Ciao!
I've started part of my cultural immersion this week. I signed up for the Volunteer Club, and we had our first meeting yesterday during lunch. We discussed what sort of organizations we'd like to assist this semester, and three ideas seemed to be the most popular. The first is Retake Roma, an organization/group of people who go around and remove old posters and graffiti in the area. They leave the nice graffiti, like the one I posted on this blog, but take down the tags/ugly graffiti. So on Sunday, I'll be helping to clean up Piazza Rosolino Pilo and the surrounding area.
The second idea the Volunteer Club had was to help out with a local dog shelter, by walking the dogs, playing with them, cleaning up kennels, etc. I'm very excited about this one, because I miss my chocolate lab Cali and playing with surrogate dogs will help with that hopefully.
The third idea was to help L'Associazione Peter Pan Onlus, an organization for families of child cancer patients. The Co-presidents of the Volunteer Club are attempting to reach out to this organization, but it looks like we would be helping the children with English, by reading to them and visiting them certain days of the week.
We're also planning a bake sale around midterms, and the money for that will either go to the dog shelter or Peter Pan Onlus. Last year, they were able to raise almost $500 for Aura's House, to help sponsor a girl in the Philippines emergency education fund.
I also think my Italian is getting slightly better. I'm still struggling with all the different forms of verbs, but my vocabulary is getting bigger, and I'm able to use phrases I learn in class at the grocery story and at the bus stop when people ask me for directions. I'm glad I look like I know where I'm going, but I don't really know how to direct people, since I usually don't understand where they want to go. Non lo so is becoming one of my most used phrases.
I also found out today that in the Model UN conference, I will be representing India, in the Environmental Commission. My classmate Beatrice is also representing India, but on the Human Rights Council, so some of our country research will be similar, but with a different focus in the end. My other classmates are representing South Africa, Mexico, Sweden, and one classmate, who has been to an MUN before, is representing New Zealand on the Security Council.
Until next week!
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