My Biggest Challenge Yet

Possibly even scarier than the first day of school is the second day of school, because the first day everyone's nice to you and you get off easy and you don't really know the flow of things yet, so there's no telling what's normal or abnormal.

My first class begins at 9:00 AM. In the States (or at least in the schools I've been to, so... in Westerville/Columbus), that means the teacher starts teaching right at 9:00. Up through high school, walking in late meant a detention, or maybe a warning if the teacher was nice. In college, they can't technically do anything to you, but coming late means missing vital information.

But now I'm in Europe. Doing culture units in my language classes, I always learned that Europeans were way more relaxed when it came to time. I didn't understand quite how much until today, when I was sitting in my chair at 8:30 and only two other students had showed up by 9. Even my teacher arrived a couple of minutes later, and students continued to trickle in as late as 9:30. And that was no big deal! She was just sort of like, "Oh, we're super lenient when it comes to mornings and time. No biggie." Well, okay then. Guess I'll be showing up at noon from now on.

(Not really. I have enough of my mother's genes in me that I am ALWAYS in class.)

We got a couple of new students, which I'm guessing will be an ongoing thing. Who knows, my class may never be the same from day to day! Okay, it probably won't be that extreme. But every week, for sure. When we had all introduced ourselves, we spent the class talking about fairy tales! (Because, being stories, they use that tense we're working with.) It was really cool to hear the Italian names for the stories, like Biancaneve for Snow White. However, the main thing it did for me was implant a burning desire to go home and watch all my Disney movies and Once Upon a Time... which is not helpful when you're trying to focus.

My other class also went really well. It looks like all we have to do every day is talk for an hour and a half about whatever the daily topic is. Today's was money and the economy, which wasn't super exciting. Fortunately, my teacher promised a happier topic for tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing what that is! I enjoy this class because it doesn't feel like "school." Yes, we have to answer questions, but the atmosphere is much more casual and it's very stimulating to force myself to communicate in Italian for that long. I'm still not very good at speaking fluidly and spontaneously, but that's what I'm looking forward to improving. My teacher is also great about explaining stuff in Italian- if we don't know what a word means, or if we don't know how to say something, she is wonderful about interpreting our jumble of words describing our thought or explaining a new word in a way we understand. I also don't have homework for this half, which is always a plus.

I got one last evening with my family tonight. We went out to dinner, and then they came back to the apartment for a while. Saying goodbye was definitely the hardest thing I've had to do thus far. (Yes, even harder than my placement test.) It's funny- I've always wanted to study abroad, and I've been waiting for this moment pretty much my whole life. Now that it's here, I'm terrified! Going away to college was one thing, but being by myself in another country will be much harder. Luckily, we have plenty of ways to keep in touch, and I'll see them in a month. I guess it's time for the next chapter of this big adventure!

My first classroom.

My second classroom.