"Is this really necessary?"

...asked David as he knocked on one of the classroom walls, that seems to serve no purpose. Haha, I guess all of this rearranging and updating has gotten some of us a little over zealous. The Woodroof's have done a really great job on the school. They have put of lot of time and energy into making improvements. It looks great!

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting the 2nd person with whom I will be studying English and the Bible. His name is Alessandro and he is 8 years old! He was absolutely adorable and very excited about learning! I'm anxious to put together some "fun" lessons for him. I am amazed how well our "students" fit with each of our personalities. I know that God worked it out that way for us, and for them.

Yesterday in Italian class, we learned some vocabulary used to discuss animals. Because the teachers don't speak English to us, they had to make different animal sounds to describe the different animals. To my complete surprise (and amusement) I learned that the animals sounds are not universal! For example, most Americans would probably say that a bird says "Tweet Tweet" but Italians say "Cheep Cheep" and Japanese say "Peep Peep" Dogs in Italy say "Bow Bow" and frogs say "Cra Cra" instead of "Ribbit." Haha, I just thought that was really funny.

This week, all of the public school students are "striking." It's what is called an Occupato, and is apparently quite common. From what I can understand, they are upset about a lot of the new policies dealing with grading and faculty downsizing. There are all kinds of signs up on all of the schools and the kids stay there all day and night.
They really like to protest stuff around here. Tomorrow there will be a transportation strike throughout ALL of Italy. There will be no trains, and the busses will only run for a few hours during the day. There will be a HUGE protest tomorrow in Rome for everyone who is unhappy about something...from students to workers. I'm not really sure how everyone is going to get there.

One thing that I love about Italy today: The cute dogs that sit on their balconies, squinting their little eyes and watching carefully to make sure everyone is behaving properly. They bark at certain people who pass by to make sure we all know that they are watching and in charge.

The Men's Convention begins today here at the Bible School. There will be leaders from churches of Christ all over Italy...convening. I really don't know what all is involved, but I will be sure to post an update when I find out!