Oh, we have to be serious now?

Tuesdays are going to be long this semester.

We started this morning with Fabio's Intercultural Communication class again. Today we watched a clip from "Pay It Forward" where Kevin Spacey's character assigns his students the following essay subject:

"Think of an idea to change our world and put it into action."

Fabio encouraged us to discuss what this assignment could mean and how it applies to our lives as foreigners right now. He said we will be going back to this idea a lot this semester as we try to change our perspective of the world and learn to embrace diversity within ourselves.

This is turning out to be my favorite class so far. Fabio asks really tough questions that encourage some serious soul-searching. It's fascinating to hear his views on culture and individualism, and to think about what it means to me personally to call myself an American.

Right after I.C., we had Italian with Gloria again, who was just as scatterbrained today, but at least I learned how to introduce myself in Italian.

We followed this class with lunch again at the 2.50 sandwich shop, then headed to the large lecture hall for Italian Art with Rocky. It turns out Rocky is from Connecticut and moved to Italy about a decade ago. Even though I can understand my Italian teachers when they speak, it's refreshing to have Rocky who understands our culture and concerns a little better than the other professors.

I think I'm really going to love Rocky's class. We have our first field trip Thursday at the Piazza Repubblica. We have field trips every week to various museums, churches and architectural sites around Florence. It's going to be great!

Right after Rocky's class, I have Comparative Media with Francesca. Today was a short class. Francesca introduced herself and we introduced ourselves, then went around the class discussing what "communication" means to us and what channels we personally use to communicate.

After class, Erika and I stopped at the grocery store again and bought enough to stock our fridge for the first time this semester. I bought more of those shelf eggs and came home to make a delicious gorgonzola omelet.

Tonight we'll be heading to the four-girl apartment to book our spring break trip to Interlaken, Croatia and Greece. I hope it goes better than yesterday when we tried to book trips... We narrowed down where we wanted to go, but didn't get around to booking anything. Instead Erika, Bethany, Kevin, and I played Rummy and made pasta, then went to another apartment where our attempt to vote on trips turned into a party. Not exactly productive. But hopefully we'll do better tonight with a more compact plan.