School, Italian Style.

First of all, apologies...this post isn't going to be one of the pretty picture posts, simply because I don't really have photos of school, but I'll give a quick description instead: my school is a fairly large brick building with 4 floors, I am on the 4th floor, but if you were to ask an Italian, I am on the 3rd floor since in Italy, the ground floor is not floor 1, but floor 0. I go to school Monday-Friday from 8-2 with two 15 minute breaks. I don't have school on Saturday, which is very lucky, and the other exchange students are jealous ;). And for those of you in the USA who are about to go down the "no fair" road with the fact that I get out at 2:00 instead of 3:00 or 3:30, just remember that I don't have a lunch break, and I don't really have the whole "5 minute passing period" thing, so I actually have class for almost exactly the same amount of time each week as you do.

In Italian school, the students stay in the same classroom while the teachers change classrooms. Because of this, the classrooms are very plain...in the USA, teachers tend to decorate their rooms according to their subjects or personal preferences, but teachers in Italy don't exactly have a classroom of their own to decorate.

So anyway, I stay in the same classroom all day with the exception of Spanish(we have to move to a bigger room since more students join us for that class), French(I'm not really sure why), Art History(for some reason that teacher has her own room), and PE(that should be obvious). Because of the same classroom thing, I am with the same group of about 22 students all day every day. This is great on one hand because it allows me to get to know the people in my class better, but it also limits the number of people that I meet...people don't really seem to socialize outside of their class at school unless they happen to have a friend in another class, which obviously I do not. I definitely find myself wishing that it was a bit easier to meet a wider swath of people, but I think I will get used it it.
Let's talk a bit about meeting people for a minute here. From the day of my arrival until the day I started school, every day my family mentioned in some way or form that the people in Trieste were not exactly the most outgoing people in the world. Because I had this warning in some way or another constantly, I was expecting the worst on my first day of school, and was absolutely ecstatic when my seatmates said hi and helped me out with some translation as I was utterly confused about everything.

(side note...that is literally my most constant state of being....
"Hi Trula, how are you today?"
" Oh, I'm pretty confused."
"How was yesterday?"
"Yesterday was definitely confusing."
"What are you doing tomorrow?"
"I literally have no idea. I think someone said something about tomorrow, but I'm confused about what they told me.")

Ok! Back to our discussion on meeting people. So I was very happy that the people sitting next to me said hi...it was a great start to the school year (thank you Ana and Sara!!!). Unfortunately, however, while the constant warnings weren't completely true, they weren't completely false either. My limited Italian absolutely has played a large role in some of the difficulty, but it has been proving a whole lot harder than I expected to bridge the gap between the "saying hi and how are you" friendship to the "hangs out, does things, and has actual conversations" friendship. I definitely think that it will get easier as time goes on, my Italian improves, and I spend more time with my class, but it's definitely a shock going from a situation where I know almost everyone and am friends with everyone to a situation where I know nearly no one, and making friends is challenging.
For now my best friends in Italy are the other exchange students, but none of them live in my town. While this is a bit sad, I'm actually very thankful, since it is really forcing me to put all of my effort into making Italian friends. So hey! If you are reading this post and you are one of those Italian friends and you want to get together after school or something, let me know! I would love to hang out!

The actual school part of school is mostly irrelevant for me at the moment since I don't understand anything the teachers are saying. When I am having a slow one-on-one conversation with someone, I can hobble along if they are willing to help me out, but when teachers are rapid-fire lecturing about Italian government systems, it's a lost cause for me. For me to understand anything at all, I have to throw my whole and entire attention at the speaker, and try very hard. This kind of super-active listening is exhausting, and thus I must choose when to pay attention for short burst, and then I must give myself breaks. For most of the subjects, I simply let the Italian wash over me, with short burst of the "active listening", since it is nearly impossible for me to do the school work when I can't understand the lessons. Several things that I have noticed, though:
1) The relationship between Italian students and teachers is much more formal...you stand up when they enter the room, you speak formally to them, and the teachers are just your teachers, not your friends.
2) To dovetail on number 1, school is really just about learning. In the USA, school definitely has a fun element, with dress-up days, special events, homecoming, prom, and the like. However, in Italian school, you go to school to learn, and that's about it.

Overall, though, I don't mind school. The biggest challenge in school(other than making friends) is not falling asleep....it is incredibly difficult to stay alert when you are sitting in one place for 6 hours with two short breaks doing absolutely nothing and understanding absolutely nothing. However, my doodling skills have definitely been getting a workout, which has been fun.

Did I fail to talk about an aspect of Italian school that you wanted to hear about? Is there something else random that you really want to hear about? Let me know in the comments!
Ciao for now!(hehe...that just never gets old ;)