...Overcome?

Happy Wednesday everyone! Unfortunately, today wasn't that happy for me. Today, I had gym class and I just want to start by saying I have the rudest, most ignorant teacher in the world. I don't mean to be rude, but the man is truly just a cruel person. So at the beginning of the year, I started off gym class on a really good note. I was able to do everything without difficulty until we started the basketball unit. Now anyone that knows me pretty well could tell you about my lack of hand eye coordination. So we start doing layups and I was really excited because I actually made some! However, the teacher came up to me and told me that I was doing it wrong and needed to do it with two hands instead of one. I found this a little strange because in gym class in the states I was taught you are supposed to do it with one hand and I had seen it done this way many time while I was a cheerleader at basketball games. And considering Indiana is known as the basketball state, I think they would have taught us correctly at school. So I tried to do it his way to be nice, but I kept missing every time because the movement was completely wrong. Now this was the only shot we learned and practiced for 2 months and in that period I mentioned to him that I had learned to do it with only one hand and he told me I was wrong. I know I don't know much about basketball, but you'd think he would have of at least considered what I was saying considering basketball is an American game and I am American and it's not that popular in Italy. So he continued to mock me for pretty much the rest of the year. He would say things like you are the only American in the world that sucks at basketball because apparently all Americans play basketball perfectly. So after this, we started doing a health unit about the body. When it came  time to have a written test I talked to my host mom and she told me I didn't need to do it because first I didn't have a book and secondly the vocabulary was way to difficult for me. So the day of the test I came to school excepting not to do it. Then in class he handed my a test and told me to do it. When I just looked at him shocked he responded by telling me I needed to stop thinking I was better than everyone else and do the test. Now I found this a little rude because I tried really hard to fit in and do all my work but there was no way I could have memorized 60 pages of  health in Italian I mean I had only been in Italy for 5 months! So I decided I would try to guess what the questions were asking and draw pictures of what I thought it was because I couldn't write very well. Well he ended up giving me a 2 which is the lowest grade you can get. Then just last week there was a running test where we had to run for 30 minutes straight. I ran most of it, but I have really weak knees ad ankles from all the years of doing cheerleading and gymnastics and it's really hard for me to run for long periods of time. So I failed the test because I stopped to walk a few times and stretch out my ankles. Then he continued afterwards to ask me why all Americans are so fat. When I tried explaining to him that yes we do have many people overweight but there are also many healthy people as well and I continued to say  that I wasn't overweight and he started looking me up and down giving me a questioning look. Now sure I've gained more weight than I like here in Italy, but I am not fat and I don't need my teacher making me feel like I am. In addition him continued to tell me that the girl I exchanged with spoke perfect English and that I wasn't as good as her because I am here for 8 months and sometimes I still have trouble speaking. I mean I knew nothing when I got here and I am so proud of myself at how good Italian is and the other girl picked up English a lot faster than me with Italian. I mean she studied it for 10 years before she left so of course she got it faster. Then today when I came to class he said to me that the principal asked him for my grade to put on my a report card and that he told him that I failed because I never do anything. I proceeded to ask him how I did nothing considering I did the best I could and always participated. And he just would listen to anything I said so I took a step back and said to him that it was fine and that I didn't care. I realized there was no point in arguing because he wouldn't listen to anything I said anyways and it was better to just let it be. Anyways he continues for about 15 minutes about how horrible I am and America in general.Then he left and I had a little break down because I was already homesick and missing home and he just made it worse. Fortunately I have really good friends who made me feel better. I just can't believe just how rude some people can be. I mean he is a grown man picking on teenagers. I will say that one thing I learned this year is that no matter where you go in this world there will always be someone trying to tear you down or to make you feel bad about yourself and you just have to keep your head up and keep going. That's something I'm going to do for the rest of my life. I won't let anything get to me. I am strong, I am smart, and I am happy. And I will make it through!