Non my piace Gym....

                Gym, in any country, or language, also means sweat. Now I’m not opposed to sweating, and in fact I do like exercise and being active. But I do not like sweating, putting on clothes while still sweating and then sitting in them through the rest of the school day. Or sweating when I’m in non sweating clothes( you know not work out clothes).  Now this is not why I don’t like gym…. It’s a main fact about me that ties into the reason why I totally disagree with having gym second period of the day. Though is was a nice breaking from sitting in class for three hours straight and did make the day go by faster.

                So we went to gym, or I should say my class went to gym, since classes literally rotate together here. And the teachers comes to us. So I guess you could say it’s not the teachers classroom, it’s class 4D’s classroom. (I feel like I should have t-shirts made and be proud over that fact...)

                But we went into the changing rooms, the girls and guys right across from each other and their wasn’t a superiser sitting out in the hall way thinking at any moment us teenagers weren’t going to fly into the opposite room and start doing everything inappropriate under the sun. It’s so great to be treated like the young adult  I know I am ,inside and outside of school. Seriously.

                Because I had been in athletics before the thought of stripping practically naked in front of strangerz no longer phased me. Though I will admit I won’t ever go streaking I’m way to body conscious especially in Italy when every corner you turn you run into some leggy skinny woman dressed to the nines. Most of my classmates, boys and girls, could quit possibly make Abercrombie models look like they sprouted from the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. No joke.

                So we changed, hiked some more stairs (their all over Italy. It’s why everyone has killer legs. If I don’t have a pair by the time I get back I want a refund…J) And ended up in this small gym.

                At first the teacher had us warm up you know run a  few laps and a few other exercises, thought not any flat out on the floor stretching. I was proud of myself, apparently my twenty minute hike to and from school is helping me get into shape because when a few of the other girls were huffing, I was surprisingly not killing over wondering why I left my inhaler in the States.

                During this time I started talking to a few of the girls from the beach that first day that were in my class. I kind of wondered if it would be one of those “your so cool” thing outside of school and then after the initial meeting and being around me everyday they would be like “whatever” because besides one of the guys always saying “ciao” and an occasional, if I did first, smile they hadn’t really said anything more to me.

                Our warm up stretched were stopped when the teacher say dirt on the floor, she apperantly is very picky about that and checked all of ours shoes, after giving us a lecture. I never knew who the culprit was, but the whole class kind of rolled their eyes at her. I had a feeling that “coach” attitude many atheletic teachers possessed was an international thing as well… so I understood having my share of those coaches.

                Then came to the gym part. She had us line up in a line and had four low hurdles set up, two high hurdles, a cone and then these wooden juggling pins set up side down. It was a snaked obstacle course and I was sitting there thinking gym in Italy is so easy.

                And then the coach brings out the tennis balls. She wants us to jogged through the hurdles throwing the ball between our hands, dribbling it (yes a tennis ball on this foam, impact this asorbent floor), we had to dribble to the high hurdles jump up and throw the ball and catch it as we landed. Then we had to dribble it to the pins and dribbling it through there like you would a basketball. Through it over the volleyball net as we ducked under and catch it on the other side.

                Now for some of you, you might think this is easy. But not for me. Like I said before I can be athletic. I’ve done many sports, but I’m not one of those girls that if you put any type of sports equipment in my hand I’ll immedinatly become a start at it. And the most important fact for this blog is I have no hand coordination at all when it comes to balls. Hence why every sport I’ve ever played has involed feet, no throwing or the simple swinging of a golf club. And why when I played little league baseball they stuck in the outfield.

                Most of my class goes in front of me, many of the girls are dropping the balls, the boys are showing off and having fun. It gets to my turn. I nearly fall over the hurdle and land on the others trying to just make sure I catch the ball in my hand that five inches away. She makes me start over. After about five tries she tell me to move onto the high hurdles. I picked up the dropped tennis ball and attempt to dribbling it to the hurdles. Yeah that doesn’t work.

                So I get to the high hurdles. Never being one for much vertical height I kind of over jumped the first hurdle and threw the ball in the opposite direction. Oops. So  nail the second one after one of my class mates hands me the ball and attempts not to laugh. I dribble the ball to the bowling pins. And as the coach is literally breathing down my neck I can’t dribble the stupid yellow ball to save my life. So I say the one thing that every kid jokes about when your handed a basketball and can’t dribble to save your life. “White kids don’t play basketball!”

                My coach not realizing I was talking to myself nor understanding me agrees fully. My ball went flying across the gym because it hit a pin when I jerkily hit it on the up bound as I busted out laughing….

                She made me start over.

                So it was disastrous but not over yet. She got rid of the hurdles fixed the juggling pins set out more cones and brought out a medium height balance beams. Now I can do balance beams. For someone who is always tripping over their own feet I have an amazing sense of balance on these things and could probably skip across one without blinking an eye.

                But not with a tennis ball….

                 I nearly fall off and break my neck. Luckily my quick reflexes save me, I think it was more to keep me from embarrassing myself in front of my classmates anymore than I already had than the sense of self preservation.  So I make it across the balance beam, dignity still partially in tack and make it ot the cones. We have to “bowl” the tennis ball though the foot wide set area between the bowling pins. I suck at bowling, I get gutter balls ever with the lane lines in… seriously.

                So of course I miss. I try again. Miss. Finally in the midst of flying tennis balls and the teacher turning her back I tan back into the line.

                We had to do it a second time. Except this time instead of throwing the tennis ball up and catching it as we walked across the balance we had to throw it back and forth between out hands. I did it, until the last three feet I was watching for the end so I would falling off and miss catching the ball in my hand.

                I got to the bowling part again and this time you had to lay on your stomach and roll the ball across the gym through the set area. I don’t know if it was my background in gold, or having shoot guns before so I kind of knew how to aim or if God finally decided he had his fill of Paige humour for the day and sprinkled down some good luck. But the first time for the next three times I did this the ball not only went seamlessly through but sometimes I read the curve of the floor or nitch and the ball would curve straight through the targets. All the while my classmates balls are missing repeatedly.  It was my sense of pride in gym and my redeeming moment I should say.

                So gym was over we went to change, suprisnly it was not rushed like you would think, and there aren’t that many girls, in fact I didn’t realize it until today but there are definitely more boys in the classroom. So it wasn’t crowded at all.

                I put my folded cloths back in my bag (I have formed a bit of OCD since being here when it comes to organization and cleanliness of things… I’m sure my parents will be so please.) and head out of the changing room with the other girls.

                On the way back up the stairs they tell me across the street they have a “camp”. (think, track soccer field complex thing some small high schools have so everything is in one field). And that usually they play soccer. I mentioned I loved soccer, I secretly think all the boys that heard me cringed. And one of the girls informed that the girls play volleyball while the guys play soccer.

                So I’ll probably come back a volleyball pro, and I might just have to dust off my goalie skills and show these Italians boys that Texan girls don’t mind getting dirty when it comes to sports and that were not all completely uncoordinated.

                Gym was a nice break and fanning myself to get my red face back to a normal color took my attention for thirty minutes of philosophy while the teacher was lecturing. And then came our mid morning break. Usually I went out with the two girls sitting beside me who befriended me the first day.

                But today the girl from gym(and the beach) asked me if I wanted to go with them. I didn’t want to blow the other two girls off who were so kind to take on the lost and wide eyed American girl in the first place. But these girls were also friends with my host sister who was in Texas and my host sister had nothing but nice things so about them. And they were nice girls, but the whole not acting like I’m there thing kind of soured my outlook on them. But after gym and them being nice and actually helping me I thought my host sister was kind enough and smart enough she wouldn’t be friend with such hypocritical people. So I said yes and joined them. I’m glad I’m did because they were very nice and one of the girls form the beach upon seeing me actually gave me a cheek kiss. I think I grinned and yes blushed because I knew they only did this to true friends, and well it was still of kind of awkward.

                So they were very nice and I asked me if I had an Italian teacher. I told them no and that my host mother was helping me as I taught myself and often my host sister helped as well. Though she usually laughed and it ended up with us eating chocolate as she fixed my Italian pronunciations. When I told them this they both laughed.

                They also asked me why I didn’t eat. Because usually kids at least eat crackers if not a foccicia sandwich and maybe a small box of fruit juice. Well at eleven in the morning after eating three pieces of amazing bread each morning (small pieces) with strawberry jam, I wasn’t usually hungry and with school eating at 1 and eating around 1:30 the amazing lunch Toni always has ready for me, I know that if get a bit puckish I won’t go starving soon.  So I told them I just wasn’t hungry. They looked at me weird and even said. “Well that’s good”. I just laughed. (I did a lot of that today). They tried out English idioms or I should say American Idioms in there conversation and got so excited when they got it right. Much like I did when I said something right in Italian. I think having them as friends and spending the break time with them will be a good way to help me on my to Italian. Because right now it’s like my brains rebelling all of it. The more I try to learn, the more it pushes out. But none the less a usually boring, foot dragging, mind numbing school day was turning out to be great.

                But I did have chemistry. Yeah…. Yeah remember the wood stock teacher. Well she gave me an assignment of doing the conversion chart. Well she asked me five times if it was correct to each time I answered yes… (Because I wouldn’t be using it in the first place. It’s not like the metric symbols she was writing on the board would be foreign to me. And I double checked the calculations.) So then she wanted it bigger so she could hang up on he wall. I tried to explain to her that that wouldn’t be necessary. I only needed to the small right corner of the chart which was the words translated…. And I that the rest of the class didn’t need to be staring at my horrendous hand writing. Though compared to how everyone writes here my handwriting could possibly be considered calligraphy… no joke.

                So I’m sure when she ask for the big chart I’ll explain that the chart isn’t necessary and she can just let me keep my small one. Because for one thing I may not be in that class once the school get my set in stone timetable figured out. And if she wants a chart wait until my parents ship me my chemistry quaderno I asked for… she’ll be mine blown… and possible want to copy and translate the whole thing at how amazing the notes are. (Thank you Ms. Jones J  you were an awesome chemistry teacher).

                So besides her still being slightly dull it seems, the rest of the day went good.

                I guess you could say that you have bad days, and good days and then you have those rare days that are amazing and you smile your way through them… yeah today was one of those days.



Oh and I forgot to add that the friends I weren't sure about, turned out are really great , funny, and sweet people. I guess it's one of those things  were they were as unsure of me as I was of them things....