And thus chaos commences.

As I walked towards the university in the morning with Sarah, we witnessed school children all dressed in blue smocks, holding hands in line two-by-two, and we later saw a teddy bear blowing bubbles in front of a toy store. Classes would be anything but child’s play, or everything like it.

Sarah had warned me that even though I thought my schedule was settled it could change like things did for her last Thursday. Luckily all my classes remained in place on the schedules on the bulletin boards. But Sarah discovered that some classes don’t start until later, upon consulting another bulletin board. I did the same and found that two of my classes did indeed start Monday and one not until the following Friday. My other class was not to be found.

That class, Italian literature, was scheduled for 12.15. By 1.00 a group of students had gathered and decided to go check out the situation, only to discover that our class didn’t yet have a professor. Thus it is possible that the schedule will change, let’s hope the class still exists when it is scheduled again for Thursday.

One of my classes was moved to a bigger classroom and then interrupted and cut short while the other class of the day included only 5 students in an echoing chamber of a classroom. I can’t say I understood everything, or followed the teacher’s line of argument and academic conversation. Nor did I feel comfortable asking a question, or even phrasing a question.

I was left with that feeling of negativity and doubt that I often have at the beginning of the semester on the first day of classes. Not only is everything up in the air, everything is up in the air in Italian. I always have that feeling where I throw my world into question, because it is just that much easier. That feeling where I question why I am studying, why I am where I am, why I am not in the real world already. It happens every beginning of the semester. The constant thought and turmoil make Stefan who he is, a considerate, listening, always receptive individual who will put his entire world into question if it means digging a little deeper to the root of truth and a little further toward a sense of enlightenment.