More rain and rain again

The class went well, but the time dedicated to classes here is too short… not to mention that it takes ten minutes for the students to trail into the room. That means that, out of 45 minutes of class time, you have basically 30 minutes of instruction time. Still, I managed to do a couple of things to get them thinking, including showing part of a video clip of Joan of Arcadia, the television show that aired in the USA for two seasons: 2003-2005. I had to show them the piece in English, but I put subtitles. Half the group understood everything, laughed at the jokes… they all seemed to get the message in spite of the language barrier. Of course, that's what I spent the first 20 minutes trying to prepare them to understand.

After lunch I met with the dean, Giorgio Zevini, regarding my future status at the UPS. We came to an agreement (which I will outline later). Then I had to see my student Virgilio Da Silva to go over his thesis draft, after which I met with José Luis Moral to straighten out the books, Marco Bay to find some method to get my North American Area 1 DVDs to play on Area 2 European computers (and vice versa, so as to continue to use these video presentations in the classes), Tarcisio Simonelli and the delegation from Tuscany (to try out some cured salami and Tuscan wines), Gregorio Wieczorek at the library (to go over the procedures to put my Youth Spirituality books on a reserve shelf), and Aldo Giraudo (who leaves tomorrow for Torino for a series of lectures).

And through all of this we have had the heaviest rains I have seen all this month. The water has been coming down in sheets, and the thunder and lightning has continued since this morning. It goes hard and heavy for a half hour, then we have ten minutes of sunshine, then more rain and thunder and lightning for the next half hour. Amazing, this Nature, but it means that we have to concentrate on what we have to do.