older than me. There were 3 american woman and 1 british woman who happily translated some of the songs for me. There will be a choir festival next Sunday, and in November they will entertain at one of the local nursing homes. So if I'm around those weekends, I will join them.

2. I finally did laundry.

After a month of not having clean clothes, I have washed them. For an entire building of 200+ there are 3 dryers which are constantly in use. So, I have various wet items hung around my room. Since I waited a month and am doing it all at once, there are a LOT of items.

3. I went to Lake Como.

Yesterday I traveled with two of my classmates, Olha and Felipe, to Lake Como for the day. It was beautiful-- nice weather, relaxing lake, old villas, etc. Sadly, no George Clooney, who apparently owns a villa there.

4. I went salsa dancing.

Also yesterday, I went salsa dancing with Elizabeth, who works in my residence hall, and Felipe. Everyone danced in Puerto Rican style salsa, and everyone looked very professional. The people dancing had all been students in the dance classes offered there and so were very talented and precise with all of their movements. I was pretty tired and mainly watched, but it was a nice experience.

5. Classes are in full-swing.

Last week most of my classmates had our first exam (I was exempt) and we are anxiously awaiting the next exams coming in the next two weeks. This means a lot of reading on our own, since the books are huge (the syntax book for linguistics is 700+ pages) and we are never sure how hard the tests will be. I keep falling asleep while reading neuroscience. I've got to work on that.

6. We are poor and angry.

The anger is only directed at the people in charge of the program. All of my classmates are upset, as am I, because our scholarships have still not arrived. They told us to expect them a few days ago, after already postponing the payment 2 weeks. None of it would be a big deal, except that they made a HUGE deal about signing a contract with us about when the payments would be received. And earlier in the summer, they said to bring money to provide for 2-3 weeks. We all brought extra money, but not enough for 4-5 weeks, and not enough for second rent payments, etc. I'm still hopeful that the money will come tomorrow, or the next day, but many of my classmates have become jaded and don't expect it for weeks. Cross your fingers...

What else... not much... I'm currently enjoying some pumpkin pancakes my classmate Libei made... so I guess I have to buckle down and study now...

Ciao ;)

dancing disaster #2

Last night I was determined to dance. I spent about 2 hours searching online for salsa clubs with free admission. I found 2, one of which was outside of Milan, but looked like it would be easy to get to on the map. Looked like is the key phrase.
The first part wasn't bad. We had to take a local train 2 stops north, and then we just had to walk about 10 blocks. The 10 blocks ended up being quite long. The 2nd to last street that we needed to find was also a highway. A highway with very fast cars....

We walked along the highway for a bit, but the highway divided into 3. We needed the second road, and it was impossible to get to, because we would either risk our lives running through the traffic to get to the correct road, or we would be arrested for walking illegally on a highway.

So we took a side road, hoping for that it would intersect with the road we needed. We came to a gas station, where a man told us we were crazy and it was another 5 km from where we were to the actual club. By this time, we had been walking for so long that by the time we got to the club, we would have 5 minutes to dance, and then we would have to leave so that we could catch the last train back to campus. Another evening of unfulfilled dreams.

Today I went to church, which was held in German, Italian and English. At one point in the service, the pastor was asking how to say "hallelujah" in various languages. It turns out that it's the same word in every language present. It was so beautiful to hear everyone shouting out their language, and then pronouncing hallelujah.

After church there was a free lunch, so naturally, I stayed. They had a lot of food, which was served by various members of the church. I sat next to an older Italian gentleman, and a man from Peru. They were extremely nice to me, and we had most of the conversation in Italian. The Italian man was from Napoli, and kept having me say funny things in the Napolian dialect of Italian and then laughing. They invited me to join the choir, and offered to show me some of the sites in Milano sometime. Even though I don't have the best voice, I think I'll go to choir practice this week.

Studying

Part of my plan this weekend was to go into the city, explore it a bit, and find a park to study at. However, the weather report said it would be raining on and off all day, so I decided to find a place closer to campus in order to stay dry. I remembered a nice looking courtyard in one of the buildings here, gathered my homework and headed out.

As I entered the building, I was trying to remember which floor the courtyard was on. There's a library, offices, and many classrooms, as well as cafeterias and cafes so I knew I would have a slightly hard time finding it. A woman called out to me, and pointed to the security guard, who I assume was also yelling at me (I had my ipod on and couldn't hear them very well). He came over to me and started talking very quickly and animately. Our conversation (all in Italian) went something like this:

Security Guard: What are you doing here, why are you here?
Me: I don't speak Italian.
Security Guard: What do you mean, you just spoke Italian?
Me: Ok, a little.
Security Guard: Where are you going?
Me: For studying
** I know my answer doesn't make sense, but I couldn't think of how to describe a courtyard in my limited Italian, and even though I didn't know exactly where I was going, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't like the answer, I don't know.**
Security Guard: You can't study here. The building is closed. This is the weekend, come back on a weekday.
Me: Weekday?
Security Guard: Yes midday. You can't study here. Go somewhere else.
Me: Closed, Saturday?
Security Guard: Yes, the building is closed.
Me: Really?
Security Guard: Yes, go somewhere else. Come back during the week.
Me: Ok

At this point, the security guard had spotted another student, who only wanted to learn, and was tired of continuously explaining to me that I had to go somewhere else. I understood him right off the bat, but part of me refused to believe that the building with the library in it would be closed on a Saturday afternoon.

So, I went and found a bench in the middle of a patch of grass. There is very little grass/green here on campus. But I'm not a fan of all the concrete, so I try to find grass to sit in while I study. After about an hour, it started to rain. So I guess I will try to study again tomorrow.

Dance Class

This weekend I'm going to stay in Milan, instead of taking day trips like we have been the previous weekends. I want to relax and explore the city a bit on my own-- try out some italian and do my homework. But, I also wanted to dance. So, since a few of us had talked about looking into different salsa clubs/classes, we decided to try and find the one listed as closest to our campus, and ask about prices as well as see what the classes looked like. This is our story.

We left around 7:15 from our residence building. The class was 4 km from campus, and we decided to take a bus and then walk a few blocks. The bus ride lasted 8 minutes. We departed, and began our walk.

We slowly realized that there were no dance studios anywhere. Thus began the long process of stopping strangers and asking them where the studio was. We didn't exactly have the address, but we had three streets that it was in between, and if we found any of them, we were sure we could find the studio. Unfortunately, no one had really heard of any of these streets. They all gave us similar directions. Go straight, turn right. Or, go straight, turn left. We wandered.

After asking approximately 7 people, an elderly man decided to help us, and although he didn't know where the streets were, he began asking everyone who walked by. This led to a young man who knew where the street was, and not only was going to give us directions, but he was going to lead us there himself.

His name was Fabio, and he studies at Milano-Bicocca as well. He was very friendly, and spoke all in Italian, although he could speak English if we had problems communicating. We walked. We stopped and asked more people. We walked more. The he led us back to where we began. This was not so helpful.

However, he seemed to have an idea of where we were going, and we followed, because we had no other option. After walking with us for about 45 minutes, we arrived at one of our 3 streets. He asked us for the street number, and was completely astounded when we admitted that we didn't exactly know what it was. The situation seemed hilarious and we couldn't stop laughing at how ridiculous we were for about 5 minutes.

After collecting ourselves, we walked for another 20 minutes, asking various people along the way for help. Finally we found the school of dance. It turned out to be an elementary school that gave classes in the gymnasium. Unfortunately, the school was locked. The classes are Wednesday night only, and someone told us that only old people go. Fabio said goodbye and gave us directions to the metro station. His house was 3 minutes from where we met him, and he accompanied us for over an hour.

Then we took the metro back. There were problems there as well, since we had unknowingly left the city of Milano. This meant that our metro tickets wouldn't work, and we would have to buy new ones. None of us had money, so we collected spare change and luckily had enough.

Although we didn't dance (which I was bummed about) and we walked for about 3 hours, we met a nice Italian guy. He wants to hang out with us again, and he said he'll introduce us to his Italian friends as well. Which is fantastic, since everyone else I've met here is either Spanish, Portuguese, or from somewhere else-- but we all don't speak Italian. So meeting people to practice Italian with is great.

Tomorrow night, I will go salsa dancing. It is my new mission :)

Classes

Finally classes have begun! It sounds a bit strange to be so excited about it, but now I have something to do during the day, which is nice. If only the classes didn't start so early....

I am taking 3 classes during the first month here: Theoretical Linguistics, Neuroscience, and Statistics. I haven't had statistics yet-- I'll start that class tomorrow. I'm sure I'll learn a lot, since I don't remember any statistics from the class I had at OU. Neuroscience is also pretty intense. I knew only the very basics about the brain, and now I'm learning a lot. We've only had two lessons, and already I realize how much I have learned and how much I'll have to learn. Theoretical Linguistics is interesting, but most of the things we've gone over I've learned already several times. Of course it never hurts to review, but since the professor knows I have a background, I will do extra readings and have tests over those instead of the regular material. So I'm excited to start reading more technical things.

My Italian class is wonderful, since I am transferring into a different class. My old professor was very nice, but talked too much. We never practiced the language. So we talked to both professors and three of us will switch classes. My new teacher, Manuela, is full of energy, explains everything really well, makes us practice grammar and has activities planned. Basically, it's a normal foreign language class.

Ok, so that's the update on the classes! Hopefully statistics won't be too overwhelming. Most of us are comfortable with words, grammar, and letters, but freak out when it comes to numbers. So we'll see....