This Week, a Kid Thew Scissors At Me

Well, another week has passed in Italy and like any other, it has had its ups and downs.

This weekend I went to the Fiorentina game versus Livorno. Strangely enough, the highlight of the day came outside the stadium before the game even started. I was standing in line to buy tickets (because I'm never on top of my stuff enough to do things head of time), and this guy started talking to me in Italian. That's right, for some reason I've continued to trick people into thinking I'm one of them, and I'm always being approached for directions on the street. The last laugh is on them though when they find out I don't know what they're asking and even if I did, I wouldn't know the answer. Anyway, I actually got the gist of what this guy was asking, and I replied. A little later, he asked me another question, and I got that right too. The moral of the story is not only did I boss this guy at his own language (okay not exactly), I also out-knowledged him on Italian stadium procedures, something that he should generally know more about than me. I'm calling it a victory.

Monday I went back to my internship at the elementary school. Overall it's a really good experience, although it continues to be extremely fatiguing. I think the single moment that best illustrates this point is when the teacher stepped out of the classroom for literally ten seconds and two kids pulled out wooden swords and started fighting. It's either that or when a kid actually threw a pair of scissors at me to start class off. But in general the kids are all really sweet - the boys think it's cool that I play soccer and know Italian teams and players, and the girls think I'm scary, but that's okay. Kids give me chocolate after class a lot of the time, which I think means that I'm cool.

Monday also marked the first day of the 5-a-side soccer tournament I'm playing in with my school, which is coed and not super intense, but still pretty fun. When I got to school that morning my coach asked me if I would be the team captain. Cool, right? I was excited. I was also informed that along with the captaincy came certain responsibilities, the first of which was to cut three people from the team to get our roster down to the required ten. Not so cool. It was supposed to be a joint coach/captain kind of decision, but it basically came down to me picking three people who, even though they'd been showing up to practices, weren't going to be able to play in the tournament. Later my coach sent out an email telling the people they were cut, and I think it was obvious that I had a part in the decision. I thought it was kind of weird that I had to do that. Anyway, that was one of the lows of the week. We played two games on Monday - won one and lost the other. Tonight we played another game, which we tied. I play as a striker on our team, which is also kind of weird since I'm used to playing defense. I scored seven goals out of our eight tonight though (while playing more than a lot of other people), and I also hurt a girl on the other team, so, so far my dream of convincing everyone I'm the biggest d-bag at school seems to be coming true.

Cooper