Wednesday, February 20

I realized recently that I have never written anything about my classes, so I decided to make up for that today.  I am taking five classes - on Mondays, Wednesdays, and some Fridays I have Humanities - Approaches to the Eternal City, Poetics, Latin, and Theology of St. Paul.  Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays we have class off-campus, as we do our Art and Architecture tours throughout the city in the morning, and then I have my internships in the afternoon.  So far I have been enjoying the classes.  We do a lot of reading in Humanities - we have read Virgil's Aeneid, Livy's History of Rome, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar  and The Merchant of Venice, and we are just starting Dante's Divine Comedy - I'm excited for that one!  Poetics is kind of a nice break - we are reading a lot of the poetry of Robert Frost.  But, the teacher is great, he really makes the poems relevant and interesting.  I should point out that that teacher is Dr. Connell, who also teaches Humanities and leads the Art and Architecture tours - he has lived in Rome for over twenty years, and is a very interesting and knowledgeable man.  Latin is different, but in a good way.  The entire class is taught in Latin, which makes it a bit of a challenge.  It helps that the teacher, Professor Arrington, is very animated, and will go to such lengths to make students understand that he practically does charades!  He is excellent with languages and works for L'Osservatore Romano, and is one of the Pope's official translators!  Theology of St. Paul is another good class.  It is taught by Monsignor Soseman, who is a Marquette grad, and a priest of the Peoria diocese!  He is a very jolly man, and I appreciate the fact that he is a priest first, ready to serve the students, and always making himself available.  In fact, he says a 7am Mass at St. Peter's for us on the days we have our tours, so that we can make it to Mass beforehand if we want.  Finally, Art and Architecture - this course is a lot of fun, and really gives us a chance to explore Rome.  We have been all over the Trastevere region of Rome, and have explored the Aventine and Janiculum hills.  Recently, we have begun exploring the areas outside the walls of Rome.  Yesterday we visited the Papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls - it is gorgeous!  Now tomorrow we are going to tour the Vatican Museums, as we were granted a free tour for the Year of Faith, so that should be fun!  There is so much to see and do in Rome, it's hard to take it all in!