No, I haven’t been captured by the Mafia

Hello readers!

Thanks to a handy, stalker-like feature of WordPress, I can track how many hits my blog receives every day, so I feel somewhat justified in apologizing to my audience for a complete lack of updates. It sounds absurd, but writing regular posts actually takes a decent amount of energy and time, and to be perfectly honest, I am lazy. As if you didn’t know that already!!

I guess it’s been since Christmas since I’ve written anything substantial, so I’ll just quickly recap the past 6 weeks or so, leaving my latest trip (Prague/Vienna/Bratislava) for a separate post. My break in the US was wonderful, albeit too short and filled with major travel issues on both ends, but still better than staying in Bologna for the vacation. The entire month of January basically passed in one huge, indistinguishable, finals filled daze. Other than a couple field trips to Parma and Ferrara for my Art History class, I didn’t leave Bologna. Actually, I didn’t even venture out of the apartment much either! January in Bologna = disgusting. My bed, a hot cup of tea, and a semester’s worth or work (totally my fault for letting it pile up) were the main reasons for my hermit like behavior. Thankfully, my finals went well despite all my traveling in the fall!

We had a week break in between the semesters, thus my recent adventure to central and eastern Europe.

Which brings us to this current semester! I think I’m going to like my classes a lot better than last semester. At the Dickinson Center, I am taking Italian Politics (yes, it’s as confusing as one might imagine… silly Italians and their 92384739 different parties and governments), Transatlantic Relations and European Economic Integration. So far, the classes seem pretty interesting, and I particularly enjoy European Economic Integration, taught by Professor Jones at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS is Hopkins’ grad school in Bologna, more on that in a few minutes). Now, I usually can’t stand when students endlessly complain about stuff they don’t like, but I’m going to take a minute and vent a tad about the style of several of my classes. Simply put, if I had wanted to sit in a class, and do nothing but listen to the professor lecture for the full 75 minutes, I would have gone to a large university. If I had wanted to regard doing the assigned reading prior to class as unimportant and not felt it necessary to come prepared, I would have gone to a school with 800 students in introductory classes.

But, I chose Dickinson. I value discussion, class participation, and being challenged by professors every class to produce an analysis of the content. I completely understand I am in Italy, and I chose to come to Bologna. Still, it is frustrating to sit in class and feel completely disengaged. For the Italian professors, this is the style of teaching they have always known, so it’s not as if they aren’t qualified; the professors here have an incredible amount of knowledge and are some of the most renowned and respected scholars in their fields. Out of three classes last semester (I don’t count my Italian language class in this), I was only require to write one, 4-5 page paper. I have rarely had a class at Dickinson that didn’t require more writing than that. Instead, I took multiple choice political science exams that had an essay component of 5-6 sentences. I never thought I would miss blue book exams that leave my hand throbbing afterwards, but it is impossible to demonstrate how much you have (or haven’t) learned by writing a few sentences. While I may moan and groan at Dickinson about the endless papers and research, there is a certain sense of satisfaction in turning in a body of work. When I hand in a paper, it feels amazing to present something I have created. Same thing with a good exam.

For that reason, I have a feeling I will be much more satisfied this semester. Professor Jones is American, and his class places a greater emphasis on discussion and lets just say I better do the reading before class! My last class is what has really excited me. I have the opportunity to take a class at Johns Hopkins. Unknown to me until this semester, SAIS is regarded as the top graduate school for people that want to go into International Relations public policy. The best. (Okay, sometimes it’s ranked #2, but #1 sounds so much better). I’m currently taking Alliances and International Relations, a class focused heavily on the theory of alliances. A little intimidated? Oh, you betcha. The reading load is substantial, although not overwhelming. It’s just… well, graduate level. I’m missing a lot of background information on the history of Europe, but I’m doing my best to keep up. The class is a seminar, and class participation counts for a 1/3 of the grade. Definitely no zoning out and daydreaming there.

L to R: Phoebe, Caitlin, Kim, Catherine, Caroline, Amanda, myself

So, enough about classes. The other exciting things happening in my life are unsurprisingly, travel related. I won’t actually be traveling as much this semester, because of the much increased work load. (While most people went to Carnavale in Venice this past weekend, I decided to stay in library and get a good jumpstart to the semester!) Two of my closest friends, Bartlett and Phoebe, are coming to Bologna in two weeks to visit! They are both studying in Norwich, England on a Dickinson program. Later in March, I will be heading to London for the weekend to see Ms. Elizabeth Kosta, who is flying to England to spend Dickinson’s spring break visiting us abroad people! Caitlin, Phoebe, Amanda, and Catherine will also be in London that weekend, so I’m super excited to be reunited with the girls. Finally, the last weekend in April/first weekend of May, I am going to Copenhagen, Denmark to visit Caitlin and stay with her “perfect Danish family.”
We have two weeks off for spring break, and one of those trips is with the Dickinson program to Poland, for a week-long paid for trip! Yay. For the other week, I’ll probably just visit some places in Italy I haven’t seen yet–Rome, the Amalfi Coast, maybe Sardinia? Still working out the details.

Here’s something to leave you with!:

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