The first week of class is already over! It's hard to imagine we only have 4 weeks left to go to get this documentary put together.

Rome has been warm (in the 80s) but tolerable. At night it cools off fine. Good thing, too, since we have no air conditioning. The worst part of that, though, is the mosquitos. I have a couple of bites, Nicole seems clean, but Kim... they must realy love her. She said they're after all the drugs she's taking.

We leave Monday for Florence. I thought it was going to be Sunday. I must've missed the memo. Oh well, it really doesn't make much difference.

About the class: I have 9 students in the advanced class and 7 in the begining. That only totals 15 because one is actually in both (there are a total of 32 students here). The advanced class is all Ball Staters but one - she's from Murray State. The beginners - 2 of 7 from BSU. One other anomaly about the student population: there are 26 gals and 6 guys! I'm proud to say BSU has the largest contingent (10), followed closely by U of Kentucky. All but one of the Ball Staters are taking one of my classes. One is a chem major and claims she isn't nterested in TCOM. Imagine that!

We've shot the "gotta have" shots here, like the Pantheon (Brunelleschi studied to do his) and St. Peter's (Michelangelo studied Brunelleschi to do it). Class Tuesday wasn't that cool, but Thursday we met in front of the Colosseum, Friday at St. Peter's and today in Piazza del Popolo (has one of the churches from Angels and Demons which, by the way, is a popular our here). What an amazing backdrop for classes!

Here are a couple of photos of a few of them hard at work at the Colosseum.

We came with a script written (one of the grad sudents worked on it) but as with all good documenaries, we've all but torn that up and are working on a new draft. We've concluded that purely historical informaion would not only be less interesting but harder to come by (hard to get shots of the dome being built, since it happened 600 years ago). We've had a few "creative differences" among the students, but thankfully no one has taken it personally.

The place we're staying has almost turned into a dorm. It's small and we occupy all bust a few rooms. Students keep their doors open when they're in, inviting conversation. Not bad, except after midnight. They have a midnight curfew - not from us, but the hotel. The front dor is locked midnight to 7 a.m.

My two clleagues here are Bill Morningstar, a photog prof from Berea College (program director) and Gil Smith, a former Ball State architecture prof now at Eastern KY U. Last night Kim and I went with Gil for Egyptian food (after a week of nothing but Italian).