SCHOOL: has been going well, they just recently changed my scheduel this tuesday, so that my classes are customized to me. being an exchange student, who is trying to recieve credit, i need to have a personalized scheduel. School in italy is very very differnt(read a post below)staying in one class all day with the same group of people. the teachers go in and out. and they have a curriculum set for you. but more than half of the subjects are things i dont need to study! like religion, philosophy, latin, italian, etc. and I need more science classes. So NOW I have one class with a year 3 class, and one class with a year 5 class. the rest of my classes are with my main class, a year 4 people. It's really fun and really nice to be able to get to meet all these people of all different ages! But then it's also really confusing, because random people will come up to me and say hello. and i dont know who they are. they probably are someone i know and have met, but i cant remember everyones faces and names!!! i feel bad.. haha but give me time and i think i'll get it. though it took me like a whole month to learn everyone in my own class' names..
my class recently went to milan to go to the theater to see a play. I was bored because i couldnt really understand much(it was also in old italian, like its not used anymore.. apparently) but i understood some things! I was really excited
My school(on monday) had an assembly. It was very different from assemblies in the states. in the states its informational, and entertaining. here it was very boring, and boring, and very very boring. Thats all. At least for me. proabbly because i couldnt understand anything. But I beleive they talked about the manifestazione in milano. and they also talked about elections, and school trips. Even though it was boring, at least we got to not have class for 2 hours :)
This friday(today) we had the elections, where we voted for who would represent our class. And they gave us 2 hours to do it. I thought that was really stupid, because it really only took 15 minutes, 30 minutes at most. and we spent the rest of the tiem sitting, hanging out in the classroom. We were not allowed to leave. And we didnt do much. though it was fun to hangout with my classmates. I just thought it was stupid that they gave us 2 hours to vote...
ITALIAN: has been improving. I can now say some full(but basic) sentences on my own. and i understand basic words out of every sentence. Italian classes have been going well. I have italian homework and everything. it's 2 hours each class, 3 times a week. lunadi, giovedi, e venerdi(monday, thursday, and friday)
by the way I missed 2 of my italian classes due to AFS camp...
AFS CAMP(october 14-17)
I did not go to school on thursday. I did not go to school on friday. I also skipped italian class on both of those days :P
I first had to take the train from my village, the the main city of my local chapter, Novara. there i met with 3 other AFSers and we took the train together to torino, the main city of the piemont region.(Italy is divided into regiones, and within each regione there are provinces. my province in novara.)
So In torino at the train station all AFS students met. Except for Ivrea students. We took a bus and picked them up on our way to the place we were staying at. It was like a 2 hour drive up in the mountains in the middle of no where. no city. and it was so foggy you couldnt see. but at the same time it was kind of pretty. It was really high up though! like when we drove down after our ears popped..
The first thing we did when we got there, was get our rooms, put our stuff away, and go down for snacks and just to hangout.
Then we had introduction, where we talked about rules and stuff. and they broke us off into groups, 4 groups(our name tags were color coded, red, blue, orange and green, i think..)
in our groups we talked about school. We made charts on what we liked about school. what was different( i think, i sort of forgot) and what our problems were.
after we had dinner and all hung out together for while. we didnt do much, but just being with a group of people your age, like you, experiencing what you are experiencing, going through the same troubles and difficulties as you, and just being in a new place like you, It's just so fun just to be with them!
Then we all got together in one room, and started to play games. some of the games were really weird. like one, was where we had to have one person sit in the middle. and the goal was to kiss them on the cheeck(two people would be called to the middle) without being kissed on the cheek by the other person in the middle first. It was really weird. and I never quite understood it..
Then we all went to bed
Day 2:
we had breakfast, and then split off into our groups again. but this day we talked about problems. all problems. host family problems. There was a whole list, and we had to go through each one and it took a REALLLLYYY long time. as far as i am aware, 2 people are switching/switched host families.
then we had lunch. then went back to our groups and played more games(LOTS of random games)
in the evening had dinner, then played more games. we did the human knot. and we also played a game where we split into two groups, and had a blanket. the blanket was held up, so that two peple could side on both sides of it, without being able to see each other. then they would drop the blanket and we had to gues eachothers names, whoever said their name first won. It was difficult becuase there were soooo many people and sometimes there were instances when both people didnt know eachothers names. so they just say there saying "uhhh" literally..
Day 3:
We went on a hike in the mountains, and got chestnuts. we came back to where our place was at and roasted them and just talked and hung out. overall camp was pretty chill. throughout the 3rd day we also had private interviews. AFS asked us things like about our families, our school. how we like our overall placement. how good of a job we think AFS is doing. (oh my bad, in italy they call it intercultura)
If you have a problem, they have you work it out. they are ALWAYS there for you.This day we also did an activity, where for each person who represented a different country there(people in the piemonte regione: thai, chinese, bolivian, canadian, australia, japanese, german, belgian, finnish, greenlandic, icelandic etc)we had a poster with the country's name on it. then we had to pass each poster around and everyone had to write at least one thing they thought about the country. whether it be as terotype, or just a thought about the country. at the end the person/people who represnted that country had to get up and talk about their country. talking about whether or not things that were written were true. it was actually really interesting! below is a couple pictures.
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| Japan |
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| Australia |
this night we had really good food. pizzaaaa!!!
after dinner everyone hung out in the main room together, because the next day we would be leaving each other. this is one big group picture we took. i dont think everyone is in it though.. because there were about 50 of us there.
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| Represented here:Chile, Brazil, Russia, Argentina, Finland, Bolivia, Belgium, Turkey, America, Canada(and others who arent in the picture..Iàm in the green jacket) |
day 4:
More interviews, lots of free time. Hung out with each other, went in each others rooms and just listened to music. and talked. breakfast there btw, was ALWAYS the same. lunch this day was really good. we got lasagne and then tiramisu. soooo good. i was in heaven.
after we got out bags, and went home.. we all took the bus back to torino. and from there we all went our own ways.
i went with 3 other girls on the train to novara. one got off the stop before ours. then the 3 of us went to novara, and we had aperitivo(not something they have in the states, so i dont know what it is called, but its like an appetizer.) We went into the city and all had pizza together :) it was delicious! but then we had to go back to our host families and there in novara we said goodbye
All the exchange students talked about how they gained weight. All the boys lost weight, and all the girls have gained about 2 kilos each already. wow... I'm too scared to weigh myself...
You dont even understand, the food here is soooooooo good. It needs to stop being so good. i cant resist myself. and it is getting us all fat! at camp we shared stories about people we knew who went on exchange. one girl said she had a friend who went on exchange and gained 30 kilos... :O that is insane. i hope i dont get like that.. It's very difficult for me. because i honestly think food is one of my best friends. AND back home in seattle i waas always doing sports, here i do nothing. So i am actually scared. I talked to a lot of other people and they said gaining weight is actually one of their biggest concerns. It's a serious matter!
Now it is the weekend. and Tomorrow I will go to the city and meet friends there. I love going to the city :)
I'll update more later.
On October 28th we are leaving for NY, then to mexico. My host family has a wedding to attend there. and It is sort of a vacation because i think they find it pointless to travel that far just to go for a day or two.
Though I'm kind of bummed to miss halloween here, because apparently there are HUGEE parties and I am missing a manifestazione in milano(students go to big cities and start protests), but its ok. Because I'm going to Mexico! And there are going to be other manifestazione things.
I am excited to return to the states, I want to buy lots and lots of gum! and i am going to eat lots and lots of chinese food! and hot dogs from the street corners. haha I'm so excited. Ive been to NY before, but only for oreintation. I have never actually seen it. So this will be fun!
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