AFS camp, 18 and exam results!

Well this weekend was very interesting, and tons of fun!
On Tuesday (14th) was our final day of exams. This day included all of the humanities and science classes we did this year. Pretty much we all went to school and waited to be interrogated all day. I was the first to be sacrificed for the humanities classes, since we were going alphabetically. It went horrible, I'll leave it at that. the other classes went absolutely fine apart from Italian and History. I had a nice discussion with my History of Art teacher about Italian hospitals and christian traditions. Then for my chemistry 2 class my teacher only asked me one interrogation question "how did you make your hair that color of purple?"; she was a weird teacher. So when the day was over I felt relived to have it all over with.
That Thursday I parted for an area in Abruzzo, for our last AFS orientation. It was really fun to see all the AFS kids after not seeing them for 7 months! It was so interesting to see how much we've all improved in our Italian, some people couldn't speak it at the last orientation and now they can speak it better than me!

Our orientation days went a little slow, but they seemed a bit easier to deal with this time. The food was amazing of course! I'm really going to miss eating so well everyday. But at night, everyone went insane. People were staying up until 6 in the morning, kids had to sleep in other kids rooms because their room was crowded (ex. me), it was a blast!!! One night after dinner, we were asked to go down to our meeting room, when we got down there, the entire room was dark except for all the candles the volunteers had placed. It was quite, and we all found our seats. The volunteers explained that there was one candle for each student, and each one of us had to think of our fondest memory during our 10 month stay, if it was positive we light a candle, and if it was negative we don't. That was one of the hardest things to do during the whole camp; many people cried. I told the story about the day I took the boys album cover picture, and how that day they buried themselves deep in my heart. Thats when i started to cry, I'm going to miss them so much, and at this point I can't even imagine that I am going back to a normal life without them.

Marco, Francesco, Riccardo and Simone.

So people all stood up, lit their candles, and told their stories. There were only two girls that didn't light their candles. After we were all done, they asked us to all lay down, and close our eyes. Another volunteer then read something we had to picture in our heads....packing our bags, going to the last orientation, getting on the plane, leaving, seeing our families again, seeing our rooms again....It was so hard to picture, the unrealistic aspect of leaving caused me to not even be able to close my eyes. I can't leave, it can't be over now, was this really just a year? Why can't I just stay until I'm sick of Italy! When will I come back? They closed the story with "now just reverse everything and open your eyes, you are still here, you still have your Italian families and Italian friends, you haven't left yet." Thank god for that...but still, the haunting remind that I will be back home in 15 days is still EATING ME ALIVE!!!

About a half hour after that entire sad fest, what time was it!? IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY!!! Literally the second it became midnight, Simone sent me a long text to tell me happy birthday, it was so sweet and made me so happy! It was also really funny because the boys I was hanging out with at the time saw the text and immediately stood up to make a birthday toast for me. It was completely stolen from the Hangover, but I loved it just the same. The next day we continued with all the games and orientation procedures. But at dinner time, they set up a Happy Birthday banner and had a cake sent out for desert. The greatest birthday present ever that day was definitely everyone singing happy birthday all in their native language at the same time! I almost cried it was so beautiful!

The next day we all hoped into the bus and drove back home, I actually couldn't wait to just hop right back into my life. All this talk about leaving made me really need to be back "home". I think thats the coolest part about going on trips here in Italy, when you are away you think "I want to go back home" but the home you are thinking of, isn't your original home, it's your Italian home.
And of course, what was waiting for me when I got home were our EXAM RESULTS! Everyone passed! I received 92 out of 120! Which means I get handed a wonderful Master of Art Diploma for me to take to my college applications. Now I definitely feel more confident about the next year. THANK YOU SO MUCH ITALY!!!

Adeliza: Italian: 6, History: 6, History of Art: 7, Math: 7, Physics: 6, Chemistry: 6, Geographic Design: 7, REAL LIFE DRAWING: 10!, Sculpture: 8, Chemistry 2: 6, Blueprinting (?): 7, Wood Working: 8, Gym: 8.