So I think I'm starting to understand myself better. I think i really like writing more than I want to admit I do for fear of having yet another love in my life that I'll never have enough time to give to. For the research project that I'm doing in the month of June, I'll be transcribing interviews and taking notes at concerts and at the conservatory. Today, I spent the morning pouring over notes and notes and notes I've taken over the course of this year from concerts, just different sort of rambling thoughts, scraps of paper, straggling word documents. I started finally assembling it into one larger organization of ideas and didn't break concentration for quite a while...which is usually when I know i like something. if i can sit down and work on the same thing for a few hours, its only because I'm in love with it. same goes for people that i hang out with.
I have a friend who wants to read these things I'm collecting so I'm being extra conscious to make sense not just to myself but also for an audience, which sometimes when I write i don't really feel the need to do since I don't have any intent to share. But I reread what I wrote and...i duno. It's strangely rewarding more so than anything else I've written in a long time, maybe because for once I'm able to unite an academic activity like research/writing a paper with something i love like jazz. Although, ideologically, i'm not even sure how i feel about that either--music is to be played, not written about.
Here's one of my favorite kinds of pasta to make these days. My housemate annalisa made it and it smelled like heaven and now I make it all the time and she makes fun of me because to her its as simple as a bowl of cereal (it is easy to make).
It's sauteed onions, red bell peppers and tomatoes with olive oil over orrechiette. really, as i said, nothing difficult, but just soooo damn good. I'm smiling in the picture cuz annalisa is busy making fun of me on the other side of my computer haha.
I leave for barcellona with miriam and annalisa on saturday next weekend. I'm soo excited because I can't believe I'm even getting the chance to travel with them, and because I miss enza, my x roommate who lives there right now, soo much its absurd. On wednesday I have my philosophy exam, and I'm really nervous but have been corresponding with the professor and I don't think he's going to fail me. Even if I don't know what I'm talking about at all.. i think he'll at least give me a C and since grades don't transfer onto our transcripts at wellesley from abroad, i'm golden.
The conservatory on the other hand is really a mess. They told me last week that I wouldn't be able to take my exmas because I have to go back to the US june 26 and the exams start there july 12th. Unfortunately, I cant move my flight back because i have to be on middlebury's campus by june 29th to start the summer term. I absolutely can't miss over 14 days of Midd because it only lasts 6 weeks as it is. That's about a 3rd of the semester. So i was sort of freaking out abotu it last week, quietly/calmly, but still worried. If i go back to the states without those credits.... i dont know. It can't happen. I need them. I'm afraid wellesley will either make me pay them back for having spent a term abroad with out doing anything, or that I wont be able to graduate on time.
Otherwise, everything else here has been so lovely lately. I'm feeling so comfortable at home and in bologna, and i guess generally happy. i found out that the oldest man to have ever lived lived in San Rafael (right near my hometown) and died in 1998! that was such a strange thing to have stumbled upon online. hahahaha I wikipedia'd san rafael for some reason and BAM-guiness world record holder was mentioned in the notable residents section.
After I go to barcellona, I'm in bologna for 2 days before heading to Hamburg for a concert - ROBERT GLASPER YEEEEAAAAA!!! I'm excited because hamburg looks awesome as a city, not to mention that I'm doing it all only for a concert. After hamburg, I have 10 days in bologna before portugal, johnny meets me there, we come back to italy for 8 days and then the US!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!??!??!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!
jesus. fucking. christ. I've been abroad for a long time.
<3 ali
Ooh, I want that pasta now. :)
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