THE ARCHIVE

Several Cornell Students here signed up for Nike’s 10k benefit run, which will take place this Sunday night in the historic center of Rome. I stumbled through the online registration in Italian and have no expectation to do any better in the race itself (It has been a solid four years since highschool cross-country).

While perusing the website I noticed that Nike was hosting “training runs” for competitors to test equipment and I decided to check one out in hopes of meeting some local athletes. The event was an incredible exercise of corporate marketing, but turned out to be very little exercise for all of us.  They gathered the runners on the Via del Corso and paraded us on a short route to the Piazza del Popolo and the Spanish steps, past throngs of intrigued tourists.

I met an Italian engineering student at the training event and we have been running together most afternoons. Today we checked-in with Nike to pick up our T-shirts and racing chips. Afterwards, they convinced us to try out the Nike+ system, which uses an iPod Nano and a special shoe to record running statistics–distance, time, speed, calories, etc.

I liked the technology but the Nike-produced “workout” music was absurd. The mix begins with a slow trance and builds into a thumping techno rhythm. Vocals add in with deep repetitive lyrics:  “step / step-on-toes / stepping-on-those-toes,” followed with an unapologetic “jigga jigg-ahhh.”

On another note, we just finished our first week of classes and are beginning to adjust to the new pace of life. After 30 hours of class and a whirlwind of syllabi, I think I have settled on my courses. If you are curious what I’ll be up to this semester, here’s the run down:

• Architecture Design Studio 401
• Architecture History: Ancient and Medieval Rome
• Intermediate/Advanced Drawing
• Italian Language III
• Architecture Theory

We had our first Studio review on Thursday to present our initial site analysis. When each group spoke, 4 professors and 50 students listened.  It is best not to be shy in this major.

This entry was posted on August 30, 2008 at 06:40 and is filed under Architecture, Italia . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.