CORSO ITALIANO E UN PROFESSORE MATTO!

Well, after waiting for twelve years, two months, three weeks and four days (I’ve been counting, you know)--- I finally got an opportunity to learn Italian, the most heart-charming (for me) language in the world, formally, in a class, with other students, with a real Italian teacher (rather than groping with all those grammatical rules and tenses only by looking at books, by myself)--- and it just started last week!
So, hurrrrraaaaay!
I managed to convince (with a little bit of efforts) the institute to allow me to skip to the second level—making me nervous and dread to be the most stupida in the class—but thanksfully it did not happen.
And let me tell you about my teacher, Professor Raffaele Contardi, who claimed to be the best Italian teacher in the whole universe, who already knew how to say ‘I’m a handsome man’ in Indonesian, and who snorted ‘bugiarda!’ (meaning liar) when I said I agreed with everything he’d said (and yeah, I did lie a little!).
In short words, he is a RIOT! (and by the way, I mean it as a compliment, just in case you wonder)
He would storm in the class, bombard the students with Italian words which flow so smoothly and super fast from his mouth, making me envy of his eloquence. Most of the students were just taken aback, taking five seconds or so before finally managed to utter the response, making him grow impatient—and he was not reluctant to show it. So far I think I had done pretty good, sometimes got a ’brava!’ when I could fire back fast. And most of the time he used me as his translating machine, asking ‘come si dice in Indonesiano?’ for almost every Italian word he taught us.
Though he (almost) yelled all the time, complained about the absentees, bragged about himself, flirted with some beautiful students, grilled the rather slow ones, and could not care less to slow down despite so frequent raised hands with a protesting sigh “troppo veloce...troppo veloce…(too fast..too fast..)’, and also his threat to throw us out of the window (our class is on the 2nd floor, btw) if in the next lesson we cannot introduce ourselves and rant all the words in 12 seconds, our class was full with laughter and spirit he carried within every motion he made. Once or twice I even had to dodge my head out of his always moving around hands, afraid to be slapped accidentally.
And I ENJOYED IT A LOT!
I felt that I did belong there, where my favorite language was being taught as it is used by real Italians. And all those years in waiting finally paid off (of course, this is just the beginning, because I still long for a day where I can where all the people around me use it and I can blend in the culture as well).
So two hours felt like five minutes for me. The crazy professor suggested to continue until
10pm, and I wanted so much to nod in agreement (this time I didn’t lie!), but my head was stiff motionless for the fear of being booed by other students who could not wait to go home. And so my craving to still sit there and listen and talk Italian made me feel like una studentessa matta, a crazy student.
And I guess I am. I’m too much in love with the language that it hurts too much to stop. But that’s ok, cos una studentessa matta just fits in to learn with un professore matto, or, like Toto Cutugno puts it, un Italiano vero.