Tuesday 5 July 2016

July 5th - Classes and Great Food


Today was another full classroom day. We had an early morning lecture on Fight Club that made me want to watch Fight Club again. Lecture was followed by two hours of workshop. We’ve finished the Creative Non Fiction and Fiction worksheets so tomorrow we’re starting the YA worksheets. I’m excited yet nervous at the same time. I’m last to get critiqued, but I have to introduce a work tomorrow which is equally as intimidating.

For lunch, we went to the restaurant across the street for pizza after a recommendation. I had been fine with the pizza from CafĂ© Washington, but now I know better. This pizza was thin, huge, and delicious. I’m limiting my cheese intake so I’ve been sticking to Marinara pizza which is sauce and oregano, but this one also had garlic. From the first bite I was in heaven. Beautiful! I do find it odd that I cannot eat a whole pizza in one sitting given the lack of ingredients.  



Sitting outside in the sun has not been good for me and I started to not feel good – once again. I hate being ill on trips. It’s no fun at all. What’s worse is I felt great waking up. I sleep amazingly. I had a good breakfast and then started feeling a little off. By the end of lunch, I was done. I had planned on doing some work during lunch, but I ended up taking a nap which was just as good.

The afternoon we had graduating student lectures which were hilarious and beneficial. They were followed by a lecture on Fellini which although interesting focused a lot on a film we didn’t watch. The day’s classes ended with student readings. Each student who signs up gets 5 minutes to read some of their work to the group. I’ll be reading in a few days. It was great to hear everyone’s work. The sheer variety.

Dinner tonight was with my YA peeps. Because our YA group is split up during workshop and we had had such a great chat about books earlier in the week thought it would be a good idea to have dinner and continue that talk so that’s what we did. We went to a restaurant just around the corner from our hotel, something I was thankful for because the moment I step out into that heat I start to feel ill. It was a small quaint little restaurant with great service. I had planned on getting the vegetable soup, even though I had had it the night before at the hotel, but then one of the specials was gnocchi in pesto. I couldn’t resist and I’m glad I didn’t. I totally understand why gnocchi translates as pillow. It was creamy and melted in your mouth. The best meal I’ve had yet. The meal was followed with complimentary shots of limoncello which was a little cough syrup tasting with a kick. It warmed me right up, not that I need help with that in 90 degree weather. Food was good and the conversation was good. I wish I had felt better though to participate more. I basically had to hold my head up to make it through dinner, but by the end I started to feel better.



With dinner over with it was back to the hotel to finish the my cross-genre screenplay which is due tomorrow at 12:45. Luckily, I had most of it done, and the main outline done, so I just had to finalize everything. We had to write a 2-page screenplay set in Rome or featuring its architecture/art work with a maximum of 3 characters, and with a beginning, middle, and end. I wrote a futuristic shootout at the Roman Forum. I think I’m happy with it. J I’ll do one last pass in the morning before sending it off. Tomorrow I’m looking forward to morning classes and an afternoon tour to Ostia Antica. Here’s hoping I don’t melt along the way!

No comments:

Post a Comment