So every student has to chose one or two cultural acitivities to participate in, and I knew going into this I wanted to do cooking club, but it turns out that's only a few times throughout the summer semester, so instead, I decided to join "sports club" which is really code for the soccer team. Yesterday was the first general meeting, and tomorrow after class at 5:30 pm is our first practice! Apparently, each language school has a team and they play each other on sundays. Our first match is this coming weekend! I hardly know the rules for soccer, let alone any techniques, but we watched the US v Brasil game today and I paid as close attention as possible before falling asleep.
We practice every day for and hour and a quarter, except sundays, and then have dinner right after. After dinner at 9, there's an event almost every single night, like performances by artists in residence or poetry readings by professors-two things that I like a lot.
I met with the head of the school, Antonio Vitti (said with a GRANDE accent italiano) which was a little bit scary, to sign up for classes yesterday. I'm taking Italy's new social landscape, Advanced Italian grammar, and Modern Literature. Turns out most of the level 3 classes use the same films as Italian 103 and 203 and the italian film class I took at Wellesley, so I've already seen a lot of them. But that's fine.
I've met a ton of people. There are about 122 people in the italian school, and only 15 or so are in level 3. I've made a few friends who are grad students which is SO good for my vocabulary and speaking speed, because they are just incredible at speaking and really nice about correcting me. One grad student I know, Angela, teaches italian at a high school in New Jersey, and she spent 7 summers consecutively in Lecce, the town I'm going to in August, and she told me she'll contact her friends to let them know I'm coming so they can show me around.
Anyway, tons of other networking opportunities come up every day. I meet people who have been or will be in the same places as I in italia, and so I swap info with someone almost everyday while saying "tell me where to go" or "let's meet up."
Meals are really cool. I meet new people at meals every day. The level one students are terrified of meals because they're forced to talk about things they don't know how to say and a lot of them sit with more advanced students so as to learn new words and phrases. Almost everyone carries around a little notepad to scratch down things they hear that they don't recognize, and then later that night they can look them up. We are, I found out today, allowed to use italian-english dictionaries, which is fabulous. I'm dying without mine, but it should be here sometime soon.
If you're wondering about the language pledge and how I'm immensely breaking it, the answer is yes, I'm breaking it in half right now. However, what each student does on his or her computer is totally up to them, which the school acknowledged, but I'm really not supposed to speak english, apparently, which is fine with me, because I still don't have my cell phone anyway, so I'm not tempted to call anyone and I don't really have a reason to.
I might be hurting myself once school starts if I keep writing and thinking in english, but as for this weekend, there hasn't been much to do, so I can't really help my desire to update my english speaking friends on what's up.
Class is only 3 hours instead of 6, as I originally thought, which i'm also REALLY excited about, except that it means we have more homework than class time, which sucks. Class starts at 9, goes till 11, starts up again from 12 to 1, then lunch, then I have soccer practice at 5:30, then dinner at 7, events at 9, and sleeeeeeep. Which I can't seem to get enough of. Today, there were no activities and I slept most of the day away.
I miss music, and I wish there were more people around who wanted to play a piano with me. Everytime someone walks into the common room and I'm playing piano they just stare in awe and then ask "Quanti anni suoni il piano forte?" (how long have u been playing?) I got a practice room key for the 1 or 2 nice pianos at this whole school--a huge step down from wellesley which has steinways in every room (i'm truly spoiled)--and I try to use them every day.
Otherwise, middlebury the town is very cute. Today I marched through town with a girl from Mills college, Alexis, who is another level three student, in search of cigarettes, for her. Middlebury has this gigantic river that cuts right through the middle, otter creek (lol). It's beautiful.
Anyway, I know this is entirely too long, I just haven't really spoken english very much in 3 days, as I guess I shouldn't have, but ARG!
Ad ogni modo, ciao tutti! vi voglio bene!
Ali
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