What a day. I woke up feeling pretty blue yesterday. I'm sure I won't get any sympathy from anyone but I'm finding it a bit hard to be here by myself and feeling homesick. I wasn't content with my little life in Seattle so I don't know what my deal is. I think I have a grass is always greener problem. Anyway, blah blah blah, blue.
I went to school and our teacher asked how we were so I gave the International hand gesture for come se, come si (sp?) or in Italiano, cosi, cosi. So, that brought up a big discussion about homesickness. I'm not the only one thank goodness. My new BF, Eleanor, is also homesick. Unfortunately for me, it seems more appropriate for a 20 year old vs. a 36 year old. Nuts.
As the day progressed, I was forced to conjugate verbs, again. I'm not sure I could conjugate a verb in English. This nearly brought me to tears. Not only do I not understand the directions because they are in Italian but I don't know the Italian verbs to begin even conjugating them. I don't think I'm 100% alone in this but I'm incredibly frustrated by it. Anyway, I spoke with my teacher during our break and had a nice chat about the whole process of learning a language.
When I came to school yesterday and over the last few days, I've been thinking of adjusting my class schedule a bit. Instead of 6 hours a day of class, I was thinking of canceling my afternoon sessions and applying that time to more morning sessions over my time in Italy. So instead of 4 weeks intensive, do 6 weeks of part time. I spoke to the office today and they said no problem. Yeah! This made me incredibly happy and really boosted my mood. Hooray! This also saves me money since I was going to buy more lessons to fill my time at the end of March.
At the afternoon session, a couple of the other students - one from Scotland and the other from Germany - were complaining about how they feel they aren't learning anything practical or immediately useful. They were feeling very frustrated and that the school wasn't what they expected. It was an interesting conversation with the teacher. She was reminding us that we are taking baby steps and asked us if we feel that we've improved from day one to day four. We all felt we had improved to varying degrees which basically proved her point. Baby steps. Relax. Don't worry. It will come. An interesting conversation and it made me feel better about my own language frustrations.
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3 comments:
hang in there kerstin! i'm sure the language will come in time.
in the mean time remember that you are embarking upon a great adventure that 10 years from now you'll look back and think "wow, that was a really a great time in my life".
mike, ella and i will be checking in on your progress.
ciao bella!
Keep the faith my friend - the struggle is the part of the journey - be kind to yourself - what you are doing is hard for anyone at any age. I miss you too and am proud of you for taking a big risk like this!
Hey, stick with it. Learning a language is tough at the beginning and you won't know which way is up for a wee while. Keep working on the vocab and practising the verbs and you will be surprised how fast you progress. In a few weeks you will look back and ridete at these early days.
Also, remember to have fun with it. You are on an adventure of a lifetime so make the most of it. Go talk to some Italian boys in the pub.
Do you support Roma and Lazio?
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