Tales from Italy ch.14- Last Exams and the Beginning of the End

It’s been almost a month since my last update and I’ve fallen behind on my entries. These last few weeks have been the busiest in the semester so far, and it has left me little time to write. Fortunately, my poor memory has been saved thanks to the little “Italia” notebook Adrie bought me at the end of fall semester; I’ve been recording my days with bullet points each day (or most, really) and that will really come in handy right about now.

So anyway- the point of my journal entry:

The beginning of June left me with 3 exams to take and plenty of trips to look forward to before heading home. My ceramics exam went well (a 27/30) and I was so happy to not study for it anymore once it was finished. In the weeks leading up to it, I had spent most of my free time studying for the exam. It got to the point where I would respond to my friends with “Sorry, but I have to study for ceramics” so often that the response became its own expression as a response for not wanting to do something (used by everyone, not just me). For example:

“Do you want to go out with us later?”

“Oh sorry, I can’t. I have to study for ceramics.”

My cinema exam was not nearly as pleasant. Janelle, Laura, and I arrived at 9 with the hope to be the first 3 for our exam at 9:30. This was not the case since our professor not only arrived late AND took an hour lunch break, but decided to go alphabetically starting at ‘P’. Of the three of us, Laura went first which was good since she had another exam that day. Janelle and I were stuck waiting for hours before we got in. Our professor wasn’t that nice either. Normally the professors take it easy on foreign students because they know there is a language barrier that can hinder how well we learn, but she expected the same of us as she did the students who could speak Italian fluently. This was topped off with sighs and rolling of the eyes, not to mention she didn’t look at us while we spoke- she went through papers and other things on her desk, only making eye contact once every two minutes or so. At the end of my exam she pointed out that she could see there was most definitely a language barrier and gave me a look that told me she thought I deserved a lower grade than what she was giving me. While all her gestures were rude and uncalled for, rather than return the favor in this entry, I will be the better person and end my discussion of her here.

My last exam was the best of them all not only because it was for my favorite class, but because it was with my favorite professor: Musica per Lo Spettacolo (Music for the Show) with Professor Festa (“It’s a festa with Festa!”). Laura and I were two of his three students and by far the most frequent. When we arrived for our exam, he let us take it in the same room together. I went first. The exam was like our classes: awesomely philosophical, but this time we did most of the talking. This guy is like our Socrates; we could sit and have him explain to us his thoughts on how music relates to life and space all day. The class –and our exam- were the greatest, not to mention we both came out with 30/30 🙂

With our exams finally over, we had to find other ways to occupy our time. While most of my time is occupied by the work I’m doing for my online summer classes at New Paltz, I did manage to join the others much more often once studying for my finals was finished. One evening, we all played a game of Never Have I Ever, and it lasted so long that we stopped keeping points. It was a very educational game into the lives and experiences of one another. While we didn’t get the chance to play the card game, Bullshit (or “Bull Sheißa” as we called it in German) in this last week, I think this would be a good place to point out that this game holds many memories from the semester for me. So many times we would just sit around and pass the time playing near the bar in Tridente or upstairs in the Sala Studio. I will miss these evenings very much.

Also during this last week, Ryan and I had our last radio show of Independent Carrots. We left the theme as a surprise for most our friends because Ryan and I had something special planned. We decided a great way to end the semester would be to make a playlist that encompassed all our favorite songs from the semester and songs that highlighted our experiences. In the end, we came up with these songs:

  • “Fly Away”- Lenny Kravitz (to signify ‘flying away’ to study abroad)
  • “Stereo Love”- Edward Maya & Vika Jigulina (THE song in Urbino, and a favorite of Judith’s)
  • “Me and Julio”- Paul Simon (Laura and I put together a great harmony to this and some sweet guitar playing with ‘Pattie,’ my guitar)
  • “King of Spain”- Moxy Fruvous (Introduced to us by Laura in the beginning of the semester)
  • “Rocket Man”- Elton John (this song has 2 meanings: 1- “Rocket Man” was easily replaced with “Moroccan Man” in reference to the attractive Moroccan boy Laura is friends with; 2- I had never seen the “Rocket Man” rendition by William Shatner (I had only seen Family Guy’s parody of it), so Stefan sent me the video)
  • “My Life Would Suck Without You”- Glee Cast (Glee was really popular to watch together this semester. Every Wednesday or Thursday, Laura, Monika, Sonja, Ryan, Janelle, and I would sit in my room and watched streamed episodes online. The title is also pretty self-explanatory for the strong friendships we formed ^_^).
  • “Friends”- Flight of the Concords (The title needs no explanation with how it relates to us. We also find Flight of the Concords to be absolutely BRILLIANT).
  • “With a Little Help From My Friends”- Across the Universe Cast (self- explanatory)
  • “Mr. Sandman”- The Puppini Sisters (Countless hours spent on the terraces above Tridente playing chess, having tea and cookies, and soaking in the sun while listening to the Puppini Sisters).
  • “Mama Ist Stolz”- Sido (A German song about pimps and mom’s being proud; introduced to Ryan by Stefan on their trip to Cinque Terre. Sonja also raps this pretty well lol)
  • “Countries of the World”- Yakko Warner (We had the goal to learn this song by heart. While that didn’t actually happen, it was fun to try).
  • “We Like to Party”- Vengaboys (While explaining 6 Flags Theme Park, and the dancing old man from the commercials (who Laura hates btw), Monika pointed out that this was the song in the background).
  • “Just Around the River bend”- Pocahontas (We had the pleasure of watching Disney’s Pocahontas this semester)
  • “Can’t Tell that to the Administration”- Rob Hanlon & Nick Petrasino (An Urbino original, written and performed by two Villnova students)
  • “Freedom”- David Hasselhoff (The previous radio show (an 80s theme), we meant to play this for ze Germans but ran out of time. Because David Hasselhoff sang this in a lit-up leather jacket at the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, our German friends have taken to calling him their hero).
  • “Good Riddance”- Green Day (This song is one of the first songs Laura taught Monika and I on guitar. It is also a beautiful goodbye song reminiscent of our experiences).

We hope that we left the radio program well prepared for future students. We always had a blast.

The night of the 10th, Judith and Mike had a dinner with all of us in town because they were leaving the next day. Sonja, Janelle, Ryan, Matthias and I were also leaving, but only for a short while. The next few days we would spend in Rome before heading back to Urbino for one last week 🙁

Holding the Man

This is a book I recently read that several people recommended to me. This is a book that all (mature) audiences can connect with and be moved by. It’s a true coming out story by the author, who is Australian. I would especially recommend it to anyone interested in learning about Australian culture from the perspective of these topics. There are a lot of words and phrases that are unique to Australia. Contact me or leave a comment if you want a word explained.

Click the link below to view the book on Amazon:
Holding the Man

One Week Left

There is one week left until I leave for Melbourne, Australia. That’s pronounced Mel-bun, NOT Mel-born. I’m getting nervous….worried that I’m forgetting to do something, that I’ll leave something important behind.

Buckle up. This is going to be quite a ride.

Coming out of the cobwebs

As mind and body show strong signs of regaining normal vitality and strength once again, after over a month of high stress and poor health, I am now able to continue my blogs. I’ve been taught throughout life the simple, yet truthful lesson that if there isn’t anything good to be said, then nothing should be said at all. And as this past month was anything but “good,” avoiding posting negative blogs is exactly what I did.
I would like to say that something interesting has happened over the past month, and could discuss in detail my experience of it; however, the truth holds that my academic workload has been so intense that I have been mostly stuck in my room, with my nose in the books, paining through tedious assignment after tedious assignment. Combine this with poor health (headaches and constant nausea) for about a month, my homesickness was a heavy burden to bear, and the whole month of May seemed to last a year.
Fortunately, as the lectures and tutorials have come to a much needed end, and now that the submission of all assignments is complete, time has picked up its speed and life is once again good. As the first week of finals has finally arrived, studying has taken over my time, but it’s nice to only have that to worry about…for the moment.
Although possible, studying abroad later in your undergrad career is much more difficult than earlier on. The classes that you are required to take for your degree become much more specialized (particularly here at Curtin), and as an exchange student trying to meet all of my requirements as quickly and efficiently as possible, I have been left with less flexibility to explore other classes that may have been interesting. It would have been nice to enroll in an Australian studies or a history class, or even an Aboriginal studies class. However, prior to my arrival, here in Perth, my class list was destined to be all geology related. Not very much fun when you’re an exchange student and have many other opportunities for new and unique experiences. At the time, I thought that was the best decision, and if it helps me to graduate in one year as opposed to one and a half, then perhaps in the end I will thank myself for taking the most practical route. Hopefully…
I must admit that I am still meeting my goal of experiencing the studies in a different learning environment abroad, which will help to broaden my knowledge overall, as opposed to not having experienced this.
It can be said that if you’re into surfing, then you should head to Hawaii. Well, the same holds true for geologist, in that if you are interested in geology, you head to Western Australia, the hoarder of the oldest rocks on the planet. The Geology program is very prominent here at Curtin University, but so is its sibling Mining, considering the fact that WA has a large hand involved in the contribution, implementation and usage of fossil fuels. So, as an environmental geology student, learning from the point of view of education based on mining and petroleum exploration, it has been difficult to “keep my head in the game.” Moral conflict or not, I must say that it is still important to expose oneself to one’s opposite point of view in any disagreement. It opens the doors for much more to be learned and accomplished.

Chris

Above is me and my friend Chris. I met Chris at SUNY New Paltz. He’s an Australian who was studying here for a semester. I plan on meeting up again with him when I arrive in Australia as we’ll be going to the same college (probably different campuses though). I hope that I can make as good an impression of America as Chris did of Australia. He was very helpful, informative, friendly, and all around a really cool guy.

Why Wales? Entry #19: T-12 hours until takeoff. (My story, part 2)

So I leave Cardiff in 12 hours… but I actually leave for the airport in 9 hours… At 330 AM I will be taking a taxi ride to Cardiff airport and then saying farewell to the amazing city that I fell in love with.

…so I not only got to Cardiff, but I made it through 5 months, and those 5 months have been the most amazing months of my life. I honestly never expected it to be so amazing. I didn’t expect to meet the people I met, or experience the things I did. It was so much better than I could have ever dreamed.

I have to say the best part of the trip has been the people whom I have met. I met some of the best friends on this trip. The thing that really amuses me is that 3 of those friends are from New Paltz. Imagine that, I would have never met them if I didn’t go to Wales- yet we were probably on the line for Jazzman’s coffee everyday together.

I don’t know who I expected to meet, but I didn’t think I would meet any possible best friends. I find it so cool that I met so many amazing people, and I find it even cooler that the people I grew closest to will be in the States with me when I go home. Out of the main 4 people I was closest to, 2 are from MA, one is from CT, and another from NY. The others are from NY, NY, and NY. I love all of them and it excites me that when we say goodbye, it really isn’t goodbye.

Shoutout to Meghan Marone, a New Paltz student who asked me to give her a shout out on my blog. She is most likely one of the coolest people on earth. We shared a class at New Paltz, and lived in the same apartment complex, yet didn’t know eachother. Thank you Wales for Meghan Marone.

Now, What do I love most about Cardiff? As I said before, it feels like home. I never saw myself living in a city. As a matter of fact, I expected Cardiff to be a lot bigger than it is… and I was prepared for that. But when i discovered that Cardiff is small and quaint, I was pleasantly surprised. Cardiff is somewhere I would love to live and raise a family. As a matter of fact, if I wasn’t an education major, I would plan on moving here…. but the ed. systems are too different. (also, if I had a Visa, I would have stayed the summer).

Ten things I am going to miss most (no specific order)

  1. The Royal George Pub
  2. Bute Park
  3. Roath Park
  4. Cider
  5. Fish and Chips
  6. The fact that they call french fries “chips”
  7. The people I have met
  8. Peacock’s clothing store
  9. Having a castle in my city.
  10. Welsh Cakes
  11. (okay 11 things) Malt Vinegar on chips!

..and so much more!

7 things I’m looking forward to at home.

  1. Thick milk shakes
  2. American water faucets (lol)
  3. not having an exchange rate
  4. my sisters
  5. my brother
  6. my education classes
  7. my friends

 

Cardiff has been my home for the past 5 months. I have met some of the most amazing people in my life. I have traveled throughout Wales, Ireland, Italy, France, San Marino, and England. I learned that anything is possible, and I can truly do anything I put my mind to. I am thankful for my sister, Shannon who has helped me, and been there for me throughout. Shoutout to Justinalina, Mags Bags, and our “ghetto mama”, Christine. This trip would not have been the same without you.

I am leaving Cardiff different from the person who arrived 5 months ago. Now I have to work on bringing who I am here, home.

Over and out.

It’s been wonderful.

<3

Why Wales? Entry #18: Saying Goodbye. (My story, part 1)

I am currently sitting her in flat 8 of Dwyfor Block of Uni Hall. My room is a mess. I have my suitcase by my side which is half full (or half empty). The rest of the room is either filled with garbage, or miscellaneous stuff that hasn’t made it’s way to the suitcase yet. It’s tough fitting everything inside one suitcase and a carry-on! I did it on the way here, but was 17 pounds over (it’s weird referring to pounds as weight and not money). Anyway, I was charged $100 for the extra weight coming here… so I’m trying to pack better. I have a better carry on, and I ended up getting rid of a lot of stuff.

…but I also bought a lot of stuff too.

Alas, here I am, 11:58 P.M UK time, taking a break from packing to close on the most amazing 5 months of my life. In 30 hours and 8 minutes, my flight will be leaving Cardiff Airport. After a layover in Amsterdam, and then another in Atlanta, I should land in Virginia by 8pm EST. Of course in my head it will be 1am, so needless to say, I hope to sleep on the plane. Especially since my we’re planning on going out when I get back to celebrate my sister’s wedding which is the following day.

This past month, I have been trying to prepare myself to say goodbye. As you can see by the previous 2 paragraphs, I am desperately trying to avoid it. I really fell in love with Cardiff. As a city, as a place to study, as a place to live, as a home. If I had to put it simply, that would be it. Cardiff feels like home.

When I decided to study abroad, I honestly didn’t know where I wanted to go. During high school and part of college, I was actually a French major, so studying abroad was always in the plans. Traveling has been a love of mine ever since I went to Italy with my 11th grade English teacher, which was my first European experience. The plan was to fulfil French Education and then study abroad somewhere in France, and that’s that.

…but then I changed my major to elementary education.

Pretty much every ed. major I came in contact with warned me that studying abroad does not fit into the elementary education program. I took that warning, and gave up my dream of studying abroad. just like that.

Honestly, I did. I wasn’t upset or anything. I focused on my elementary ed. classes and set toward that. Until my best friend called me. Our mutual friend Liz (whom this blog is dedicated to) studied abroad Spring ’09, and my best friend was planning on visiting her during spring break with a couple other friends.

She expected me to say no.

How could I say no to London?

I knew London would be an amazing adventure, but I had no idea what it would lead me to.

London opened my eyes, and helped me realize how strong my love for travelling was. It helped me realize that studying abroad was still something I wanted to do. Something I needed to do. Now, I’m very lucky to have my best friend, because I almost settled on a shorter session, but my best friend insisted that I would have a much better experience if I stayed the semester.

I knew I wanted, and needed to go- but I still didn’t think it was possible. My preconceived notion of study abroaders is that they are wealthy students who have full support of their parents. Although I have some support from my parents, I have zero financial support from either of them. Besides money, I had tons of excuses, including my apartment, my furniture, and my car.

but then I just decided it would be worth it. I couldn’t let anything stand in my way. I wouldn’t let my furniture, car, apartment, or lack of finances stop me from living the life I want to live.  I would find a way, and everything would figure itself out.

Now the only problem was that I had no idea where to go. I met with someone in the NP study abroad office, and he helped me narrow it down. Since my concentration is English, I had to go somewhere that offered English courses, more specifically, the ones I needed. It ended up being narrowed down to a London program or Cardiff.

I didn’t really want to go to London, because I had already been there. Although I knew I didn’t see everything there is to see in London, I wanted some place that would be 100% new to me.

Cardiff being the cheapest program offered was only one aspect which drew me in. In actuality, I wanted something different. I wanted to go to a place and see things that most people have not seen or heard of.

Cardiff would be 100% unique to me; I wouldn’t have to follow anyone else’s expectations or trip guidelines. A clean slate.

I applied to the program, got in, and then applied for loans and worked on filling all of the forms and getting everything together.

It’s so weird for me looking back, because for so long I didn’t think this trip was possible. Not only did I make it here, but I had the best time ever. I honestly did not expect anything so great.

…to be continued….

Why Wales? Entry #17: Caerphilly Castle!

Throughout the last month here, the Americans slowly started leaving. Justine was second to leave, and since she was leaving so much earlier than everyone else, she felt as if she was missing out. I ensured her that there is always time for one more adventure, and so we planned one!

Caerphilly Castle is not very far from Cardiff, and is situated in the very nice Welsh town of Caerphilly. This medeival castle is beautiful! We brought sandwiches and enjoyed them by the water which surrounded the castle. Then, we went inside for some exploring!

One of the structures on the castle actually leans more than the leaning tower of Pisa. Go Wales!

The entire day was perfect, included with ideal weather! We all had a great time with eachother, having our last adventure with Justine…. well, last Welsh adventure, as we do plan to see eachother often in the States. 🙂

 

Why Wales? Entry #16: Dunraven Bay

The story oh how I discovered Dunraven Bay amuses me. I was writing my essay for my ‘Wales and the Welsh Language’ course about what makes Wales unique. In completing this research, I typed into google “Welsh landscape”, and images came up looking like this:

I took a break from writing my essay, to discover where this place was. Dunraven Bay, which is also referred to as Southerndown bay, is actually very close to Cardiff. All we had to do to get there was take the train to Bridgend, and then a bus to the bay. The entire journey… round trip… cost only 7 pounds and 40 pence.

The cool thing was that when I saw that the google images were from Dunraven Bay, I typed ‘Dunraven Bay’ into google. The first result, ended up being a website which noted the filming locations for the TV show Merlin, which as I mentioned in previous blogs, that my friends are obsessed with that show. So, now not only did I want to go to Dunraven because it was absolutely beautiful, but my friends would undoubtedly want to join- to see another beautiful filming location! I sent out a facebook note, and it turns out that my friend has been planning on going there for the entire semester, but hasn’t mentioned it yet.

We had a wonderful time. We brought sandwiches from Cardiff, and had a little picnic by the water. We walked around on the rocks for a while and found some lovely sea-stars. We then explored some more, and hiked up the hills, viewing the bay from the edges of the Dunraven cliffs.

Tales from Italy ch.13: Endless Studies and… Kittens??

Last week and this week in my life I have been utterly consumed by studying. It seems endless and a burden- not to mention all my exams (and their study materials/ books) are in Italian which takes me twice as long -if not longer- to read. It’s a slow and difficult process, but I’m chugging through nonetheless.

Last Thursday I had my dreaded Storia della Ceramica (History of Ceramics) exam. Studying for that was difficult in terms of both reading in Italian and retaining a decent attention span. Luckily Sonja and Janelle were also in this class with me so we divided up the reading material to study. Sonja covered the small book on the chemistry and basic methods of making ceramics; Janelle and I split the larger book on history (though Sonja read most of that one on her own too). I was assigned the second half of the book which mostly covered tiles. I spent the good portion of a week turning down events and social get-togethers to read through this monster only to discover later, after days of work and more than half a notebook of fine-print notes written by hand, that as a foreign student, I was only expected to know the basics of ceramics and their families- none of which was in the portion I had read. This was nice in that all the information I had gathered didn’t need to be memorized, but disappointing in that I had just wasted AN ENTIRE WEEK READING SOMETHING THAT DIDN’T MATTER. Ugh. So I was to rely on Sonja and Janelle, and lets just say the last few days up to the exam were really stressful for me. In the end though, I got a 27 out of 30 on the exam, and am so happy to be done with it.

In the time since then, I’ve been doing a lot of work for my classes back home that I’m taking online: ‘Media and Society’ and ‘Intro to Advertising.’ It’s a lot of work to handle on top of the additional studying I have to do for my last two exams that are coming up this Wednesday and Thursday. But, like everything else this past week or so, I’m chugging through it step by step and am spending a lot of time in the Sala Studio (Study Room) upstairs with Monika (who’s been studying for her law exam) and Laura (who’s studying for my exams and a Religious Anthropology one as well). Occasionally we are also joined by Sonja and Ryan and the group of us is very encouraging. Most of our time is silent as we study, but occasionally we’ll distract ourselves in skype chat rooms (these even include Stefan sometimes, who’s not studying with us because he’s already done!!!! argh!) and attempt to keep our laughter to quiet levels (I regularly fail at this). Our chat topics vary from discussing the ridiculous emoticons of Skype, to making Glee references (specifically Sue Slyvester quotes like “I may buy a small diaper for your chin because it looks like a baby’s ass!”), to complaining about our studying, to making fun of our studying and most importantly learning German!
Just yesterday I had this conversation with Laura:
Laura: “regretfully i am afraid of the muppets. miss piggy, specifically” ….
Me: “what do you hate more? Ms. Piggy or the 6 Flags guy? I think i’ll chose between those for my halloween costume”
Laura: “dont make me choose”
Me: “OR WHAT ABOUT THE 6-FLAGS GUY AND MISS PIGGY’S MUTANT BABY?”
Laura: “yous a hoe. i will kill you.”

Occasionally between all my studies I also get distracted by the occasional passers-by of Judith, Mike, and Stefan who walk past my window in search of Lola, the cat. Sometimes I bring her a can of tuna to her new home: a cardboard box adorned with a chair cushion (purchased from the Super Conad!) as a bed under the windows and overhang of Braccio 1, fashioned for her by Kevin. Since the discovery and suspicion of her being pregnant, we have taken the upmost care of her, especially because she’s a stray. Of course all of this was before I received the news on June 1, 2010 that LOLA HAD BABIES! Yes! Lola became a happy mother to 5 adorable kittens and together they now live inside Braccio 1, under the stairs of Kevin’s blocco. :)!!

Today marks June 5, 2010 and I guess you could say I’m still procrastinating on my studying… at least for a little while. I slept in this morning for the first time in a long while and after lunch came here, back to the Sala Studio, to study. Our favorite table may be taken (meaning I am subject to poorer lighting and a less awesome table that lacks the elevation and sunlight of our precious spot) but I still managed to get through about 10 pages of my Media and Culture textbook. …Argh who am I kidding? Normally, I would be proud of this, but this book is in ENGLISH not Italian- 10 pages isn’t enough. Ugh. My goal is to at least finish the chapter asap today. I don’t mind though- I’m really enjoying the book even if it is a textbook. Changing my major to Communication and Media was a wonderful choice. At lunch today I was talking with Ryan about his Media Production classes that he’s taking here, and I’m considering to maybe get a Masters in that or directing- it sounds cool and fun. Oh jeez. “Cool” and “fun”? Since my apparent loss for more creative adjectives has begun, I think it’s time I ended this study break of mine, and returned to the wonderful world of my Media textbook. As always, I should turn to the studious Monika for guidance and learn to imitate her ways so that I may better my own study habits:

HAPPY STUDIES!