It's time to do me!: Ohhh Gloria!

February 3, 2011

It is absolutely unreal how fast these weeks are going by, especially when I only go to school 4 days a week and am taking one less class than I’m used to, and I’m not working like 20 hours a week on top of it! I wish these weeks would start slowing down because before I know it I’ll be on the plane back to the States and I’m definitely not ready for that yet! But this morning in Roman Achievement was one of the first mornings that Miss Frizzle didn’t tell us that we all looked sleepy. I don’t think we ever look THAT sleepy, but every morning when she’s about to start class she tells us to get coffees and that we should get more sleep because we all look like we’re going to fall asleep on her. What she doesn’t know is that Gloria’s class after hers is always a lively bunch…ESPECIALLY today!

Today Gloria was going through different things in the book that deals with adjectives in describing one another. Once we went through some of the words she would ask the class about one particular person and we would have to shout out words that we thought described that person. Welllll the first person she asked the class about just happened to be Vince – the guy who is 26 and is a tad socially awkward that nobody knows – and Gloria was just standing at the front of the class just staring at everyone just waiting for answers and nobody knew what to say! So she asked Vince if he were outgoing or shy and he sat and pondered it for a long time before he said outgoing as he laughed very oddly….ohhhh Vince. She then asked about my one roommate who lives in the other side of the apartment Jackie, and then she asked about me. The first thing that came out of anyone’s mouth was from Marissa (my roommate) and she said something negative which was a joke and everyone including Gloria started laughing – I feel like Gloria is just one of us kids..she’s so hilarious! But then after Marissa said that she told us how to say beautiful and handsome, I think hoping to counteract what Marissa said. Somehow the topic got changed and Gloria started telling us about this English t.v. show that one of her friends gave her to watch and with all seriousness she tells us that they say a word that she has never heard of and doesn’t understand the meaning of it, so she asks us if we will help her out with the word and we’re like “Of Course! What is it?” And all of a sudden our cute, little, old teacher just shouts “KINKY! The man says sir they called me kinky! All the time they are saying kinky kinky kinky kinky! Kinky! What does it mean!?” And our whole class was in an uproar and nobody wanted to be the one to tell Gloria what our definition of the word kinky meant, so this one boy looked the definition up on his phone and read it to her. It just seems like all of our professors here aren’t shy about anything and treat us like we’re equals and how could anyone not enjoy their education here?

After Italian Art all of my roommates decided they wanted to go shopping, but I decided I didn’t really want to go because while they were all laying in bed sick for the past two weeks I was out and about shopping by myself…so I really didn’t need to do anymore shopping. I decided that I would try and skype mom and do some homework because yesterday when I tried skypeing her our connection was fine at first but then her connection dropped like every minute and we think it was due to all of the snow and ice. I kept my computer up waiting for mom to get on and started reading when all of a sudden I sat up, looked around, realized it was outrageously dark in the room I was in and I didn’t hear anything….I had fallen asleep for almost 2 hours and my roommates still weren’t home! They all said they wouldn’t be out for long because it was Lauren’s night to make dinner and we wanted to eat at a reasonable time, so I got a tad concerned about where they were, but just as I was calling Marissa to see where they were they all walked in the door. Marissa finally got a Firenze soccer jersey like she has been wanting for a really long time, Danielle got a brown sweater to match her new boots and a University of Firenze hoodie which we all have been wanting, and Lauren walked in with like 3 bags of stuff. We always joke with Lauren that no matter where we go or what store we go into she can find something that is her style and is her size and is basically perfect for her…and I guess that happened today as well.

Lauren dropped her stuff in her room and started making dinner. Thank goodness my math skills are still pretty sharp because trying to figure out how much water and how much polenta to put into the pot for her dinner was pretty difficult. The box of polenta tells you how many grams, but her recipe called for 1 ¼ cups, and when you try to convert something like that it tells you that grams is weight and cups is volume and the two can’t be related….it was a mess! But I ended up a bazillion different conversions before I finally figured it all out. The dish she made was Polenta and Eggplant Lasagna….it definitely sounds like something I would never have eaten before I came here, nor is it ingredients that I had ever eaten while growing up, but I really really liked it! It was like a layer of polenta and then a layer of cooked eggplant slices with sauce and then cheese and then a little bit of fried onion, garlic, and zucchini. She claimed it wasn’t really like the way she made it at home, and the polenta wasn’t really the right consistency, but we all loved it and devoured it! Just as we were finishing up dinner Ryan called me, wondering if him and Nora could come over to talk to me and Lauren about booking a hostel for the Iron and Wine concert next weekend. We ended up figuring everything out (a big relief) and hung out with them for a little bit…we couldn’t believe we finally had people over at our house! Haha. But it started getting late so they headed out and Marissa and I went to bed because we had to rest up for our big day tomorrow – The Day of Accomplishments!

p.s. Today I wore my new dress that is grey with funky darker grey designs on it with my black tights and leg warmers and I got so many compliments on it! I feel like a true Italian now!

A recap of dinners that we had this week: