I am now finally in possession of a student visa. Receiving it was an enormous relief. All the paper work was incredibly, incredibly stressful and I wasn't even the one doing most of it. My wonderful, organized mother bore the brunt of the frustrations of filling in forms and making copies and whatnot. That's not to say I didn't help. I helped enough to find myself more than a little overwhelmed and astounded by the stringent requirements and vast number of documents. BUT! But, but, but! We did it! And when you're in Charleston, passing the honorary consulate a heavy stack of neatly organized papers, you can't help feeling a sense of pride and accomplishment as he stamps it (without even looking, really, which is slightly bothersome, and when you point this out he insists "This is a volunteer position!" in a thick Italian dialect that you can hardly understand, which concerns you a bit because if you can't understand an Italian man speaking English how can you ever expect to understand an Italian person speaking Italian??) and more glowing pride when you mail it off to the actual consulate in Miami. And while the waiting after that point is a little nerve-wracking, you aren't completely surprised when your passport comes back with a pretty visa page allowing you to live in Italy for the year. Although, it is a very big relief.
In other news, everyone has gone back to school and still being at home feels weird weird weird. I am not remotely jealous of my high school's Annual Scheduling Confusion Frenzy or the Yearly Textbook Scramble, but I miss my friends and teachers and even some things about classes because I'm a nerd! I mean, I wouldn't say I've ever liked homework, but I might actually appreciate a reading assignment or project of some sort at the moment. Mostly, I miss friends, though. Lunchtime. Laughing before and after (or during) class time. That sort of thing. I'm thinking I might go visit during lunch one day. Actually I'm pretty sure I'll definitely do that. It'll be nice to see people and chat a bit before I go.
The worst thing about the beginning of school is that on Monday, my boyfriend, Zac, moved away to college. That's the bad part about him being a year older than me. And he forgot his phone charger, so our conversation has been a bit limited. Or, really, extremely limited. Good practice for Italy, I guess, but I miss him! On the bright side, he'll be coming home every weekend until I leave, so we can spend a lot of time together on those days. The plan is to cram in as much time together and fun as possible before I leave. Honestly, that's the plan with all my friends and family. The problem is, too many people and not enough time. I suppose I just have to make the most of what I've got.
The only other thing I can think of to mention is the conference call I had tonight, with the other Americans going to Italy this year and a returnee. It was super fun and interesting to hear about the experiences the returnee had when she went in 2008. She had some cool stories and a few recommendations that I'm sure I wouldn't have thought of otherwise. I didn't ask any questions myself, because the other people seemed to have everything covered, but I'm sure in no time I'll start coming up with all the things I needed to ask, but didn't. Luckily, if that's the case, I can email or facebook her my questions. AFS really takes care of their exchange students. I love it.
That's all for now. I'll try to update again soon!
