Was It Something I Said?

I spent Saturday at a UCLA extension course to review Italian verbs. It was a very intense experience. The prerequisite was a year or more of college-level Italian. There were about 15 people in the class, and I was in the bottom 3 or 4. As advertised, the class was conducted entirely in Italian. I could certainly follow what was being said (not too difficult, since the discussion was about Italian grammar, a subject I’ve been studying for some time). At any given moment, I understood between 50% and 85% of what was actually being said. We moved very quickly through the various tenses. At the end of the day we had reached a level I had not yet studied, so it was no longer a review for me. There is a second meeting next Saturday, but I will not return, since from this point on the material will be mostly new to me. A rapid review will not help me with unfamiliar material.

It was a good experience, though. If the same class is offered again next year I’ll probably take it again, with the hope that I will be able to benefit from both sessions instead of just one.

I really like being on the UCLA campus. It looks exactly the way a university should look, with huge, impressive brick buildings and expanses of emerald-green lawn. Just walking across the place inspires me with possibilities.

Last night I started Italian 3. I had expected a new professor, since my impression at the end of the spring term was that il professore would not be returning to teach at this school. But there he was, ready to begin and quite cheerful despite the overwhelming class size and uncomfortable setting. I was surprised by the large number of students who showed up, many more than we had at the start of Italian 2. Some are people who already speak Italian (the school catalog recommends Italian speakers start with 3). Some took Italian 2 in different semesters or at at different schools. Some have taken 3 before and want it again as a refresher. There seem to be half a dozen high school students. Including me, there were 5 people I recognized from my previous classes. We were jammed into a tiny room in half a bungalow where the language classes, not important enough to have have their own building, have been consigned. Our temperature is controlled by a thermostat in another classroom, and the two tiny chalkboards are woefully inadequate. Perhaps we can get transferred to another space.

Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: The first chapter was the most interesting. In it, the author discusses the contractual relationship beween painters and their clients. After that, I found the material both less interesting and more difficult to read. I assume this is the book once is forced to read when taking one of the author’s classes.

Bread and Tulips: I was actually looking for Bread and Chocolate, but couldn’t find it locally. This mild comedy is about a housewife who, left behind at a rest stop, decides to take a vacation from her family. Most of the action takes place in Venice, and I really enjoyed seeing those familiar canals and bridges again.