Dangerous

I think pride is dangerous. On some level, I've never been able to completely let go of mine, because I guess as much as we'd like not to be, all humans are egotistical by nature. Normally I don't believe most of the compliments people give me, and I definitely have just stopped considering my 'ability' and 'talent' and 'capacities' in anything--style, music, conversation, intelligence, logic--because I'd drive myself crazy considering the competition and trying to figure out exactly what those things mean anyway. and yet, i'm rather self indulgent in expressing myself, in finding something therapeutic about venting my inner workings through words, music, my body. I don't know how directly that's related to pride, but I guess I wouldn't do it if I didn't think I had something worthwhile to say, or if I didn't want people to hear me. There's something inherently egotistical about art, about sharing either something highly personal or at least being a sensitive/sensible interpreter of things outside of oneself.

But pride can get in the way of the integrity of art, or thinking, or creating. The only reason I've been thinking about this is that whenever things go really well for me as a result of hard work, I'm very tentative to believe that it has anything to do with my capacities and that it has much more to do with people being kind to me or easy judges, or just trying to inflate my ego and be nice. Basically, I'm not quick to believe in much of a good thing, especially if its a grade, a compliment, or a 'deep' feeling related to me, because I don't think a big head would look very good on me.

In any case, I've been considering this entirely too much for a few reasons. I just took my only university exam from this semester which was philosophy (my last post was quotes from the readings I did) and it was one of the strangest and intriguing experiences I've ever had.

Here's a little background about the unversity exam system in Italy. All exams are oral--meaning they are conducted by either a professor or one of his or her assistants, in a large lecture hall (can be a small class room, but to give the impression of large impersonal public university with intimidating professors and students, i'm using large lecture hall, just like the one where I took this class) during one single exam session usually from 9am till 5 or 6 pm. For each class, there are usually 5 to 8 exam sessions a year, and you have to sign up online for which one you will present yourself at. Because students can frequent a course one semester and sign up to take the exam whenever they want, sometimes at an exam session years later, the appelli (exam sessions) can be really full. Also, i forgot to mention, there is no other work during the semester, which is to say, that the final oral exam is your entire grade. Want to talk about pressure?....sheesh.

When I went to this theoretical philosophy class, I'll admit that while my brain was more than thoroughly jogged by what the professor lectured about, I was really worried about comprehension issues. As if philosophy weren't hard enough to comprehend in a mother tongue, I was fighting against vocabulary issues like the difference between being and being as it pertains to location/physicality (essere=the verb to be esserci= the verb to be in a place or location specific even if its figurative... its difficult to explain but it is our equivalent of 'there are this many books' or 'there is a chance'. At any rate, you can only imagine that with my less than 2 years of italian under my belt, i had little faith in the fact that i was understanding things. Not to mention that all of the 4 books we had to read for the course were either translations from greek or german, and had all been translated ROUGHLY so as to maintain as much of the original grammar structure and 'idea' of the original text, even though for me, i thought it clearly rendered the idea less comprehensible when the grammar constructions were that of ancient greek (right-this makes sense?)

The course was from february to the 2nd week in march. It was very short because it was 3 times a week for 2 hours (also typical of italy-their system is SO different!) So from the time I got back from sicily to the 2nd week in may (2 months) my chief concern was 'how the fuck am i going to 1) understand this content and 2) pass this exam?' I'd never studied philosophy a day in my life before so I was worried, and also this course credit I really really needed for an epistemology and cognition credit at wellesley, because if i didn't pass, I would have yet another REQUIRED class to take during my senior year, and my schedule is already really packed.

So around late april I went to my study abroad program office with all these concerns about the comprehension, the needing to pass, the not knowing anything about philosophy, the extreme inadequacy of my language skills for the difficult of the course. 2 things happened--first, they scolded me for not having started studying earlier which would have allowed me to understand these issues earlier and then I might have had time to choose a different course. second, they told me to talk with my writing workshop professor (who i've already worked with for a year now--she's single-handedly responsible for any of the advanced italian that I can speak and write and read--because she graduated from University of Bologna in Philosophy back in the day, and she might be able to meet with me and tutor me a little bit. They also told me to contact the professor of the course and explain to him my situation and ask to meet with him during office hours. I arranged meetings with both, and never got to meet with the professor of the course because he wasn't there when I went to his office hours. In the meantime I read the texts for the course in both english and italian at the recommendation of my writing workshop teacher just for comprehension purposes, but god CHE PALLE (which means what a fuckin BORE) reading the same thing twice in 2 languages. I don't know if I'll ever be able to be a literature translator--only in real life (which i really enjoy doing, btw).

So from late april to early may I was basically pretending to study, often distracted, seriously debating all the half-hearted add diagnoses I've been given over the years. Could not concentrate, legit, and it was pathetic because it was the only thing I had to do. it's not like the conservatory is challenging, and my exams for that weren't going to be for another 2 months anyway. Basically, just a huge lack of motivation, and a huge amount of defeatedness in general because I didn't feel capable to take this exam as it was.

So exam day. I had emailed the professor the week before to ask him in what depth I shoudl try to know the texts because I was worried about comprehension and he said, "well even though the exam is friday (today) why don't you come to my office hours on wednesday and we'll do the exam then, and if you're unhappy with your grade, you can retake it on friday. Does that seem like a good philosophical method to you?" Already, I had the impression he was sort of a special professor, because going out of the way for a student like that in a university of 75,000 is incredibly rare, especially considering the horror stories I've heard about exams and how indifferent and just ball-breakers the professors can be/usually are. In any case, the day of I was feeling alright about it, in the sense that I thought I would pass but wasn't expecting or hoping for any grade higher than a D or C- since my grades from abroad on my Wellesley transcript will all appear as pass/fail anyway. I get to his office and had to wait for 25 minutes because there were other students waiting in line just to talk to him.

While i was outside waiting, I saw some young guys who looked like doctorate students freely entering and leaving his study while he was meeting with students. Sometimes one would go in and sit for 20 minutes, than come out with a stack of papers only to quickly go back in. I couldn't see inside the office, but it made me nervous to watch because all I could imagine was doing this exam with 4 or 5 philosophy doctorate students as well as one of the most highly regarded italian philosophy professors listening to my nonsense answers.

So i go in around 5:25 after racking my brain for 25 minutes for every last thing I could remember from all the readings I'd done. I sort of thought of it as like an intellectual performance, interrogation, like a thesis defense. I introduced myself as the american student who had written him several times and he very genuinely shook my hand and looked into my eyes before starting the exam. Right from the beginning, I could tell he was seeing me, sort of in a way that very few people ever look at you. Before I even started speaking, he seemed to already know so much about me. It was one of the most bizarre feelings ever. Before the exam started, he deduced that I wasn't a philosophy student, and I told him i studied music at the conservatory. He then asked me to start with which ever argument I thought was the most intriguing in the course. Having no idea how to respond, I just started from the beginning, talking about the 2 oldest greek philosophers we read. I reviewed their arguments and moved onto plato's myth of the cave, and explained that. Right as I was about to comment on its symbolism, he stopped me and asked "if you had to explain the myth of the cave to a highschool boy, what would you say?" i didn't really respond because i was a little dumbfounded. then he asked "what would you say to the boy if he said that he didn't see the necessity in understanding the world outside of the cave and was contented with the tangibile visible world around him (that of the darkness inside the cave). why should he want to know the truth(or the real world outside)?" I fumbled at first, and than started to explain that what he perceives as his concrete tangible world is really an illusion (the images projected on the wall) and that if he is not fascinated by the fact that an entire universe unknown to him exists so nearby (i guess u have to know this myth to get what the F i'm talking about) then he shall always be contented, enchained and stationery, transfixed by what he sees before him and not asking for anything else or anything more.

Right after this question, he asked me, "where does music from? how do composers write music?" If you know me at all, you can probably imagine how strange, interesting, and difficult this question was for me. I tried to respond, but could only say at the beginning "That's a really difficult question" and he said "well should it be easy? should any question be easy?" In the meantime, mind you, this 75 year old man with the most incredibly awake eyes I have ever seen is sort of tapping his fingers from the other side of his wide dark oak desk in his many-booked study and staring into my (for lack of a better word-forgive the clichè) soul. It was like he knew exactly what music is for me in a way that no one else has really ever understood or tried to understand. I hadn't told him that I write too, I mean at that point, he could have assumed if he wanted that I just studied music and played like the majority of classical students, not that actually writing it is my biggest thrill.

So i said "well I actually write myself, so..." and he said "i had already understood that, yes." I don't even know how I responded to this question. i said that a study of the language of music is necessary in order to have the tools necessary to form ideas into comprehensible sound, then I said that being creative probably helps, and he pushed further still, but where does creative come from and what exactly is it? Where do the notes come from? At this point, I quoted heraclitus who said that all of his research into the understanding of being he conducted in his own soul because it was 'without limits'. When I said that, this professors face lit up, and he sort of pushed me to keep talking about my process and how music and notes are an expression of our souls and that humans and their brains and all their faculties are just interpreters, messengers really, for an expression of the utmost beauty and being that we can sense only with our souls and not just with our intellect, eyes, mouth, nose, fingers and ears.

After I finished responding to that question, he sort of took over in talking about how everything around us is a result of this interpreter function that humans serve to the earth--architecture, philosophy, art, music, food, fashion, ideas.

By the time he was done talking, it was 5:45 and 20 minutes had flown. I had no idea how it had gone, I only knew that how I felt the entire time during the exam was so strange and new--i don't think I've ever had someone so clearly see me and sort of pull ideas and thoughts out of me like that. He was incredible professional and it didn't make me feel uncomfortable at all, it was just his way of navigating conversation, pinpointing the perfect point of entry to my mind. Hermeneutics, right?

I didn't know when the exam had finished because when he finished talking, he just intertwined his hands on his desk top and said "alright". After 2 minutes I said "so...how do we do for the grading?" he sort of snapped back into reality and quickly got up and bustled around to find a pen. I handed him my grade sheet, and he went to his computer to enter the grade into the unviersity system immediately. i still had no idea what he was going to give me, and I just waited for him to finish. The doctorate students who had been sitting on couches, staring at the floor, being silent and just listening to my exam started barely whispering to each other and after a minute the professor turned to me and said, "how's a 28?" the grading system is out of 30, so that's an A-. Of course I responded, that's great.

When I was about to go, I thanked him for the course because it had sort of turned me onto something I'd never studied before. He said that it pleased him to hear it, shook my hand again, this time for twice as long, and said, "very good, and congratulations for your music. good bye"

I left and I was ecstatic and confused and my heart was pounding cuz that exam style is the most nerve-wracking one that there is. I still don't know why he decided on such a high grade. I felt like I didn't deserve it, which started the whole thought about pride. I don't feel like I should be proud because I didn't really study as much as I should have, and I didn't know the books nearly well enough to merit a 28. But it was almost as if he was judging my character or my connection to my being, which was so strange and yet rewarding.

I'm sorry for writing so much about this, just academically its been one of the only and the most interesting experiences I've had here and I don't want to forget. jeez! what the heck, i still don't believe it.

In other news, with the end of that exam, I think my summer has technically started which is awesome because normally when exams finish I'm in the middle of packing 4 bags and trying to catch a flight to california instead of relaxing in an awesome apartment for another month before starting my masters in Italian (fuck. my. life) I feel like I'm on a warpath for something...but I don't even know what it is.

Anyhow, i hope the weather is better where all of you are than where I am-it's been raining chronically here for the last 2.5 weeks and I would like it to be warm while I'm in barcellona this weekend. SHWEEET!!!!!!!!!!! ENZA ARRIVIAMO!!!!!


ciao a tutti