Jumping in the Deep End

Hard to believe I've only had two days of school here--we've done more in those two days than I usually do in two weeks at UT. Yesterday we had a general orientation, and split up into groups to be dragged around Rome for a few hours, getting our bearings. Then we came back for lunch and a brief overview of the Ancient City course, which is the main focus. This also included a diagnostics quiz, so that they could see where we all are on knowledge of Roman history and major archaeological sites, which was...well, let's just say that it's a very good thing that it's not going to be graded. My classical student pride may never recover. On the plus side, everyone else looked about as depressed afterward as I felt. Adviser meetings were next, and then the ten of us who are taking Italian had our first class--which, incidentally, really is conducted entirely in Italian from the very beginning. I'm very glad I had that semester before I left! The Centro staff made a special welcome dinner which was served in the garden, and we all trooped off to bed so that we could get up bright and early this morning.

Today we really hit the ground running--we had half an hour for breakfast, after which we got our instructions for the day's project: having been split up into groups of three, to find two (assigned) obelisks in Rome, and to deliver a ten minute report on the first of them. Naturally, this required us to map out our routes and find our way around the city via bus, train, walking, or some combination of the above. We managed to travel entirely by train and metro--Rome has a wonderful metro system, and I may never get over my glee at getting to ride trains so often. My group's obelisk was a small and depressingly obscure one somewhat near the main train station, but the other obelisk (which we just had to go look at and take a picture to prove we were there) was in Piazza San Pietro...so we ate lunch in Saint Peter's Square. Yes, there are pictures--you can see them when I have time to put them up, rather than just enough time make a post so that you all know I'm still alive and kicking. (Speaking of kicking, I'm still working out a training schedule--it'll be easier once I know our field trip days for certain. I'm also trying to stir up interest in a Tai Chi group.)

My homework for tomorrow: approximately 70 pages of reading, 90 minutes of translating Seneca (and we're not allowed to have our glosses or translations in class with us) to see how far we get so that they can set the pace of the class, and some Italian reading and workbook pages. The reading is done, it's just about midnight, and I have to be up at 7 tomorrow, at which time I'll tackle the Latin before our Ancient City lectures, and hopefully have time to finish the Italian in between classes.

Buona sera!