Thursday, August 28th

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Day 3, Wednesday, August 27th

Day 2, Tuesday, August 26th

Today, at 10 a.m., when I entered the conference room of the UW Rome Center on the 1st floor, all the students were sitting there, smiling, excited and surprisingly fresh waiting for the orientation provided by Sheryl Brandalik, full-time staff member of the UW Rome Center Office and Matthew Newman, the tech support staff here.  They provided the students with the updated handbook full of useful information about nearby grocery stores, coffee shops, and restaurants, as well as guidelines for daily life in Rome and in their apartments.  The students were all happy with their apartments so there weren't any concerns in that way.  After the 40 minute orientation, we went to our classroom on the 3rd floor and we started the first official class of the program.  We started playing a name game to remember each others' names, and then did  a go around where students had to speak a little bit about themselves, the reasons that brought them to choose this program and also to share something that they felt the group needed to know about them as we start this adventure together.  We then covered the syllabus and draft schedule for the next 4 weeks.  After providing 45 minutes for lunch, we met in front of the Rome Center and I took the students for a walk around the neighborhood, pointing out the nearest ATM machine, grocery shop, pharmacy, and some good eating places. We ended the day by coming back to class where I provided a brief Italian lesson on useful phrases (and gave them homework to do where they had to choose from 5 situations where they had to speak to an Italian to order food/coffee/ask for directions etc) and had the students write down their first impressions on the topic of immigration and what questions and curiosities they had.  I also asked them to make a note of what topic they think they would like to pursue for their group presentation to be made on Wednesday, September 17th, right after my faculty lecture........ok, I better go to sleep now since I need to wake up for a 4 hour historical walking tour provided to us by tour guide, Susan Sanders at 9 a.m.....

Monday, August 25th

Welcome, everyone to our UW Rome blog for the exploration seminar, Immigration, Education & Identity.  The program takes place in the UW Rome Center in Palazzo Pio (a 17th century palace) near Campo dei Fiori (the most popular open air fruit and vegetable market in the daytime and lively nightlife scene at nighttime) with several other programs of the University of Washington.  This Center has been around since 1984 and countless programs have been run here, mostly around the themes of Art, Architecture and History. Currently, our one month program is running simultaneously alongside the Law, Society and Justice Program and the Design Program.

Today, August 25th, was our first day and it was spent with having most of the students getting in from a variety of different places - a few straight from Seattle while most were travelling in Europe and Italy before today.  I know that Anjali and Sterling were travelling in several places in Italy; most recently, Cinque Terre and Sam and Brukab were coming in from Venice.  Irene had a long, exhausting trip from Greece, reaching Rome after a 22 hour train (or bus?) ride and ferry tide. Most of the students - that is, Jasmine, Emelia, Marissa, Megan, Manmeet, Gentry, Sam, Brukab, Irene, Maia, Avry, Anjali, and Sterling got here safely during the daytime.   Trina, Jamie and Lia are scheduled to get in later and will go straight to their apartment where their roommates will be awaiting them.  Cynthia Masterson, the Panagea Scholar, who works as an advisor for the College also arrived and will be with the program for this week. The students are housed in 3 different apartments  in 3 different areas of Rome - in Campo dei Fiori itself (Jasmine, Manmeet, Emelia, Jamie, Lia, Trina, Marissa, Irene), Trastevere ( right across the river from us and a quieter, less touristy area) (Anjali, Sterling, Apryl, Megan, Maia) and Piazza Navona ( another of the main squares and bear Campo dei Fiori) (Gentry, Sam and Brukab).

I got in last Wednesday, on the 20th, and the family and I spent a number of days recuperating from the journey, jet lag and or the kids getting used to a new place.  We have this wonderful apartment overlooking Campo dei Fiori with a terrace and two large airy rooms - one with the kitchen, living room and dining room and the other with a large bedroom with our bed, a kid bed for our daughter, Dhani, who is 6 and a pack and play/crib for Amare, who is 20 months. Sundar, my husband, is adjusting to being pretty much a fulltime househusband by day and working at night to keep in touch with his job in Seattle. In the last few days, we have walked around the main squares around here and gone to Trastevere, generally laying low. We have also started contacting and seeing old friends, since as most of you know, I grew up in Rome (from age 3 to 17 and 2 years after that when I taught English here).

I will be blogging daily while the program is in session.  I am really looking forward to exploring this side of Rome and Italy with the students since I grew up as an immigrant here myself. This week we start with a slow orientation to the Rome Center, the area (with a short intro to some basic Italian phrases!), and the class, tomorrow.  On Wednesday, we start the day with a historical tour given by a professional guide and have class in the afternoon, ending with a dinner at our place.  On Thursday, the students will be having their first program related site visit, to the IDLO, the International Development Law Organization and Jami Hubbard will give us a general introduction to the changing face of the legal framework for immigrants coming to Italy.