here's to pleesure on the floor

so, milan in the middle of the night is really quite entertaining. first things first: i'll start where i left off last time. i leave the internet cafe at approximately 1:35am and i have four hours and change to wait for my train in the face-numbing cold. i'm standing in the enormous loggia at the milan train station... trying to read 'raise high the roofbeam, carpenters and seymour: an introduction' by j.d. salinger to pass the time and i happen to look up as this random man is walking past me with his absurdly large rucksack. would ya know that right at that moment, scrawny little thief whitey runs up behind big-rucksack-bum and steals his pack. whitey runs away and big-rucksack-bum takes off after him... he eventually comes back to the station with his pack and a very satisfied look on his face... i'm assuming that there was some sort of ass-whooping involved, but who really knows?

i think that it's probably pertinent to insert a little side note here: i was the only girl - repeat: the only girl - at the train station. ugh.

next, homeless man with all but his eyes covered up with a scarf breaks out into a two minute tap dance without music. then i witnessed a mini fight club between two friends who laughed hysterically after they consecutively punched each other in the face for about 20 minutes... very eenteresting... then i was stalked by a private security guard until i got onto my train. dude kept asking me if i wanted to go find an open bar so that 'we could get something hot to drink' - thankfully fight club was still there and they proceeded to look out for me until i got onto my train at 5:30am.

i get on the train and proceed to try to sleep [as, at the time, i hadn't slept in two days and was really looking forward to some shut-eye] when crazy, red-eyed milano soccer fan spent the next thirty minutes trying to steal my ajax [amsterdam soccer team] scarf. harrumph. it was really kind of scary, because soccer fan man was really scary and we were the only people in the train car. needless to say, i didn't sleep until i got home... i refuse to let my guard down around crazy, red-eyed, straggly haired people... ‘nuff said.

so onto current events: david - roommate - didn't end up making it to amsterdam. poor baby. he was really looking forward to spending an entire week of being completely lost in every sense of the word before going home... he woke up about fifteen minutes before the train was supposed to leave, ended up making to the train station with a miraculous five minutes to spare ... guess what? no freaking train! yeah... we think it was a sign that he wasn't supposed to go to amsterdam... he even had trouble when he was trying to buy his ticket to amsterdam, so maybe it was meant to be.

last but certainly not least: my dad is coming into rome tonight and we're gonna rock this town until we leave on the 26th... oh yeah!

b boys... b girls...

the beastie boys concert in milan was abso-freaking-lutely marvelously rockin!!! i have absolutely no voice left, because i was screaming my friggin' head off the for the whole blessed two hours... this was my first concert to attend completely 'sola'... kind of intimidating, considering that it was in milan [i'm still in milan... but i'll explain that in a tick], i was alone, i had no idea how the hell i was supposed to find the concert or how i would get back to the train station from the concert... aaanyway... everything worked out just beautifully... they played my favoritest tune 'body movin' and i rocked my socks off... mix master mike totally burned vinyl on the turn tables and the boys were just amazing. the eight years i've been waiting to see the beastie boys in concert was totally worth it... i will be smiling for days and days and days... oh, and talib kweli was brilliant. he played my favoritest of his tunes 'just to get by' and was bloody fantastic... sigh... wonderful stuff...

oh, and i met some really cool people... davide and marco from modena kept me company during the concert [no speaky english... but it was great anyway. i could understand them and they tried to understand my retarded italian... tutto sta bene, i guess] and then maryanne and tura from norway helped guide me back to the train station. people are so nice here... they should all come to rome.. rome needs more nice people... 'nuff said on that account.

so, currently, i'm sitting in an internet cafe [gr@zia cafe] outside the train station in milan, trying to 'blow some time' until my train leaves for rome at 5:30 this morning. it is positively frigid outside and i wanted to be warm and i wanted to blog, so i figured that this would be the best way to spend my time until 2am... yeah. so after this, i get to go sit in front of the station and freeze my white pasty bulbous ass off for a few hours and finish reading 'raise high the roofbeam carpenters and seymour: an introduction' while i watch the bums sleep of their drunken stupor for the evening... hopefully i'll see something entertaining while i'm turning myself into a human ice cube and if i do, i will be sure to notify you, my loyal reader[s].

poot yourrr delicaite leeeeetle fingers heeere...

i am feeeeeeeeneeeeeshed!!! my crit went very nicely and i was able to keep my head, even though i've only had about an hour of sleep... have i ever mentioned that i absolutely worship dr. ethel goodstein? because she is an absolute goddess and i only hope that one day i can be somewhat as lovely as she... sigh. i just wish that she'd been here about two months ago... aaanyway...

whooptie friggin' woo!!! i am done and done... and done!

and now, time to caffeinate myself...

indie schmindy

i am a mix taper!




How indie are you? test by ridethefader

You're really enthusiastic about the music that you like. You attempt to discover your new favourite
band every week. You continually try to get your friends into the music you like, which annoys the fuck
out of them, but you don't know it. At least you're not arrogant about it.

my water is fizzy and i like it like that

final crits are tomorrow. i should be nervous, but i feel too shitty right now to really allow the jitters to have any effect on me whatsoever. i've been coughing up my lungs and everything else you could possibly imagine for three days now and i see no signs of my body deciding to let me feel better. i just hope that i can get through my presentation tomorrow without having to double over in a coughing fit... talk about embarrassing.

after tomorrow at approximately 1pm [that’s the time the crits are supposed to be finished... so what i really mean is: tomorrow at 5pm], i'm home free... i get to go to a good-bye party at a professor's flat with the class and some of his students from cornell university and then sit through the rest of critiques on thursday and then i get to finally relax and start trying to feel better.

i must feel better by saturday because i am going to milan to see the beastie boys and talib kweli in concert. woo! after i get to come back to rome and pack because i get to come home!!! twelve days and counting until my plane leaves for home and i really couldn't be more excited - i know that's bad and whatnot, because i'm in italy and i'm not supposed to want to come home, but i'm broke and sick and i miss my friends and such in the u.s.

all that i have left to do until i can enjoy my last days in rome is finish up a model and polish up my presentation for the jury tomorrow... let's just hope that i don't fall on my face or anything while i'm on my way up to the front of the room to present... because that would be embarrassing...

hip me!

You're the Artiste!
Take What sort of Hipster are you? today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

You paint, you draw, you cut up bits of paper, you take digital photographs. You're always on the move and great with your hands. You use words like "Postmodern," "image," "simplicity," and "project." You frequently fuss with your sculpted hair. Your clothes speak to others with their symmetry and color scheme. You spend hours in the studio. You've little money or accomplishment, but aren't concerned one bit. You listen to electronic music. You have friends and roommates who are also devoted to the creative side of life. You don't care if you never get recognized--as long as you've created art, then you'll die happy.

invisible friends are for grown-ups too

i just saw the most wonderfully entertaining thing that i have ever had the privilege to witness. brad and i just went down to 'pizza crepes' to get our midnight snack, as it were, and there was a man on the sidewalk, apparently having a very intense argument with a pole. brad and i exchanged 'that was weird' looks and walked into 'pizza crepes,' leaving the angry man and his argument with the air to have at it on the sidewalk outside.

well, as fate would have it, the man and his argument followed us into 'pizza crepes.' he turned to his invisible friend and said in very angry italian, 'what are you doing here?' - it was really funny, because then he proceeded to have a whole conversation with his invisible friend. about half-way through the part of the conversation that we were able to witness, he ordered a beer and apparently wasn't considerate enough to buy one for his friend... maybe the guy thought that his friend would buy his own... i don't know, but the whole thing has totally made my night.

i know, i know, it's terrible that i would find any sort of joy in someone else's lunacy, but i can't help it... that was some really funny shit. genuinely comical.

i should'a butter-knifed him...

the studio in rome smells like rotting banana peels right now... needless to say, this is fairly unpleasant, considering that it's too cold to open the windows to vent the smell [plus, it's still raining and stuff] and i have to be in here all day, every day, until friday night at 6pm... when all of our studio junk is due... ok, so explain this to me, because i simply don't understand: our stuff - all of our stuff - for studio is due on friday at 6pm... now, our crits aren't until next wednesday [if i'm correct, that's a total of 5 days after our stuff is due...]. wouldn't it be more intelligent and more productive to place the due date - if it has to be a couple of days before crit and such - on, say... monday? so that all of us could have the bleeding weekend to get stuff accomplished? it just doesn't make sense to me... it's like they're just itching to stress the living hell out of all of us [well, not all of us... as some of the people here are machines and stuff... but there are a good 6 people out of the 11 here that would probably really appreciate having the weekend to tie stuff together and make everything really 'sing' before it all gets graded. sigh. i just don't get it...

anyway... last night freaking rocked my world. i had been up for basically three days [a total of four hours sleep in three days] as of yesterday after studio... we had to sit through a lecture that would have been really interesting, had all of us been awake enough to really pay attention - that's another thing that irks me about the studio here... there are two hour lectures planned the week of the due dates for studio... this particular lecture and the one from about three weeks ago [2 days before our last crit... mind you...] both would have been extraordinarily helpful at the beginning of our project but seemed just ridiculous now. anyway... brad, camille and i decided to go grab some grub before heading off to catch some z's...

we went to this great restaurant in trastevere called 'pancotto'... we proceeded to have a freaking four hour dinner. holy. crap. we had such a good time. we ate steaks and drank lots of wine and had tiramisu and then we walked around trastevere being ridiculously silly... we were completely sober, as by the time we were finished with dinner, all of the effects of the wine had long since worn off... but we were just giggly and wonderfully jovial and such. we took a really funny picture in a photo booth that i will post as soon as i get home. after photos and stuff, we went to 'the chocolate shop' in trastevere and had some wonderful gourmet chocolates... i made camille and brad try chocolate with chili [as in the pepper, not the stew] and they actually liked it - it's my favorite!

anyway... on the way home, we passed palazzo farnese and were standing right in front of the arch on via giulia... i asked brad, since he's the tall one in the group - camille and i are both midgets in comparison to his 'fathom' of height - if he could touch the ivy hanging from the arch... now, the ivy stops about 9 feet from the ground... brad takes a running start. brad jumps with all of his might. brad only achieves about four inches of vertical lift. ha! ha! ha! the jump itself was the funniest thing ever - it looked like judd nelson's jump at the end of 'the breakfast club' - oh my god. camille and i nearly pissed our pants we were laughing so hard. sigh. it was wonderful.

the hobbit-hole fish tank may be more of a reality than i initially thought possible

so, the tiber is ridiculously flooded today - by about 8 - 10 feet. it's also supposed to rain all bloody week... brilliant. i just hope that my flat doesn't end up at the bottom of a new roman lake or anything. all i have to say is that i'm really glad that i do not live on the isola tiberina... it's only got a couple more feet to go until it will be flooded along with the river. i just hope that the water level goes down a bit - soon. not just because of the possibility of the city flooding [for that to happen, it would have to rain a lot more... but because, now that the river has flooded all of their homes, all of the roman rats have decided to come out and play in the city and such. i passed six of them on my way home from studio this morning... ugh. i don't really have a problem with rats, per se, but with as filthy as this city is [which is to be expected of any major metropolis, honestly], i can't even begin to fathom what kind of putrid diseases they must carry here. insert shudder here.

on to more boring crap: i have a very large drawing due in the morning. and no drawing due-date in rome would be complete without my very own final... it's delightful, really... i mean, why only worry about finishing a rather large rendering when i can also worry about studying for a test?

i'm off to render [aka color-in a drawing ... for all you non-archy folk out there].
tah tah

aww... man. come. on.

it's literally raining cats and dogs here in rome... well, maybe not actually 'literally,' but you get my drift... the tiber is really flooded - the sidewalks on the river walk are under about 2 feet of water and it's still raining... thank you, mussolini for building the river walls, otherwise, my flat would probably be like a hobbit-hole-fish-tank this evening/morning [whatever it is, now]...

camille and bradley returned from paris this evening. to celebrate their return from lovely paris, we decided to go to a grand restaurant in trastevere called 'il duca' [also on rome’s ‘top 10 list’, by the way] - wonderful food... actually, all i had was the 'fiori di zucca' and crème caramel, some wine and a cappucino... mmm. we decide that it's high time that we get back to the stu-stu-studio [said/sung to the mtv 'pop-up video' tune] so that we can get some work done [ugh, i know...].

well, mr. snobster drives by in his wonderfully snotty porsche boxster and, of course, drives through the largest puddle possible at the highest speed possible, right bloody beside me!!! i am currently soaked. i mean, my jeans [that i just washed and waited for four days to so they would dry so that i could finally wear them again, i might add] are sopping wet up to my mid thigh and my beautiful camel coat is soaked. i should have chased after the bastard and spit water in his window and asked how he liked being wet when he hadn't asked for it... and then told him that he could expect my dry cleaning bill for the coat, thank you. but i guess that i will come another day. i can dream. right? i mean, putting a snotty, inconsiderate, rich, i-drive-my-porsche-while-you-have-to-walk-in-the-pouring-rain jerk in his place would be positively delightful... shallow, yes. but brilliant nonetheless. one day. one day...

mr. boxster-man, watch out who you splash next time, because i'll be armed with a mouth-full of water and ready for you!!! [threat, of course, followed by maniacal laughter... so, insert that here.]

i've hit a wall...

writer's block is really one of the most terrible temporary states to be in that i can think of at the moment... pure, unadulterated frustration... it's like all the ideas i have for two bloody papers are bouncing around inside my head like a mini idea mosh-pit and every time i try to write them down, i sound completely retarded – pseudo-academic, non-sensical gibberish is all that ends up on the page [screen, rather] in front of me... why? why? why? why can't i write today? ugh.

now that i've given you information that you have absolutely no interest in, i will once again go try to sound somewhat intelligent – i’ll just consider it my super-human feat of the day... i guess.

oi oi oi

so... the misfits, huh? like, frickin' right!!! i paid witness to the wonderful conglomeration of 1] marky ramone, 2]dez from black flag and 3]jerry only from the misfits. sigh. it was abso-freaking-lutely fabulous. i don't believe that i've ever rocked so hard in my life. i got dez's and jerry's autographs and tried my very bestest to get marky's, but my efforts were futile, as he ran out the back door as soon as the concert was over. i did get a great photo with jerry and i got a marvelous hug from dez. all sweaty and rocked out and delightful and stuff. great night. yeah. great night.

so, on to other news in natalie's world:
in the past two days, i have become certain that i want to run for southquad director of the american institute of architecture students... i realize that i have a lot on my plate for the next year, but this is nothing new for me. i have also been highly active with aias at fayetteville since i was in freshman year and i would definitely like to involve myself at a national level as i feel that aias is doing great things for people in architecture school. i also desire change in the condition of architecture school and i know that the best way to incite change is to become involved on the inside. so, cross your fingers and wish me luck - if that's what you feel like doing. ...as for me, i will cross my fingers and 1] hope that i am elected and 2] hope that i do a good job.

i'm also in the middle of crunch time here in rome. final drawings are due for grading next friday. [insert deep heavy sigh here]... i have two five-page papers [i'm not worried about them, though] and a large rendered 'pretty drawing' about campo dei fiori due on tuesday. if it's worth showing you when i'm finished, i'll post a photo of the drawing when i get back to the states...

other than that, i am really, really enjoying having my flat to myself this weekend. the boys are in paris [brad] and london [david] this weekend. i'm broke, so i stayed in rome... i also have much more work to do than most people here because i work really slow and stuff... oh well... i finished reading 'franny and zooey' [bloody marvelous book…] yesterday and got 150 pages into '100 years of solitude' [so far, pretty marvelous] today... i cooked dinner for austin, ariana and baldwin tonight... i totally improvised, but i tasted alright, i guess... and now i have absolutely no motivation to do anything... with exception of finishing up my book... terrible, really, as i have so much to do.

anyway, i'm off to attempt to be productive and such...
cause some trouble kiddies... i won't be able to until after friday, so you better cause a lot of trouble to make up for my not causing any... toodles.

yeah... so, like cool and stuff.

woo! i am about to be on my way to see the freaking misfits [in t-minus 4 minutes and counting]!!! yeah... i'm headed for an eardrum-pooping, bounce-till-my-calves-burn, all-out punk-rockin' event! whooptie woo! [can you tell that i'm excited? i didn't know if i was being blatant enough... so i guess that i'll clarify: I AM COMPLETELY STOKED!!!]

rock your socks off kiddies!!!
and to all a good night/day/afternoon/morning... whatever it is, wherever you are.

'i was playing with myself for a while... but i think i cheated'

pre-amsterdam -
post crit [which i will not talk about here because that's boring crap that no one really wants to hear about...], we all go out for drinks at sam's because it's morgan's last night to dj at the bar and i get to say good-bye to everyone from miami and because we're all really in the mood for a drink after a really rough week and such. so, we're at the bar and having a marvelous time and i'm getting only fairly tipsy, as i have to be at the train station in time to catch a 5am train to pisa in order to catch a 10am flight to amsterdam... we have a grand old time at the bar and stay there clear until closing time...

this is when it gets good...

so, we're all standing outside of the bar, as we're on our way to a club called 'anima' because we want to shake our ‘groove thangs’ until the sun comes up and all that jazz... david [who is very very very inebriated by this time] comes up behind me with his back to mine and with out even warning me, he loops his arms through mine and leans forward really quick... because i wasn't expecting 'the turtle,' my weight wasn't distributed properly and instead of me stopping him from pulling me all the way over his back, my feet left the ground. the thing is, david wasn't coordinated enough to stop our forward [well, his forward, my upward/backward] momentum and we fell - he on his face, me on the back of my head on the wonderfully hard roman cobblestone... i whited-out for a good 5 or 6 seconds... when i could see clearly again, i realized that david was laying, belly-down, arms outstretched on the cobblestone with blood gushing out of the bridge of his nose... there's a whole lot of commotion, i end up sprinting from campo dei fiori to our apartment to get david's passport so that the ambulance can whisk him away to the er to get stitches [which he adamantly argued that he didn't need even though he really did] - anyway... it was kind of funny, because cat [the lovely woman who owns sam's] normally calls david 'arkansas,' but she kept calling him 'arizona' instead: 'hang on, arizona. you'll be just fine. you'll be in and out of the emergency room in under an hour.' ‘yes, arizona, you will have a scar. that will leave a scar.’ 'yes, arizona, you'll still be able to go to amsterdam.'

anyway, saved for the initial panic of sending david to the emergency room and me feeling overwhelmingly guilty for having basically caused david to break his nose and end up with 7 stitches [yeah - they gave him 5 on his nose and 2 on his forehead], it was at least an interesting night. we were even early to the train station.

amsterdam -
we were good little architecture students while we were in amsterdam... yes, we were. i promise. zack, peter, allison, david and i did all of the 'architecture walks' in the blistering cold and the butter-thick fog. we perservered...

so, i have a little side note to add here: unlike all of the hostels that i've been to, the hostel 'cosmos' - though really nice and all for a hostel - didn't provide towels... we ended up taking showers and having to dry off with our t-shirts... well, most of us dried off with our t-shirts, zack, however, preferred to dry off with his previous day’s underoos [actually, not his whole body… only his hair] on the first day... needless to say, we ended up buying towels... oh - and yeah, the shower at the hostel was at least 250 degrees... good god! it felt like someone was trying to make soup out of me… you know, in those old ‘merry melodies’ cartoons where some dude on a desert island sticks bugs bunny into a cauldron over a really big fire and tries to make rabbit stew out of him? yeah, that's what i'm talking about... that’s exactly what it felt like

we ate pancakes and watched dutch television [which is entertaining just because the language is just silly - i can't think of any other word to describe how it sounds... well, i actually can, but it's not very 'p.c.'] and went 'coffee-shopping' and got completely 'lost' and went to nemo [it's a science center place with lots of cool gadgets to play with and such] ...

rotterdam -
unlike what everyone told me, we did actually make it to rotterdam... we didn't just veg out in our hostel room and smoke ourselves stupid... aren't you proud? we went to the nai [netherlands architecture institute] and the kunsthal... we saw the un studio 'baby blue monster' erasmus bridge [sigh] and walked around looking at all sorts of cool junk... we also ate at a cool cafe called 'floor' - i had pumpkin soup that rocked my socks off! - and then at a blessed pizza hut... all i have to say is that that was the bestest hawaiian pizza i've ever had... mmm mmm mmm. david and peter had a ridiculously entertaining eating contest - david eating, rather, stuffing the pizza into his mouth with his hands and peter stuffing the pizza into his mouth with a fork... i haven't laughed that hard since i was a little girl... ahhhh. so loverly...

anyway... this has been way too long... i could tell you more, but i won't... i can tell you that i am planning on living in amsterdam as soon as possible for as long as possible... oh yes.

ttfn kiddies...

gahguh dahdah? soopeh de boor.

this will be short, as - to be perfectly honest - i'd rather be sleeping at the moment... amsterdam and rotterdam are the most lovely cities in the world. i will live in amsterdam one day when i'm filthy rich so i can spend all of my time looking at architectural eye candy and mingling with the most courteous people on the planet. sigh. i will give a full play-by-play on the morrow but sleep must come first, my friends. sleep must come first.

ciao kiddies...

can't lounge in the boozer all day... i've got man-oo-vores to make

blah blah blah - i've got crits on the morrow... have much to do and yet i will still squeeze as much procrastination out of this evening as i possibly can. why? because i like to...

ciao...

'well, i'll kick your ass with my brad...'

my suspicions have been confirmed... our class is cursed when it comes to field trips. once again, the weather was shitty yesterday... you know? you'd think that we'd go visit gardens when the weather is warm - at least warm enough to support the growth of flowers and not so cold that it kills them... anyway - it was most wonderful to be able to walk around in gardens yesterday... we could actually hear the wind rustling through the trees - a sound that i know i haven't heard since the night before i left the states almost three full months ago. there was grass and i was quite tempted to through myself down onto it and roll around like a toddler... if there hadn't been a rather intimidating-looking docent with us, i probably would have - it's actually quite refreshing to realize that i still have wonderfully comical childish impulses that i'd actually act on.

i was quite sad when we got home... we were supposed to be back by about four in the afternoon, giving me just enough time to run to my flat, pack an overnight bag and jet to termini train station in time to catch a train with my friend, ottavio, to his hometown to go see his band 'candy and sky'. this did not happen... we got home at about 5:45 and i missed the train. i was most upset... however, upon receiving a text message from ottavio reassuring me that they will be playing in rome in a few weeks, i felt a little better. it might be better that i stayed, because our crits are on tuesday and i have to draw like a madwoman...

last night at dinner with brad and camille. we had the [dis]pleasure of sitting behind an obnoxious table full of americans from dallas - actually, as we found out later, they were all originally from new york but are currently residing in dallas, tx. oh. my. god. they were all drunk off of wine [before they had even ordered their food... sheesh] and speaking so loudly that the whole restaurant could hear them... all they were talking about was the 'dahler' [dollar] and how they 'didn't want bubbles in their water. bubbles are for champagne, not for water' - yes, they actually said this to the wonderfully nice waiter at the restaurant who had just finished explaining to them, quite clearly i might add, that they only kind of water they had was 'frizzante,' or sparkling water. argh. it's unfortunate that all americans abroad are stereotyped into being these kinds of characters. inconsiderate, 'everyone should speak english even in their own country'-thinking, pushy, overly-loud people. it is most thoroughly unfortunate for any considerate american person traveling abroad. actually, it's quite embarrassing. truly embarrassing.

oh - by the way, 'mother f!@#er' has been replaced in parts of the u-of-a-rome-center-study-abroad-group-slang with 'mother farnese,' which can be shortened to 'mar far' ... just thought that you'd like to know...

aaaanyway, i finished an absurdly freakish novel this morning: 'crash' by j.g. ballard. it's one of those novels that one really can't describe or discuss to/with anyone who hasn't read it. it's just that f!@#ed up [for serious lack of a more eloquent phrase]... the weird thing about it was that i honestly couldn't put it down, it's incredibly well-written - i started it yesterday morning and finished it in a total of about 7 hours of reading [224 pages]... it weirded me out so much, i just wanted to find out what was going to happen next. i think that i've been permanently scarred by it... honestly.

random nugget - it takes about 142.18 licks to reach the center of a tootsie pop.
oh yeah!
ciao.

we should call him 'suck face' instead...

two words: graham coxon. you should click on his name right now and go check out his music [pronounced me-you-sack by most of the italians that i have met... it's so cute.]... it's some good stuff, man. i had the distinct pleasure of being kidnapped last night by my friend, ottavio. he hijacked my evening and took me to the graham coxon concert at a swingin' hot spot called circolo degli artisti and it was wonderful because, not only was it just a really cool, small club for concerts and stuff - complete with its own wall-bar - but it also reminded me of jr's... it was kind of like being at home again, except that i was surrounded by people who couldn't speak english and i had to/got to speak italian to all of ottavio's friends [let me remind you that when i speak italian, i sound like a very very very stupid three-year-old...]. it was a grand evening...

before i was kidnapped and taken to the concert, i had the pleasure of cooking dinner for nine people - me, brad, camille, kristen, alenya, [the next four are from the university of miami] rachel, kara [i found out that it's spelled with a 'k'], sherry and morgan... wow... i made [in order of appearance] a tomato, feta, and field greens salad - complete with my own garlic-vinegar-dressing concoction - followed by garlic-pepper chicken over fettuccini topped with a white-wine-sautéed mushroom cream sauce, fresh green beans and wine [brought to my flat by my lovely guests], and finished off with apple crisp/crumble [whatever you want to call it] and coffee with bailey's. i felt bad because everyone got there before i got finished cooking and i was all hot and disgusting and stuff... oh yeah, and the cream for the cream sauce decided to explode all over my black shirt and the flour from the apple crisp decided that my black over-shirt was a wonderful host... basically, i looked like i had been rolled in all of the ingredients for yesterday's dinner... it was marvelous... anyway, we all ate and the kiddies from miami started teasing one-another about being in 'the clean plate club' and a whole lot of other clubs that i don't have the brain capacity to remember the names of and it was a grand old time... i also got to play everyone some stephen lynch... so funny... so so very funny. i played 'why mommy left us' and everyone was tickled pink and stuff - i like stephen lynch very much... yes, yes, he is most entertaining.

on the morrow, i will be going to villa lante and caprarola and hopefully, i will be headed to ottavio's home town [i honestly can't remember the name of it] along with his entourage to see his band 'candy and sky' perform tomorrow evening... yea!!! it will be a good weekend... come hell or high water, this weekend will rock my socks off... oh yes. oh yes.

ciao.

yass, yass... that's raht, ah'd like some ass-tay

whassa happenin' hot stuff? ... sorry, i had a little 'sixteen candles' moment, there... today is a be-a-u-tiful day in roma. no more rain [at least for now] and a simpson's sky and all that jazz. i'm designing a museum and a restaurant and a tourist information center and a piazza and an outdoor theater, all right in front of the coliseum [kind of]... i'm starting to get excited about my project... woo!

my mom is in rome and we're having a blast... i took her to the vatican museums with my class yesterday morning... she got to meet emilio - tee hee - and got to walk around non-stop, up and down stairs, ramps and what-have-you from 8 in the morning until 1:30 in the afternoon... when we promptly caught a cab to 'pizza creeps' [aka pizza buona... we've dubbed it pizza creeps because david didn't know what a crepe was and asked what a 'creep' was... long story... think i've told it before... whatever]... mom's a trooper. we also got to go to my favoritest restaurant in rome, right next to the portico d'ottavia: da giggeto... oh man... so good. and the gentleman who was waiting on us totally made my night: i'm collecting corks from wine bottles so that i can make a wall with them [round end out] and it will be all swell and stuff... well, i asked him if i could keep the cork from our bottle of wine, he asked me why, i explained... not only did he give me the cork from my bottle, but from 30 other bottles as well... he also told me that if i call to make the reservations for dinner in advance, he can give me many, many more... they apparently open a lot of wine every day [duh!] and they don't keep the corks... so they're very happy to give them away... yea!!

aaaanyway... only bad news i have from the past two days is that financial aide sucks... i'm getting the runaround [what else is new] and now i get to try to figure out how to fund the rest of my trip... all will be well in the end... i hope... i guess that if it's not one thing, its another - so i get to make the best of what i've got.

i'm off to show my mom the over-whelming-ness of saint peter's basilica... this should be fun... i can't wait to see the look on her face... tee hee...

ciao kiddies!

hey... man... at least i'm housebroken.

i'm having an interesting aural experience at the moment: i'm sitting at the computer in the rome study center's library typing on the computer, rocking out to 'you don't even know her' by i am the world trade center while the italian class is jammin' out to italian opera at top volume in the classroom [the classroom and library are separated by glass doors...] - needless to say, it is most interesting to hear i am the world trade center's wonderfully electronic beats laced with blaring italian opera... wow. it's pretty strange, yet absurdly entertaining...

yesterday evening, my cohorts and i had a hankerin' [yes, i actually used the word 'hankerin' – hick-ish as it is, it's really a great descriptor for a serious craving... anyway] for some mexican food [tex-mex, to be more accurate]. after 'talking' [i.m.-ing] with chris, we decided to look up the very popular tex-mex establishment 'olephant,' which - according to every single restaurant guide i could find for rome - lies right outside of piazza navona. my cohorts and i trudge through the cold rainy-ness that was rome last night to go to eat some tacos and drink some cold [beers in rome are rarely served cold] american beer. what do we find instead of 'olephant'? some retarded bar called 'café friends' that serves nothing but hors d'oeuvres . blah. i had a shawerma instead, but i am becoming increasingly more desperate for mexican food as the time passes... all i have to say is, 'acambaro, look out!!' the minute i get back to fayetteville, i'm kidnapping chris from whatever he's doing and forcing him to go to eat some greasy, nasty but oh-so-delicious mexican food with me... [chris, i'm giving you ample warning...]

to cap-off the evening, i was privileged to enjoy a viewing of 'the big lebowski'... oh, how i adore that movie... the only downside to the viewing was that we didn't have time to run to the liquor store prior to their absurdly early closing, so white russians [aka 'caucasians'] had to be substituted for coffee with bailey's [which is also an extremely enjoyable beverage...]... so i wasn't quite as 'dudical' as i would have like to be last night... i still had an incredibly lovely and joyous time watching lebowski... twas a marvelous ending to an average day...

this morning was positively spectacular - it was raining and cold and i didn't have to get up at the ass-crack of dawn to go to class. i just felt like staying in bed for a while under my warm warm blanket in my comfortable position, reading 'on the road' and intermittently taking naps... sigh... it's going to be a great day... yes, yes, t'will be a wonderful day!

... on top of all of the pleasantries of this fair afternoon, i get to pick my mother up at the airport at 10:30 tonight... we're going to have a blast... my mom is so much fun... and i get the pleasure of playing 'tour guide'/'fun-stuff-organizer' until she leaves on monday... rock out!!!

ciao kiddies... that's all for now...

how can it be cold as hell when hell is supposed to be hot?

i love florence... i want to live there. it's so quiet and clean [well... compared to rome, it's clean] and pretty and lively and wonderful... i wish that i'd been able to stay there this semester instead of rome in a way - i know that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence and what have you, but i think that it would have been marvelous to study in florence for a whole semester. speaking of studio: why don't we do the whole 'moving studio' thing like most schools do? i mean, why only see/experience one architecturally/historically significant european city in a semester when you could see many architecturally/historically significant european cities in a semester? i think that would be a rockin' semester abroad... granted, i am having a blessedly wonderful time, but i would have liked to be able to see berlin, moscow, prague, leon, bath, edinburgh, dublin, etc. while in europe... not to mention that flying/travelling by train, etc. from rome is absurdly expensive... to go to the netherlands over thanksgiving, it's going to cost each of us [there are 5 of us going] about 300 euros just to travel... that doesn't even count hotels/hostels and all that glorious junk... oh, and just to fly to paris it costs 200 euro [by train, it's about 350]... how crazy is that? blah... i'm rambling... on to more interesting stuff [i think...?]:

so, the duomo in florence has 466 steps... count them: 466. my crazy-ass classmates decided that it would be a marvelous idea for all of us to haul ass all the way up to the top when all of us were stupidly tired and hungry... does that sound like a good idea to you? ...[pause for effect...] ... no? yeah, that's what i thought. not to mention that it was hot... yes, that's right... it was hot in florence in november [now it's cold as hell, but i'll get into that later...]. so after we desperately race up all 466 stairs [me, counting all of the way up because i'm obsessive compulsive like that...], we are sweating and huffing and puffing and relishing the view from the top of florence while trying to catch our breath [you know the position: bent over, hands on your knees... head down... trying to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth - which, i might add, is quite difficult when you have a sinus infection ...]. all of the sudden, david pops up and says, 'i can't breathe... i need a cigarette,' proceeds to light one up, pull in a deep inhalation of sour smoke, hold it for a second and let it go slowly. 'that's much better....' i chuckled hartily and proceeded to take as many pictures as possible. when we came down, my legs were shaking from the climb [so was almost everyone else's]... we proceeded to have the most expensive self-service lunch i've ever had and the food wasn't even good... just average... you know? the whole business of putting food in your mouth and routinely swallowing but not really liking what you're eating? ...

anyway... i have this little theory about our school trips: the university of arkansas school of architecture is cursed! every time we go on a trip, the weather is horrid and everything we try to see is somehow altered... take florence for example: not only does is rain while we're there... oh no... every single building we tried to go see was covered in bloody scaffolding, under construction, or closed to the public for 'works.' arrrrgh. the laurentian library was closed [we were, however, able to see the staircase in the vestibule... sigh]... palazzo medici was covered in scaffolding, palazzo della signoria was covered in scaffolding, santa croce was covered in scaffolding - outside and in, the duomo was covered in scaffolding, and of course, the vassari corridor was partially under restoration, and requires a two-week-in-advance reservation to enter... frustration... frustration... frustration...

anyway... i loved my trip. like i said, florence is beautiful and quiet... i will never take silence for granted after this semester... ever again...

so... it's really bloody cold in rome today... it was 80 on thursday and now it's 45... but it's a really cold 45... i am wearing 2 shirts, my heavy jacket, jeans and such and i'm freezing my friggin' butt off... studio is cold, so i can't really concentrate, my apartment [aka hobbit hole] is also freezing [warmer than studio, though] and i just want to go home and take a nap - which i think i will do right now...

yesterday, i wept for the world...

the results of the election yesterday hit me much harder than i ever thought they would. i spent most of last night after finding out that kerry conceded feeling like i was going to throw up. i actually felt that 'impending doom' feeling – i’ve never really felt that before. i just can't make myself understand how, after four years of virtual hell on earth, the american people could come out in droves and vote that man back into office. the scariest part of that whole sha-bang to me is that now, there's not even the house or senate to stop shrub. everyone's decided to shift everything right on over to the ridiculous right. ... did people even read the republican platform before they picked up their voting utensil [mouse, pencil, punch-thingy, what have you] and voted for shrub?

please, someone help me understand…

help me understand how a man who has sent thousands of people to fight a senseless war could be voted back into office. please, help me understand how a man who has been proven to be dishonest insofar as 'intelligence' [national, not his own...] could be trusted with that 'intelligence' again? - more importantly, how could a man who has incited so much outright hatred for our nation be trusted to keep us safe? how could a man be such a horrible president and still get the majority of the votes?

is america asleep? is america deaf, dumb and blind? ... i just don't get it and i don't think that i ever will.

what are we supposed to do now? i cannot just sit idly by while shrub incites world war III and a new depression... and yet i feel so utterly helpless – check that - i fell so utterly powerless to change things...

how could we have let this happen again? how, after seeing all that has been allowed to happen for four years, could we just open the door to disaster once more? ...

god save us all

as a pre-note to the 'to be continued' story from this weekend, i'd like to explain the surreal state all of us in rome are in now that it is d-day for votes... i have never felt so helpless and anticipatory in my life... after having mailed my absentee ballot [yeah... i was turned away from the american embassy twice when i tried to drop off my ballot there... hmmmm], i am wondering how much my voice really counts in this election. i stayed up for a while last night watching the italian news coverage of the american election and gave up after a while of not being able to interpret anything that the commentators were saying about the progress of the tallying. needless to say, i was deeply disheartened by the news that the presidential race is a] way too close for comfort right now, and b] that three states' votes have been delayed due to causes undisclosed on international news at the moment [well, besides ohio - which i knew was going to be a problem]. i actually had nightmares last night that bush had won the election... good god, what will happen to america and the world if he triumphs in this election? god save us all if he does.

anyway... to curb my political rambling, i will continue the 'tale of the wicked weekend' that i began the other day....

saturday - i wake up in the morning [actually, mid afternoon... tee hee] very excited about the fact that i am attending a costume party later on in the evening [at the flat of a newly found friend of mine who works at sloppy sam's - jasmine]. i meander out of my flat and work my way over to the hat store near piazza navona so that i can buy my sweet sweet sweet bowler cap, suspenders and black cane so that i can at least have some of the essentials for dressing up like alex from 'a clockwork-orange. needless to say, in rome, i have no bloody clue where one can purchase fake eyelashes that won't look like trash... so after a conversation with my roommate, brad, i decide to adapt my costume to a pseudo charlie chaplin, pseudo pimpstress costume... all worked out well... that is except the funny looks we got while walking through campo dei fiori on the day before halloween, me in a weird get-up with a cane, a hat and lots of make-up, camille, dressed - very convincingly - as a gypsy [complete with begging cup and all], and bradley - my dear, dear bradley - dressed in a bed sheet [actually, it was supposed to be a toga...].

we met up with some friends from the university of miami - one of whom was dressed marvelously as a nerd [hiked-up pants, suspenders, taped glasses with huge frames and an alfalfa hair-do] - and made our way all the way out to battastini [a suburb of rome about 15 kilometers from the vatican]... we were among the first to arrive. once the rest of the guests filtered into the party, we noticed something very strange: we were the only americans there... not just that, besides jasmine and a very very select few of her friends, no one spoke english at all... my italian was put to the test, and the very nice people at the party excused my lack of eloquence [put plainly, they excused the fact that my italian, saved for my accent, is really quite elementary... if that]. we had lots of fun... danced some salsa rather clumsily [actually - quite terribly, but anyway], ate lots of really yummy yummy hors devours, drank some rather good italian beer, listened to a wonderful assortment of really good music, had wonderful, though limited, conversation... and then one of the romans brought up politics... ugh.

it's hard enough to explain my embarrassment, disappointment and disgust with our current administration in english [oh, wait... that's not true at all...], but trying to do it in italian was nearly impossible. i managed to thoroughly convince my new-found roman friends that not all americans are 'for' the war in iraq, that not all of us are political imbeciles, that not all americans are un-educated hicks [which he seemed to be fully convinced of], and that quite a lot of us had voted for kerry... for all of you who don't know, italians - on a whole, especially younger italians - are staunchly against bush. staunchly. once more: staunchly. yeah, isn't there some sort of rule that in social gatherings, one never speaks about politics or religion? yeah, that's what i thought, too... - all ended up being hunky-dory and everyone decided that talking about other random junk would be much more entertaining than talking about politics... thank you, thank you, thank you...

my friends and i decide to head out, as it's about 4 in the morning [actually, 5, if you don't count the time change] and we have to either get a taxi - we hope that we can get a taxi - or hike back to campo dei fiori [about 1.5 hours... needless to say, as i was wearing heals, that walking was not an option]... finally, after about 5 or 6 cabs had just flown past us, we caught a cab and made it back home safe and sound...

sunday - sunday can be summed up in seven words: the kings of convenience rock the house! for that matter, so does the auditorium parco della musica, by renzo piano... ahhh... great music in a great building... what more could a girl ask for? the kings of convenience have this wonderful simon-and-garfunkel-type harmony that makes you want to close your eyes when you hear them play... sigh. it was positively delightful. not to mention that they are the two most adorable people that i've ever seen... one of them kept sliding off of his stool, as it was too high for him to keep his feet on the ground while playing [though he was probably about 6'-3" or so...]... so cute. ...

my night would have been perfect, had it not been for the bus ride home... we just happened to get stuck next to the most offensively bigoted, valley-girl-speaking, ridiculously mean group of people i have ever had the misfortune to encounter... not only was their conversation inappropriate by all standards of social etticate [no, i wasn't eavesdropping... they were speaking loudly enough for people in milan to hear them...], but their disgustingly anti-semitic commentary made me want to throw up all over them. i was so taken back by the fact that people my age - my age, for christsakes - could be so... so... i haven't the words. i just couldn't believe my ears. nor could i believe the candid way in which they carried out their conversation... like the whole bloody world had reverted back to the ice age or something. -- insert heavy-hearted sigh here -- finally, one of the people in the group happened to look my way in the middle of a sentence [mind you, i am so shocked, so disgusted, at this moment that i was uncontrollably looking at this person like i could kill them with my eyes... i hadn't even the power of mind to say anything, though i really wish that i had...] and caught himself mid-sentence and abruptly changed topics... i simply couldn't believe it... i'm sorry, but it is hard for me to believe that people could be so hateful... i thought it entirely impossible... apparently, i was sorely mistaken.

well, folks, that's the end of my story [though there is much, much more that i could tell... i just thought you would appreciate me not writing you a book here...]. i hope that it was worth reading and such...

ciao... for now.

tv is a laxative for the brain...

whooptie woo! fun was had by all - well at least i think 'all' had fun... i know i did - in the eternal city this weekend... oh yes... no doubt about it... fun fun fun fun fun. just to let you know... i am going to post this weekend's events in a couple of installments, as i have a feeling that this is going to be too long... so you'll get one today and one tomorrow.. okay? okay...

thursday night [yes, thursday is part of my weekend... ain't it grand?] - i head down to sloppy sam's on campo with some of my friends right after school to go get a post critique drinky-boo [i won't go into the crit... because it would just be depressing...not really, but i don't want to bore anyone with school junk while i can talk about festivities... hmmm (i'm making the 'weighing' hand gesture right now)... school junk... festivities... school... fun stuff??? hmmm... i'm going to say: fun stuff!!] my friends decide to call it an early night, as one of them is catching a 5am train to venice and the other two are just tired, as it's been a fairly rough week for all... add alcohol to already exhausted people and you get people ready ready ready for sleep. ... i receive a phone call from camille and kristen and we decide to meet up at sam's again a little later on because the three of us don't feel tired at all [strange, considering that i had only slept for about 2.5 hours... oh well]. i head back to my apartment to see if the brad-ster is awake yet [he crashed hard directly after crits] and we head back out to meet the girls for a quick night-cap. after the bar [we really weren't there for very long...] we - brad, camille, and i - headed back to my/brad's flat... i stepped outside to make a quick phone call only to come back in to find brad and camille had kind of fallen asleep on one-another's shoulders... so cute.

i kind of fell onto my little mattress on the floor and slept until about 1pm on friday afternoon!!! i love sleeping late [actually, i just love sleeping, but oh well].

friday - so we all kind of lazily crawl out of bed at around 1... get our respective showers - rome leaves a kind of funk on you - we've come to a collective resolution that it's the combination of pollution, all of the people, heat, humidity, etc - so, twice-daily showers have become a habit for me. we head out to trajan's market, as there's a pretty nifty-looking sculpture installation there and we [brad, camille and i] really want to see it. --- this is where things get a little funky ---

there are NO cars on the streets. NONE. i was able to walk out in the middle of corso vittorio emanuelle II in the middle of would-be rush hour traffic without having a single car pass me. WEIRD!! there were also no people out... compared to a normal friday afternoon in rome... no people, just LOADS and LOADS of police. i felt kind of like we were in the twilight zone or something. ... 'there is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. it is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. it is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears, and the summit of his knowledge. this is the dimension of imagination. it is an area which we call ... THE TWILIGHT ZONE.' [rod serling's (creater of the show) intro to the twilight zone...]

so we head off to trajan's market [only later do we find out that rome hosted the signing of the first european union constitution on friday... thus, all of the police and no cars and such]... only to find out that the market is closed for the day... still somewhat weirded-out, we made our way across the street to the museum at the vittoriano monument to check out the lovely degas exhibit there... i have a great affinity towards degas' paintings [even though he was a misogynist and such], so that made for a lovely start/middle of a fairly weird day.

from there, we went back to our apartment to try to figure something out for dinner... brad and camille head to the store to try to find something that we can make [as we have NO food in our apartment]... the come back with PEANUT BUTTER!!!! and CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE MIX!!! i'm in heaven, to say the least. i had the best damn peanut butter and jelly sandwich that i've ever had in my entire life. i have never, ever craved peanut butter before, that is, until i came here. ... for desert, a lovely serving of chocolate chip cookies with milk!!! we dined like kings/queens. it was amazing!

after that, we met up with everyone from studio [saved for zack, baldwin, austin and david, who were visiting the biennale in venice] at sam's for drinks and conversation. after just a little while, everyone but me decided that they wanted to call it a night... just then, my new friends, cara [i don't honestly know if it's spelled with a 'c' or with a 'k'... sorry], rachel, becky and victoria pop into sam's on their way to a club called 'anima' to go dancing... thank god! i've been waiting to go dancing for ages... so needless to say, i'm excited.

we head out and go dancing - i swear, the people who run that club are daft... there were probably somewhere around 100 people in a space the size of a closet with no bloody air conditioning/ventilation... nothing. i've never been so hot and uncomfortable. we decided to go grab a quick drink to cool off... we decided that it would be best to go somewhere else to go get drinks, as anima serves their rum and cokes for a whopping 9 euro. on our way back to campo, we got followed by group of guys after group of guys... none of whom spoke english... so i had to try my very best to interpret conversations using my three-year-old-like italian skills [rather, lack thereof] to try to explain that all we wanted to do was get a quick, refreshing drink and a slice of pizza. italian men! i swear... after i said 'good-bye' to rachel and cara [as becky and victoria had gone home a little earlier than the pizza run], i started back to my flat... only to be followed all the way home by some creepy guy that we had met earlier that night... perfectly nice, but a little bit creepy... i'm glad that i live with guys, as i told him that if he didn't leave me alone, i'd sick my roommate on him... that and the five-point dead-bolt did the trick...

more to come, kiddies... more to come...

it hit me right in the face...

drugs are great! no, not those drugs... medicine drugs... cough syrup drugs... oh yes... i was instructed to go to the pharmacy this morning instead of taking my test, as my cold had turned into a cough and the cough/cold was about 30 times worse this morning than it has been in the last week... ugh. so, i went to the pharmacy and the lady there was so so so so very helpful... all i had to do was explain [thank god i speak some italian] that i had a stuffy head and that i had a very deep cough... oh, did she ever hook me up! i got some great decongestant - i can't remember what it's called, but sudafed's got nothing on this baby... - and a really great cough syrup called something like 'bretik' - woooooo... i took the smallest dose recommended, as i had no idea what the stuff would do to me, and it flat out knocked me out for 6 1/2 hours straight! actually, it's been about 8 or so hours since i took it and i still feel funky... i just hope that i can get good work done while i'm still doped up... we'll see, i guess.

on to other business: it is confirmed... we are going to see the kings of convenience on sunday night - halloween - at the renzo piano auditorium - auditorium parco della musica - in the eternal city... whooptie woo! they are a mighty mighty good band, the tickets are cheap, and the building's pretty nifty... all in all, i'd say that sunday night is, ummmm, going to rock. yes, my friends, i predict that we will all have a smashing time come this sunday!

oh, and on friday night i will be going bowling in rome... assuming that this cough-thingy goes away... i'm so completely stoked [yeah, that's right. i said 'stoked']. i will be exercising my right to have the most stupid fun possible in rome. beer [again, assuming that i am feeling better] and bowling. how much more 'americana' could one get?

to wrap this baby up, i have a question to pose to the world via blog... i am asking this question because i saw a girl with the hairiest arms i have ever laid eyes upon [like robin-williams-hairy except for on a really skinny, fairly attractive young lady...] on the subway yesterday, and a friend of mine told me that she was told by a friend of her's [a friend who told a friend who told a friend... and so on] that there's something 'they' say about girls with hairy arms... of course, he felt that it would be inappropriate to share what it is, exactly, that 'they' say, so i ask you good people... what exactly is it that 'they' say about girls with hairy arms?

... rome is... pond scum

ok... i think that i should clarify the title a little before things really get started up in here: today, i was working on an overlay of a map of rome and i started a conversation about how disorganized, haphazard, and completely blobby [yes, my friends, blobby is in the dictionary] the city of rome is... actually, i was just talking about the form of the city... but i guess that that statement really applies to the city itself in the most literal of all senses. to top off the conversation, brad summed up all of my ideas about the form of rome in one sweet little sentence: 'the form of rome is like that of pond scum,' this was, of course cleverly edited by yours truly to suit the purpose of a lovely little blog title... ain't it grand?...

anyway... still have a cold today... maybe that's the reason i'm so blissfully witty today [you're swimmin' in sarcasm here]... i didn't make it to the pharmacy because i decided that instead of getting drugs today [like i really really needed to, as i have the aforementioned critique on thursday], that i'd go to a lovely little gallery showing of a bunch of cat-themed art made by artists from trastevere... pretty neat stuff... but now i'm stranded on the little island of misery without the rescue boat full of the necessary medicinal potions to make my nose stop running...

growl... sniffle... cough...: that's what i've sounded like for three days now and i'm sure, no positive, that my roommates are completely annoyed with me by now...

oh - i wanted to give a hoarse little 'shout-out' to all my buddies that have been reading my bloggie-boo... i'm glad that my ridiculous little ramblings are somewhat entertaining and such... also to murrye and trinity for starting their blogs... go read something, why doncha? ...

whooptie woo... time to go study and draw and drive myself crazy and such... ciao kiddies...

the red ones never collide...

i still have this miserably stuffy cold this afternoon... the funny thing is that i stayed home last night instead of going to the abbey theatre [a sports bar here in rome] to watch game one of the world series... grrr... and i actually feel worse today than yesterday... so much for rest, i guess. i was pleased to wake up this morning to find out that the sox snuck by the cards 11 to 9... whew. i know that i'm supposed to be a cards fan, since i live in arkansas and all, but i really think that the sox deserve to take the series this year... so go sox!!! i'm quite sad to think that i probably won't get the chance to see another game, as they're all at 2am and i have a test and a project due on tuesday and a crit on thursday... sigh... maybe i'll get lucky and get to go on friday night or something...

i am really pretty sad about the hogs this season... i guess that it's pretty good that i'm not in the states or able to watch the hogs games on tv, as i tend to get really upset when 'we' 'drop the ball'... i was really hoping that we could crush the bulldogs at homecoming, but no dice... i just wish the hogs the best of luck for the rest of the season... what little of it is left.

i'm going to stop procrastinating now... ciao.

you know that guy up there in the middle of the cross? yeah, that's right... it's jesus!

so, some pretty pseudo-weird stuff happened to me last night... i went to sloppy sam's to have a drink after a long day and suddenly i'm being asked if i speak italian... 'yes, i speak a little...', i reply. with no delay, a young woman with a large microphone starts asking me questions about halloween while a young man behind a small camera with a very very very bright light films this encounter. i later find out that i was being interviewed for fox international's special on halloween... the terrible thing about it is that i sound like an imbecile when i speak italian... picture a four-year-old with a speech impediment [as i apparently have a very spanish accent when speaking italian] and there you have it... i have the italian vocabulary of a toddler... it's terrible... i know that people are going to watch that segment [if it even gets put on t.v.] and say 'wow, look at that unattractive, chubby american girl butcher our beautiful language...' ugh. ...

second pseudo-weird thing: i walk up to the bar for another white russian because 1] i'm feeling very 'dudical', and 2] after my rather embarrassing performance on camera, i really needed another drink... [it would have only been my third for the night...] so... drunk smooooooze walks up to the bar right after the very nice bartender hands me my very good-looking white russian and he totally knocks my drink out of my hand - so i am now covered in white russian, literally from head to toe... all down my shirt, all over my freshly washed jeans [and since i have no drier and it takes two full days for the wretched things to dry, this is a HUGE deal...] and all over my wonderfully cute green suede slippers... grrrr - but all is well, things can be washed and shoes can be fixed... i guess they'll just smell better now... or something?

third pseudo-weird thing: so i wake up at about 4am because my i-just-brushed-my-teeth-breath has apparently worn off and my breath [you know? the stale alcohol breath you get even if you've only had one drink? yeah... that's the breath i'm talking about...] has actually woken me up because of it's unpleasantness and the fact that i couldn't really sleep well... so i get up to go brush my teeth and on my way to the bathroom [all of four or five steps from my mattress on the floor, mind you], i trip over a person... who? you might ask... it's my roommate... he's apparently decided that his bed is uncomfortable and had taken a liking to the cool comfort of the tile floor and has positioned himself with his feet and shins in closet and the rest of his body in our 'hallway' - the tiny little narrow space between the main room of the apartment and the bathroom... ... when i suggested that he get back in bed, he shook his open hand at me and said 'no no no, i'm fine right here...' the 'right here' he emphasized by pointing to the floor/himself several times ... and then he passed out... i enjoyed a little chuckle and then brushed my teeth again and went to sleep...

speaking of sleep... i'm nursing a terribly miserable cold and i think i'm heading home to go sleep for a bit... hopefully the whole night... ciao ciao...

i have something to say...

i had a wonderful privilege today: i exercised my right to vote today for the first time in my life. i want the world to know that i voted against george w. bush. i want the world to know that i DO NOT support his actions, decisions, or war-mongering as president and commander-in-chief of the once-great nation that is the united states of america. i want the world to know that i and most of the world believe whole-heartedly that mr. bush has greatly abused his power and it has ended and ruined thousands of lives - for what reason, one may ask - that i cannot answer, as i am not mr. bush and i refuse to try to put myself inside his head or conscience [if he even has one...] to try to speculate...

i want the world to know that as someone who has seen terrorism first-hand, the u.s.' so-called 'war on terrorism' won't ever end. hatred only breeds hatred. period. bombing, shooting, and terrorizing innocent people for the 'greater good' and abusing military power accomplish nothing but chaos. no - they accomplish nothing at all. this campaign - this 'mission' has no end. this 'war' is a modern-day red scare, a souped-up salem witch-hunt with the judges carrying pens and dictating their decrees to those who are required to follow the chain of command.

i am a patriotic person. with that said, i DO NOT support our current government. i do realize that i am privileged to be an american, but that does not mean that i can simply shut my eyes to what is happening outside of america. people are suffering - people are dying - if you watch anything other than fox news or read a good newspaper, you know this. if you can simply force yourself into a state of willing suspension of disbelief or self-induced ignorance, shame on you. if you are an american citizen and you don't vote [i don't care for whom...], shame on you... you have rights and until you don't have them anymore, you should exercise them with pride. people go through hell to try to earn those rights for themselves and their children and if you simply take them for granted... i don't even know what i could say to you, i just hope that you wake up one day.

i'm sorry if i come off as 'preacher-esque', but i read the newspaper [the international herald tribune] today [and actually almost every day since i've been in italy] and i've had conversations with several people here who didn't register for an absentee ballot because 'it was too much work.' i've lived in a place where people - women especially - don't have the choice to vote or not, don't have the right to live 'freely'... and trust me, being an american citizen is a privilege - one that should be appreciated.

so - to end my political rampage - please please please go vote. educate yourself. be proud when the time calls for it and humble when pride isn't needed. exercise your rights responsibly and with pleasure - voting is not a chore and should not be treated as one...

live your wonderful life to its absolute fullest because no matter how bad it really gets, your life is really, truly quite wonderful when it gets right down to it. enjoy every minute, every second of your 'freedom' because you really never know when someone could just take it away from you.

si si si

i'm back from venice and i'm positively exhausted... i have absolutely no energy whatsoever... emilio took us on a whirlwind tour of the veneto this weekend - to places like brion cemetery, castelvecchio [i love scarpa], villa rotunda, san marco in venice, the biennale [which rocked my socks off] and to the dali exhibit in venice [to name a few of the things that we did...]. i must say that i was absolutely awe-struck by the bienalle [described by peter bednar as 'the best architectural experience of [his] life...'] and all of the amazing models, proposals, etc. to be found there. i know that the whole time i was walking around the event, i probably looked like a kid in a candy store. it was wonderful. yeah. i know i've said that a lot, but it's completely true. i saw models by zaha hadid, the grimshaw firm, vito acconci, asymptote, decoi... i can't even remember them all, but i definitely bought the catalogue [tee hee]...

i think that my favorite moment on the trip was getting to go see brion... i will definitely post pictures of brion as soon as i get back because it was just absolutely breathtakingly lovely. the man who gave us the tour - giuseppe marcolin - is the son of giuseppe brion's [for whom the cemetery is named] oldest sister [who is burried in the cemetery] and was the assistant to carlo scarpa during the design of the brion-vega cemetery. sigh. he was such a sweet man and he gave us so much wonderful information about the place... i'm really really glad that my italian is getting better because i could understand his explanations and i could ask him questions [yea!!!]it's really a whole lot smaller than i had imagined, but so much more beautiful that i could have ever hoped for. down to every last possible detail, the site is exquisite. one day, one glorious day, i hope to be able to design with even a hint of the passion and grace that carlo scarpa was able to design with. the whole site - every intervention - just seemed like it truly belonged right there and that nothing could be added or removed from it. wow.

i will write much more about the trip in a bit... i have to go to class and design things... hopefully beautiful things, but let's not get our hopes up too high...

i'll catch you kiddies later... ciao ciao

foulmouthed-ness... or something to that effect

upon hindsight of the posts i've published for the past week or so, i want to apologize for the rather abrasive nature of the language used in some of my posts. i have had a rough couple of days, but something tells me that it isn't right for me to be so harsh with respect to the people i've been in conflict with recently... they may not be what i - personally - consider to be 'good people,' and their actions towards me and my friends may not be respectful or professional, but am i any better for being so easily aggravated? for being so crude and even cruel when referring to them? it's a good question... for me at least. ... i have no right to pass judgment on these people. granted that yes, they have upset me and offended me greatly - but this, too, shall pass. just like everything else.

i believe in karma - what comes around goes around... c'est la vie. simple as that. period.

i just wanted to sincerely, deeply apologize if i have, in turn, offended anyone with my language, descriptors, or attitude in my recent posts... i guess i just let my frustration, etc. get the better of me... i will try with my greatest effort to control/edit my verbal/textual 'eruptions' as it were...

ciao [the update for the meeting with my landlord can be found following this post].

umbrelliumbrelliumbrelliumbrelliumbrelli...

ciao ciao... i guess that i owe you an update on the whole 'apartment situation thingy' -

so, i wake up this morning and of course, on the day that i have to go meet with satan reincarnate, it's raining and gray and miserable in rome... how lovely, right? so i go visit a prospective replacement apartment and read and do stuff in the morning, as i don't have my apointment with satan until 3:45pm... i even make myself a yummy grilled ham and cheese sandwich and i think that this might actually be an 'ok' kind of day... how very very wrong i was... oh so very, very, very wrong.

3:15pm... brad and i meet at the bus stop [david has decided not to accompany us to satan's dark, damp, dusty lair today, as he believes that he will say something that might start the arguments back up, like 'well, screw you. i'll just go move back to arkansas...' and stuff to that effect - of course, all of this said with a very thick southern accent... just so you get the picture]. it's raining, we don't feel like walking - as the actual act of walking in the rain would be putting too much energy into this at the moment and neither of us want this woman [satan] to have the satisfaction that we've exerted ourselves for her... - and the bus just seems like an all-around good idea... again - wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong...

not only did we wait 40 bloody minutes for the blooming bus to come around, but the thing was so jam-packed full of people that i honestly started laughing at the realization that i was stuck in a space full of rude, bossy, smelly - let me emphasize the 'smelly' here: sssssmmmmmeeellllllllllllyyyyyy - bus-riders with no sense of personal space and without the sense to not climb on-board a bus that's already too full [i'd like to point out that when brad and i got on the bus, it was still a reasonable idea, as it wasn't bulging at the seams with people... however, those romans... they just keep acomin' and it doesn't matter if there's not any more space, they'll make some more space by god... it was kind of like one of those 'funniest home videos' kind of things where you see a bus so full that some poor fool in the back has been sandwiched between a stinky pretentious suit-wearing old fart and the greasy glass on the back of the bus so that his face ends of kind of smushed and contorted ... like that whole clown car phenomenon only without the colorful costumes...]

we get off of the bus about two stops early because neither of us can take the lack of oxygen or space any longer and i had just experienced being instructed on how to ride a public bus and where to stand properly by some ridiculously i've-got-my-head-up-my-own-ass kind of woman... oh, it was lovely, let me assure you.

so we high-step it to the shortlets office as we're already about 30 minutes late for our appointment ... we descend into satan's layer ... and then this whole bloody mess came to a head.... not only have the women who run this agency decided that it's fully acceptable to fabricate events and conversations [davide's lawyer received a fax from satan full of blatant - i mean BLATANT - fabrications... no, not just fabrictations, they were out-right LIES, in order to make herself and her evil little cohorts appear angelic and gracious and generous and to make brad, david and me look as if we are some gang of hooligans, taking advantage of the 'kindness that they have extended [us]'. what a crock of shit.]

anyway... now this woman - satan [have i mentioned lately that she really reminds me of satan inasmuch as her behavior, appearance, being, etc.? because if i haven't...] - decides that what she has lied about in the letter to the lawyer isn't quite enough... now they are fabricating emails from me to them saying that i 'changed my mind about wanting a 3-person flat and that all i really wanted was an apartment for one person' ... so, clearly, i ask to be shown this supposed email. ... at this point, they bullshit around the bush and fail to produce the email, stating that this email that they sent me explaining that the flat only featured one double bed [which, by the way, is ALL of the so-called 'amunition' that they have against me/us] was sufficient enough to prove that the email [which they had 'misplaced' or 'couldn't find'] about me wanting a flat for JUST myself really was sent to them... again... what a bloody crock.

oh, get this - when the women from shortlets were explaining the amount of the fine to me - 320 euros apiece for both david and brad, totalling 640 euros - one of the women [a completely snobby, maniacal, putrid toad] felt that i didn't understand the words 'three hundred, twenty euros' or 'six hundred, forty euros' and proceeded to show me the numbers on a piece of paper and to double check that i understood the concept of 320 and 640. what a bitch. arrrrrrrrgh. - have you ever had someone make you so aggravated, insult you and your nature and your intelligence so much that it makes you want to a] throw up all over them, and/or b] slap them straight in the teeth? ‘cause that's exactly how this team of loathsome, foul creatures has made me feel. ...

anyway... we were getting nowhere with this witch and she insisted on treating bradley and me like ignorant, uneducated, irresponsible children, so we decided to 'think it over' for one more night and told her that we'd get back to her tomorrow. ... i basically feel completely hopeless, drained. it has been a terrible day - a terrible sequence of days, actually, since this whole mess began. i'm just ready to get this whole thing over with. i never want to muddy myself with the presence of those women EVER again. they just make me feel dirty... like i need a really long bath with lots and lots of soap. and a BIG glass of beer. that's exactly what i'd like right now. a nice, cold, wonderfully amber glass of beer. right now. it just might cheer me up a little.

actually, i'll tell you what… i'm going to run to sloppy sam's [or just sam's] and get myself a nice, big cold one [as i think that i need/deserve one right now]. kay? i guess that i'll check you folks later. have a wonderful evening/morning/day - i guess it just depends on where you are - whatever you're doing.

damn the man, save the empire!

the shitith hath hittith the fanith again - ith?

so, if you haven't read the 'the shitith hath hittith the fanith' post on 09.09.2004, you should go do that right now... i guess if you don't remember what i described during that post, you should go read it now, too... i promise, this will still be here when you get finished [and unlike most of my other posts, it is really quite short...]... ok, so has everyone been given the proper background info? alright, here we go:

so... how does one begin this?... my landlord from 'shortlets' in rome was supposed to send paperwork for me AND my two roommates to the police station in order for us to be able to get our permits of stay and such... well, like the complete bitchy moron that she is, she only sent mine... let's recap: three pieces of paper for THREE people that need to be sent to the police station... one piece of paper sent? hmmmm... 1=3? wait, something seems somewhat fishy here...

anyway, she gets fined 600 euros - that's $744.57 - for her error... and what does she do? oh, yes... that's right, she reroutes the fine to us... was it our error? NO. was the fine in anyway directed toward us? NO. - wait, i'm confused...

when she tells me that we owe her 600 euros for HER MISTAKE, i tell her that she must be mistaken and that we will pay her no such fine. davide [the coordinator of the rome studio] and dru [the angel who basically keeps all of our heads screwed on correctly here] get involved - so as to avoid a language barrier - and she STILL won't budge. dru even hauls herself down to our hell-hole of a police station TWO DAYS IN A ROW in order to try to work something out with the authorities that be - who, by the way, reaffirm our position to be correct in this situation - and the stupid wench [believe me, i could use much more aggressive and more crude, appropriate language to describe this putrid excuse for a human being...] still holds that we MUST pay her 600 euros or we must leave the apartment - BY TUESDAY. now, see if you agree with me here... - we [david, brad and i] have paid her IN FULL for the ENTIRE month of october, and yet somehow [?] we MUST [?] move out of the flat by the 11th of october? something's wrong here, right?

anyway, with the help of dru and davide, we're going to move into a new apartment - which will actually be much larger than the one we're in right now [oh yes, it will ACTUALLY hold 3 people in semi-regular conditions... basically, it's not a hobbit-hole]. the only down-side to this move is that we will no longer be right outside of campo dei fiori... we'll be in trastevere, which - mind you - is a lovely area of rome and it will be much nicer than the place that we're currently in, but it's across the river [right now, we're a two minute walk from studio and after we move, we'll be a good fifteen minute walk from studio..]... whatever. i'm so sick of dealing with nonsensical politics and the people who assume that because you're american and are not fluent in italian [granted, i speak PLENTY enough to communicate and understand] that you're a moron. it is just - point blank - infuriating.... we are IDEAL tenants. we are VERY honest, clean, orderly, prompt, kind, we pay on time [apparently, this is novel in rome] and i/we have been NOTHING but completely respectful and professional with these people. and this is how we are repaid? i just don't get it. i'm trying really hard to try to get it. but i just don't. i just can't. this whole situation is just completely, surreally f#@!ed up. yep, that just about sums it up... it's just plain f#@!ed up.

i’m out of patience. i'm out of things to say. i’m just out.
ciao.

babble...

ciao kiddies... did ya miss me? sorry for the delay in posting... we spent the weekend in san gimignano [which i will discuss shortly] and then got back and then actually had work to do... ick. c'est la vie i guess... not to mention that i spent the entirety of yesterday doing a combination of a] napping - as i believe that i am coming down with a cold... but i am still optimistic that it's probably just my allergies... b] doing an ass-load of laundry - our washing machine fits a maximum of one pair of pants, two t-shirts and, if you're lucky, a few pairs of socks... so needless to say, many loads of laundry were done yesterday... c] reading 'the dharma bums' by kerouac - p.s. it's a great book d] cleaning our flat - i swear that the thing is just a scum magnet... granted, we do live on the ground floor - right next to a very busy street - but we're all fairly clean people... and yet somehow, our flat is in a constant state of scummery... hurumph.

anyway, on to brighter topics... san gimignano - two words: GO THERE. it is probably the most beautiful place that i've ever been to in my entire life... sigh. it was possitively marvelous... save for the train rides on the way there and back, it was a perfect trip. story time: so, we hop on the train from roma termini station to chiusi on the way to siena [which was our original destination, but due to the inavailability of lodging, we ended up - luckily - staying in san gimignano...] - we apparently bought tickets without seats... so we end up sitting in these skank-nasty little fold-out seats IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AISLE of the train... now picture an aisle on a plane... now put little fold out seats in there and still expect people to be able to pass by you on a jostling jetting little train car... argh! not to even mention that our particular car had no functioning lights... now here's where the story gets a little interesting: so we pass through a series of tunnels... oh yes, perfect pitch blackness so thick and sticky-hot you could cut through it with a butter knife... with people passing by you... more that they were squeazing in on top of you - i, of course, ended up with creepy dude standing right on top of me... oh yeah, hot-sweaty-non-deodorant-wearing-heavy-breathing-creepy-guy standing in my personal bubble... whimper... it was possitively revolting... but i guess it was worth it.

san gimignano is this beautiful little wine town in the middle of the most incredible landscape i've ever seen with my humble little eyes... ohmygod. it was fantastic... we stayed at this wonderful little hotel called 'hotel le colline' - which you should stay at when/if you go there.... the woman who owns the hotel is an absolute angel... no fibbin' - a bonafide angelic human being. after our terrible day of rude transit employees and rediculous tourist traps, this woman and her family went out of there way to make room for 7 of us in INCREDIBLY nice hotel rooms at the last minute AND THEN, when we were stranded in town with no taxi or bus to get us back to the hotel [as it is a somewhat trecherous path along a heavily trafficked highway for a little over a kilometer in the pitch blackness...], this wonderful person drove up to town - mind you, she is no longer on duty at this time of night and is now spending time with her family... - to make TWO trips to bring us back to the hotel. then she gives us a rediculous discount on our rooms and THEN flags down a bus for us the next day so that we can make our train on time... wonderful, i tell you, possitively wonderful human being.

so, our night in san gimignano was spent listening to a man play the flute to such little ditties as: ave maria, chopin [he played several songs by chopin], and - oh yes - we are the champions by queen.... it was so wonderful... sitting on the steps of a beautiful medieval cathedral eating my rum-flavored gelatto listening to an einstein-looking [speaking of the hair, here] man in a tux with tails play queen on the flute... i swear, i had a little tear in my eye... sigh sigh sigh...

anyway... i have to waddle to class... pictures may be difficult to post, as i have discovered that the firewall the school has activated here will not allow me to connect with the picture-posting server... i will try my best, but i can't make any promises any more on the whole graphic thing... keeping my fingers crossed, though.

nugget time: wayne's world was filmed in two weeks.

schawing...

crunchy...

whoopty woo! i dare say it's crunch time in rome, kiddies. we have until thursday at [basically] 9am to finish up... so, what am i doing? i'm on the studio 'pooter' [computer = pooter... and you should get your mind out of the gutter... shameful, really... positively shameful i tell you...] instead of frustrating myself. no, really, i just felt like posting because i'm starting to see vibrating lines and such and i really was frightened that i would spill the watercolors i've prepared all over my pages if i didn't walk away for a sec.

so, sorry for the short post this afternoon, but don't fret, i shall post again soon... nugget time! - an ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain. - don't you feel fortunate to not be an ostrich? i do... mmmm hmmm.

tah tah.

the sleepy ramblings of a frustrated student...

good morning... today will be filled with drawing and analysis, so i thought that i'd get an early start and post... before i get sidetracked and all that good junk... speaking of analysis: after spending almost a week analyzing the form of urban rome, in particular, the evolution of the forum, i've come to a decision about the current practice of academic analysis - it's a bunch of b.s. ... i don't mean that the act of analysis is b.s., just the current manner in which it is executed. i've noticed recently that most people do nothing but set out a piece of trash paper [trace... whatever you want to call it] and draw lines and dots and such without so much as putting a second thought into what it is that they are doing... add to that that they average joe doesn't understand what the hell one is trying to communicate through an analysis diagram, and one has to wonder: is there a better way to do this? one that would make it possible to clarify issues for the designer and make those issues understandable for people outside the profession on architectural design or the field of architectural education to understand the message being conveyed/explored? i am making it my personal mission to find a better way to analyze in my own projects... there absolutely has to be a better way to do it... some way that will actually aide rather than add to frustrations... yeah so there's my early-morning-two-cents.

i probably should have prefaced this post with the fact that i'm still slightly asleep, have only had one cup of coffee so far, and that my studio frustrations kept me awake pretty much all night last night... but now, i guess you’ve been informed...

anyway - on to less boring stuff... maybe... i've been reading a LOT since i've been in rome... i might have mentioned already that if you have the ability to read, you should definitely buy/borrow/check out 'the cheese monkeys' by chip kidd... i've now read it twice [it's a really quick read] and i am absolutely enamored with the book... oh - i also picked up a copy of 'big sur' by jack kerouac - yeah... he writes in an extremely stream of consciousness-type style that's incredibly addictive... it kind of sucks you in - not with drama or anything [well, so far, that is... i'm only about 1/3 of the way through the book], but because you really kind of just want to find out what he'll put down on the page next - like weird sounds, strange, pseudo tangential stories... you should just read it and then you'll understand... not to mention that the story is pretty interesting so far...

ok, i've been on the computer for too long... i have to go finish drawing now... random nugget: the international telephone dialing code for antarctica is 672.
... go call someone... or something...

ciao.

are people for real?

so... i'm officially disgusted with humanity today... story: david, brad and i are on our way to jason and alenya's flat [they're in our class... for those of you who have no idea who i am referring to] and we meet up with kristen and camille [also in our class for this semester - they're with the fulbright college]. as we start down the lungotevere again, we see ahead of us three rather drunk men just sitting down and hanging out on the side of the sidewalk... taking a break, as it were. alright, here's where stuff gets really skin-crawlingly angering... so, these two maggots [i call them maggots, because they don't deserve the privilege to be referred to as human beings...] are walking in front of us... ironicly enough, on their way to temple [i think yesterday was yom kippur]... and one of these assholes kicks the living daylights out of one of the drunk men on the sidewalk... right in the head... - i mean, the sound was so loud, it was almost as if someone had just dropped a brick off of the roof of one of the seven-storey apartment buildings next to us... and these guys just took off running...

i feel like a sad excuse for a person today... because i was so shocked, all i could do was just stand there as these two hoodlums sprinted away and as the poor gentleman who was just assaulted was probably bleeding from the ear.

as we continued to walk, i couldn't help but wish that i could somehow catch up to those two - i can't even think of a word so foul as to describe them - and beat the living crap out of them with my bag full of wine bottles... just beat them to a pulp... i'm normally not a violent person, nor do i regularly wish ill-will on people, but i wanted something absolutely horrifying to happen to them. truly barbaric. i wanted someone to just pop out of nowhere and bestow the same shameless hatred upon them as they had upon that poor, harmless man. i truly makes me sick to think that i belong the same species as those two cretins. i am truly, deeply disgusted with humanity... i can't believe that people could actually bring themselves to be that hateful and cruel. i'm sorry, but i am still in total shock over the events that took place last night. ... ... ...

i have no fun facts for you today, because i think that if i added one, it might make light of a very serious post. i do apologize for the somber mood of my post today, but i just had to write this stuff down. it just seems so unreal... so completely an utterly impossible for people in this day and age to be so barbaric, so completely devoid of any compassion for their fellow man... although this kind of shit [pardon my language but i can think of no other appropriate term…] really shouldn't surprise me, considering current world events... i just can't believe that this happened right in front of my face... and the worst part about it is that i took no action against the assailants... i did nothing but make sure that the assaulted man was alright. ...

come on now... everyone do the creepy guy shuffle!

hey there girls and boys! so, we got to go to pompeii yesterday... it was really a lot more beautiful than i had expected it to be... i think that it was made even more amazing because the sky was black - it seems that whenever we take a trip, rediculously violent storms decide to come along too - so all of the colors were incredibly vibrant... almost surreal. i forgot to drop off my film, otherwise i would insert a picure so i guess you'll just have to wait until i get my brain back into the practice of remembering to do stuff...

so, we got back from pompeii and all of us were craving american food... i know, i know... we're in the land of first-class cuisine and we want nachos and hamburgers... how stupid... but we decided to go to the hard rock cafe... this is when a wonderful day turns sour for natalie... on the way there, one of the bracellets that i had bought here - a really cool italian snake-chain with bedouin clasps - decided that my wrist was not a really good place for it to be and it fell off somewhere on the long-ass trek from my flat to the hard rock. oh, it doesn't stop there... so we eat our amazingly delicious junk food and decide that it's time for a drink. as we step outside, we realize that it's raining... i, of course, had to be wearing my brand new green suede shoes [that i had just bought on thursday night] and of course, it decides to pour. now my shoes have a lovely dark spot on both of the toes... anyway - so with the rain comes EXTREME cold... and rediculous wind... niether of which any of us was prepared for. so we finally catch our bus [it seems that whenever we need a particular bus, they decide to stop running that line...] and get to the apartment where we immediately throw on jackets and warmer garb and decide that we still want to go have a drink.

so we head to sloppy sam's because they have the cheapest drinks in campo dei fiori and i have a white russian [i was feeling in a sort of 'dude'-type mood last night]. it was lovely except for the bitingly cold gusts of wind and the occasional splatter of rain. a couple of people that brad, david and i had met at the police station last week showed up at the bar and invited us out to a club... i was the only one that went, because everyone else decided to call it an early night... the first club that we went to was closed and the second was absurdly packed... i think that i need to give you guys a little background here: it never fails that when i go to a club, the ONE creepy-ass guy there zeroes in on me in the sea of people and begins to follow me around for the rest of the night... why i thought that this night would be different, i don't know... anyway - i'm dancing with my new-found buddies and enjoying another white russian - yeah, that drink cost way too much, by the way - and of course... creepy guy shuffles his way over to me and begins to try to dance with me... ugh... i slip past him somehow and geet back over to my buddies [yeah, i feel like calling them my 'buddies', so you'll just have to bear with me...] and the guy shuffles over again... this goes on for about half an hour and when i finally decide that i've had my fill of 'weird-smelling-creepy-acting-bad-dancing-no-personal-space' guy, i bid adieu to my buddies and trek home...

so, i guess it's cheers to another strange night in rome... at least they're entertaining in hindsight... bottoms up...

i'm going to go draw now... oh, you people should check out 'the international herald tribune' if you're in the mood for a really good newspaper... or if you just need a break from the b.s. on fox news... and now, for your daily nugget: cat's urine glows under a blacklight.

don't you just love random facts?
ciao kiddies...