Studio e Imparo

My terza settimana of classes are nearly over. Italian is same-old, same-old...or as much as it can be when you're learning all kinds of things all the time. Every morning my class starts with Roberto, as per usual. Language class is only 3 times per week. The other two days (Wednesday and Friday) are my History of Siena class. Since I came back to Italy specifically for this city and spend a fair amount of my free time learning more about it, I think it'd be fair to claim that this class was designed for me. It's been raining a lot this week but se ferma, we'll go on a walk to see some things that we talked about on mercoledi.

Scrittura creativa is Monday mornings and Wednesday evenings with Jeff, the author. You may or may not have read his first libro--he's written two--which I'm reading now. He's a fun character and I love the way he thinks, or rather, the way he makes me think. Mondays we turn in our assignments and have class discussions on a particular topic for the week. He uses all types of media and an array of literature so we can discover how to use a particular construction well. Sometimes it's explicit. Sometimes it's not. But working towards "getting it" is part of the fun. Then on Wednesdays we take turns reading ours allowed and offer critism to improve the piece. We've done 2 assignments, and I am always thinking that they can't get any harder, but somehow they do.

Then there's sociologia. I'm the only student in this class so "group discussions" are more personal, which you know I love! I'm learning about the history and methodology of sociology, but then the second part of the class is an internship out in the community. I can either work with a group of disabled or at the local nursing home. I'm having a hard time deciding because the opportunities would be so different and would offer me very different experiences of the city, but I'm convinced that I can't make a bad decision here. Either way, I'd have a great chance to observe and even participate in a specific part of life in Siena and practice my Italian. As these points were my goals for coming back to Siena, I can't go wrong. I've visited both places and am going back to the nursing home again today to get to know a little more about the atmosphere and what I might be doing if I choose that location. I'm going alone and while I'm excited, I'm still a bit nervous since there will be no one I can rely on for a translation.

This solidarity has actually made me think a lot about what it means to study abroad and how different it is from living negli stati uniti. For the first time I am truly away from my support system. While I am fortunata and am able to keep contact with people back home through lots of modes (including this blog!), you all aren't here with me, experiencing what I live every day. But then, I am thankful to have a great group of amici here who are going through all the same struggles and adventures. Still, they don't know my past besides the antecdotes that come up in conversation. So I have realized recentamente that the only link between my past and my present...is me. I know that sounds funny and so obvious, but it makes living life now so different than how I've lived before. But then again, I guess that is the point.

In other news:

* Of the 17 fountains, I have seen 15. The other 3 are in private giardini--which I'm trying to get in to see. Vediamo!

* In completely unrelated news, I got an internship in D.C. this summer with the American Psychological Association to work in research labs. And, needless to say, I'm really excited! I go about a month after I return to the States so I think that it will help reassimilate back to being in America.