What's happening

Things have gotten better with Dave although there are still the occasional problems. He is still a wannabe frat boy, but I have learned to deal with it or avoid it. Cleaning up immediately after parties though has become the current issue. He gets to it, but not before I end up wanting to use the living room or kitchen.

As for the rest of things here they are going well for the most part. I finally understand more of my classes, and have started talking more outside of class with the other Italians, not an easy task since most of them have tight groups after 3 years of having all of the same classes together. They have started to tell me that I speak good Italian, that must be a good sign, but I have huge gaps in my vocabulary. I thing they say that because it is good relative to their English even though most of them have studied English for 5-9 years and I’ve only had a semester of Italian. One of the girls said she had an English exam on Saturday, so I may get together with her to help her studied. I told them yesterday that we should start doing a language exchange, 30 min Italian then 30 min English. I’ll see what happens. They all live outside the city and have class all day, therefore they are never in Turin with free time.

I still have a crazy amount of work to do in the next 5 weeks. I have four exams between December 11^th and 22^nd, three of which will be in Italian. First on the list will be finishing to read the book for the English exam, and then catch up on reading for two of the other ones. Most importantly though will be my math exam, it will count towards a math minor, and then I only need one more math class when I get back.

As for studying in the spring it should be an easy semester. Right now I registered for 14 hours, but I am going to look into being a part time students. I believe the Engineering College only allows it during the last semester. If I get to pay a reduced tuition then I will definitely do it. I only need 7 hours, and the rest is filler, Horticulture and French. I will actually probably start French here next week with one of the French girls. I will be better for learning pronunciation than class at home. Depending on how far I get by the end of the semester I may not need French 101. At this point I think I have learned enough languages to know how to learn them on my own. Class would be tedious and boring.

Oh, and I’m going to the opera today with some of the girls. We are seeing Marriage of Figaro. I got lucky in getting to go. I wanted to buy tickets last month, but waited to see who else wanted to go and when. By the time things were decided Rose managed to get the last 3 tickets for this performance today, and the last ticket for The Magic Flute next month. Artemis was going to go with the girls, but told me yesterday that she couldn’t go and that I could take the ticket. I am going to try and get a ticket at the door for December’s performance.