when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore (so much amore that this is the biggest blog in history)

sometimes reality lives up to ideals. i've said it before.it doesn't happen that often, so when it does occur, we must pay life the reverence it deserves. my passionate love for italia has something to do with seeing places that make me salivate (even when viewing photos or discussing renaissance art with my students), drinking more wine than i have ever consumed in a three-week period, spending christmas in the queen of christian countries with ron and robyn, paying homage to gelato, espresso, pizza and tiramisu in their respective birth places, playing the role of a fabulous, fashion-conscience smoking italian (despite D.A.R.E., cigarette smoking is still a hint of sexxy to me), brushing my teeth with tap water (a constant joy when available) and drinking from the fresh springs on the streets of rome... there's too many causes to try to relate my love for italy to a set of specific factors, kind of like the complexity of trying to decipher exact causes of typhoid in india.

roma:

the pre-christmas shopping craze hit rome like a load of bricks. on sunday we braved the spanish steps area (the trendiest of trendy, where louis vuitton and prada rub shoulders and nothing is less than 300 euro) and the toy show in the nearby plaza. it is of course impossible to explain the splendor and enormity of st. peter's basilica and the colleseum, the sistine chapel (which i illegally took a photo of), the school of athens!!!, my favorite mural, the pieta my favorite piece of art, eating mcdonalds overlooking the pantheon and listening to street performers, strolling through the galleria borghese (the most remarkable museum space i have ever seen), the huge park in rome, watching pizzas spinning through the air, eating in streetside cafes...

firenze:

i loved florence, and not just because it is home to perche no! the finest gelateria in el mundo. there was something about the river, the winding lanes, the lofted hotel room that i would happily live in for the rest of my days, the boutiques and christmas spirit. i spent a night wandering the streets alone, amongst the chrismas shoppers, imagining the days when florence was a cultural capital and trading center of the renaissance with the medicis strolling the streets and the artists milling around the streets. there is something about walking the streets solo, intention and awareness heightened, the anonymity and self-reliance of navigating a foreign city with minimal fluency alone. somehow, these moments are the moments that make me feel the most alive. the most in touch with being a human, the most aware that i am magnificently alone in the world, with all the accompanying wonder and fear. it's moments and evenings like these that clarify why i love traveling. in short (which will be espoused upon later), travel is my religion, the time i feel most in touch with humanity, the height of my faith in others and the most aware of the beauty around me.

venice:
there is a part of magnolia where the quiz kid is watching frogs fall from the sky like raindrops and he comments, “this is something that happens.” i am convinced that if more children knew that water taxis existed, the population of venice would quadruple. on new year’s eve my dad and i went to a concert in san marco plaza and then the three humms watched the best-fireworks-we-have-ever-seen-including-all-of-the-big-pine-lake-shows-combined over the grand canal with an Italian family who insisted we share their champagne (as the americans only had beer). an incredible fish market with gigantic fish (only to be rivaled by that in goa), winding, romantic lanes circumnavigating the canal system, accordion players and gondola drivers, the peggy guggenheim museum of modern art (a welcome change from the renaissance period), the best tiramisu ever, a jazz scene… what more? the first night sans robyn and ron i went to barocca jazz and, needless to say, went home minus one bra. if you leave a bra, you receive a tank top “i left my bra at barocca jazz” (how could i turn that down?) see the one hanging on the bellini (a delicious Italian drink) sign? that’s mine. what can i say, must be quite a catch to get the prime spot…

milan, bergamo and lake como

when does the highlights reel end, you may ask? never. seeing elizabeth speaking italian and showing me around her hometown was enough to send me right over the edge of infatuation with italy. we caught up like it had been not months but moments since we last met, drinking coffee, navigating the streets, taking in the culinary delights, getting piercings, going on a hottt date in lake como—complete with italian shoe shopping, carousel and ferris wheel riding and a meal in a restaurant-so-trendy-that-though-we-are-trendy-women-we-stuck-out-and-garnered-stares-all-around.
being with elizabeth can be summarized in one antecdote, each time we found ourselves in public, we had to mute our boisterous laughter so that tears would pour down our mute faces because we were drawing so much attention from our excitement of togetherness.

there is nothing cuter in the world than small children speaking italian (and french)—it sounds like they’re singing. for this reason, italian and french children have begun approaching the cuteness factor of asian babies in my eyes. those epicanthic folds still get me, though. what can i say? an ethrocentric betty, i suppose.

other highlights had little to do with the setting. movie-watching wine-drinking chips-eating nights in the hotel room, taking in the best of the humm family christmas selection, dancing to music videos each morning on mtv, reverting to the spoiled only child role of comfort... and, of course, christmas with family for the first time in three years... making a place i love in theory a home in reality via experience and family.

ash and isaac, this blog is dedicated to you. you asked for more, and here it is. also, if you don't write a comment, i will cut you the next time i see you. seriously.

take a chill pill

i think i have an anger management issue. i don’t take it out on the kids (most of the time, i’ve only made one kid cry, and i apologized and all is well). but i do have a profanity issue. i am selfish and like to submerge myself in whatever i want. this makes me immature. also, i don’t want to fucking change to the new blogger. i like things to stay the same, especially unimportant ones that i can control. but there is an element of anger in my body at these moments. where impatience grows and irritation levels skyrocket through the roof. like right now, when microsoft word automatically capitalizes things. not everyone wants things capitalized. What about bell hooks, e.e. cummings and me? dammit. at least i have this blog to assert my irritation level. except, now i have beta blogger. which I didn’t fucking want anyway.

the great fashion plate, india kitty catt

india elizabeth kitty catt cooper has more style in her ribbon-shoelaces than most peope have in their whole bodies. another plus, when these shoes tread in the snow, they leave a path of flowers behind.

winter wonderland

i never thought i'd miss the snow and cold. but after three winters outside of my natural habitat-- the minnesota winter-- i welcome it with open arms. the snow storm was topped off by the most beautiful sunset i've seen in recent memory. the second snow-filled day included possibly the most amazing thing ever-- a snow thunderstorm. the little courtney that lives inside of me danced around in excitement, pressing her nose to the window, standing under the grey sky and catching flakes on my tongue as the thunder rumbled.

however, since the snow fall, mussoorie is snowed in-- no taxis approach and none can leave because of the treacherous roads. when i walked down to school following the storm, i saw the chokidars (guards) raking the snow. john deere has a market for his goods he can't even imagine. yesterday, one of my students was particularly excitable. after 40 minutes of random comments, staring out the window and off-the-wall behavior, my patience (which i have so much of...) dwindled. "sahil! what's your deal?" "sorry ms. humm, it's just the first time i've seen snow." recalling my snoball fight with him yesterday, during which he took me out multiple times, i sighed. how can you not love that?

the only thing not to love is the system of indian heating. i don't mean to be ethnocentric (what can you do?), but i am freakin' freezing. the school and our houses were built by missonaries in the 1800s and are cement sans much insulation. therefore, i see my breath everywhere-- in my classroom, my living room, my bedroom. i proctored an exam this morning with a coat, sweater and long underwear and still couldn't keep the cold at bay. i now pledge my undying love for car heaters, central heating, snow shovels and plows. however, i am getting quite adept at fire-building.

all of these photos were taken by my co-workers, but i will add my own when i am less lazy (time t.b.d.).

still fighting it

dear the world,

why does every wonderful thing come with bullshit logistics, flaming hoops to jump through and terrible vats of flaming coals? would it be possible to check more than one box for things? is it essential that we have 2 hour long staff meetings without discussing anything? lunch duty. study hall duty. duty. why ap? why ib? could we just teach, read, live, learn and let live without all of the accompanying bullshit? someone must like doing this stuff. let them. and compensate them accordingly. and, until then, fuck you logistics. fuck you paperwork. aaaaahhh.

yours truly,
courtney humm
woodstock, india, the world, the universe

use caffine with care (subtitled: i don't remember the first day of school being like this-- surreal)

status update:

the following meanderings take place between 9:50 and 10:10 on 7 february 2007.

it feels like a monday even though it is wednesday.
it's the first day of school for 2 months and i can't believe i am not leaving to travel tomorrow.
following "super bowl monday" and the poker game preceding football, i slept for 24 hours. the only times i woke up were to eat chocos (cocoa puffs), watch sex in the city (single episodes to fall asleep to) , ponder my 24-inspired dreams about terrorists and other atrocities, realize that i am not sure what i am doing next year, stress out about it for a moment, and decide that i will not get out of my warm bed to enter the world of cold rain. i think of these days in bed as fetal periods before rebirth. apparently, today will be rebirth. hmmm...
i am riding a caffine high like none other and listening to guns and roses "sweet child of mine."
it seems quitting my smoking habit is imminent (though i truly enjoy the little cancer sticks) because i can't find camel lights anywhere. i am weak with personal pleasures.
it's surreal talking to former students of facebook.
i am currently mired in the web-based research that consists of looking up pictures of friends' signigicant others on their websites, myspace accounts, blogs. thank god for the internet. otherwise my productivity in my actual job would be superhuman!
i would do nearly anything for a good sandwich or a caramel latte. what if there were a shipping business for perishables?
someone in the woodstock community just sent out an email about adopting a cat. wait, didn't this happen already? with a dog? twice?
trying to be professional but cannot find room i am supposed to substitute in...
it's like riding a bike, right?

j'aime paris

aahh, sunday morning, somehow divine in and of itself. i’ve been home for one week, sliding back into routine while simultaneously planning my next vacation. summarizing some of the best weeks of my life is impossible. i spent time with some of my favorite people in places i have only dreamt of. somehow, despite a sordid history involving expectations, the romantic ideals of paris, italy and south india lived up to my idealizations.

when brian and i entered the bastille metro stop, exiting the train we’d taken from the airport, we heard music. often times music accompanies me, but it’s usually in my head. we rounded the corner to see an accordianist (?) playing in the long hallway. we smiled, mounted the stairs to the street, and turned in wonder as the sun rose over paris. the first twenty-four hours of crepes, sandwiches, wine, coffee, notre dame, the louve (and, well, actually, the entire time) were filled by exchanged looks of amazement, even if i was only exchanging them with myself. an advent mass in notre dame really IS this incredible. the street cafes really ARE this quaint and wonderful. the eiffel tower and champs de ellyse really ARE this beautiful at sunset. wine, cheese and bread ARE indeed the most economic dinner options and wine is the same price as a diet coke in a restaurant. amazing. oh, and another thing. parisian people really ARE this friendly (that whole parisians-as-assholes crap is just a french initiative to keep tourist numbers low. otherwise we would all be eating nutella crepes overlooking the seine).

additionally, paris is the most romantic city in the world, as proven by my hott date with myself. crepes at notre dame, museo picasso, museo d’orsay, shopping in the most fashionable city in the world (and trying to pose as a fashionable parisian), perusing christmas displays, watching the sunset over the louve, enjoying a meal of salmon, wine and crème brulee. it was my first solo date of my 8 weeks, and was hard to top (for which i had to make extreme effort in s. india). though i’ve never truly struggled in the arena of treating myself…