Bill 4.2.08

Hey everyone, a quick post to do some appeasing :]

So my schedule is as follows, you can do the 6 hour conversion pretty simply.

History and Culture of Food, Mondays and Tuesdays from 4pm-5:30pm
Roman Empire, Mondays and Wednesdays from 11:30pm-1:00pm
Contemporary Italy, Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:00pm-3:30pm
Italian I, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday from 5:30pm-6:30pm

My classes are all going very well. Contemporary Italy was going very rough until last week. Our professor's English was fairly limited, and it was difficult for him to keep a flow due to this point. However, he is a pretty brilliant and accomplished guy, and this helps him shine through. Last Thursday's class was really awesome, these 10, or so, Italians in their 'third age' (or elderly - in Italian) came in and told us (all in Italian then translated by our professor) about life in Italy from the 20's until present and how things have changed. They focused especially on the effects of World War II, introductions of new technologies and globalization. It was really an incredible lesson and these people were endlessly interesting and charming. They were all a part of a social organization in Florence called 'Across the Arno' (in Italian of course), which works to set up cultural events for the elderly and those of other ages to better appreciate the resources of the elderly population in Florence.

Roman Empire, again of course about the whole history of Rome - not just about that last four hundred years of empire, continues to be an awesome class. My professor, a woman with flaming red hair that is so tightly curled she can barely contain it, has an impressive knowledge base and a very traditional European classic education. What I mean by that is she can probably quote whole Plutarch passages and rattle off the dates of Roman or Greek battles for fifteen centuries. This type of education has been so mercifully shunned by the American higher education. It is, however, pretty impressive to hear in her oration.

History and Culture of Food, as Mike told, is delivering as possibly the best class I've ever taken. PETER FISCHER (allcaps) is an incredible professor with an unbelievable knowledge of food and food history. He is also a specialist in modern political systems and a bit of a local and regional food connoisseur. His talents are greatly varied. The subject of food history and culture is fascinating and he is opening my eyes to some serious possibilities of specialty in Archaeology, Anthropology or general studies for later in life. It is an topic of serious interest to many people and could make for some really exciting research that could actually leave a JSTOR database and enter the terrifying world of the public reader base.

Italian, taught by David. That's DAveed, not DAAAvid like in English. He is a great teacher and I already feel I've learned more in the past month than I did in three whole years of high school education. That's not to speak badly of some of my teachers, Conradi was a great teacher, but without the help of being a native speaker and having an environment where you students are forced to practice 24/7 in every possible social situation - it is very hard to partake a language on someone.

So, those are my classes and that's how they are going!
Ciao! A domani! With love!

Bill