Over the last few weeks I've really had a breakthrough with my language skills. Now I understand almost everything that people say. For example, as I am writing this there is a fight going on in my class and I can actually follow along; it's about smoking weed. It feels so good to be able to understand peoples stories and laugh at their jokes. I'm starting to feel like an actual human being and not just an inanimate object that just hangs around. Another thing I have learned is that people will talk about you because they think you don't understand, but you do. It's let helped me in finding out who the good and the bad people are. And now that I can fully understand what my friends are saying, our friendships are much stronger. Iiris and I even speak Italian together now instead of English.
Even though I understand everything, speaking is more difficult. The fact that I am painfully shy doesn't help. I can speak enough for people to understand what I am saying, but it is far from perfect. Also when someone I don't know asks me a question and I don't know how to answer I blank out and it's like I never learned any Italian. The struggle is real when you are an exchange student. But I've had multiple people say to me that I speak very good Italian, and that my accent make it sound sweet, but until I am happy with my skills I won't be able to believe any of them.
After New Year's Eve not much has happened. I'm going through the daily motions. The only new event is that we've returned to school but I missed two days because I was sick. Also let me add this, being sick on exchange is hell. On that cheery note, ci vediamo!
