| Hi, I’m Matteo, a 16 years old italian boy. I’m writing this letter to present myself to you. I live in a small city near the sea, in a pretty big flat with my parents, my younger brother and our cat. Also, sometimes we argue, I like spending time with my family. I have a good relation with all my family members. My brother and I get on well apart from rare occasion when we argue for foolish thing, like who can control the TV and things like that. All the other time we play board games and videogames together or I help him with his homework, as I am the oldest. My dad and I are really keen on motorsport, especially Formula 1, so we often see the races together and we also talk about world news and economy. I also have a strong relationship with my mom because we both like cooking and sometimes we prepare food together. We also have a cat, which most of the time stays on his own, but he can also be very cuddly, especially when he is hungry. I describe myself as a extrovert person, also if at the start of a new relation I tend to be shy, and open to encounter new people every day. Two of my weaknesses are my poor thrust on other people work, as I prefer to do everything by myself, and my poor braveness in saying my preferences as I continously search for other people accomodation, without thinking for myself. In my free time I spend lot of time in my hobby, which are watching motorsport, playing waterpolo, spending time with children and volunteer work. I follow motor races since I was 8 years old, and I also went to see some live races in 2017 and 2018, but since 2022 I’ve been focusing more on the tecnical part of motorsport, in particular Formula 1, and now I watch every single qualifing and race session when I can and I’m looking forward to make this passion my work one day. In my free time I also play in a waterpolo team in my area. I fell in love with this sport in 2016, when I saw it being played at the Olympic Games, and since then I’ve been playing it with my teammates, who have become my best friends. I am the captain of this team as I’m the oldest in the team and I’m happy with the result we have reached in this 8 years. The ambient is very pleasent and my teammates have become my second family. My family and I are Christian Catholic and we go to Mass almost every Sunday. As a teenager, I’m in the group of the teenagers of my church. In this group we are all friends and we organise, once a year, a three-week summer camp in June with children from 6 to 12 years old. The other teenagers and I prepare some games and look after children from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. 5 days a week. We are volunteers so we don’t get pay, but we love spending time with children because they are really active and make you give the best part of you. I think that as they learn something from us, we can also learn lots of things from them. In this group of teenagers someone also teach the children the fondamental of our religion to prepare them for the Sacraments and I’m one of these. This is my second year in this role since I started in September 2022 with the 3rdgrade children and I followed them this year, when they are in 4th grade, and I’m preparing them for the First Eucharist, which they are going to receive in May 2024. I love spending time with these, even more the in the summer camp, as we see each other every week on Monday for one hour, so we have a really strong relationship. I also take part in another volunteer assocation responsible for the collection of blood samples, which are then given to hospital for the people in need, from volunteer donators. I help with the collection of donator’s data in the informatic sistem, as I am the youngest in the group and the only one who know how to use a computer. As an Italian, I’m really proud of my origin and my culture. My favourite foods are obviously pasta and pizza, but I also like a tipical Italian dessert, which is called tiramisù, which is made out of eggs, milk and coffee and I found that delicious, as every Italian food. I also love to get in contact with other cultures and I dream about travelling around Europe in the future to achieve this. I mostly go on holiday with my family and we often do amazing jorneuy such as the one we did the last summer to the Western part of the United States, as we visited the most famous national park of the region, for example the Antilope Canyon, the Sequoia Park and the Monument Valley. One of my family favourite tradition is the Christmas lunch the we used to do on the 25th morning with my grandparents, my uncles and my cousin, but nowadays we don’t do that anymore because my grandparents don’t like to spend time at the table anymore and one of my uncle. I’ve been looking forward to this experience since my first year in high school. I always thought that I had to do that as I have only one opportunity to live it. Despite being shy, I always loved go in the unknown because I think it is an amazing way to make new friends and discover more about myself. From this experience I hope to go back home more confident about my spoken English, as I don’t have much occasion to speak in Italy and, when I can, I become nervous and can’t make a full sentence. I also hope to become more independent and mature, because I would like to attend university in another region, so I’ll need to go live alone. I would also like to participate in the Graduation, but that’s not the main focus my experience. I think I said everything about me. I wish you all the best, Matteo |
LETTER FROM Matteo
