By Daniel Picus '10
Houston, Texas
Classics
After Mac: Masters program at Oxford University, studying Judaism in the Graeco-Roman period

I went to Rome intending to study Latin, Greek, and archaeology. My weekdays would be filled with classes, field trips, and homework. On weekends, I would jaunt around Italy with my friends, taking in Renaissance paintings and Baroque sculpture before translating a poem or two on the train home. It would be perfect—a semester spent studying what I love, eating well, and seeing places I’ve dreamed about since I first learned how to read. Those plans changed a bit.

First, I didn’t count on quite so much work. Translating 400 lines of Latin and Greek each week is plenty by itself, but combine it with readings, papers, presentations, and two week-long field trips, and your free time drastically shrinks. Second, I wasn’t quite prepared for falling in love with Rome.

I moseyed around the Forum, wandered the neighborhoods south of Villa Borghese, and saw a wedding party exiting the church of Trinita dei Monti.

It’s funny how it happened—one day, I was moseying around the Forum, thinking about what flavor gelato I’d have after class. The next, I was wandering through the neighborhoods south of Villa Borghese, slowly realizing that there was no place in the world I would rather be. A well-timed trip to the Spanish Steps revealed a wedding party exiting the church of Trinita dei Monti, glowing in the light of the setting sun amid cheers from friends, family, and strangers.

After that I started paying a little more attention―counting weddings, remembering breezes, and most of all, paying attention to the light. I learned a lot at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies, but Rome taught me that every time, place, and event has its own special quality of light.

Rome taught me to appreciate the subtle difference between the light that illuminates marble statues through a window and the light that pours into the Pantheon while the sun is shining through the oculus. I appreciated the irony of a neon Madonna glowing atop the church next door every evening as the setting sun filled the street with gold.

Now that I’m back at Mac, every once in a while, when the sun breaks through my kitchen in a certain way or falls across the trees on campus just so, I can close my eyes and let the light take me back to Rome.