The majority of this week has consisted of learning about proteins, one of the most complex, necessary, and incredible things that make up our bodies and the world around us. Forgive me as I go off on a bit of an absurd tangent – I blame the astonishing nature of cells and proteins for skewing …
Category Archives: Block 4
Aesthetics
Today, we talked about the concept of an aesthetic experience. When I first heard the term, my mind immediately jumped to the visual factor. Given that this is an art-heavy class and Florence is renowned for its visual beauty, this felt like a fair assumption. As the philosophy major in our class explained, however, the …
Scary Excitement of Third Week
Second week has come to a close and third week starts up tomorrow… Scary? Exciting? Both! We are more than half way through the block – we have leaned so much yet still have so much to learn! At this point in any block, you are fully submerged in the material of your course yet …
A Giant Leap for Womankind
We’re moving from two dimensions to three this week, from painting to sculpture! During the Renaissance, sculptures were a way to influence public perceptions and identity- a form of political propaganda. The sculpture that I fell most in love with is the Juno Fountain, by Bartolomeo Ammannati. The fountain was commissioned by Cosimo I of …
Beyond the Face
Ciao! Artwork in this city is starting to feel much more interconnected than I had realized before. Quinn’s last blog post described the process of VTS, or Visual Thinking Strategies, which involve slowing down and observing before making judgments or coming to conclusions. I feel that by constantly reminding myself to practice VTS while observing …
Thoughts on Gazing
Gazing: Gender, Bodies, Faces, and Emotions Well, we just finished week one of our class here in Florence. I’ve been really enjoying it, partly because the curriculum involves so many cultural immersion experiences, but also because the discussions we have been having in class have proven to be remarkably thought provoking. So far in class …
A Chance Encounter with The David
Today marks the beginning of an adventure for me, and like all true adventures, it is equally exhilarating and terrifying. Though I am a senior, and feel like I’m starting to get the hang of psych classes, this one is a little intimidating. I signed up for “Gazing” because I think Tomi-Ann is a really bright …
Organic Chemistry is Alkynes of Fun
As week three comes to a close, the Orgo I students finished up their last experiments and checked out of lab. The foundations of organic structures and configurations have already been established in the first two weeks of class leading up to the final full week where concepts are expanded to reagents and mechanisms of …
Japanese and Kanji
You would find Chinese and Japanese similar to each other at the first sight. At ancient times, Japan had its own oral language but did not have specific characters. Later on, Chinese culture and language were brought to Japan, and some scholars started to use Chinese characters (called kanji) to represent Japanese language which had …
Japanese……Food(๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧!!
Hey all こんばんわー(konbanwa-)(good evening)! I’ve been thinking all the time about what to write about a language course. What did I do today? New grammar and vocab. What else? Memorizing new grammar and vocab. 面白くない*! So I decided to start from why I chose Japanese. Usually, besides interest, why would you learn a new language? …
