I never really expect much on my birthday except to just be happy about being a year older and people saying "Happy Birthday!". But I guess in Italy, birthdays really really matter. O_O;; A lot happened yesterday...
It all started when I went to school. Usually, I expected another boring day of trying to learn something I barely understand. Oho, I was wrong.
So when it is your birthday, you receive a nice "Tanti Auguri!" ("Many Wishes!/ Happy Birthday!") and get two kisses on the cheek. I received and gave more more kisses in one morning than I have in my seventeen years of life. *forever alone*
Then after the first hour of class, my Italian teacher left the room and was like "Have fun!" and I kept thinking, "What do you mean have fun? We're just having a quick three minute break before the next lesson! Nothing's going to happen! And we're supposed to have another lesson of Italian, why are you leaving?!"
Then my friend Silvia took me with her to go do some homework photocopies which took like 8 minutes. Then we walked back into class, tables re-arranged, classroom decorated, food and drinks everywhere, and a huge sing along of Italy's version of "Happy Birthday".
Then everyone cleared the view of the teacher's desk and there were presents the class arranged for me.
I swear if I cry everytime I'm happy, I might just cause another flood in the town of Silea.[Yeah, heavy rain here causes the rivers to flood in the streets, not all that fun. Anyways, moving on.] I didn't cry, but it sure was a hell of an effort not to. I thanked the class for everything and didn't speak much after that, cause if I did, the tears would just start flowing. But I made sure I looked immensely happy!
How the freak did I not figure out my class was throwing me a party?! I was suspicious but I never really expected they would do it!
The day before the party, everyone was gathered in a circle and writing down foods with the title of the list "Cibo per domani!" ("Food for tomorrow!") Everytime I asked what they were doing, they would always suddenly change the subject to dicussing things about the school trip.
Then days before that the class representative came to me and said we were going to be taking pictures of the class. I thought it was just something for school, like they would be having a class book or something. And it turns out it was one of my gifts:
The photos:
And they even put them in a cute little frame!
 |
| Also, a cute stuffed animal. Luckily I didn't have to ride the autobus. |
Everyone was speaking such fast Italian days leading up to the party, I just never paid attention that they could be planning something. Apparently, they were so happy that I was making them all drawings for their birthdays when they passed, they just wanted me to give me something back. That was so nice of them! I just made them drawings because I wanted to. I never expected anything back from them accept their kindness and friendship. They gave me love back tenfold.
Then later that day I had a party because my parents weren't satisfied with our conversation three nights ago:
Parents: "Hey, Zakiyya, what are you doing for your birthday?"
Zakiyya: "I dont know, sleeping.?"
Parents: "No you're not. You're having a party. ಠ_ಠ"
Zakiyya: "O-ok. O_O;;"
That's basically how it went. So I organized a party with my AFS Intercultura friends. A party of 10 kids from 9 different countries. I never thought I would ever have a party like that in my life. We continue to learn so much about each other as the days go by.
I decided we would go to the Cinecity movie theater right by my house. We were going to go see the horror movie Insidious since there wouldn't be that much talking. (Yeah, we didn't want to see an Italian movie we didn't undertand). But for some reason 10 minutes before we arrived, the people said there mysteriously wasn't a movie time available. Liars. I checked the system an hour before to see if the time was still right!
Whatever. So we went to go see an action-packed-kick-you-in-the-face movie called the Immortals, IN 3D. Booyah! It was Greek Mythology and cooler than any other craptastic Percy Jackson movie they will make in the future. It took me a while to figure out when the Greek gods and goddesses came in because I had no clue what they were saying in Italian...
It's really bad cause even in the States when I go see a violent movie, I'm cheering at all the blood and gore on the screen like "Yeah, you upper cut that guy in the face with your sword!". And then laughing at serious parts in the movie. I'm a bad movie goer. Turns out I' not the only one because the other Intercultura students were laughing, too. I bet all the Italians in the movie theater were so mad.
Other than that it was your typical male movie. A beautiful woman who could see the future came into the middle of the movie and I was like "There's so going to be a sex scene in this movie with the hot male main character. Just watch. -_-"
Then the predicted sex scene came up and the girls were like:
The boys:
After that movie, we walked home while being shouted at by some random drunk guy riding a bicycle. Is that legal? lol
There was delicious food~
Then we played silly games such as:
Piggly Wiggly
Where one person leaves the room, everyone else hides undercovers, then the person comes back in the room and taps each lump under the blankets. The people under the blanket have to disguise their voices so the person tapping te blankets has a hard time figuring out who's under it. If the person guesses right then the person under the blanket loses. Last person under the blankets wins.
Backfire Dares
Pick out someone's name from a box and write down an epic dare for them to do, only to find out later you have to do it yourself.
Search and Destroy
Epic Hide and Go Seek. My dad wasn't too happy about this. A game with the word destroy in the title. He thought we would annihilate the house, so we played when he left.
Mafia
I think everyone's played this game before... where the mafia kills people when the town goes to sleep, the doctor saves someone, and the police have to figure out and convince everyone who the real mafia are. Omg, this game sucks if you're a citizen because all you do is go to sleep! I was a citizen everytime, and I was killed every game because the mafia convinced everyone I was also apart of the mafia. >_>;; Then if your doctor is selfish and only saves themself everytime, everyone dies. Also you can't tell who the police are because the mafia lie so well and say they're the police and they keep getting away with crimes! This game usually ends up in a screaming match. XD
Hmmm this game is so similar to something.... *coughcoughamericanjurisdictionsystemcoughcough*
It was a wonderful evening. I even got to take awesome pictures cause my parents here in Italy bought me a new camera! They are seriously nice to me! O___O And extra books (in English, our AFS directors won't be too happy if they find out...) for my education.
My package from my friends in the States didn't arrive yet, but this did:
Aka, an artbook from one of my favorite artists of all time. A day before my birthday. FTW.
I didn't think so much would happen on my birthday... if anything I learned about being here in Italy is:
1. Patience. Things won't always go your way as a foreign exchange student. Everything is different. And you're the one adapting to the culture, not the people around you. So some things: your level of tolerance must go up, and other things: you just have to let go of your anxiety. Patience will absolutely help you keep your sanity.
2. Appreciating. I believe I've already said this before... there are a lot of things that annoy me here in Italy, little things, but eh, I deal with it. It's different, not good, not bad. It could be worse. If anything I'm really lucky I've met the helpful friendly students in my class and I have a patient family. I lucked out.
3. One step at a time. Sometimes being in Italy is overwhelming and going with the flow is absolutely all I can do. especially when I am angry or unsatisfied with something.
4. Happiness is in your own hands. Seriously, life can be absolutely anything you want it to be. All you have to do is follow through with your thoughts and actions. You can choose to be the exchange student that doesn't want to adapt and sit back, letting people come to you, or you can actually do something with your life while abroad.
Life is good. ;)
Well, off to study, now that the birthday fun is over. Ciao!~
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