Best Weekend EVER!

May 15

Friday!  Okay, so I’m actually writing this today (Tuesday the 18^th) but since I was gone this whole weekend I haven’t had time to do my postings.  So Friday I was running late because I was trying to pack for the weekend.  I ran out the door jumped on my bike and pedaled as fast as I could.  On Fridays I only have three classes.  The first class was the 2^nd class and they had a test that day.  Grrr!  So as soon as I walked in I just went right up to the front of the class and sad down on top of one of the desks so I could see everyone.  Even before Professor Monaci started passing out the test I could already spot students getting their little cheat sheets ready and placing their backpacks open in a certain way with a book open inside.  Everyone looked at me like, “Are you really going to watch us the whole time?”  And I did!!  I just sat there and “surveyed” the whole classroom.  I kept scanning back and forth the whole time.  Those little monsters are really good too…but I was always one second ahead of them.  I felt like I was playing that old Nintendo game where you had to shoot the ducks before they flew away.  At they beginning the little monsters were surprised that I was watching them but when they tried something I asked them to be quiet or put their papers down flat on the desk or keep their eyes on their own work.  There was this one girl in the back who just looked at me with so much spite so I just mad-dogged her until she looked down. 

I feel so sad for these children.   I wanted to tell them that its not so much a test of their knowledge and preparation but also a test of their integrity.  I felt like I wanted to respect them but its so hard to respect someone who isn’t honest.  It would be so hard to be a teacher who cares because it requires a whole lot of patience and faith that God will take care of them, as they grow older.  When the test was over they waited until I left the room for a second before they started complaining at the Professor about how much of a psychopath I was for watching them like a hawk the whole time.  Its like they don’t get what they’re doing wrong!  What is wrong with these kids?!!  Afterwards I was talking to Professor Monaci about it and how I can’t believe they were that way and the topic about discipline came up.  Professor M. said that he is against military type rule and discipline.  He thinks that even in school if kids are always obedient its like their little robots who let themselves get controlled by their authorities.  Wow, this place never ceases to amaze me.  Not even for a second.  I am all for discipline but I think that along with discipline you need to teach correct principles and teach them the reason behind obedience and integrity.  So I’m thinking I’m not going to help proctor the tests that much anymore, or at least that closely.

The next class was the other section of the 2^nd class.  They got their tests back that they took last week and Professor M. looked over it with them and made sure they all understood the answers and their mistakes.    The little monster that I had caught cheating with the cheat sheet got an F and I’m so happy!!!  I think he should have gotten a 0 on it but at least he failed as he should have. 

The next class was the 5^th class.  The two students that I stayed after and helped the day before had their interrogations and I think they did well.  The girl, Barbara did good but she was a bit nervous and she was a little slow.  The other one, they call him Poffy, he used really good vocabulary but he stumbled a bit over the pronunciation I think because of his nervousness.  Time ran out so they didn’t get to finish but they’ll finish on Monday.

After I got out of school I jumped on the bike and hurried to the train station because I only had 20 minutes to get there.  But of course, I got lost.  I didn’t turn the right way on one of the round abouts so I ended up way out in the middle of no where.  I backtracked and pedaled super fast.  I found the right way, got to the train station and got on the train with Hillary right before the train left.  I’m such a dork!  So we were off!!!  It took us about 8 hours or so to get down to Salerno where we planned to stay for the night.  The train ride was FOREVER and I was going crazy towards the end.   We switched train 3 different times. We met some interesting people along the way.  There were these two guys who were police men in Florence but where on the way home to Rome for the weekend.  They were really funny because they tried to speak English to us and it was pretty bad.  When we got to the train station in Salerno it was dark and we were a little lost finding the Hostel but this nice lady helped us and even showed us the way because her house was on the way.  We were surprised at how nice she was and she didn’t look like a psycho so we felt somewhat safe.  The hostel was ok  There were some other girls in our room from New York and an Asian boy from China, I think.  It wasn’t super clean but it was cheap so we just got ready for bed and got some sleep.