Doin My Part to Keep Austin Weird.

Anyway, things have been HAPPENING in Austin. If I was looking for a huge life change, I've got one! First of all, the city is really cool. Downtown has all of these crazy highrises (I CAN'T BELIEVE I LIVE IN A PLACE WITH SKYSCRAPERS!) and there is the Texas capital building. The capital is BIGGER than the U.S. capital and it is all lit up at night. It is very beautiful. Austin is a very hipster-like city. Everything is impossibly hip and hole-in-the-wall and all the walls of everything are painted. But, unlike NY, Austin is non-prententious....so no Brooklyn hispters and the hip culture is just something everyone takes part in and tight jeans are not a requirement.

There are a bajillion good restaurants and they are all dirt cheap. The Tex Mex is Amazing. The margaritas are SO strong and good. There are SO many good bars. And they all have great cheap beer. There are movie theaters that offer dinner (like dinner and a movie) and there are theaters that offer mockings of films...imagine the Rocky Horror Picture Show for LOTR! Live music in every bar every night. The first ever/flagship Whole Foods is here. The only Co-op grocery store in TX is here too. The university is HUGE, but the central section is really pretty---very southwestern with the red rooftiles. The architecture library is covered with these ceramic roundels of the zodiac--very Italianate. The whole campus is COVERED with these ridiculous statues...some of MLK, one of George Washington, some of them are like horse drawn chariots racing out of a fountain (very baroque).

The people in my program seem pretty cool. The good thing about Texas is that the professors are the best in the country, and yet they are non-pretentious...which is pretty rare in art history. It is a field that BREEDS pretension like the American Kennel Club. The students follow suite and are collegial instead of catty and competitive. It is a good feeling. I met with Glenn Peers, who studies Medieval Italy and Byzantium. He bought me coffee and we chatted about everything for about an hour. He mentioned Harry Potter no fewer that 3 times. Then, my adviser, Jeff Chipps Smith brought me out to lunch in order to chat with me about the program and research and get to know me...this being 1 day before he left to go to Europe for a conference. So yeah, I feel really welcomed and taken care of here. Moreover, I have 2 jobs now. I am working for the woman who does Italian Renaissance art, Eva Struhal. I am going to be her grader for her course on the Italian Baroque. I am also work for Jeff Smith as an editorial assistant for his academic journal, the Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art.

My classes are super dorky: I am taking Antwerp in the 16th Century, Methods of Art History (required), Dutch, and a reading tutorial on Faith and Art in the Medieval Mediterranean. What a reading tutorial comprises of is going to an undergraduate college writing seminar every week, doing the work for the seminar, and having a few extra reading assignments a week on a topic of my choice. My topic is the conversation between Muslim and Christians in Medieval Sicily. I will meet one-on-one with Dr. Peers on a weekly basis to discuss this independent work.

My Methods class is supposedly like the Devil Wears Prada...emotional and art historical hazing with primadonna John Clarke. John Clarke is a GIANT in art history. He used to be the president of CAA, which is the art history academic society. He is super intense and is not very nice. He is like "GET ME A STEAK! GO" "YOU FAIL! YOU AREN'T GETTING A PhD...or going to Paris!" Lucky me. AND....my first class lasted 5 hours. Ouch.

While my whole Methodsclass was walking across campus, Clarke overheard me tell someone I spoke Italian. He looks at me (mind you, he has been walking alone at the front for this whole excursion), and says "Parli italiano? Vieni qui. Parliamo.[You speak Italian?] Come here! We will speak]" I hear he likes to rip first-year grad students apart for not knowing languages when they claim they do, so understandably, I am nervous. We start speaking. He is telling me all about his scava [excavations] in Naples...some piscina or something. Then we talk about where I studied Italian and where my family comes from, and then, we speak of this exhibit at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence (because it encompasses my art historical interests). He tells me that my Italian is good and that I speak in a subtle Florentine accent. This man does not flatter, nor does he dole out compliments...ever. I am told this is like the utmost compliment from such a man. I am grateful as hell for my Italian abilities given to me by Middlebury College. They started me out on a good foot in Methods....which is what I need.

I am sure you know this, but I am learning DUTCH!?!?! It is honestly my favorite class. The language is SO hard to pronounce, but it is such a goofy language. I call is the goofy stepchild of English and German. Nederlands is fun....1) because it is very relaxing and entertaining in the face of all of the theory I am forced to read and 2) my 30-year old grad student professor is really quite attractive. Today I learned to say what I am studying: Ik studeer kunstgeschiedenis. My major is pronounced kunstHHHHHHescHHiedenis. Like, a super guttural first HHHHH (the G sound...so romantic) and the second HHH a little less guttural. Kunstgeschiedenis is hands down the most difficult word I have tried to pronounce in any of the 5 languages I have studied.

This is the first part of my update....more to come.