I miei sogni

I know I'm going somewhere when I sit in class that is being taught in English and I try to translate as much as I can into Italian.  Or when I walk back onto campus having completed my Italian final and I'm rehearsing the presentation I just gave on Agriturismos as I walk around campus aimlessly being stared at by people who are wondering what that short girl is muttering.  I'm still not comfortable enough to say "ciao" to the Italian women who work at Dutch Hollow even though I see them everyday and hear them speaking Italian.  Its funny how if you have no confidence in your language skills you can go no where... or you would just go much further if you could gather up the confidence to have a conversation despite the number of mistakes you will make.  That is why I learned so much in my homestay... now I have to start doing it here, at Union College, outside my comfort level, where people don't expect me to know any Italian at all or expect me to try and speak it.

Just some thoughts on things I need to improve.

I will tell you more about the difficulties and worries I've been having with my upcoming job in Rome as soon as I get the chance.  Now I'm off to write about a poem for English class... surprisingly a number of poems have had strong Italian influence and many references, so I find that intriguing when we stumble across those poems.  Also, my professor asked if anyone knew what "stanza" meant in Italian, and why we call paragraphs in poems "stanzas".  Nailed it! Rooms! Rooms of words!

Alla prossima!