L’uomo mangia un panino

Rosetta Stone is the best. It lets you practice speaking, writing, listening to, and reading the language you’re studying, without any English translation. That method is much like Total Physical Response, in which you are immersed in the language, responding physically (clicking the mouse, in this case) before you are ever expected to produce the language on your own. It begins slowly, building until you can use full sentences and eventually converse with the computer and hopefully real Italians. For example, I can now use the following sentences confidently in everyday conversation:

I’m about 85% sure those are correctly phrased. If you wondered, they translate to, “The man eats a sandwich,” “The girl does not drive,” and “I have five small, red flowers.” Perfect, exactly what I’ll need to get by! Just kidding… really, I do understand the method and I know that it really is effective. However, it is not as instantly gratifying as I’d like. 

Thank goodness, because if I had to think about what to bring, what I needed, what I might be forgetting, and so on for another second my head probably would have exploded off my body. I put too much thought into really simple things, but hopefully it’s for the better. I couldn’t even believe how much stuff I have; my mom spent hours helping me to weed through my clothes, picking what was getting shipped and what was getting donated, and even after three contractor-size, heavy duty black garbage bags full of clothes and shoes being sent off with the Veterans of America, I still have more clothes packed up than any normal person should own. I keep thinking of things I wish I had packed that wont fit in my suitcase, but it happens. When I studied abroad in Granada, Spain, I had to learn to get by without all of the study materials and clothes I thought I needed, because who has space for 4 colors of index cards or a three-hole-punch when packing 4 months into one suitcase? Or two red bras when really you don’t even need one? This will be similar and hopefully will help me to be a little less materialistic and be happy with what I have, because it’s already so much!

Lots and lots to do in the next bunch of weeks, which will thankfully include trips to Cayuga, Lake Wallkill, Philadelphia, and NYC. Somehow, planning curriculum things doesn’t seem nearly as stressful as packing everything! I’m just praying that paperwork will somehow finish itself because that is still a huge weight on my mind, but other than that I’m a little less crazy than I was last week. Thank goodness!