Second Day of School and a day in Vicenza

So last night, after I had written yesterday’s blog post, I went to calcio practice again with Osvaldo. But this time something really exciting happened. I know that none of you will believe me, but I scored a goal during a scrimmage, while playing defense. Yup, I took the ball away from someone on the other team, dribbled through the midfield, refused to pass the ball to our team’s star player (because I knew he would not give it back), juked out one of their defenders, and tapped the ball gently into the goal. It felt good. But after that, I just played defense. I did not want the Italians to think that a foreigner was better than them at their own sport.


Now, back to today. It was the second day of school, and I picked up on a few other noticeably different elements that they have here and not in the United States. I found out that in Italian high schools, all grades are 100% subjective. A teacher can, and is encouraged by the school administration, to give a student whatever grade he or she deems appropriate. Even in subjects such as math and physics, where you would think that the answers would be all objective and either right or wrong, at the end of each term, the professor can choose what grade to give. According to everybody I have talked to so far, due to this system, most students are content with average grades, seeing as teachers rarely give out nines and tens. Oh, the grading system here is out of 10, as opposed to the American 100. Apparently I should be happy if I get an eight in any of my classes, save English, which I think I might be able to ace. Just how this grading system would be detrimental to me in the United States, here I get to see the other side of the coin. Since the teachers can give me whatever grade they please, I hope that I will be able to achieve good grades if they see that I am making an effort, even if I get questions wrong. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Another notable difference is that regarding substitute teachers. Believe it or not, today, only the second day of school, one of our teachers was absent. I started off the day with physics, which is the same teacher as my math class which I had yesterday. Apparently this also is purely theoretical, as we do zero written work, and the professor just demonstrates a pendulum’s trajectory using his hands. They weren’t kidding when they told me about these Italians! After that I had art history, which was actually better than I expected. The teacher is a very nice lady and apparently this class is just an excuse for field trips. If I understand correctly, as part of the class we will spend at least one day in Venice (though probably more) studying various art pieces there, we will ride bicycles in and around Vicenza studying the architectural works of Andrea Palladio (which seems to be this city’s favorite person of all time), as well as various other possible excursions. That doesn’t sound too bad to me. After an hour of art, the physical education teacher came up to the classroom. Although we will have to dress out for PE, today she was just going over rules and expectations. From what she said, we will be spending the first semester doing mainly running. I was not too happy to hear this because I am not particularly a fan of running around a track. Then she said that she had changed the location for this year’s running section. “What?” I thought to myself, “How do you change the location for running if all this school has is a gym (It is in the middle of downtown Vicenza, so it has no athletic fields).” She said that instead of running in one of Vicenza’s parks, we were going to switch to another, larger one. That seems like a pretty nice place for PE if you ask me. She later went on to explain that in the second semester we would be training for tournaments. I asked the boy that sits next to me what she meant by that, and he explained. Liceo Lioy does not have any Varsity sports, as in American schools, but it does have an all-school tournament series. Apparently, each class composes a team for table tennis, calcetto (literally “mini soccer”), basketball, volleyball, and a new addition for this year – dodge ball. In this intramural tournament, the champion class from Liceo Lioy then goes on to a city-wide tournament against other schools with similar tournaments. Sounds like fun to me.

Anyways, back to substitute teachers. There are none. After PE and a short break, we were scheduled to have chemistry. The teacher did not show up, so the class continued in its usual state of chaos. Some of the boys started to play an interesting card game which I hope to learn (I suppose that this happens quite often because they did this as if it were routine), some girls went back and re-read their notes, and some of the others were just talking. After about fifteen minutes without the teacher arriving, the class president (a student) told us we could all go home. This was odd to me because our class was scheduled for an extra hour after chemistry today – Latin. I guess that was irrelevant because we all left the room and went home. Well about half of the class went home. The other half, including myself, waited around in Piazza San Lorenzo until, 45 minutes later, the rest of the school came out of the building. No complaints with their way of handling this. I then met up with Osvaldo and we walked around Vicenza for a while. We went to have lunch, at McDonald’s to my dismay. I was hoping for something Italian, or even a Doner Kebab, but he wanted Mickey D’s so that is where we went. We then continued our walk through Vicenza, which is actually quite beautiful. We then had a gelato (the first of my exchange), and made our way to la Questura, or the Federal Police. We went to meet Oscar there in order to finish the paperwork for my permesso di soggiorno (extended stay permit). We waited there for almost an hour and finally, when we got to the front of the line, the man looked at my passport and told me that I needed to go to the post office to fill out a packet there and then mail it back to him, at which point he would call to schedule an appointment. Ah, how I love Italian bureaucracy. Oscar then took us to the post office, where we purchased the packet to then take home to fill out (it is way too long to fill out then and there). Osvaldo and I then continued our tour of Vicenza, which I am proud to say I could now navigate like a local. We visited all the main piazzas and also the gardens where I will spend my time running during PE – they are much nicer than a track around a football field. We then went to buy our bus tickets back home. The ride back was nice, but unfortunately the bus leaves us in Debba, a town at the bottom of the hill where the house is, and about a 35 minute walk up a steep road. But it’s all good. I also bought my school supplies today. One euro per notebook! And I have eleven subjects! At least I think Rotary reimburses me for that.

I am really sorry that there haven't been any pictures with these past two blog posts. I had actually taken pictures of my school and Vicenza for this one, but my camera is in my host father's car and he eating out and supposedly will not return until very late. I will try and post the pictures tomorrow early in the morning. Sorry about that.