Thanksgiving gave way to intense study-mode. I had my first Italian oral final for my Dante class on December 5th and leading up to it there was a lot of translating, many cappuccini in cafes, and decent doses of stress. I generally knew what I would be tested on: Dante's Divine Comedy...which really narrows it down. For a foreign student like myself, the professor required that I know about 5 or 6 chosen "canti" from each book (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso). The most difficult task for me was understanding the story and all the references in English, and then preparing to talk about it in Italian. Dante's work is hard enough for Italian students to understand, and here I was trying to make the big picture comprehensible in English first and foremost and then learning the back-stories to many of the references, knowing I'd need to talk about everything in Italian.
Fortunately, I had the help of a wonderful Italian woman interning at our Study Center who was studying Dante. She held weekly seminars for all of us Californians in the class where she went through and explained the big picture and pointed out the significance of the tiniest details (in Italian). She gave us the ability to figure out how to study for the final--she was like our Virgil; the guide for our own journey through the hell of studying.
When the fateful day arrived, I felt like I was prepared in terms of knowing the material...but in English. Typically I try not to study the morning of the day of the test, but since my appointment wasn't until 2pm, I woke up at a reasonable time and studied/translated my notes into Italian for 3 hours beforehand. When I arrived at my professor's office at 2pm, along with the 3 other students waiting to take the final at that time, I knew I'd have to wait about 15-30 minutes for each student before me to disappear into the professor's office to take their final. What I didn't expect was that the professor took 45 minutes with each of the 3 students before me, plus allowed 2 additional students talk to him for office hours for another class. By the time it was my turn, I had been waiting outside his office for 2 hours and 45 minutes. The first 2 hours were good study time: I needed that extra time to solidify some details in my mind and figure out how to express myself in Italian. But the last 45 minutes were torture. I became increasingly nervous as time dragged on even though I felt more prepared. I've never been good at simply waiting because the anticipation ends up getting to me. There's only so long that I can stay relaxed and focused before taking my first oral final in Italian.
Finally it was my turn to go into the professor's office and talk with him about Dante. He was good at easing my nervousness (especially after I told him I was nervous) because he made it more like a conversation. He first asked me questions about where I went to school in California, if I've ever taken a Dante class before, and why I have an Italian last name. Then he had me talk about specific lines from Dante and I felt like I was answering all of his questions fully and with as much detail as he'd allow me to before he would cut me off and turn to another few lines for me to analyze. The very last question he asked me was to list, in order, the 7 levels of Purgatory (the 7 deadly sins). Well, seeing as I barely know them in English, and I hadn't memorized such a basic thing since I focused my studying on the more obscure details in Dante's writing, I started fumbling over my words and I couldn't answer his question. A pit in my stomach immediately formed when he started saying things such as "This is a really basic thing, and if you don't know it, then I have to question how much you actually know. You won't be getting a good grade if you can't answer a question like that, but remember you can always retake the exam in January." I was SO scared he was going to fail me and I'd be so ashamed and I did not want to have to study all that material again for January. And just as my brain was really starting to freak out, he asked if I would be ok with an A-. Um, YES. I thought when he said "not a good grade" that I'd fail with something lower than a B. But in reality, he had high expectations for everyone and assumed if you don't get an A+, you'd be disappointed. So of course I immediately said "Yes, of course I'll take the A-!" and then I didn't utter a single word (for fear he'd change his mind) while he entered the grade into the computer.
In the end, I'm very pleased with that grade, but the strange thing was that he made me feel bad about "only getting an A-." It took me a day or two to not care that I couldn't answer his last question and to be proud that I got that grade for my first Italian final. It was a good beginning to my month-long vacation I've allowed myself before getting back down to studying for my last 2 finals (in late January and early February).
Stories from Stockholm and Tarn's visit coming soon!
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