Autogestione

Last week in America, everyone was enjoying Thanksgiving Break. This week, I'm having my own fall break. It comes in the form of an autogestione.

Autogestione (n):

Where one's school refuses to teach but is still open and thus the students come and do workshops.

That's what's been going on in my school since Wednesday. I come to school, hang out with my friends for the first hour and then go to whatever workshop takes my fancy. Mostly I just go where my friends go. 

Wednesday, I had a class assembly for two hours where we watched "Noi, i ragazzi dello zoo Berlino." Also known as "We the children of the Berlin Zoo". We got 3/4 of the way through it. We were watching it on my friend's laptop so the sound was a little funky and we had to wait for YouTube to keep loading. It's about a 12 year old girl who lives in Berlin (This is a German film) in the early 80s, when David Bowie was huge along with LSD, coke and many other phyicadellic drugs. You follow her trip (in more ways than one) for the next two years, falling in love with a boy but also with cocaine  and other drugs. It was gross in some parts (throwing up in the bathroom stalls, heroin injections) but you learned about what it was like growing up in the time when drugs and music were everything. After our film, our class reps explained why we were having an Autogestione. It's a protest against the legge Aprae (The Aprae Law). The law says that all funding for public schools will stop and unless the schools find a sponsor than none of the government's money will be filtered towards education. Here's the catch, some of the money will be filtered for private schools. So everyone is a bit ticked about that. There's also the fact that if this law passes, than public schools will be forced to write a type of constitution that everyone has to abide to. All my teachers and friends are very apposed to this law. I am too. It's not fair that private schools get the money when the public schools are already old and falling apart. In my school, we can't even afford toilet paper. (When I get back to Colorado, I better not hear any complaining about how poor our schools are.) My last two hours of workshop, was a workshop on figuring out what Thursdays workshops were going to be. We bounced ideas from self defence to a film to first aid. It was a nice break from all the heaviness of the legge Aprae.

Thursday, Autogestione all day. The workshop I participated in was making banners and posters, saying vote no for the legge Aprae. It was an all day workshop but in reality, making the banners and posters lasted about 2 hours. So for the rest of the day, I talked with friends and made loops around the school. Nothing like doing nothing to make you miss learning.

Today, I was fed to the wolves. Meaning, the workshop my friends and I did, was planning the end of year dance. My school's first end of year dance. The first question asked, should we make it like the American end of school dances? 

My Friends: We have an American.

Girl leading the meeting: Where?

My Friends: Right here. (Pointing at me while everyone, 60, swivels to look at me)

Me: Please, no. Oh dear lord, Yes, I'm American.

Girl leading the meeting: Up here right now. Tell us about the American dance.

So that is how I ended up describing Prom even though I've never been. At the end of the meeting, I had a headache because the argument was, should we have beer and wine or not? It was just confusion.

The rest of the day, my friends and I found empty rooms to play cards in. We made our own workshop which I'm sure no one minded. I played a new form of BS and also a new form of Slap. I lost. A lot.

This weekend is the fair. As in, rides and games galore. I'm going with a friend so I'm excited. Plus I get to eat funnel cake. Yey!

Gym Class Loser

Is it possible to fail gym class? I mean really, is it possible? Yes, I'm athletic as in I like to run and do push ups and run some more. But gym class isn't just running. It's theory and sports that require the coordination that I do not have. So in really, I am a gym class loser. Oh well. Just put me on the bench and when my time comes to play whatever sport our teacher has chosen, hope I don't die.
Other than that, Happy Thanksgiving! I'm so incredibly thankful that I'm here in Italy and I have two families that love me oh-so very much. I hope all of you are enjoying turkey and pumpkin pie.
This weekend, there's a strike on Saturday so I don't have to go to school. Instead I'm going to the chocolate festival in Gradisca. I know. It's a very dangerous place for me. To be surrounded by all sorts of chocolate just can't be good for me. I'll tough it out though. Hahaha! No, I'm really excited for this festival. I'll be getting some pictures for sure.
Then next weekend I'm going to Venice for an art exhibit and to just walk around. Yey!! Venice!

Just keep swimmin'

Ciao! Sorry I haven't written in the past few weeks. I get busy and then I don't have time to write so just  keep checking in when you have time to see if I've posted.

Well, here's what's been going on in my life:

A few weeks ago, I had dinner with my friend's family. It was really fun. We had pizza and watched "My Name in Tonino". It's such a cute movie. It's about an Italian boy who meets an American girl during the summer and they fall in love. Then a few months after she goes home, he comes to America for a surprise visit. It was really interesting seeing his view on America and how different it is from Italy. Just like my views on how different but yet the same America is from Italy. I also got a book called "Un Italiano in America". It's by an Italian journalist who lived in Georgetown for a year and it's his perception of Americans. It's really funny.

Then last week, I had a cross country race through the school. Originally, I though it was going to be practice, not a race. Then one of my friends who did it with me, told me the day before, Oh it's a race. Not practice. My mind kind of blanked at that. But I got 3rd and now I'm on the team for the race against all the schools in region. But it may not happen because the Italian government is thinking about cutting all after school activities, this includes sports, drama, ect. There have been a lot of strikes about this, the biggest being in Trieste, a few days ago. Next week, there will be a strike in Rome, that a lot of my teachers will be attending because they don't want this to happen. So we'll see what happens. 

On Wednesday, I went to Trieste for a Rotary lunch with the other exchange students. I got out of class early and I got to have pizza at a nice restaurant. So it was a good day. Not to mention, I got to hang out with the other exchange students after and get hot chocolate at this really cool bar. I had hot chocolate with Carmel in it. It was so good!!! I mean, I want some more of it. It was really windy in Trieste and I don't know how they put up with it. After standing in the wind for 5 minutes, I was already tired of it. I'll stick to rain, please.

Yesterday, I had a big cross country race. It was 4k and let's just say I was the fastest American but the last person. There was just 7 of us, which is a big change for me. When I do cross country with Battle Mountain, our races are about 100-200 people. So going from a large race to a very little race, that's a change for me. And everyone was saying how big the race was. What's a normal race like then?

School is good. I have this major organic chem test on Wednesday, that I'm sure will kill me. I had an English lit interrogation yesterday, and I think I scared the teacher a little bit. Oops. Though now, in that class, we've started Shakespeare. I can't wait to read Romeo and Juliet out loud for them. My Italian is coming along. I can get most of the present verb contexts and I just learned the difference for when to use Essere and Avere in the past. That always screwed me up so I'm really happy that I know how to use them now. 

Just keep swimmin' is my motto right now. That's what I've been doing and what I'll be doing. 

Ciao!

Wherefort art thou Romeo?

From the title it's pretty easy to guess where I've been. Verona! Beautiful Verona! I was there for two days Thursday and Friday. In those two days I managed to take about 200 photos and see about 3/4 of Verona. (We had two small children in tow so we had to accommodate to them.) What can I say? It's a beautiful city.
We arrived Thursday afternoon and we stayed with friends of my host parents. They're originally from Russia but because of work, they moved to Italy some years ago and now have two small kids with a third one on the way. We had a late lunch and then went into the center of Verona. It was dark but the light from the street lamps made it very magical. First we went to the Roman arena. We couldn't go inside because it was closing but from the outside it was still amazing. Then we hit up Guilieta's balcony. It was so cool! I know it's a balcony but to think of the love story that went on in that small yard, it just sends me into shear happiness. Next, we went to Piazza of Herba which is the main square which leads into a smaller square. There in the square you have stores and market stalls. Very cool. Since it was next another square we went there. In the middle of this square stands a statue of Dante. Dante, when he was fleeing from the Church, came and stayed in Verona with the highest family, Le Scaligera. Their house is right in that square so... very important square plus their tombs are right next to it. After this we went back home and slept.
The next day, we went up to the old castle on the hill. From here you can see all of Verona. It's a breathtaking sight. You have the old city next to the new city and it's all in closed with the wall. Honestly, I could have spent all day just looking at Verona from afar. Then we went across the main bridge into Verona and walked around. The day went soooo fast! We visited the castle in the city and walked across another bridge. (Verona is surrounded by a river. To get in and out of town, you have to pass through the wall and then a bridge or vise vies.) Then we went back to the main square, and walked around, ate a lot, visited some tombs. By then it was getting dark and I wanted to see Guilieta's tomb. So we went there. First, we had to go through the museum with all the old frescos that used to be in the church next to the tomb and then we got to go into the tomb. That coffin is way to small to have held some one. I mean, it's really small. But the story goes, that we don't know if this is really Guilieta's tomb. When Shakespeare came to Verona, he said this is her tomb and my word is law. So we're going by Shakespeare's word.
What did you do for Halloween Annie? Well, sadly this is the first year I haven't dressed up for Halloween. But I did get to sleep over at a friend's house and I got to see Rocky Horror Picture Show with her and a few other friends. And it was in English! Not dubbed! They did have subtitles which was nice because I came out of the theater knowing some more vocab words than before. It was a ton of fun!
Then yesterday, I got to go to another birthday party for two friends in my class. We played Just Dance (which I'm very bad at) and talked. It was so much fun! I mean I was able to talk with everyone and just hang out. I feel accepted now!

So now without further adew some pictures:

Verona at Night

Me and the Arena

Guilieta's Balcony

The City of Verona

Hey Dante

Main Square

Bridge

Tomb of Guilieta

Shakespeare

Food

Food

More food

Yeah, I'm fat

Tomb of Le Scaligeta