in with the old

Finals finished two weeks ago and with that came a week of vacation. Originally I was hoping to reach the other side of the English Channel, but as things worked out I ended up staying in Florence. Luckily enough for me it’s still beautiful after almost a year and a half of walking its streets, hearing its accents, and eating its food. The Italian families have been great: one usually on Thursday nights and the other on Friday nights. Food, conversation and company are more than the menu can ever handle.

During the week of vacation I lackadaisically would wake up late, make something to eat, play the guitar, and head out as soon as I could. This was usually anywhere from noon to 2pm, and if you haven’t already figured out my days went quick, but the week went slow. The past two years February has been the longest month of the year for me, last year I was still in February in August, and still in August in October. Needless to say I think time has a harder time trying to understand me than vice-versa.

I finally worked out things at the university after running around the city like a tourist. I’m taking a course in Egyptology, which to my understanding is the study of the study of Egypt. In other words: archaeology, religion, art, and history, but our contemporary understandings of those concepts, not the Egyptian ones, if they had any (we’ll never know for sure). We mostly spend our class discussions going back in time and trying to figure out why the hell we can say what we say about what we are saying. If it’s confusing for you try to read that sentence in Italian.

The class meets three days a week: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 11-13 in the Lettere and Filosofia department of the University of Florence, which is about a ten minute walk from my apartment near Piazza Santissima Annunziata. The U of F has a lot of departments located all around the city all with their own separate schedules. Classes start at different times at different locations, no one knows the whole story, and no one is willing to help those who wander around praying that they are in the right part of the city. The department of Lettere and Filosofia, for instance, has 4-5 different buildings where they have their classes. It’s hilarious, as even the Italians haven’t gotten a clue as to what is going on.

A typical 6 CFU class is 30 hours, and if it meets for 6 hours a week then the class is over in 5-6 weeks. Which means 6 CSU units in 5 weeks, if I pass the exam. Presence in class is optional, and testing starts at the end of May (even if the class ends around April). There is no homework, no midterm; just a final exam that everyone takes at different times depending on when we sign up for them. The final exam is oral, in front of the professor as well as other professors of the department. There are no predetermined questions; you simply just have to talk about what you learned.

I’m excited. Plato says that this “truth” is found in dialogue, so why not talk about the stuff we learn instead of writing it down on a secular piece of paper, continuously telling ourselves that that is how we learn. Just think of time before pencils, where you could only sit and listen, using memory techniques and then being able to articulate yourself by using your mouth and not your hand. I really can’t wait to take the test and understand if I know how to learn.

This is the way Italian universities work, and I can really appreciate the institutions and their way of doing things. It seems barbaric and unorganized, but it goes without saying that Europeans (especially Italians) are some of the most highly educated people in the entire world. School is hard, and when people fail they don’t lower their standards, grade on a curve, or give points for “class participation” or “extra credit.” I feel like most of the time schools in the states are more worried about the grades then the knowledge, and so the latter tends to escape us. Last year when we were in class the teacher asked us why we never studied, and we told her that we didn’t have to, that as long as we went through the motions we would be able to get a good grade, eventually getting a piece of paper that told us we were smart. We would then use that piece of paper to get a job and do things that had nothing to do with that piece of paper. She asks, “Doesn’t anything remain after the course?”

No. The answer is no. And that’s ok, because as long as we know the material for those 12-18 weeks, more like the 60 minutes during the test, then we don’t have to remember it every again. It will never come up, most courses that is, and so we do away with it, not really ever learning anything in the first place.

We don’t have to, and that doesn’t have to be right nor wrong, just the way that it can be. It’s up to us to individually while working in a group understand and learn, and unfortunately this has nothing to do with tests and grades. Learning really can’t be qualitatively valued, unless of course all the material is controlled and censored, the object of teaching therefore not being the provocation of though but the rigorous memorization of facts, and knowledge in this case wouldn’t be judged on the capacity to think and react but rather on the ability to remember things without letting them permutate and transform into personal ideas.

After the first module is over (5-6 weeks) I can opt to sit in on the second: hieroglyphic grammar. And once April comes my Esthetics class should finally kick in to gear, and I’ve been reading up: it’s intense. I’m also taking Roman History: The Empire at Cal State since I like the teacher. The first day we talked about the farce of the Empire, how historians created it, how it didn’t exist in the eyes of the Romans, and how it’s super similar to the Star Wars Trilogy. The Republic, the Empire, the Emperor, etc.

I started my internship this week: Thursday and Friday morning at the Regione Toscana – Giunta Regionale in via di Novoli, about an hour walk from my apartment in the outer north-west part of the city. It’s not a bad walk, streets looking more modern and people looking more and more Italian. As for right now I help in correcting grammar when it comes to emails and communication, since the project that they are working on now (involving a lot of useless business jargon and repetitive statements) has all documentation in English. They gave me an office and a laptop, I’m there 6-8 hours a week and it’s worth 3 units: not too shabby at all.

Me and some Italian friends went to Q-Zar on Tuesday night in a little town about a half hour drive from the center. It was fun: we ran around and shot each other for an hour, our team (green) winning 937 to 420.

I’ve been busy, a good busy, and with the days getting warmer and my beard getting longer I’m not sure what’s going to happen, which is a whole lot funner than planning out how I am going to think, feel, and react to future unknown situations.

I hope you don’t mind the light philosophy; more and more ideas have been in my head, and I also have some good ones for a few short stories that I would like to write, let alone movie upon movie idea that one day could land itself on youtube. Stay tuned.

Ciao,

Anthony