STRANGE THINGS YOU CAN FIND ON AN UPPER STREET

One thing that you can't notice when you live in the UP is that there are soooo many wild animals of any type and size: skunks, porcupines, hares, marmots, beavers, deer, bears, wolves, squirrels, ducks, goose, ferrets, turkeys and lots more. But there's a problem with all these animals: in the UP there are streets. And cars too. And the result of all of these may be just one: road kills. Every single time you are going somewhere by car you see at least one dead animals in the middle on the road. Sometimes is nothing scary because the animals killed is just a squirrel but other times may be very disgusting or horrible to see. When there's a dead skunk on the road you can smell his horrible and disgusting perfume for miles (one buddy was attached by a skunk on his eye and the smell was so strong that for the firs thirty minutes I wasn't able to breath without crying and two weeks later our house still smell of that horrible and disgusting perfume). Others time you may found a bigger animals like a deer, which is the worst road kill possible. Last day there was a deer killed on the road and my host sister said it was veer bad to see because there were deer parts everywhere on the road. Fortunately I didn't see the dead deer but the huge stain of blood on the road was enough. Today we went to Marquette and on the road there was another dead deer, but this time there were no blood stain.
The really funny things is that when I told to my host mom that there are road kill everywhere here she laughed and said: " oh god! You're right! But you want to know something? I'm so used to see it that I never thought this may be weird and horrible for someone else". Oh yes Liza, this is more horrible than what you think. The only road kill we have in Italy are some cats sometimes and everybody is so sorry and sad when we see one.
But road kill is just the first weird thing that you can find here. The second one are definitely houses. Yes, houses. We were drive back home some days ago and I suddenly start screaming. My host mom was so confused at the fist and later she told me that her thought was "why is she so surprised? Has she never seen cars come on the other side on the road? Has she never see traffic?". But then I go "is that a HOUSE?" There was a big tir that was carry a house, a real house. I was shocked and amused at the same time. I have never seen a house carried by a tie on a normal street. But than my host mom goes "oh no, that's not a house! It's just half of it, the other half is some miles away!"
That's the kind of things you can found here and that's why I'm so in love with this country!

SHOULD I CHANGE OR NOT?

During this days I can't stop thinking about that. It is become like a real obsession for me I think.
I know that the school started more than two month ago but I don't actually care.
I'm going to explain my frustration:
I have Health Occupation class the last two hour of my schedule. In this class we are supposed to study the human body and prepared ourself to be a doctor or a nurse. I thought at the first time that this will be one of the best class I've never had but I was really wrong. The only thing we do is fill stupid paper and worksheet without learning anything. For the first two month we've talked about stuff like ethical, legal duty, leadership, professionalism and boring stuff like that. And we decorated a jar to raise money for a cancer alliance. Every Friday we have a meeting with the class to talk about thing that I think are stupid and in which I'm not really interested in like bake sale, HOSA meeting (HOSA means Health Occupation student of America and everyone who has this class is a member of this foundation). I'm feeling as I'm not learning nothing in that class and as if I'm wasting my time (is two hour class, which is a lot of time if you consider that your schedule it's just formed by six classes) and as if I'm losing some opportunities to take classes more interesting for me. But there are some problems: this is a special class and is in another building near my school, my schoolmates are from different school near Escanaba (there are only other two people in my class who came from my same school, the others are in another class) and my teacher literally loves me. She hug me everyday and introduce me as the brilliant exchange student from Italy to everybody. She said i'm her favorite student and that she will be my bridesmaid at my wedding. But, anyway, I went to talk to the officer who makes the student schedule and she gave me a paper to know what classes can I take. I'd like to take some AP classes and one of them is AP biology. I went to talk with the biology teacher but she told me that her class he's already full and there's another guys who need to take this class for graduation and so there won't be enough space for me. The only class I can take without completely change my schedule will be something like art or chorus and maybe AP chemistry; but I already have chemistry on my schedule on the fourth house and also if we're doing things that I've already studied I don't think they we allow me to take two chemistry class. The other option I'll be French but the are only sophomore and freshman in that class... and I'm a senior. Maybe I can join the band for an hour but I can't play any instrument, I will really like do that only if they will teach me to play an instrument. Everything will be better than stay in a class for two hour without learning anything. But it seems like everything is impossible to do. And, last but not least, they won't allow me to change my classes before the end of the semester, which is in January. So I don't really know what to do: I don't want be in health Occupation class for another day but I can't change class before three month. And on February we are supposed to do clinics and go to the hospital to learn how to do basic thing: i don't really think it's gonna be as great as it looks like. I wish I was able to change my own class from the starts when I went to school on the first time. But the truth is that another person make my schedule and I just say that it was ok without asking for anything better. I'm so upset for that in this period and I can't stop thinking about which classes I would have take instead of the one I have now.
I already change some classes. The second day of school I switch conservation with chemistry accelerated, and few weeks ago I change CPI to take a math class (pre calc). So now I'm ok with my class (also if chemistry is too easy). I just want to take an AP class, give up Health Occupation and take another stupid class as art or chorus. I'm so afraid that change all my classes in January will be a mistake. I hope to find a solution for that as soon as possible.

CROSS COUNTRY

Ok. È più da un mese che sono qui e sono successe così tante cose che non so neanche da dove partire.
Prima di tutto il mio computer non è ancora stato riparato: e questa è il primo motivo per cui non scrivo mai su questo blog. Scrivere post con il telefono mi annoia e mi fa passare la voglia ma il risultato è solo questo: ora ho così tante cose da dire, così tante cose da raccontare e mi dispiace di non poterli fare come se fossero accadute il giorno prima.
Ma detto ciò, basta perdere tempo! Qui inizia il mio lungo racconto... (che probabilmente scriverò in più round)

CORNELL, UPPER MICHIGAN

Il 26 agosto partirò per New York. Ma non sarà quella (purtroppo) la mia destinazione definitiva! Dopo aver passato quattro giorni nella "Grande Mela" arriverò in una piccola cittadina dell'Upper Michigan, sul lago Michigan, chiamata ESCANABA.

Escanaba, vista dall'alto

Qui a Escanaba frequenterò l' High School, insieme alla mia Host-Sister Veronica. E' una cittadina sul lago Michigan, nella contea di Delta.Non ho ancora capito cosa c'è precisamente in questa città... Ho solo capito che non è grandissima, ci sono circa 12.000. Neanche la scuola deve essere enorme, circa 800-1000 alunni.

Mascotte della scuola

Io però non abiterò proprio a Escanaba, ma bensì a CORNELL, che dista circa 15 miglia (ovvero 24 Km). Cornell è un piccolissimo paesino abitato da meno di mille anime "nell'entroterra" rispetto alla costa del lago. Si trova immerso ai boschi, credo sia composto da tre vie al massimo (hahah) ed è attraversato da un fiume(ciattolo?).



Si, avete ragione... Non ho capito un bel niente delle grandezze \ distanze \ quanto sono sperduti \quante persone ci sono. Ma non ho trovato molto su Internet e per di più non riesco ad accedere al sito della scuola, quindi non ho potuto spiare nulla!


Non vedo l'ora di scoprire quanto freddo faccia (spero non troppo) e di vedere tutto con i miei occhi. Per ora mi sembra tutto bellissimo anche se non è la metropoli o la cittadina del sud nella quale mi ero sempre immaginata se pensavo al mio anno all'estero. Ma in fondo è questo il bello.... no?