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Claudia's class
This is Claudia's class at her school... Claudia is the girl in the blue sweatshirt on the very right end of the back row. They were all very energetic to say the least... So once again, school.
Today went a little differently however. I got to school and they actually had a lesson instead of just no teachers and oral testing. I'm not sure what the official name of the class was, but I thought it was interesting. You know the Divine Comedies by Dante Alighieri? Well, at their 5-year high school, they teach that trilogy as it's own class pretty much. The 3rd year they read "Inferno", 4th year "Purgatorio" and 5th year "Paradisio". Well, Paolo's class are 4th years, so we spent a whole hour reading, translating, explicating, examining, and doing backflips with the "Purgatorio" portion of the Divine Comedies.
Ok, well, they were doing that. My main goal was to, instead of comprehending the book, to comprehend the teacher. In order to get what Dante was saying, I had to understand what the teacher was saying. So... I just sat there and concentrated really hard, occasionally catching some words I knew and flipping through my little italian-english dictionary every so often. Meb, the girl next to me, would explain what she was talking about once in a while just so I wasn't completely lost. Later, Elena told me that
Time to bash on step-mom
This is a panino. The plural, in Italian, of a panino is "panini". However, us Americans like to take it one step further apparantly, and pluralize the plural by saying "paninis". So Kim, if you are reading this, beware---you are being grammatically incorrect!
Remember: Panino when she talked to that teacher, the teacher said that she thought I understood what she was talking about pretty well... Well, I may have looked like I understood, but nooooo..... I guess it's a start.
After the Dante lesson they had their math test (on graphing functions, finding domain and range and limits, trigonomic functions, etc.). Well the professor gave me a copy just for the heck of it and the hardest part was translating the directions from Italian to English, since some of the math terms weren't in the dictionary. Halfway through the test, I had a note to be excused so I could gt to Claudia's school to talk. So I went up to the teacher and he went on about how "teachers don't have the authority to let students out of school" and how I had to get a note from the main office. I thought, "What the hell? I'm not even in this class officially and I still have to get permission?" But anyways, that was an interesting experience.
Elena took me to Claudia's school where all of the kids in her class AND the English teacher got really excited that an actual American, English-speaking person was in the class. They proceeded on asking me questions about what I do, what I like, if I liked the Simpsons, Glee, and American Football over Soccer (No, No, Yes). It was weird to hear all of these italian kids ask me questions in English.
I decided to stay with Claudia's class through the rest of the day when there was an art lesson. They all have a book that is jam-packed with art history, and looking through it, they've read over everything from the ancient egyptian era until around the time the Mona Lisa was painted, and they were still reading. So, I tried to follow along with the lesson while Claudia tried to explain to me what in the world was going on... But then they started drawing after that long, boring, art history lesson. They got to draw whatever they wanted. I started to draw the Taj Mahal (using a picture out of the art history book, mind you) and as soon as I started doing a little shading, the whole class huddled around me, like a tidal wave of 12 year olds hovering over my shoulder. They all were going "oooh" and "ahhh" while the teacher (who spoke NO English) was repeating "bravissimo, bravissimo" over and over. Well, I kept saying "grazie" and was too embarrassed to keep drawing. That was more pressure than even Queen and David Bowie could take!
But anyways, Claudia tried to draw Cosmo from the "Fairly Oddparents", then my shirt, then she ended up drawing the Cheshire Cat from "Alice in Wonderland" (and did a great job may I add).
For a while after that, I was talking with some of the other kids, asking them how to say "What's up?" and other things in Italian. They asked me if I had a facebook, I said yes, they said yay, and now I'm expecting to have some 12 year old Italian friends on facebook soon. That way, I won't forget all of my italian after I leave!
I wanted to take a picture of the class, but Claudia told me that (and this is VERY strange to me) pictures ARE NOT allowed in the school. For some God-forsaken reason, a kid couldn't take a picture of their classmates in their classroom. But, I still managed to get one after school ended and when we were outside.
When we got home, after lunch, Claudia decided to open the toffees that I brought them as part of my gift to the family. You should have seen the look on her face when she saw the big sheets of toffee in there. It was... priceless. "What the hell are these?" is what it seemed like she was thinking. Well thank the Lord because they all thought it was very delicious.
Well I went into my room as was pretty tired and layed down to rest--and I ended up falling asleep for, oh, a couple hours (a rarity for me). Italian and Italians take it all out of you, that's for sure. When I got up, Claudia was in the kitchen doing her geometry and biology homework. I looked through her biology book and it was human anatomy and physiology! So there I was, looking through the book that had the same stuff I had been studying my whole senior year in this book for 7th graders (I'm not sure that's what grade she is in, but she is 12, minus the 5 years not in school to get 7. So that's my guess). But if it's any consolation, Molly (if you are reading this), they have only done the muscular, cardiovascular, respiratory, and skeletal systems in this whole school year, they don't learn about diseases very much, nor do they don't get to dissect cats! 😊
We had dinner a bit later, discussing a lot about American movies, films, and actors (there aren't many movies they don't know over here. The stereotype of America, I found out from Claudia's class, is Hollywood. They think everywhere there are stars, fame, and movies being made).
So that's all for today I think... not much else exciting to talk about really. I'm going to go watch a movie with the family in Italian (I think) and if anything exciting happens there, I will let you all know!
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Buona notte e dorme benne! (Goodnight and sleep well!)
Ciao
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