Piano o Forte?

I have a little time now and it's after a long 6 hours of Italian lessons today, broken by a break for lunch in between... :-P

Since our group came here, we have slowly picked up and, for some, have improved in leaps and bounds with the written and spoken language of Italy. The Sundays' pastoral sessions in the churches and with the different families assigned to us during the past week has helped tremendously our immersion into the Italian language and the environment.

I am getting into the flow of speaking the language a little better, though it is still a struggle, especially with the prepositions (aaarrgggh!) and words needed for daily usage when buying things or engaging in conversations with people during our pastoral work. But as our lecturers have wisely said:

chi va piano,

va sano e va lontano.

chi va forte,

va alla morte.

Simply put, it pays to go through our lessons slowly and surely and gain rather than hurry and lose everything. ;-) In Latin, a similar proverb comes to mind: festina lente! :-D Meanwhile, whether fast of slow, our class still had to deal with our first minor test yesterday! :-P I managed to muddle through and should pass. Anything more than that would be a miracle! :-D

Another month and a half to go before we get down to the real business at hand - our real studies in our respective pontifical universities. That is where the real challenge lie!...