chocolate chips and maple syrup

so after a busy and happy week (6 days?) at home i am all packed up and returning to the world of Roma. i think of most people in philadelphia, i was the most appreciative of the freezing rain and winds this past week. it opens up those crazy conversations with strangers that are impossible to recount later because they are just too strange. but anyway. the point of the story, is that now that i have gotten to take in those chemicals that are particluar to philly, and just floating in the air here back into my blood stream. i feel refreshed, relaxed and ready to take in some more rome.
as most of you know, i am taking ruth with me, and i am going to hold on to her for about 12 days or so. we are gonna super hero sister team it up... as it were... and roam the roman streets (... get it?) for about two weeks - anyway, we'll post stuff, and so on. but it was good to see everyone... or.. almost everyone. and yall best stay well! anyway, i don't leave for the airport for a nice bunch of hours, but i figured i'd write something now.
p.s.
guess what is opening at the art museum from feb. 20th until may 18th!!!
Frida Kahlo!!!
(http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/278.html)

(this is the image that came in the mail)
anyway.
peace yall
see ya in the spring
love

sup homie

i am home. i love home. there is something so refreshingly cozy and revitalizing about returning to the nest. even if there is freezing pouring rain outside, and i got completely drenched, i loved it because it was home.
it is strange to be able to understand everything. language wise... that is.
i mean, think about it. it has been 4 months since i have understood basically every word uttered around me.

but i miss carlos

i wish he was here to see my home. him and his mother and sister have been so welcoming to me, and so open. they are my family in rome. i wish he was here to meet my family, and see my home and where i am from. (not that he is from rome.) but he will get to meet ruth who is coming back to rome with me. i missed my baby.
anyway.
i am dead tired, and so confused about time right now. it is either 4:26 am or it is 11:26 pm.... confusion.
i am going to my dreams now.

happy birthday gee-wee.

home?

this is gonna be a busy busy month... this december we got ourselves here....

so what had happen' was....

first off all, thank you for all those comments yall. after thinking more, and reading what yall said, and thinking, "yeah", or "naw..." or "oh?" and some "maybe i could..." and after talking to a lot of other people, and talking a lot ot myself,
i figure it like this.
i made another huge big sarah project that i do not have time for in the time that is allotted. but this does not change to fact that i need to produce something for my final (not that my teacher seems to care about concept anyway... butthead)
so. here is what goes down now.
i am gonna do as follows. this will be the little practice, warm up, test run for what might be later to come, mixed with a pinch of bullshit, and a little dallop of the communication bit (i'll take it as it comes.)
so.
book of stranger faces will be appreaing within the next two weeks,
and will be bound and availible nowhere books are sold.


i am thinking however that maybe next semester i will work up this project (part 2) in either my advanced painting or advanced drawing class, or both. who knows.
and then. MAYBE! MAYBBBBBEEE! if i actually think i have something that is working, and worthwhile, when i get back to philly, maybe i will try to apply for a grant of sorts to do whatever the project becomes and get the end result put up somewhere or something. i am thinking like... peoples stories in brief on septa bus waiting stops.
and then have the relating image(s) in a show somewhere.
of course this would all have to be more thought out. and i would have to make sure all of this was ok with the people i was talking to, and so on and so forth....
oh god. i am ranting... i am tired.

anyway...
in other pressing matters. it is still too cold here.
and i still miss home. but i am still toughing it out.

people are talking about what to do for winter break, as in where to go.
i think i am going to try to get to africa for spring break.
so for winter break i may just take a bunch of little trips.

ok... i have nothing else to say.
i am going to go eat my clementines and study some italian.
(ohh.... i word on the street is blood oranges are gonna be heading to the rome markets soon!!!! yummmm.....)

doggie treats

really bad color. i am not sure you get the idea. these are just two little guys. i've been having fun playing around with figures recently. not much. just a little nibble of what is going down.
i didn't have time to take a lot of pictures. but whatever. it ain't nothing you never done seen before.

in other news.
things getting crazy over here work wise, as i think i mentioned before. things getting coooolllld!!!! over here weather wise. getting a little home sick. not too bad. just you know those rainy days when all you want to do is curl up at home on the couch, with some tea, and a good movie you've seen a million times before, but love all the same? yeah... that kinda deal. but it is ok. i'm gonna stick it out.
for my rome sketchbook final, which i am going to start today, right after i do my laundry...
well, i want to do some drawings, lines.. shapes... and some color blocks.... i think, of immigrant here. i have my reasons and my thoughts. but the only thing that is really holding me up is the question of how to approach this whole thing. the immigrantion deal here ain't too hot. i don't think immigrants are having such a good time anywhere right now... but i feel so aware here of this color/class/race divide. and i don't feel comfortable just going up to someone and saying hey! let me draw you! i'm a cute little middle-class white american who will never have to deal with the shit people out you through... so... how about it? i just don't know.
but it is what i want to do. and the teach approved it. so now i must go and do.
but how?! i am all about talking. but i just don't know if that is something i could do here. aside from language stuff, which i feel i could get by with, i think there are just different silent social contracts here than in the states. does that make any sense?
i was asking carlos about it. and he said, yeah, it is a strange request. but that is what it is. he said he knows some people (that boy knows everyone within a good 15 block radius of his house... i swear) and he could ask them if they would mind if i drew them. but then, how do i say thank you? i would have no problem paying them something, but i feel like that is a cop-out, and a little insulting somehow.. is it? is it not? i was thinking like, well, they would basically be acting as a model, so i pay a model hourly modeling-time-money. but there is more to this, no? or am i just making it that way?
i don't know.
i need thoughts people! dimi! (tell me!)

long time comin'

sorry this took me so long yall, and sorry it isn't that much. i think i may bring my camera to school today and take some shots of some other work... just to make up for it.
there is just about a little more than a month of school left for this semester. i can't believe how fast time has flown by... and things are gettin a little crazy over here with work. but this is life, no? but anyway. here are just a couple pages from the istanbul travel book. i feel like this book is gonna be with me on the rest of the trips i make while over here. it needs some more. but here is some stuffs. luff (love) saywah (me.)