New York How I Miss You...

Hey everyone!!!! Yet again another post, most likely to be rather long like the last few, sorry in advance. As you can imagine living in another country is very hard. I am feeling homesick and at times I want to go home, but I quickly push those feelings aside. I am very excited to be here in Italy and I cannot wait until I understand more of the language. School is very boring because I don't know what they are saying and I have no books to follow along in. I brought my Italian book that BEC gave me, but you need to listen to a CD to do most of the exercises so it never left me bag. Yesterday at school I became very upset, but today I did not cry in class. At the end of the first lesson, latin I think, I started coughing (have a cold and now I have a dry cough) and I could not stop coughing and I felt myself gaging. Cristina took me outside to get a drink and the English teacher was coming up to see me. I went with here and told here how I felt. I don't like the school system here, so everyone in Ketcham you have it made!!! You have no idea how boring it is. I could not tell the English teacher everything because I was too upset.

I have so many mixed emotions about being here. Like I said before I am super excited to be in Italy, but I am struggling with my host family. I am homesick which makes me sad all the time and I have a cold which doesn't help. I can hardly eat at meals and I become upset at meals. I just want to cry and sleep all the time, nothing else. I am having a hard time adjusting to my host family. I wish to tell them this, but I don't want to upset them. I feel uncomfortable around them, I feel like I have no real space to call my own and they seem to think I cannot be left alone because they tell me everything they are doing. I feel like a guest in their house and just sleeping and eating there, not really welcome for a long time.

I have been talking with my mom because I don't know who to talk to. I have asked other exchange students how they are adjusting and maybe they don't want to say how they really are, but I am having such a hard time. I did not expect this part to be easy, but I did expect to be loved and part of my host family. I have an uneasy feeling with them and I do want to leave. Please understand they have been very nice and have been paying for a few things like gelato and my school books, but I feel so out of place. Being homesick does not help this situation. I want to tell my host family how I feel, but I can't bring myself to tell them. I think about it and I become scared, worried and just start crying. I can't eat a meal without crying. I am scared all the time and always in the way. I know I can make it through this hard time because I have to and I don't want to give up. I feel like a failure for wanting to change families, for crying all the time, for not liking it here.

I am sorry if this post has upset you, but that is how I feel. I have dreamed about coming to Italy for so long and I have worked so hard to come and now I am here and this is how its going. I can only hope things get better and I hear from my rep very soon. I love you all so much and I miss you!!!! I am accepting the fact that you are all in New York, six hours away and I am here. It is hard to think this, but I know I will be coming back and I just need to be strong and believe in myself.
CIao :) Aly

Sorry for not posting pictures here, it takes a while so I will try again in another post.