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."