My Summer is Officially Over.

That's right. No more sleeping in until noon, no more staying out late drinking with friends, no more wandering the streets of Bologna without a purpose, no more visiting friends in different cities on a Thursday night, no more going to the library only to look at the roman ruins underneath them.  Well maybe not all of that is true!  Classes have officially begun in Bologna and I couldn't be more excited.  That is, until I got to the classroom.  There were no more seats left so I had to sit on the floor in the aisle. It was about 90 degrees in the room but I didn't dare take off my jacket because none of the other Italian students had and some even kept their scarves on! Honestly, if I didn't want to fit in so badly, I would have stripped off all my layers down to my tank top. It was that hot!  I don't understand how these Italians do it sometimes.  Today was a clear blue sky day and people were wearing jackets buttoned up with scarves. MOVE TO CHICAGO PEOPLE! This is the type of weather that people would be wearing shorts and tank tops in. Oh Italy....


So let me give you a run down of how an Italian class works.  All of the students come to class on time and rush in to get a seat and get all settled in (without taking off their scarves) and wait.  This waiting period could be anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes but on average is 15 minutes.  We sit there waiting for the professor to show up.  Once the professor gets there, everyone is silent for the next 2 hours while he lectures on the topic of the day.  Let me tell you, listening to a lecture in Italian for this long is hard.  Luckily, my professor is great. He is a world renowned professor and really knows what he is talking about and is also kinda funny.  This really helps the time go by. I am finding that I am understanding most of what he has to say. I think its going to be a really good year!


Now that classes have started, so has my internship.  I am working at the International School of Bologna.  I work with Sue Bell, their ESL coordinator.  I had my first day on Tuesday.  It was amazing! I will be helping out in the classrooms and also working with some students one on one.  The entire school is taught in English and there are students from all over the world.  Most of them are Italian and some speak English better than I speak Italian right now. The school starts with 3-year-olds and goes through middle school.  In of the classrooms I got to observe we taught the kids how to sing "Row Your Boat".  Most of the kids just watched the motions and mouthed what they thought were words.  One of the boys, Ray, however is fluent in English and had no problem at all standing up in front of the class to demonstrate the song.  The students also had to introduce themselves to me in English. When it came to be one of the boys turn, instead of introducing himself he just looked at me and said:

"Scusi, ma parliamo in italiano perche siamo italiani!"

Which translates to:

"Excuse me, but we speak in Italian because we are Italian!"

Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed!  It is also on top secret lock down that I know how to speak Italian.  If the kids were to find out, they would take advantage of the fact that I know it and only speak to me in Italian.  Right now, I am just cool Miss Ellen who wants to hangout.  I can do that, I can be cool! 

Baci xxx