My first day learning Italian

Hi all,
My first day of Italian classes began this morning at 9am. Everything I read, said to allow 30 minutes to take the bus and walk to the school from my hotel, so I planned for 1 hour. The station is about 300 meters from my hotel and I arrived to see a few people waiting...so far so good. But then the bus pulled up and it was packed like sardines....so far, not so good. Thankfully a few people exited at my stop and I was able to wiggle my way on muttering excuse, excuse as I mashed myself onto the bus.

Almost one hour later the 913 bus pulled into the Piazza Augusto Imperatore and I exited with 10 minutes to find my way to the school. 15 minutes later I was still wandering the streets of Rome, so I asked some people for help. With them speaking only Italian and me speaking only English, we shared the language of hand gestures. So I headed off in the right direction and kissed every hope of making an on time impression for day one.

I arrived to the school and was processed for my student ID, last time I had one of those it was the 1990s! We were taken in for a brief orientation where the director told us that after the session there would be no more English. So for those of you wondering how exactly an immersion program takes place...there you have it...they throw you to the wolves.

With orientation over, we were then given an exam to gauge our reading and comprehension of Italian. I began the test with every expectation of being classified a beginner...because let's face it, apart from hello, goodbye and the like, I don't know any other Italian. I should also mention that I am terrible at standardized testing. Give me something to study and I'll ace it, hit me blind and I fall down. For example, my first standardized test was shortly after moving to the united states. I scored better then 2 percent of the national population in spelling...and that's when my "special" reading classes began. I continued this trend through high school where I can bet that athletes looking to go to university jut to play a sport scored better than me on the SATs.

Before the start of the afternoon sessions, we were given a short tour of the surrounding area which includes every major site in Rome, just minutes from the school. I returned for the afternoon sessions and was given my course schedule. Imagine my surprise when I realized I was placed in level 2. Everyone told me things get better in your 30s, apparently test taking fit into "things". So the logic I applied when taking the exam paid off....but not for long. My first session in Italian began with conjugating verbs into the past tense. Um, I know no verbs in Italian! About half way through the class, after uttering 5 words, 3 of which were in English, we were given an activity sheet to complete. I was visibly struggling and the teacher, who had the decency to ask me in English, said "how long have you been studying Italian?". When I replied NEVER, she suggested that I might want to move down to the basic level....I could not have agreed more. So I met with the director who went on about how well I tested and kept asking if I was sure I wanted to move down....all I could reply was si.

So I began my second class of the day sitting in on the basic session. And when I opened my course book to see pictures with words I realized this was way more my speed. Now I can only hope that I progress enough to advance to the level I tested in at :)

One day of classes down and 34 more to go.