November 1, 2011

November 1, 2011

HAPPY NOVEMBER! I am having a hard time believing it is already November…pretty crazy. I hope you all had a fun Halloween and are having a good first day of November. Actually, November 1 is a national holiday here in Italy, because of All Saints Day. However, that didn’t stop us from having a midterm on that holiday. Oh well. I woke up around 7:15 this morning, got ready and headed into school a little early to go through my PowerPoint one last time before the midterm. The midterm started at 9:00 and was not too bad, after all of the studying I had done. It was very fair and exactly what she said it was going to be like, so that was really nice. I am so happy to be done with midterms and am so much less stressed. After the test, I spent a little time at school using the Internet and then headed home to work on some homework and just relax.

I actually did something to my left foot—I think I bruised the ball of my foot or something—so it was good to rest it for a while. Two of my friends on the program have torn their plantar fascia this trip from so much walking on all the uneven ground and cobblestones. One of them has even sprained her ankle two times so it hasn’t been a good trip for our feet. Anyway, Nikki—the girl who sprained her ankle twice and tore her plantar fascia—has a pair of crutches that she is lending me for a little while so I can try to stay off my foot for a little while so it can heal more quickly. I am not looking to using crutches on the cobblestones and whatnot but hopefully I won’t have to use them too often. I probably wouldn’t use them in this situation except, because I am doing such a big dance show when I get home, I really don’t want it to get any worse. So hopefully if I don’t go on five-mile walks for a while and try to stay off my feet more often, it will get better. Anyway, it was very nice to be able to lounge around this afternoon and stay off of it.

No one was home this afternoon so I set myself up on the couch in the living room with my computer and some homework. I finished up my homework for tomorrow’s classes and then just played around on the Internet and such, letting my brain relax a little. I actually fell asleep on the couch for about half an hour, so I guess I needed a nap as well :P After that, I did some homework, working ahead in hopes that I would never again have a weekend so stressful as this past one. I got quite a bit done, as well as relaxed and stayed off my feet so I feel pretty productive :)

This evening for dinner we started off with one of the most delicious pastas we have had so far, which was penne pasta with a kind of creamy cheese sauce that was so yummy! For our main dish, Daniela and Franzi had some dish with tuna and tomatoes and I had my caprese salad, which was very good as usual. We also had bread, as we always do, zucchini and another vegetable that I can’t remember what it is called but is good for your stomach. We finished off with apples that were very sweet :)

I am pretty sleepy (as was illustrated by my falling asleep on the couch) so I will probably try to get to bed fairly early. Until then, I’ll probably stretch and just do some reading or something else relaxing. I definitely have earned an evening of relaxing, haven’t I? Oh, and I don’t think the heat is on yet because I am still really cold, so that’s kind of disappointing :( I was so looking forward to it! Hopefully it will come on very soon! I hope you’re all staying warm and enjoying your first day of November!

All my love,

Kari

P.S. I just discovered that Franzi has a bazillion movies on her computer so she is putting them one-by-one on a flash drive so I can have them on my computer. I just got my first one—The Parent Trap—and am looking forward to many more, including a lot of Disney movies! Staying off my feet for the next few weeks just got a whole lot easier :)