Pizza and Opera

Last night Whitney and I hit a free concert of Italian opera scenes on campus. My friend Kellie had invited me to go because her roommate was in it, and I mentioned it to Whitney and discovered my roommate's long-harbored passion for vibrato-laden Italian musicals. (Only kidding, opera fans!)
Anyway, it was actually very lovely. The scenes were funny and beautifully performed, and they even had real anvils when they sang the Anvil Chorus. I've been whistling Whitney's ringtone (which was also the first number) all day.
Afterward, we went back to get my car across the street from Kellie's apartment, and as I was about to start it Whitney said, "Is that a ticket?" We quickly went through all of the possibilities of reasons to get a ticket, but we were parked legally and couldn't think of any laws that we'd broken. Turns out it was a note from Elise and Joel Crane. They recognized my car parked in their neighborhood and Elise wrote me a note. It was a most pleasant surprise, especially when we were thinking it was a ticket.
We finished up the night with $5 pizza, crazy bread, and a movie - what goes better with opera than cheap pizza and Ralph Fiennes? It was all very cultural and fulfilling.
And that is why I still haven't finished parts 3 and 4 of my teacher work sample.

Hot roommates, etc.

1) I thought I'd better post these hot pictures of me and the roomies for your viewing pleasure. 2) A funny (or not so funny) story I have not yet told you is begging to be told. So the picture of Whitney and me is from Saturday, and we were on our way to Cedar City for an encore performance of the play Art, which I missed last fall. I am very excited about Whitney's willingness to run about for the sake of cultural improvement - this was our second cultural outing of the week, the first being our excursion to the MOA for a free BYU Singers performance. Mmm... Eric Whitacre.
Anyway, about 1.5 minutes after this picture was taken, Whitney and I were all set to go, and I put my key in the ignition and turned . . . nothing. And I looked down and suddenly realized that I had turned on my lights while driving in the snow the day before, but by the time I got out of Spanish Fork the snow had stopped, and I forgot all about the lights.
Luckily, Mike and Miri hadn't left to take engagement pictures yet, so we coerced Mike into giving me a jump start, and the battery was all charged up by the time we got to Cedar - no harm done.
Moral of the story: If you have a choice between going to Cedar City and not, go. It may save you the panic of a dead battery at 7am when you have to be in Spanish Fork before 7:30.

In my defense...

So yesterday I definitely forgot to call the twins and wish them a happy birthday. I thought about it Tuesday night, and then forgot until I got a funny text from Ty this morning asking if I remembered when I used to love him, and wondering whether having the new Format CD would get him birthday wishes. (Answer: yes.)
In my defense, yesterday was pretty crazy. I had class, work, an impromptu pizza with some high school friends, a couple of hours spent working on my Hitchcock paper on campus, a trip to IC to see As You Like It (with sumo wrestling! Kenneth Branagh really is my hero.) a trip to the gelato place, a fun stint helping a friend with the MLA format of his Italian paper (first time I've worked with another language, but apparently MLA is just as ridiculous no matter what language you use) which all came to an end at about 11:15. It was an exciting day, but I never once thought about the date. Sorry Spence and Ty. I still love you.
A word or two about As You Like It: I know that a lot of people have issues with non-traditional interpretations of Shakespeare. I say, there are hundreds of traditional interpretations going on all the time, and they have been going on for hundreds of years. Since every production is an adaptation anyway, why not make it more fun? I absolutely loved the creativity involved in setting this play (one of my favorites) in 19th century Japan. Instead of sword fighting we got sumo wrestling, and samurai warriors banished the old duke - how can you go wrong? I also love Bryce Dallas Howard, and I am increasingly impressed with Romola Garai (even though she was a little obnoxious in the forest. I suppose she's supposed to be). I liked Alfred Molina as Touchstone, but I didn't feel like there was enough of him - he's by far my favorite of all of Shakespeare's fools, and his presence was scanty in this film. I enjoyed Kevin Kline as Jacques (is he really that old??) and I really liked Orlando even though I didn't know the actor. Patrick Doyle's music was as glorious as ever - so yeah. I thought it was fun. Kenneth Branagh remains amazing in my eyes. (Are we surprised? No.) Side note: it takes a serious suspension of disbelief to really think Orlando doesn't know that Ganymede is really Rosalind, except when you remember that he fell in love with her from seeing her eyes above a fan. But really? She's not even wearing a hat for half of it. She just has shorter hair and is wearing what looks like a sport coat. If he can't figure it out from this, he needs to reevaluate his love.
Tonight - Billy Joel. Hurrah!

I am a geek.

Last night I went to an honest-to-goodness poetry reading in an art gallery. It was down at Gallery 110, which is close to the Provo police station (I had flashbacks about going to traffic school) and it was so cool!
The readers were Susan Howe and Lance Larsen, both professors at BYU. I loved their styles, their varied subject matter, the surprises (things people who aren't familiar with the BYU humanities faculty would probably be surprised to hear LDS professors writing about), the rich word choice... It all made me wish I didn't write such predictable poetry. I think I'll dig out my birthday present from Treb, The Ode Less Traveled, by Stephen Fry. Maybe with a little help and last night's poets' recommendations I can be less cheesy and more wow.
Meanwhile, going to a poetry reading at an independent art gallery made me feel really cool in a geeky sort of way. I love it.

33%, 33%, and 33%!

Exciting things today:
1) I applied for graduation! I'm officially on my way out of here (assuming I get through the next 4 days, which is iffy.)
2)I ran into a million people on campus today and used up all of the time I was going to spend on homework. I saw Melanie McMullin and Josh Manwaring in the ASB, and Elise Crane, Chelsea Walker, and Melissa Gurr in the library. My favorite part is the segregation - I saw the WX people one place and the 129th ward people somewhere else.
3)I fell in love with peanut butter tracks ice cream from the creamery. Mmm...
4) Now the real reason for this post. (See the picture on the right, which I'm trying to decide whether or not I should explain. I'm thinking not, but it's funny.)
Yesterday my friend Sheldon invited me to go to the Italian club's movie night. They were showing a movie called Non ci resta che piangre which stars Roberto Benigni and Massimo Troisi, both Italians I love. (Massimo was in the terribly fantastic Il Postino, which I saw at International Cinema last year.)
Of course my first question was, "Will there be subtitles?" I'm well aware of my deficiencies with the Italian language, and I wanted to make sure. Sheldon assured me that there would be subtitles and all would be well, so I agreed to go.
We got to the club meeting and I felt like I was in a foreign country. Everyone was speaking Italian, including the professors introducing the movie. Sheldon was translating the introduction when suddenly he stopped and covered his mouth in horror. His friend on the other side started to laugh. He turned to me with wide eyes and said, "They just said there are no subtitles. I'm SO sorry."
I don't know how many people there were not members of any Italian class, but my guess would be not many. I stayed anyway, and I learned something: Italians talk with their hands a lot. So despite the language barrier, I figured out most of what was going on, and I had Italian speakers all around me for those moments when I didn't have a clue. Sheldon translated some of the more hilarious lines, and Roberto Benigni's body language is so funny that it was pretty fantastic anyway.
Let that be a lesson - don't think you can't watch a movie if you can't understand it. Unless it's a Russian movie, at which point all bets are off.

Field Trip!

Today we took an impromptu field trip during my Postmodernism class. We decided to practice what we preach and go and listen to one of our Others, so we went to the Kennedy Center sponsored lecture by Senegalese author Aminata Sow Fall. It was the first lecture I'd ever attended that had subtitles - Senegal is one of the Francophone countries in Africa, and Madame Sow Fall gave her incredible lecture in French with an English translation on a power point. The title of the lecture was "Happiness is Possible in Africa," and it was a beautiful, optimistic lecture about the necessity for people to have dignity, to be self-reliant, to be aware of their own culture . . . the list went on and it was both enlightening and beautifully said. I think one of the things I'll miss the most about the university experience is the opportunity I have to interact with people who are so much smarter and more aware of the world than I am. It is truly a gift to have such people come to speak and help me to open my eyes.