Half-full or half-empty?

Today marks the exact halfway point of my semester abroad. If you look to the left, you'll see that I have two countdowns on my page: one for how long we have been here, and one for how long until it's time to head home. Today, they say "I've been gallivanting across Europe for 1 month & 3 weeks" and "1 month & 3 weeks til home sweet home :)".

So, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Do I think the glass is half-full or half-empty? Weeelll.. neither. This halfway mark is just a fact. [Side note: My answer to the half-full or half-empty question has always been "Well.. both. Two halves make a whole, so the glass must be both half-full and half-empty." Duh. ;) ] I've kind of gotten really used to just being here, and the whole excited "Oh my gosh, I'm in Italy!" feeling has kind of worn off, especially since I've spent the last couple of weekends just being a bum here in Alba. I've had to keep reminding myself how blessed and lucky I am to be here, because I don't want to lose that sense of appreciation for the experiences I get to have here.

I think the pace that time has been taking so far this semester has been perfect. Looking back, it does seem like time has kind of flown by, but I don't feel like I've been robbed of enjoying any of that time. I also don't really feel like I'm not ready for the semester to end, or like the end is sneaking up on me or anything (this may change as time goes on) - I'm not despairingly missing home right now, but as I've said before, I feel like I'll be quite ready and happy to go home when it comes time. :) I will definitely enjoy seeing my family & friends again (celebrating Christmastime together!! :D), sleeping in my own bed, lounging in hoodies & sweatpants, getting to eat a greater variety of foods again (Mom's cooking, Chipotle, salad bar at Ruby Tuesday's, Teariffic, Mom's cooking, Salsa's, etc.. :P ), and just being back home.

In the meantime, I'm still very much looking forward to the adventures that still await me during the remaining 7 weeks I have here. The rest of this week is going to be pretty chill - today was our longest day, with our 3-hour morning religion class, an Italian test, and 2-hour musicology class. Tomorrow we've got an all-day (translate: no classes!) excursion to Turin for our film class - we're getting a tour of RAI Studios, a film production company, in the morning and then checking out the Cinema Museum in the afternoon. Thursday we still have 3 hours of the religion class, but it's so interesting that I don't view it as a negative thing at all. We also have our Italian class in the afternoon, but we'll just be spending that hour going over the test we took today. I honestly feel like I did pretty well, but we've all experienced that our grades are generally lower than our expectations, so we'll see. I've managed to do pretty well on the last two tests, so I'm not really all that worried.

After classes are over on Thursday, we're on our Fall Break! Ten full glorious days off to do whatever we please. I think all of us are travelling, some more than others. One group of girls is hitting up 3 other countries - Spain, France, & Ireland! Crazy crazy. I don't think I'll be making it out of Italy this semester, but that's completely fine. Italy is the main European country that I've always really really wanted to see, so I guess I picked the right program. ;)