In which Emmons's current reactions to school and Italian culture are discussed...

This week has so far been without any particular stressors, beyond the depressing memories of the death of a very friendly boy from my highschool class who was murdered a year ago Tuesday… I’ve been sending out good vibes to those who were close to him, but as I haven’t seen any one who falls into that category for almost a year now, I really have no clue how they are doing beyond the occasional facebook status or hearsay. I hope they can find comfort and healing eventually… Rest in peace, Donnie Farrell. For anyone in the Mountain Lakes/Boonton Township area who knew him, there’s a food drive for charity in his memory going on sometime this week – there’s information easily findable on facebook, for anyone interested. Just thought I should mention it for those in that area who might not have heard.

As I’ve been here in Italy for almost two months now I will give a general overview of how I’m finding life here, mixed with recent events.

Approaching Travel Plans

Here in Ferrara things have been going alright, and I’m just kind of plugging along here. This weekend I’m hoping to go to Padova (Padua in English) with Rachele to see the Scrovegni Chapel freschoed by Giotto – basically considered one of the most important starting points of the Renaissance. This is one of those things that tourists get charged annoyingly high prices for entrance to (12 euro for half an hour, part of which is spent in a purifying room, whatever that means… grumble grumble), but to which if I didn’t go I would feel like I was betraying my major and missing out on one the highlight opportunities of living in this area. I hope it’s worth it. It will be good to get out of Ferrara again (7th excursion!) and to spend some time getting to know Rachele a bit better, too. She’s one of two non-Middlebury students in the program, and doesn’t know anyone very well, unlike the other non-Midd girl who went to summer school and has somewhat of a clique already with several of the other students. She’s friendly and seems kind of lonely, so I’ll be glad to spend the time with her.

Oo, that reminds me! One week until I get to see MK and Will! Happiness! We will be visiting him in Mainz for several days, and I am quite looking forward to the trip. There are maybe 6 legs of travel (through Venice, Treviso and Frankfurt) to get to Mainz, but if that’s what it takes, then that’s ok. It’ll be a nice vacation. I just have to write a paper and prepare an oral presentation due literally right before I leave, first. :) It’s only 6 pages, so if I can find something I actually want to write about from the Ferrarese literature course, it shouldn’t be too hard – but I still have to figure out a topic and thesis. That will be my project for the next few days. I’ve liked that class, even if it wasn’t much of a challenge and had plenty of awkward silences – but it will be nice to have one whole class out of the way and one less thing to worry about. The professor wasn’t that good at provoking discussion, but was terribly nice to us, and I think picked interesting pieces for us to think about and which allowed us an important glimpse into the culture of this city and region.

Halfway through Classes

My geography and linguistics classes will end soon as well, with one more lesson for the former and 3 for the latter. They will be replaced with 2 more half-term classes, one on medieval art history and one on iconography, both with the same professor – one with a fantastic but really tough reputation. I just hope they don’t drive me as crazy as my Emilia Romagna class has (which will be continuing through the term’s end). That class usually bores me with what I do understand and frustrates me with what I don’t – and as I can now understand almost everything said in geography and linguistics, I blame my comprehension problems somewhat on the nuanced vocabulary often mentioned out of context, and the prof’s wacky lisp/accent (good recent example that I actually caught: “aristocracy” = aristocrazia in standard Italian; it sounded like (a)istocassa the way he said it… not quite sure how I caught that one). I understand waaaay more than I did at the beginning, but it’s still exhausting to decypher his words, and nearly impossible as yet for me to motivate to do any reading for the class (I’ve been concentrating on linguistics), leading me to worry that I will fail the exam. Which is stressful. I don’t think I will actually fail, especially as I have the house’s library at my disposal right here (we’re expected to just generally educate ourselves on the subject with little direction), but I am expecting this to be a trying process. At least I have some control over the situation, in that I will be studying muchly in the near future. But still. Boohissgrowl.

At least geography and linguistics have been relatively enjoyable, even if the former was at a rather disappointingly low standard for depth. Linguistics has mostly focused on Italian dialects, which is fascinating and somewhat useful. It’s also helped me to be more aware of different accents I’ve heard here, and more easily understand them. My aural comprehension has jumped enormously as a result of so much time sitting in lectures, which in turn helps my reading comprehension – both of which are fantastic. All three of my professors are kindly and want to help the poor foreigner girl, although the Emilia Romagna one doesn’t really know how to very well, given the nature of my problems with the class. The other two are pretty helpful and are often aware of the details on which I would need context to understand the vocabulary, as well as being good speakers (in the enunciation and traditional senses), which is great.

But now that I’m just starting to feel like I’m really learning something and want to get more in depth, both classes are about to end. It makes me glad that we actually get a lot out of our time in Midd’s courses, whether or not they are a lot of work. Indeed, I now have a huge appreciation for the presence of regularly graded assignments at Middlebury – you learn what to expect, what you need to know, whether or not you know it and therefore what you might need to work more on, have the material reinforced, and have more than one grade! (This last one is very important, as the idea of having your whole grade be dependent on one oral exam in a foreign language a month (or three in geography and linguistics’ cases) after the course has ended … well, it’s kind of intimidating, shall we say.) I never would have thought that I would be thankful for those things, and probably when I get back to having tons of homework at Middlebury, I might disagree with my current self. But I will probably still appreciate homework’s gifts, along with many other surprising little things about America and Middlebury, in ways I could not have predicted.

Stereotyping-the-Italians Time!

Living in Italy has made me proud to be an American and grateful to live in America, go to Middlebury normally, and have the family and friends I do. Italy is, frankly, ridiculous. I don’t know how it functions so successfully. No, scratch that. I don’t know how it functions at all as a “first world” nation. Often, the Italians seem to forget that they are a capitalist nation and that if you run your business/organization well or treat your customers with respect and good service, they will like you and come back. Na-uh, not a consideration most places here. A thought that often occurs to me: this place is a mess. A very pretty mess with a lot of history and a musical language. But a mess nonetheless. The stability of daily life seems to balance on the tip of a very narrow and battered mountain peak, nearly pushed off to go tumbling down in the gravel all the time by dozens of little things – so much disorder and inconsideration being the most common irritants, beaurocracy being the next. And people think little of this. I have been told repeatedly (by Italians) that people here are discontent with the disorder, beaurocracy, and corruption of greater Italy, and that people in this region are bothered by the rudeness and apathy of the culture here – but that because they can’t do anything to change the situation, the speakers simply perpetuate the apathy and don’t expect others to stop being rude, corrupt, disorganized, etc. In short, they consider it to be truly Italian to act as such. I know Americans do this all the time, too, but I have never been as aware of this as I have since being here, so I am led to believe that this behavior has a different character and degree than that which at least I have encountered in the States.

Most of these I have learned to just deal with with patience and calm, and am merely amazed by, and have learned to be surprised if I get good service most places. (But sometimes it’s frustrating as hell…) There are a few exceptions of course, and people will be nice if you are introduced. But acting anything but distant? Not so much. Smiling at you, including when you smile first? Unlikely. Going out of their way to help you? Rare, and often considered a really big deal, even if it’s the person’s job to do so. (At least my landlords are quite friendly, although they keep to themselves a lot and are hard to get to open very much.) This might be a factor of living in a city, rather than of the Italians – and I’ve heard it’s exaggerated here in the floodplains, for some strange reason. But either way, these are some of the perhaps surprising trends I’ve encountered here. Not that the Italians suck – just that’s it’s very different and sometimes frustrating, just that I’m glad I don’t have to live here forever and can go back to the North-East of America after this, where I know how to interact with people and rarely get angry glares for smiling at someone and can expect systems to run relatively smoothly.

There are so many reasons why this place has reinforced my identity as “American” and why I am glad to be so in ways I never quite appreciated or expected before.

Then there’s being alone for the vast majority of my time. I have mixed feelings about this bit. And I just realized what time it is and that the tea I drank too-late-in-the-evening is starting to wear off. I think I will end this here and contine on sometime soon, and head off to the land of sleep in the meantime. I guess I should clarify that I am doing alright, before just cutting this off as such. Be well, and have a happy day before Halloween!