Its been a while. A lot of stuff has been going on and I have been super busy. My friend Lina came to visit me from Lithuania (more about that later), I have had exams and a ton of reading to do so I haven't had a chance to write very much.
Its now about 2:00 am here in Bologna and I cannot sleep half because I cannot breathe out of my nose and half because I am so excited about tomorrow (or today) because me and five other girls from my program are going to LONDON!!! I am going to get to see two of my friends Stefanie (from Scotland) and Zsolt (from Hungary) who I haven't seen in over a year and over two years respectfully. SOO EXCITED!
But since I cannot sleep I thought I would share with you one of the most intense experiences I have had here. It was a true test of my Italian and I think I would have passed with an A. I started tutoring two Italian boys this week: Brando, 7, and Rocco, 3. Most of the time I work with Brando. Both of the boys attend the school I am interning at, the International School of Bologna. Each grade level does a "Unit of Inquiry" and they have just finished their first units. Both of the boys teachers sent home a progress report explaining how each of the boys did in the unit. Their mother, Alessia, speaks little-to-no English and asked me to translate the report cards for the boys. Each report card was about a half of a page, single spaced. At first this didn't seem like a big deal. I mean, I have been in Italy now for about 3 months. How hard could this be?
Thats what I thought. I started reading the first report card about Brando. Then I started translating it and it was going fine but then it got the best of me. I started thinking, "I bet I sound like a total idiot." and "Omg! Did I say that right?" and "Is she understanding me?" And that's when my hand began to shake. Right about at this same time, their grandmother came over because she heard me speaking Italian and started listening to me. (Commence sweating). That was also about the same time that Brando and Rocco started decorating my arms with silly bands that I had brought for them and talking to me in English.
Lets review: Reading in English, thinking in Italian, listening to the boys in English, speaking in Italian to their mother and responding to the boys in English. Oh, did I mention I was sweating?
About this time their mother stopped the chaos that was surrounding me and said, "You are doing fine. I can't even read this in English so that fact that you are translating this for me is amazing." That was when I realized that I was doing fine. I was switching from English to Italian and back faster than I have ever been able to and I was making sense in both languages. I knew what verb tenses to use and how to reconstruct the sentences into Italian. IT WAS AMAZING!! It was so excited! I am really starting to feel great about my Italian skills. Now please correct my declining English skills.
Baci xx
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