Turning around a mid-semester slump

A month into Florence, I was wondering if I made the right choice by coming here. I'd made a few friends at LdM that went to other universities, but I still spent the majority of my time with fellow UNCers. I thought that I would have more experience interacting with the Italian people and culture, and once the daily 3-hour pre-session of Italian stopped and my classes in English started, my Italian came to a standstill. Nothing wrong with the UNCers, but if I had wanted to hang out with Americans who had similar lifestyles and experiences to mine, I could get in touch with old friends. I wanted the new culture experience, but it felt more like a National Lampoon "Vacation" movie, except college and not family version. So, I did stuff about it.

What I did:

1. Bought Harry Potter in Italian. I know I know, it's a translation and I have yet to hear an Italian talk about how great WB's latest movie trailer is, but it's easier to follow a storyline I know in a language I don't really know. I had wanted to reread the book before the movie comes out, so it's a perfect way to keep the real and fantastical Italian words on the mind. Favorite new word in my Italian vocabulary: Mangiamorte, or Deatheater.

2. Signed up on conversationexchange.com. Mentioned this in the last post, it's a website on which people trying to learn other languages can find each other and meet. Demographic of the people who have messaged me is still primarily 28-year-old males--not 27 or 29, precisely 28--but I've met with another girl from Florence who will speak with me in Italian if she can give me a tour focusing on Medieval art this Friday. Considering I'll have two tests next week that would touch on the subject, I think I'm getting more out of it than she is. There is also another Italian grad school student I'll meet tomorrow to just talk.

3. Hung out more with my Turkish flatmate. Nil isn't Italian, but she's not American either. She's part of Erasmus, a program through which European students study abroad at different universities, and I've gone to events for the Erasmus students. Everyone speaks English and is trying to learn Italian. Perfect. Also, as an individual, Nil is the epitome of dear. Last night I was tired and didn't feel like going out, but I caved under her insistence, put on eyeliner and one of my four outfits and went to a pub with her. I met European students who, unlike many I meet on nights out on the town, I think I'll see again and would like to see again in Florence. On the way home I said I had fun, and Nil said, "I'm just happy to see you happy, because I know we won't have this again after you go back." Wisdom that needs to be prominent on the mind.

4. Signed up for an art class. I've realized with the void of journalism and art classes while taking culture, art history and philosophy in Florence, there's nothing like a class with tangible finished products. When I decided to study abroad in Italy at the start of my college career, I thought I was going to major in art and that it would be the perfect place to do so. In the heat of my battle to go to Bologna in the spring, I dropped the only art class I was taking to add another 3 hours of Italian. Once I let that aspiration go and really started to see the art in Florence, I really missed drawing and painting. So, for the price of half the tuition for the class and art supplies at twice the cost as in the U.S., I enrolled to audit a pastel class. I've only been to one class so far, and the drawing resulting from those three hours is pretty horrid, but my hands were dirty and I was thinking like an artist.

5. Ran. This action verb might be slightly inaccurate, but Sunday, after nearly begging other UNCers to take a day trip to a nearby city or go hiking to no avail, I thought about studying. I packed up my backpack and descended three stairs outside my apartment door, then turned around and changed into my running shoes. I leisurely jogged along the Arno River, and when I was too tired to continue running, I kept following the river. I ended up walking for about an hour. I passed a few parks with old couples picnicking, young couples fishing, a families biking, a venue advertising Italian rock bands, and found a bike trail that I look forward to trying out. Despite the shock of realizing what a toll eight weeks of barely any exercise took on my stamina, I felt like I found what I had been looking for while trying to make plans to go to another city or hike that day: something new.

Running isn't an Italian thing to do in the least, very rarely do I see anyone running, and if I do, 9 out of 10 times they're American. The translated book, conversation exchange, time with European students, and the art class through LdM are Italian-esque actions with American twists, but they help me find my ground in Florence. With UNCers I felt part of a herd, but alone I sometimes felt I was floating into the abyss. These activities make me feel like a grounded individual. A purposeful wanderer, if you will.