More hilarious language mix ups happen to me and my roommate every day. It seems like a lot of the other students are probably having these same slip ups, but Jordan (my roommate) and I are just really silly about them. My favorite story is from a few days ago. Jordan was in her film class with the same professor that I made "the invasion of the barbers" mistake with. He asked her to answer a question about a character named Antonio, and she was supposed to say "Antonio has a good head on his shoulders." Instead she ended up saying, by accident "He has a good head on his balls" because the word for shoulders in italian is spalle, and the word for balls is palle. I died of laughter when i heard this. Language is so damn funny. It's awesome.
This morning was our first soccer game. We won. It was so fun.
But, I didn't play (hahah) so it wasn't thanks to me at all. The coach for the team is WAY too intense for my liking, but there's this other coach whose like 20 years younger that I think is way cool. When we had our first meeting for soccer, he said that the team was just for fun, and everyone would play and it would never matter whether we won or lost. Then the other coach came to the 2nd practice and has been like delivering these really dramatic speeches about how we have to win and how our starting line up is always going to be all the most talented players. I'm totally fine with not starting, in fact I probably wouldn't have any idea what was going on anyway, but if I know the team wants to win more than anything as well as knowing that I can't play whatsoever (at least not helpfully) then I don't want to play. I didn't want to upset anyone, especially not the overly intense coach.
So instead, i did what i do best, and formed a very noisy cheerleading squad with two italian mothers (they or someone in their family teaches at the middlebury italian schools-i'll touch on this more later) and we shouted, cheered, and formed pyramids for a good hour and half. At the end of the match, when our team was up by a goal and the coach FINALLY started putting in inexperienced players for 5 or 10 minutes, he called on me to go in and I vehemently refused, although kindly, by saying I can't play, I don't want to! hahaha I was hiding behind the italian women and my teammates at that point. I'm not sure why he wanted me to go in though, there were 5 or 6 others of my teammates who also didn't play the whole game that he could have put in.
When I play scrimmages at practice, I like playing in smaller games with 4 or 5 people on each team or so. I do pretty well in those. I've even made a few goals. I like to run and defend, but I have no handling skills with the ball, so I lose control quickly and it frustrates me. My professor of literature practices with us, although professors aren't allowed to play in the matches, but it's been really fun to get to know him casually outside of class on the field, because he's absolutely nuts and enthusiastic, and he corrects my italian whenever I speak incorrectly. even at soccer practice. I guess everyone corrects each other. all the time. This school is truly nuts.
Anyway, about the families here: There's this incredible family atmosphere here, mixed with young people, priests, grad students, and visiting artists (mostly authors). I love seeing the wives of some of the professors, or husbands of the professors chat with each other in quick dialect italian. Since I only have 3 professors out of the 15 or 16 that are employed by the italian school, I can hardly tell the difference between whose a spouse of a professor and whose actually a professor so all the real italian people just fade together. It's like foreigners and true italians. But it doesn't really even matter, because everyone treats each other the same way outside of class like in the dining hall. Everyone says hi, and its like a small village, which i guess might sound like wellelsey or a dorm at a college, but this feels stronger because of the huge cultural force that the real italians have brought with them to the states, just the flow of conversation and the hilarity of everything. I don't know how to explain...
There are also some young italian people here, and I'm not even really sure who they are-they're definitely not grad students, family somehow of employees of the college, but anyway, they're a really great resource for other young people who are going/want to go to italy. A lot of them live there. Like I really can't explain how excited I am to have networked this much (only in a week) before going to Italy. I already know people who will be in so many places that I have to visit.
I'm drowning in homework this weekend. I have over 35 pages to read in italian, which doesn't sound like much, but i guess it's the hardest thing for me to do. I also have to essays. I've spent the 4th playing soccer and being in the library. I've written a few new songs lately which seems good.
alright, ciao, a dopo
reading this is like reading harry potter
ReplyDeleteexcept way cuter
ReplyDelete