Getting to Know Arezzo

I'd like to talk about my classes, but a story must be told first.

After class today, I came home to a surprise. I got out of the elevator (we've named him Guido) and I heard unfamiliar voices coming from my apartment. Just then the front door opened and an older Italian man and woman are standing there, holding our television.

Now most people at this point would probably be somewhat wary of the fact that two strange people are inside their apartment, much more so if they were toting their possessions out the door. Me? I wasn't sure if I should help them or call the police. Honestly, I considered going back downstairs because the whole situation was just awkward.

The man said something to me in Italian. Then he said "Arrivederci," to which I replied the same (not wanting to be rude, you see), and then they were both gone. With the TV.

It only dawned on me later that it was probably my landlord, named Aldo, whom I've never met. Our TV doesn't work, so he was probably taking it to get fixed or something. Fortunately, Leanna saw my earlier Facebook status and confirmed my suspicions, so I don't have to wonder forevermore if this was the day I got robbed.

I also spilled hot tea all over myself earlier, so it's been a pretty eventful day.

Anyway, let's change the subject to what I've been learning the past few days. Friday was our first Getting to Know Arezzo class; I'll get to that later. Monday I had International Politics, Literature, and Film, which I think I am really going to enjoy. Every other week we alternate watching a movie or reading a book, and then spend class time discussing the issues. Yesterday we watched a film called "The Girl in the Cafe," a romantic comedy with some political struggle thrown in. Today, I had Italian class, in which we played a game similar to Monopoly and answered questions about ourselves, and Art History, in which Kirk Duclaux lectured on the basics of formal art analysis: color, line, shape, form, and texture. They were both good, and I'm excited to pursue both studies.

The GTKA class on Friday was really interesting. Among other things, Charlotte talked about cultural norms and the conflict that evolves from the differences between them. Each people group inevitably harbors some degree of ethnocentrism, and it's important to be aware of this in order to look past it and encounter a culture with fresh perspective. To practice, we were sent out into the community for half an hour to observe a conversation take place and use basic observations such as setting, participants, tone, and sequence in order to deduce the cultural norms at play.

I learned a lesson about the importance of observation and how it affects our cultural understanding. Charlotte explained that when we make an observation, such as when we look at a picture or when we hear someone talking, we really only have a split second of true observation before our mind is flooded with opinions, thoughts, ideas, even topic changes. We only consider the object for a few moments before we are already thinking about something else, or worse, making judgments about the object in accordance with our limited perspective. Therefore, as Charlotte said, we need to "take away the cloud," and simply see things. We need to simply hear things. We need to observe in the most basic way in order to more fully understand context, understand the meaning behind things. This is important, for if we can experience without letting our preconceived ideologies cloud our observations, we might be able to understand why something is done differently in this culture as opposed to our own.

More important, we might be able to appreciate that Italians do some things better.