Summer Plans

I suppose I should have written a post about leaving Florence- something about the life changing experience of studying abroad for a year coming to a close, about everything I've learned and seen and become.  And I did think about writing something, but I never sat down to do it.  Final exams were certainly part of the reason, but if I really had something, if there really was something to be written, it would have been written.  But I don't feel as though a blog post would have done it justice.  (An entire book would probably be more appropriate).  I didn't want to summarize, or skip anything, because if I've learned anything from being here it's that every single little thing matters, no matter how insignificant it seems at the time.  And if I leave all of those things out, which I'd have to if I wanted to write something of a reasonably readable length, I'd be negating so much of my experience.

Luckily for me, and to the dismay of some of my friends at home, my experience abroad isn't over yet.  It's continuing for the next to month in a new location (my favorite location in Italy!).  Back in March I applied for a grant that would allow me to stay in Italy for the summer in order to perform a self designed, independent research project.  I designed a two part project that, in short, involves a study of southern Italian writers and a small, ethnographic study of Naples and the surrounding areas.  I was awarded the grant (Thank you, Smith College!) and now here I am.  Today is the first official day of research, and the project runs through July 13 (though I won't be back stateside until the 29th).  

On my second to last day in Florence, I went to get a sandwich at Pino's (I mentioned him in a post a while back).  When I was telling him about my project he seemed pleased at my interest in the subject.  "People like to forget that culture started in the south [of Italy].  We invented culture".  Then yesterday, when I was buying books for the project, the man at the bookstore was quite excited to hear about my plans, and started rattling off a list of literary suggestions.  That kind southern pride, for lack of a better or more creative way of putting it, is something I'm familiar with, but only informally.  My (summarized) goal for the project is, via the literature I read and the local people I meet and talk with, to formalize that familiarity, to put it into a new context (new for me, anyway).

I'll be sharing some of  my observations here, as I've done, or tried to do, all year.  If you've read any of this blog during my time in Florence, thank you.  I hope you'll stay tuned to this next leg of my adventure.