It's been nearly two weeks since I've written anything here, and now that September is swiftly passing us by, I wanted to check in with some updates and reassure any of you that may be worried I'd forgotten about this little Internet endeavor.
It's been a busy but fairly unremarkable last few weeks. The weather here has cooled down quite a bit, and the itch to play some fall sports has definitely hit. Archbishop Michael Sheehan of Santa Fe, on vacation for a few days and staying here at the NAC, blessed our beautiful, brand-new, state-of-the-art sports field this afternoon, which should be fully operational in just a few days. Which is good, because watching football on TV only goes so far!
Orientation wrapped up a week ago Monday, and with all of four of the seminarian classes now back in the house, the school year has officially begun. Our theology classes don't start for a few more weeks, though, so the month of September is generally reserved for workshops and training sessions for the Second, Third, and Fourth Year men, and more Italian for us New Men. After four weeks of one-on-one in Verbania, our classes here have been more traditional, with our class of 60 divided into groups of seven or eight. I tested into one of the higher groups and that has been good in pushing me to keep getting better.
The Gregorian is the only one of the three pontifical universities to require an Italian proficiency exam for its new students, and for those of us that will be attending that university, our Italian classes have been conducted with the intent of passing that exam as well as learning the language in general. That's because, apparently, one only gets three shots at the exam, with a failure to pass on the third attempt leaving the student no option but to change to a university offering classes in English. The proficiency test was originally scheduled for early November, so we all assumed we had plenty of time to prepare; needless to say, when we found out last week that the exam was going to be held yesterday, some six weeks earlier, many of us were scrambling, if not panicking. Fortunately, there were some good reasons that the exam was moved up, and thus nearly all of us did indeed take the test yesterday. I think I did alright -- could have been better but could have been worse -- but it sounds like we'll find out later this week, so I'll know soon enough whether I'll have the very great privilege of preparing for and taking the exam again.
UPDATE: Fortunately, I won't. I received word Friday that I and many of my classmates (though not all) passed. It's a little silly how relieved I am by that news. Perhaps it's because if I hadn't passed I would have to arrange some 40 hours with a personal tutor before being allowed to take it again. And that on my own dime. So, thanks be to God, that's one less headache to worry about!
Tomorrow, I'll embark on another Italian adventure as I and several of my classmates have to head to the questura (police office) to get fingerprinted for our soggiorno papers, which will allow us to effectively become 'permanent residents' of Italy and live here for the duration for our studies and travel Europe hassle-free. Some of the other guys that have already been have said it's quite a headache, but since I get out of Italian class and can bring a book, I'm not complaining.
Our class made a trip to Assisi a few weeks ago which I've yet to write on, so I'll try to do that later in the week. For now, buona sera.
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