Pink Hair.

PT Roommate.

I had another odd dream. Yup.

Oooh pretty

Oooh pretty.

I got Z to sign my papers for photography and I didn't have to fight my case. I got all the chemicals, film and paper ordered for my project (and I'm going to have to work my ass off because of it). That's about it for today. Going to play a little guitar now.

I blame the computer switchage on why I didn't get to post yesterday at all. I apparently was on the schedule to do dishes Wed. night. That was pretty awful. I had Stats 304 yesterday. It was alright. I also had to go to the dentist which was less than pleasing. I hate the feeling of metal scraping bone, especially in my mouth. I'm pretty sure I can get tattooed almost anywhere and it really not freak me out, but getting a shot in my gums will. My hair is now pink. Yay. Pchem and psych were today. Both were the usual first day lecture. Lunch at Torvo was kind of gross. I'm really happy I'm on the 5 meal plan now. The mac and cheese was alright, but the fish left a lot to be desired (including a large amount of water to balance all the salt that was on it). The rest of the afternoon is a short meeting with Chuck, and a drive to Windber for a physical. Tonight, I don't know what nonsense we may get into. So here is a 360 panorama of my darkroom cleaning skills and the room that is pretty much mine on campus. I don't know why the picture is blurry--something with the uploader. This is the sign so if someone manages to get in and find the correct light switch, they've been warned.

New beginning....kind of.

Just a quick note...I'm duel blogging so if you're incredibly bored, check out my original blog at www.xanga.com/evildrumstix8816.

Move in went well. I caught Dave and Anne before they went out to dinner so I had some help moving stuff from my car to the room. Unpacking took forever, but it got done. Surprisingly, we're not as squished for space as we all expected to be.

Here's the new foot tattoo. Just thought I'd post a picture because I promised to. There's enough room left that I'm going to get a cross on that foot as well, but it will have to wait until next summer.

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I met with Chuck today and we talked about my project some more; then we headed over to the darkroom to see what we had to work with. He found an old binder with pictures his wife took of his kids from like 12 years ago. Eventually, the conversation boiled down to the room needed to be cleaned and a list made of what all needed to be ordered. I left the boilerhouse with 4 books on photography and a tripod and an assignment to get the darkroom in somewhat working condition. I got back to my room and read up on what all is required to do wet darkroom. It took 4 hours to wash, sort and clean the room out and I still have to go in tomorrow and actually catalog what all there is in there.

So I'm going to attempt to keep a photoblog on here just so I'm kind of forcing myself to take pictures everyday. Sometimes they will be crappy, completely non-artistic, Chuck saying "you struggled with these" pictures; sometimes they will be good. Today's is alright; this is my lunch. It has some cool color and a little bit of texture. Had I not wanted to eat the salad so much, it would have had better texture.

So I had a ton of stuff typed up on here and the internet froze. Here, I go again.

Sunday night everyone was going to go out for a nicer dinner and we planned on meeting at like 6:45. The group left without Ang and I, and we decided we could probably catch up with the group because we knew what the plan for the night was. After wandering for a little bit and not being able to find anyone, we started walking towards the pub. We ran into Jon, Bill, Rebecca, Melissa and Scott. The group of us went to one of the bistros for dinner and Chuck, his niece, Dawn, and her English friend/husband?, Glen, were there as well. The food and wine were amazing. At one point, Glen came over to talk to us. That was funny. Very typical tipsy English man. Chuck also showed us his studio. Beautiful! After dinner, we went to buy some wine. While Bill was at the counter, another English man, Martin, stopped and started to talk to him...and he didn't stop. Again, so funny. He bought all of us a glass of wine, which was nice. Here are some quotes: "We lost! (the revolutionary war)"; (to Jon) "Are you happy? No, are you truly happy?"; "If you ever meet an English man, kick him in the ass." When we finally left, we realized we had left Scott in there with him. Martin physically would not let Scott leave. The bartender had to tell Martin Scott was on antibiotics and he couldn't drink.

We headed back to Liberty, starting drinking some of the wine we bought, and hanging out. We decided to play Circle of Death with wine. That was a good time. About 12:30-1am, we went to the disco-teche. Some people were fairly intoxicated and it was great watching them interact with the Italians. Yeah, that was an interesting part of the night...'Nuff said.

Classes started yesterday and it's going to be interesting. It's odd to me to have the same classes everyday especially because one day of classes here is equal to one week of class in the Lo'.

Last night, a group of us were going to go to this little bistro for dinner, but it was closed so we ended up going to the bistro we had gone to the night before. After eating, we headed to Liberty to hang out with the crew there, and of course, I had to get into one of my fucking moods. I couldn't deal with people and was quite anti-social at that point and I pissed myself off. Now, I was also not pleased that everyone was drinking when we said we weren't going to drink too heavily last night (I don't have the money to drink like that every night). We went to the pub and I decided to have one drink just to help me deal and that led to a double shot of vodka and one other drink. Then Lindsay and I went back to Ilario for the night.

Today, it's raining again, so we didn't do much in photo and Italian may be miserable just because it's long. I will be able to speak it when I come back though, damn it.

Ciao for now. We're going out for Kelly's b-day tonight. I'm sure I will have fun stories.

I love Parma

Here are the blogs I typed up over the past day about my experience thus far in Italia....

So I’m currently sitting in the Dulles International airport. Yeah. I got through security fine. Murphy didn’t. He was detained and scanned…

…Momentary delay in typing to listen to some of Mr. Olson’s stories. This is going to be fun. From what I’m hearing, the atmosphere is going to be completely different and it’s really going to be an experience. I sat with my photography teacher, Mr. Miller, and Mr. Olson sat in front of us, so I heard a bunch of stories about Italy and otherwise the whole way down. Well, I’m going to go get some food before my flight so I’m not starving. Ciao!

Now I’m in Milan after somewhat of a grueling day/night thing (we kind of skipped darkness). The first flight was about six and a half to seven hours long. I slept roughly three hours and watched 27 Dresses. It was an oven on the plane and I thought I was going to start simmering in my own blood. I was in Amsterdam. Hah hah. Murphy got detained again while going through security. The second flight was only about an hour and an half, and I slept most of the time. We ended up having to land at the northern airport in Milan rather than the southern one (about and hour difference in time) because of bad weather. My guitar was with odd sized luggage, and Mr. Olson had to find it for me. I continually forget that I now have bright purple hair and I should not be alarmed when people give me odd looks—which I’ve been getting a few of. Now I’m in for a 2 hour bus ride where I plan on sleeping seeing how it is about 1 pm here and only 6:27 a.m. in PA.

We got moved in yesterday and went to the supermarket to get food. Slight mistake here. No one that went with us could speak or read Italian. So we wandered around like fools trying to figure out where everything was and what we even needed. We don't have any way to cook at where we're staying so any type of meal is limited by that. Luckily, the cashier spoke English (well, enough to help us out). Everyone came back here, showered and went out to get a bite to eat. Surprise, we ate pizza--which was pretty good.

We came back to the dorms and starting drinking a little. What time was this you may ask--about 7 pm. As we discussed last night, it's funny all the stuff we don't have to do because we can legally drink over here. I played circle of death for the first time (yes I am lame). At about nine, we all got dressed up and headed out for the night. We went to a couple different places and it was a good time. Again, we don't speak Italian so it was an interesting time socializing, but a lot of people knew at least some English.

Well, that's kind of short, but I'm exhausted from jet lag and being out late, so I'm going to take a nap.

Jello shots?

I'm yet again just messing around on here to see if I like this better than xanga and its a pretty tough race.

Hm...a new chapter?

No not really--I'm just testing this blogger out. I'll put tales of my Italian adventure on here because not everyone needs to read extensively about my past. Maybe I'll eventually convert from xanga to this, but you never know...

...argh. (just testing how hard it is to post photos)