Quick update from my last post - I passed my online calculus course which frees up about 6 hours a week in compulsory math tutorials. Whew. This online math course was probably the most helpful math course I've ever taken. It's the first online course I've ever seriously used and I can see the attractiveness of online courses; specifically, you can pause, rewind and watch sections as many times as you like. I think the lack of that feature in high school math classes contributed to my poor math performances. How might my life be different now if I had been able to take all of my high school math courses online...
Anyways, much more exciting developments than calculus have occurred in the past week. Namely, we arrived in Italy and have settled into our new life in Bologna. Of the 200 or students that will eventually be enrolled in my program here, there were maybe only 20 here when we arrived last week. That number may be up to 50 by now. It's been nice to have a week before classes start to get all of the bureaucratic stuff out of the way. We've also used the time to explore around Bologna.
We arrived on a weekend in the middle of August - peak vacation season here. We were fortunate to get an invitation from a Rotarian here in Bologna to join him and his wife out at their summer home in the hills southwest of here. We spent about 3 days out at his renovated farmhouse in the hills to decompress after Asia. It's amazing how friendlier the air and the sun seem here compared to southeast Asia. I suppose I've read about it at length, but the sharp contrast of feeling both within a 24 hour period is very dramatic. The air in the hills felt neutral - it was so comfortable that you didn't even notice it. But we noticed it because in Asia, it just clings to you and constantly reminds you to take showers and change your clothes. It was an amazing experience to not feel dirty and gross after just going outside, so we noticed the neutrality of the air as a welcome void.
On Tuesday we came back down to the city, where the air purity decreased a bit, but there were actually fewer people in the city than the countryside. Ferragosto, an Italian holiday marking the middle of August, pulls everyone out of the city and to the hills or the beaches. People are starting to come back into town now, but on Thursday (the official day of Ferragosto) Bologna was a ghost town. We walked up and down entire streets in the middle of the day without seeing another soul. The only stores that are open are those run by south Asian immigrants who were a kind of familiar reminder of where we had come from. It's funny how, for the first few days at least, we felt more familiar with the fruit seller from Bangladesh than other Italians because a) he was pretty much the only person we saw in town; and b) we had just spent 6 months in the region of the world he came from. Helpful tip to those travelling to Italy who don't speak Italian: the south Asian shop owners speak English. It's very easy to buy from them. But then, most shop owners speak a little English, so it's not a huge advantage.
Our apartment is within the ring road, making it a part of the old city. The apartment itself has a lot of character. It's small and a little eccentric. Being on the top floor, the ceilings are sloped so that, for example, our bathroom door is only about five feet high. We've both hit our heads a few times already ducking in at night. The bumpy scab on the top of my head is a powerful reminder to crouch even lower when I go to the restroom now.
But our place has plenty of great attributes, too. We get tons of natural light so that we don't even have to turn on any lamps during the day. In the middle of the apartment, the ceilings are high and spacious and the wood beams that hold up the roof serve as rustic decoration for the place. Plus, it's only a 5 minute walk to school and it's cheap.
Speaking of school, I'm already underway with studies. Like I said at the beginning, I just finished my online calculus course, which gave me all the math I need to know for my intermediate microeconomics course starting Wednesday. I'm reading about the "revolutionary era" of early 19th century Europe right now in preparation to attempt to test out of one of the required courses, Evolution of the International System; and I continue to read my German novel (translated from the Spanish) in the hopes of testing out of my foreign language requirement. Graduate school is all about focusing in on a specific field of study in order to be a better experienced and qualified professional. I'd like to avoid as many of the basic level, required courses as possible in order to focus on the more advanced coursework - the whole reason why I'm here.
I find that this discussion is naturally leading me towards an explanation of what it is specifically that I want to do here and that's a story I'd like very much to lay out. But not now. That will have to wait for the next post.
Buono Ferragosto!
Anyways, much more exciting developments than calculus have occurred in the past week. Namely, we arrived in Italy and have settled into our new life in Bologna. Of the 200 or students that will eventually be enrolled in my program here, there were maybe only 20 here when we arrived last week. That number may be up to 50 by now. It's been nice to have a week before classes start to get all of the bureaucratic stuff out of the way. We've also used the time to explore around Bologna.
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| View from the farmhouse in the Apennines |
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| 1775 meter high Lake Scaffaiolo |
Our apartment is within the ring road, making it a part of the old city. The apartment itself has a lot of character. It's small and a little eccentric. Being on the top floor, the ceilings are sloped so that, for example, our bathroom door is only about five feet high. We've both hit our heads a few times already ducking in at night. The bumpy scab on the top of my head is a powerful reminder to crouch even lower when I go to the restroom now.
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| First view of our apartment when we moved in |
Speaking of school, I'm already underway with studies. Like I said at the beginning, I just finished my online calculus course, which gave me all the math I need to know for my intermediate microeconomics course starting Wednesday. I'm reading about the "revolutionary era" of early 19th century Europe right now in preparation to attempt to test out of one of the required courses, Evolution of the International System; and I continue to read my German novel (translated from the Spanish) in the hopes of testing out of my foreign language requirement. Graduate school is all about focusing in on a specific field of study in order to be a better experienced and qualified professional. I'd like to avoid as many of the basic level, required courses as possible in order to focus on the more advanced coursework - the whole reason why I'm here.
I find that this discussion is naturally leading me towards an explanation of what it is specifically that I want to do here and that's a story I'd like very much to lay out. But not now. That will have to wait for the next post.
Buono Ferragosto!
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