Catherine

So life hear is weird. It is allot more hectic that allot of people said, but it is strangely OK. Just before I came to Florence I caught the flu and started to develop pneumonia. I was nearly bedridden for 8 days. My packing, which was supposed to be done leisurely over that time, suddenly got crammed into three days. Needles to say their are a couple of things I forgot and have slowly been requiring.
Its funny though. Being out for that long I think was actually good in a way. It gave me a chance to be free from my mind which is usually going 101 on a motorbike, without a helmet, down Via Calimata ( a street in the middle of Florence that changes names six times and always has traffic.) The mental break was good. Helped me relax. Get centered. Balanced. I never get enough time like that. Don't know how to find it. Sometimes when I'm really drawing, like when I was in Santa Croce, and I allow myself to just start and let the drawing take control I get close, but peace is hard to find.
My life hear is going well. I feel like I am starting to kind of click with the other students. I still ramble when I am nervous and can't tell if I am reading anyone right (teachers included) but it will work out.
I like drawing once I allow myself to let go and merge what I naturally do with the lessons on perspective from class. I plan on finishing my Santa Croce drawing tomorrow. Theme Sequence honestly is a challenge. The tasks sometimes feel jarring, repetitive, or arbitrary, but I can usually see at least what they are for. These are some of the brain storming things I did. I took words like Big Brother, tourist, and paparazzi and worked them into my pictures of cameras which were sometimes successful and sometimes utter failures, but were fun and engaging especially when I tried tying them together or making little worlds. I don't know if it at all fit what she was thinking but I really liked my giant robot destroying the tourists in Tokyo. I also liked my shredded paper that was burying the camera lens beneath it and was covered in tea. I liked trying to change what senses could be affected and liked the subtle connotations to 1984. (British tea, big brother watching, decay, buried reality) I cant say all the connotations came out well but I liked linking them none the less.
-Catherine

PS In the future I will try to post my installation and performance ideas.