At ease fellas

Okay so as I was writing the last post I found a job at a new school that had just started up a contract with a Carabinieri school, which would be the American equivalent of a police academy. Let me tell you what, it is a trip! I had all these preconceived notions about what it would be like before I started. I was picturing a sort of compound with squads of police marching to and fro, with people training and doing drills everywhere, with a bunch of dudes in funny hats. I couldn't have had it more right, that is exactly how it is. And maybe I watched  Police Academy too much growing up but I keep waiting for the same kind of practical jokes from a random group of misfits.

Furthermore, I have a class of 25 students, in uniform, all the time (apparently the Carabinieri uniforms were designed by Armani!). And get this, they stand at attention and salute me every morning when I enter and every evening when I leave. I wish someone could have taken a picture of my face (or maybe I'm glad that no one did) on the first day; 30 minutes late because my train was delayed, not even sure that I had the right classroom and once I had a foot in the door they all stood and stomped their feet and presented their company of troops to me. Yikes. My face turned as red as a chili pepper as they stood there staring at me, waiting for me to say something like "at ease" which of course took me several minutes to realize.

This one is just so classic Italian to me. Like I'm not givin' you a break even if you are a priest! Now let's go get a coffee.

First day aside, everyone has really begun to relax and open up and I now consider them to be some of the best students I've had so far. I really feel respected right off the bat. Only this week have they been getting a little rowdy during discussions, and even that has been easily taken care of with my yellow card- red card policy like they have in soccer. If I give them two yellow cards in one lesson they automatically get a red card and have to sit at the back of the class until I decide they can come back. They all get into it and they love soccer anyway so it's a great way to lay down the law.

I do wish there were more women in the class, I only have three in mine and some classes have none. It's a lot of guys. Being one of few women that they see each day out of uniform creates a lot of undue attention, but luckily, nothing inappropriate. Just from walking through the halls at break time I'm starting to get whip lash from turning in all directions to answer all of the "good morning's" thrown my way, and sometimes even the random foot stomp and salute. Oh the power.

I'm always confused by this one. He's so smooth and debonair and she is just really unsure of him and maybe like she's been wronged by him....

So needless to say the best part of my job is the students. The worst part about the job is the commute. I wake up at 5 a.m. every morning, I'm out of the house by 6 a.m. to catch the bus to the train station and then it's an hour train ride, a 15 minute walk up hill and finally by 8:30 a.m., I'm there. But the classes are broken up into 3 week segments with breaks in between which makes the idea of waking up at that ungodly hour a lot more manageable.

I wish I could post pictures of my wonderful class but it's strictly forbidden until they graduate so instead I've posted some of the many hilarious pictures from the building in which I work. They are all carabinieri-themed and most of are intended to be funny, but it's the ones that aren't really intended to be funny are those that make me laugh the most.