Waah, last day! It feels so strange to sit here and know I'll be off tomorrow morning (at bloody 4:30 AM x.X Oh God. *That* will be fun.) My test went well, got another A, so I have an A for the entire two month period, about which I'm super-glad :D (Yaaay, GPA!)

Said goodbye to everybody this morning (And Vicky and Yasu yesterday! ::sob:: I miss them already!). It was really nice to see everyone at the party having fun, but definitely bittersweet :*( Although now I get to come home and see all my lovies!! Hurrah!

I dunno', my thoughts on the matter are really scattered at the moment. I suppose I'll write more when I get home (and upload more pics!) just to finish everything up, but for now here are a few photos of the last couple weeks :D

( Pic-age :D )

So, did my grammar exam today (and conversation yesterday after I posted :D) All in all, it was DEFINITELY much easier than last month. I've really been applying myself in speaking to people this month, so I'd hoped this would happen :D Hopefully I'll get another good grade. Even if I don't, I've still got an A from last month. The VERY WORST I think I could do now is like a B+. I mean, hopefully. If something goes insanely wrong, I could get less. Like, if I thought I knew things when I took the test, but it turns out that suddenly I knew NOTHING or something. Which I hope is unlikely, lol. Oh well, keeping my fingers crossed :D I find out and get my diploma/transcript/thing tomorrow morning! 160 hours of Italian under my belt, rar!

Today's the last day I get to see Vicky and Yasu! ::weep:: Both are leaving before I do (Vicky tonight to go renew her passport in England, Yasu tomorrow morning to start early on his between-month vacation time). Wah!! I really love those two, I'm going to miss them so badly! And Yasu's "family"!! I'm still sad that I had to say goodbye to Roberta! (Mi scrivi, mia moglie!!) It's so surreal to think that it is entirely possible that I may never see any of them again :*( Especially Yasu, who lives all the way in Japan o.0** Who knows, though? Maybe Vicky and I will travel sometime (she's travelled all over the place, she's a language major in Italian and French, oooh :D). And Yasu wants to learn English, so I'm trying to convince him to come to Philly. I mean, come on, what would be better than my 5'3 Japanese buddy speaking in ghetto Philly slang? The answer, I believe, is nothing.

Anyway, Vicky and I are headed out for our last gelato/shopping trip today (*keen!*) I think I may get my nose pierced. (A sidenote for my dear Fajah: It comes out for formal occasions and if I want to take it out permanently the hole heals easily!! Please attempt to not have a heart attack. It is an easily removable oh-so-tiny piece of my no-longer-teenage rebellion. It also costs less than half of what it would in the States for piercings here, and I've wanted it for so long!! ... ...Also, by the time you read this, it will probably already be done *:D Eh heh heh. But you loved me past the tattoo! You can love me past this! Plus it'll remind me of Italy! <3)

Aaaaanyhoo, to all my friendy-types, I will be home on Saturday at about 8:00! And I want to start hanging out right away! I miss you all! So facebook me or call me or...schwhatevahs :D Love!!

(Also, final round of pictures either tonight or tomorrow night! Yaaay!)

Yasu's birthday last night was good fun! There were a bunch of people, though not more than the usual lunches, heh. I had to say goodbye to Roberta (mia moglie!!) for the last time, though. ::weep:: I'm going to miss her so much, she's so fabulous!

Did my listening exam just now, which was INSANELY easy. I think I missed one question just because of the awkward way it was phrased, but other than that, I think I did fine. They spoke sooo slowly, it was definitely easier than last month's. (Which is strange, because my level is higher. Oh well, all good :D)

The troops seem to be getting restless around here. One guy in lessons is just getting really annoyed at the pace we're moving, and a lot of people seem to be itching to get out of classes, which I understand. Four hours a day has been wearing on me a little, but I do still like all the learning. I'm sure I'll miss making progress in August :*( But I'll have my friends and family again, yaaaay! (Who I do miss like crazy now that I'm so close to coming home!)

It's kind of bittersweet to think about heading home now. Like, I've had a really, really amazing time here, but at the same time I can't wait to see everybody and try to cram all my regular summer pastimes into a month, heh. On the other hand, returning home means I'm closer to returning to school x.x Oh gack. But it'll be nice to see school friends again too, I suppose. (I miss my roomies!!) Oh well, day by day :D

So, it's 117 degrees again. DELICIOUS. I didn't manage to sleep much at all last night, and as a result woke up feeling lurchingly heatsick and didn't get to class x.x I was seriously like, "Gu...uurk...". It was lovely. But I haven't missed a class at all yet, so I'm okay attendance-wise, thankfully. Test on Thursday!

Felt better in time to get to sculpture class, and I put the finishing touches on both my projects (a little soap dish for Mum and a horsey bust thing for Dad ...sorry Dad, I'm definitely not an artist x.X** But it's interesting!)

Yasu's birthday is today! We're eating dinner at his house :D Vicky and I made him two cookie-cakes shaped like rollerblades (we are so cruel, but every time he says "lorrahbrades" is AWESOME.) They say "buon compleanno, Yasu <3", awww.

Anyway, not much to update on, because of the lack of lesson. Hopefully I'll sleep tonight and be in better shape for tomorrow. And then Thursday...eep!

OH MY GOD. AMERICANS. LEARN TO SPEAK ENGLISH. PLEASE. The grammar lesson today was AWFUL because nobody knew how to use phrases like "to whom" even in English. So they definitely didn't get it in class. I was like, " 'THE GIRL WHO I TALKED TO' IS NOT CORRECT ENGLISH! 'THE GIRL TO WHOM I TALKED', DAMNIT!" Oh my God, seriously. Before you come to a foreign country, learn to speak your own language. X.X

In other news, my weekend was RIDICULOUSLY AMAZING. Saturday I went and bought HP when the store opened and read all of it. WHICH WAS DELICIOUS (and will be talked about more in my regular location ;D). Sunday was AWESOME as well. I went with Vicky and her roomie to one of her roomie's friend's houses for lunch (which was supah-nummy) and then BOATING! Waaah!! It was fabulous! We speedboated in the Ionian! And then we put down at a random little chunk of beach and swam for hours and hours. At one point I just turned to Vicky and said, "...Is this my life? Seriously?" It was absolutely a perfect day. We had pizza with Aurora (friend of roomie) as well. She's a ton of fun :D I invited them both over for dinner tonight for thanks. Gotta find a recipe, eee!!

(Yaay, only two more days until HP! I'm getting excited already! Definitely getting up early on Saturday to go get it as soon as the store opens, mwahahaaa.)

Aaanyway, went shopping last night, which was much fun. Hit some artisan booths for presents for folks! Although I don't have presents for everyone yet. If you want something from here, do comment and tell me what sort of thing it is you'd like :D Ooh, I also bought really cool sandals for myself as well, they're leather and laceup, v. pretty :D Strangely, also quite comfy, which I was worried about at first. But they were on sale! I couldn't not! (I mean, come on. Leather sandals on sale in Italy.)

Lessons were very slow today x.x We keep jumping around in levels in the book, so some days will be tough lessons using many composite lessons previous, and then the next day they'll be super-easy and only use like four of the previous lessons. Today was that day, lol. (He also handed back graded pretests, which was *not* pretty for a lot of folks.)

Movie tonight :D I'm prolly going to go, as it's new and all, and I might as well. Although I've been watching more TV in Italian and I'm starting to understand way more. Like MTV Italy! They did a compilation program on the ten best programs of the last ten years, and the Real World was like number 8, and all the commentators were like, "WTF are these stupid Americans doing? An Italian would never be on this program. That's why it's HILARIOUS." I was like, "...I tend to agree." They also had "Pimp my Wheels", the Italian version of "Pimp My Ride". Not everyone here has a car to pimp, though. ...So they also pimp scooters! How hilarious is that?! How on earth can you pimp a scooter?! It's a scooter!

Anyway, I gotta' pick some things up during the break, so I should run. Wheee!

So, I think my dutch roomie definitely came home last night, because the door was locked twice and my elephant-a-mobile was broken! T.T Half the poor little ellies were in pieces. But she cleaned up and didn't leave their other halves, so I can't even glue them back together again x.x Oh well, I fixed what I could. It looks okay, but I am tres sad U.U

We did a test simulation in class today. It was pretty easy, but I was feeling really spacey and made some dumb mistakes and ended up with only an 85%. Still, I know that with more sleep (went for dinner at Yasu's last night :D) and a more collected mind I can up the grade to an A :D

Oh man, speaking of dinner, that was SUPER CRAZY. Marco and Roberta invited a bunch of people to come, but I was the only one who showed. So dinner was basically me, Yasu, and like 7 italian folks who've been friends for like 15 years. It was awesome, though. Sometimes hard to understand, as they talked over each other alot, but I actually got enough to get through even when they did :D Good fun.

Free afternoon today! ...Gotta wash my laundry y.y I do it by hand here, so each like...week's worth takes about an hour and a half to do x.X* Ah well. I'll get it done!

Dude, yeah. So, two kids in my class definitely fought today. No physically, of course, but vocally quite well enough. The poor teacher looked just...*completely* out of it. There's a boy in class who always asks a lot of questions, and it takes a lot of time, but eventually he gets it. But today, some girl (who, may I add, never tries anything on her own) totally called him out about it. She was like, "Uhm, let's move on. Maybe some of these questions should be saved until after class." The poor dude was just like, "Um, can't I learn in class? Sound okay?" and they just went at it x.x We had to explain to Damiano what was even going on. It was kind of weird. (I mean, seriously, the guy can't ask questions in class? What was her problem? She doesn't always understand either!)

Aaanyway, there's a practice exam in grammar tomorrow. We'll see how that one goes. Hopefully it won't be too tough, as I do feel up on my material. But I felt up on it last time and the exams were a little harder than I expected, so... I guess we'll see, yeah. I don't feel like I've learned a ton of stuff that's actually *new* in the A2+ course, but I do feel like I've really firmed up my knowledge of a lot of old rules. Oh, and we *did* learn the conditional today, which was nearly new. I'd studied it on my own a bit with my dictionary, but getting it all down in black-and-white written-out rules was pretty helpful :D

Lunch at Yasu's today, yaaay! I should prolly head out and get something to bring for dessert before we go *:D

Okay, first off, the bookstore is getting Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on release day IN ENGLISH!! So, in effect, I'm only getting it four hours later than the folks who're getting it at US midnight. Just TRY and spoil me, mwahahaaa! There's no midnight party here, helas u.u The bookstore opens at ten though, plenty of time to finish it by the end of the weekend! And have no spoil-making contact with the outside world! Mwahahaaa!

(Also, it was exciting to be able to say, "Hey, I'd like to reserve this book, can we do that?" in Italian and actually get it right, yaaay!)

Anyway, didn't do much over the weekend but lay around and clean up my computer files, as my crimson tides struck with a vengeance X.X (Hard enough for puking, it was really...delicious.) But! My computer runs faster now, yaaay! And I fixed the sad little shift key that kept falling off, I win!

Tonight the OSU folks are learning the pizzica, so I definitely don't think I'll partake, heh. But! I will prolly go around Lecce getting people gifties tonight and tomorrow :D So if you have anything in particular that you want, go ahead and drop me a line :D There are a whole lot of artisans in the streets, so there are lots and lots of pretty paintings and pieces of jewelry that I can find :D Hurrah!

Yaaay!

( Here they be! )