ciao a tutti. (hello all)
dammit, had good song lyrics to put in here and have now forgotten. will edit them in when i remember.
ok well huzzah! the good times are still rolling. in fact, sunday i woke up and for the first time since i have been here i realised that i dont want to go home. ok, maybe a better way to put it is that i will be sad to leave, rather then 'i dont want to go home' cos of course i do want to come home, but not the way it was before. i think i have finally settled it. and now i feel a little sad cos almost half my time here is over and it feels like i still have so much i want to do. anyway, i will tell you all about what i have been up to since saturday.
well on saturday night, as you will know if you read my previous blog, i went to the birthday party of a girl in the 4th class. it wasnt a birthday party actually, it was a dinner and dancing type thing at a disco. i had so much fun. i sat with christian, the boy from panama, and also another guy, andrea, who i am freinds with and we were just chatting and laughing all night. the food was good as usual, and i got to talk to a bunch of people which was great. i still had a cold tho and at one point was very embarassed while talking to one guy cos my eyes started watering and he thought i was crying hehe. you know how when you have a cold and your nose runs and your eyes water all the time, well that is what it was. and he started asking if i was ok here and if i was missing my family and stuff. which was ironic cos it was actually the best i have felt in my whole time here, but i dont think he really believed me when i said i was fine. lol. so after dinner we danced a bit but i dont like the music much, and then we went home pretty early cos i was sick and Ely had to play tennis the next day. she has gone to Trento, another town, and has been there since sunday and she plays a match everyday until she loses. so she has won every day so far and will keep winning i suspect, cos she is good. lol.
anyway so sunday was pretty boring for me but i was feeling really very good cos had an excellent night and feel made freinds with people i hardly spoke to before. and on sunday night i went to the nonni's house for dinner and there was a whole bunch of other family there, none of whom could speak english. and since ely was there i was kind of stranded. but we had the dictionary and we managed. actually i think it was very good for me cos it really made me listen and i found i could understand the basics of most of the conversation which was good. i think sunday was another one of those days where i had a 'jump' in my language ability cos suddenly i could understand more and speak more which is awesome cos again, it boosts my confidence and makes me happier. lol. anyway so most of the night i just sat there listening, but at one point i played cards and later i tried to teach the two little girls the game where you make squares. dunno if i am going to be very good at explaining this but: the game where on a piece of paper one person writes a line, then next person draws another line and the aim is to try to make squares and the person who closes the square writes their initial in it and whoever fills the most squares wins. you know the one. remember naomi, we used to love it! well.....i remember i did anyway. haha so i tried to teach the girls, the key word here being TRIED. they were very shy tho cos they didnt know me, like little children are, plus i wasnt doing a very good job of speaking italian so i guess it was hard for them. thier mum understood tho and explained, and then they only wanted to play with her. so i was rejected by little kids. lol.
so then on monday i went to Torino. Huzzah! it was really pretty awesome, apart from the getting up real early to catch the bus. it was about a 3 or 4 hour bus ride, which i had absolutely no problem with cos it is only like half way to brisbane. plus i had my ipod which was all good. then when we arrived we went to an art gallery to see 'gli impressionisti e la neve' ie. the impressionist artists and the snow. so that was pretty good hey. i mean i am no art critic, but i like looking at pictures so it was still enjoyable. i got pretty tired and felt kind of sick at times, but it was good. most of the artists i had never heard of but there was a van gogh and a whole bunch of monet's so that was pretty special i reckon. none that i actualy recognised tho. my favourites were these two ginormous landscapes of switzerland i think, with like farmers or something in the foreground. they were huuuge and really good. and also there was an awesome one of a glacier in switzerland again i think. and it was good too cos i got to have little earphones so that i could hear a commentary in english rather than listening to the italian tour guide, altho at some points the tour guide moved on to the next painting before i had finished hearing about the first. oh well
then after we went to the center of town and had lunch and did a little window shopping before heading home again. the scenery was really quite beautiful, altho kind of a uniform gryish-brown colour, cos all the plants here are deciduous, and i really could see lots of similarities between the scenery i was looking at and the pictures i had seen earlier. and it all looks so different to australian landscapes. have to say i prefer the latter :)
anyway and yesterday i had the absolute best day ever! i am not kidding hey, it was fantastic, and for no particular reason. maybe cos i felt that while in torino i really made freinds with the girls in my class, and so i was looking foward to going to school cos i knew i could talk to them and it would be ok. and also i was looking foward to seeing the poeple i was with on saturday night. and i knew i had a computer lesson, and then after school the conservatorium to look foward to so it was just good even to look foward to yesterday. lol. and so i went to school and all was good lol. everybody was nice and freindly and that was awesome. and then for one lesson i coudlnt find the class i was supposed to be with, they had gone away from thier classroom, so i ran into Christian in my wanderings and he took me back to the 4th class, which was spanish. and now i need you to cast your minds back a few weeks to when i told you about understanding the spanish lesson. well that was in the 3rd class, and when i went to the 4th yesterday they were doing the same stuff in thier spanish lesson. and the teacher knew i could do it, so she asked me a question and i answered it and boy, the uproar in the class then! it was sooo funny. they were all so amazed that i understood it. it was hilarious. and then i spent the rest of the lesson laughing and talking with Christian and Andrea, whihc was probably bad since we were supposed to be doing work, but it was really fun. hehe
and then on the bus on the way home from school i sat next to a guy that i know from the conservatorium and so that was nice since i hadnt seen him in a week or so, and then i saw him again about an hour later at the conservatorium, and also another girl. so it was all good
ok so the bell just rang
ciao for now
love ellen
huzzah! (thanks for that one amo!)
If I was a rich girl (na na na na na na na na na na na na na na naaaa)
Think what that money could bring
I’d buy everything!!!
-Gwen Stefani
Aah sweet retail therapy. Not that I really bought very much cos it is all very expensive, and more so because of the exchange rate (why is there not a universal currency? I think there should be.) anyway, I bought a new pair of jeans and a new top, but boy, if I had more money, and probably also if the shops hadn’t closed for lunch, then I would have bought everything! I love shopping and it is so good here cos it is all new and different for me. not like going to shopping fair where everything is pretty much the same every time you go. And there were some markets on this morning but we kind of missed them cos we were there a bit late in the day, but maybe next week we will go, which will be good cos markets are fun. Yay. I love shopping :)
I am feeling excellent today actually. Amazing what spending money can do for you. But it isn’t just that, it is also because it is nearly holidays, the weather is perfect (like a yeppoon winter now, rather than like living in a freezer) and cos I feel soo so sooo much better than I did yesterday. Have had two days off school (including today) and I slept most of them, but yesterday was awful. Have had a bad cold and a bit of a fever early yesterday morning which sucked. So didn’t go to school or the Italian lesson yesterday, (which ended up being cancelled cos maria is sick too and maddy is in berlin so it would have only been nadia) but I did manage to go to the conservatorium. By mid afternoon I was feeling ok and I figured playing the piano would probably make me feel better, or in any case couldn’t hurt, plus I really really really wanted to, so I went and as I had predicted it left me feeling pretty good. Then since I was feeling good, which was probably also due to the panadol I remembered I brought with me, I went to the movies to see ‘Hitch’ with Ely and Eleanora and Elena. It was really really good, although I didn’t actually understand a word of it. I have realised just how difficult it must be for deaf people because trust me, you don’t know how hard it is to lip read until you actually try it for real. The down side of trying to lip read all the english tv shows that are dubbed in Italian and movies and stuff is that I think I often miss the Italian that I might actually understand cos I am always focusing on trying to read their lips. Boy it is hard. I usually can get some basic phrases like ‘I am sorry’ or ‘I love you’ or ‘thank you’ but maybe that is also cos I understand those phrases in Italian too so I guess my brain interprets it both ways. But anyway, despite the fact that I really didn’t understand anything in hitch, I understood most of it, if that makes sense. And maybe I didn’t laugh at all the jokes, but a lot of it is kind of visual comedy so I could laugh at many of them which was good. All in all, despite the fact that I was sniffling and sneezing throughout, I really enjoyed it. And then tonight we are going out for a girls birthday which will be good and thankfully will not be a late night. But I am looking forward to it. Gunna wear my new jeans. Yay. or as amo says 'Huzzah!' hehehe
Well I think that is all. Am going to torino on Monday, hoorah. And then there is a concert at the conservatorium on Wednesday which my musical friends invited me to, so I am really looking forward to that. And Thursday is holidays. Yippee.
amo and ellen w. thanks for your comments. :) school sucks in know, but stick at it, and enjoy it if you can cos you will be suprised how fast it goes by. literally, one day you will wake up and it will be the day after formal and you will think 'woah i am finished school. wow' seriously, you blink and you miss it.
Oh by the way did I mention that the weather is heaps good now. But I am surprised how quickly it has warmed up. I mean it isn’t exactly warm, it is more like a yeppoon winter now, but last week it was still about 4 or 5 degrees in the middle of the day and now it is 16 degrees at 10.30 at night. So I think it will just keep getting warmer from here, which I cant say I am too disappointed about.
Anyway, love you all etcetera, etcetera, etcetera (in manner of yul brenner in king and i)
Love ellen
doo doo doo doo
ok dad, here it is :)
here comes the sun (doo doo doo doo)
here comes the sun (i said)
it's all right (doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo)
-the beatles
well i think the doo doo's are right. i am sure you will all figure it out anyway. and i must add, it did take me a while to figure out exactly how to write 'doo doo doo etc' i thought at first do, but that is to much like 'doh!' so not that. then i thought du, but that is too muhc like 'duh!' so not that either. in the end i settled on doo.
moving on.....well yes it has definately warmed up a little. i am wearing only 3 layers inside today (shock horror) and when i go outside i feel completely comfortable with only one layer on my legs, rather than shivering even in thermals and jeans. so yes, here comes the sun.
well i am on a real high this morning as last night i again went to the band rehearsal of my freinds at the conservatorium. soo good! it was awesome! damn i love bands. i really really want to play in it, so next week i will ask daniela if there is any possibility of borrowing a tuba. however, the one the guy was playing in the rehearsal yesterday was a full size one with 4 valves, so i guess i would have to adjust to that.... :S i have had a very enjoyable week actually. aside from the ATM mishap on monday (damn modern conveniences....grrrr), and a slight sore throat today (probably cos i stayed up watching tv last night....some doco about britney spears.....really important ellen, and so good that you then only got 6 hours sleep, NOT) but school has been pretty good this week. and in the afternoon on monday i happily spend my afternoon writing a letter and reading, then tuesday afternoon i went to the conservatorium and the nice piano teacher man that is using the room i use to teach a lesson before me, was playing this really beautiful piece when i arrived. he spoke to me about the piece (in very fragmented english hehe) for a few minutes and then left me to play, and after a few minutes he came back in and gave me a photocopy of it! how nice! it is such a gorgeous piece. i love it. and then Nicola (who is a boy) and a girl whose name i cant remember, came in to say hi and they all stayed to listen to me sight read through this peice. i was very embarassed. i mean talk about pressure! but i thought i did ok. much better than when i tried to sight read the accompaniment for one of Nicola's flute peices.....
after i got home on tuesday afternoon i realised that the newspaper that mum and dad had packed my vegemite in when they sent it was actually a copy of the 'Mirror' so i flattened it all out and really really really enjoyed reading all the news in it. it also happened to be the issue with the picture of all the YSHS seniors which was nice.
and then yesterday afternoon i went to the conservatorium to meet daniela and deborah again, and we were going to play and sing like last week, but after about 10 mintues we gave up and went to get ice cream. yay. i love ice cream. and like i said, last night i went to thier band rehearsal and had such a good time. had to consciously stop myself from bobbing my head to the beat tho. but woot! i think it's hella tight.
grace low, thanks so much for your comment! i am glad you all used my room to get ready for the social. at least it is getting put to good use :)
mum and dad, thanks for the postcards of yeppoon. i look at them a lot, and i showed some people at school and they all think we live in a paradise. which i happen to think too. so enjoy it guys!
fergus, glad to hear your giong well at uni. there was a guy playing bass at the band rehearsal last night nd he was blind, so he learnt all the pieces by heart! i was impressed.
josie, have you got a job yet? tell me all about it :)
alicia, thanks for explaining the group sponsored epilectic fit. sounds....interesting.
ooh wait! i forgot to tell you about my fun HPE lesson. well for all the other lessons we have been playing volleyball which i am very very bad at. i am so uncoordinated and tend to be afraid of the ball and i fall over etc etc etc. i am sure the teacher thought i was a hopeless case and the students didnt want me on thier team cos, well, i sucked. but last week we played basketball! now i am in no way a basketball player, but at least the skills are pretty similar to netball. i shot like 4 goals and the kids started to pass the ball to me a lot. they even started marking me (s a player who was actually decent) hooray! apart from the fact that i kept stopping ever time i got the ball (a netball instinct) i thoguht i played really well and i just had soo soo soo much fun! have decided i will get back into netball again when i come home. and to top it all of, when we finished, the teacher said that i was a very good player! if that isnt encouragement i dont know what is. yay
ok ciao ciao
love ellen
even about an uneventful week i can write for hours
well, as i am at school and have limited time, today i havent got any lyrics from songs to slip in here, but i will think lots about it for my next blog :) i did think about using 'another lonely day' but today, i am not lonely, so it doesnt really fit.
spring is finally here apparently! the sun is shining and the sky is blue today! hooray!!! it really is good, because i am so sick of wearing 5 and 6 layers of clothing to school and not being able to move my arms properly cos i am restricted by layer upon layer of clothing. lol. and it will be nice to be finally able to wear a skirt again, because as much as i love jeans....i am kind of sick of them. so hopefully soon it will warm up and i can really get stuck into the gelati!
i have had a rather uneventful week i guess, as things are falling into a comfortable routine here. i was fairly down and really very homesick for about four days but the second half of yesterday and most of today have been much better and i feel more like me again. last thursday and friday it snowed again and i remembered to take some photos of it this time so eventually i will get around to sending some or maybe posting them on this blog, if i ever figure out how to do it, but for the moment you will just have to imagine it. it was fun actually cos the snow was all powdery and hadnt yet gone hard and icy, so we made a few snowballs and erica made a tiny snowman which is now just a hat and a carrot sitting in the middle of the garden. hehe. on friday before our italian lesson, maddie, maria and i went into a park and took a bunch of photos which was really heaps of fun....until i had another clumsy moment! note to self, dont run in half melted snow! i fell over and landed in a slushy, muddy, wet patch :( but while i did get a little wet and a little muddy, it was just so hilarious that i didnt really mind! and while i am on the topic of clumsiness, yes michael it is entirely possible to fall UP stairs. i woudl have thought it woudl be obvious what i meant by that too.....the opposite of falling down stairs, instead you fall up.
anyway, on wednesday night i went to a band rehearsal! i didnt play of course but i watched and although the group was very small and far from perfect, i had such a great time! i must admit that i was probably rather too many critical thoughts, but i guess i have been too well trained. throughout the time i could hear mrs d's voice in my head saying things like 'suck in 6 litres of air' and 'keep your eyes up' hehe. it did make me miss band and i was thinking of all of you in my band family a lot, but overall i had a really good time.
saturday afternoon i was rather homesick and also very tired, so i slept for a while. i then turned on the tv to discover there was some kind of concert or music program with michael buble! so i very happily watched that and resolved yet again to buy his new album, which i did yesterday. hooray! buble, buble, buble! he is really popular here actually and he said on the tv show that he is getting an italian citizenship in a month so that is pretty cool i think. who knows, maybe i will see him around. lol on saturday night i borrowed a dvd all by myself! i was so proud! usually when we borrow them i am with elisa and she does the talking, and it is alwasy the same guy behind the counter, who knows us by now. so i was fairly confident even though this time i was alone, cos i thought it woudl be easy since he woudl recognise me. but it was a different guy! i was very nervous but i approached the counter and started to try to speak in italian when he said 'no no, in english.' he said that in english by the way, not italian. i have no idea how he knew i spoke english, but maybe it was a guess. still, we had a bit of a conversation and i successfully borrowed the video, even though i was using elisa's account, and i left the shop feeling very confidant at having achieved it on my own. funny how little things seem so big for me here.
well yesterday my mood improved fortunately, when i went shopping with maddie and maria. it probably wasnt as successful as i had hoped, cos i forgot half of the things on my list, but i had a great time and did manage to buy some clothes. i also walked home from the piazza all by myslef which i was also proud of. we then went to nonna's house in modena for dinner for elisa's birthday which is tomorrow. it was pretty fun, the food was fantastic, and i got a present too! how nice! but we came home late so today i am very tired. school has been good today though, cos it is 'women's day'. it is to appreciate women and the men are apparently supposed to buy yellow flowers for all the girls but i havent seen many in anybody's hands, let alone mine! lol. but we spent most of one of my english lessons today talking about how far women have come and the like which was really interesting. mum, i bragged about you a fair bit, because you have done so many important things as a woman and i cant imagine a better example. everybody was very suprised to hear that you were a minister, and most couldnt imagine a 'priest' taking her kids to school. mind you, that was coming from a roman catholic point of view, but i felt proud to have such a great mum! i have to admit that i did get quite teary after a while cos they kept asking questions about your life and how it worked (people, it isnt that complicated - it works exactly the same as if she was a man. but it seemed to take them a while to get thier head around it) and the more i talked about it the closer to tears i got. thankfully, eventually the questions stopped.
well this afternoon i am off to the conservatorium to play the piano again (hooray) and hopefully will see my new freinds that i made last week. and tonight i am going out ot tea with elisa and all the girls in her class as a celebration both of her birthday and women's day.
one good thing that has happened in the last week is that my language has improved. i feel i have a little more grasp on it all now i suppose, and in the last week there was a notable 'jump' in my skill level, if that makes sense. anyway, bell is going to ring so i have to end this here.
i miss you all but am doing ok :)
love always
ellen
rambling along
Another winter day has come and gone away
in either Paris or Rome, but i want to go home....
-Michael Buble
ok, that isnt actually how i feel at the moment, but a few weeks ago these lyrics were pretty apt. plus, it's buble! do i need an excuse?
Hi everybody, or should i say Ciao?
Well things are going pretty well today! Firstly I want to say happy birthday to frances linnane for this Friday, so somebody pass on the message if she isn’t reading this. And also a belated happy birthday for Beccy A, Courtney G and Kieren for last week! So Happy Birthday you 4!
Nextly, yes naomi, you can borrow my socks! since i am feeling generous today, i give you permission to borrow everything, as long as you return it when i come home....and in good condition!
Josie, I realise i write long blogs, and i am sorry if they take too long to read sometimes. I am glad you like them tho, cos i like writing them :) And if you have no time, just do what domenic does and read only the beginning and then the end! thank you for finally emailing by the way dom :)
have i mentioned before that sometimes i can see the appenines on the way to school? well i can and it is pretty awesome!
Hmm what else? Well today at school, I actually understood most of the Spanish lesson! ‘Spanish?’ I hear you say. Yes Spanish! I didn’t necessarily undesrstand all the Spanish words on the board, but I pretty much got the gist of the lesson cos it was about putting emphasis on the right part of the word, so the Italian that she was speaking wasn’t particularly complicated, and the Spanish, like I said, I did not always understand, but usually it consisted of the teacher saying the word three or four times to demonstrate the difference in ephasis. Per essempio (eg.) ‘MU-si-ca’ ‘mu-SI-ca’ and ‘mu-si-CA.’ so I pretty much understood what she was going on about. the correct one is MUsica by the way. Other than that though, my Italian is coming alone rather slowly. I guess I maybe expected to understand more by now, but I am still usually using the other students to translate what the teachers say, and speak mostly in English. I have noticed though that even if I don’t understand, I can now pretty easily distinguish between the different words, instead of hearing one big jumble of words. I guess it goes without saying that I find it easier to understand when people speak slowly, but usually that doesn’t happen. I also find I understand a whole lot more if I read rather than listen. If I see something written down it is much easier to figure out what it means, partly I guess because there is more time to think about it, and also because often words are spelt similarly to English words, but don’t necessarily sound the same. These words are called ‘cognates’ for those of you who want to learn grammar. And believe me, I am learning a lot, cos you just have to it seems, in order to learn Italian. But who has ever heard of the ‘conditional’ or ‘simple present’ or the ‘infinitive form of verbs’ before?????? Everybody here has, that is for sure! But I am learning slowly, and by the time I come home I will be ‘conjugating’ like a pro…..i hope.
In other news, it is molto molto freddo (very very cold). VERY cold! Minus 6 degrees yesterday I think, and I heard it was minus 7 today! We are officially in spring, but it sure doesn’t feel like it! And despite the freezing temperatures, it hasn’t snowed in over a week. At least if it was snowing I could forgive the cold…..
Well I think I have officially established that just because I am in another country does NOT mean I am any more coordinated than I was in Oz. I fall over ALL the time! Not just tripping on shoe laces, but I fell up the stairs at school yesterday, in the first week I fell of a chair while trying to pick up a biro, and the big one, last Friday, I fell of the bus! Here I am minding my own business and trying not to draw attention to myself and I fall down the stairs getting of the bus and landed in the gutter!
Stop laughing, because I did not escape unscathed! I skinned my knee! And I cant believe how much it hurts. I am a wimp I know, but I am proud cos I didn’t cry, but everytime I bend my leg my knee hurts cos scabs don’t like bending you see, but other than that, only my pride was hurt. I ripped my jeans the tiniest bit, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get away from all the people watching! Oh the embarrassment! Now stop laughing. Especially you Sage! J
What else? Well Alicia, I am glad to hear you have now made some solid friends. I feel that I have too, although most of them are other foreign students. Maddie and Maria I have mentioned before, they are the other two girls I was on the plane with from Oz, and we get to see each other every Friday for our Italian lesson. Maria couldn’t come last week, so we met up on Monday afternoon so I could give her the homework and stuff and then we did a little window shopping. Oooh I want to buy everything! Christie, you would absolutely LOVE the shoes. And there are so many! Everytime I walk past one of the many many shoe shops I think of you :) And the rest of the clothes and stuff are pretty great too! I plan to do a bit of shopping soon cos I just don’t have enough clothes. Atleast not enough warm ones. And things take so long to dry in this weather that I have to make sure I don’t put everything in the wash at once cos it is likely I wont see it for another week atleast.
The other friends I feel I have made are Astri and Christian, students from Norway and Panama respectively, and I am at school with them. As for making friends with people at school, so far only acquaintances really, which is to be expected. We are not really supposed to spend too much time with other foreign students I don’t think, but it is hard not to, and it is nice to swap stories. But I like most of the people I have met, and the ones I see outside school are Elisa’s friends who I like a lot. And yesterday when I was playing the piano at the conservatorium, two girls came in to see who was playing. I was rather embarrassed cos they happened to hear me playing one of the few songs I can play properly at the moment, having hardly practiced in over a month, and they wanted to hear more, but most other pieces I have need lots of practice to actually sound any good, but they didn’t seem to mind. My sight-reading was put to the test and I guess I am rather pleased that they heard me and thought I was any good in the first place. They are both flute players and are students at the Conservatoria here and have invited me to go out with them sometime, and I am also going to watch their rehearsal tonight. I think it is some kind of orchestra or band so I am looking fowrad to that. Alicia, I have to admit that when I read your words ‘music is celebrated here’ in your blog, I was rather jealous cos it seems almost the opposite here. At least, it is rare and I haven’t met anybody at school who plays an instrument, so I was really pleased to find some people with similar interests. So I gave them my mobile number and after I see them tonight I guess we will organise to do something one day after school. Hooray!
Now I really have to send a huuuge thank you out to Rebekah, Amanda and Ian for leaving messages on my phone card thingy! It was soo great to hear your voices! I checked my messages for the first time on Sunday, because when I first tried to use the card it did not work so I have been hesitant ever since. But it does work, so feel free to give me more messages everybody. Remember they are free for you to leave, so any time you feel like it just ring up and tell me all the news from home. And I am sorry Ian, but I am not going to send you snow in a bottle. But it did make me laugh
Well I think that is about all I have to say
