Math and Weather

So during the past few days here in Palermo it has been raining. Off and on, rain, shine, rain, shine. It has been very annoying. So today I was going out with a friend and looked outside to see how it looked, and to my surprise, not a single cloud in the sky. Of course then I happily walked out of my house in jeans and a hoodie. Later it decided rain, hard, so I headed home as fast as I could. Me, in my hoodie and jeans, fast walking almost two miles in the pouring rain. Not fun. Anyway, on to the math part. Today in school I once again had math class and was expecting to just be blown away by the weird math they have been teaching here. But nope, today we were learning about parabolas. So a week before I am leaving they decide to teach some math that I can actually understand, just my luck.

Worst Day of the Week

Friday. Usually the best day of the week. After a long day of work or school you finally get a long break, the weekend, and hang out with friends. Things however are not so bright over here. Friday. The worst day of the week. Due to the fact that I have school on Saturday here Friday is now the worst day. Every week I think, "Oh, today is Friday, no school tomorrow". Only to then later realize that I was wrong again. You would think that I would have gotten used to school every Saturday, but I have not.  Friday is a disappointment and the longest school day. Literally the worst day of the week.

Penny Board

Oh how I love my penny board. It brings me to school and back every day. I can use it to get places faster when I am late. But sometimes... when other people use it.... it can be a problem. FOR AN EXAMPLE! Today, was an average day, wake up, breakfast, ride to school, have school, and then when I was leaving school I waited for a friend, One of my classmates had a great idea of using the board in the hallway. As you can imagine this did not go well, he slipped and the board went flying into another classrooms door. The teacher of that class comes out and takes the board. I of course am furious. I yell at my classmate to go and get my board back. After five minutes of laughter the classmates go and try to get it. But the teacher isn't having any of it. She says we have to wait for her to pack up and then after we go to the principal. I am overjoyed now. I yell at them some more and we wait together. Finally after another ten minutes the teacher is ready. We head down to the office while, meanwhile I am staring at my friend and mouthing words in English, he didn't understand, but it made me feel better. So we get to the principals office, and what do you know, she isn't there. SO, we wait again for about 15 minutes. She finally arrived and I thought we were all going to go in, nope. Only the teacher, which seems a little outlandish. Anyway, after waiting for the meeting to end, the principal calls us in. Talks to us in Italian, some of which I understood. Then we follow here to the front office place, where she calls over the secretary. She explains the situation and the secretly says in Italian, "In school, what is this? america?" and then the principal tells her I am american and she starts laughing. Like, bruh, that's not allowed in the US either. So every morning I am supposed to bring my board to the front office, leave it there, and pick it up at the end of the day. Thank you. I love this. Awesome. Even after my classmate explained it was his fault they still make me put it there. SWEEEEEEEET

Occupations of Schools

So, everything has been crazy for the past couple of weeks. I haven't posted about this before because I didn't know exactly how or when, but after what happened today I had to create a post. Palermo has many schools, and mine just so happens to be a very important one. Every year in Palermo the students take over the schools and call them "Occupations". It surprisingly is legal, but can easily be made illegal, it is a very hard thing for outsiders, like myself, to understand. My school, Liceo Scientifico Statale "Stanislao Cannizzaro", is always the first school to have an occupation and really motivates the other schools to do the same. The occupations usually occur in late October early November. Me and my classmates thought the occupations would not happen due to how late in the year is is. We were gladly surprised when last Thursday a group of students in fact occupied the school. I was very excited, these occupations supposedly last for weeks, no school. This occupation lasted for three days, until the last night all of the kids left the school and forgot to lock it back up.  This of course was a big mistake because the next morning the teachers were back inside and teaching once again.  The students were enraged.  Three days isn't enough. They wanted more and had many meetings this week about when and how we would occupy once more. In the beginning of this week other schools started occupying, leaving Cannizzaro in the dust. Yesterday the occupation was on, students were blocking all entrances and stopping teachers and other students from entering. But the problem was the doors were locked, the kids blocking the gates couldn't get in to occupy either. Eventually half an hour into the madness the doors opened and kids started flooding in screaming that the school had been occupied and how happy they were. Little did they know the principal was unlocking all the doors and letting the teachers back into the school. The occupation had failed and students were furious. They had an illegal meeting after lunch debating when and how again, but this time there was a problem. No one wanted to be the face of the occupation, and for it to be legal and correct there needs to be a student, over the age of 18, willing to take the responsibility for the occupation. No one stepped up, so we all headed home very disappointed. That night one of the other schools was dis-occupied, police came in and knocked the gates and doors down, kicking all of the students out. The next morning once again we were occupying. But the same thing happened as before, the principal snuck in and started opening everything, even tore down an occupation banner. But the students were not having it, they refused to enter the school. There was a mass of kids occupying the street. They were shouting and screaming chants for occupation, praying somehow it would work. This of course did not work and some kids eventually gave into the rules and went inside, but not all.   Most students stayed outside and waited for the lunch break to strike again. During the lunch there was of course another strike, this time bigger and better. Me and Franco found ourselves on the inside of the gate. The gates were locked with chains and the teachers were trying to break them. They brought out some bolt cutters and went to town on the chains, this was not enough. The kids were overjoyed when it did not work, then they came out with an electric saw, the  students and I were very sad. The electric saw was enough to cut the chains, the school was once again open. This occupation however was supposedly illegal and a police officer was going around video taping the faces of kids inside (good thing I was there huh?). The last door was guarded by kids wearing  hoods and covering their faces so the camera could not identify them. One of my friends was among the kids and was in the very front row. I do not know how but the last door opened, this caused a frenzy. The students were running due to the fear of the police catching them. The police indeed wanted to catch them and tackled some of the kids, others were grabbed strongly by their arms and legs. This started a riot. Kids everywhere screaming at police and backing them into a convenient store across the street. Civilian justice at its finest. The group was shouting and screaming at the police officers for about fifteen minutes until other higher up officer came to see what happened. The students yelled what happened and luckily the kids were released from the convenient store. You may be asking what happened to my friend in the front row, well its hilarious. All of the kids started running once the door opened, except for him, he slowly walked away. Still covering his head he  walked right by me with a smile on his face. One of the funniest things I have seen in a long time. After all this chaos of legal and illegal occupations, I am glad to say the school is occupied. I hope it is legal, but if not, eh, I'm not inside. It means no school and days to relax. The police who were video taped should be dealt with but I do not know the laws for that stuff here. Anyway occupations are ridiculous, but it is very fun. Also I met a lot of new people today while waiting outside. All in all pretty fun.

Halloween

Halloween, a sacred time of the year for everyone I know. We dress up in costumes, go to school in them, mess around all day and night. Here in Italy however Halloween is not that big of a thing, some kids dress up, no one dresses up to school either. A little disapointing but, what was I expecting right?

First day of school

We had an early release today, only had two hours of school. Classes are a lot different. The kids stay in one room and the teachers move around, I don't think I like it's as much. I'm already in a group chat with some Italian friends, but of course I understand 1/190000 of what they are saying.