All Play and No Work Makes Me a Stressed Girl

I have my first exam tomorrow morning. Generally in Italy, which is true for all of my classes, grades are based entirely off of an oral exam at the end of the course.

All of my professors literally wrote the books on their fields on study. Yesterday's Contemporary Italian Literature class was a panel my professor organized with his lit buddies, where they all talked about their friend Stefano (Tassinari) who wrote one of the books on which we're being tested. The level of qualification of these professors is really cool, but entirely intimidating.

The University of Bologna is really legitimate. A classmate from Naples was telling me yesterday about how she wanted to go to university in Bologna her entire life and she was finally there. It's easy to forget that people like Dante and Pope Alexander VI studied here because a general sense of motivation/ desire to learn is lacking at UniBo these days. Yesterday, 16 out of >150 students showed up to one of my history classes. I appeared to be paying the most attention but, in reality, I was recording what the other 15 were doing, i.e. napping or blatantly texting. Sometimes I feel like I'm in an inner-city high school detention. Granted, there was a T.A. yesterday with an impossible dialect.

All of my reasons for choosing a small, nurturing college over a large university are amplified here. However, as a student abroad, there are serious pros to this system. I'm grateful to not have to participate in Italian discussion, because just focusing on the lessons is a brain exercise. I greatly value my relationships with my professors in Claremont but, here, it's nice to peace out for a week to travel Iceland. Additionally, I love that Bologna is a University city. The atmosphere in the main piazza near the UniBo buildings is clearly that of a university. I love that I live near the wealthy, quiet, old people and easily walk to the bustling, cool center of the University. I love that the walk is under beautiful porticoes, past ancient sculptures, down streets- some chic, some quaint, and all quintessentially Italian. I love Bologna. Every time I left, I could appreciate it in a new way when I returned. Of course, I'm seeing its perfection ever clearer as my departure draws frighteningly near.

I'm excited to have a few full days to take it in after these exams. In the meantime, in bocca al lupo a me!
"In bocca al lupo" means good luck, though it's literally "in the mouth of the wolf." The response is "crepi!", meaning "die!" Hopefully whatever that metaphor is still works on foreigners, because my test tomorrow is on Social and Economic Medieval History and I already feel like I'm going to die!