1) On Tuesday, I did not realize that I left my phone in my room until I got to school. So during the walk from the bus stop to home, I was in the pitch-black darkness. Since I did not have my phone flashlight, I had to trust my instinct and walk down the road based on my memory. But for a second, I looked up at the sky and realized that there were so many stars. The sky was always so clear, but I did not acknowledge it until this week. So I was rather grateful that I left my phone that day because if I didn't, I would have just walked home, staring at my phone like always.
2) Next week is Cinque Giorni (five days) which means that instead of going to our normal SYA school, we will be going to different Italian high schools in Viterbo. So in order to prepare us for our daily conversations with the local teenagers, the teachers taught us a little bit of Viterbese dialect. But I was more fascinated by the fact that there is a shift in dialect if one drives just for 15 kilometers.
3) I learned that after 5 years of high school, the Italians must take the matriculation exam that can test them on anything they have learned for the past 5 years. That's not all: the exam consists of two parts - one written and one oral. Apparently, every year, at least 15-20% of students do not pass and therefore have to retake the exam. It is surprising how similar the Italian educational system is to the Korean one (Korean teenagers also have to take a matriculation exam after 3 years of high school).
4) On Saturday, I was really bored, so I decided to look up my teachers' profiles that were uploaded on our school website. Then, I realized that every single Italian teacher that teaches at SYA graduated from the same university: Università della Tuscia, a pretty well-known university in Viterbo. And I was not surprised by this fact. It rather reinforced that the Italians do tend to remain in the city they grew up/studied in.
5) If you know me pretty well, you probably know that I do not enjoy naps (mainly because I cannot fall asleep in the middle of a day. But since I have moved to Viterbo, I LOVE naps! On weekends, after lunch, I always sleep for 30 minutes because my family does the same thing. It has become a part of my weekly routine and I really like it!