Well, let's start with the best news - I have finished (and actually done quite well) on all of my exams! These past few weeks have been very full of books, papers, articles, and reviewing everything that I listened to all semester...and at this point I was mostly just hoping that I was remembering not only all of the information, but also all of the vocabulary words and terms correctly. For those of you who don't remember, none of my classes this semester were in English...which made taking oral exams that much harder. Many things are run differently between the American and Italian school systems - more than I can list here - but I'll try to give a brief explanation of what I've learned. Throughout the semester, I thought I was keeping up with my classes, but that they just gave less homework than I was used to, because other than going to lessons and then reading my books on the public transportation systems, I didn't feel like I was doing a whole lot of work. Hoewever, over the last few weeks of classes, my professors started adding readings. By the hundreds of pages. As an international student, my workload was a bit lighter, but not a lot. I somehow was able to get through most of those, but still was pretty unprepared for what I was about to face in my first exam (which was by far the most intimidating). I was called forward to the front of the classroom in front of all of my classmates and asked to explain the presidency of Ronald Reagan to my professor and his two colleagues. Pardon me, but 11 years of interviewing for 4H projects and random jobs never prepared me for that surprise. My other three actually followed a 4H interview format, where my professor asked me a question and I had to explain myself as best I could. The other best part of all of this is that after the exam, the professor gives you your mark, you sign your acknowledgment in their huge grade book, and then you are on your way. However, everyone who signs up for the exam comes in at the same assigned time (for example, at 10:00), sits for a roll call, and then waits their turn. I had to wait at the most 3 hours, but I've heard horror stories of students who have waited all day just to be told they had to return the next day to wait their turn. The best part of these last few
days is that although we are all studying, I am spending a lot more time with the other students here at Villa Nazareth. We feel busier, but we are all busier on the same schedule and take breaks to eat together (usually around 2 hours), have a coffee, or to celebrate a birthday - here we all are celebrating Rosanna's 25th! I also passed my 21st birthday here. I had to take two exams, so there wasn't much of a party, but we did take a break at midnight to have a glass of wine on the terrace in our pj's and slippers, and then thoughout the next day I was greeted with big smiles and hugs (and the occasional gelato or champagne) all day long. When you spend your 21st birthday in Italy, you may not spend all night at the bars and all next day nursing a hangover, but when you live here as I have, you can walk into a classroom or a restaurant where people who didn't know you 6 months prior are running to tell you 'auguri!' (which translates to 'wishes', which I absolutely love) and kiss you on both cheeks. It was definitely a day to remember.
The other biggest event of June (at least thus far) was most definitely EuroPride Roma 2011. There is a week every year and across the continent, they have a kind of Gay Pride Week, but this year Rome was the host of the closing party - a parade, speeches, and (drumroll)...a free concert by Lady Gaga. I went to observe the festivities with a friend of mine from LUMSA, Katja, and we
caught the end of the parade before waiting with the masses for the concert to start at Circus Maximus (side note: you don't know how weird it was to have to spend a good 10 seconds thinking of how to translate that back into english). The parade went through parts of central Rome, including past the Forum and the Colosseum before finally ending at the Circus Maximus. Although we saw all sorts of interesting things, I'm still thinking about what exactly I feel like I should
take away from the whole thing. On one hand, it was beautiful to see so many people coming together to peacefully show that they are united for a common cause - as the tagline said, the right to love. However, one of the biggest points made was that the LGBT community shouldn't be considered a group of people so different from the world that they are discriminated, which I do completely understand. For me, it was hard to see that point exercised as I was surrounded by people (of all genders) in flamboyant costumes and so much makeup that it seemed they were begging for a bit of attention. Would this be what we call the hippie movement of the 21st century? Again...still trying to figure all of that out.
But anyway, at the end of the parade, everyone headed to the concert - or at least to the place where we all were to wait for the next two hours. If you look at that picture, it's us all first filing in, and if you can imagine somewhere around 750,000 people there, it was pretty full (I've heard estimates all the way from 500K to one million, so I made an estimate halfway). As we waited for the modern queen of music to take the stage, we were included in the general dance party that broke out to the loud music that was playing (and we can't forget the 12-15 drag queens that took the stage). When Lady Gaga finally made it to the stage about 45 minutes after she was scheduled to appear, the crowd literally went crazy. She opened with a 20 minute speech before moving to the piano and singing her - wait for it - two songs. I wasn't really sure what to expect after knowing how much technology helps out some of our popular artists these days, but I learned that this performer is also a true musician. Anyone who is able to rock a crowd that large with only a microphone and a piano has talent. Just because we could, we left after her performance and headed to Hungry Bogart's (restaurant/pub) to meet up with friends and to see them all do some karaoke. What a change that one was...
Other than those big events, I also spent two days at the beach (actually two different beaches, and apparently two of the least beautiful ones in Italy, but I loved them). The first with three other Italians, Raffaela, Alicia, and Ivan, and the second with two Americans, Marie and Patrick. If you can imagine my first time on an italian beach, I ended that day red as a lobster - although I still felt good about it because I actually studied at the beach and had a nice relaxing day. The second was Marie and I taking her brother to Ostia for the afternoon, and he turned red as a tomato but we (the ones who had already suffered and bought stronger sunscreen) just turned a deeper golden brown. Can't wait to compare skin tones when I return!
caught the end of the parade before waiting with the masses for the concert to start at Circus Maximus (side note: you don't know how weird it was to have to spend a good 10 seconds thinking of how to translate that back into english). The parade went through parts of central Rome, including past the Forum and the Colosseum before finally ending at the Circus Maximus. Although we saw all sorts of interesting things, I'm still thinking about what exactly I feel like I should 
take away from the whole thing. On one hand, it was beautiful to see so many people coming together to peacefully show that they are united for a common cause - as the tagline said, the right to love. However, one of the biggest points made was that the LGBT community shouldn't be considered a group of people so different from the world that they are discriminated, which I do completely understand. For me, it was hard to see that point exercised as I was surrounded by people (of all genders) in flamboyant costumes and so much makeup that it seemed they were begging for a bit of attention. Would this be what we call the hippie movement of the 21st century? Again...still trying to figure all of that out. 
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