Was It Something I Said?

Only four more classes before the big final exam. We are already talking about signing up for Italian 4 next semester. I really hope that most of my fellow Italian 3 students will be there. Most, but not all. Typically, students who take a language solely for a graduation requirement stop after two semesters, so by the time Italian 3 begins, only the real learners are left. But there is at least one person in this class, the one we call the Whiner (because she constantly complains about petty things, and is always eager to leave), who seems to have no real interest in learning Italian. She has never bothered to learn the basic rules of pronunciation, often stops in the middle of doing an exercise (sometimes in the middle of a word) because she “can’t” finish it or doesn’t care enough to try, and then behaves as if she thinks stupidity is cute. We have no idea why she took this class. She’s an irritating person in other ways as well (what’s up with the giant shoes?) It will be a relief if she finally gives up and goes away.

I had coffee on campus with my friend Pia, who I met at school a couple of semesters ago. Unlike me, she is pursuing a real career change, and is working very hard with an amazing load of classes, along with all the usual complications of what I like to call real life. She is smart and fun, and it would be really great to be in another class with her. I hope she will be able to take algebra with me next semester, but it might not be possible for her. In the meantime, I have also been making friends in my Italian class. In addition to those who have been in the same Italian 1, 2 and 3 class together all this time, I am also getting to know Shelley, and Mari, who shares a lot of my outlook on things. We laugh a lot!

I got my first bad score on a test. I conjugated an entire group of verbs in the passato prossimo instead of the imperfetto, getting 89 instead of 97. Yikes! Somehow I had managed to misread the instructions on the test. It was obvious to me that this was a just a mental error, but it wasn’t obvious to il professore, who was completely mystified at how I could get them all wrong. Sigh…

Normally I sit in the front of the class. As a result I’m a bit unfamiliar with the faces and personalities of those who sit farther back. The class exercises where we give presentations in front of the room, or get together in small groups to do conversation exercises from the book bring us together. Most of my classmates are interesting people, and many of them are very good with Italian. We have come a long way since Italian 1. Here it seems safe to assume that everyone wants to learn Italian (as opposed to many in the lower level class who just needed to fulfill a transfer requirement). There are still attendance problems (there is never a night when everyone is present), the occasional book left in the car or homework not completed, but overall this group is really making an effort and moving forward.

Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling covers the four years Michelangelo spent creating the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He had problems with money, health, family and politics. The pope was impatient, Raphael was a powerful rival, and just about everybody was annoying. Despite it all, Michelangelo created an amazing masterpiece, considered one of the greatest artistic accomplishments of all time.

501 Italian Verbs: This is another handy reference. The 501 most commonly used Italian verbs are listed in table form, one verb per page, and conjugated in all tenses, identified by English infinitive forms. Verbs are both regular and irregular, and are presented alphabetically for easy reference.

I confess that I have not been as diligent in my studies this semester as in the past. I haven’t lost interest in the subject, but somehow finding the time has been more difficult. I’ve been having trouble sleeping, and that contributes to a tendency to doze off while studying.