Emozionata!

Alloraaa,

So, like I said before I knew time was going to go by super fast....and now its already March and yesterday was Feb 1st!! I don't like this!!! In February, my favorite part of the whole month was CARNEVALE!! Yeah we celebrate Marti Gras in the US one day, but here its a whole week! And we get to miss school!! I saw many parades and all kinds of crazy things, it was like a big costume party for a week! I was lucky enough to go to Ivrea for one day of Carnevale and participate in ' Le feste delle arance' which means the festival of the oranges. This takes places in 4 different parts of Italy but the closest one to me is Ivrea! Bascially it is a huge war of people throwing oranges at eachother! And they are NOT throwing them lightly at all infact they are trying as hard as they can to hit people...Now the people who are sopposed to throw and recieve the oranges are sopposed to be the people on the four different teams that exist in Ivrea, they all have matching little jerseys...yes they have a orange throwing team I know..hmm..anyways If your near any of the wars that take place within the 4 or 5 hours of the day it lasts for....you will most likely get hit they told us if we don't want to get hit we should wear a red hat or something red on our head as a symbol that we are NOT participating...I had a vibrant red hood on but still got orange juice all over my face! I saw people, missing teeth, with black and blue eyes all kinds of things from this fight! It was so intense! I loved it!! We also got to get some yummy Vin Brulè which is a warm particular wine that is very tasty!! Overall Ivrea was really fun I also got to see exchange students that I hadnt seen since Rome from the Torino region and others who were in Ivrea for the Settimana di Scambio( exchange week). Then the weekend of Carnevale I decided to participate in many fun discoteca adventures with themes! One of the discos theme was Baroque style...I didnt dress up though I was too lazy but there actually wasnt that many people dressed up anywaysss haha...lets see here hmm...
I am actually sad to say I can not only feel my english getting worse but I can see it---example A) I spelled STREET like this STRIT...then tried again STREAT...and finally remember the right way after 2 minutes...FML...another example was when I spelled LOSE...LOOSE and was corrected by an italian that I had spelled a word wrong...not embarassing or anything right?? My host family is actually mad( not literally) because I have never spoken english with them for more than 2 words or so...when people ask them how my english is they have no idea bc I never speak it! I think this is a good thing but they want to learn english so maybe i will give them some lessons. However, people say that I have a weird accent and its hard to understand me because I speak ' AMERICAN' I dont know what that means because I thought american was a nationality not a language but apparently in Italy its a language because all the time people are like..' How do you say ----in american'? I answer that I know how to say it in english but American im not so sure of !! They dont get that American is EQUAL to English just the accent is different...well maybe they understand now that i have told them I hope so!! Anyways the fact that I never speak english unless I am speaking to an American is really helping me. I am doing well in school I would say and actually have better grades than many other kids in my class but I think this is because my teachers are easier on me obviously!! :P
I really love my class in school, not only are they super nice but they are so funny....I mean I know in America my schoolmates are clever and think of funny pranks to pull on teachers but the people in my class are super clever! We have a crazy history of art teacher like even the other teachers are afraid of her! And we have been inventing all kinds of new games that we play in class...Today for example...Everytime someone claps 2 times we all freeze and stop moving until they clap their hands again and we all move again like nothing happened...my teacher actually didnt even realize what we were doing....Everytime we would freeze she would ask a question and we would all be dead silent and then she would be like okay answer...i promise i wont put down a grade...common...and i think I ruined it every single time I burst out laughing !! I couldnt hold it in!! We also have really comfy chairs in class that you can spin and move higher and lower and we all decided to put them the highest they can go and then on the count of three we would all lower them and hide under our desks...my teacher was soo confused! Yes this deff sounds very innapportiate and misbehavior for school ...but its all innocent fun right?? I am still laughing when I think about it...things like this always happen in my class anyways, I never stop laughing in school...its actually prob not a good thing my teachers say i am too happy and giggly all the time hahah ahh oh well :P

So this friday I am going to Parma! Famous for cheese and ham! with my class !! Then saturday I part for Sicily I will be sure to write about exchange week when I get home!! CIAO TUTTIII
Mollie

Halfway Point

Allora!

Well I can officially say that I have been living in Italy for 5 months now! I honestly think it has gone by very fast some of the time but also very very slow at other times. Its a weird feeling, thinking that my journey is already half-way over!!! I know that the next half of my stay is going to go by so fast and I really don't want it to because I am enjoying my stay here so much!!! I can deff. say that my first half of my experience was nothing close to easy, infact I truly think I have had one of the hardest situations out of all of the kids in my whole region! Minus the few that got sent home....anyways, changing host families 2 times is not something I ever thought would happen before I got here but it did and I can really mean it when I say I don't even mind that I had to do this. Ofcourse If I could choose to start out with an amazing family that I love and stay with them all year it would have made things a lot more easier! But I believe in Karma strongly and also that everything happends for a reason and for this, I know I was sopposed to switch for some reason. And I really learned a lot about myself and matured a lot from this. A positive thing from living with 3 different families is I also got to see the way 3 different families live in Italy because all 3 families I've stayed with are very different!!! I feel like I've not only had 3 host families but 4 because I can honestly call my assisstant Jasmine's family my own just as much as my host family :) So yah, I actually still see my second host family a lot they live really close to me and I go to their house for dinner, or go shopping with my host mom or simply pop in and visit them when I miss them! One thing thats been really hard for me, and also I have heard many other exchange students have this problem is something that people should really think about, and take in mind that NOT EVERYONE WANTS AN EXCHANGE STUDENT LIVING IN THEIR HOUSE. I have had many afs friends, and heard stories about people who had children or one member of the family who did not want an exchange student and this really complicates a host family situation. So advice for anyone who wants to host in the future, MAKE SURE EVERYONE WANTS TO HAVE AN EXCHANGE STUDENT, because in my case now, only my host mom wanted an exchange student, and my host siblings do not want one, so basically, its kind of an interesting aroma in the house. However, I am super strong and I really am used to it now, but like I said, its not fun and its something that happends a lot so prepare future AFSer's. I also had 3 other friends already switch because of this problem. My personal view of this is that you have to make the best of every situation. I have had a super hard time in my host families but I still smile everyday when I am walking through the streets of my town and try to cherish every good moment that I spend with my family and friends here because I know they arent endless since this is sucha short stay. Allthough my family situation has not always been great, fortunatley, my school situation has been! Maybe the first 3 months were pretty rough because of the langugage barrier with studying and such, however, I have been blessed with an AMAZING Class!!! They are so nice and hilarious! I love my school also!!! Its a fun place and good environment and this is actually a thing most exchangers have told me they hate is their school and how its soo serious and boring, in my case its the opposite and maybe its because I am in Liceo Artistico and the scientific ones are more serious, but also the other classes and people I have met in my school are just and nice and fun! I have a theater group in my school and this is also an uncommon thing most schools dont organize anything after school and for this I am happy :) I have met lots of people through this also! Our play consists of many scenes in Italian and a few shakespeare ones, in which I am in! Everytime we practice the part I am in and I say my lines people just stare at me in "awe" and are like "BRAVA BRAVA PERFETTO" in reality I suck at acting and I say everything sooo corny but to them it sounds professional so good for that! Another thing I am very lucky to have is an amazing Local Chapter in AFS! They organize lots and lots of things for us to do and I always have so much fun when I am with them!!! I know that many people are in chapters where there is 2 people and the volunteers never talk or do anything with them, in my case it is not like that and I think I'm really fortunate that I was picked to come to Monza! Also, I am lucky that I live so close to Milan my new favorite city! I swear I am moving there when I grow up!!! Its amazing, and so Me!!!!! However, very expensive!!! Oh well! I have recently found out that for my exchange week ( the exchange students get to choose a place in italy to live for a week) I am going to Catania, Sicily in March!!! I am very very excited for this and I cant wait, I really want to see how different sicily and south Italy is from the very North where I live! I have heard its another world and I want to see it first hand!! I really hope the end of my stay is just as great or if not better( which i've heard it always is) than the first part!!!! A dopo Mollie

Felicità

Well Hello everyone!!

I seriously can not find the energy to keep writing these beastly blogs! I have been procrastinating forever, So I figure I will just get it over with! Anyways, So life in Italy has finally gotten normal, deff not boring, but things are normal, the culture shock is over and I acutally understand the culture now. I honestly can't describe in words how much I love Italian culture! Everything about it seriously! Its so different from the American one in many ways, Even the smallest things you wouldnt even think of are different. People react to situations differently in general, and present themselves different also. One thing that is a stereotype about italy is that it is the country of love. The thing is its not a stereotype its true, and I am not just saying like the romeo and juliet type of love, I mean the love for things in general. The appreciation people have for their family, friends, clothes, shelter, its so important to them. People are just good people in general here. In school for example, people are well behaved, detention doesnt exist because no one would do anything to get detention because they are all respectful people. There are no fights in the hallways, drugs in the bathrooms and sex in the stairwells, people are just here to study in their school and thats it. Even the littlest things people apprectiate, and I really think people here try to find the beauty in life and capture it. People are always talking about all the beautiful things they do, and not so much the bad. Even the graffiti, in the US its all like F**** YOU and here its all " I LOVE YOU" AMORE....I love this part of the italian culture! Another thing I have noticed is people are super honest here, they tell eachother everything they think instead of saying behind their back...the thing is telling someone theyre shirt is ugly to their face isnt to be mean its to help them look better in the future because people dont have the intentions to make others feel bad. I dont know if every exchange student sees italy this way, but from my school and my point of view this is how I see it. Anywhooo I have been busy, dancing, acting and dancing in the musical in my school and doing various other clubs with my school and obviously having as much as I can during my super short weekends! I DO NOT LIKE SATURDAY SCHOOL! Now I am used to it but I cant wait to be able to actually sleep again, I havent slept in in sooo long!! Another thing interesting that happened this sunday that happends occasionally here is that no one can use their cars. Milan had all the streets empty, it was nice to see, they are trying to clean the air, its really sad I dont even see stars here anymore because of the pollution!!! They are very ecofriendly here, conserving heat and other various things, but some people dont recycle that much, it depends. I wish I had time to write more but I have to go to Math Class CIAO TUTTI :) A DOPO

Buon Capodanno 2010!!!!

Happy New Year everyone!!! I haven't wrote on this since before christmas and I have done a lot of things since then since I have had my amazing long school vacation from the 18th of december until today january 7th! It went by way to quickly! So, in the blog post before I thought I would be going to Venice and Verona with Jasmine but it turns out only 2 or 3 feet of snow can actually stop all transportation from moving! And since I have the BEST luck everrr ofcourse, the only time it has actually snowed all winter here was the night before I was sopposed to go therefore no trains were working and I couldn't go :( Instead I did some shopping with Jasmine, her sister and her mom! I have gone shopping so many times during this vacation I love it!!

So moving on to an exciting subject, I celebrated my first Christmas, In Italy!!! First of all, I have never celebrated Christmas in the US so Im not even too sure how different it actually is than christmas's in the US but many of my friends from AFS said its a lot different here, I couldnt tell the difference! So, for my Christmas, The 24th I actually spent with my host family from before, they brought me to mass with them so I could see what it was like, it was interesting to see but I honestly didn't understand a word of anything so I just sat and listened! The morning of Christmas I woke up unusually early (9:30 am!!!) and walked into the living room where my host mom said to walk over to the couch and under a piece of paper with my name on it were my presents! It was pretty chill, I gave the family my gifts after and then we had to start getting ready for the big christmas lunch. My host mom invited, about 10 people over, all family members, however all over the age of 50 it seemed! For the massive lunch we had which lasted about 5 hours we had appetizers, followed by pasta, and more pasta and then meat and deserts and tons of wine!! I was stuffed!! I guess in Italy Christmas is also a holiday for friends too bc my host brother just randomly left in the middle of the lunch to hang out with his friends and some of my other AFS friends said their siblings did the same. However, I know that theres many families here that stay with their family all day, I think it just depends! So around 7 pm on the 25th I went off to Jasmines to celebrate the end of Christmas and Santo Stefano(the 26th) with her family! Here many people actually celebrate the 26th while in the US the 24th is more celebrated and rarely the 26th. When I got to Jasmines, she had all her cousins and aunts and uncles over! They were all so nice and welcomed me into the family immeadiatley! We ended up playing a huge game of trivial pursuit for about 2 or 3 hours until 1 am with all her aunts and uncles and cousins that were left! It was really hard actually to play for me because all the questions were ab italian history, films, sports, ect. which I've learned a lot about but not to that extent, in the end I did learn a lot. Ofcourse the geography questions which involed sometimes the US that I got wrong kindof is embarassing but for those of you who know me that shouldn't really be a surprise or anything :P.... In the end Me, and 3 of Jasmines other older cousins all slept at Jasmines and attempted to make a puzzle until ab 3:30 am which I guess is a tradition in their family that they always make a puzzle! I suck at puzzles!! Anyways, the 26th was another day of eating all the left over christmas food and playing lots more games! We played a game similar to "Trouble" and also a new card game I learned called "stairs" when translated and also a game similar to Bingo which I actually became pretty good at, well lucky in the end and won some euros!!! Overall it was a really amazing christmas and Im really glad to celebrate it in Italy for the first time!! Over these holidays here I have realized how important family is and how much you should appreciate the family you have. Changing host families 3 times I have realized how important mine is and how much I took them for granted. I have met and become part of so many families in Italy and am really grateful for having met so many amazing people here so far :)

After the Christmas days were over, I spent a night in Milan at my american friend Katies house which was fun, the day after we met up with kids visiting from Torino for lunch and did some shopping! I had thought I was going to go to Genova with my other host family for the rest of the break but again with my AMAZING good luck, the weather was rainy and bad so I didn't end up going but it was okay because I got to spend New Years with my friends!!! Me and my 2 good friends from school went to a house party, It was super fun!! I actually think we celebrated it being midnight about 4 times and Im pretty sure all 4 of those times were before and after midnight! People were going crazy popping champagne everywhere, fireworks going off, I love italy! hahaha we got home around 5am that night and me and my friend woke up around 1 pm the next day at her house where I got to eat the amazing traditional new years food! Ofcourse theres special food for new years! Typically, here they eat Lentils, and turkey. The Lentils are sopposed to represent $, because they are the color of money and it symbolizes a rich new year or something like that. I don't know why they eat turkey though, it was really good anyways!!

After the new years fun, I spent time hanging out with friends, and going to milan again to visit friends from Bergamo and Triveigli(sp) and hang out with them, we actually decided to take the staircase and climb up to the top of the Duomo in Milan it was such an amazing view you could see all of milan, which btw has lots of pollution yet it will still be my favorite city ever!!

So yesterday, the 6th of January, is a holiday here called "La Befana" which means witch in Italian. Basically it is a holiday for little kids, they all put out stockings and the witch comes the night of the 5th and puts lots of candies or little gifts in the stocking if they have been good and if not she brings coal!!! Lucky me, I recieved a nice big stocking full of candy from Jasmine's family!!! YUM, I celebrated my Befana holiday in Seravalle near Genova, with the Awad Family, and Jasmines uncles family also, and I brought along Karn who is a girl from Thailand in my AFS monza region! We woke up at 7 am and drove to Seravalle which is basically a shopping town outlet full of designer stores! It was fashion heaven! We literally shopped all day until it was 6 or 7 with a very quick lunch break, yah they meant business! I love shopping, and here there is so much fashion every where I am learning so much about fashion and italian style, I even find myself dressing very different to fit in with other people here!

Overall, It was a really fun vacation and I didnt want it to end! School today I was so tired, I still need more sleep!! Until next time.

XOXO Mollie

Buon Natale!

Christmas Time is my favorite time of the year!! Besides the fact that Im Jewish and I don't even celebrate the holiday, the atmosphere is always so loving and fun and warm!! People get super excited for Christmas Here! My other host family started decorating their house at the end of November for Christmas, maybe even before that It seems like!!

I am actually pretty excited to finally celebrate christmas for the first time!! I have already helped decorate 2 christmas trees!! Its so much fun! And also my other favorite activity to do is eat the amazing Christmas time sweets. In Milan one of their signature deserts which almost every eats during this time is Pandoro, or Panatone, it is special for Milan and its basically this huge volcano shaped cake bigger than the size of my head! And the Pandoro is with out stuff inside like just plain and the other one has raisens or chocolate chips. They come in a huge bag and what you do is open the bag pour a huge thing of powdery goodness on top and then shake the bag as hard as you can so its all over the cake mmmm is sooo good!! Its so biggg gah I want to go eat it right now im getting so hungry writing this! Moving on... So, December 13th is a holiday is certain parts of Italy called Santa' Lucia, in Milano they don't celebrate this but specifically in Brescia they do! So, all or atleast most of the kids from AFS in Lombardia all met in Brescia for this holiday and celebrated it!! Basically for the places in Italy where they celebrate this they get all their christmas presents the 13th, and also lots of candy! And then when its christmas they still celebrate it normally but without getting the gifts on Christmas day! So, when we got to Brescia all of us kids got different costumes in the Christmas theme and dressed up to be in a parade around Brescia! I was an elf! there was also, santa clauses, lumberjacks, angels, mooses, and one girl was santa lucia! After taking many pictures we went around in a huge long line and paraded around the center of Brescia. Since I was an elf I got to be in the front of the line and helped giving out candy to everyone we passed and saying "caramellle? Buon Natale! Auguri!" It was fun! Every few minutes we would then all stop in one spot and start christmas caroling, basically singing, jingle bells, we wish you a merry christmas, ect. Unfortunatley, we had no practice, and half of us didnt know the words to any song!! I felt bad for all the public gathering around us hoping for this like professional choir and we sucked it was hilarious at one point of the volunteers made me go in the front of all 50 of us and help him sing "all I want for christmas is you" which about 5 people knew the words to so that was a fail! At the end of our little parade we actually came across like a marching band so we joined them and as they played we would sing which I think boosted our amount of goodness with them in the background! Also, it was SOOO cold outside! But overall it was a super fun day and at the end we all went and got yummy hot chocolate! By the way, Hot Chocolate in Italy is NOT equal to american, it is like super thick and kindof like hot fudge syrup but its amazing! Esp when you get it with gelato in the inside!! YUMMM Food here is amazinggggggg!

Lets see, hmm well AFS Monza had a christmas Party on Friday night and we all had to bring food so I brought my signature cookie cake and also I made this amazing mexican dip thing which everyone loved!! Unfortunatley the cookie cakes I keep making suck!! I made 2 cookie cakes because I had to bring one into my school christmas party the next day and both of them had way too much butter in them!! Oh well they were still rly good! Sooo hmm yah my school xmas party was about 4 hours long! During the morning of saturday which was our last day! There was soo much food! And also something that would never happen in the US, 2 bottles of champagne which we were drinking in school at our party and also beer, this is so funny for me because this would NEVER happen in the us but hey when in Rome... anyways, I am so excited for this winter break and to celebrate xmas for the first time! Tomorrow I am going to venice and verona with Jasmine and its freezing, snowy and all the water in venice is super high so its gonna be crazy! Ill be sure to write about that!

XOXO Mollie

La Scuola Italiana

Ciao Tutti!

Today is December 9th meaning I have officially not been in the United States for exactly 3 months today. It is seriously crazy to think that it has already been 3 months because it went by super fast and so many things have happened in such little time!! Recently some fun things I have done include, changing families(which is NOT FUN), then since my new host brother is a bycyclist I went to his race in milan which he came in 1st place in all of Lombardia for! He is super good, but hes always working out or doing something for his races everyday its very time consuming, anyways I went to the race in the pouring rain, and I have never been so muddy and wet in my entire life! It was also interesting to watch all the jacked racers getting changed...weirdly enough in the same room as the girl racers in their underwear while rubbing some weird oil all over their bodies and I think I was the only one who though it was a little strange but hey im in italy I guess thats how they do it here no problem there it was a nice show! Anyways, I have been in Milan a lot lately and now they have a huge Christmas Tree in the center of Duomo its soo beautiful!! I love Milan! Sometimes I wish I lived right in the city but im pretty close to it anyways so its not big deal because its not a hard place to get to when I want. I was lucky enough to have this Monday and Tuesday off from school, meaning 1. I got to finally get one nice day of sleep in that I had been waiting for! and 2. Me, Jasmine, her family, and Eva got to go to the Fiera in Milan, there was a HUGE I mean MASSIVE craft shop type thing there it lasts about one week and it has shops from all over the world literally every country, The US section had tons of western cowboy type things that were weird I wasnt impressed but there was sooo much it was so overwhelming! We got there around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and left at 10:30 at night meaning we walked around the whole day in this one place and I didnt even see all of it thats how big it was!!! The picture above me jasmine and Eva took with some random Tiki person we found at the Fiera. NOW moving on to what this entry is actually sopposed to be abouttt!

ITALIAN SCHOOL!! Well lots of you keep asking me about school so I guess I will thoroughly explain or attempt atleast to explain school here. They have 5 years of elementary school, then 3 of middle school and 5 of high school. One thing I find really funny is that in elementary and Preschool here all the kids have to wear the same smock/doctor gown to school everyday which is soo ugly and all the kids look like little ghost children but oh well. For elementary and middle school they usually don't go on saturdays but LUCKY me in Highschool(Liceo) gets to go Saturday morning bright and early yayy! Sooo here the school system is super different from the US in many many ways. Even if I could think of all of them right now it would take forever to write all 10000 of them down so ill skip to the basic ones. Okay, so here when you enter Highschool you choose what kind of school you want to go into based on what you want to do in the future or atleast for the next 5 years, and this school you choose all the subjects are based around it, for example if you choose Liceo Scientifico ( science) you will have lots of science and math classes, or like me Liceo Artistico, I have lots of design classes and not much math or science. I have heard of tons of different highschools they have here such as, Scientifico, Classico( greek, philosophy, latin stuff), Artistico, Sportivo(tons of gym class), Technologico, Economia, Linguistico, Cooking, Farming, Film, and a bunch of random others. Becuase here you cant choose any electives or anything you choose which school you want and they come with I guess you could call them electives but pretty much all classes seem equal to me here in the wanting value of it all. Now, when I say you choose which "school" you want you are choosing the school in the form of study, there isnt actually a school for only science and a different building is an art school they are all in the same building, for example, my school has Scientific-Teconologic, Artistic, Sportivo,and ITIS( another easier form of school kind of science), and thats it. My school doesn't offer Latin to any of the students while most Liceos have it. Also even though im in Liceo Artistico its actually artistico-tecnologico, so a lot of times we have tech classes more than actual art classes. Here instead of saying im in 9th or 10th grade in Highschool well every school here they say im in 1st 2nd 3rd year so technically im in 3rd grade here!! Also here, your classmates stay the same and you never move classrooms you always stay in the same place and the teachers come to you! yay lazyness! Now I am going to write down my schedule and what I do in all my interesting classses!!! I start school at 8:15 and end at 1:45 everyday except wednesday I end at 4.

MONDAY( LUNEDI):

1st hr: Italian Litterature ( studying poems and authors of italy, interpreting latin poems FUN)

2nd hr: Philosophy ( learning ab philosophers! but from a book...lecture style...and not the actual philosophy of it the life of the philosophers)

INTERVALO (1o min break)- during this time everyone goes outside and smokes..even teachers or goes to the bar(cafe) and gets a panino or coffee or hang out in the halls

3rd hour: Math( math is hard in italy! but right now were doing geometry which I did last year so im doing super good)

4th hour: Physics ( I have no idea whats going on in this class its so confusing!!! but somehow im passing! yay being a foreign exchange student)

INTERVALO (10 more mintues)

5th and 6th hour: VISIVA..drawing class( we just did profile designs of faces but now were making collages)

TUESDAY ( MARTEDI):

1st and 2nd hr: Chemistry ( confusing! we take notes, read from our book, pretty similar to science in the US, prob more boring)

INTERVALO

3rd hour: English( were studying shakespear time and also grammar...im failing the shakespear section right now yay!)

4th Hr: History of Art( first I hated this class but now its actually really interesting now that I understand italian and know what my teachers saying)

INTERVALO

5th hour: NOTHING ( my class has religion and I go to the library and go on facebook!)

6th hr: Math (again!)

WEDNESDAY ( MERCOLEDI) (long ass day)

1st and 2nd hr: Italian Litterature

INTERVALO

3rd and 4th hr: Chemistry(for this day I go to prima and I do experiments in the lab with them white lab coat and all)

INTERVALO

5th hr: Math

6th hr: Archetecture ( geometric drawings, drawing floor plans for houses, drawing straight lines with rulers is not something im good at so this class i struggle in also measuring everything using the metric system gets confusing)

INTERVALO

7th and 8th hr: GYM ( only 2 hrs a week, its always entertaining seeing how competitive my class gets over a relay race or a volley ball scrimmage)

THURSDAY(GIOVEDI):

1st and 2nd hour: VISIVA ( more drawingss that I suck at)

INTERVALO

3rd and 4th hour: ARCH ( usually thursday we go to the computer lab with the oldest computers ever and make geometric graphs on the computer or powerpoints fun stuff!)

INTERVALO

5th hr: English

6th hr: Physics

FRIDAY( VEDERDI):

1st hr: Math

2nd hr: ARCH

INTERVALO

3rd and 4th hr: History of ART ( my teachers crazyyyy so my class tends to play this game called Manchuria where we all pick a fruit and randomly during the class ppl will yell out names of fruits and if its ur fruit you have to stand up and then sit down and when they say manchuria we all stand up together weve been playing this almost every friday and it rly never gets old but my teacher is always pissseeeddddd ab it)

INTERVALO

5th hr: History ( we've been studying the reniassance which I learned alot ab last year so when I was interogatted on it I didnt have trouble reciting everything from last yr and getting a passing grade yay)

6th hr: Math

Saturday( SABATO):

1st and 2nd hr: ARCH

INTERVALO

3rd and 4th hr: MATH ( for this math I go to scientifico because theyre doing harder math than artistico that I need to learn for the US)

INTERVALO

5th hr: Italian Litterature

6th hr: English

So in conclusion since one day I was super bored and counted all of this I have exactly:

7hrs of math a week ; 4 hrs of Visiva ; 4 hrs of Chemistry ; 4 hrs of Litterature ; 2 hrs of Physics ; 3 hrs of English ; 3 hrs of History of Art ; 6 hrs of Arch. ; 1 hr of Philosophy ; 1 hr of History ; 2 hrs of Gym...yup thats ab it!!! I really find the schools here way more strict in general, some classes when my teacher walks in we all have to stand up as they enter and we cant sit back down until they do, its very formal. I honestly I written so much I cant feel my fingers so I am going to stop here but I could really keep writing if I wanted to for hours ab school!! Thats all for nowww...CIAOOOOOOOOOOOOO xoxoxo

ALLORA!!!

Well Everyone, I know it has been quite some time since I have updated but I have been feeling really lazy and not in the mood to type out my life on the internet because Id rather just live my life and not have to write it down but I know theres people out there who enjoy reading this so yes I will continue to write on this for yall :)

Lets see, since I last wrote I have had many fun experiences that I seriously cant remember all of them to type right now but I will try and think of the highlights!!!

Okay, First off I went to Venice!!!! It was sooo beautiful even when I was there I didnt feel like I was there because its just so cool! Its a lot more tranquel than the films though with the boat races through the water, nope a lot more calm! I went with AFS meaning 4 volunteers, and 4 of us from the Monza region, minus our Turko because he had already been to venice 4 times and said he had enough of it ! It was about a 4 hour train ride very long and I had to wake up at like 5:30 am to go to the train station in Milan. SO I was super tired! and I had a bad cold but through it all it was a really fun day! I literally think I walked through all of Venice, legit all of it because they showed me on the map and we really did see tons!!! We were also bored so Me, Tohma, Karn and Tomas ( kids from monza) decided to pull a little prank and we convinced the volunteers that Karn and Tohma the most innocent asian kids you will ever meet had broken a rule and gone to a greenday concert in Milan alone! and they totally believed it and were super mad! It was hilarious! and they believed this all day and so at the end of the day I was just like hmm well they already believe this so lets just finish it off with a bang so we added on that they had been driving motorcycles to school and hitchhiking and we just said we broke like every AFS rule possible and the funny part was they believed literally everything actually so much that when we said it was a joke they didnt believe us that it was actually a joke! It was super funny, its only actually really funny because of the people you have to know them to think its funny but they are so innocent and to believe these lies we told is crazy but they did!! oh well sorry aafs :) its just a joke !

Lets see, well we had to say goodbye to Tomas :( Thursday was our last day all together the Monza kids, we all went to our weekly italian lesson together and we had homework to give presentations about cool plases in our home country, I made a superbig poster with my favorite places from the US which included, NYC, Siesta Keys, Palm Springs, Niagara Falls, Chicago and Key largo! I won the poster contest needless to say but I think that was only bc 3 out of 5 of us actually did the homework :) Anyways after we played a bunch of games like pictionary and a quiz game, it was really funny we had to answer questions about another person in the group and I didnt understand one of them where is said number of shoes in italy so I thought like how many pairs they brought with them but it actually meant the shoe size so I wrote 5 and everyone was like pissing their pants but actually 5 is a shoe size in the US but here its all like 39 42 and so no one understood and they were all laughing super hard at this! PS I still dont get the metrics system that much THANKYOU AMERICA FOR BEING DIFFERENT!!!! Euros to dollars, kilos to lbs, celcius to far, kilometers to miles, inches to cm WTF AMERICA! your making me do so much work! all the other exchange students didnt change all this! haha oh well its okay im differnt ! Anyways, after our lesson we went to OFCOURSE the same pizza place we always go to in Monza called Pizzeria Undici (11) we always end up going here I have no idea why but its like our place for AFS I honestly think they should just buy the restaurant it would be cheaper! So we had our final dinner for Tomas which was so sad because he was the only person who actually lived near me that I could hang out with from AFS :( Im gonna miss him! He really didnt want to leave also which suck for him! Oh well, so yah it was also sad because at one point we all yelled DISCORSO DISCORSO DISCORSO which means SPEECH SPEECH and he gave a short but sweet one I actually dont even think I payed attention I was too busy thinking about when I have to do the same when I will be leaving and that just made me sad because I honestly dont want to picture leaving right now! This experience is not ALWAYS the funnest time but when its fun its super fun and when its hard in the end its just worth it everything works out, I really believe that everything happends for a reason and that is why I need this experience to live out the rest of my life and being able to say I learned a new language, emmerced myself in a new culture, made friends, family and was sucessful in a country where I started out knowing no one and speaking bascially 0 of the language, its really rewarding to not only see but feel progress when you make it!

Lets see well this saturday I am switching to my FINAL it better be my final atleast family! wooo I will have 2 host brothers one is 15 and the other 10 they live in a nice house on the other side of the same town I live in now which is good because I can still see my other family which I really like now!!! The kids may be crazy sometimes but I love them! For example, one time they decided to play a game where I have to guess something while being blindfolded so first they put like a fruit in my hand and whatever and then they were like open ur mouth and they put a huge amount of salt in my mouth, it was horrible I think I still have the taste in my mouth to this day!! My little host brother is so cute though we have grown to be great little buds except now he has a new routine of being super annoying everytime I try to do something productive or in general when I watch tv he steals the remote or stands in front of me to make me mad and then when i do homework he loves to find toys and put them down my shirt or pants and then I proceed to take the toy and throw it at him and scream PROVA UNA VOLTA PIU E VEDI QUALCOSA BRUTTO!( try one more time and you see something bad) this is a bad translation and also prob im not even saying this phrase right in italian but it makes sense to me!! anyways, yah he loves putting toy cars down my pants whenever he finds the opportunity when I am laying on his bed Idk why he finds this so funny I certainly dont! but in the end thinking back on it its actually really funny what he does most of the time but not during this time just after let me make that clear!!

Hmm whatelse, well I found a place to dance! I really like it! Its deff different than what im used to and also less amount of dance that I am doing here but obviously I cant expect to dance 4 hours a night like in the USA! So its good for now :) I am also in the musical at my school and dancing and acting in that which is really funny I like it!! The one thing I am getting annoyed about is the fact that my town is far away from my school and a lot of my friends! Noone lives near me that im super good friends with so I am always taking the train somewhere else and having to return early because the trains rarely go to my town at night or in general which SUCKS!

I think I am learning italian fast!!! I really understand so much and I find myself rarely speaking english anymore unless I am with people from intercultura(AFS) which makes me happyyy I also have had some dreams in italian and I find myself waking up and thinking in Italian ...usually thinking that I should wake up and get out of bed but yah woo!

I really dunno what else to write ahh there is too much I could keep writing all day and I would never stop because there is so much to write! anywhooo I will try to update this more for all of you people who are complaining I need to update more! :)


CIAO!

XOXO Mollie