Stories and frustrations

So today was full of embarrassing/funny/sort of annoying things.

This morning I woke up at 6:45 because after only one day of school, i wasn't able to finish my homework before midnight. I'm flooded with work all the time, but i guess I've only been here for 5 days so I should wait till later to complain about how much work I have when it really gets bad.

Anyway, When I woke up, I took a shower, came back to the room and was sort of going about my daily morning routine when my roommate screamed, in english, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" (prendi-mi in giro) She was talking in her sleep, but my back was to her, and I had no idea what was going on or if she was yelling at me. I started hysterically laughing, and she sort of woke up and was like, huh? then she rolled over and went back to sleep. Oh my god. so funny.

Then later today, in my literature class we were talking about the roman empire and how the italian language was born out the latin dialects at that time. In the discussion, the professor brought up the barbaric invasion, but no one could remember the word for barbaric in italian, and i made a sound like i was going to say something, so he pointed at me, and i felt pressured to say something, so i was like "barbieri?" And he stared at me with a blank face and said "that's brilliant, i'm going to write that down." 

apparently barbieri means barbers, so what I accidentally said invasion of the barbers instead of the barbarians. I laughed, turned what I can only assume was the deepest shade red that I've turned in several years, and couldn't stop laughing silently for another 3 or 4 minutes. damn. I was so embarrassed. 

Then I went to talk to the director of the school because I asked my professors yesterday if it was okay for me to take the final exams early since I have to leave for italy on august 10th and the school finishes on August 14th. My professors told me it's fine with them, but I had to check with the head of the italian school.

So, for the second time now, I went to talk to him, and stuttered in italian, while I tried to explain my situation. He said that he didn't know anything about me leaving early, which was a bit of a surprise since the school coordinator told me when the school switched from mills to vermont that she had contacted the director and okay-ed everything with him. I asked what I could do, and then volunteered to send him the emails i'd exchanged with Kara, the school coordinator. The only problem is that I recently deleted about half of my emails because my inbox was almost full and I couldn't receive large messages, so I emailed both of them and told them the circumstances. 

The reason it's a problem for him if I leave early is Middlebury has a policy where they have to fail anyone who leaves more than one day early, apparently. The coordinator told me that I could at least get a withdrawl/credit of some sort, or something, as long as I did well in my classes. The problems I see with this are as follows:

1) I was supposed to go to the mills campus anyway which ended a week earlier on August 7th. When that school was cancelled I made it clear that I had other plans.

2) I already paid  the tuition in full with my own money, the help of SRA and others, as well as Middlebury's generous grant  so I don't think it would be fair for the school to really change up on me this much. 

3) I don't really mind just getting credit, because I'm really just here to learn, but I don't have nearly as much incentive to SCORE well on tests, papers, and homework if I'm not going to get any recognition at all. Not that it's about recognition, but if I'm going to get an F no matter what I do, that's just discouraging.

Anyway, in other, more positive news, the first soccer practice was today, and no more than 10 minutes in "una grande tempesta" (huge thunder and lightning storm) hit us and we had to go inside. I got completely soaked along with the rest of the team, but it was fun to do drills and run around in the rain like a 5 year old. 

I'm swamped with homework. All the time. Sort of gasping for air in one of my classes-literature. It's really hard for me. I realized today that most of the other students in level 3 are: 1) fluent in 2 or more languages and learning italian only now 2) 25 years or older 3) have studied italian for over 3 years. I guess I'm just making excuses for why they have advantages and why I feel like i'm having trouble, but these people are INCREDIBLE at italian, and it's intimidating my socks off. I can speak, sort of, but I usually stutter before getting a thought out. 

Reading, or rather, reading comprehension is rather difficult and tonight I'm starting 2 different books for 2 different classes. I sort of forgot how to work, after wellesley, and even there, as many of you know, i'm a pretty last minute kind of student, so this type of every-day-keep-at-it work is kicking my ass...

Nothing else. Stay classy. 

Allora/So....

About middlebury. 

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

I'm not gonna lie....

For those of you who are fans of The Office, you understand not only the meaning of life, but the title of this blog. Creed, as well as a few other very important figures in my life (none other then my trusted wellesley friends) have led me to see the importance of 'the blog' in life, and so I've decided to join in the fun.

In any event, I know I had been sending email updates to many of you but it recently occurred to me that frequent emails might be rather annoying, especially when I start sending them ALL the time. As most of you know, I think/talk a lot...perhaps too much. I guess that's my second reason for starting this blog. Blogs are like public journals. That's kind of strange. But primarily, i just wanted to be cool. I'm not gonna lie...

So welcome and I'll probably be posting all the time. Hope your summers, falls, winters, springs and next summers all go fantastically, and please keep me updated on what your doing as well. For those of you who already have blogs, I actually check every day. :)

 

Ci vediamo tutti!

Ali