cose piu' o meno comiche

so this first one happened a few days ago, actually the second day i was here. maybe i already wrote about it but i don't think so. anyway, we were about to go out to a restaurant. i asked if i needed to dress a little more fancily or anything and they said no. then i attempted to say "well, i only go to luxurious restaurants." (solo mangio ai ristoranti lussuosi). instead, however, i said "solo mangio ai ristoranti lussuriosi." that, however, apparently, means "i only eat at lustful restaurants." donatella kindly informed me that lussuosi means di lusso, that is, deluxe, and lussuoriosi is generally considered sinful. what a nice icebreaker before a family meal.

so, next funny story. this one happened just now, while i was doing 35 PAGES OF STUPID GRAMMAR EXERCISES BECAUSE APPARENTLY INTENSIVE MONTH MEANS YOU SPEND 5 HOURS A DAY GOING OVER GRAMMAR YOU LEARNED A YEAR AGO. anyway i came upon a secion on "di la" and "di qua" which mean over there and over here. the clarifying example for the first was "in un'altra camera," in another room. for the second: "in una diversa camera," in a different room. what the heck??? so i first asked giulia and she said the book was messed up. then donatella tried to come up with something but failed. then antonio (the neighborfriend who eats here and falls asleep on the couch here and feeds his dog here and is generally here) said that it has to do with who owns the room, said proposition being quickly rejected by the other italians. so, insomma, who gives a crap about prepositions anyway?

now, on to something that's still funny but in a different way. like when you say the stupidest thing possible. this was briefly recounted in jamal's journal but i'll treat it a little more in-depthly. we were eating at his house with franca (his mom), giuliana (a boarder who lives in his apartment), and rafaele (another of the same, whose name jamal cannot spell but will hopefully learn from reading this). so rafaele asked me if i believed in god, and of course, not doing so, i said no. italians generally being catholics, and rafaele being no exception, and people tending to get insulted about stuff like that, rafaele got somewhat insulted and asked me to explain. not being so good at explaining it in italian, i said something along the lines of "i see no evidence or good reason to believe." so that was pretty suave of me. then i helped him to understand the difference between catholicism and protestantism, on jamal's behalf, not that i really know anything about either. next, he asked me how i felt about naples, and i told him i didn't like it. then he scoffed, and it turned out that both he and giuliana are from naples. so i tried to explain that it wasn't so much the city as the fact that i was there only for a night, it was dark, drivers were wreckless, and we couldn't find our hostel, but none of my excuses could suffice, and safe to say he'll probably try to kill me next time i visit.

in actual news, ummm, there isn't much. class is kind of boring and there's much menial work to do. my days basically go like this:10h30 - wake up. 12-2 - class. 2-3 lunch 3- 6:30 hang out around school 6h30-9 - eat and hang out with school people, 9-2, home and work and hanging out with italians, then bed. all in all, pretty cool.

also, my italian i think is continuing to get batter. though clearly my spelling is failing me. my italian is not procuring me pancakes. i'm sorry that i make stupid jokes. what i was going to say is that i can make my family laugh, and for me that was kind of the test to see how well i could get along here. i don't think you can really say a language feels natural if you can't be sarcastic in it. so, i can be a jerk, hooray. and i don't even mean when i'm not trying to, like above. i mean when i tell giulia i want her to go over my 300 grammar questions to check them for me.

and, before i finish, responses to comments:
this is not your mother: who the heck are you?
nick: certo, giochiamo a racquetball appena saro' tornato. la battaglia is on. spero che ti stia divertendo nei corsi dell'Italiano a WashU, se li segui. inoltre, quando verra' leslie in italia? il mezzo di maggio? avevo gia programmi vaghi di rivedere arezzo, e quindi mi farebbe molto piacere andarci quando ci siete voi. rimani in tocca (penso che non vada bene in italiano, ma mi capirai)
the 'hoo: nice pun, though your insensitivity to her ethnicity is frankly disheartening.
bob: i am having fun and all that.
the bombanaut: no, i shall not drop you.
athena: why yes, i did get my hair cut, sometime around jan. 17th. and it seems that "le donne" also think it looks hella good...right. funny thing though. a certain "the 'hoo" told me i looked womanly after getting the haircut. but due to her obvious ethnic bias i shall disregard her opinion on the matter.
mom:check your email, i sent you one.