Wednesday, February 9, 2011

i can do good all by myself.

If you haven’t been following my facebook/twitter bombardments and unnecessarily excessive status updates, I will inform you now: I PASSED MY EXAMS.

If you have ever had the feeling of something looming over your head for a long time (in my case 4 months), you can empathize the pain that I went through the past month. On January 7th, I returned to Italy from a 3 week vacation in Milwaukee, Elkhart, Chicago and of course L.A. (Go Badgers!) (one day I will get around to a blog post about my adventures back in America…however, today is not that day)….

I allowed myself a few “fun” days upon my return, which included going out, venturing to Venice, watching movies and going to Madrid. However, my 12 credit (6 credits in American terms) class: Italian Literature, constantly acted as the devil on my shoulder. Every time I went for a run, watched a movie or drank a gin and tonic (or 2) I felt guilty and sick to my stomach. There was so much to learn, and so little time. On top of all of this, I had to write a 10 page paper, in Italian on the most complicated book ever: The Inferno. It was only assigned in October! TALK ABOUT NO TIME WHATSOEVER. Bhaha.

Like I’ve explained before, the Italian school system is (for lack of a better word) bizarre. School starts mid October (every course starts on a different day depending on which major you are). You endure 60 hours worth of psychobabble from the monotone Italian professor, who usually doesn’t make sense to us gringo students. Then you have about a months worth of “reading period” to prepare yourself for your oral exam. A 15-30 minute meeting with your professor who can ask you whatever he wants. And give you whatever grade he wants. Terrifying. The only redeeming feature to the Italian education system is that you have 3 chances to take the exam. If you don’t like your grade your first or second time, you can take it a third and final time. But, I wanted and needed to get it over with…

So after minimal* procrastination, lots of pasta, pizza and “oh, it’s only Wednesday we can watch Black Swan (Blood Diamond, Avatar, Blue Valentine….etc..)” I found myself sitting in front of Professore Andrea Battistini, Monday morning at 9am. (Well not before Ellen and I went to the wrong building, even though we had been to the professor’s office numerous times before…Nerves). My body was violently shaking and palms profusely sweating. Gross. The first movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony played, on repeat...the whole time. 

First, he walked me through my paper that I had handed in 2 weeks prior. He corrected my language errors and told me the paper was mostly my “fantasia” and that I had invented most of my arguments. But what was he supposed to expect from the biggest BS’er WFBHS Class of 2008?? So, that was fun. I was going to fail for sure.

Then we talked about each of the books we had to readà Il Principe by Machiavelli, Il Piacere by D’Annunzio, Senilità and Coscienza di Zeno by Svevo. He asked me broad questions and he asked me specific questions ranging from themes, to characters, to dates and even clothing characters wore.

I stumbled a bit when he asked me to talk a little about Gabriele D’Annunzio and why he wrote Il Piacere. I did not study this author; apparently the only thing I could remember about him was that he was a fascist and supported many ideas of Mussolini…so I frantically (with great failure) mumbled about fascism, a topic that I cannot say I am very knowledgeable about. The teacher responded, “Ummmm…okay, well that has nothing to do with anything”. So, yeah, that was awkward. But I redeemed myself with a few strokes of brilliance. Obviously.

Naturally, there were things that I didn’t know, words I butchered and sentences I constructed that made absolutely no sense. But for the most part, I answered every question with some sort of confidence and fluidity which somehow managed to impress the professor enough to earn myself a 27 out of 30: an AB in Madison terms. For all Badgers, you all know how frustrating of a grade an AB is, but for once in my life I have never been more grateful to receive it.

Happily, I bounded out the door, rejoicing that I will never have to take on Dante or Machiavelli again. This class also completed my Italian major! What I will do with this Italian major…I do not know.

Still in search for a useful major (I am a second semester Junior.),

Mal


Before the exam. Thinking the building was closed. No...we just went to the wrong place. Gringos.

The doors to our exam. We may not come out alive.

Apparently this is my "I JUST PASSED AN EXAM" smile.

celebratory cappuccinos. Totes Italian.

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