Fernanda Gattinoni

Dear Reader(s)

I am now thoroughly engrossed in my Y.A.W.T and am working on two different topics: politics and religion. The politics articles, as I'm sure is obvious, are all about Berlusconi and what he's up to lately; the confidence vote has been all over my newspaper of choice Corriere della Sera (and all the other italian newspapers) so there's a lot for me to think and write about there. I have only skimmed the article on Catholicism, but it looks very interesting, and it seems like a return to the old fashioned values of family, venture and work will be instilled more diligently in Italy.

Lectures are going well, especially my official favourite lecture: linguistica generale. We learnt all about writing words phonetically, and I even spoke out in class the other day: we were writing out some names, the teacher had done her's "Chiara" and asked the class to volunteer their names. We did "Giacomo" and then "Rebecca" and she said "OK class, let's end on a difficult name, does anyone think their name would be difficult?" so I put my hand up and said "Well, my name's English?". The class laughed and the teacher said that we will be moving onto English words later in the term, but thank you anyway. I felt proud of myself, and I said it in my best Italian (obviously).

I've now had two sessions with Sofia, my English student, and she has tried so hard with the things I picked her up on so far. She is also obsessed with Bambi... and survived a Tsunami in Thailand 6 or 7 years ago!

On Saturday I went to the centro for my newspaper and also to find a book from my 4th year reading list as I have now chosen my 4th year Italian modules: Language, Translation and Renaissance. So I've taken a book out of the library here called "Il Libro del Cortegiano" by Castiglione, which I intend to have a good look at this afternoon (wish me luck!) Myself, Nerea, Béa and Christina all went to a free exhibition of some of the dresses designed and made by Fernanda Gattinoni who made dresses for the likes of Audrey Hepburn; after which we got a gelato (I went for straciatella and Nutella YUM.)

I'm going to mass again tonight at 6pm, and tomorrow I'll be heading out to the mercato.


A presto...