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Published: October 14th 2008
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I came up with this hypothesis in my seminario di greco yesterday afternoon, when i was staring , mesmerised, as one of the boys in the front row, perched keenly on the edge of his seat, hanging on every word the professor said, continually ran the metal ball from his tongue piercing in a gliding motion across his lips. I just about managed to tear my eyes away for long enough to notice he also had one eyebrow and one ear pierced and perhaps resembled the punkabestia slightly more than the others. I looked at the other students in the front row, almost all boys, almost all liberally pierced, frowning beneath their floppy raven hair at a blackboard speckled with digammas. It is not usual for Italian students to call out in lectures, however, aforementioned boy (matteo) and his friend (alessandro) did frequently, and they were met with smiling encouragement from the professore. Their questions were well formed, their arguments, good ones.
In fact, Italian students have not yet ceased to suprise me with their display of interest in their subject and evident desire to learn. In between lectures most are huddled in corners pouring over books. They wait for
the professors at the end of the lecture to discuss theories they come up with and in no lecture back at home have so many pens moved so swiftly across so many sheets of paper in perfect unison, hardly stopping once in a lengthy two-hour lecture. Yet from their slighty unkempt appearance (yes, believe it or not it is possible to be both well-dressed and unkempt), and the metal displayed upon their faces, any professor from Edinburgh i'm sure would shrink back in horror. However, the smart, preppy, posh public school appearance of many of those in my lectures at home, does little to hide the sighs of boredom, reluctance to attend classes and often voiced indifference to the subject. I have even seen students in Bologna turn around to give the thumbs up and a whispered "buona domanda" to another student after they have asked a question. Yet none of these students remotely resemble what the Edinburgh students might call "geeks". Both boys and girls are almost without exception gorgeous looking, well dressed and speak in a confident, animated way. And 8am lectures are almost overflowing with eager first years...!
At home we rush through translations in class,
stopping only to lament the lack of attendees or criticise a translation. In Italy, two hours are spent laboriously on just ten lines of translation as the history and usage of every word is discussed and mulled over, the meaning debated and a deeper understanding born. We learn
why some words scan longer than others, which ancient latin word a more modern one is derived from. Great emphasis is put on exactly how to read the ancient texts: in perfect meter with correct intonation. So we can really
speak Latin.
Several hilarious things happened today. The first was as i was walking to my lecture. A man who was walking alongside me suddenly said "sei inglese?" i replied with the reluctant, well-worn "si". He then proceeded to explain how he was looking for some english conversation classes, he knew some grammar but he wanted to practice the speaking, and was i interested. I said i wasnt sure as i was very busy with university, but he insisted on giving me his email address and urging me to get in touch with him. I thought it was unlikely, because, lets face it, he's italian, and a man, and such a
combination never equals person with innocent enquiry. Ok so that is a gross generalisation and completely not true, there are wonderful exceptions ( 😉 stefano). Just sometimes it feels like its the case... I happened to mention the encounter to my friend Emma in our latin lecture, and she said, "oh Olivia is doing something just like that, shes seen him a couple of times, they just meet in cafes."This made me reconsider, Olivia is delightful and very posh and well-to-do and I wouldnt imagine that anything she would agree to doing was something i couldnt try myself. It wasnt until I was sitting in La Scuderia much later, sipping espresso and re-discovering a little bit of my love for latin with Emma as we tackled some Giovenale, that i saw Olivia, with- lo and behold- the exact same man at a table nearby. She came over when they had finished their 'lesson' and we debated why on earth he would try and get two pretty young english girls to sit with him in cafes... he had even reduced the number of lessons he took with her from two a week, to one. hmm, strano.
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penny
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Hatty, I think your writing is beautiful, I was mesmerised! The slow translation sounds so nice- I wish we could do that. Oh and are the Italians more lax about comma splices too? I noticed you used one haha!xx