juliam's blog

I love the Olympics. The summer Olympics that is, I'm not a huge fan of the winter Olympics. So as you can imagine I have been glued to my TV for the past two weeks catching every event that I can! My favorite event is swimming, because I've been swimming competitively since I was about 6 years old. I've been a Michael Phelps fan since Athens, and I am so happy that he can now call himself the most decorated Olympian in history. What an honor. Kind of bummed that Ryan Lochte didn't really shine this time. But there is always Rio!

Well I think the title says it all! This week was insane. It was the last week of my internship, which was really sad because the two people I work with both went back to Italy today. But on top of that, someone got fired at my other job so I had to pick up an insane amount of shifts! I guess that is good and all, since I'm getting paid, but I'm having a hard time remembering when I didn't smell constantly of chlorine! Tonight was also my friend's 21st birthday.

Well, this week I am back at my internship in Boston. It's definitely strange though, since my supervisor is on vacation until my last day. Needless to say there is not much work to do, which is fine by me! This past weekend I went down to Long Island to see my friend who just graduated from CU Boulder. Since I was abroad last semester, I haven't seen him since December, so it was really nice to finally get to see him! It was a really relaxing weekend, and we just hung out by the pool and made some delicious Italian food (he was an Italian major) and hung out.

So many applications, so little time! I just finished my Virtual Student Foreign Service eInternship application (finally). This is the second year I'm applying, and hopefully I'll get it again! Last year I was assigned to make YouTube videos in Italian conveying certain aspects of American life and culture. I made a few videos, and even one about CU Boulder! My Italian friends loved it, and some of them are planning to visit! This year I applied to work more in Spanish, mainly with USAID or the American Embassy in Mexico.

Well, this week went by very slowly. And nothing much happened, to be honest! This week and next week I am working only at the pool, which is a lot of fun and a nice break from the office environment. My brother is a councelor at the camp that I work at too, and it's really fun to see how he interacts with the kids. Plus, the kids always love how similar we look and they think it's really cool that we work together. At camp it was "Holiday Week", which meant that every day we celebrated a different holiday, like St. Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day, and our birthdays.

Well I finally started working my second job. I still work my internship in Boston from 8-2, and then I work my second job from 4-8. It gets pretty crazy, especially with so many tourists around Boston. Definitely makes the commute a bit slower! But it's a nice change of pace. I go from a strict office setting to teaching children swimming lessons. Total 180! But I enjoy both. The other interns and I were invited to a dinner at an advisor's house, and it was really fun. Delicious Italian food and great company...and no talk of work which was even better!

Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay in posting, these past two weeks have been crazy. I started my internship, and it's really fun! I get to speak Italian all day and meet some pretty powerful people in the Italian government, and work on how to teach Italian to children. I also just finished working on the Italian Culture Week, which I actually help organize every year at CU Boulder! It's such a fun week, and Professor Torriani does such an amazing job putting it on every year. I can't wait for this year, the theme is awesome!

This past week as been pretty laid back, but pretty interesting at the same time. My brother had his college orientation over the weekend. Sadly he will not be becoming a Buff like I had hoped (he wants to stay close to home), but a Wheaton Lyon! I'm so proud of him! It was interesting hearing about his orientation and then thinking all he way back to mine. Hard to think that it was only three summers ago, but it already seems so long ago. I think the funniest part about my orientation was sitting next to a boy that I would end up hanging out with for majority of my freshman year.

Well, I've been home for about a week. It's crazy to think that I got home only a week ago, but it already seems like months ago. The weather has been so cold and rainy that it's making it even tougher to not be on the tropical beaches of Alicante! I miss my host family a lot, and my Spanish friends. But it's been fun to be reunited with my friends and family here. 

Sorry for the lack of post last week! It was a very sad and somewhat stressful couple of days. The lower two programs left on Saturday, and on Friday we had our catamaran adventure! It was amazing. Wonderful day (really hot too, up to 90 degrees!) and really good food. They even stopped the catamaran in the middle of the Bay of Alicante and let us jump off the swim! It was pretty cool looking at the entire city of Alicante from the water. Picture time!