Meme again, I must say I enjoy it :)
I'm Feeling: 
sheepishly yet shamelessly procrastinating for the first time in a long time
Man, when you reference a Disney movie to a 6 year old, you better cover all your bases. The conversation on fish today went as follows;
"Fish hatch from eggs. Look at the picture, those are fish eggs! They look so different from bird eggs! And, hey, has anyone seen the movie Finding Nemo?"
*All 17 hands go up*
"Great! So, remember at the very beginning? Where was Nemo?"
"Not born yet!"(or "bornded," depending on who you are) "In an egg!"
"That's right, he was still an egg! That is just another good way to remember that fish hatch from eggs."
"BUT MISS BATTINELLI NEMO HATCHED FROM A RED EGG. THOSE AREN'T RED!!!"
"Yes, I know, but..."
"THEY'RE NOT RED!!"
*facepalm* They eventually got the concept that different fish lay different eggs.
I decided to do the same 5 things meme from yesterday, only today, they're topics as suggested by defying_elphaba
1. Italy
There's almost no place on Earth I love more than bellissima Italia. My entire family is Italian, and I am 100%. And the land of my ancestors is just beautiful. I love the landscape, how there are mountains and beaches and hills and then you go south and there are even cacti and palm trees. My town is central (on the knee of the boot, south of Rome), and the water's so clear on the beach, and there are citrus trees everywhere. My great-aunt grows lemons as big as softballs (except, you know, lemon-shaped XD). And the food is to die for. I could live on mozzarella and tomatoes. I'm no vegetarian, either, and the meat is so good, too...after living there for 4 months, coming back to America where almost nothing is as fresh as it is in Italy, this diet just took some getting used to. And the weather! It's not very cold in most places in Italy, and after a lifetime of Connecticut winters (and a college career of Storrs winters, which are in my opinion among the worst in the state), I know I'm a big baby because I just prefer the warm, but how beautiful it is. We went walking on Easter, I'll never forget it, and people were at the beach as if it were June!
I also love how the fashion's a little different than here. I don't think leather boots will ever really go out of style, and I got my beautiful ones in Florence and wore them home on the plane before everyone in America started to get the fever. Those people that weren't still desperately clinging to their Ugg boots, anyway. :-P And the people are just wonderful and welcoming, and the language is gorgeous. I can't wait to go back there and visit all of the friends I just made in November, of I Giullari. :)
Could I possibly gush any more? Maybe I'm just biased because I am who I am. But I love Italy, and if I could live there, I would. Teaching's a much tougher profession to get into over there than it is here, and I'm not fluent yet. Oh, and there's that whole bit about my boyfriend being 100% Polish. :-P
2. Music
Music has always been a huge part of my life. My Dad's side of the family is extremely musical, and when I wouldn't sleep through my first year of life, my parents discovered that I would nod off to my grandfather playing his ukulele. Many of the men on that side of the family play soprano, alto or bass uke, and my grandfather also built a washtub bass with one "E" string that changes pitch based on how tight the string is. They've gotten together to actually perform in public a number of times as well, and when they do, they call themselves the Battinelli Living Room Players, with the uniform being a Hawaiian shirt. Everyone's an attention hog on that side, and have been known to fight for the microphone and completely take over karaoke nights.
My dad's parents also have a piano, and for as long as I remember, I would hop onto that bench and try to make sound come out of it. I started actually taking lessons at age 7, and took lessons until I was 14, stopping right before I visited Italy for the first time. 7 years later, I haven't taken a lesson since, but when I'm home I try to fool around at our piano at least once a day, my favorite things to play ranging from Disney songs to Billy Joel to Beatles to various other songs that I've acquired (including some showtunes. I need to build up my Broadway sheet music library). If I didn't have piano, I'd be bored. I wouldn't consider myself to be particularly good (although people sometimes tell me otherwise), but aside from teaching, it's one of the best things I can do. In my immediate family (and in my case, "immediate" includes everyone out to the aunts, uncles & first cousins), I am fairly confident that I am the best piano player.
I'm also one of those people that needs constant music playing. I'll never drive the car without the radio, I almost always turn my iTunes on shuffle. And, thanks to influence from my mother's side of the family and my own passions, I have a fair amount of both traditional and somewhat popular Italian music. I love to sing, so not only do I belt out most of the songs I listen to (especially in the car), but I turned to theater in grade school, and now I'm in the student choir at the Catholic church here at UConn - my voice is featured more there than it ever has been before, and I really, really love it.
Wow, that was a long one.
3. Childhood at Heart
In teaching, if there is one thing I have learned, it is to never forget what it is like to be a child. So many things that we would consider trivial and funny as adults are of the utmost importance to them! Do not laugh it off when they say they have a loose tooth! Do not simply "shush" the child who pipes up that there is no Tooth Fairy! Feelings will be *so* hurt. I told my class one day that I wanted their final story drafts to be in their neatest handwriting. One little girl had to erase a word like 5 times because, heck, she's in 1st grade. She suddenly burst into tears because she thought it made the paper look messy and that I wouldn't accept it.
This spans over to my love of Disney. I hate the parents who say that Disney movies give their children unrealistic expectations in life. They miss out on such staples of childhood innocence and imagination, in my opinion. And personally, every time I watch a Disney movie, I can mostly still give myself over to the beautiful story and not think about those other things. Even to small children, the values of love and dreaming are so apparent and they can hopefully emulate the good things. I don't know that any young child truly has "bad" or "evil" thoughts - most just lack self-control. Adults, on the other hand...I don't know. I just wish more adults were sensitive to the fact that they were once children. As a child, I never understood people who don't like children, simply because everyone had to start out as one. Now, I am more understanding, but still...
4. Disney
Is like my second religion. My parents both love it, which is funny because I don't know how much exposure my mom got to Disney as a kid, but my siblings and I were raised to love it. My parents bought almost every animated movie as it came out when we were kids, and we went to NYC to see theater premiers of both The Lion King and Hercules (not quite as big a deal as it sounds, but NYC to an elementary schooler=OMG AWESOMENESS).
(Heck, NYC to an adult=OMG AWESOMENESS).
My family has been to WDW a number of times, we were various Disney characters for Halloween a number of times - the original wallpaper/theme to our bedroom as babies was Disney Babies.
Naturally, the all-out support at home made me kind of a nut - a Disnerd, if you will - and I wouldn't have it any other way. I love to reference movies, and I just think that Disney is fun and just...words can't describe what my life would be like without it. There's a picture on my piano of me at age 9 months next to a giant Mickey Mouse stuffed animal at my grandparents' house. I think that my outlook on life is affected by how much I love the ideals that Disney offers me, and in high school, my best friend and I had this in common, among other things. I have many friends on LJ who share this common interest. And all of these people are just such...wonderful people, in their own ways and together. I don't know how to describe it, but Disney lovers - and maybe it's because I am one of them - are just among some of the nicest, light-hearted and most fun people you could be around!
5. Catholicism
Is my first religion, lol. Being Italian, I was raised by a devout Catholic family, and most of my values and dogmatic habits distinctly reflect that. It's almost boring to say that I didn't have this beautiful journey of faith like Annabelle did because my religion as been a very present part of my life the entire time. I try my best to be a good Catholic, and any fellow Catholics can agree that it's not an easy thing to do at times (especially now that it's Lent! :-P). But there have been times in my life (getting left behind/lost in Scotland summer 2004 ranks high up there) where I have been so scared and so anxious that I just prayed and prayed, almost blindly, and I truly believe that God came through for me.
That being said, I can easily take a step back and appreciate jokes about certain parts of the religion - sometimes in choir we make the jokes during rehearsal with some of those songs, we can't help ourselves! I mean, I played Sister Mary Ignatious in Sister Mary Ignatious Explains It All For You in high school - I did my research, and I poked fun at myself because heck, it's just funny!
Wow, that was a long one. Sorry if I bored you...
sheepishly yet shamelessly procrastinating for the first time in a long time
Man, when you reference a Disney movie to a 6 year old, you better cover all your bases. The conversation on fish today went as follows;
"Fish hatch from eggs. Look at the picture, those are fish eggs! They look so different from bird eggs! And, hey, has anyone seen the movie Finding Nemo?"
*All 17 hands go up*
"Great! So, remember at the very beginning? Where was Nemo?"
"Not born yet!"(or "bornded," depending on who you are) "In an egg!"
"That's right, he was still an egg! That is just another good way to remember that fish hatch from eggs."
"BUT MISS BATTINELLI NEMO HATCHED FROM A RED EGG. THOSE AREN'T RED!!!"
"Yes, I know, but..."
"THEY'RE NOT RED!!"
*facepalm* They eventually got the concept that different fish lay different eggs.
I decided to do the same 5 things meme from yesterday, only today, they're topics as suggested by defying_elphaba
1. Italy
There's almost no place on Earth I love more than bellissima Italia. My entire family is Italian, and I am 100%. And the land of my ancestors is just beautiful. I love the landscape, how there are mountains and beaches and hills and then you go south and there are even cacti and palm trees. My town is central (on the knee of the boot, south of Rome), and the water's so clear on the beach, and there are citrus trees everywhere. My great-aunt grows lemons as big as softballs (except, you know, lemon-shaped XD). And the food is to die for. I could live on mozzarella and tomatoes. I'm no vegetarian, either, and the meat is so good, too...after living there for 4 months, coming back to America where almost nothing is as fresh as it is in Italy, this diet just took some getting used to. And the weather! It's not very cold in most places in Italy, and after a lifetime of Connecticut winters (and a college career of Storrs winters, which are in my opinion among the worst in the state), I know I'm a big baby because I just prefer the warm, but how beautiful it is. We went walking on Easter, I'll never forget it, and people were at the beach as if it were June!
I also love how the fashion's a little different than here. I don't think leather boots will ever really go out of style, and I got my beautiful ones in Florence and wore them home on the plane before everyone in America started to get the fever. Those people that weren't still desperately clinging to their Ugg boots, anyway. :-P And the people are just wonderful and welcoming, and the language is gorgeous. I can't wait to go back there and visit all of the friends I just made in November, of I Giullari. :)
Could I possibly gush any more? Maybe I'm just biased because I am who I am. But I love Italy, and if I could live there, I would. Teaching's a much tougher profession to get into over there than it is here, and I'm not fluent yet. Oh, and there's that whole bit about my boyfriend being 100% Polish. :-P
2. Music
Music has always been a huge part of my life. My Dad's side of the family is extremely musical, and when I wouldn't sleep through my first year of life, my parents discovered that I would nod off to my grandfather playing his ukulele. Many of the men on that side of the family play soprano, alto or bass uke, and my grandfather also built a washtub bass with one "E" string that changes pitch based on how tight the string is. They've gotten together to actually perform in public a number of times as well, and when they do, they call themselves the Battinelli Living Room Players, with the uniform being a Hawaiian shirt. Everyone's an attention hog on that side, and have been known to fight for the microphone and completely take over karaoke nights.
My dad's parents also have a piano, and for as long as I remember, I would hop onto that bench and try to make sound come out of it. I started actually taking lessons at age 7, and took lessons until I was 14, stopping right before I visited Italy for the first time. 7 years later, I haven't taken a lesson since, but when I'm home I try to fool around at our piano at least once a day, my favorite things to play ranging from Disney songs to Billy Joel to Beatles to various other songs that I've acquired (including some showtunes. I need to build up my Broadway sheet music library). If I didn't have piano, I'd be bored. I wouldn't consider myself to be particularly good (although people sometimes tell me otherwise), but aside from teaching, it's one of the best things I can do. In my immediate family (and in my case, "immediate" includes everyone out to the aunts, uncles & first cousins), I am fairly confident that I am the best piano player.
I'm also one of those people that needs constant music playing. I'll never drive the car without the radio, I almost always turn my iTunes on shuffle. And, thanks to influence from my mother's side of the family and my own passions, I have a fair amount of both traditional and somewhat popular Italian music. I love to sing, so not only do I belt out most of the songs I listen to (especially in the car), but I turned to theater in grade school, and now I'm in the student choir at the Catholic church here at UConn - my voice is featured more there than it ever has been before, and I really, really love it.
Wow, that was a long one.
3. Childhood at Heart
In teaching, if there is one thing I have learned, it is to never forget what it is like to be a child. So many things that we would consider trivial and funny as adults are of the utmost importance to them! Do not laugh it off when they say they have a loose tooth! Do not simply "shush" the child who pipes up that there is no Tooth Fairy! Feelings will be *so* hurt. I told my class one day that I wanted their final story drafts to be in their neatest handwriting. One little girl had to erase a word like 5 times because, heck, she's in 1st grade. She suddenly burst into tears because she thought it made the paper look messy and that I wouldn't accept it.
This spans over to my love of Disney. I hate the parents who say that Disney movies give their children unrealistic expectations in life. They miss out on such staples of childhood innocence and imagination, in my opinion. And personally, every time I watch a Disney movie, I can mostly still give myself over to the beautiful story and not think about those other things. Even to small children, the values of love and dreaming are so apparent and they can hopefully emulate the good things. I don't know that any young child truly has "bad" or "evil" thoughts - most just lack self-control. Adults, on the other hand...I don't know. I just wish more adults were sensitive to the fact that they were once children. As a child, I never understood people who don't like children, simply because everyone had to start out as one. Now, I am more understanding, but still...
4. Disney
Is like my second religion. My parents both love it, which is funny because I don't know how much exposure my mom got to Disney as a kid, but my siblings and I were raised to love it. My parents bought almost every animated movie as it came out when we were kids, and we went to NYC to see theater premiers of both The Lion King and Hercules (not quite as big a deal as it sounds, but NYC to an elementary schooler=OMG AWESOMENESS).
(Heck, NYC to an adult=OMG AWESOMENESS).
My family has been to WDW a number of times, we were various Disney characters for Halloween a number of times - the original wallpaper/theme to our bedroom as babies was Disney Babies.
Naturally, the all-out support at home made me kind of a nut - a Disnerd, if you will - and I wouldn't have it any other way. I love to reference movies, and I just think that Disney is fun and just...words can't describe what my life would be like without it. There's a picture on my piano of me at age 9 months next to a giant Mickey Mouse stuffed animal at my grandparents' house. I think that my outlook on life is affected by how much I love the ideals that Disney offers me, and in high school, my best friend and I had this in common, among other things. I have many friends on LJ who share this common interest. And all of these people are just such...wonderful people, in their own ways and together. I don't know how to describe it, but Disney lovers - and maybe it's because I am one of them - are just among some of the nicest, light-hearted and most fun people you could be around!
5. Catholicism
Is my first religion, lol. Being Italian, I was raised by a devout Catholic family, and most of my values and dogmatic habits distinctly reflect that. It's almost boring to say that I didn't have this beautiful journey of faith like Annabelle did because my religion as been a very present part of my life the entire time. I try my best to be a good Catholic, and any fellow Catholics can agree that it's not an easy thing to do at times (especially now that it's Lent! :-P). But there have been times in my life (getting left behind/lost in Scotland summer 2004 ranks high up there) where I have been so scared and so anxious that I just prayed and prayed, almost blindly, and I truly believe that God came through for me.
That being said, I can easily take a step back and appreciate jokes about certain parts of the religion - sometimes in choir we make the jokes during rehearsal with some of those songs, we can't help ourselves! I mean, I played Sister Mary Ignatious in Sister Mary Ignatious Explains It All For You in high school - I did my research, and I poked fun at myself because heck, it's just funny!
Wow, that was a long one. Sorry if I bored you...