I'm living in a convent.

In no way will this blog post be what it once was. I had it all written out than SOME how got deleted:( After a LONG weekend in Rome I do not have the mental capacity to think deeply through and beautifully rewrite what I first wrote, which was pretty dang good. So...here it goes for the second time. 

I live in a convent. A straight up ancient convent built in early 1200’s (i’m pretty sure). Although, it is not a practicing convent, we still uphold the community standard of living. This convent is set up with a communal sala or hang out space, kitchen, sleeping area, and a studio. With these 19 other students we eat together every meal which can be anywhere from 1-2 hours, we sleep in the same place split up into roommates, we have class together in our basement studio, we travel together, and we hang out together. We literally do EVERYTHING together. I’m pretty sure these people are going to see the worst and best of me. And that is the point of community. To love, walk through, and accept each other through the good and bad. I already adore this community of young adults all searching for the same things durning this season: God, art, and good italian food :) 

When I first got to the convent it was after hours and hours of traveling, not sleeping on the plane, my body feeling like it was the middle of the night, hungry beyond belief, and than lugging up my overweight suitcase on the cobble stone up a hill. Yet, by my excitement and my “oh my gosh seriously” comments about every two seconds, you wouldn’t have been able to tell of my past 24 hours. We set out stuff down and Prof Doll gives us a tour of our new space. We about died. None of us expected the convent to look this nice or white. ALL of the walls are white. Modern, clean lines, simple. After the tour Prof asks if we have any questions, I yell out “is literally everything from Ikea or what?”. All he says is, “literally everything,” with a big grin. They sure do love Ikea around here! I’m not hating I have a passionate love towards that mega store of inspiration. We are only the second semester to live in the convent after reventorating the entire place, so it’s freaking nice and new!!

This is our gate to the convent. (above) Cute little Gordon plaque outside and everything. Prof Doll has three kids and he told us a story of when they first started renting this place. Silyis goes “Look we have a little bit of Jesus.” There is a fresco (don’t quote me on that) above our gate. 

The courtyard, to play games and such. They want to make it into more of a garden- in the process. 

Emily in the kitchen. She is our TA so teaching assisant. She just graduated from IWU and I knew her pretty well before this, so that is nice to have :) 

We eat at a family own restaruent every lunch and dinner besides Sat and Sun. We have someone cook a home made meal for us. Than we eat breakfast in here in the morning. 

The sala or family room. We have chapter meetings which is a thing convents do. It’s a community meeting every other day or so where we talk about house hold issues, devotionals, etc. Or we use this place to hang, watch a movie, worship all together. This is where I am sitting currently. It’s nice when the windows are open and I can see the bamboo sway in the breeze. Notice the drawing in the far right. That would be Ariel :) My best friend came here last semester and apparently someone drew her for a figure drawing class and now I see her every day :) 

The studio!!! is downstairs in the basement. It already has been a bit chilly but it’s beautiful. In the other room where the dark door is more of the studio. It still has three huge arches and is where the monks would hold their services. So it’s a really holy place and all :) We have been drawing for the last 2 weeks and i’ve enjoyed it. Not love it but enjoy. Prof sends us out into the city to draw buildings, people, arches, streets, pizzas, etc. The next two weeks of the class we are splitting up into two groups and focusing on our big project. So half the class will be doing a drawing, a HUGE drawing of something in the city. Some place they have a connection with. I am doing the book. It’s VERY hard to explain other than i have to write a poem sorta thing about a space than visually describe it using text and images. I will show when I am finished. We just finished reading Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” which is a conceptual architecture book that i was blown away by. 

And this is my room :) cozy. I didn’t take a picture of the whole room cause my roommates were there and didn’t like me doing that. whatevs. haha. We cannot put anything on the walls because they are white and the paint comes off easily. 

Off to do some more homework!! ROMA pictures will be up soooon!!! Takes forever to upload photos.