Tuesday, January 11

Today before class I ran down to Cafe Al Biscione for my morning cappuccino, which I have grown accustomed to here in Rome. After paying and climbing the steps back up to the Rome Center, I settled into class where we spent most of the day talking about the service learning component of our study abroad. For the most part we focused on an speech given by Ivan Illich, titled "To Hell with Good Intentions." Manka arranged us into small groups and talk about the four A's to consider when reflecting on the speech:  assumptions of the article, arguments we might have, points of agreement, and things that we aspire to achieve. For me this was a useful exercise as it helped to contextually place the themes in the article within my life here in Rome. Who am I to the people I will be working with? What do and what do I not want to come across as? Following looking through Ivan Illich's speech through that lens we applied some of the things we talked about to creating some do's and don'ts for our own service learning. The group decided to look more positively at the list rather than negatively, creating a list of do's that dominated the don'ts. After talking more in depth about the service learning locations, personally I was excited to start. Much like preparing for my trip to Rome, I have learned that anticipation is nothing like the actual experience. I also expect that, my service learning will have a greater impact on me than in the grand scheme of the organization. It takes many ants to create and maintain an ant hill, and I look forward to the contributions I can make, even on a small scale. 

Following formal class with Manka, a seven of us headed out for lunch and to see the Van Gogh exhibit that is in town for a short while. We stopped at Antico Forno Marco Roscioli for some delectable pizza for "take away" and followed Marissa to the exhibit. Although Van Gogh was not Italian, I was thrilled to be able to see the exhibit and attempt to read the Italian version of background before checking with the English translation. Having studied some art history prior to my trip to Rome, I appreciated, as did many Italians (there was both a high school aged group and an elementary one) the talent of Van Gogh that spanned many different periods and regions. After our cultural experience, and my haggling for a scarf on the street (I got it down to three euro!) four of us broke off and headed towards the shopping area, more specifically the three Zaras that were within about three blocks of one another. Cafe Greco eventually caught our eye and brought us inside for delectable canoli and deserts and an afternoon cappuccino. Content with our purchases and our stomachs we headed home to finish the readings for tomorrow, but stopped by a favorite gelateria for good measure. Now if only I could get the whole cooking for myself thing down... perhaps tomorrow.