Welp, I gave a speech....

So last night was the end of the year dinner. We all got all dressed up, girls in dresses and heels, boys in suits (for the most part...)
Club SoLo had a pensione pre dinner party up on our rooftop terrace. We took pictures and hung out for a while before all walking over to dinner together. The restaurant was huge, and gorgeous. All 150 of us basically took over the entire restaurant. We sat, had bottomless wine, and ate our hearts out. We had a salad with tuna, awesome penne pasta with eggplant/tomato sauce, and then potatoes, veggies, and cream puffs for desert. We all walked around from table to table, socializing, saying hi to friends, etc. At one point, Dr. Burke (Dean) got up and made a speech, it was awesome, of course, he is an amazing guy. He talked for a while, had half of us tearing up, and got a standing ovation when he was done talking. Then the speeches began. He first called the president of the students, Spencer to say something. Next, he called on Laura. Laura's GIF history is long and complicated, but he said that her strength was one to be proud of. She said a few words, got teary-eyed (which is shocking for Kuss) and everyone cheered for her. From there, a bunch of students got up and said things. A lot of year kids said things, the ones who are really active in activities, etc. Brooks said a few things, so did Garrett, Ralph, Justin, Sean, Mia, Ari, etc. Anywho, there werent many semester kids talking, and even less who were not from Gonzaga. Shelly, a member of the Student Life staff came up to me and asked me to say something. So of course I took the mic, not hard to get me to say what I feel on a microphone to a hundred people. Not lying, I had had a few glasses of wine...but all went well. The gist of it was like this...
'I came here from a different school only knowing two people. It was a scary plunge to take at first, but one I was willing to dive right into. I knew girls from LMU, but decided to live with a random. It was the best decision I ever made, and my roommate has had a huge impact on my life here abroad. She is sick and not here, so shout out to Rooms! (Then a bunch of people screamed for Rooms shout out). I continued on talking about how amazing it was to come to a brand new place, with complete strangers, and in less than a few days, feel as though I had found 100 new best friends. I thanked the entire group for welcoming me with such loving arms and giving me the happiest semester of my life. Apparently I was quite poetic about it. I was holding my glass of wine - Kuss called me out on that mid way through, causing another applause... I decided to keep it fairly short and sweet so I signed off with a "We all know I could talk for days, so Im gunna wrap it up..." (getting me plenty of laughs since we all know I can talk for days to anyone) I wrapped it up with the quote I left you guys with yesterday. I told them there was a song by the Fruit Bats that had a line that says "We wont loose the beat if we just keep clapping our hands....(then said) The way I interpret that line is that, although we will be hundreds of miles apart, keep in touch, because these friendships and experiences dont have to end here. Ciao."
I got a standing O, haha, not sure why. Maybe because I was so overly poetic about it. Of course I would end with a quote, I would do that. A lot of it is a blur simply because whenever something like that happens you dont realize it till its over; that happens to me with dance shows all the time, or when I give speeches in class. Ill be like, wow that came out better than I thought it would, cool.
Anywho, when I walked back to my seat one of Elizabeth's (roomie) best friends stopped me, she was crying. She told me that what I said about Elizabeth was so amazingly sweet, and that if had Elizabeth been there it would have meant a lot to her. Today when we woke up, Elizabeth had already heard about it and came and gave me a hug. Another few people came up to me and said they loved what I had to say. I was really shocked to be honest just because I was one of the only two spring semester kids to get up. But hey, glad it went well considering I had a glass of wine in my hand :)
Shelly got on the mic afterwards and said it was a testament to the amazing kids in the program, because before a few days ago, Shelly had no idea that I didnt go to Gonzaga. Thats the beauty of the program. Everyone here meshes so well. There really is no divide, its amazing.
After everyone spoke everyone was basically near tears and we all got up and hugged, took pictures on the main floor area. Yannick and I danced a bit to the music playing (he is the only boy here who knows how to actually dance and lead well! And Im pretty good at following thanks to my Dad and Grandpa for teaching me)
Afterwards we went to a bar called Slowly for Amanda Ito's birthday. We got the whole second floor to ourselves because there were about 50 of us who went. After that we went to the shot cafe for a bit before turning home.

For philosophy today Horvath took us to the San Marco Monastery. It was awesome, the school paid for our entry in, and Horvath took us all around it. She of course knew every little thing about every aspect of it and gave us a complete tour full of information. She continues to boggle my mind with the amount of knowledge she has.
After that, In Italian, Russo didnt make me participate. I have lost my voice, almost completely, so she was sweet and said if I felt like contributing more I could, or to whisper and have Yannick repeat it for me. I hate not participating, of course, so I mostly whispered to Yannick so I could still be apart of the class.
Headed to painting now. Wish luck.
Ciao