Our class meeting to discuss the "Week Outline" one bright and early Monday October 20 was Layne's chance to lay it down for all to see.

First of all, our grad student assistant, Sara Yerkes, is no longer with us (scholastically speaking). Something about not being able to keep up with Layne, most likely. Not a big surprise to me, having taken many of Layne's classes back in Seattle and knowing the preparation that's needed in keeping up with her.

Now, as for us undergrads:<Ahem...>

We are here to Make Art, not just learn Italian three days a week.

We need to get into the studio more, and do more work.

If being in the studio making our art keeps us from going to

Does that mean we won't be taking more all-day tours until we've had a chance to settle into the studio? Yeah, right!

language class at Italiaidea, well, "que sera sera.", or however they say it here. Professor Goldsmith will be on our side if we miss an Italian language class due to working on our projects, but she will not side with us if we don't get some projects done, pronto, for whatever the reason may be.

Hmmm, does that mean we won't be taking more all-day tours until we've had a chance to settle into the studio? Yeah, right! Well, we won't have to spend all day on a bus at least....

Our next journey will be for tomorrow's drawing class, to the American Academy on the Gianicolo overlooking the city from the West. Up the hill from the Trastevere neighborhood and just south of the Vatican, it's within walking distance from where more than half of us live, and even for the students who live a bit further away in the center of town it's not necessarily so far away as to require wheeled transportation. For all our "tour-bus" schooling we've done so far, Rome really is shaping up to be a city in which we can walk to get where we need to be and do what we need to do.

Then, at the Pio, we'll see a slide presentation preparing us for next week's visit to the Sistine Chapel, and the following drawing class will put us on the Via Giulia (not to be confused with the Etruscan Museum already visited at the Villa Giulia), a centrally-located street familiar to us all, which houses some well-known palazzi. Finally, we have an appointment for a private viewing at the Gabinetto delle Stampe, a distinguished collection of engravings collected during, and illustrating the history of, Rome's development as an artistic capital.

But first, of course, is Italiaidea -- if we're actually going to class. Which I still am doing. I did notice, however, that the bail had begun, and there seemed to be noticeably fewer students taking part in the language instruction after Layne's talk this morning. Having successfully developed a few key ideas over the weekend after gaining access to the copy machine, I felt secure in continuing the Italian classes, even though I probably wasn't learning much more than I could have by instead going to the store and trying to buy my groceries and a newspaper. Which neatly brings up the topic of my ideas for artwork, which I shall divulge in good time, my dear reader (as soon as I figure them out to the point where I can explain them)....