The Countdown Begins-31 Days!

Packing my life into two suitcases is proving to be more challenging than I originally thought! I'm used to going back and forth between home and school so I thought I had gotten pretty good at this whole packing thing but I'm quickly finding out that I'm wrong. I don't know what it is about packing that is so daunting but anytime I start I just get overwhelmed! So far I have only got through preliminary packing of my fall/winter clothes, I've resorted to just leaving the rest strew across my room for now. I still have two and a half weeks till I actually go back home to Texas; I keep telling myself that's plenty of time to finish everything I need to do.

This past weekend I took a break from packing to spend some time with my friends who are finishing up their summers here on campus. My friends who were doing the SURE program, our summer undergrad research experience wrapped up their final week this Friday. To celebrate our friend Patrick, who is interning for the summer with Pumel in NY, came down and we all hung out till the the wee hours of the morning. It's weird knowing that I wont see many of them again till spring semester! Here are some pictures of our night!

This is us on the way to pick up our friend Patrick at the T stop....we didnt really leave room for him in the car..oops!This is Patrick, Sam, and Pat once we got back to Stonehill.

On Saturday afternoon my friend Steff had a BBQ at her house, which was great because I also got to see some of my friends I haven't seen since school got out. The rest of the weekend I spent in New Hampshire. My boyfriends, brother's, girlfriend's family (did you follow that??) has a house up on Silver Lake. I had never been to NH before and it was absolutely beautiful. It was such a relaxing and fun weekend! Getting back to school on Monday came as a reality check of how much I still have to do! While I'm still not even close to being ready to leave, the Umbra-Institute is almost ready for us to arrive. We got our pre-departure handbooks the other day. It is pages and pages of info we need to know before we go like different clubs and activities at Umbra, info on housing, safety info and all sorts of other things we will experience during our time in Perugia! Everyone I'll be spending my semester with arrives in Rome on the 31st of August. From there we take a buss to Perugia and spend the first night meeting everyone over a welcome dinner. The next day we move into our apartments and start our three days of orientation! After that we have a week of intensive Italian before the rest of our classes start, hopefully I'll be speaking Italian in no time. Once regular classes start I'm also taking a History of the Roman Empire class, one on contemporary Italy, a food and culture class, archeology, and Italian. Enjoy the last few weeks of your summer!

Ciao!

Hey everyone thanks for stopping by! My name is Sarah Morales I am getting ready to start my junior year here at Stonehill. It is actually pretty scary knowing I only have four semesters of college left! I love being here today as much as I did the day I visited during my senior year. Stonehill has really become my home away from home…sorry mom and dad! The community here has given me the opportunity to do a lot of different things here on campus. This past year I became a resident assistant which was a roller coaster of fun exciting times and a bit of sheer craziness. This year I also tried my hand at intramural beach volleyball. I played back in my junior high days and wasn’t so bad, but let me tell you that unlike riding a bike it doesn’t just come back to ya. In all honesty I spent a lot more time as a cheerleader than actually playing but it was still a lot of fun. This year I got a taste of traveling abroad when I traveled to Peru as part of our HOPE alternative spring break program. And of course I love being a student ambassador and showing perspective students around campus, I’m sorry I won’t be there this semester to meet a lot of you.

So are you wondering where I am gonna be this semester? I will be studying in Perugia, Italy and hopefully traveling all over Europe! Words cannot describe how excited I am especially because I’m going with, and rooming with one of my friends Sam Ennis. This is us down in Rhode Island a little while ago rocking our Stonehill gear.
If you ask anyone on campus we are pretty much inseparable twins I couldn’t imagine going without her. She keeps reminding me how few days we have until we leave—just over a month. It finally just hit me the other day that I will be missing out on some of my favorite Stonehill activities like Welcome Back Weekend, Mr. Stonehill, the first snow and all that other college stuff you can’t help but love. That’s not to say I’m not wicked excited about Italy!

For those of you who may never have heard of Perugia, it is right in the heart of the country. It is known for being a typical Italian town right in the mountains. I stole some pictures off the school's website so you could check out some of the views!
Not to bad right?!? While I'm at the Umbra-Institute I'll be studying history, food, and of course Italian since I don’t really speak any so well will have to see how that goes. I do know one key phrase though...non capisco!--I don’t understand!