Ciao hair!

This morning I was going to take the bus to school, but I missed it and had to walk to school.  It ended up making me a few minutes later than I would have been and Lilla was waiting in the hallway for me.  The door to the classroom was closed and there were two students sitting out in the hallway.  I found this a bit odd and became more nervous about what awaited me inside.  However, I opened the door to find that there was party food on the table and the students were eating popcorn, etc.  My first thought was, "and Virginia said that school is not a picnic!?!?!?!?"  Lilla was able to make them sit down and talk to me for a few minutes.  After seeing all of the Starbucks- gay marriage stuff explode on my facebook, I decided to expand upon our previous conversation.  So, I told them about Starbucks and Chick-fil-A and asked their opinions about these CEO type people giving their opinion and such.  One boy was really insightful and was talking about how they have the right to speak their mind (First Amendment right and all), but as a leader of a company they might want to be more careful with taking sides on certain things.  Anyway, it was a really interesting 5 or 6 minutes of conversation with them, and then all hope was lost.  From there they started serving their cakes, sweets, etc. that they had brought from home for their "day before the day before Easter holidays" party (their description, not mine).  They were taking pictures and wanted a picture with me:

last morning of long hair...and it's up...time for a cut

With the first year classes we did two more biographies of famous women.  The first group was doing Hellen Keller.  Again, they had just memorized the information, and so I was trying to help them understand why she was important and why she was so special.  I was describing to them that she was deaf, blind, and mute.  I was asking them questions about how they thought they would communicate if this were them.  I had them close their eyes, plug their ears, and shut their mouths.  Then, when I got their attention again, I asked how they thought they would be able to communicate with the world if this was their situation.  I asked the Hellen Keller group how she did it, and of course they had no idea because they had just memorized the information.  I began describing to them how she learned to use sign language in the hand of another person, etc.  I talked to them about water being her first word.  I was asking them if they thought it would be frustrating or difficult to communicate this way...we were having a GREAT conversation when Lilla interrupted me with, "they've been learning about food. Elyse, ask them about food!"  Ummm...ooooohhhhkkkaaayyyy....She looked confused when I said, "umm, what did they learn about it?" SHe then handed out some piece of paper and wanted me to ask questions.  It was just basic food vocabulary, and totally off subject from what we had been discussing.  So then I turned this into a, "what do you think Americans eat?" lesson.  Of course I got the standard first answers of, "hamburgers, hotdogs, cheesecake, waffles, muffins, bacon, etc."  They did name some healthier foods, and I was rather proud of them for coming up with healthy things too!  However, we then had a come to Jesus about the fact that Americans do NOT just eat junk food, fast food, hamburgers, hotdogs, etc.  THen I asked them waht they thought Americans ate for breakfast, and I did you not, a kid said, "HOTDOGS!!"  Now, Nick had some students say this the other day, but I thought it was a rare case...I was severely disappointed when this student said it.  I was appalled actually!  So, we then discussed how we do NOT eat them for breakfast, and while we were ate it we discussed the fact that Americans do not eat all of the "typical" American breakfast foods in one breakfast or every day!  I was so saddened by the fact that they have such rigid stereotypes that they are not willing to let go of, but expect others to reject the stereotypes of Italians!  New mission for my time here:  MAKE THE ITALIANS UNDERSTAND THAT AMERICANS EAT MORE THAN MCDONALD'S AND FAST FOOD!!!!!!!!! So frustrating and annoying! 

American breakfast according to them

During my break I talked to Nick and we exchanged stories of how our days were going.

Francesca's class was not so bad.  They had not done the assignment I had given them of writing about 5 things that they would want in their ideal school, and I had not come with a plan because I counted on them doing the homework.  So instead Francesca had one boy go up to the board and they had to talk through certain aspects of British schools and then tell what it was in an Italian school, and then they had to ask me about the equivalent in the American schools.  This was also an opportunity for me to turn some of the questions on them and see if they were paying attention when I did the lessons about it.  They did remember, and I was proud!  Apparently Francesca had given them homework to draw a school crest and write a motto for their ideal school.  They had actually done this assignment, and so she had some of them come up to the board and draw them and then we translated their mottos.  Overall it went really well!

I was getting nervous at this point, because today was the day that I was going to get my hair cut. I was supposed to meet one of my students from the school in Cosenza to go to the place.  When I got to the school, B. said that S. was not there and had gone home.  I was thoroughly confused, but B. said that she could go with me to the hair place after 4 if I wanted to wait.  I had already eaten a makeshift lunch, so I decided to just go sit in the teachers room and work on some things for lesson plans and wait for B. to finish her afternoon classes.  I worked on some NYC maps for an activity I will do in a few weeks with the students, and then S. called to say she was outside and could take me to the hair place.  There were like 5 of my girls from Valeria's class waiting to walk with me.  When we walked into the hair place it was like I had an entourage.  The girls wanted to see the pictures I had chosen from the past, and they like the one with my longer hair, so we decided to show him that one.  S. made sure that he understood what I wanted, and then they had to go to their afternoon classes.  I had to wait a little bit before it was my turn to get my hair washed, but they talked to me in Italian some, and it was fun!

When it was my turn, I thoroughly enjoyed having my hair washed.  It was like a 10 minute ordeal and when the sink was hurting my neck, they had this foam cushion thing that fit on the sink and it was ah-mazing!  While I was getting my hair washed, in really warm water...thank goodness, this other lady came in and they all started talking about hair coloring and touching my head and for about 2 minutes I was afraid that they had decided to color MY hair...heart was RACING!!

Once this was over with, I had to wait on my guy to eat lunch and smoke a cigarette....buonasera tutti!  However, he then came over and started separating my hair to cut it in layers.  I have never had this done, but once he started cutting it made sense.

Bye bye long hair

He checked with me to make sure it was okay, and I had him cut it a bit shorter...if I was going to do this, I was going to get my money's worth out of it.  The only time I thought I was going to throw up was when he cut the shortest layer and it looked like he was going to cut bangs...I was getting close to saying, "noooo not any shorter!!!", when he finally stopped cutting.  Then he shaped it up and took about 40 minutes to blow dry it...all together this process was about 2 hours, for something that usually takes about 40 minutes.  They had also offered me coffee and such a few times, and I finally took them up on some tea!  Soooo Italian and so wonderful!  I had a great time and loved the experience!   It also only cost me 20 euros which comes out to be MUCH cheaper than my haircut in the U.S.  I was really happy with the haircut.  I also really enjoyed listening to all of the Italian around me, and watching the families come in and out.  The man cutting my hair had his family come in at one point and his niece came up to kiss and hug on him!  So sweet!  Then a friend of his came in and when they told him I was American, he started speaking to me in fluent English!  He had studied and worked in the U.S. and was really excited to speak English with me!  He was really sweet and excited that I was in Italy!  It was such a fun experience, and such an uniquely Italian experience. 

It was starting to rain when I left, so I had to bundle up and cover up my hair!  When I got home I was REALLY excited to show it to Nick on Skype and he said that it was so beautiful that he could not even look at me; he also said that it was beautiful long and like this, but he really like this!  :)  Here is his reaction!

 

 

 I was also excited to email the photos to my momma, but nervous to send them to my daddy!  However, they BOTH loved the haircut!  Everyone was proud of me for letting someone else cut my hair; in the U.S. I only let one person do it!!! 

Anyway, so I spent the rest of the night writing blogs, cleaning, and packing to go to Rome, Florence, and Bologna. 

I was really excited to be packing.