So I've got a little song and it goes like this:
Take take take a test
quickly 'cause it's timed!
Merrily merrily merrily merrily
You missed that mystery slide!
Ok, so it doesn't have a happy ending. But hey, I tried. So that counts for something.
After that I managed to survive the next few hours of class, and ultimately to see my parents off before they leave tomorrow morning. It's been swell parentals! Have a super duper flight back. Loves ya!
And with that, you can sleep peacefully knowing that I am about to also sleep peacefully.
Showing posts with label midterms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label midterms. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Herding art viewers
After completing my Cin City midterm, I rushed home to make a very messy grilled mozzarella and tomato sandwich (it fell apart, sad day) before I headed over to the other side of town to pick up my parents and go to the Vatican museum. Weee!!!! Fun stuff right?
Ok, three things here.
1) Erica and I have already discussed this, but you should be made aware of the new laws regarding camera usage. Basically, in order to purchase a camera with a flash, you must not only complete a 12 hour training course, but you must also take a lengthy exam including an essay that details what kind of damage you can actually do to others as well as art with a flash. After this, you may then obtain your certification badge that will allow you to purchase a camera with a flash. If you still want to purchase a camera without going through these lines, draw a picture.
Until this law is enacted, I will resort to violence, yelling in different languages, and ultimately calling over uniformed security guards to escort you out of the premise where you will then pay hefty fines because of your idiocy and ignorance.
Have a nice day.
2) The modern art in the Vatican Museum (yep, that's what I thought, you're now thinking, say what? Modern art? huh....) gets almost no love. Where you can walk at a steady shuffling pace through the entire museum with 45,000 other people looking at fresco after fresco after tapestry after model after ancient Greek sculpture, by the time you get to the modern art collection, there are a grand total of 3 people in the room. And two of them are guards. For serious. Some of it is absolutely stunning too! It's just that either people just would rather spend their time craning their necks at the Sistine ceiling (I mean no disrespect), or just no one really likes modern art. If it is in fact the later, I am sad.
3) The Pieta makes me cry.
See? that wasn't so bad of a list. After we managed to escape the giant crowds, we went back to the apartment a la parentals and eventually went to dinner. Dinner with the fam is always interesting, mainly because my father has taken the sudden notion to not like pasta. What's not to like about pasta? I haven't the foggiest, but he insists that having pasta 3 times this week is more than sufficient. I think he's wrong, but let the world judge when he orders things like "fish" and gets exactly what he wanted. Only half of that is a lie, you can decide which half.
Consequently, we went to an Irish pub instead. I mean, I don't personally mind, because, let's face it, I've been eating Italian food for almost 2 months now (holy schnockies-that long already? Woof-da) and to spice it up a little with fish and chips is not a bad option. But within a week, you can certainly make it around Italy eating Italian food with no complaints. Yes, that is me casting judgment on my father, don't worry about it.
So after that little adventure, I headed back to the apartment (mine this time) and reviewed for my midterm in the morning. Everybody's excited now.
Ok, three things here.
1) Erica and I have already discussed this, but you should be made aware of the new laws regarding camera usage. Basically, in order to purchase a camera with a flash, you must not only complete a 12 hour training course, but you must also take a lengthy exam including an essay that details what kind of damage you can actually do to others as well as art with a flash. After this, you may then obtain your certification badge that will allow you to purchase a camera with a flash. If you still want to purchase a camera without going through these lines, draw a picture.
Until this law is enacted, I will resort to violence, yelling in different languages, and ultimately calling over uniformed security guards to escort you out of the premise where you will then pay hefty fines because of your idiocy and ignorance.
Have a nice day.
2) The modern art in the Vatican Museum (yep, that's what I thought, you're now thinking, say what? Modern art? huh....) gets almost no love. Where you can walk at a steady shuffling pace through the entire museum with 45,000 other people looking at fresco after fresco after tapestry after model after ancient Greek sculpture, by the time you get to the modern art collection, there are a grand total of 3 people in the room. And two of them are guards. For serious. Some of it is absolutely stunning too! It's just that either people just would rather spend their time craning their necks at the Sistine ceiling (I mean no disrespect), or just no one really likes modern art. If it is in fact the later, I am sad.
3) The Pieta makes me cry.
See? that wasn't so bad of a list. After we managed to escape the giant crowds, we went back to the apartment a la parentals and eventually went to dinner. Dinner with the fam is always interesting, mainly because my father has taken the sudden notion to not like pasta. What's not to like about pasta? I haven't the foggiest, but he insists that having pasta 3 times this week is more than sufficient. I think he's wrong, but let the world judge when he orders things like "fish" and gets exactly what he wanted. Only half of that is a lie, you can decide which half.
Consequently, we went to an Irish pub instead. I mean, I don't personally mind, because, let's face it, I've been eating Italian food for almost 2 months now (holy schnockies-that long already? Woof-da) and to spice it up a little with fish and chips is not a bad option. But within a week, you can certainly make it around Italy eating Italian food with no complaints. Yes, that is me casting judgment on my father, don't worry about it.
So after that little adventure, I headed back to the apartment (mine this time) and reviewed for my midterm in the morning. Everybody's excited now.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sometimes I like to pretend that I just know things
There once was a girl in Rome
Sometimes she really missed home,
She thought tests were done,
Profs said, "Hey that's no fun!"
Now she's back to a studying gnome.
So that was a little limerick describing my life. That last line was a shout out to Ellie.
I need to get back... or rather start really studying for my Cin City midterm tomorrow. I'm not entirely sure what to say about that other than, I guess I should probably look over the dates of those movies... and maybe the screenwriters... Maybe...
Ok... Fine.
Have it your way.
Sometimes she really missed home,
She thought tests were done,
Profs said, "Hey that's no fun!"
Now she's back to a studying gnome.
So that was a little limerick describing my life. That last line was a shout out to Ellie.
I need to get back... or rather start really studying for my Cin City midterm tomorrow. I'm not entirely sure what to say about that other than, I guess I should probably look over the dates of those movies... and maybe the screenwriters... Maybe...
Ok... Fine.
Have it your way.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Not voted off the island this week
I survived! With almost no tears! Aren't you proud of me?
Ok. I'm not being entirely honest. One test was postponed. Now let's get something straight, I had prepared to take 3 lengthy midterm exams today. Not even kidding. One for Italian High Renaissance (51 slides, for 2 comparisons and and essay), Gaga (2 comparisons and an essay), and Philosophy (choice of essay). I was ready for all of them with only the allotment of time to review some things before I actually took the test! Girl Scouts' honor.
So I arrive in plenty of time to my first class of the day, and begin looking over the dates of the slides that I had just learned last night, and after about what should have been ten minutes into class (note, this is not unusual for JCU or for my professor in general. She is often a few minutes late and frantically trying to turn on the projector and usually talking about how her cat is still sick.) a woman from the front office comes in and says that Professor Smyth is going to be late and that the midterm is postponed until next week. How late? About an hour.
The reactions of my class are as followed:
Furious 50%
Relieved 49%
Laughing 1%
I am the 1%.
I just laughed. Seriously, what kind of day could this possibly be? My first test had been postponed, the class would start late, and I just couldn't stop laughing.
For many of you this is not a surprising reaction. Eventually, when you don't sleep enough, or the stress levels just get to you, laughter is the only real response to have. So the other 99% of my class hadn't reached that point and were absolutely no fun what so ever. Boo.
So I spent the next hour sitting by myself dancing to Britney Spears and studying Gaga... (well that's a strange sentence). Professor Smyth (no, I'm not spelling that incorrectly) showed up, WITH HER CAT. Go ahead. Read that sentence again. I'll wait. Ok, yeah, so the sick cat came to school. Not that I'm complaining, I want to bring my cat to school all the time, but apparently with a flooding kitchen, and a sick cat, and being an art history prof, things just got out of hand and we were just going to go to the library instead.
The library across town.
Granted, it's supposed to be a fantastic resource for our projects, and we wouldn't have any idea how to a) get there, b) get books, or c) what do do with them once we found where they were (which is a process, believe me). So we trooped and tram-ed over to Piazza Venezia to find this specialized Art History international library. Good idea? Yes. Different from a midterm? Very much so.
This library can best be compared to a labyrinth. For example, it has many rooms. But not just any silly old rooms, these look like the Beast's library in Beauty and the Beast. You know, filled to the brim with books? Floor to ceiling, covering every wall with steps and a platform to go up to the second level of books. There are maybe 5 of these such rooms, folded in on each other and stacked carefully. The tricky thing is not just figuring out how to get to the upper level of the shelves (there's only one way up, and that means it's only in one room and you have to wander your way around the edges until you get to that one corner of that one room where your book should be). The other tricky part is that not every book is somewhere that you have access to. That means that you have to go through the process of actually finding your book (read: find title and author of book that maybe useful for your research, go outside the library to another room where the card catalogue is, riffle through cards in little bitty baby drawers, (my prof described this process as 'sensuous' but I'm not sure that's the same word I would come up with) find call number, attempt to figure out whether it is somewhere you can get to it, ask librarian who only speaks broken English, they say that you have to fill out a request form) then going to find the place/forms to make your request. Whewf. By the time we got to that part of the tour, my professor was adding extensive editorial remarks about the process which included that idea that once you made your request that little elves, who you never see, wearing funny hats scamper off to find your book and bring it back to you in 30 minutes.
So instead of taking a test, we learned about the Italian Librarian version of Santa's little helpers. Good work.
After that little excursion, I caught pizza with Kate, studied for my next test, rocked it, then decided that anyone with two tests in a day deserves a Nutella Crepe. So I got one of those before looking over my Philosophy notes. Otherwise known as looking at random pictures of Moua that I hide in my wallet. What? That's strange. Oh well.
Back to the apartment where I had the lovely pleasure of skyping dear dear Chloe. We plan on making this a regular occurrence, you know, after she finishes reading the news paper.
And that was my test of survival in Rome. Tomorrow's task? Water obstacle.
Ok. I'm not being entirely honest. One test was postponed. Now let's get something straight, I had prepared to take 3 lengthy midterm exams today. Not even kidding. One for Italian High Renaissance (51 slides, for 2 comparisons and and essay), Gaga (2 comparisons and an essay), and Philosophy (choice of essay). I was ready for all of them with only the allotment of time to review some things before I actually took the test! Girl Scouts' honor.
So I arrive in plenty of time to my first class of the day, and begin looking over the dates of the slides that I had just learned last night, and after about what should have been ten minutes into class (note, this is not unusual for JCU or for my professor in general. She is often a few minutes late and frantically trying to turn on the projector and usually talking about how her cat is still sick.) a woman from the front office comes in and says that Professor Smyth is going to be late and that the midterm is postponed until next week. How late? About an hour.
The reactions of my class are as followed:
Furious 50%
Relieved 49%
Laughing 1%
I am the 1%.
I just laughed. Seriously, what kind of day could this possibly be? My first test had been postponed, the class would start late, and I just couldn't stop laughing.
For many of you this is not a surprising reaction. Eventually, when you don't sleep enough, or the stress levels just get to you, laughter is the only real response to have. So the other 99% of my class hadn't reached that point and were absolutely no fun what so ever. Boo.
So I spent the next hour sitting by myself dancing to Britney Spears and studying Gaga... (well that's a strange sentence). Professor Smyth (no, I'm not spelling that incorrectly) showed up, WITH HER CAT. Go ahead. Read that sentence again. I'll wait. Ok, yeah, so the sick cat came to school. Not that I'm complaining, I want to bring my cat to school all the time, but apparently with a flooding kitchen, and a sick cat, and being an art history prof, things just got out of hand and we were just going to go to the library instead.
The library across town.
Granted, it's supposed to be a fantastic resource for our projects, and we wouldn't have any idea how to a) get there, b) get books, or c) what do do with them once we found where they were (which is a process, believe me). So we trooped and tram-ed over to Piazza Venezia to find this specialized Art History international library. Good idea? Yes. Different from a midterm? Very much so.
This library can best be compared to a labyrinth. For example, it has many rooms. But not just any silly old rooms, these look like the Beast's library in Beauty and the Beast. You know, filled to the brim with books? Floor to ceiling, covering every wall with steps and a platform to go up to the second level of books. There are maybe 5 of these such rooms, folded in on each other and stacked carefully. The tricky thing is not just figuring out how to get to the upper level of the shelves (there's only one way up, and that means it's only in one room and you have to wander your way around the edges until you get to that one corner of that one room where your book should be). The other tricky part is that not every book is somewhere that you have access to. That means that you have to go through the process of actually finding your book (read: find title and author of book that maybe useful for your research, go outside the library to another room where the card catalogue is, riffle through cards in little bitty baby drawers, (my prof described this process as 'sensuous' but I'm not sure that's the same word I would come up with) find call number, attempt to figure out whether it is somewhere you can get to it, ask librarian who only speaks broken English, they say that you have to fill out a request form) then going to find the place/forms to make your request. Whewf. By the time we got to that part of the tour, my professor was adding extensive editorial remarks about the process which included that idea that once you made your request that little elves, who you never see, wearing funny hats scamper off to find your book and bring it back to you in 30 minutes.
So instead of taking a test, we learned about the Italian Librarian version of Santa's little helpers. Good work.
After that little excursion, I caught pizza with Kate, studied for my next test, rocked it, then decided that anyone with two tests in a day deserves a Nutella Crepe. So I got one of those before looking over my Philosophy notes. Otherwise known as looking at random pictures of Moua that I hide in my wallet. What? That's strange. Oh well.
Back to the apartment where I had the lovely pleasure of skyping dear dear Chloe. We plan on making this a regular occurrence, you know, after she finishes reading the news paper.
And that was my test of survival in Rome. Tomorrow's task? Water obstacle.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Choose your own adventure!
Once upon a time, there was a girl named Kelsey. Kelsey decided it would be fun to study in Rome for a semester. After about half of the semester had passed, all of Kelsey's professors held a large top secret meeting and decided that it would be really fun to plan all of their midterms on the same day. As each professor laughed evilly, Kelsey began to feel very stressed. The day of the evil plot drew nearer and nearer and Kelsey realized that the malicious plan of her professors would succeed. When it got to with in 12 hours of the first test, Kelsey caved and ate an entire bar of chocolate. Then she pulled her tear-drenched blanket over her cold toes and continued to study for her Italian High Renaissance slide test with her smeared, albeit beautifully crafted, study sheets. This tragic nail-nibbling scene continued into the wee hours of the night until Kelsey eventually fell asleep on the couch, where red pens and mystery slides haunted her dreams.
It's funny when it's written in third person and I can pretend like it's not me.
The sequel will be published tomorrow. If this was billed as a "choose your own adventure" book, I hope picked the one where I live to see the last chapter play out.
It's funny when it's written in third person and I can pretend like it's not me.
The sequel will be published tomorrow. If this was billed as a "choose your own adventure" book, I hope picked the one where I live to see the last chapter play out.
Monday, October 17, 2011
See? Patience is a Virtue
I knew that if I just let this blog post simmer for another 24 hours something good would happen! And now you actually get to read something more interesting than, "So it's Sunday, I did homework and studied for midterms."
Come on! How boring is that? There aren't even any acronyms or anything. Snoresville (or should I say Schnoor in honor of the Larry Schnoor Invitational this weekend? Congrats to all, by the way. Super proud of my Gusties!) So instead of boring you to tears telling you about how I'm going to compare and contrast Minoan and Mycenaean architecture and sculpture, I decided to just hold off for a bit and hope that something spectacular would happen in the mean time.
And whatdoya know, it did. So yippee!
So remember last Thursday when Erica and I went to that concert of Kozmic Blues with that guy playing the guitar and the girl who was amazing? Yeah, remember that? Ok great, because we came back late that night and basically scoured the internet for them. Luckily, they have a myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/ginafabiani) and we listen to it ALL the time (just like you should) and found a way that we could purchase a CD (or two). But the tricky part is that there isn't just a "buy itunes CD here" button. So through various channels, we finally found an email address that said "contact us here to buy CDs!" Erica and I are thinking, ok, sold.
The next morning I pull up that email address and write a nice little note about how we had seen them at the Ombre Rosse and would love to purchase/download CDs. Later that day, Daniele (he's the guitarist) wrote back saying that they only have hard copies of the CD but he would love to mail one to us. Great! Take a poll of the room-grand total? 8 CDs.
Needless to say, Daniele thought we were super fans and wrote back today that not only would he take off a little bit because we're so dedicated, but he would also like to invite us to their next performance! AH! So fantastic! It's a different group, Daniele and Gina and two more, singing gospel instead of blues, but it's going to be so awesome! So I'm thinking that we may or may not be considered groupies now. File that one under things I don't mind.
Seriously. That was what made my day. Other than that, we've been studying, cramming, and otherwise indulging in cupcakes. You only need be mostly jealous of my life. I'll let you know how those 3 midterms on the same day go. Woof.
Come on! How boring is that? There aren't even any acronyms or anything. Snoresville (or should I say Schnoor in honor of the Larry Schnoor Invitational this weekend? Congrats to all, by the way. Super proud of my Gusties!) So instead of boring you to tears telling you about how I'm going to compare and contrast Minoan and Mycenaean architecture and sculpture, I decided to just hold off for a bit and hope that something spectacular would happen in the mean time.
And whatdoya know, it did. So yippee!
So remember last Thursday when Erica and I went to that concert of Kozmic Blues with that guy playing the guitar and the girl who was amazing? Yeah, remember that? Ok great, because we came back late that night and basically scoured the internet for them. Luckily, they have a myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/ginafabiani) and we listen to it ALL the time (just like you should) and found a way that we could purchase a CD (or two). But the tricky part is that there isn't just a "buy itunes CD here" button. So through various channels, we finally found an email address that said "contact us here to buy CDs!" Erica and I are thinking, ok, sold.
The next morning I pull up that email address and write a nice little note about how we had seen them at the Ombre Rosse and would love to purchase/download CDs. Later that day, Daniele (he's the guitarist) wrote back saying that they only have hard copies of the CD but he would love to mail one to us. Great! Take a poll of the room-grand total? 8 CDs.
Needless to say, Daniele thought we were super fans and wrote back today that not only would he take off a little bit because we're so dedicated, but he would also like to invite us to their next performance! AH! So fantastic! It's a different group, Daniele and Gina and two more, singing gospel instead of blues, but it's going to be so awesome! So I'm thinking that we may or may not be considered groupies now. File that one under things I don't mind.
Seriously. That was what made my day. Other than that, we've been studying, cramming, and otherwise indulging in cupcakes. You only need be mostly jealous of my life. I'll let you know how those 3 midterms on the same day go. Woof.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Accomplishment Man-here to save the day!
Today's major accomplishments included the following 3 things:
Uno: Getting Peas in Pasta Pisa video uploaded and on the blog. http://twopeasinpasta.blogspot.com/
Dos: Skyping with Megan for almost 2 hours on her birthday. That was wonderful! (now if only Chloe could make that kind of commitment. Hmmmmm. Where's a true champion when you need one?)
Tres: Finishing my Italian High Renaissance (still no nickname? It's been over a month. Come on my clever friends. Bethany can't always carry the team.) study guide for the midterm on Wednesday! It now has 51 pictures with title, artist, date, medium, commission, and location. All to be memorized! Who is totally excited for this exam? Oh yeah, me! Holla! I'm going to print it out soon and start studying! But first I have to do some Digipho, some Cin City (readings and watch a 3 hour movie), study and read some Gaga, and probably think about life for my "Dreams of Moua" class. Which that one will inevitably turn into me just thinking about Moua, but hey, it happens.
So for now, I'm going to just call it a day, go to curl up in a tiny little ball with about 3 inches of woolen blankets, and go to sleep.
Uno: Getting Peas in Pasta Pisa video uploaded and on the blog. http://twopeasinpasta.blogspot.com/
Dos: Skyping with Megan for almost 2 hours on her birthday. That was wonderful! (now if only Chloe could make that kind of commitment. Hmmmmm. Where's a true champion when you need one?)
Tres: Finishing my Italian High Renaissance (still no nickname? It's been over a month. Come on my clever friends. Bethany can't always carry the team.) study guide for the midterm on Wednesday! It now has 51 pictures with title, artist, date, medium, commission, and location. All to be memorized! Who is totally excited for this exam? Oh yeah, me! Holla! I'm going to print it out soon and start studying! But first I have to do some Digipho, some Cin City (readings and watch a 3 hour movie), study and read some Gaga, and probably think about life for my "Dreams of Moua" class. Which that one will inevitably turn into me just thinking about Moua, but hey, it happens.
So for now, I'm going to just call it a day, go to curl up in a tiny little ball with about 3 inches of woolen blankets, and go to sleep.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Earliest post in the history of mankind
I've had approximately two revelations today.
1) Sometimes it's worth it to be late to class because I'm actually living in Italy.
All too often I find myself lapsing into my usual walking pace which is very quick (yes, even we short people can walk quickly) and I'm passing all kinds of characters. From the guy sweeping the sidewalk outside his store, to the woman making bracelets by Piazza Santa Maria. And sometimes it just hits me that, "Hey, I live here. This is Italy. I live in Italy." And that's a really big realization for a Wednesday morning.
Your conclusion: Sometimes it's ok to stick around and drink your espresso at the counter.
2) They actually require us to do work here.
This revelation has been in progress for the past two days and includes the fact that out of my 5 classes, 3 of them will have midterms on Wednesday the 19th. Here's another fun fact, I only have 3 classes on Wednesday the 19th. From approximately 10:30am to 6:30pm (or 10:30-18:30) I will be taking tests. That's two weeks from today. As for the other two classes, I'm not even sure they are having midterms. Secondarily, in route to those exams, I have at least one paper due, and should start working on two more. What fun is that? None. I'd rather just go to the Amalfi coast this weekend and ponder art and culture and eat pizza instead of writing papers about things like the ancient Greek version of portraiture, or the body/mind problem for Descartes, or the captives in the Accademia (the afore mentioned things could all be projects for the next two weeks of my life. Go ahead and guess the classes).
Your conclusion: Sometimes they expect learning to happen inside the classroom. Then they want you to apply it a paper.
So I think I'm going to go make some dinner (WHAT? I'm posting before dinner? Strange day indeed), attempt to do some reading/writing/research, and then go to bed and pretend that I didn't finish off that jar of Nutella.
Ciao.
1) Sometimes it's worth it to be late to class because I'm actually living in Italy.
All too often I find myself lapsing into my usual walking pace which is very quick (yes, even we short people can walk quickly) and I'm passing all kinds of characters. From the guy sweeping the sidewalk outside his store, to the woman making bracelets by Piazza Santa Maria. And sometimes it just hits me that, "Hey, I live here. This is Italy. I live in Italy." And that's a really big realization for a Wednesday morning.
Your conclusion: Sometimes it's ok to stick around and drink your espresso at the counter.
2) They actually require us to do work here.
This revelation has been in progress for the past two days and includes the fact that out of my 5 classes, 3 of them will have midterms on Wednesday the 19th. Here's another fun fact, I only have 3 classes on Wednesday the 19th. From approximately 10:30am to 6:30pm (or 10:30-18:30) I will be taking tests. That's two weeks from today. As for the other two classes, I'm not even sure they are having midterms. Secondarily, in route to those exams, I have at least one paper due, and should start working on two more. What fun is that? None. I'd rather just go to the Amalfi coast this weekend and ponder art and culture and eat pizza instead of writing papers about things like the ancient Greek version of portraiture, or the body/mind problem for Descartes, or the captives in the Accademia (the afore mentioned things could all be projects for the next two weeks of my life. Go ahead and guess the classes).
Your conclusion: Sometimes they expect learning to happen inside the classroom. Then they want you to apply it a paper.
So I think I'm going to go make some dinner (WHAT? I'm posting before dinner? Strange day indeed), attempt to do some reading/writing/research, and then go to bed and pretend that I didn't finish off that jar of Nutella.
Ciao.
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