New Normals

Buona notte!  I have a few things to catch up on in the last few days.  On Wednesday I had a challenge before me, the English teacher was absent that day and when I arrived in the hallway I was told I would be teaching 3 of her classes for the day by myself!! I didn't feel completely prepared for the task, but I just decided I would go with the flow and do the best I could and 2/3 classes were awesome!!  One of them had a hard time understanding my instructions and I just ended up babysitting for 45 minutes, but I'll take that percentage.  Pretty much all of my activities for the week were a hit and I just love seeing the student's smiling faces everyday.  It's funny because there are so many similarities to classrooms back home just in the types of students there are.  Even without being able to speak the language I can tell the popular kids, the bullies, the jocks, and the extremely bright students.  So much of what we observe in the world has nothing to do with understanding words and so much to do with being able to read contexts and situations, tones, and just overall body language.  It's a very interesting perspective I'm able to gain in this placement.  Today the school had a fire drill which was very interesting because the maids literally had to drag me down the stairs because I had no idea what they were trying t tell me. Haha! As I was writing this a siren went off in the hallway and we had ANOTHER fire drill.  It is currently like 9 at night.  I peeked my head out the door and was just like... are you kidding me right now??  I went to the gym for a good amount of time this week and was able to enjoy my first run in the park right next to the school.  It's so beautiful here.  It's no Eugene in terms of trail quality but the views just cannot be beat.  The gym has been my saving grace as far as my mental health.  It's a way for me to be able to focus all my energy into something that I know I'm good at and it's so comforting to have that home base here in Macerata.  I leave for Venice tomorrow morning and I'm super excited to see the sights and to be able to meet a few new friends along the way!  I'm starting to miss home a lot more in these last few days and yearn to talk to my family and Brent more than the time difference allows but I know it's only temporary and before I know it I'll be home and missing Italy.  I've tried a few new restaurants this week that I really enjoyed, I tried a kabap place that I have been wondering about every time I walk by and I was not disappointed!  It's always nice to get a good helping of meat when I can because it's scarce in the meals they feed us at the school.  I went to the market today and was able to pick up some healthy snacks which I was super excited about and now I am all packed and ready for another weekend adventure.  Every time someone asks where I am from and I tell them Oregon they ask about the UCC shooting and every time I just wish I could hug my sisters so tight.  It reminds me to never take life for granted and to live every moment the best way I know how, with love, kindness, and a lot of gratitude.  My thoughts going into next week are mostly to just catch myself when I start to take any of this experience for granted and to reach out of my comfort zone that I have now established here, to experience life here so much more, and to try a little harder to communicate past the Ciao, grazie, buon giorno, and prego that makes up my whole Italian vocabulary.

And also when I was having a hard time explaining something to the class I ended up using Google Translate to give instructions.  All the students cheered and I took a bow.  Then I asked them to use a present progressive verb in a sentence (a verb ending in -ing) and one student's sentence was: My teacher is using Google Translate.  Haha such a smartie! :)

"As you move outside your comfort zone, what was once the unknown and frightening becomes your new normal." -Robin S. Sharma

With Love
Linsey