About One Month to Go...

Ciao tutti!

So this is my blog for the time leading up to and when I am in Ferrara, Italy, for four months in the Spring of 2009. I have been accepted to a program where I will live with a family in their home and attend school at one of the oldest universities in Europe (founded in 1391!!). I'm going to be learning the Italian Language and taking a few classes in english about gender and race representation in Italy, too.

As of right now, a stressful part of the process is over. CU-Boulder freaked me out by saying in early November that it was "already too late" to obtain a student visa, when it was out of my control to get the necessary letters to submit to the consulate. So I sent out my visa packet the day after Thanksgiving, thinking that it was going to be a close call as to whether I would get the visa in time to leave in January. Well, it came back on Wednesday! Haha! Just shows you not to necessarily listen to the people in charge of these things at CU.

Other than that, I am getting ready to take my finals this week (just made a huge 20-minute presentation on human reproduction in one of my classes about an hour ago) and trying to begin thinking about packing up my room. I'm also trying to read up on what are good places to go in the region that I will be in and where I might want to go in other parts of Europe.

I'm planning on writing on this blog very frequently, and hopefully anyone who reads it will be able to get a glimpse of what my life is like in Italy. Also, I hope to get good enough at writing Italian that I can add bits and pieces in that language (with translations of course).

It's really amazing that I'm sitting in downtown Boulder and watching people go past and yet I'm going to leave in a month and be gone for so long. I remember the last time I left Italy (when I lived in Perugia for five weeks in 2007), I was really sad and had to keep reminding myself that the people there (and indeed the city itself) had been doing what they do for thousands of years, and that they would not change even if I didn't make it back there for ten years. Lucky for me, I am going back soon!

Sometimes it's hard to keep things in perspective, since lately I've felt lonely and like college has been no different from high school (for which the only descriptor can be "SUCKED"). I remember graduating and thinking no one would even remember that I had gone there in five years...that nothing I had done in four years had made an impression. But at graduation, everyone kept saying "You'll all go places you've never been and see all kinds of things. And everything will be great." And I have, and I will.

Honestly, I've found that the complete (if a bit severe) break I've had with everyone I knew in high school has done me good in the long run. I haven't been held back by groups of friends that have a certain notion of what I am or who I should be, which I've seen time and time again with people who have kept in touch with their friends. And you know, I think the same break is coming with the people I've met in college.

When I first applied to go to Italy, I was sad that I would be gone during graduation, and all my friends would be moving away to start their "real lives" (whatever that means). I was afraid I wouldn't get to say goodbye. Now that I feel that complete and total break with college coming on (like I did when I was a senior in high school), I am not sad. I wish that I could have met people that would be lifelong friends for me, but I wouldn't want to be stuck with those that I met in college. If they want to go off in their own ways without goodbyes, that is just fine with me. It's freeing to not be dependent on others to go.

I had this idea that my friends would all get together and throw a going away party for me when I left for Italy. As it stands, looks like my family and Michael are the only ones who will be there to say goodbye. I just have to remember that this is better in the long run.

Non vorrei essere limitata perche i miei amici mi hanno abbandonato. I wouldn't want to be held back because my friends have abandoned me.