Author Archives: Ariel

A Conversation with a Pro-Qaddafi Libyan

My friends and I often like to go to a bar/restaurant called La Tana dell’Orso (“The Cave of the Bear”). It’s run by a cheery Irishman from Dublin and it’s a hotspot for English-speakers. Unfortunately, I heard that it’s closing down, but at least the last experience I had there gave me an understanding that I will keep with me for the rest of my life.

 

I am not sure how I began talking with this man, and I do not remember his name. He asked if I was from the United States, and I said yes. He said oh, I’ve lived in Cleveland, I really liked it there! I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself, because I know that Cleveland right now is kind of one step above Detroit (these two videos came to mind: 1 2), but I don’t think he realized that. (Later my friends and I mused that perhaps Cleveland was still miles above his living situation in Libya, and comparatively it was nice; but I don’t know what his socio-economic status was there.) So he was saying all of this generally nice stuff about America and that now he was in Italy to work. He spoke English relatively well.

 

Then I asked where he was from originally, and he replied Libya. So my first question was, “Do you have any family who was there during the fall of Qaddafi?”

 

That got him started.

 

He reacted immediately, saying that he was upset about the fall of Qaddafi. It took me a second to register that he was saying that he supported Qaddafi, but it was one of those situations where I made myself swallow it, accept it, and say to myself, Okay, this is probably going to be your only chance to talk to anyone who supports Qaddafi, so keep an open mind and ask as many questions as possible.

 

For starters, he believes that everything that happened was the fault of NATO. The bombs, the violence, the fighting, everything. It was clear from the beginning that he was very passionate about the subject–he later mentioned that not only was his family living without light and power, but also that his brother was still missing and that he assumed he was dead. “I just want a finger, just a piece of him, just to know,” he said to me. And I told him that I understood. Well, that I didn’t understand because I’ve never had to deal with that kind of emotional trauma, but that I recognized the motivation behind his impassioned words. One of his family members died amongst the violence, and the quality of life has dropped for his family. It was pretty clear just from those facts that nothing was going to change this man’s mind about anything he believed.

 

Mind you, I had no intention of changing it. I just wanted to know what he thought. I tried to make that as clear as I could.

 

Anyway, so back to NATO. He also believes that it was NATO who took out Qaddafi. Now, admittedly, I did not follow the events that unfolded in Libya very closely. In fact, I haven’t even done any research since that conversation. But I decided to go on what I knew.

 

“I’m going to tell you what Americans saw on TV, on the news–what was reported to us about Libya, and I want you to tell me how much of that is true.”

 

So I brought up how it was reported that civilians were the once who started protesting, and that the violence started when the government was trying to repress it. While I knew that NATO and several countries, including the US, stepped in militarily, I was under the impression that most of the ground fighting was between civilians and Qaddafi’s forces. (Someone correct me if I’m wrong.) I also brought up the cell phone picture that was taken of people carrying Qaddafi’s body through the streets.

 

He said it was lies, all lies. That NATO had been doing all of the fighting and that the cell phone picture was fake. He said, “Don’t watch the news, you Americans are brainwashed! You only hear one side!”

 

Not only did I bring up the fact that the Internet provides many points of view for reference and comparison (and he said that he also uses the Internet in order to do exactly that, but I think he said some negative things about it, too; I don’t remember and his English wasn’t clear enough), but I also emphatically tried to introduce the idea that perhaps he, too, was also “brainwashed”–in the exact same way that he was saying Americans are. Of course, he denied that, and said that he was right. This irked me severely, of course, particularly because he wasn’t even in Libya during that time, and he was being a hypocrite.

 

The biggest point that he tried to convey to me, I feel, throughout the entire conversation was the idea of pacifism. He really, thoroughly disliked the idea that NATO, the US, and other countries felt as though they had the right to come and get involved in Libya’s business; additionally, he doesn’t like how they pick and choose whom to help. “Why don’t they go to Yemen, then?” he said. “They are having a civil war, it is terrible! They go to Iraq, why? They say oh, because they have nuclear weapons, but then they don’t have them. No, it’s because they want oil!” I didn’t disagree with him. I let him know that a lot of Americans agree with him on that subject. “So you say that America should stay in America, and Libya should stay in Libya, and all of the other countries should mind their own business?” I asked. And he said, “Yes, yes!”

 

So I asked him why he supported Qaddafi. He said, “Because he is my leader!” Alright, I said, but what is so great about him? What did he ever DO for you, for the country? I must have asked this question at least ten times, because I wasn’t satisfied with his responses. At this point, my roommate Nadia had joined in on the conversation, and she stopped me.

 

“Ariel,” she said, “for them, it isn’t about what he did. That’s such an American idea about what makes a good leader: what they do. But that’s not what they focus on.”

 

I blinked a couple times. I had…never thought about it like that before. I had never realized that. To be a good leader…how ELSE can you be a good leader? I couldn’t understand it; I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

 

To supplement my emotions connected to this revelation, I also at some point asked him, “How do you define freedom?”

 

“Security,” he said. Just being able to live. Being able to go to school, to work, to have his family. What else did he need? Oh, also he told me that in Libya, university-level education is free. I asked him to confirm that at least two times to make sure I heard him correctly. I then proceeded to rage for a couple of minutes. “Freaking LIBYA has free education but AMERICA doesn’t!?!?” …Really. UGH.

 

Anyway. He said that he supported Qaddafi because when Qaddafi was around, he had “freedom.” His brother was still alive, his family was still living well. They could live, have a life. Basically, Libya had a routine that he was comfortable with, and with the fall of Qaddafi, everything had been disrupted. Every institution that had been run by the government was now unstructured and not working. There’s damage from the fighting. “It will take 15 years for Libya to be stable again!” he said. And he’s probably right.

 

But these two things: His definition of freedom, and the way they see their political leaders…they just…I was speechless for a couple of minutes. I know I really do try my hardest to see issues from both sides, and that was exactly why I had gotten into the conversation in the first place, but it made me realize how much my American upbringing was really ingrained in me.

 

“Try to take yourself out of the American mind,” he had said to me. “Try to see it from outside it.”

 

“Yes, I am trying, I can try,” I replied, “but it is such a part of me that it would be almost impossible to do that. I can ask you to do the same thing, but for you, you are inherently Libyan.” And he acknowledged the truth of it.

 

And I wanted to cry. In my silence while he and Nadia talked, tears actually welled up a little in my eyes. I know a lot of it was the shock, the overwhelming emotion of this grand epiphany, this bulldozer of an understanding that had pushed its way into both my mind and heart, but my American-tainted thoughts bounced all around my head.

 

This man will never know or understand any other idea of freedom… He will never be able to change his mindset about the way he sees leaders. Libya could perhaps be so much more. But who am I to say that I have the right answers? That American ideas are the right answers? Because we still have so many problems.

 

Yet, I learned from my Moldova experience that we still very much take our government for granted. I kept that in mind.

 

I also thought to myself, this man doesn’t have any comparison. All he knows well is Libya under Qaddafi. It’s what is stable and safe for him. Maybe after those 15 years, I thought so idealistically, as I do, he’ll finally have a comparison and maybe he’ll realize that it’s better. That’s assuming, of course, that something better WILL come out of this. One can only hope.

 

Like I said, I was trying to keep as open of a mind as possible, but I found it difficult when he started saying that everything Qaddafi said was true. “Go listen to the speech he gave when he last came to America,” he told me. “At the UN?” I asked, making sure, because I knew which speech he was talking about. “Yes!” he said. “Listen to that speech–that is the truth!” “Okay,” I said, “I will go watch it.” And I couldn’t help but feel…I don’t know…I don’t want to say sad for him. I guess sad for him, perhaps as a Jew, because I’m pretty sure Qaddafi said some anti-Semitic stuff in that speech (by the way, I did not let this man know that I was Jewish). But maybe I was just very wary because I remember everyone in America (and Europe…and I think just about everywhere else) making fun of that speech.

 

Unfortunately, he left the conversation in the middle of a misunderstanding. I was trying to say, “If the American government used the money that they spend on war on education, then it could be free!” He kept saying in response to that, “No! No! America gives Libya nothing!” It took me a little before I figured that he was misunderstanding the word “spend”–perhaps he thought I meant “give,” as in, give money to other countries to aid them (which I know they do, but I don’t know about Libya). I kept trying to tell him that, but at that point his emotions were so heightened and we were shouting over each other and the music playing in the background that there was no way he was going to calm down enough to try and think it through. He then insisted that he needed to go to a different bar in order to meet up with other friends.

 

We shook hands, I thanked him as best as I could for his time, and he left. Oh by the way, he had a shot, so if he’s Muslim I guess he’s not terribly religious. I was very unsettled by the fact that he left thinking that I believed something that I didn’t, but what could I do?

 

Not too long later, another guy who knew him came up to us and apologized…apparently he was drunk. I guess I’m bad at recognizing drunk people unless they’re stumbling and throwing up all over the place. Heh.

 

Regardless, I’m very glad that I had that conversation. I gained a real understanding about the mentality of people under dictatorships. Well, as close of an understanding as I’m ever going to get. They support what they know, what they’re familiar with, what works for them. Freedom for them is just being able to live, and have a life with security. And as long as they have that, leaders don’t have to “do” a bunch of stuff for the country.

 

It’s so different from America. Is it the correct mentality to have? That’s a debate I’m going to step away from because I’m not educated enough in that area. But this is the point of studying abroad, is it not? It’s to look at the world from another perspective, get inside the minds of others around the globe, look past what we watch on the news, just hear what they have to say and digest it being an unbiased as possible.

 

I feel like if everyone in the world had the opportunity to do that, planet Earth would be a much better place.


Location: Perugia, Italy

Thoughts on Learning a New Language (WARNING: LOTS OF -FEELINGS- AHEAD)

Trying to immerse yourself in a language is really difficult. Well, at least I’m finding it so. I’ve always been pretty good at languages in general, or I guess Romantic languages; Japanese didn’t exactly come as easily to me when I dabbled in it last year. But I always got good grades in Spanish during middle school and high school, and for the most part, I’ve been able to breeze through Italian in college.

 

This was because of the way it was taught. This is a vocab list, memorize it. These are the grammar rules, write some practice sentences with them. It’s easy to get into the routine of that teaching style; just go with the flow and get the grades and that’s it.

 

I’m not studying Italian for any particular reason. I don’t have a drop of Italian blood in me, and it isn’t exactly a very widespread language. In fact, the Italian that I learned in college and the Italian that I’m learning now isn’t even a “natural” language. It didn’t develop naturally, like English did. It was created in order to unite Italy. Everyone in Italy speaks a regional dialect; a person from the north can barely understand someone from the south, because they’re like two completely different languages. But at least they have “standard Italian” to fall back on. If they know it.

 

But anyway. One of the big reasons I decided to start studying Italian was just because it’s pretty. It sounds nice to the ear. It’s flowy, and it reminds me of windchimes and roses. It sounds even better when it’s the language of an aria, because it’s really like a song.

 

Language–particularly written language–is my only way to describe my emotions. Inside my head and heart, I don’t actually define things with words, but rather with feelings. Everything and everyone has its own feeling, particularly if there’s also a distinct smell, sound, touch, taste, or sight associated with it. Periods of time in my life and locations also have incredibly specific feelings attached to them. I won’t remember someone with words, but with feelings; I see the image of their face in my mind’s eye, and the image immediately sends an electrical message of emotion right to about where my diaphragm is. If you ask me to describe someone, I’ll have to feel the feeling about them, dip my hand into the soup of feelings, and pull out whatever words I manage to find. I wish I could just touch my hand to yours and transmit the feeling instead, that way you’d know exactly how I mean.

 

It’s rare that I’m able to pick out the perfect combination of words to precisely convey those emotions, and it feels so satisfying when I do. Actually, the “windchimes and roses” bit is a good example of this moment. It’s vague enough that it’s fuzzy around the edges and blurry enough to be ethereal, yet it still gives you the right idea. Just like emotions. It’s like mist. Words need to be like mist, and they need to be visible–a tangible mist, something that you can feel floating through your fingers but can’t quite grab onto. That’s what it’s like.

 

This is why I’m so much better at writing than I am speaking. When I speak I find it very difficult to find exactly what I want to say, and I’ll stumble over my words, and you’ll often hear me say, “Oh…oh…you know what I mean!” because I just don’t know how to word the feeling. Yet, I still talk very quickly and I prefer writing in a stream-of-consciousness style (which is what this is) because everything comes to me so fast and it just kind of all spills out and I want you to know exactly what I’m feeling at this very instant! But writing does give me the time to think about it, plus some things I write would sound weird in colloquial speech. And typing is better because it’s faster than writing by hand, and usually I end up saying more because writer’s cramp sucks. Plus, I can proofread. But I usually don’t end up changing too much, unless I can finally think of those perfect combinations of words, the kind that makes you smack your lips and tongue in satisfaction. “Crisp” is a fantastic word for the feeling.

 

It is this fight between words not being enough and words being everything that is making this language immersion experience difficult for me.

 

It’s not that I go into class and am completely lost. Well, okay, admittedly sometimes. It’s mostly a lack of vocabulary if that happens, or if I drift off into space, which happens way more than it should. But after trying to listen intently for the first week of being here and exhausting myself because of it (just speaking Italian for awhile makes my mouth feel funny, because I’m exercising muscles I don’t normally use), I fell into a “lazy” mode during the second week, and instead of trying really hard to understand what was going on, I sat back and wanted it to come to me. I didn’t try. I had realized how listening to English was so easy for me–that it required no effort and that I could just listen and understand. I guess that’s where I want to be with Italian, and since I’m really impatient, I wanted it ASAP. But it was like pulling two elastics from opposite ends and trying to tie them in the middle, but the elastics were too short. I was trying to force a connection I wasn’t prepared to make.

 

I think it’s also a bit of a shock because I’m used to my Italian professors at home not only speaking at a good pace but also mostly using vocabulary that they expect us to know. But the professors here just talk, and they have regional accents. If they use a word that they don’t think we’ll know, they’ll define it–but in Italian. I’m so used to just getting the equivalent in English!

 

That’s the biggest problem, I think; if I really want to understand a word, I have to look it up or translate it into English. I rely on my Oxford English-Italian dictionary a lot, or if I do listen to the Italian definition, I’ll just come up with the English equivalent. I especially needed to do that for words like “siccome” and “a patto che”–“since” and “provided that.” “Andro’ al cinema a patto che Laura anche venga.” “I’ll go to the cinema provided that Laura also comes.” (And “a patto che” requires the following verb to be subjunctive and that’s a whole other ballgame that seems very much reliant on intuition.) But in order to truly understand “a patto che,” I needed the translation.

 

But why?

 

It’s because I inherently understand what it means. This is where the whole rambling feelings bit comes in. Not only have foreign languages come rather easily to me, but also my native English language. I’ve always prided myself on being good at grammar. I did well on the Writing SAT not because I studied hard or memorized rules or came up with any particular strategy, but because I could just look at a sentence and know if it FEELS right or not. I tried to tutor my younger brother on the Writing SAT once and I found it hard to explain why something was right or wrong (not to mention that I still don’t get 100% of the questions right).  “It’s…just…’cause it is!”

 

Obviously the brain works in a way during the critical language period that makes you innately understand your native language(s). But when you’re an adult language learner, it’s different. A lot of people in the class want very technical explanations for grammar rules, and sometimes those are useful for me, too, but I understand it much better when I can just translate it into English, because then I can just attach an intuitive feeling to it and hopefully remember the next time it comes around. For example, prepositions can seem really arbitrary in Italian, and in many cases you just have to memorize which preposition is used with which verb. But of course, it’s been a lot easier for me to memorize the more “feely” ones. An example that comes to mind is “inammorarsi di” (“to be in love with,” but the preposition “di” usually means “of”). English speakers often will use “con” (“with”) instead of “di,” for obvious reasons. But it’s something I’ve been able to remember because it’s such an emotion-filled word.

 

But for me, “to be in love with” still has a stronger meaning that “inammorarsi di,” even though they mean exactly the same thing. Yet I think the latter sounds nicer. Additionally, it is more concise, though Italian isn’t always concise. “Laura’s dog.” “Il cane di Laura.” Yeah.

 

Though actually, now that I’m thinking about it, “love” and its Italian equivalent “amore” have different meanings for me. “Love” is not as nice-sounding, yet it seems more serious, deep, and cutting, like carving words into wood, permanent yet breakable. “Amore” is like a music staff on an ocean wave–it is more carefree, happy, blissful, yet fleeting. Hmm.

 

A better example of what I’m trying to describe is a couple weeks ago when we read a poem in my general Italian language class. I was able to read it, not knowing a few of the words, and get the general idea of what it was about. I could tell that it was a good poem, but I couldn’t quite grasp its beauty or genius, and I wasn’t on the same wavelength as the writer. For funsies, I decided to translate it into English (I have a translation class anyway, so why not?). When I had finished, I read the poem over again in English, and that’s when I was like, “Oh, oh…this is a REALLY nice poem.” What’s more was understanding that some of the Italian words I didn’t know had double meanings, which contributed to the poem. The poem itself was about a woman being obsessed/insane over a man who never truly loved her. There’s a part that says:

 

“Non devi rinnegare quell’alone (You don’t have to renounce that halo)

per te creato, che tu solo emani.” (That I create for you, that you alone radiate.)

 

The word “alone” (pronounced “ah-LOH-neh”) can also mean “ring,” which is what I initially translated it to until I saw the word “emani” in the next line, so then I changed it to “halo.” But I thought it was interesting that it could also mean “ring,” which implies marriage. That’s just something you don’t get when you don’t know the language! And regardless, I was frustrated that I could get into the author’s feelings until I translated it back into English. Here is such a nice-sounding language and I just want to dive into it head-first, but I’m too impatient and I can’t…

 

I guess what I’m trying to say is that learning a language in this way is making me appreciate my relationship with the English language. It makes me more proud of it, more connected to it, my safe place. I feel like no matter how much vocabulary I learn or how fluent I get, I’ll never have the same relationship with Italian as I do English. Despite the beauty of Italian, right now the words kind of feel like cardboard. I need to fill them with something (someone?), inject them with some kind of meaning in order to really entangle myself in it.

 

At the same point, however, I feel like a lot of students in my classes are too technical with it. It’s easy to see a language like a machine, I suppose; just learn the different parts and buttons and then make it work, let it whir. I suppose one could learn a language like this, but it just seems so…mechanical and detached. Like you’re just skimming the surface when there’s so much deeper.

 

So that’s why I need to find that balance. I still don’t know how to get it. I’m too attached to English, but even when I’m fully immersed in Italian, I can’t push it away. I guess it’s a part of me I’ll never be able to push away, but why would I even want to? I don’t need to.

 

I guess…maybe I’m seeing this wrong. Italian has always been a joy for me as well as a source of pride because I’ve been relatively successful with a passion that came from within me, that I incited on my own, not because I had to learn it in school. It’s still a balance, though; if I want to learn, I have to try, but I can’t try so hard. Just let it be a joy: not a mandatory job, yet not something that’s easy to put aside.

 

Maybe I’ll just keep thinking about windchimes and roses.


Location: Perugia, Italy

Ciao dall’Italia – Videoblog 1

CI SONO TANTI SBAGLI.
THERE ARE SO MANY MISTAKES.
Haha, I guess you won’t be able to tell… Anyway, it took a lot of time to film, edit, and upload this thing, not to mention that it turned out a lot longer than I expected, so I don’t know how often I’ll be doing this. I’m still hoping for once a week and that I’ll just get more efficient at it (plus when/if my speaking ability improves, it’ll be smoother), but we’ll just have to see.
I know I said I was going to post the text to the videoblog, but I just don’t feel like doing that right now. It’ll take a long time. Hopefully I’ll get around to it at some point.
I edited out my pauses and mistakes just using jump cuts. Hope that’s okay.
Well, I hope you enjoy! Again, if you don’t have a Penn State account, you can leave comments on the YouTube video itself.

Location: Via Pinturicchio, Perugia, Italia

A Guide to My Blog

Sono arrivata a Perugia!

I’ve arrived in Perugia!
I’ll be talking more about my trip in my next entry; I don’t want to spoil anything!
I’d like to explain instead in this entry how my blog is going to work this semester.
I plan on videoblogging–in Italian. For every entry I will be trying my very best to explain everything that I can in the best way I know how, using as much Italian as possible, with only a couple of notes to remind me what I wanted to talk about. No script, just talking. I will be providing subtitles on the video so English speakers may understand it.
There are a few reasons I’m doing this:
1. The main reason is to track my progress over the semester. My biggest goal that I wish to achieve here is to learn as much Italian and to improve my skills as much as possible. This will be a way to see and follow my progression–not only for my benefit, but also for the curiosity of others. I think it’ll be a fascinating experiment–seeing not only how much improvement there is in my speaking abilities, expansion of my vocabulary and grammar, and overall fluency between my first video blog and last one, but also because everyone will be able to follow the process, day by day, week by week, month by month.
2. It’ll improve my Italian. It’ll force me to talk, learn new words, and evaluate my mistakes.
3. As Schreyer student and a Film-Video major, I will be working on my thesis here, which will be a documentary about my participation in the full immersion program. The videoblogs may very well become a part of that documentary.
4. It can become a tool to help others learn Italian; maybe you’ll even pick-up on some while watching!
5. It’s more interactive and exciting, which is exactly how I want to share my adventures and experiences. Well, at least I think it’ll be. I’ll be integrating pictures and video into them as well.
6. I’m a big fan of keeping journals; I have hundreds of pages of journals saved on my computer from when I was in high school, and I really wish I had continued it into college. I absolutely want to document my stay here, and I’m excited about experimenting with this new way of journaling.
If you’re not interested in watching me ramble in Italian and having to follow along with subtitles, that’s okay. I’ll hopefully be posting the transcript of the video in English in the entry as well, probably with fixed grammar and some embellishments to make it more understandable and in-depth. I expect to mess-up a lot in Italian, not to mention that I simply don’t have the vocabulary to explain everything precisely. I’ll probably be looking up some key words that I’ll know I’ll be using before I make an entry so that it’ll be easier; I’ll learn new words this way, too!
Since I expect each entry to take perhaps a couple hours to make, I’ll probably be blogging only once a week, sometimes maybe twice if a lot happened and I have the time. I’ll pick a day once I receive my schedule this coming Monday.
It appears that if you don’t have a Penn State account, you can’t comment on the entry. I’ll be posting these videoblogs on YouTube and then link them here, so if you’re not a Penn Stater and want to comment, you can comment on the specific YouTube video.
Well, I think that’s it for now! I’ll hopefully be posting soon!

Location: Hotel Gio', Perugia, Italia

La Bella Vita

I have been joking, with a small, awkward chuckle, that I will be traveling from one university town of conflict to another.

For the next semester, I will be studying abroad in Perugia, Italy–the town that was shaken by the murder of Meredith Kercher and the Amanda Knox trial. In fact, I will be attending the exact same school that Amanda Knox attended: L’Universita’ per Stranieri (literally, “The University for Foreigners”). It is strange to go from State College, Pennsylvania, which was recently shaken by the Sandusky scandal, to another town that is now recovering from the aftershock of the Kercher-Knox ordeal.
I have been told that I probably won’t be hearing too much about it while I’m there. This relieves me, because Perugia seems like an incredible town that is so much more than the media hoopla. Just like State College is.
Really, Perugia does kind of seem like State College in Italy. It’s a small university town, nestled in the region of Umbria (which is right next to Tuscany) that has about 40,000 students living in it. It’s a pedestrian town with cobblestone streets and a whole lot of history. Additionally, it’s very hilly; an alumnus of my program said that he walked uphill both ways to and from his classes. Well, at least I’ll be burning off all of the calories from all of the delicious Italian food I’ll be eating. That is, if I decide not to take advantage of the escalators that are built into some of the steeper roads.
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I read in the Collegian the other day that at Penn State, Italy is the most popular country to study abroad. 530 students studied there last year. I don’t tend to pick the most popular thing to do, but ah, La Dolce Lingua Italiana, mi fa una serenata!
For the past several years, I have swooned over the beauty of the Italian language, so much so that I decided to begin teaching it to myself through a computer program in high school (and no, it was not Rosetta Stone, which is not nearly the best program, by the way; it was called “Tell Me More,” and I highly recommend it). I poured over vocabulary lists, conjugated verbs in the margins of my Spanish homework, and memorized grammar rules. It was only natural for me to choose it as my minor.
So I travel to Italy not to jump on the bandwagon–I really, really want to get fluent in Italian. I am participating in a “full-immersion” program; the only subject I will be studying is Italian. Additionally, since so many students come to study the language from all over the world, not only will I get to interact with Italians, but them as well. The program even rooms you with students who do not speak your native language (with the prevalence of English these days, I’m wondering how hard or easy it will be to pair me with a non-English speaker), so that way, you are forced to use Italian as your lingua franca. Is that not the coolest thing ever?
I am really getting pumped. So pumped. I’m going to be jumping out of my skin by the time January 5th rolls around!
So, a little bit about me. I’m a junior in the Schreyer Honors College here at Penn State. I’m originally from York, PA, which is about 2 hours south of State College. I am majoring in Film-Video with a dual major in International Studies, and, as I mentioned, minoring in Italian. I participate in a student-run news show and game show through the PSN-TV club, and I am also a proud member of Springfield THON. I have sung for a large part of my life and I sing with the University Choir here on campus. I have a huge passion for travel and have visited over 20 countries, including Eastern and Western Europe, China, Israel, Costa Rica, Canada, Mexico, and all over the US. I enjoy long talks on the beach, that moment when you eat really good food and drop your fork, and wasting ridiculous amounts of time traversing the Internet.
Mi chiamo Ariel Siegelman–e mi sono innamorata d’amore.


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Location: York, Pennsylvania