language: a lot of people have been asking me how my italian skills have been coming along, and it is hard to answer. on one hand, i speak italian all the time (unless talking to friends and family back home), text in italian, go watch movies in italian, and am halfway through an italian novel. i guess a lot of people would say that by these standards, my ability to speak italian is pretty good. the thing about learning a language, however, is that you are always learning. i speak italian pretty well for only having been here for about 4 months, but in a situation like this, it is a survival thing: just something you have to do. you keep getting better and better, and at the same time you realize that you still have so much more to learn. i wish i'd chosen to do the year program if not only because it would have given me more time to really perfect my italian. there are some funny anecdotes though:
1. About a month ago we had Easter break, and the weeks before it I kept talking to classmates about what they are going to do, and vice versa. I kept saying, "Sono eccitando per la vacanze di Pasqua!" (I'm excited for Easter break!) only to have my Italian teacher tell me a few weeks later that eccitando means a different sort of excited. so basically for weeks i'd been telling my classmates that i get sexually aroused by trips to Genova and going to an Italian mass. go me.
2. I keep saying "Sto buona!" (I'm good) instead of "Sto bene!" (I'm good). Technically buona is only used when talking about food, so basically I keep accidentally saying "I'm delicious!" combine that with what is above, and they must really think i-da-ho.
school: let's just say i miss boise high school a lot. italian school is focused on three things: tests, homework, and oral exams. forget the clubs, the sports, the ceramics or orchestra or journalism class. there are about nine subjects that are mandatory for all students in the specific grade, and because the teacehrs move classrooms instead of the students, you sit in the same white room with the same students all day long. granted, i get off at 1:20 p.m., 12:30 p.m., and 11:30 a.m. various days of the week, but that also means i have the PLEASURE of going to school on saturdays. oh yes: pure gold. while italian school does have impressive language classes (all my classmates take and are basically fluent in french, latin and english), teaching is composed of lectures and note-taking. i have to say, i definitely prefer my american high school to my italian one, if not also for the reason that here there are 5 years of high school and the toilets are porcelain holes in the floor. it makes me very grateful to go to boise high, however, because i love getting to take a sociology class or becoming co-editor-in-chief of my newspaper (shoutout to my co-editors bailey and aubree!) italian school is difficult, and i personally prefer to work hard ... and play hard too. it makes me love going to school, whereas here i dread it. i love the brief 10 minute breaks to talk to my friends or such, but other than that i just stay in class and read my book in italian. being here, however, has made me wish the USA put a more of an emphasis on learning foreign language in schools, but I think English-speaking countries are a little lazy when it comes to that because for us, we don't have to learn another language to be successful like the rest of the world has to learn English.
friends: making friends on exchange can be easy and difficult. easy in the sense that, because you are an exchange student, a lot of people are interested in you. after a month or two, though, you aren't new anymore. you actually have to start and try to make friends with classmates, teammates, etc. the difficulties are this: imagine starting a brand new high school, in a new city, with absolutely no one you know. add the language barrier, a new family and a new country, and you get how hard it is at times. for the first few months, AFS kids are pretty much your life -- my friend Maria (Panama) has become a really good friend in this experience. However, after time, you start making plans, going out, and getting invited out. Lately I've mostly been going out with friends from school, and my temporary (I'm staying with her family for 2.5 weeks while my host family visits my host brother in USA) host sister. I've established a life here ... it'll be hard to leave it.
so that's what is up with me right now. there is so much to life here that sometimes i am lost about what to write about, so if anyone has a question/topic they want me to discuss, let me know(:
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