Benvenuti!

Hey!! My name is Mia. Well no, actually, it is Maria Elena but my closest friends call me Mia. I am a 23-year-old Mexican-American from Napa, California. I recently graduated from the University of California, Davis where I studied English and Italian. I was unsure what the next phase of my life would be. Would I go to graduate school? Ok, and study what? Would I get a job? Doing what? Since I could not make a final decision on what to do next with my life, I decided to spend some time in Italy. My goal is to teach English for about a year live and breathe the Italian culture and come back completely fluent.

I have been passionate about the Italian culture since Freshmen year of high school, which I believe was in 2001.  My friend Alondra De Haro convinced me to take Italian because her older brother had taken it the year before and told her that it was pretty much like Spanish.  Trying to find an easy A I signed up for Italian.  Who knew that me trying to get an easy A (which it was not by the way) would lead me to chosing Italian for my major in college, that it would take me to an adventure in italy and that it could possibly lead to a future career? Not me.

So, here I am preparing for my adventure in Italy. I will be going to Florence Italy on October 15, 2011. I am getting my TESOL certificate through Via Lingua. I will be blogging about my experience because I do enjoy sharing with others, but mainly it is for me to look back at later. My closest friends will tell you that I have the WORST memory and sadly, I will rely on this blog for some of my memories.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and I look forward to posting about my experience. Look forward to honest, detailed, picture-filled, unorganized, and at times boring posts.