Wait. I have to take classes?

My paradise was brutally interrupted with the start of classes. When Sunday night rolled around the reality of Monday began to sink in. I think everyone on our program had the same thought: "Classes? What are classes? You mean I have to take those here?" Even this beautiful country is not exempt from the reality of being a student. Such is life.

Thankfully the universe has lessened the blow of beginning studies with awesome classes. I have four classes while I'm here (and only four day weeks): Elementary Italian, Survey of Studio Art, the Florentine Renaissance, and Late Renaissance Art. For those of you who know my obsession with art, you know that I am in a culture snob's heaven. I have Studio Art Mondays and Wednesdays, Florentine Renaissance Tuesdays, Late Renaissance Thursdays, and Italian every day of the week.

So Monday mornings start off with Studio Art. My teacher is a grad student, getting his MFA in art, and whose preferred medium is photography. He is cool and really laid back. It's one of those "there's no wrong answer, it's what you feel" kind of classes. Now while I firmly believe in wrong answers and that art is way more than what you feel, I like that I can always be right.

The class will be incredibly interesting for me. It focuses on Contemporary Art which is something I know nothing about and about which I am very skeptical. For instance, on the first day he showed us a video of a guy singing "Stairway to Heaven" backwards in front of St. Paul's Cathedral. He plays it forwards and calls it "Stairway to St. Paul." I get his meaning, it's impressive, and I know that Led Zeppelin fans would really appreciate it (i.e. Jesse) but I do not think I'm ready to call that art. I may never be ready. The jury is still out.

The problem for me is that I don't think that having a meaning or a message is the only prerequisite for art. To be human is to have meaning. One thing that every person has is a point of view. Since when is that worth an award? Are artists just the people who want to make being "interesting" a vocation? I would be offended as an artist if anyone could be one. In the spirit of the age, I could call myself an artist and therefore be one. This is a problem because I am not an artist. Not at all. Artists are those people who convey their meanings with beauty, real beauty. Beauty that reflects truth. But until we all agree on what beauty is and what truth is, we'll have people calling poop-filled jars art (no lie--some guy did this).

Alright, all done with the pontificating. My Italian class is fun. It's weird to be in a beginning language class again. It's like freshman year all over again. We're learning numbers, letters, days of the week, etc. My Italian teacher, Constanza, is the cutest thing ever. She is just so happy, loves teaching us, and dresses really well. She is adorable and I want to be her friend. She's going to take us to an Italian nursing home in a few weeks so we can practice our Italian with native speakers. She also wants us to learn an Italian song to sing to them. It should be interesting. Hopefully I don't spend the hour having a staring contest with an elderly Italian because I don't know what to say.

My art history classes are AWESOME! Oh, I'm in love. The Florentine Renaissance is taught by the guy Frank who led our tours. The other one is taught by a British woman who knows more about art than I thought was humanly possible. It's more than impressive. It's astounding. Both of those classes will almost never be in the classroom. On the first day of Florentine Renaissance, after spending an and a half in lecture, going into reveries over the beauty of Michelangelo's David, we went to the Piazza della Signoria and learned about the Palazzo Vecchio (where Sue married her Italian man, by the way).

In Late Renaissance Art, after our teacher arrived a little late, she told us to pack up our things and took us to the Uffizzi and that's where we had our lecture, in front of Boticelli, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian. It was awesome. There were also some models walking through the museum at the same time. It was fashion week. We could tell they were models because they were skinny and wearing incredibly expensive clothing. Minus the models, that's how classes will be for both: musuems, churches, piazzas. It's incredible. Walking through the Uffizzi I just had a wonderful feeling, thinking, "This is what I came for."