I am almost finished with my first week of school in Rome.
I must say that I love this city. I tend to operate on similar principals to Rome. For example, I do not like to be always rushing around; instead I prefer to take my time and enjoy the moment. Another example is their approach to work. They tend to be just as "productive" as Americans, but instead of working more hours to make more money, they prefer to work shorter hours and enjoy life a bit more leisurely. I think that a lot of us Americans get too caught up in the American pace of life, they we are often stressed out and burnt out. In Italy, it *seems* that people are generally happier, and I attribute that to the fact that they have different priorities than us Americans. They tend to put relational and social activities higher than personal activities (like work).
Of course this can be of some frustration to me (as an American) because they tend to take long lunch breaks (really long sometimes) and if they get caught up in a conversation, they will not go back to work until they leisurely finish their conversation. We have stories of people from my group of students from America who have stood outside a bank for an hour waiting for the bank to open after lunch.
It is difficult to live in a culture, yet not have the mentality of it. I love the typical Italian response to an American on a time table, "We'll get there when we get there, Eh. Don't be in a hurry."
So needless to say, us Americans are forced to give up our obsession with punctuality and just go with the flow. Like I said earlier, this is how I naturally work anyway, so I'm right at home. (I should say that I DO try to honor people by getting to appointments on time and such. But if I (or others) don't happen to get there on time, I don't make a big deal about it.)
There seems to be one major exception to the looseness of timetables here: school. I never want to be late to school.
My classes are good. My favorite class is History of Medieval Philosophy. It is my favorite for two reasons: First, the teacher is incredible. Second, it is my only class with other Angelicum students. For all of you who do not know what I am talking about, I am here in Rome through the University of St Thomas in St Paul, Minnesota. I am here with a group of students in a custom tailored program through the Catholic Studies program at the University of St Thomas. In this program, we have the opportunity to learn more about our faith and about Rome, an obviously important place for Catholics (with the Pope being here and all), as well as an opportunity to become more globally minded. The classes we take here are tailored to us St Thomas students to help us meet the Liberal Arts requirements of the University back in St Paul. so I have a European Politics class, and Roman culture Class, Italian language class, and Art and Architecture class, and finally an elective class. All except the elective class are classes designed for St Thomas and are mandatory classes. The elective class is not a 'St Thomas' class, and thus it has a much more diverse group of students from all over the world. (My 'St Thomas' classes are pretty much just this group of 22 students from St Paul, without any foreign students.) So I like the diversity of my Philosophy class.
I will be taking a trip to the city of Ravenna this weekend, so I will write more later about that. It is mainly a trip to study the art and architecture of the city. Ravenna was the 'new capitol' of the Western Roman empire after Constantine had moved the Capitol to Constantinople and the Roman Empire was dived into the Western and Eastern Empires. All of this was after the Gauls had come down and conquered Rome. So that is why Ravenna is such an important city for the history of art and architecture.
God bless you all. Ciao from Rome!
