a badly punctuated stream of consciousness

three weeks today! feels like 3 months

all alone the other night, i came to realise we'll be freinds for life
it was always meant to be, for some people the heavens can get it so right...
you'd be so proud of me now i am finally taking a stand
now i can dance, the clouds have all disappeared
and freedom i hold so dear cos nobody knows me here
though i can only imagine the sadness in your eyes
please understand, now i can dance :)
-Tina Arena

allora! ieri io ho avuto un fantastico pomerriggio!
Translation: well! yesterday i had a fantastic afternoon!
hooray! the last two days have been so excellent, even though i havent done anything particularly amazing at all! friday morning school was awful cos i was so tired and was literally falling asleep. i think the culture shock has set in now and i am just exhausted all the time. but, exhaustion does NOT equal unhappiness, oh no! after the break at school i felt much better, i think cos food woke me up a bit, and i had a great time discussing simpson episodes with a girl at school. (the episode where homer stops going to church and then his house gets burnt and ned flanders saves him was on tv the day before i think so we were discussing it, and it is just so funny, even in italian!!!!) then after school i had to meet Maddie, another aussie girl from Correggio whom i sat next to on the plane over here, and we caught the bus to Carpi together, where we met Maria, the other girl on the plane with us, and then we had to get to our first italian lesson. It was so excellent to be reuinited with them and we just couldnt stop talking! m&m, if you are reading this, i had a fantastic time with you both! cant wait til next week! we had to make our way to the piazza where we would then meet Angelica, a lady from our organisation, to take us on the bus to the office and have our lesson, and also to meet Nadia, another aussie who none of us had met, who was going to be taking the lesson too. We managed to make it to the piazza, which is only a few blocks from the bus station, without too much trouble, and then had a bit of time to chat before we met Angelica. We couldnt stop talking the whole time and it was sooo awesome to swap experiences and speak in english! we were talking so loudly and kept laughing all the time, in the middle of the piazza and people kept looking at us funny but we didnt care! we met angelica and got on the bus and just kept talking. Once we got to the office and met Nadia, the lesson got started. i was a bit disconcerted at first to find that it was to be an emersion lesson, with next to no english spoken by Angelica, who was out teacher. At first i was so lost, but once i really tried to listen i was surprised to find i coudl actually get the gist of what she was saying...most of the time. I guess it helped that i already pretty much knew the stuff she was on about (basic introductions and grammar) and she was talking very slowly but it really gave me a huge confidence boost cos i realised that contrary to my previous opinion, i have actually made some progress with the language! i was soo pleased! hooray! then when the lesson finished the four of us girls got the bus back to the piazza, although nadia left at the train station, and then got gelati before heading back to the main bus station. It was rather funny communicating what we wanted to the icecream man, but he was very helpful and was laughing with us, not at us! And Agnelli and Doddy, two freinds of Elisa's saw us in the shop and said hi to me, which also made me happy cos i felt like i had some freinds here too! hooray! unfortunately we were about 2 minutes late for Maddie to catch her bus back to Correggio, but found there was another one 40 mins later, so I waited with her to catch that, and Maria eventually left with her host family. All the while we were having a great time chatting away in english at a great speed! i cant explain how good i was feeling last night after i went home.
As i was waiting for my host mum to come and pick me up from the station two men approached me (separately and at different times) and started talking to me. the first guy had obviously over heard us speaking inside cos he asked me, in english, if i spoke english, and then introduced himself. He was Lorenzo from somewhere in africa....cant remember where....and after finding out why i was in italy he gave me his mobile number and told me to call him and he would show me around Carpi and then, thankfully, he left. Sorry Lorenzo, but i dont think i am going to take you up on that offer! I was a little freaked out by that, but once he left i decided he had actually been very freindly and was obviosuly trying not to intimidate me, cos he stood a few meters away from me when he was talking, and he left quickly. the next guy was a little scarier. He just was walking past with shopping bags and then suddenly started talking to me in italian. I told him i dindt speak italian, i speak english- so he said 'francese?.' nope, dont speak french. german? nope. spanish? nope. all this time he was still talking at me in italian. i said again i only spoke english and what did he do? he reached into his shopping bag and gave me an orange......what the? so i am holding this orange, talking to a man who was kind of freaking me out, standing in the cold outside a bus station at night, and this man, unlike lorenzo, didnt seem to show any sign of going away. I was so very glad when very soon after this my host mother drove up!
Once we got home i put the strange orange-giving man out of my head and my afternoon came back to me. the italian lesson really gave me a huge confidence boost and also heaps of motivation, with my italian, so at dinner i really made an effort to speak in italian to Orianna and Vanni. It was pretty funny as i was always speaking in half sentences and random words and probably mostly wrong, but it was mildy successful. And then i went to the circolo with elisa, where we spent some time chatting to people and then played the board game Taboo....you know the one where you have a little egg timer and have to explain to your partner the word on the top of your card without using the other words below it, all before the sand runs out. It was really fun, and i just had a great yesterday.
I then woke up this morning still on a high from yesterday and went to school and treid to talk to some of my class mates in italian. They were very encouraging and helpful which was great. We had an assembly today which went for like 3 hours (so yshs-ers, dont ever complain again that the parade has run 10 mins into pm break!) but it was ok cos i had my iPod with me. It was the first time i have taken it to school, cos i absolutely would die if it got pinched, but i took it because i knew otherwise i would be soo soo soooo bored during the parade. Then afterwards some bands played which was....unexpected and rather strange. But we got to go home early and i feel so excellent now!
I realised just now that i have been here exactly 3 weeks now, but it feels like so much longer than that. I saw a doco on Steve Irwin on tv the other night, and was straining to hear the english dialogue under the Italian dubbing, but most of the time i just watched the pretty pictures of australia. i must say that i got teary seeing all the shots of the bush and the beach and kangaroos and stuff. i feel like i havent seen a gum tree in years and it really made me feel...homesick isnt the right word, but nostalgic maybe, to see the pictures of the bush. I even teared up when i could see steve irwin's mouth form the words 'fair dinkum' which is so ridiculous, but it got to me. lol.
However, this week has really been a good one, especially the last 2 days, and I feel muhc more comfortable and confident now. I am now going to go upstairs to read my 'idiots guide to italian' to learn some more about the irregular verbs, (omg there is so much grammar to learn) becasue i am so determined now to learn quickly so that i can talk with all the people i have met.

hope you guys are enjoying the heat, and have a nice look at some gum trees for me ok.

lauren and jose, i hope your move to brissie went well! cant wait to hear from you! and can you give me the exact address of your house in waterworks st or whatever cos forget it.

amo, the pink light is shining still :)

naomi, have you taken over my room yet? mum and dad, i love you.

maya and grace and ian and christie and bek, i hope work is giong ok.

dom and sage my dear boys, how is school?

fergus and chrissy, i hope your moving goes well too!

mali, dont worry, i have easily managed to communicate that i have dirty washing and havent had to lick my shirts!!! and sorry to disappoint you but we dont live in a shack on a hill :)

hope everybody is well at home
thinking of you often
love always
ellen

posted by Ellen of Taranganba @ 4:19 PM