Essere o non essere

Hey all,

a girl in my class missed this afternoon because she was feeling sick. Now opera singer is lying in bed, groaning, also feeling sick. I am sympathetic, of course, but as much as I don't want to carry on like one the people in “Death Comes to the Dinner Table” who is not dying, my first thought is: I really hope that I don't get it.

Apart from that, not much today apart from finding out what Hamlet would have said if he had been a Medici. School, six hours of feeling stupid, come home, spend two hours working out, eating, having a shower, rebuilding my sense of myself as someone who is not an idiot, then some study, when it starts all over again. I have something special planned for tonight though – last night opera singer and myself caught a bit of “The Empire Strikes Back” on Italian TV. Darth Vader sounds ridiculous when dubbed in Italian – it really isn't a very frightening language – too bouncy, too many vowels, not enough hard consonants or glottal or nasty SZ sounds. The Emperor cackling away in Italian was laugh out loud funny. So today, I have got myself a copy of “Guerre Stellari IV - Una Nuova Speranza,” that is, “Star Wars IV, A New Hope” - am a bit disappointed because it is the version that George Lucas messed up with all the stupid CGI afterthoughts, but still, Han Solo from the 70's being all cool in Italian while Princess pretends to be annoyed with it... looking forward to it. And it qualifies as homework, kind of.

Photos – not a trick of perspective – this alley did get smaller and smaller as it went on. Also, a seller of posters – you see these guys everywhere – and they are not supposed to be doing it – from time to the time the cops come around and chase them away. It looks like the posters are side by side, but they are not – they are overlapped by about two inches – tiled – the guy in the purple t-shirt standing at the end – if the cops come he will scoop his fingers underneath the posters near him and then run forward, scooping up all of them in one go, before running off in to the crowd. Have not actually seen this happen yet, but opera singer assures me it is very exciting.

Cheers, B.