I realize it’s been way too long since I have written a blog post, but honestly, it’s Rome’s fault for keeping me from this duty. Just so all of you know, I haven’t even skyped home since early September (unless you count me calling yesterday and shouting “I’m leaving for Greece tomorrow!” before the lack of connection kept me from calling again). And I couldn’t be happier. As I write this in the Rome Center’s IC, rummaging through my mind for a satisfactory anecdote to tell, I can’t believe how much has happened.
My classes are pretty fantastic. Really briefly, the Art in Rome class is basically the art units from the freshman year Honors Program, but you are actually touching the ruins rather than seeing them on PowerPoint slides (or sheepishly poking at mounds of rocks, wondering if you’ll get arrested for touching an ancient Roman temple that you thought was, well, a mound of rocks). The Writing Fiction in Rome class is actually much harder than one would think. Take my word for it, do not make the rookie mistake of thinking you might get away with writing a few disjointed sentences here and there because you will be reading them out loud. In front of the entire class and the professor. It’s probably the best incentive I have ever had to do homework thoroughly.
Now for the juicy part: Ricci. It still didn’t feel like a reality when I got to this campus. I was on the fence about whether or not the Ricci Scholars Program, the reason I was even shipped off to Rome, actually existed. I mean, is it an idea, a way of life, a cult? I still haven’t answered that, but I have one interview for my research under my belt, and it has finally become a tangible feeling of, wow, I’m a researcher. I am not saying I am in any way seasoned at it, however, as can be explained by how profusely my hands were sweating throughout the interview. But I believe the day will come when I will overcome this bodily function disorder. I have also just realized I never explained my project in this blog so allow me to be serious for a sentence. My research will be comparing the relationship between alternative and modern medicine with a focus on female cancer patients’ experiences in Italy and China. You’ll definitely be hearing a lot more about my project in blogs to come. Now, the thing about the Ricci Program is that there is no physical structure such as an edifice where a menacing group of professors tiptoe behind doors and around dimly lit corners to jump out at you and demand your annotated bibliographies or your translated consent forms. It is all so relaxed that of course we Ricci students end up talking about, writing about, joking about, not yet crying about, but definitely dreaming about our projects. Therefore, my conclusion is that Ricci is a way of life.
If you remember my old, ancient, antediluvian first blog post you might recall I spoke of an internship that I was completing for credit. Now that I have been at it for a month I know a smidgen more about it. I work alongside doctors and technicians in the nuclear radiology department of a private clinic in Rome. I work so alongside them that sometimes they leave me alone in a room with a patient and before I know it, the half undressed patient, waiting for his or her cardiac stress test to commence is staring at me without signs of relenting. At that point I scan over the computer screen that will be monitoring the test, trying to seem pensive and concentrated, as if reviewing data that, in reality, has not yet been collected. Other than the few awkward moments, I absolutely love my work there. In the U.S. everything is hands-off, on this side of the pond, I am pushed or in some cases shoved out of my comfort zone so that I can learn by doing rather than observing. The first day I worked there I watched Matteo, this one really nice technician who owns a wolf, attach adhesive pads to a patient before the exam. When the next patient came in, he handed me the adhesive pads without a single word. The patient stoically waited as I attached all ten pads (I also had to detach one, which means I sent the man home with one circular patch of skin on his chest that had absolutely no hair). It was terrifying and I did a terrible job. Matteo never corrected me but had me redo it over and over with the next patients. Other great perks of the job are coffee breaks where we sit down with the secretaries, usually when a patient is waiting for his or her test to begin one room over, and talk about everyone’s weekend or the drama at the clinic, that would make for a show better than Grey’s Anatomy. Sometimes the patient chimes in with some witty comment, and everyone cheers and laughs and jokes some more.
So that is as concise as it will get. As I’m leaving for Greece tomorrow at 5am I am left with the all-important choice of what I will be doing tonight. My options are: packing, doing homework or going out for gelato. I already know what I’ll be doing. So as you take a gander at the pictures below, I hope you enjoy this as much as I will be enjoying Italy’s best ice cream.
We all took turns taking “epic pictures” in Orvieto (credit goes to Matthew Racchini for this honorable title and for being the backdrop to this stunning photo). We only took a day trip to Orvieto, but it was such a great idea. It was a testament to all of us that we came out still liking each other, as we got up at 4 am and didn’t get home until 12am the next day. We also almost missed our train there. We literally had to run through Termini train station yelling at people to make way for us, but it worked. If ten college students were running like a herd of buffalo right towards you, you’d get out of the way, right?
In front of the Duomo of Orvieto. Our one task: act natural.
This was the first of many soccer games. Fun fact: I did not grow up in Rome, but I have always rooted for the A.S. Roma team. I saw my favorite soccer player from the more recent golden age of Italian soccer score his 300th goal (Francesco Totti). And even though A.S. Roma is terrible now, you could never find me rooting for another team. That is until I went to a Lazio game (Roma’s main rivals). We bought the cheapest tickets which happened to seat us in the most intense part of the stadium, where the most violent fans are. I had to pretend to be a Lazio fan just so I could get out of the stadium in one piece. For that game we made sure not to wear red or yellow so we wouldn’t be seen as Roma fans. Also, yes, I’m wearing a Bulls shirt because it was the only red shirt I owned.
This is the amazing group of people that spent a weekend in Cinque Terre with me. We climbed up some trails, slid down some trails, ran from mosquitoes, took nice pictures, went swimming, and spent hours picking out rocks for a rock collection. Fine, that last one was only me and I got made fun of by these wonderful people for being lame because I felt bad leaving some rocks behind. I’m not friends with them anymore. (Just kidding).
So I don’t know what button I pressed on my camera, but this happened. This is Angelo in a food coma in La Spezia. We just finished eating at this small restaurant that served you on plastic plates, but it was all fresh seafood and really cheap. The six of us spent about eight euros for the largest amount of seafood you could ever imagine. Also, the restaurant had no tourists except for us. We ended up booking an Airbnb in La Spezia because it was cheaper than Cinque Terre and less than five minutes away by train.
This is us guarding our laundry while on our last picnic in Cinque Terre. On our last night we decided to be smart and wash all of our clothes to save money on the two euro laundry on campus. However, we didn’t get the washing machine to work properly in the Airbnb, and it took hours for it to run. By the time we got up at 6 am our clothes were still soaking wet so we packed them all up, and once we landed in Porto Venere we decided to air dry all our things on the warm rocks. Right after this Dario (right) taught us how to go crabbing.
