My "Candy" has finally arrived!!

March 7, 2011

This morning I woke up after a fabulous night of sleep. Hopefully this meant that today was going to be a great day, because it had certainly been a great weekend! In Italian class Gloria has been teaching us how to talk in the past tense, even though it’s something that you learn in Italian Elementary II. She said that she thinks it is an important concept that we should know, especially since we are going to talk to the kids at the Italian high school a week from today! I actually think I’m getting the hang of it, and I’m beginning to be able to understand and read Italian quite well. Of course speaking it isn’t so easy, so hopefully there will be someone at the school to help us out if we get stuck, or hopefully the students will know more English than we do Italian. At the end of class Gloria reminded us that we were going to have a short quiz tomorrow, which meant we had to have chapter four in our workbook completed…I totally forgot about that!

Today in Comparative Media Fabio brought in this package that was all wrapped up in a bow, and he said he was sorry he told us he was going on the Milan field trip with us and then wasn’t able to go, so he brought in cookies hoping we would accept his apology. He’s such a goof! But the cookies were really good and were in all sorts of variety…definitely not anything like cookies you would find in America though! He also told us that class was going to be cut an hour short because there was a staff meeting at 3 o’clock, so I actually thought I might be able to really understand and pay attention the entire class…especially if I want to get an A on my final exam!

Since we had an extra hour of time before European Issues I decided to crack down on my workbook and get that done and over with, but the listening section of our workbook takes so long, so I decided to take a quick break and get some form of bread or something at a bakery nearby because I was starving…my salad that packed for lunch just wasn’t holding me over. I started to walk downstairs and realized there was a package inside of the “P” mailbox slot of the school. I RUSHED over and realized it was for me and it was my package from my mom! YES!!! It has finally arrived! I no longer needed to go and get something to eat, because I knew this package was full of treats, and once I opened it I was underestimating the amount of sweets that was actually inside. I told mom that I really needed some calcium pills because I was running out and calcium pills are crazy expensive here. But I told her that if she sent me a pill bottle it might get confiscated at customs, or it might cost me money once it gets here to Italy. So, my teachers taught us that you should buy candy that looks like pills and hide the pills inside of the bag with the candy, so I taught mom this tactic and she definitely succeeded. I swear there was at least a pound of candy in the bag and my pills blended perfectly! She also sent me another memory card for my camera which will definitely come in handy, especially when I go on spring break! Her note inside of the package as well as the label of “candy” on the bag of candy and pills made me giggle because she stressed so harshly that she was ONLY sending me candy and this CANDY was for me and my friends to enjoy, so she hopes I enjoy this CANDY. Too funny but I love her to death and me and my nails couldn’t be happier that she sent me those calcium pills! And of course everyone else loved mom when I was walking around with this massive bag of candy and offered it to everyone in sight because there would be no way in the world that I could each this much candy in my entire life.  Before I knew it it was time for my next class. Sitting through European Issues was almost torture because she was trying to go quickly through the slides because she wanted to get through two whole power points in one class. However, she got to talking and we only got through one powerpoint and said we would do the next powerpoint on Wednesday, along with me and Vince’s presentation on Turkey and their Prime Minister Erdogan. (eek!)

I came home and continued doing my workbook before we all agreed that we were hungry, and it was Mamma Kala’s dinner night. We wanted to make sure we used up the millions of mushrooms that we got on Saturday before they went bad, so I fried up the mushrooms in a pan with some garlic, chicken, and spinach, and boiled some fettuccini. Once the noodles were done I tossed them around with the mushrooms and spinach and dinner was served! The girls raved at how good it was, and Danielle doesn’t even really like mushrooms. I swear I’m going to come home and won’t let mom cook anymore because I enjoy cooking so much here. The only problem is that I don’t think I’m going to be able to shop and buy ingredients like what we cook with here, so things won’t quite be the same…but I’m still going to try and make it happen. Danielle washed up the dishes and I finished doing my workbook and graded it (we have to check the answers and correct them ourselves with this answer key booklet that you find in the library…and the library closed before I could put it back, so I just took it home with me…shhh don’t tell!). I studied a little bit for our Italian quiz tomorrow, which Gloria told us we were going to have to talk about what we like to do in our free time, and also read a passage and answer a few questions about the passage…everything in Italian of course. Once I felt like I prepared a good enough response for what I do in my free time I showered (I felt gross because I was too tired to shower last night and wore a hat all day to disguise my gross hair) and headed to bed!

My spinach and mushroom pasta with chicken!

The lovely candy filled with calcium pills that mom sent me!
(2/3 of the candy had already been eaten by the time I got home to take this picture!)