long time, no post

Alright, this could take me a while....

It's been so long since I've posted, I don't really know where to start. Thanks to seth's reminder, I realized I should probably get back to updating you all, not that anyone checks this thing anymore, seeing as I've only updated twice since I've been in bologna.

So. much. has happened. I can't keep track of it all. In the most important news, I suppose I should explain what ended up happening with the conservatory situation. I had auditions around October 18th to 21st, which included a piano audition, a voice audition, and then a theory and eartraining test. I thought the piano audition had gone terribly, and I basically assumed I wouldn't get in because it had gone so horribly. The week before the auditions, I started considering applying to Wellesley's study abroad program from music in milan, which was the whole reason i ever started learning italian in the first place. I was pretty upset about a lot of things for the whole week, because I love the city of bologna as a place to study and live and I didn't want to go to milan at all, but I just thought that if I wasn't going to be able to study music for a whole year and not have access to a piano or practice room that I would go crazy. I emailed wellesley and asked if it would be possible to apply to the milan program for 2nd semester, and the study abroad office told me yes. So i was considering it strongly.

Then, the director of my program, Claire, who is a little out to lunch, if you catch my drift, went to Siena (a neighboring italian city) with the study abroad director from wellesley to look at another program, and while they were there, the woman from wellesley told Claire, my directory, that I was thinking about transfering and she wrote me this offended, immature email saying she was upset that I had gone over her head and that her job was to be the liason with the school, and it was not my place to ask, etc. all this other bullshit basically. I felt bad, but at the same time, I had expressed any definite decisions and Claire reacted like a child. The truth of the matter is that she is pretty uncapable of this job, too, seeing as she doesn't have any practical ideas for solving problems. For example, I started asking her about what the music situation would be like in bologna in January 2009, so 10 months ago, and she assured me that I would have access to a piano, i would study music and I would almost positively be able to take one class at the conservatory. I was psyched about that, and sort of assumed that things were settled, until I arrived in Lecce and found out that instead, she had no idea what the hell was going on, and hadn't communicated a word of it to me. So when i got to bologna, I was in this 2 month limbo, in which no one had any answers, I was going all over the city trying to figure out how/where I could find a piano or take classes, tried taking some music classes at the actually university of bologna, but they were totally not what I was interested in at all (jazz doesn't exist at UniBo), and for those of you who are musicians, you can probably relate to the feeling of being agitated when you can't play. I started losing my shit, in so many words, I mean i seriously felt weird. When i was at middlebury, and when I'm at wellesley, going to the practice rooms was one of the ways I treated myself after I studied really hard, it was sort of always what I thought of doing even when I was doing other things like eating and walking and in class. During my music classes, whenever we take breaks, I sort of subconciously always look for an empty room with a piano, even when i have something more important or pressing to do. it's almost a bad habit, i tell people sometimes, but at the same time it's my favorite habit.

So one day, when i expressed to claire that I was really starting to get frustrated (and trying not to be frustrated with her, because really it's not her fault that she can't figure things out-she's just not suited for this job, in my opinion) she told me she'd heard a piano across the street from her office and asked me if I wanted to go look for it with her, as if that would solve the problem-aimlessly wandering the streets of bologna to find a random door that led to the magic piano 3 floors above street level that she'd been hearing. I mean what the fuck kind of solution is that to the problem of "I would like a relatively constant place to practice, if such a thing exists in this country" not "i would like to touch a piano for 5 seconds before the random stranger whos appartment we're in tells us to get the fuck out." I mean, I think she actually thought we could just randomly knock on doors and ask someone if I could play their piano. I was really confused. I didn't even know how to turn her down.

So what ended up happening was, I got admitted to the conservatory for both voice and piano-the catch: I don't know if I can do both. We have to petition to the director of the conservatory for permission to do both tracks, because the conservatory hasn't had someone audition for both and be admitted to both. This multi-focus idea is very american, i guess. Italian's don't have double majors either, as concepts.

It was really exciting to be admitted, I guess, but it's also been really confusing. The dates for the conservatory are wildly different, meaning, where as the normal academic semester starts in October and finishes in December, the conservatory goes from November to early March, with a 3 week break in decemeber/january, for christams/new years. Also, UniBo ends at the end of May, where as the conservatory ends half way through july. Completely different. The other thing thats totally odd is that since jazz at the conservatory here in italy is considered an 'experimental track' (which is probably the only reason i was admitted, it's not a very competitive field in italy) the classes are held on thursday, friday, and saturday, which eats up what used to be my 4 or 5 day weekend. Right now, I only have class on monday, tuesday, wednesday, so with the conservatory that puts me at 6 straight days of class. At least i'm doing all my traveling early on, right? (ill get to that later)

Anyway, initially, I thought I'd just take one class at the conservatory, as in theory, or eartraining or something that I need to learn more about in the jazz world, but now it looks like which ever I chose (piano or voice) I'll be doing a full fledged conservatory track like in the States. theory ear training history arranging electives and lessons. good. I need it.

so where does that put me with my academics (always the burning question as a wellesley student) I just took the midterm for the italian political system class I'm taking, which is a 2 credit course, which ROCKS, because that means I'm done with my italian major electives, and I'll only have to take the senior year seminars when I get back to wellesley. The class is relatively easy, especially based on how that exam was compared to exams at wellesley. In terms of music, I have no idea how my classes will transfer, but my classes there don't even start until November 12th (which is the first day that I'll be in norway so I'm missing the 1st 3 days of classes anyway). I do have some sort of cognition requirement to do next semester, but I'll worry about that when the time comes.

Speaking of which, I have 2 trips planned-one to Venice, and then one to Norway to see the northern lights with my, i guess we'll call him, my boyfriend, Tony. I feel like I should introduce him to you all, haha although some of you already no who he is. He's doing my same study abroad program, so he's from the states, and in fact, he's from Southern California, Thousand Oaks to be exact. He goes to tufts, so his college is close to mine (tufts is in the suburbs of cambridge, mass) and yea, we met here in italy. yea, so that's tony. Anyway, I'm psyched about the norway trip. I don't know how many of you know, but I had a step mom for about 6 years who was norwegian, and when her family came to visit us in the states, they were always REALLY nice, and made me want to go to norway really badly. In short, I'm just excited that even though i'm basically in the southern most country of europe, I'm getting to go one of the northern most points. Should be a good time. I'll take a fuck ton of pictures and let you all know how it is when I get back. The venice trip is this weekend-i've never been and I hear its something else. I'm excited.

What else, I babysit 2, sometimes 3 times a week. Money is tight but it always is, and each time I work I only make 25euro, which i guess is about average for 3.5 hours of work, but the whole ordeal of getting to these people's house makes the whole thing 5 hours, which bums me out. my social life is pretty non-existent, but I guess its sort of like that at wellesley too, because I'm always doing something extremely strange like working, practicing or studying.

However, something pretty exciting did happen this halloween weekend-my study abroad program is obviously pretty aware of the fact that I'm a musician (because of all the conservatory stuff) and so they organized a concert at a local caffe' and invited all their italian friends. The concert was me on vocals, a bassist from our program, and a pianist from our program, and occasionally two guitar players playing about an hour of music for a mostly italian audience. It was quite a rush I guess because as vocalist, I sort of had to play liason between the audience and the band, announcing things, making stupid jokes, laying my soul out on the table for them to judge. All in all, it went well considering the group only practiced the day of for about 3 hours before doing the show. We did some things that were pretty fun and Italians, who aren't so accustomed to jazz and funk and r&b, were pretty taken aback, yet seemed entertained. My roommate, the crazy cleaning nazi one (i'm not sure if I've written about her), came, and she had a genuine smile plastered across her face which is good. i felt like she warmed up at the show. I got a little buzzed before the show so my italian was a little bit more fluid, and I got a few laughs out of the audience, even in a foreign language, and at the end I think i felt more accomplished about my correct use of grammar than the way I sang. Whatev? lol

For halloween, I was an italian soccer player. I had a VERY interesting night that included walking home for 1.5 hours from a big public garden party in shorts, a jersey and a jacket, at 3 in the morning. I wasn't by myself, no worries, but I was very very cold. Oh, the life of a student...

I'm supposed to do 2 other classes also, one's a writing workshop at my study abroad program, in which we're reading a book and writing 1 page essays each week about the chapters we've recently read. It's fun to dissect a book in any language, and i'm glad I'm getting to the point where I can do that in italian. Of course I did some of it at middlebury, but now, the classes are only 4 people, and we get 1 on 1 time with our professors to review our essay built in to class time, which is great.

I speak a TON of english here. Sometimes I get really mad at myself about it. I'm here to learn a different language, not to speak my broken english slang. But i can only do so much, I guess. I feel like I've gotten to the point where my comprehension is higher than it's been, although I know i can't understand everything, it's always getting better. I figure once the conservatory starts and I'm the only who speaks fluent english, I'll be speaking a lot more italian, which I can't wait for. Classes don't start for 3 weeks though.

Mostly, I've been occupying myself with keeping my house clean, working, going class, conservatory administrative issues, and making travel plans. Everything for venezia and norway is in place, but I also recently planned a whole bunch of stuff for december when Joey will be here.

It's interesting when I look around me at my american friends who are only here for a semester. I sort of envy the type of experience they're having, but at the same time, in the sense that they do a lot of things impulsively because the mentality is "i'm only here for a semester-I've got to go big while I'm here" and I can't exactly afford to do that-I'm not complaining, it's just so different. However, on the other hand, I'm actually living here for 11 months, August to June. and on a deeper level, i'm actually living here-working, not traveling to much, eating cheaply from the supermarket, and I guess with the economic crisis that reality is more italian than the typical 'american-studying-abroad' one. I think that's always been what I wanted though, an authentic experience. I want to get lost in the place, and although I may not be there quite yet-at the level of being totally submerged in this- I still have 8 months left, and a f**k ton left to learn. I guess it's hard to always be enthusiastic and chipper, I guess I'm like that at wellesley too, but I do have epiphany moments where I feel everything moving in such a big way, or where I feel incredibly different than i ever have before. and it all makes sense. I'm not really that surprised by the things I'm seeing or feeling, I'm just going through the process.

Lastly, I applied to the Middlebury grad school for italian, which is a 2 year program (2 summers in vermont, 1 year in florence), so next summer, I think I'm gonna go straight from Italy to Vermont to start the first semester of my masters in italian. It's sort of ironic to me i guess, that the last place I was in the states was vermont, and the first place I'll be when I get back is vermont. I don't even live there, but I guess middlebury will become my 3rd home in the states, after Novato and Wellesley.

I've been thinking about goign to boston for the winter holiday, but now that I got into the conservatory, i'm not sure I'll have money/time. I have classes from November 12 to Decemeber 19th, then from January 14th to June 16th (with a spring break and an exam break somewhere in there-i don't know i can hardly keep track)

ok. that post was long enough. I'll write more after travels/when I'm inspired (the latter is the problem nowadays-i'm usually to exhausted to write)

Ali