Being a lazy bum is perfectly acceptable

I'll miss this place! It's Piazza dell'Erbe, the Piazza with Gelart, aka THE BEST GELATO PLACE EVER (except for the banana gelato - for good banana you've got to go to Bagnaia, it's about a 20-30 minute bus ride out of Viterbo), an adorable yarn store, and a giant furry dog named Luna who I played with all afternoon.... cutest thing ever, she belongs to some shop owners in the Piazza and they let her hang out in front of the shop. I always loved her from far away, and then today I realized that I won't ever be able to pet her again after next week, so I put aside my inhibitions and went up to the shop and chatted with Luna's owner, and then started playing with Luna, and oh my gosh is she precious! So anyway, Piazza dell'Erbe is the place to be, especially on lazy summery days out with the buds, when gelato is absolutely necessary. Not that it isn't always necessary, but you know what I mean. More necessary than usual due to souring summer temperatures.

Check out my friend Deborah's xanga site, which chronicles her year here with marvelous insight and some absolutely spectacular pictures. Deborah's one of the nicest people I know, and every time I think I have her figured out she does something really spontaneous and goofy. She's going to Princeton next year! Congrats, congrats, Deborah!

I have been having a need to watch: Indiana Jones, and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Isn't my taste in movies stellar? I blame my brother, he's the one who got me hooked on 80s movies and Monty Python. This summer will welcome in a new era of my life, that is the era in which I rewatch every movie I've ever seen in my life, as part of the re-Americanizing process. It's a very important process, involving tater tots, banana splits, sleeping till noon, and Stargate. You know what I mean.

But no matter how much fun re-Americanization promises to be, I'm afraid I (a) will reintegrate way too easily and won't retain any of the Italian culture I've gained or (b) will rebel again American culture and sink into a well of depression because I miss Italy and my life here. It could happen! The kids here tell horror stories about the returning students at their home schools - a lot of them get depressed in their senior year back home, missing Italy or France or Spain or China, and just stop wanting to put effort into their American life. But I shan't be a downer - I'm going to miss Italy like no other, of course, but I'm gonna get back into everything at home, I'm going to try.

8 days left! Three tests and one paper down, one paper and one presentation to go.

Jean Claude goes Ant-hunting

Yar! The ants are coming!

Happy Birthday, Marisa! Ti canto: tanti auguri a te, tanti auguri a te, tanti auguri a Marisa, tanti auguri a te.

Done, done, done!

My last AP in 2006! I won't have to take another one for a whole year! And then, yes, I'll be taking 5 or so and be going nuts, but whatevs, I'll be into college and facing a gap year and everything will just be fine and dandy. These 3 APs, however, were positively miserable, and I am so glad that I've finally finished them! English, Italian and Latin. The Italian one was stressful because I feel like I have to get a 5 after living in Italy for a year... The Latin one was stressful because I hadn't (and still haven't!) read the whole Aeneid. I tried to read it before the AP, and got most of the way through Book 10 (of 12) before running out of time and motivation. By god, that book is truly one of the abominations of literature, if you can even call if literature. I still don't understand how Vergil is able to make it last 6 books after Aeneas visits the underworld. 6 books of skirmishes and war till Juno finally lays off and lets Aeneas build the kingdom that, newsflash, he was fated to build all along. What a freaking pointless book! But I finished it mostly, and I reviewed books 1 and 2 in Latin (we read chunks from 1, 2, 4, 6, 10 and 12, I believe), and I felt relatively prepped when I sat down to take that test. So score! I'm aiming for 3 on Lit and Italian, and a 4 on Latin. That way I'll be happy with whatever I get, I hope. Unless, god forbid, I got a 2....

Which I'm just talented enough to do, you know.

12 more days! 4 more major school projects (a test, two papers and a presentation), and then a week to realize I'm about to go home.

Geschwindigkeitsuberschreitung

That's German for "speeding". I learned it so it can be my good luck word, and remind me always to learn German, so I can study all the other awesome 30-letter long compounds that make it as cool a language as it is.

I found it because it's near Gesundheit in my Italian-German dictionary.

Sworn to Secrecy

It's true! I can never ever in my entire life discuss those multiple choice questions, and for the next 48 hours I can't reveal even the tiniest hint about a single one of the essays that one by one shredded me to pieces stamattina on the AP English exam, my second AP ever.

One thing I can say, though, is that I studied The Great Gatsby, Death of a Salesman, Six Characters in Search of an Author and Othello for this baby, and not a single one had a lick to do with the essay question. I ended up writing about The Aeneid, which I actually still haven't read entirely in English, and was able to give details only as far as line 300 Book 1, because that's as far as I've gotten for my review for the Latin AP next Friday. I simply can't understand how I thought this morning that it was in any way feasible to write an essay on the Aeneid. I'm still beating my head against the wall on that one. You'll be happy to know that, when I finished with 10 minutes to spare, I wrote the reader of the essay a nice little letter, outlining what would have been my essay for Gatsby, explaining why I didn't do it, telling them how much I hate The Aeneid and that I wished I could remember The Odyssey so I could write about that instead.... I included a brief biography, too, to help with the pathos of the letter. I think it'll really broaden the reader's view on my essay, you know?

How do you like my hot new desktop? This is the extent to which I pay attention in Art History. Basically that class eats me from the inside out. Note the gorgeous Cinque Terre background! That was the best place I've been so far this year, and I think it's because of that that I suddenly have begun to notice every amazing thing about Viterbo, and every single thing makes me not want to leave even more. Not to say I don't want to come home; I certainly do. It's just that I don't want to leave, either. What a terrific conundrum I've found myself in! I suppose I'll just have to come back to Italy as often as possible throughout my life. I think I could do that.

Class photo today - now we're the 5th photo in a row on the director's wall, our class smiling at the camera from the same steps that each of the past 4 classes is posed on. I never realized that the photos were taken so late in the year; I didn't even consider when we'd have it taken. I guess I figured it'd sort of take itself. But today seemed like such a ceremony, not unrelated to our imminent departure. Three weeks from today, guys!