Back to Reality

WARNING: THIS POST WILL BE INCREDIBLY BORING!

Classes started on Sept. 7. LAME! Well, they aren't that bad. My schedule's pretty intense. NOT!

Monday: Class 2 -3:30 and 6 -6:50

Tuesday Class 9:15-11:15 and 5 -5:50

Wednesday: Class 2 -3:30 and 6 -6:50

Thursday: Class 10-1; 2-3:30; 5-5:50

Friday: No classes!

The best part--or the weirdest part--is that I spent well under 2 minutes in commute to all my classes...combined! The classroom, known as the "Tower Room" here at the villa, is just down a flight of stairs from our room. This is one of the weirdest adjustments to having classes right in the villa. I think in Madison I probably spend at least 2 hours in commute everyday.

I'm taking four classes. The first is called "Italian Encounters" and is about foreigners and their encounters in Italy. We watch 12 movies this semester, during class time! (Needless to say, I'm excited about that!)

My next class we like to call SMIL (Studies in Modern Italian Literature!). There are only 6 people in the class, so I have to read every book...on time! This class, after some adjustments with the schedule, we have once a week for 3 hours. It's a little rough, but I only have to think about the class once a week this way. We read 5 books and watch 9 movies, outside of class! Also, over the course of the semester, we have to give three 15 minute presentations about national Identity and how it relates to a book or movie we read/saw in class. I'm a little scared. The other part of our grade is a 12-14 page paper at the end of the semester. eek!

Another class is Art History with the wonderful Professor Mariotti. Every Tuesday morning our class heads into downtown Florence to see all the Renaissance art that we can and get everything explained by Prof. Mariotti. The class is soooo interesting. But, I'm freaking out about it. I don't know how to take an art history class. She throws so much info at us every day that I don't know where to begin. I could begin by doing the "suggested" readings, right? Well there are usually 3 every week. One of the readings the first week is reading chapters 6-12 (over 100 pages) in a huge art history book..."for general review"...WHAT? I know nothing about art history. At all! So, I guess I have to pick and choose which readings are important....I may just check out wikipedia.org for a "general review" of Renaissance art. It will definitely be a great learning experience.

My final class is Italian. I have this 4 times a week for fifty minutes each class. It's pretty easy and I feel like I'm learning Italian, a little!

Classes snapped me out of the fantasy of Italy that I was strolling in and put me right back into the academic world. shoot! Only, this academic world is different because I'm not taking a single science course, which is kind of freaking me out!

Ciao!