La Indecisa Ha Decisa

Ciao a tutti!

So since there has been some speculation as to my academic activities over here, I thought I would let you all know how my final schedule turned out, and about the classes I am taking. I decided to take two classes at L'Università di Bologna and one class through my program, the BCSP. Since the Italian university classes meet so often (6 hours weekly), they fullfill a greater amount of credits than an American course normally would and thus, I only need to take three classes.

At UniBo I am taking:
Storia del Rinasciamento (History of the Renaissance)
Funny enough, this is actually a class about the ENGLISH Renaissance (the course on the Italian Renaissance was apparently run in the fall). The class is great - the professor, Enrico Gusberti, uses a ton of synonyms when he lectures, making it much easier for stranieri like myself to understand some of the more complex things he talks about. The class is also going to work with several Shakesperean works (right now we are covering Richard II), which I conveniently found copies of with side-by-side English and Italian texts! On top of that, the professor really likes me - one day after class he pulled me aside to give me a list of books to read about powerful women named Monica.

Le Frontiere Della Cittadinanza (The Frontiers of Citizenship)
This class is about the modern definitions of concepts such as "citizenship," "borders," and "identity" in a globalized age. It's very interesting, but a little hard to follow - the professor speaks pretty quickly and has a tendency to ramble (and spit). At first I was really worried that I wasn't understanding enough, but then I talked to some Italian students and it seems like they are having almost as much trouble as I am.

At the BCSP I am taking:
Corso Avanzato di Lingua e Cultura: La Stampa Italiana (Advanced Language and Culture Course: The Italian Print Media)
This class is awesome - we are working with Italian print media: newspaper articles, magazine articles, editorials, etc. It's really great because we are actually getting a feel for what the important issues and "hot topics" are not only in Italy, but in our region of Emilia-Romagna, and in Bologna specifically. There is also a grammer review/exercise component, so we get to brush up on our Italian.

At first it was a little hard being in Italian-mode in the classroom 100% of the time, but I'm happy (and surprised) to say that now it's coming quite naturally! :-D