Goodbye Break, Back to School

Today was my first day getting back into my school routine, while I was not looking forward to adjusting to school work again I was very eager to get my midterms back. While waiting to get into opera class many of the girls revealed they would just rather not know. I don't care if I think I've done great or terrible on a test I want to see the results so I don't have to worry about it any longer. As it turns out my opera midterms was my highest scoring test, ridiculous. I missed a good deal more points on the listening section than I suspected (I mixed up the mezzo soprano with the soprano, whoops) and only missed one in the multiple choice section. That was some lucky guessing, I literally guessed on seven out of ten of the multiple choice and got all but one right, awesome. I got seven out of ten points on my essay, not bad and I received eight points on the extra credit. Overall a ninety three percent. Kinda sad that it was my highest scoring midterm, but at least I got mostly A's. We also prepared for our next opera performance: Tosca. The class just before we attend the opera is canceled for Easter Monday, so we watched Maria Callas (who was apparently a very big deal, I had never heard of her) perform the most famous scene from the opera. I think I'm going to really like this opera, almost everyone dies in the end, and I'm a big fan of tragic endings. After opera it was time to head to Art Gallery Management. I did not do as well on this final as I had anticipated, I think I only scored an eight four. The professor scored things differently than I'm used, and I'm going to have to prepare accordingly for the final. We talked about our final project today as well. I'm not terribly excited for it, at all. The project is to arrange a gallery style show. When I read about this in the syllabus I imagined that we would be provided with a space,and that there might be some sort of exchange with the school's small art department. Meaning we would have to use what we had learned to show that we could put together a well spaced and themed show. Not the case. We are given no such amenities. The class is split into groups of four or five and we are charged with finding an artist, a space to display the work, and not only arranging the work but attempting to sell it. Admittedly this would not be as difficult if any of us spoke Italian, or weren't study abroad students who have no connections to local artists or venues. Not to mention the money were going to have to pour into this. I realize that I paid over one hundred euros for opera tickets, but I was forewarned in the syllabus. I've already purchased fifty euro worth of books for this course, and now I will be paying for possible printing fees, hanging supplies, and maybe even venue rental. I'm not very please. In fact the details of this project have turned me off of this class almost completely. For as specific as this course is to my major I'm not comfortable not enjoying it, It makes me wish I could still take Issues in Arts Management back at BV, because I don't appreciate the way this class is being handled. I'm not sure what we will be learning about in the next month, but I highly doubt that it's how to properly hang paintings, I'm very glad I came into this class with experience, I would be even more stressed if I didn't already now how to do some of the basics. For venues our teacher recommended restaurants that we have connections to. Which would be fine except this will go against absolutely everything we have learned about the modern 'white cube' gallery space. This project is going to be a pain in the neck I think, I'm not looking forward to dedicating my time to it. In happier news once class was over I walked home and checked my email to find that Jessica and her friends wanted to meet at six, it was already five forty, and it usually takes awhile to get anywhere at this time of night, let alone across the river to the Vatican. I rushed out the door, and made it ten minutes late. I had offered to walk them around some of the major sites, but they had paid to do one of the forty eight hour hop on hop off bus tours, so they had already seen much of what I anticipated to show them. I took them around the Cake topper building in Piazza Venezia, as they hadn't seen most of what was behind it. We then started to walk down the main shopping street for gelato and then Piazza del Popolo when the girls told me they wanted supper first. We turned around and headed for old Trastevere, which has several very good, and very cheap restaurants. We had pizza and pasta, and it was incredibly filling, and nice to sit and eat with good company. We traced our steps back to Corso, the shopping street and I took them to Gioliti, one of the best Gelato places in Rome (at least it has one of the best selections)I actually found a Gelato I didn't like, which is absolutely nuts. I had to throw it away (I'll give you some time to digest that information) I made the mistake of ordering something for its color again. Mistake, again. It was pretty pink, and grapefruit flavoured, I couldn't eat it. I tried, but it was too gross. Hopefully that will be the first and last time I have to throw away gelato, it made me sad. We walked to the end of the tram line together and said good night to the girls. I wouldn't be seeing them on Tuesday night, I still had my massive opera paper to write, but we decided to meet Wednesday morning to go to the papal audience together.