Was It Something I Said?

I decided to get that pesky statistics class out of the way by taking it in the summer session. I did it last summer with history, and it worked out quite well. But this was different. For one thing, it’s a four-unit class, three and a half hours a day, four days a week, plus homework. And it’s math. Each day in summer session is the equivalent of almost two in a normal semester, and we don’t have a day in between to do the homework and absorb the material. The first day (yesterday) I found that three cups of coffee would not keep me awake for this 8am class. Today I had four cups, and that still was not enough. Although I have no trouble understanding the basic concepts, without the ability to stay awake and focused, I can’t learn the details. The homework, although not horribly difficult (once I finally figured out how to do what I couldn’t remember from the lecture) is tedious, unnecessarily repetitive, and incredibly time consuming. There isn’t any way I can do this and still accomplish even the minimum activities (like laundry and grocery shopping) of my life. So I took Steve’s advice and dropped the class. I’ll try it again some time at a more normal pace.

Photo from Clipart.com

This looks absolutely wonderful:

http://www.piccolauniversitaitaliana.com/index.html

It may not be too late to enroll in “Italian Verborama” at UCLA extension, www.uclaextension.edu. This is a two-Saturday course that reviews all the verb tenses. I took it a couple of years ago and found it quite helpful. At the time, I knew only about half the tenses; the first Saturday covered everything I had done up to that point, so I did not attend the second Saturday. It’s a review, not a tutorial, so sign up only if you have already studied at least a few Italian verb tenses.

Technically, I graduated in December, when I officially received my Associate’s degree in Italian. It took the school another four months to produce my diploma. I was cordially invited to attend today’s graduation ceremony, but I stayed home.

Photo by Rosemary West