Week Three Blues

This was written yesterday, but I haven’t had time to post it until now.

According to people at the Accademia, week three is the end of the honeymoon period and the beginning of culture shock. It is the time when you get sick of pasta, begin to hate all of the other students, and just want to go home.

Now, I can never get sick of pasta. It always sounds good for lunch or dinner and I think that Beloit has trained me to think this since the best food on campus is the pasta with meat sauce/chunks that DKs produces. Even now, I don’t find myself tired of pasta. Wishing for more meat? Yes. But sick of the pasta? Not really.

In terms of hating the other students, I have actually found myself getting closer to them this week then in the previous ones. Due to a lot of unfortunate luck, I’ve found them to really wonderful people to talk to when I need to de-stress, and, today in Gianni’s class, the entire time was mostly spent bonding. It started with us just having a discussion about our time so far (highlights: one of the girl’s remarking that she constantly needs to remind herself to not worry about being perfect and to just remember to have fun—something I need to remind myself too—and us discussing some of our problems with our philosophy class and how to change it), but ended with some of us remarking that we wished the vocabulary and phrases we were learning in Italian class were more relevant to our situation. From this statement, Gianni proceeded to teach us words for parts of the body (which turned into a hilarious two-team game) and then promised to take us out as a group to dinner to one of his favorite restaurants in town. He also apparently has a bakery in town which all of the dancers have decided they need to visit. After our phrases lesson, he then had us all give each other messages and then walk around singing and hugging each other. It was pretty obvious that we all walked out of that feeling relaxed, happy, and closer to one another.

In terms of culture shock alone, I don’t think I’m feeling it at all. I don’t feel mad or frustrated by the differences from home and I’m not absolutely miserable by not having certain things like they are at home (ok…so I do really miss bagels and Heinz ketchup, but I’m not going crazy without them!).

But I do think I have dance culture shock.

I definitely remember the first week of classes not being as exciting as I had hoped. It’s not that I don’t love some of my dance classes and think the rest are really good and have great teachers, but I do know that I was really not enjoying them sometimes and actively missing dance at home at others. I think the reasons for this are two-fold. The first is that the set up in our classes and in how our classes are scheduled is very different from what I know. In the first couple of weeks, the only class that was similar to those at home was modern and we only had that once due to bad weather. Most of my other classes were not technique heavy (except ballet, but that is still a whole new world to me) or very structured so I think that is what most threw me for a loop. The second is that, at Beloit, I have two dance teachers who really understand me well and give great critique because of that fact. Here, I’m going to have to rebuild that again.

So basically, I have culture shock…in my dance classes. Absurd, no?

Luckily, I’m sure this will pass with time (also, we just had modern again today and I could definitely feel its good effects all morning) and, until then, I just need to remember how much I love to dance and that this is SUCH A COOL EXPERIENCE!

In other notes for today (Friday):

1. Today the dancers and actors both had movement with Claudia together. Basically the class was all about contact improvisation and weight sharing and I absolutely loved it. Some highlights from it that I remember from it are Simon and I leading each other through complicated movements by just our arms, Catherine and I helping each other lightly bounce around the room, and Seth and I coming up with a really amazing combination that was so fun to perform.

2. I finally bought all of my spring break tickets. So it is confirmed that I am going to Vienna, then England, and then Spain for break! :D Feel free to send suggestions of places to go within those countries!

Also, here is a tour of the inside of the villa (again, more pictures on facebook if you are interested):

Here is our common lounge space.

Hallway to most of the offices and our bulletin boards.

The Sala Danza, the studio where we take most of our dance classes.

The view from the windows in the Sala Danza. Yes, it does make it hard to concentrate in class.

Hallway to all of our rooms.

Door to my room!