It's Time to Go

Our two weeks in Trento kept us busy enough that they seemed to fly by, and I'm writing to you now from the third and last leg of our trip: Siena!

The weekend brought with it our students' many worries and questions about the midterm exam. Try as I might to hide from them on Saturdays and Sundays, their messages somehow find me! "What does cognitive dissonance mean?" "What is Kant talking about here?" "Can I have extra time for the exam?" Enough of them voiced concern in the group chat that Professor Erspamer finally spoke up and said "terms that are in red font on the list won't be on the midterm but could be useful for the final, not to mention for your BRAIN and consequently your LIFE" (caps lock is my emphatic addition). A strong message about the purpose of academia, not to mention a hilarious thing to write to 28 panicking students.

Monday morning: exam day! The exam is nine pages long, single-sided to give them enough space to write very long definitions if they so desired. Some of them so desired, much to my dismay. Most of them started on page 9, frantically scribbling down the answers to Kant's trichotomous scheme of the intellect before those answers could float right out of their short term memories. It took almost three hours to get everyone done with the test, and then I had to camp out to hand in the key to the classroom space we had been using. Key lady took a while to show up, but she's sweet so I let it slide. I had a poke bowl for dinner, desperate for some vegetables. I eventually tried to sleep, but I don't do so well falling asleep before travel days, so it took me a few hours of staring at the ceiling and troubleshooting our plan for the next day before I finally conked out.

Rain! Late bus! Food poisoned student! Midterms to grade! A bus permit that almost didn't get processed in time! A professor that types his group chat messages into an Italian-English translator software in order to communicate with his students! Things really are wild here, but we made it to Siena about six hours after leaving Trento. We TFs did some grading on the bus before we arrived and got everyone checked in. My room is lovely and spacious! I ran a quick errand to buy the little colored balls for the contrade of Siena, and then we went to dinner. I was delighted to walk back through Aquila (my adopted contrada) territory tonight, so I naturally stopped for a picture with the fountain - go Eagles! We closed out the evening by lying on the ground in front of Siena's Duomo, gazing up at it standing proudly against the dark night sky. It always takes them a while, but once the students hush, it's a truly beautiful experience to contemplate the church set against the heavens.

Now, a cool shower and sleep! I found some extra blankets in the wardrobe in my room - won't be needing those... so hot!