In My Blogging Era: The Manuscript

The blog is back, screeching like an eagle (God's favorite bird) for one last post from Milan. This week has been a crazy one, so buckle up... Last Friday, instead of coming back with the group and continuing to be in charge of the program, Professor Erspamer ditched all of us and took a week off with family and friends in the mountains. This left me squarely in charge of 28 undergraduates, two teaching assistants, a guest lecturer, and all of the program activities. Things went off successfully, providing many things for me to handle so as to keep me busy and out of trouble! The chaos began on Sunday, when the fire alarm in the Residence went off and forced an evacuation. This coincided with a 34-hour breakdown of the building's air conditioning system, so the alarm rudely interrupted me as I was halfway through eating an entire tub of ice cream in an attempt to cool down. Since we'd been baking inside, we actually found a bit of respite upon exiting the building to get aw...

I'm almost done with my bulk posts, so here's one more to cover everything Jack and I did during his stay here in Italia! Those of you who have been reading along since last year know that Fridays are field trip days in our program, and week two brought us to Lake Garda. We started the day at the Vittoriale, where famous writer, poet, and the man credited with establishing the philosophical basis of Italian fascism, Gabriele D'Annunzio, lived for many years. We toured his house, which is full of 33,000 books and over 10,000 objects, then escaped into the more breathable gardens and explored the trails, waterfalls, streams, mausoleum, and of course the giant naval ship built into the side of the mountain. Professor Erspamer and the students were very excited to take our picture imitating the scene from Titanic, as well as to see the two of us go under the chilly waterfall. Prof took a nice picture of us and then yelled "Jack, act like you're saving her!" Hence ...

Thursday was a lovely day, due in large part to the fact that we were free from the students (and most of our responsibilities) for the vast majority of the day. We had lecture in the morning, but then we got out of there and went to the Lasagna Factory for lunch, which had different lasagna dishes inspired by ingredients typically used in the cuisines of the different regions of Italy. I got the classic from Emilia Romagna, since we definitely needed a baseline concept for lasagna, and Jack got the Lazio, which is the region where Rome is. His had a cheese and pepper sauce based on the classic Roman dish cacio e pepe, plus bacon and potato. Mine was with ragù sauce. We also had abundant french fries with our lasagne, and Jack was delighted to be presented with Italian ketchup (albeit insufficient for his usual consumption). We hunted down a good Italian hat for Jack, found some little fish in the water, and watched some people fishing for something much larger in the canals. They had ...

Not to get overly ambitious, but I'm going to combine three days into this post! Monday: Teaching heavy day for me. Taught my first philosophy discussion section of the summer Monday  morning. I brought Jack to class with me and when I introduced him, the whole group raised a chorus of "Ciao, Jack!" We both liked that. We had lunch at the university cafeteria and then hustled off to teach the advanced Italian class, and the lesson on Milanese culture ended up going fantastically well, including the moment in which a student described a US equivalent of aperitivo as happy hour and translated it literally as "ora felice," sending the whole class into a fit of giggles. We had aperitivo that evening, and I took my group down to the canals for the little meal, which Jack dubbed "snacky din din," perhaps the most accurate description I've ever heard. We got Jack's daily gelato afterwards, but I apparently failed to photograph a single thing the entir...

This title has dual meaning: I am both my absolute happiest when Jack is around and free to be anxious about things like ferry location and travel times and train tickets that won't load on my phone because he calms me down and speaks logically to me. That said, Sunday was Lake Como day! We hopped on a train from Milan Central Station and rode it up to the city of Como, on the south-western tip of the wishbone-shaped lake. We had been hoping for a sunny, windless day so that we could rent a boat and spend the afternoon on the water. Instead, we got rained on all day, with winds that made the waters quite choppy and my hair quite out of control. So instead, we did a bunch of other things, starting with visiting the Como Duomo, extra fun since its name rhymes! Jack's eyes really pop when they're next to the stained glass windows, don't they? I'm not sure why he looks alarmed. Gelato was our next stop, at a place called the Gelato Laboratory. This stop brought me consi...

ALERT: JACK CAME TO VISIT! I went dark for the last week, so you haven't heard from me since two Fridays ago - I will make up for that today with some good updates! It was a crazy busy week, but a wonderful time. Last Saturday morning (6/22), Jack got in at the Milan airport, so I woke up very early in my excitement and went to pick him up. Jack had his first ride on the metro and on a city bus - thank goodness for cool transit passes! Tourists don't usually get those, so I think we both felt very authentic in our explorations of the city. Our first stop was to drop off bags, but then we walked through the weekly market that happens right outside the apartment complex and went to lunch at a pasta place nearby. Jack started his Milanese Holiday with the classic spaghetti and meatballs and I opted for the carbonara with giant noodles. After lunch, we headed to the Duomo for our self-guided tour of the outer terraces and the inner cathedral. We had to climb a bunch of stairs to ge...

"Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die..." You haven't heard from me since Monday, and the rest of this week wore me out, so I was ready for a lake day by the time today hit! We had our first full day of class on Tuesday, with Kant's Critique of Judgment causing crises for many students (and perhaps some of us teachers, too). That man did not make his writing easy to understand! Our students had a movie screening that afternoon, so I went to buy new sandals, run a couple errands, and pick up Jack's metro card for when he comes to visit. Do you like my pretty new shoes?? I chatted with Anne Tuesday night and then crashed so that I'd be ready for more Kant and more teaching Italian on Wednesday. The first real Italian class went well - my students are excellent, and I so love to teach languages!! I talked with my mom and dad Wednesday night, then - copy and paste - Kant on Thursday! I did my little bit of lesson planning for philosophy discussion ...