Friday, November 27, 2009

Holiday Away

Thanksgiving in Rome! Significant for many reasons, not the least of which is that I only have three weeks remaining in la bella città - well, and a few extra days at the end of the semester, which I'm planning to spend in Florence if by some miracle I still have enough cash to get me there and back, and into at least one museum.

Anyway, IES hosted a Thanksgiving meal and we brought food to share with each other. We were running around like giddy children asking our professor to start class late and burning half-molded chestnuts on scented candles. Jade and I brought banana bread, which our host mom and sister liked so much that we cooked it again today.

I spent the morning working on an assignment for the internship I started this week with an Amherst alum's Rome-based lobbying group. They're opening a new office in Brussels so I was researching EU policy and lobbying competitors. Nothing terribly exciting, but once I got into it I found that I do enjoy learning about political mechanisms. Now I'm trying to figure out how many hours it took, and thinking that being paid by the hour instead of by output is incredibly inefficient.

I'm halfway through two great novels: Anna Karenin, which I started at the beginning of the semester for fun, and Portrait of a Lady, which I started last week for class. Fortunately I was sick when we discussed James' book in class - otherwise I would have found out what happens at the end! And I love it too much to have it ruined for me.

I signed up for a Google Wave account. It looks pretty interesting, and I'm sure it'll be big soon...I just don't quite understand it yet, and since my friends don't have it it's a little useless at the moment. I have a couple invites left, but you can find one pretty easily online (I got one through twitter).