Trotting along

Ciao everyone, I hope Tuesday morning is going well for you all; I know that financial Armageddon has occurred back home as it's all the talk of the world today, as I am sure it is back home. If it makes anyone feel better, the dollar is getting stronger by the minute versus the Euro, the Swiss Franc, and the Yen, as all markets around the world are tumbling. I was getting really nervous for a minute that all of my life was about to get more and more expensive with a tumbling dollar, but everyone is getting hit hard now, not just the U.S. Don't know if that should make anyone feel any better, but it's interesting to note, that's for sure.

But yes, the talk around here has been very political as of late. Who won the debate? What'd you think of how Obama did overall / McCain started vs. finished, and do you think the bailout will pass? We all thought it would, and when it didn't, I gotta say, I was universally disappointed in the finger pointing that went on between parties. We need unity right now, and seeing the vote distribution, it was astonishing to see the split really had little to do with party lines, which made me happy in a way, but sad in another, as Republicans blamed Democrats, Democrats defend and turn the tables and it's just like "ack, stop already, we've got a problem and both sides apparently didn't think this was the answer. Let's find a solution, be it bankrupt protection or bankruptcy, or something else I don't really know about, but it's not working so let's move on."

It's unsettling to see it going on and I don't even earn any money anymore. It makes me wonder what the landscape is going to look like in a week, a month, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. How will this pan out? Will everyone look towards our American resolve and move ahead or panic and crash? I sure hope we can move on together and find a solution.

Anyway, I'm sure media saturation is at an all time high, I mean, it's an incredibly important time in American history, at the crossroads of about a billion things, and the next president is going to have a lot on his plate, but man, it's something else to not be there during a time like this. I can't decide if I'm away or a little homesick so I could be there and just feel it outside of CNN and BBC.com.

But yes, on to more exciting things. Yesterday was crazy busy and hence no blog, but I had 6 hours of class and all went well; I'm simultaneously studying the Byzantine Empire and ideas of Icon worship and the Iconoclasm movement and how it played into Roman Christianity, the culture of the Tyrol people in Northern Italy who are ethnically German in St. Felix, and the Thomas Aquinas and his baptizing of the Aristotelian philosophian of the ancient Greeks, all while still learning Italian and living in Roma. It's quite the smattering of areas to study, and none of them have I ever spent much (if any) time on, so it's really quite cool. The studying here is not quite as challenging (yet, anyway) as UCSD, but maybe because I haven't had to start paper research yet and maybe because I am used to doing this much reading as a PoliSci major, whereas many people here simply are not used to reading this much.

Last night I got back around 7ish and did some homework, studied a bit, and had to make dinner, but then after that it was off to bed for today, since I had to get up and go to class again, but now my classes for today are over and it's just studying and seeing how the world reacts to the U.S. financial crisis and how the dollar keeps doing, since I have near 3 months left over here and I need it to stay ok.

Oh, and I saw the Sarah Palin / Tina Fey SNL skit and it was so spot on, it's comical and terrifying at the same time. Man, what a country we live in, eh? Or rather where I tend to live. I'm in Roma and going to Milan and Switzerland this weekend, that's right. That's going to be awesome. Glad all of that stuff's been booked already. But I'm going to go get some groceries later and get everything ready for tomorrow's classes, as I have a visit to the Roman Forum (woohoo!) at 9 and then classes at 11:30 and 4:30 for two hours a piece and about 150 pages between now and then, so that'll be fun. I hope all of you have a peaceful Tuesday and that the sky doesn't fall between now and next time I blog; I have faith that we'll see this whole thing through.

Until next time.

Ciao.