Venice Prep

Venetian Religion

2007-10-18T21:19:00.000-07:00

I've always thought about what it must do to the political landscape of a nation to have the Vatican within its borders. The Dark Heart of Italy discussed the topic briefly in the chapter where Jones was exploring the memorials and the small villages. American ideals hold the separation of church and state to be an intrinsically important ideal. Such an opinion is not often shared by the rest of the world.

It would be impossible for the Vatican to be uninvolved with political matters due if for no other reason than to its powerful reach and strong opinions. I'm not particularly sure how tolerant Italy is of other religions but Italy has always been considered associatively as a Christian country.

As an atheist, the idea of religiously motivated political endorsements strikes me as inappropriate and foolish. Even in the States, countless politicians hide behind the veil of religious mandate when trying to legislate bigotry. This has been going on for centuries. I wonder if this is even more pronounced in Italy, or if, perhaps, the opposite is true.

Dark Heart of Italy

2007-09-30T13:48:00.001-07:00

so, this weekend I've read the first 200 or so pages of the Dark Heart of Italy. the book is very interesting in that it presents a lot of information about italy that you won't find in a textbook. It's sort of like reading a history channel documentary. The author picks apart topics such as Italian football and literacy with a very interesting approach.

The discussions of scandal and buying referees in Italian football reminded me of the steroid abuse scandal in Major League baseball. Then he went on to talk about how Italian football had its own substance abuse problem. It was interesting to hear about how revered the italian footballers were and the level of media attention the game receives. Speaking of media attention, the discussion of Italian television and the interrelationships of ownership was very eye opening.

Jones goes in depth discussing how conflict of interest doesn't exist in italy, and if it does, it's a good thing. Individuals own football clubs, television stations, and companies and they overtly employ their families everywhere. One person even owned more than one football team that regularly competed against each other. To circumvent a national television law, someone bought local stations in every locality and synced schedules and aired the same things. Some of these things that would very basically be big scandals in America are seemingly ignored or indirectly embraced in Italy. I suppose it all comes back to how inefficient and how irregularly punishment is handed out by the government.

Catch_Phrase

2007-08-19T18:05:00.001-07:00

Alright time for some phrases:

1) What do you want to eat tonight?
2) How much will this cost?
3) We should play a game.
4) What time do I need to be there?
5) I want to go on vacation this weekend.

I'm moving back into the apartment tomorrow, should be fun to see everyone again and get adjusted to life back on the hill. Classes start thursday, a little too soon but I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things.

Warped Tour

2007-08-10T20:10:00.000-07:00

Thursday, August 9th, the Vans Warped Tour came to the Tweeter Center at Mansfield, MA. It was a show that I had been looking forward to going to ever since the lineup was announced...I bought my ticket almost two months in advance. Anyways, I got to thinking about what type of music we would be listening to over in Italy. What types of music do they play on public radio? Are there any places where internationally touring bands play in Italy?

All of this came full circle when I did a google search of my favorite band, Bad Religion, and Italy. Turns out that two songs off of their live album were recorded from a concert at the Olympic Stadium in Rome, Italy. Their set yesterday was amazing, it was the second time I've seen them and I'll be seeing them again next fall. I've never heard anything lyrically that even holds a candle to 99% of their songs. Lead singer/songwriter Greg Graffin is a published Ph.D in Biology from Cornell University and has a Masters in Geology from UCLA. His father was also an English Professor...probably why you need a pocket dictionary to decipher his vocabulary.

In response to things I would like to be tested on, I figured I'd keep it semi-thematic:
verbs: dance, sing
nouns: music, concert, festival, party, school, boat, restaurant, church, band, bridge

Gonna throw up some phrases tomorrow.
~

Welcome back

2007-08-10T19:27:00.000-07:00

Well this blog was grossly neglected due in large part to the summer months putting school out of sight and out of mind. Fortunately, the same cannot be said for all things Venice. Before Chiara was on board to teach the A term Italian language class, the understanding was that the students would more or less be on their own as a group to pick a method of instruction. Last year, a friend of mine took several Italian language courses at the University of Connecticut and still had his book. I gave him a call and picked it up the next day. Off and on I've been taking some time out to look at it over the summer and it has been an excellent learning tool.

Speaking of learning tools, our group collectively decided to make use of the bbc website on language instruction. The site offers lessons that are easy, stepwise, and interactive. By itself, it has been extremely helpful in laying a foundation for my Italian understanding. Coupled with the book, the two have complemented each other nicely.

First Post

2007-04-16T22:50:00.000-07:00

Hey this is my first time having a blog, so this would be my first blog post ever.
I'm really looking forward to my time in Venice, it's such a unique oppurtunity. I've always been rather fascinated by the city after seeing it in movies, it's a beautiful place. Also, I've never been out of the country and am excited to travel. Heard great things about the food and the trip in general, going to be an amazing time.

My group has begun regularly scheduled tutor lessons at the library and are looking into BBC instructional guides on the web to better our understanding of the language. I plan on sticking with it over the summer as well to get the most I can from the language.

I'll post again in a few days.