Le lezioni italiane

Italian classes are a lot different than American lectures.  Let's start out by saying that they last for 2 hours, there are no PowerPoint slides, and people actually get dressed for class, unlike at home where lectures last 50 minutes, you have a copy of slides in front of you and you're wearing the sweatpants and sweatshirt you slept in.  There is rarely any structure to Italian lectures and the professors just babble on about their thoughts for the two hours you are there.  Most of the time, the professors don't show up on time.  They casually arrive 10-30 minutes late.  There is no rule here saying that if your professor doesn't show up after 20 minutes that you can leave.  When this happens, most students take it upon themselves to have a cigarette break before class.  Which brings me to my next point.  Teachers here are smokers and don't care to hide it.  When I was studying in Torino, I was taking my final oral exam and mid-sentence, my teacher stood up, walked to the door, opened it, stepped outside and lit a cigarette.  I stopped talking, dumbfound until he encouraged me to continue talking while he finished his cig. I thought that this was an isolated event until I started my Art History class this semester.  This woman is nuts.  She starts class ten minutes late on the dot, talks for about 30 minutes until one of her TAs take over while she stands in the doorway smoking her cigarette.  This happens about twice a lecture.  But the door that she stands in doesn't even go directly outside.  The door leads to another smaller lecture hall but since there is no class going on in there, she feels like it is okay to blow her smoke into the empty room.  They are insane.  Breaks are another thing.  Most teacher will give their students a break in the middle of class where everyone herds to the nearest exit to grab a coffee or have a cigarette (see a theme developing here).  These breaks usually last for 20 minutes.  Then the lecture continues, usually with the professor reading out of his book he wrote or another one that he feels is relevant to the course.  I am learning a lot, to be honest, but it is so different than the American system.  Sometimes, though, all I want to do is this:

Baci xx