I'm not about to complain though! One more week, 5 more classes, 2 more papers and 2 more presentations and then I'm done until finals! I'll be leaving for Milan on March 29th, going from there to Genoa, then Florence in time for my 21st birthday, then Rome and Venice with my good friend Malin so I should have a good break whilst being back in Italy before I return to meet up with my parents and do some more traveling around Scotland. The temperature has slowly been getting warmer so hopefully by the time I return from the South it'll be nicer.
Today was good - I woke up, turned in my 3000 word Methodology of Art History paper on the restrictions imposed on the study of art history by a restriction to the Western canon (doesn't that sound like fun?!), went to Beanscene for a chocolate muffin and a mocha (ah, yum), went to my Italian conversation hour during which I yet again wondered if I just have stupid classmates or if the UK system really fails at teaching languages (I've decided it's a bit of both) then took a walk downtown. I went to Primark first (come on, who doesn't love cheap cute clothes?!) and bought a dress! Then I spent an hour or two reading at Waterstone's because I didn't think a book was worth spending the 10 pounds on (and it certainly wasn't).
This next bit requires a bit of back story I suppose: a couple of weeks ago at Waterstone's I found a book that was this guy's study on Matisse's reception in America starting with the 1913 Armory Show. If you know me, you know that this is basically my perfect book. Only problem was, I couldn't find a price tag. At the time I was buying a book by Calvino so I figured I'd ask at the register if they could look up a price. The cute Scottish guy (ha) spend about 15 minutes looking on the computers and asking other employees to try and figure it out because apparently the book was no longer in the store's system even though it was on the shelf. He eventually told me they could sell it to me for 25 pounds which, even though the book sounded interesting, was exorbitant in my mind. It's just a ~250 page hardcover book, no plates and in fact it was kind of beaten up. So I said thanks but no thanks, bought the Calvino, and left. I returned to my dorm only to look up the book online and find out that its $45+ in the US. So a week or so later I returned to Waterstone's but the book was no longer on the shelf, alas.
Anyway, today, I was browsing through the Art History books, noting down titles of the larger ones to buy when I'm back home, and voila! There's the Matisse book! Same copy (I could tell my the worn cover edges - Malin, you would kill someone!) and even though it had been put back on the shelf, still no price tag. I decided 'what the hell?! I'll buy it' and went to the register. The cute guy (a different one - there's 2 of them!) was very confused when he scanned the barcode and nothing showed up, so I told him that this had happened before and that apparently it wasn't in their system. He asked me when this had happened and I told him a couple of weeks ago and that they had said they'd sell it to me for 20 pounds (I'm a horrible liar but I guess the pout and the American accent work wonders here) so he shrugged and said OK. So yes, apparently I should've said 15 pounds because that probably would've worked just as well, but as it is I got 5 pounds off which is enough for me! Hopefully it will be as good as it looks.
So after Waterstone's it had started raining (ew) but I went to the movie theatre to meet up with some girls from my art history classes. The Cineworld theatre here in Glasgow is HUGE and this big multi-level debacle - of course half the escalators weren't working so we had to go down to go up and up to go down, etc etc. Twas very confusing but eventually we made it to the 4th floor (which was really more like the 8th or 9th) to go and see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which is based on Stieg Larsson's first novel. This movie has been out for almost a year (or over, I can't remember) in the rest of Europe but only came out here in the UK last Friday and is being released in the US tomorrow. Overall I was a bit disappointed, but that's because I went in with high expectations from the book. They did do a good job simplifying the plot (all that financial stuff was hard enough to swallow in writing) and the 2 main actors were very well cast but it was rather long and much more gruesome than the book seemed. Also it was rather awkward because this middle aged man came and sat down next to me halfway through the previews even though there were loads of other seats, which would have been fine but there were several awkward sexual scenes in the movie, including some rape and non-consensual tattooing so it was a tad weird sitting next to a stranger. I do suggest seeing the movie though if you think you can stomach the violence and the 3 hours of Swedish with English subtitles, though it's still a surprise to me that the Swedes made it before Hollywood picked up the rites.
Anyway, that was my day today. I'm going to watch some of the opening day of March Madness now in preparation for the Georgetown-Ohio game that's on in about half an hour and then try and work on the 2 essays I have left this weekend... yeah, we'll see how that goes.
Katherine
