It stands for NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth.
This month is November, as you may have guessed, and is a month dedicated (for those brave enough to accept the challenge) to writing. Sometimes this means writing horribly, desperately, frantically, or despairingly, but it means writing. The principle of the things is that most of the actual crafting of a novel is in the revision process, but that too many would be authors (such as myself) are too discouraged by the horrible first draft prose, lack of support, time constraints or simple distractions that they stop in despair at the first step: Write.
Nanowrimo volunteers to guilt, encourage, pester and drive you to write 50,000 consecutive words over the course of 30 days, no matter how horrible they may be. (The words or the days. take your pick.)
Need encouragement? Pep talks from published authors such as Neil Gaiman.
Worried about your progress? Word count validations and a bar chart of your personal word count.
Want to talk to other authors? Forums
Need inspiration? Forums
Plot problems? Forums
Yes, I have accepted the challenge. Yes, I am in Rome. Yes, I am in college. Yes, I have papers to write and friends to not ignore and sights to see, but completing a novel is a real goal of mine, and after my abysmal failure last year (only 2,000 words? Really, Maria?) I feel the need for another go.
(Of course, it would be much easier if I had a plot in mind… but let’s not be picky.)
Wish me luck!
Tuesday, November 2
Thursday, October 28
The Student's Guide to Food in Rome: Part 2
Since I am still a practically destitute college student, my experience with the Italian cuisine is chiefly through the little shops which line the roads of Rome.
My favorites, and the most common, are the pizzarias and gelaterias.
Inside any of the streetside pizzerias, you are confronted with a huge glass counter, behind which reside huge rectangular pizzas with everything from ham to egg-plant on them, the choices dictated by none but the cook. Voice your choice and the guy behind the counter will slice off a hunk and charge you by its weight. Take it porta via (to go) and he will cut it in half, press the pieces goodness-sides together, and fold a wax paper envelope around it for you.
I am getting hungry telling you about it! Contrary to popular opinion, it is just as easy to get bad food in Rome as it is anywhere else, but I have emerged so many times with a messy sandwich of crunchy crust, mozzerrella and chunks of tomatos and basil, and I am not looking forward to leaving the experience behind.
Gelaterias are another experience all together.
First of all, there is none of this "chocolate or vanilla" nonsense. Even the humblest gelateria, consisting of nothing but a counter, has at least eight flavors, and to ask for only one will get you a confused "Solo?"
The servings are smaller, but they are much denser. The servers scoop the gelato out with paddles, but it is still much softer than American hard ice cream. The shops have cones, real cones with pointed ends, but it is much more common to savor the experience in a cup with a plastic, brightly-colored gelato spoon.
The other day, I took a long walk across the city, bought some margherita pizza for dinner, ate it by the Fontana di Trevi, was chased off by the Italian police (no eating on fountains), treated myself to some stracciatella gelato, scrambled out of the way of a lady who wanted to open her shop (I was sitting on the ledge, leaning against the door), and then made my way home with the satisfaction of a day well spent.
-Maria
My favorites, and the most common, are the pizzarias and gelaterias.
Inside any of the streetside pizzerias, you are confronted with a huge glass counter, behind which reside huge rectangular pizzas with everything from ham to egg-plant on them, the choices dictated by none but the cook. Voice your choice and the guy behind the counter will slice off a hunk and charge you by its weight. Take it porta via (to go) and he will cut it in half, press the pieces goodness-sides together, and fold a wax paper envelope around it for you.
I am getting hungry telling you about it! Contrary to popular opinion, it is just as easy to get bad food in Rome as it is anywhere else, but I have emerged so many times with a messy sandwich of crunchy crust, mozzerrella and chunks of tomatos and basil, and I am not looking forward to leaving the experience behind.
Gelaterias are another experience all together.
First of all, there is none of this "chocolate or vanilla" nonsense. Even the humblest gelateria, consisting of nothing but a counter, has at least eight flavors, and to ask for only one will get you a confused "Solo?"
The servings are smaller, but they are much denser. The servers scoop the gelato out with paddles, but it is still much softer than American hard ice cream. The shops have cones, real cones with pointed ends, but it is much more common to savor the experience in a cup with a plastic, brightly-colored gelato spoon.
The other day, I took a long walk across the city, bought some margherita pizza for dinner, ate it by the Fontana di Trevi, was chased off by the Italian police (no eating on fountains), treated myself to some stracciatella gelato, scrambled out of the way of a lady who wanted to open her shop (I was sitting on the ledge, leaning against the door), and then made my way home with the satisfaction of a day well spent.
-Maria
Wednesday, October 27
The Student's Guide to Food in Rome: Part 1
This post is not about what you think it's about. This post is about my own cooking.
It's not awful. That's all I can say.
I am not a particularly discerning eater. Taste is my least cherished sense, and food is not particularly important to me (though I can certainly appreciate edible heaven when I swallow it) so I have been surviving on a monotonous regimen of supermarket supplies, the chief of which is (naturally) pasta. Until a few days ago, it was only ever garnished with butter and salt, but I got tired of that and splurged on some supplies.
Never underestimate the power of garlic.
Not only can it repel vampires, it can whisk your cooking into a whole new level. So far, I have soutéd the stuff with part of a bag of frozen vegtables and found myself with a fine new mixture with which to toss pasta, and I made a great stew with the rest of the bag, more garlic, noodles and ham bones.
The fact that this is exciting and makes me feel as if I am finally living on my own should probably concern me, but that topic is not flattering, so let me distract you with pictures of the supermarket:
Produce is sold on a very what-is-in-season basis. When we arrived, almost this entire side was covered in peaches. The next month, the smell of grapes (not the castrated grapes that we are used to, but real grapes, twice as big, with seeds) almost intoxicated you the moment you stepped into the supermarket.
You can't tell from the pictures, but this is a tiny, tiny store, and yet, the seafood ice shelf has the most incredible collection. There is everything from raw octopi to whole flouder in this pic, and once I saw a sturgeon's head, its pointed nose uselessly stabbing at the ceiling.
Keep in mind that the store in only four or five aisles wide, and marvel at the entire corner dedicated to alcohol. There is more on the other side of that wall.
This is how we pay. There are two aisles with actual people that you can see behind the robot here, but they will stand and wait for ten minutes for you to dig out exact change, and are frustrated when you don't have it, so we feed our 50£ bills to our friend Robby as he chatters to us in an Italian voice, and he gives us back change with no problem.
Well, that's all for now! Tune in next time for Part 2: Street Food!
-Maria
PS. Notice how I didn't mention what the rest of the house is eating? It's because they're making German chocolate cake from scratch.
PPS. We make popcorn on the stove. It is awesome.
It's not awful. That's all I can say.
I am not a particularly discerning eater. Taste is my least cherished sense, and food is not particularly important to me (though I can certainly appreciate edible heaven when I swallow it) so I have been surviving on a monotonous regimen of supermarket supplies, the chief of which is (naturally) pasta. Until a few days ago, it was only ever garnished with butter and salt, but I got tired of that and splurged on some supplies.
Never underestimate the power of garlic.
Not only can it repel vampires, it can whisk your cooking into a whole new level. So far, I have soutéd the stuff with part of a bag of frozen vegtables and found myself with a fine new mixture with which to toss pasta, and I made a great stew with the rest of the bag, more garlic, noodles and ham bones.
The fact that this is exciting and makes me feel as if I am finally living on my own should probably concern me, but that topic is not flattering, so let me distract you with pictures of the supermarket:
 |
Produce is sold on a very what-is-in-season basis. When we arrived, almost this entire side was covered in peaches. The next month, the smell of grapes (not the castrated grapes that we are used to, but real grapes, twice as big, with seeds) almost intoxicated you the moment you stepped into the supermarket.
Well, that's all for now! Tune in next time for Part 2: Street Food!
-Maria
PS. Notice how I didn't mention what the rest of the house is eating? It's because they're making German chocolate cake from scratch.
PPS. We make popcorn on the stove. It is awesome.
Assisi
Assisi is the most beautiful place I have ever been, so I am just going to display a few pictures. Please savor them.
Here's the inside of the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, featured in the first picture:
Outside of the Basilica, there was a display of Mother Teresa's work.
It was a beautiful day, physically, and also spiritually, for me.
-Maria
Tuesday, October 26
Observation
The pigeons in this city don't fly much.
The closer you get, the more nervously they move, until they are running on their pink feet, heads bobbing frantically, but they don't take off. Eventually, once you have been perfectly capable of kicking or catching them for so long that they can no longer stand it, they will suddenly move much more messily and, finally, flappily and make it to the safety of the top of some wall or something. And then stop.
I'm sure that someone could make some deep poetic statement about this, or use these feathery things as devices for some poignant philosophical declarion about cities or something, but they just dissappoint me. Especially since pigeons are doves.
-Maria
The closer you get, the more nervously they move, until they are running on their pink feet, heads bobbing frantically, but they don't take off. Eventually, once you have been perfectly capable of kicking or catching them for so long that they can no longer stand it, they will suddenly move much more messily and, finally, flappily and make it to the safety of the top of some wall or something. And then stop.
I'm sure that someone could make some deep poetic statement about this, or use these feathery things as devices for some poignant philosophical declarion about cities or something, but they just dissappoint me. Especially since pigeons are doves.
-Maria
Art and Architecture: Introduction
We call him Pierluigi. He is our Art and Architecture class professor, and yet the name is so Roman, and sounds like two names, anyway, and he asked us to call him "Pier"... We can't believe his first name is Romeo.
He is not at all handsome, he wears glasses which make it seem that we are viewing his eyes from the wrong end of a telescope, and he is incredibly, astonishingly, magnificently, phenomenally knowledgable. Ask him the simplest, most specific question that you can think of, and he will still have pages to excitedly tell you, if you are at all interested.
The first class, we began with the Etruscans, the Roman's predecessors, and became fully convinced that he had dedicated his life to Italian history. He knew who. He knew when. He knew why and where. He knew who found out and why. He knew who cares and where to find more information and how to tell if the information is authentic.
We moved through ancient Rome, and as we admired the sculpture he casually told us the name of the work, who discovered it, who created it, who funded its creation, what it portrays, where it has been, why it was damaged, similar portrayals, which is his favorite...
We spent a class specifically focused on the evolution of mosaics and he told us where each color of marble came from. We went to the Vatican museum and he suddenly became an encyclopedia of the development of Rennaissance art. We are only half-way through classes!
We passed the Egyption section that day, and he dropped the fact that he was an Egyptologist, and I don't think that I have quite absorbed that one yet. Does he know everything about everything in Egypt, too?!
Not only does he know everything, but he gets so excited about what he is talking about, though heaven knows how many times he has told it. (Did I mention that one of his books is in its second edition, eventhough it has been out less than a year?) He'll be halfway thrgouh a sentence when - "AH! See here an excellent representation of..."
I am going to try to write a summary of each class. I really love them, though three hours of lecture and walking tours can really wear you down, and I would love to have you enjoy them as well. The only problem is that I will most likely get sidetracked by researching.
-Maria
P.S Seconds after I took that picture of him, he turned around and casually translated the hiroglyphics. Oh my goodness. He really does know everything about Egypt, too!
He is not at all handsome, he wears glasses which make it seem that we are viewing his eyes from the wrong end of a telescope, and he is incredibly, astonishingly, magnificently, phenomenally knowledgable. Ask him the simplest, most specific question that you can think of, and he will still have pages to excitedly tell you, if you are at all interested.
The first class, we began with the Etruscans, the Roman's predecessors, and became fully convinced that he had dedicated his life to Italian history. He knew who. He knew when. He knew why and where. He knew who found out and why. He knew who cares and where to find more information and how to tell if the information is authentic.
We moved through ancient Rome, and as we admired the sculpture he casually told us the name of the work, who discovered it, who created it, who funded its creation, what it portrays, where it has been, why it was damaged, similar portrayals, which is his favorite...
We spent a class specifically focused on the evolution of mosaics and he told us where each color of marble came from. We went to the Vatican museum and he suddenly became an encyclopedia of the development of Rennaissance art. We are only half-way through classes!
We passed the Egyption section that day, and he dropped the fact that he was an Egyptologist, and I don't think that I have quite absorbed that one yet. Does he know everything about everything in Egypt, too?!
Not only does he know everything, but he gets so excited about what he is talking about, though heaven knows how many times he has told it. (Did I mention that one of his books is in its second edition, eventhough it has been out less than a year?) He'll be halfway thrgouh a sentence when - "AH! See here an excellent representation of..."
I am going to try to write a summary of each class. I really love them, though three hours of lecture and walking tours can really wear you down, and I would love to have you enjoy them as well. The only problem is that I will most likely get sidetracked by researching.
-Maria
P.S Seconds after I took that picture of him, he turned around and casually translated the hiroglyphics. Oh my goodness. He really does know everything about Egypt, too!
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