Pensieri finali

Well even though I have left Italy I still want to make some comments about my full time abroad. I have about 7 or so hours in layovers in London and Chicago so I thought this would be a perfect time to recap.

I will start with the outcome of my projects, last Monday I had to say goodbye to my little friend Edoardo, who I tutored 2 days a week. We definitely had our ups and downs, our good days and our bad days but none the less I am still going to miss the little rascal. He (indirectly) taught me the most Italian, especially how to use commands haha. I am pretty sure he taught me more Italian than I taught him English the best thing he learned were the lyrics and some dance moves to “Everybody Dance Now,” when he sings that part that was the closest to a sentence and as a very proud moment for me and his parents.

(my favorite italiano Edo)

Throughout the semester I continued my service work at the refugee center. I got to know a lot of the regulars pretty well and this experience taught me more about the world, politics, economics, than any class I have ever taken. I still can’t get over how smart these guys are and how unfortunate their situation is. The combination of Edoardo’s English lessons and giving English lessons at the center, I think my English has improved more so than my Italian. I am disappointed on how little I improved in Italian. I think the biggest problem was my school is an American school, so everybody speaks English and a lot of Italians know or are trying to learn English so they always insist on speaking to me in English. So by being here my English got better, my Spanish got worse, and my Italian may have improved slightly. I still really want to pursue the language, it is a fun language, filled with a lot of fun expressions, but I just need to build up my vocabulary.

(The classroom within the center)

The documentary that I was working on is for the most part complete, I completed it enough to have a screening of it at my school during finals week. Films are never really finished though I could tweek with that thing until I die but the screening went really well, there were over 150 students and staff that came and I got a lot of really good feedback on it which was nice. The film title is ‘Nice Country’ and is based on an immigrant and a refugee that come to Italy to find a better life.