All expats have stories about bureaucracy in Italy, right? And an expat-living-in-Italy blog wouldn't be complete without one, right? Well, no need to worry any longer. Requisite Italian bureaucracy story, part the first, below.
"Si, buongiorno, vorrei cambiare l'intestazione delle bollette dell'internet," I say brightly. I have just mumbled this sentence to myself a few times to work out all the kinks (do you see all those double L's? Not so simple to pronounce, you know, especially in conjunction with the R of 'internet').
The fact that I get the whole thing out succesfully puts me in a good mood and I smile into the phone, despite the fact that, really, I am meant to be annoyed. All I'm trying to do is change the name on our internet bill from my ex-flatmate's to mine, and make it so that we get the bill by mail rather than having it be automatically deducted from her bank account. Okay, so, maybe it's a little complicated, but we filled out a form and faxed it in.
Last June.
Now it is mid-October (or was, when this all took place).
"Un attimo," says the other guy. I am clutching the paper with my information on it in one hand and pressing the receiver to my ear with the other, as if that will help me understand the guy. Half of my brain is thinking 'please don't let him have a weird accent, like from Puglia or something'. The other half is reciting my codice fiscale to itself.
Italian bureaucracy, I am so ready for you.
"Si, let me put you through to the commercial department," says the man on the other end. A crappy, tinny-sounding version of Vivaldi starts up. I sigh and put the paper with my codice fiscale on it back on the table, flexing my fingers. I roll my eyes across the room at the secretary, who is playing solitaire on the computer. Sometimes we are very productive, mid-morning on a Thursday. And sometimes not. She smiles encouragingly.
"Pronto, Michele speaking, come posso aiutarLa?"
I spring back up to the ready, and repeat my spiel. It is getting better with practice. Excellent.
"Ah, si?" says Michele, not sounding particularly interested, "why do you want to do that?"
The explanation is tricky, and I am hesitant to give it, because the more I talk, the more likely they are to figure out that I am a foreigner. This gave us problems with ENEL (the electricity people). But whatever. I do the best I can ("well, then my flatmate went off to spend a year somewhere else on a job placement and I decided to stay in Reggio even though I was really supposed to go back to America so what I really want is for us to have some electricity/internet/gas/water/etc. in the apartment, and...").
"You should send a fax," comments Michele absently.
"Yes, I know. We have," I tell him. "However, if you look at the bills for September and October, you'll notice they've still been taken from [flatmate's name]'s bank account." I give him the account number and the code thingy from the bottom of the bill, impressing myself with my ability to say numbers. (I can count! Yay! Uh.... anyway.)
"Hm. Let me put you through to customer service," he says, apparently having had enough of my reading numbers to him. I kind of vaguely feel like customer service is where I was before, but whatever. I check my email with Vivaldi jingling along in the background.
"Pronto, this is Antonella, how can I help you?"
I am getting so good at this that I don't even take my eyes off my email while I give her the spiel.
"Oh, you should talk to the commercial department for that," she says. "Let me put you through."
I frown at my email. Wasn't I just talking to Michele in the...?
"Hello, this is Francesco in the commercial department, what can I do for you? ... Yes, let me put you through to accounts."
"Wait, but I-"
I go through three or four more departments, interspersed with recommendations to send a fax, before some kind soul finally takes pity on me and emails me a document to send the fax again.
I painstakingly fill it out.
They need a photocopy of my passport, which I forget to bring to school for the ensuing week, until one weekend we come back from a trip to Paris and it happens to still be in my purse. Happy coincidence.
I politely ask our secretary to send the fax for me, as I do not know how to operate the fax machine.
"Still fixing that thing with Tiscali, huh?" she comments.
Indeed.
Also, the fax machine doesn't work. The people in the office across the hall (who are sometimes friendly and helpful and let us use their fax machine and/or steal their wireless connection) are not there.
Three weeks later, there is another happy coincidence and I remember about sending the fax during one of the rare moments when the machine is working.
I feel very productive and happy. Surely from now on, our internet will work swimmingly (not true) and the bills will come to our house (I have yet to see one) and then we will pay them at the post office (in theory) and the world will be a happy place.
"Ciao, Cri!" says my ex-flatmate one day when she calls.
"Ciao!" I say, "how's life?"
We chat for a few moments.
"Hey, by the way, do you know why they're still getting the internet out from my bank account?"
What?
No.
I explain that I sent the fax (again) and spent a whole morning on the phone with the people from Tiscali, but apparently it has not resolved the problem. Which means that I get to spend another morning on the phone with the people from Tiscali tomorrow.
Yay.
On the bright side, I have my codice fiscale totally memorized now.
Thursday, December 9
Wednesday, December 8
Sometimes
Sometimes, your boss is all "oh, so, there's this translation of some dialogue that you should do, if you have time. It's a good opportunity."
Sometimes, you say yes. (Uh, actually, if you're me, you almost always say yes. This is how you end up with lots of crap to do in your life.)
Sometimes, you translate it and unthinkingly send it off, pleased to have done a good job.
Sometimes, it turns out that you were translating what would become the subtitles of a documentary about a [local charity medical place] owned by some very important people, for whose company (not the medical place) you also do a lot of teaching.
Sometimes, the next thing you know, you and your boss are all skyping with the documentary producer in the middle of the night to work out the last little dialogue issues and the secretary of the very important person knows you by name and frequently calls you at work to ask about comma placement on the documentary's DVD jacket cover.
Sometimes, you somehow end up invited to the premiere. This is traumatic, because what the hell does one wear to a premiere when the producer also owns a fashion house? All black, it seems. This requires the finding of a black skirt (because, naturally, mine is in America) and shoes to replace the Thesis Shoes of Awesomeness.
In the end, though, sometimes you totter up to the theater with your boss in heels that are rather too high. "Oh, yeah, the girl who did the translation. Brava," says a dapper looking man. Sometimes dapper looking men turn out to be the owners of major fashion houses and/or the producers of documentaries.
You shake hands and continue on, past directors of hospitals and owners of this and such, and mayors of towns. You sit and watch the thing, surrounded by what would probably be the nobility of Reggio, if there were one.
Sometimes it says your name in the credits under traduzioni. Way down past all the other weird stuff (what's a gaffer?), but still. It's probably the closest you'll ever come to fame. The lights come back on and you stand and walk out and shake hands with various people and smile and try to keep up with who's who and why they're important while a small part of your mind is also dedicated to hoping your skirt is still straight and your hair is still decent.
It's pretty weird.
Sometimes.
Sometimes, you say yes. (Uh, actually, if you're me, you almost always say yes. This is how you end up with lots of crap to do in your life.)
Sometimes, you translate it and unthinkingly send it off, pleased to have done a good job.
Sometimes, it turns out that you were translating what would become the subtitles of a documentary about a [local charity medical place] owned by some very important people, for whose company (not the medical place) you also do a lot of teaching.
Sometimes, the next thing you know, you and your boss are all skyping with the documentary producer in the middle of the night to work out the last little dialogue issues and the secretary of the very important person knows you by name and frequently calls you at work to ask about comma placement on the documentary's DVD jacket cover.
Sometimes, you somehow end up invited to the premiere. This is traumatic, because what the hell does one wear to a premiere when the producer also owns a fashion house? All black, it seems. This requires the finding of a black skirt (because, naturally, mine is in America) and shoes to replace the Thesis Shoes of Awesomeness.
In the end, though, sometimes you totter up to the theater with your boss in heels that are rather too high. "Oh, yeah, the girl who did the translation. Brava," says a dapper looking man. Sometimes dapper looking men turn out to be the owners of major fashion houses and/or the producers of documentaries.
You shake hands and continue on, past directors of hospitals and owners of this and such, and mayors of towns. You sit and watch the thing, surrounded by what would probably be the nobility of Reggio, if there were one.
Sometimes it says your name in the credits under traduzioni. Way down past all the other weird stuff (what's a gaffer?), but still. It's probably the closest you'll ever come to fame. The lights come back on and you stand and walk out and shake hands with various people and smile and try to keep up with who's who and why they're important while a small part of your mind is also dedicated to hoping your skirt is still straight and your hair is still decent.
It's pretty weird.
Sometimes.
Saturday, December 4
Sometimes it's good to be a girl
Did you know that you can keep supermarkets in Italy open past their closing times just by being a girl? Me either, but apparently you can. Even all disheveled after a day's work (a 13 hour day, might I add). I did it just the other day. Very odd.
"... so then, the other thing we should do is create an Excel file... maybe you can get [other teacher] to do that... or otherwise maybe you can do it... or the secretary... anyway, what we should do is..."
I nod into the phone, staring into space. Usually I read and answer emails while I talk to my boss on the phone, especially during the end-of-the-day rundown. It saves time. She can expound at length on semi-relevant topics, and I can get some work done. Today, however, it is 8.52, the supermarket closes in precisely 8 minutes, I have no food in my house, and, having been at work since 7.20 this morning, I have just about lost the will to live.
"Uh-huh," I agree in a rather unenthusiastic monotone. Perhaps she takes this hint as my having lost interest in our conversation (and also the school and our students and really anything not immediately related to getting food in my belly and myself into my bed) because she finally releases me with a cheerful, "okay, thanks! Talk to you tomorrow!"
8.54.
I grab some car keys, hoping no one needs this particular car (the school owns three) tomorrow morning before I do, and hop into the elevator.
8.59.
I pull into the parking lot of the supermarket, where only three other cars are parked, and stride up to the doors, where the security man is ushering someone out.
"Siete chiusi?" I ask. All I really want out of life right now is some pasta, some salad, and my bed. This makes me brave enough to actually talk to the security guy.
"Quasi," he says. He is young and cute. I am at least young-ish, if nothing else. And apparently that's enough. "Cosa devi prendere?" he asks me. (What do you need to get?)
"Some lettuce!" I say, the first thing that springs to mind. What I really want is also some pasta (there is a delicious kind that is stuffed with gorgonzola and honey, by Giovanni Rana, whose numerous commercials on the radio have apparently brainwashed me into buying his stuff.... well, his commercials and my utter laziness and inability to cook). But whatever. If I even just got some lettuce, I could cook some pasta or rice or whatever that I have at home, slap some olive oil and cheese on it, and call it a meal. With both veggies and grains. Which is, you know, lots of the food groups. Right? Or at least two. Whatever.
"Just lettuce?" he says in what sounds suspisciously like a flirty sort of tone. Really? Flirting? Lettuce?
"Yeah, just some lettuce," I say, more because I don't really have any other response. He shouts something at the last open cashier and she rolls her eyes and says yes. He ushers me in.
"Just lettuce!" he says. I nod in agreement, and sprint off to get the lettuce. I do not dare get any pasta as well, because the cashier is a girl and probably not so susceptible to my... uh, just being female, apparently. I will just eat my rice. With some cheese mixed in. And vinegar. Because vinegar makes anything else taste like vinegar, which tastes good. Yes. (See what happens to me when I work 13 hour days begging people not to say things like "yesterday, I am going to Milano"?)
As I sprint off, I catch bits and pieces of the conversation between the guard guy and the cashier.
" .... .... .... ragazza," says he.
"You and the ragazze," says she.
There it is. Sigh.
"Ciao, bella!" he says as I leave.
"Ciao, grazie," I say. It's 9.12.
It's a funny thing, being a girl in Italy. It takes a lot of getting used to, for a foreigner. Especially one of the Anglo-Saxon variety. You get here, and suddenly people are staring at you and whistling at you and shouting "ciao, bella! complimenti!" at you as you walk down the street. People look you up and down and you're all keep your eyes to yourself, dude!
You wonder why they don't have any respect for women. Why do they seem to feel it's okay to completely treat women like objects to be stared at and commented on at will, as if we couldn't hear, or didn't care? I care. I want people to be interested in me for my intelligence, or because they think I'm a good person (whether or not I actually am is a different story, but still). Not because I'm shaped like a girl or have lighter hair than them. (Apparently medium brown = bionda, in Italy.)
But then, women are apparently allowed to retire five years earlier than men because "la mamma e sacra". They hold doors open for you and ask for permission before taking off their suit jackets in your presence. They walk you home at night. And they'll keep the supermarket open 12 minutes past closing time on a Thursday night if you tell them that you just got out of work and want some lettuce.
Weird, no?
"... so then, the other thing we should do is create an Excel file... maybe you can get [other teacher] to do that... or otherwise maybe you can do it... or the secretary... anyway, what we should do is..."
I nod into the phone, staring into space. Usually I read and answer emails while I talk to my boss on the phone, especially during the end-of-the-day rundown. It saves time. She can expound at length on semi-relevant topics, and I can get some work done. Today, however, it is 8.52, the supermarket closes in precisely 8 minutes, I have no food in my house, and, having been at work since 7.20 this morning, I have just about lost the will to live.
"Uh-huh," I agree in a rather unenthusiastic monotone. Perhaps she takes this hint as my having lost interest in our conversation (and also the school and our students and really anything not immediately related to getting food in my belly and myself into my bed) because she finally releases me with a cheerful, "okay, thanks! Talk to you tomorrow!"
8.54.
I grab some car keys, hoping no one needs this particular car (the school owns three) tomorrow morning before I do, and hop into the elevator.
8.59.
I pull into the parking lot of the supermarket, where only three other cars are parked, and stride up to the doors, where the security man is ushering someone out.
"Siete chiusi?" I ask. All I really want out of life right now is some pasta, some salad, and my bed. This makes me brave enough to actually talk to the security guy.
"Quasi," he says. He is young and cute. I am at least young-ish, if nothing else. And apparently that's enough. "Cosa devi prendere?" he asks me. (What do you need to get?)
"Some lettuce!" I say, the first thing that springs to mind. What I really want is also some pasta (there is a delicious kind that is stuffed with gorgonzola and honey, by Giovanni Rana, whose numerous commercials on the radio have apparently brainwashed me into buying his stuff.... well, his commercials and my utter laziness and inability to cook). But whatever. If I even just got some lettuce, I could cook some pasta or rice or whatever that I have at home, slap some olive oil and cheese on it, and call it a meal. With both veggies and grains. Which is, you know, lots of the food groups. Right? Or at least two. Whatever.
"Just lettuce?" he says in what sounds suspisciously like a flirty sort of tone. Really? Flirting? Lettuce?
"Yeah, just some lettuce," I say, more because I don't really have any other response. He shouts something at the last open cashier and she rolls her eyes and says yes. He ushers me in.
"Just lettuce!" he says. I nod in agreement, and sprint off to get the lettuce. I do not dare get any pasta as well, because the cashier is a girl and probably not so susceptible to my... uh, just being female, apparently. I will just eat my rice. With some cheese mixed in. And vinegar. Because vinegar makes anything else taste like vinegar, which tastes good. Yes. (See what happens to me when I work 13 hour days begging people not to say things like "yesterday, I am going to Milano"?)
As I sprint off, I catch bits and pieces of the conversation between the guard guy and the cashier.
" .... .... .... ragazza," says he.
"You and the ragazze," says she.
There it is. Sigh.
"Ciao, bella!" he says as I leave.
"Ciao, grazie," I say. It's 9.12.
It's a funny thing, being a girl in Italy. It takes a lot of getting used to, for a foreigner. Especially one of the Anglo-Saxon variety. You get here, and suddenly people are staring at you and whistling at you and shouting "ciao, bella! complimenti!" at you as you walk down the street. People look you up and down and you're all keep your eyes to yourself, dude!
You wonder why they don't have any respect for women. Why do they seem to feel it's okay to completely treat women like objects to be stared at and commented on at will, as if we couldn't hear, or didn't care? I care. I want people to be interested in me for my intelligence, or because they think I'm a good person (whether or not I actually am is a different story, but still). Not because I'm shaped like a girl or have lighter hair than them. (Apparently medium brown = bionda, in Italy.)
But then, women are apparently allowed to retire five years earlier than men because "la mamma e sacra". They hold doors open for you and ask for permission before taking off their suit jackets in your presence. They walk you home at night. And they'll keep the supermarket open 12 minutes past closing time on a Thursday night if you tell them that you just got out of work and want some lettuce.
Weird, no?
Sunday, November 21
Fonzies
My life these days is pretty much consumed by the slave-driver people at work. Except... these days, I kind of am one of the slave drivers. Hm. Odd. In any case, while you're waiting (pfft) for me to come up with something actually interesting and worth reading (it might be a while)... here is an entry about weird crackers.
"Abbiamo comprato i fonzies!" says the girl with whom we have been wandering around Venice. She is half Venetian and half Spanish, from a town near Barcelona. She switches from Catalan to Italian to communicate this to my friend. My friend is in the Bologna Erasmus program, and this girl is a friend of one of her cohorts. A friend thrice removed. This is how you end up knowing some really random people when you live in a foreign country. Anyway. We've all met up in Venice for the Biennale of modern art, and the Festa del Redentore fireworks tonight, and we're taking a break before marching around the rest of the Arsenale.
I look over at her and smile politely. (What the hell are fonzies?)
"You've never had fonzies?!" says my fellow American, switching into English to get things straight.
Fonzies, it transpires, are like cheese curls (or whatever those orange things are called in America) except they're white, maybe a bit less greasy and nasty, and have a weird kind of taste. Probably because they lack Cheddar in Italy, so I don't know what kind of cheese they're made with...
Anyway, though, I thought that you, too, should be educated about fonzies, just in case you don't have a Spanish/Italian/Catalan/Venetian-dialect-speaking girl in your life to do it for you.
I shall even include a photograph.
The best part of that day, though? The fireworks? The Biennale? Venice? Well, Venice was pretty cool because I always love Venice, and Venice in the summertime (the Festa del Redentore is on July 18th, I believe) is even nicer. But the best thing: definitely listening to Ms. Barcelona and her friends speaking Catalan all day.
I'm an irretrievable language nerd.
"Abbiamo comprato i fonzies!" says the girl with whom we have been wandering around Venice. She is half Venetian and half Spanish, from a town near Barcelona. She switches from Catalan to Italian to communicate this to my friend. My friend is in the Bologna Erasmus program, and this girl is a friend of one of her cohorts. A friend thrice removed. This is how you end up knowing some really random people when you live in a foreign country. Anyway. We've all met up in Venice for the Biennale of modern art, and the Festa del Redentore fireworks tonight, and we're taking a break before marching around the rest of the Arsenale.
I look over at her and smile politely. (What the hell are fonzies?)
"You've never had fonzies?!" says my fellow American, switching into English to get things straight.
Fonzies, it transpires, are like cheese curls (or whatever those orange things are called in America) except they're white, maybe a bit less greasy and nasty, and have a weird kind of taste. Probably because they lack Cheddar in Italy, so I don't know what kind of cheese they're made with...
Anyway, though, I thought that you, too, should be educated about fonzies, just in case you don't have a Spanish/Italian/Catalan/Venetian-dialect-speaking girl in your life to do it for you.
I shall even include a photograph.
The best part of that day, though? The fireworks? The Biennale? Venice? Well, Venice was pretty cool because I always love Venice, and Venice in the summertime (the Festa del Redentore is on July 18th, I believe) is even nicer. But the best thing: definitely listening to Ms. Barcelona and her friends speaking Catalan all day.
I'm an irretrievable language nerd.
Monday, November 15
Of meetings and shoes
Anything else to get ready for tomorrow?
No... just look charming and professional. See you at 8.
My boss and I are texting back and forth at 10pm the day prior to an uber-important business meeting. (Uber-important because it is with potential new clients who may possibly give us lots and lots of work, and we like potential new clients. They are good for things like earning a paycheck and not being bankrupt.)
Right, I think, charming and professional. Excellent. I'll wear a skirt and that will be that. I check one more time that all my oh-so-important documents are perfectly aligned in their plastic folder-cover-thing and then go merrily off to bed.
Not so very many hours later, I am standing in the middle of my bedroom wearing the skirt and not much else, mildly panicked. The throwing together of a charming and professional outfit... it is just a little trickier than originally anticipated.
I calmly sip my cold coffee (made by pouring room temperature water over instant coffee and a sugar cube - don't ask) while the following runs through my head: dark grey skirt would go well with white shirt... long-sleeved white shirt dirty... too cold for short sleeves... maybe with cardigan? or maybe resuscitate long sleeved one with ironing... try... shit, where's the adaptor plug? Or black pants... but are a little tight... what shirt with black pants? Or grey pants? Why are all the shirts dirty??? Why do I never do laundry?? Am stupid! And not professional! And not charming!
Okay, never mind, just try not to burn self with iron... shirt looks so-so... also has shirt-tails so needs to be tucked in but I hate tucking shirts into skirts... blahhhhh. Short sleeves after all? How is it already 7:45 and my hair is still wet?!?!
Is cold, for sure need cardigan (because I'm not organized enough to have a suit jacket that matches my favorite skirt, or to have purchased a coat or jacket for this winter yet). I straighten my short-sleeved shirt (just ironed enough so that I don't look completely like a homeless person) and pull the cardigan on over it. My boss texts me and I text back with one hand, aiming the hair dryer more or less at my head with the other.
Be there in 5. We are meeting for coffee prior to the actual meeting. Ostensibly to go over our battle plan. I don't even know why I am supposed to come with her to this meeting, as usually she takes care of the selling aspect of things herself. Perhaps she just wants moral support. Which is kind of laughable, given that I haven't even left my house yet and am already a mess.
I slip my shoes on and they slip themselves back off. Shit!!! I swear to myself (silently, because it is the arse-crack of dawn and my roommates are still sleeping, beate loro). I had forgotten that the Thesis Shoes of Awesomeness are now kind of broken and falling apart and don't really stay on so well anymore. Happily, though, I seem to be having a somewhat resourceful sort of morning, and I quickly come up with a solution: sticky stuff. Like tape. So I make some little loops of tape, affix them to both the inside of my shoes and the outside of my nylons, and voila! I am (somewhat tenuously) taped into my shoes. (So classy. Ahem.)
Seven minutes later, I am picking my way across the cobblestones of the piazza, trying not to get my heels stuck in them (this is exceedingly tricky under the best of circumstances, and slightly more so when you've had to stick your shoes on your feet with Scotch tape).
"You look nice," comments my boss vaguely, punching buttons on her blackberry like her life depends on it. We head towards the meeting.
And that is how I came to be sauntering (read: hobbling) up to my first important business meeting as an English teacher attired in a skirt (decent) and nylons (possibly weird color), a short-sleeved shirt (despite rain, fog and general chill), a black cardigan (possibly complete with blobs of lint still stuck on the back where I can't reach with the lint roller), and an aging pair of black heels Scotch-taped to my feet.
I sit across from two all-important bank people, listening and nodding and smiling officiously as appropriate (I hope), and all the while wondering whether my shoes will fall off on the way out. Leaving shoes in the client's office building and walking out in your nylons: probably not the best way to convince new clients of our professionalism and charm.
Uh, however. May I point out: we got the contract. Big old contract with lots of work. And my shoes didn't fall off until I got home. Sweeeet.
No... just look charming and professional. See you at 8.
My boss and I are texting back and forth at 10pm the day prior to an uber-important business meeting. (Uber-important because it is with potential new clients who may possibly give us lots and lots of work, and we like potential new clients. They are good for things like earning a paycheck and not being bankrupt.)
Right, I think, charming and professional. Excellent. I'll wear a skirt and that will be that. I check one more time that all my oh-so-important documents are perfectly aligned in their plastic folder-cover-thing and then go merrily off to bed.
Not so very many hours later, I am standing in the middle of my bedroom wearing the skirt and not much else, mildly panicked. The throwing together of a charming and professional outfit... it is just a little trickier than originally anticipated.
I calmly sip my cold coffee (made by pouring room temperature water over instant coffee and a sugar cube - don't ask) while the following runs through my head: dark grey skirt would go well with white shirt... long-sleeved white shirt dirty... too cold for short sleeves... maybe with cardigan? or maybe resuscitate long sleeved one with ironing... try... shit, where's the adaptor plug? Or black pants... but are a little tight... what shirt with black pants? Or grey pants? Why are all the shirts dirty??? Why do I never do laundry?? Am stupid! And not professional! And not charming!
Okay, never mind, just try not to burn self with iron... shirt looks so-so... also has shirt-tails so needs to be tucked in but I hate tucking shirts into skirts... blahhhhh. Short sleeves after all? How is it already 7:45 and my hair is still wet?!?!
Is cold, for sure need cardigan (because I'm not organized enough to have a suit jacket that matches my favorite skirt, or to have purchased a coat or jacket for this winter yet). I straighten my short-sleeved shirt (just ironed enough so that I don't look completely like a homeless person) and pull the cardigan on over it. My boss texts me and I text back with one hand, aiming the hair dryer more or less at my head with the other.
Be there in 5. We are meeting for coffee prior to the actual meeting. Ostensibly to go over our battle plan. I don't even know why I am supposed to come with her to this meeting, as usually she takes care of the selling aspect of things herself. Perhaps she just wants moral support. Which is kind of laughable, given that I haven't even left my house yet and am already a mess.
I slip my shoes on and they slip themselves back off. Shit!!! I swear to myself (silently, because it is the arse-crack of dawn and my roommates are still sleeping, beate loro). I had forgotten that the Thesis Shoes of Awesomeness are now kind of broken and falling apart and don't really stay on so well anymore. Happily, though, I seem to be having a somewhat resourceful sort of morning, and I quickly come up with a solution: sticky stuff. Like tape. So I make some little loops of tape, affix them to both the inside of my shoes and the outside of my nylons, and voila! I am (somewhat tenuously) taped into my shoes. (So classy. Ahem.)
Seven minutes later, I am picking my way across the cobblestones of the piazza, trying not to get my heels stuck in them (this is exceedingly tricky under the best of circumstances, and slightly more so when you've had to stick your shoes on your feet with Scotch tape).
"You look nice," comments my boss vaguely, punching buttons on her blackberry like her life depends on it. We head towards the meeting.
And that is how I came to be sauntering (read: hobbling) up to my first important business meeting as an English teacher attired in a skirt (decent) and nylons (possibly weird color), a short-sleeved shirt (despite rain, fog and general chill), a black cardigan (possibly complete with blobs of lint still stuck on the back where I can't reach with the lint roller), and an aging pair of black heels Scotch-taped to my feet.
I sit across from two all-important bank people, listening and nodding and smiling officiously as appropriate (I hope), and all the while wondering whether my shoes will fall off on the way out. Leaving shoes in the client's office building and walking out in your nylons: probably not the best way to convince new clients of our professionalism and charm.
Uh, however. May I point out: we got the contract. Big old contract with lots of work. And my shoes didn't fall off until I got home. Sweeeet.
Monday, November 8
Monday evening
So. Then what you can do is go on to have a thirteen-hour day. Always a grand old time. Of which, somehow, only four and a half hours were teaching? Huh.
And then a lot of administrative stuff... and some translating... etc.
But, you know what? Somehow, I'm happy. This morning, Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer" came on the radio randomly, as I was pulling out of Uber-Fancy Local Fashion Thing Headquarters, and that was delightful. Then, this afternoon, a charming email from a student... and that's all it takes.
Even with 13-hour days... this life is so delightfully simple, sometimes.
And then a lot of administrative stuff... and some translating... etc.
But, you know what? Somehow, I'm happy. This morning, Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer" came on the radio randomly, as I was pulling out of Uber-Fancy Local Fashion Thing Headquarters, and that was delightful. Then, this afternoon, a charming email from a student... and that's all it takes.
Even with 13-hour days... this life is so delightfully simple, sometimes.
Monday morning
So, yesterday, I was quietly productive. First I got up late and decided not to actually get up, and stayed in bed to watch tv shows online. (This is productive with regards to relaxing, by the way, and pretending to nurse a vague sore throat... why do I always seem to have a vague sore throat?)
Then I actually got up, and answered some emails that I really did not feel like answering, and by, like, 5pm, sat my arse down to work on the Translation of Death (uh, yes, still... but I swear I'm finishing it this week, if it kills me). Actually got a few pages done (thank Christ!), caught up with the parents on Skype (yay!), pondered the booking of tickets home for Christmas (yay!) but did not actually book them (must, though, asap), and decided to clean the apartment circa midnight.
Then remembered that had wanted to mark one of my students' final exams, and also plan a bit for the one I'm giving in class today... and then finally went to bed, all happy because my apartment was clean, the Translation of Death had made some slight progress, and my flannel sheets are delightfully warm.
Now it is Monday morning and I can't decide whether to be residually satisfied with myself (from the productivity, you know) or cranky because it is the crack of dawn (well, before it, actually) and I am sleepy. On the other hand... classes today from 8 to 3.30. Do you know what that is? That is, like, a normal school schedule. Even if I get stuck at work for a few hours after, I could still leave by a normal time! Before the 12-hour mark! And cook myself a healthy dinner! And continue the Translation of Death! Yay!
Okay, decided: I'm going to be in a good mood. Despite the mosquito (mosquitoes? really? in the second week in November? basta!!) that is sitting on the wall just above my computer, taunting me. Bastardo.
Then I actually got up, and answered some emails that I really did not feel like answering, and by, like, 5pm, sat my arse down to work on the Translation of Death (uh, yes, still... but I swear I'm finishing it this week, if it kills me). Actually got a few pages done (thank Christ!), caught up with the parents on Skype (yay!), pondered the booking of tickets home for Christmas (yay!) but did not actually book them (must, though, asap), and decided to clean the apartment circa midnight.
Then remembered that had wanted to mark one of my students' final exams, and also plan a bit for the one I'm giving in class today... and then finally went to bed, all happy because my apartment was clean, the Translation of Death had made some slight progress, and my flannel sheets are delightfully warm.
Now it is Monday morning and I can't decide whether to be residually satisfied with myself (from the productivity, you know) or cranky because it is the crack of dawn (well, before it, actually) and I am sleepy. On the other hand... classes today from 8 to 3.30. Do you know what that is? That is, like, a normal school schedule. Even if I get stuck at work for a few hours after, I could still leave by a normal time! Before the 12-hour mark! And cook myself a healthy dinner! And continue the Translation of Death! Yay!
Okay, decided: I'm going to be in a good mood. Despite the mosquito (mosquitoes? really? in the second week in November? basta!!) that is sitting on the wall just above my computer, taunting me. Bastardo.
Thursday, October 28
Little blue car strikes again!
"We should stop on the way back to school and put some petrol in the car," says my fellow teacher as we exit the Uber-Fancy Local Fashion Thing (UFLFT). I nod, still smiling about something hilarious one of my students said. It's nice when your Friday lunchtime three-hours-back-to-back students make you smile. Also it's nice when you finish and the sun is out and you know you only have one more lesson later today, and plenty of time to plan it, and even time for a coffee.
The other teacher is recounting something hilarious that one of her students said as we start the car and head out of the parking lot. (Her students, evidently, are hilarious, too.)
It is not until we are out of the parking lot and trundling along the main, tree-lined driveway of the UFLFT (the UFLFT is quite big) that Fellow Teacher stops mid-sentence to say "we have no petrol left." I find this to be an odd sort of statement, given that we have just established our plan to go and get some on the way back from school.
"No, I mean, really none left," she says, apparently using her mind-reading capabilities to discern my skepticism. I realize over the next few seconds that this means we will have to actually stop the car. Right here in the tree-lined driveway of the UFLFT.
Crap.
Once the poor little blue car (yeah, still the same one, thanks for asking) has ground to a halt (uh, literally), I am surprisingly efficient. I call the secretary to ask her to come and retrieve us, preferrably with some gas. I pull out a book and swiftly plan my next lesson. Conveniently, it is located right here at the UFLFT in two hours' time, so I could easily just walk back up the driveway and teach it, if I have to.
We pass the time exclaiming repeatedly how ridiculous a situation this is to be in, and imagining what our students would say if they could see us. We are happy that it is no longer lunch hour, so hopefully they are all safely ensconced in their offices, and not within view of the driveway. (Yay trees.)
When the secretary gets here, it transpires that the gas station was unwilling to sell her any gas without the proper receptacle. Like a car. Or a gas tank. Yes, well.
"Can we just leave the car there in the driveway?" we ask the man in the little guardhouse. "It's not really blocking anything much. And it's not broken or anything. It's just that we ran out of gas, you know." He looks hesitant, but we promise to come right back and he finally agrees. Probably months of rolling down our windows just enough to shout "lezioni d'Inglese!!" in his general direction, using more volume than correct pronunciation, have convinced him that we are well and truly mad.
We elect to go to the biggest gas station we can find, and are happy to discover that they do, indeed, have receptacles specially designed for idiots who have run out of gas somewhere and also do not happen to own portable gas tanks, or whatever the proper thing is to resolve such a situation. The specially designed receptacles are massive bags of thick-ish but clear plastic. This allows you to hold 5 liters of gas in your hands and also be able to see it! Fun! (Did you know that gas is a weird turquoise greenish-blue? I did not know this, but now I do! Yay!)
It's also a bit unnerving. I mean, what if it spontaneously combusts while it's sitting in your lap? I feel like I am inept enough, when it comes to cars, to cause spontaneous combustion of gas, particularly if the only thing between it and us is a plastic bag. Hm.
We arrive back at the UFLFT, having rather miraculously avoided combustion, and discover that the fun is not over yet. Now we need to maneuver 5 liters of bright bluish-greenish gas into the tank of the little blue car, all while standing in the middle of the driveway.
"What do you want to bet one of our students drives by?" I say to the other teacher. I have a knack for making it rain on a perfectly sunny day by saying things like this, and, indeed, not five minutes passes before a lovely light-grey Audi rolls calmly past, bearing one of my students. He's only the head of the Technical department or something like that. You know. Whatever. He cranes his neck to look at us as he drives by, looking confused. Happily, I am on the other side of the car at this point, so to this day we reassure ourselves that he didn't recognize us.
This is good, because I am at this moment standing next to the gas tank with my arms wrapped around the bag of gas, attempting to aim it into the tank rather than spill it all over my feet. It's going reasonably well (not easy when you're wearing spindly heels - for the teaching of the fashion people, you see - but are significantly taller than the car even without heels) but it is far from graceful.
A few minutes later, we are on our way back to school with yet another ridiculous story to tell.
"Okay, so, we need to not tell our students about this, ever, okay?" we promise each other.
"Yes, definitely."
They all know within the week. Naturally. I still occasionally get teased about it. Sigh.
The other teacher is recounting something hilarious that one of her students said as we start the car and head out of the parking lot. (Her students, evidently, are hilarious, too.)
It is not until we are out of the parking lot and trundling along the main, tree-lined driveway of the UFLFT (the UFLFT is quite big) that Fellow Teacher stops mid-sentence to say "we have no petrol left." I find this to be an odd sort of statement, given that we have just established our plan to go and get some on the way back from school.
"No, I mean, really none left," she says, apparently using her mind-reading capabilities to discern my skepticism. I realize over the next few seconds that this means we will have to actually stop the car. Right here in the tree-lined driveway of the UFLFT.
Crap.
Once the poor little blue car (yeah, still the same one, thanks for asking) has ground to a halt (uh, literally), I am surprisingly efficient. I call the secretary to ask her to come and retrieve us, preferrably with some gas. I pull out a book and swiftly plan my next lesson. Conveniently, it is located right here at the UFLFT in two hours' time, so I could easily just walk back up the driveway and teach it, if I have to.
We pass the time exclaiming repeatedly how ridiculous a situation this is to be in, and imagining what our students would say if they could see us. We are happy that it is no longer lunch hour, so hopefully they are all safely ensconced in their offices, and not within view of the driveway. (Yay trees.)
When the secretary gets here, it transpires that the gas station was unwilling to sell her any gas without the proper receptacle. Like a car. Or a gas tank. Yes, well.
"Can we just leave the car there in the driveway?" we ask the man in the little guardhouse. "It's not really blocking anything much. And it's not broken or anything. It's just that we ran out of gas, you know." He looks hesitant, but we promise to come right back and he finally agrees. Probably months of rolling down our windows just enough to shout "lezioni d'Inglese!!" in his general direction, using more volume than correct pronunciation, have convinced him that we are well and truly mad.
We elect to go to the biggest gas station we can find, and are happy to discover that they do, indeed, have receptacles specially designed for idiots who have run out of gas somewhere and also do not happen to own portable gas tanks, or whatever the proper thing is to resolve such a situation. The specially designed receptacles are massive bags of thick-ish but clear plastic. This allows you to hold 5 liters of gas in your hands and also be able to see it! Fun! (Did you know that gas is a weird turquoise greenish-blue? I did not know this, but now I do! Yay!)
It's also a bit unnerving. I mean, what if it spontaneously combusts while it's sitting in your lap? I feel like I am inept enough, when it comes to cars, to cause spontaneous combustion of gas, particularly if the only thing between it and us is a plastic bag. Hm.
We arrive back at the UFLFT, having rather miraculously avoided combustion, and discover that the fun is not over yet. Now we need to maneuver 5 liters of bright bluish-greenish gas into the tank of the little blue car, all while standing in the middle of the driveway.
"What do you want to bet one of our students drives by?" I say to the other teacher. I have a knack for making it rain on a perfectly sunny day by saying things like this, and, indeed, not five minutes passes before a lovely light-grey Audi rolls calmly past, bearing one of my students. He's only the head of the Technical department or something like that. You know. Whatever. He cranes his neck to look at us as he drives by, looking confused. Happily, I am on the other side of the car at this point, so to this day we reassure ourselves that he didn't recognize us.
This is good, because I am at this moment standing next to the gas tank with my arms wrapped around the bag of gas, attempting to aim it into the tank rather than spill it all over my feet. It's going reasonably well (not easy when you're wearing spindly heels - for the teaching of the fashion people, you see - but are significantly taller than the car even without heels) but it is far from graceful.
A few minutes later, we are on our way back to school with yet another ridiculous story to tell.
"Okay, so, we need to not tell our students about this, ever, okay?" we promise each other.
"Yes, definitely."
They all know within the week. Naturally. I still occasionally get teased about it. Sigh.
Thursday, October 21
Zucca
So, the K2 in Reggio has zucca-flavored ice cream. (Zucca, by the way, means pumpkin.) I had some tonight and it tastes kind of like apricot, which is a bit odd. Pretty good, though. And very very orange.
That is all.
(You totally thought I was going to talk about tortelli, didn't you?)
That is all.
(You totally thought I was going to talk about tortelli, didn't you?)
Wednesday, October 20
Bardolino
Get ready, y'all. I'm going to make a post with *pictures*. Photographs. It's going to be so high-tech, you won't even believe it. It only took me about twenty minutes to figure out how to put that first one in. Anyway, the point is, we went to Lake Garda a few weeks ago for the festival of Bardolino (a small town on the shores of Lake Garda, which produces Bardolino wine). I am now an expert, so I can tell you that it comes in a light pink color (chiaretto) and a dark red color (I forget what it's called). I wrote that whole pedantic sentence just so I could use the word chiaretto, because I think it is cute. And there it is again. Twice in one paragraph. Score! Anyway.
Bardolino is a very quaint town. See? Quaint. Also, with palm trees.
Also, there was a stand with Sicilians selling food. It is always good when Sicilians sell food. They will give you arancini and cannoli and let you take pictures of their other very strange and wonderful things (small fruits made of marzipan! bread that is as big as me! bread with olives all stuck in it!). Yay!
Also, you can see the lake. Duh. But, no, really, it's lovely. You can walk along the side of it on this lovely wooden promenade structure thingy, and gaze out upon the loveliness of the open water with the mountains in the background. *Sighhh* So nice.
Yes. When you live in Italy, weekend trips are almost always a good idea. Because in Reggio Emilia, we have no boats and no open water for the sunsets to reflect off of. (I've never been anywhere near the Crostolo at sunset, but I'm going to go ahead and venture that it's not quite the same...)
Monday, October 18
Insomma
Hm. It is Monday morning, and I haven't planned a single lesson for this week. Ack.
However! Monday morning is a fresh start, full of possibility for teaching brilliance! (Euh, magari.) Also, I have only three classes and thus plenty of time to plan today. 'Twill be fine.
Bad thing: Rain. Always makes the walk to to work significantly less delightful. Also, mysterious sore throat this fine morning. (Special shout-out to own immune system: oy, get a grip. We don't have time for this.)
Good thing: My apartment is clean. Always a plus.
Bad thing: No clean laundry. Why do I always run out of time to do laundry?
Very bad thing: the effing Translation that Refuses to End. Hate. Why have I not finished it yet??
Speaking of busy weekends, though, biggest accomplishment of this weekend includes booking flights and accomodation for the four-day weekend at the end of the month.... in Seville! Olé! In addition to upcoming Paris trip for this weekend. Am jet-setting traveller (pfft!). Almost. Anyway, though: very good thing.
Overall, am happy to start the week. So probably I should get off my ass and get ready for work.
However! Monday morning is a fresh start, full of possibility for teaching brilliance! (Euh, magari.) Also, I have only three classes and thus plenty of time to plan today. 'Twill be fine.
Bad thing: Rain. Always makes the walk to to work significantly less delightful. Also, mysterious sore throat this fine morning. (Special shout-out to own immune system: oy, get a grip. We don't have time for this.)
Good thing: My apartment is clean. Always a plus.
Bad thing: No clean laundry. Why do I always run out of time to do laundry?
Very bad thing: the effing Translation that Refuses to End. Hate. Why have I not finished it yet??
Speaking of busy weekends, though, biggest accomplishment of this weekend includes booking flights and accomodation for the four-day weekend at the end of the month.... in Seville! Olé! In addition to upcoming Paris trip for this weekend. Am jet-setting traveller (pfft!). Almost. Anyway, though: very good thing.
Overall, am happy to start the week. So probably I should get off my ass and get ready for work.
Saturday, October 16
Embracing the nebbia
There is a time of year in Reggio, I'm starting to remember now, when the sky turns to a soft blanket of grey, like suspended fog. A damp chill creeps into the air and makes you pull your jacket more tightly around you in the evening, which begins to come earlier and earlier. At 7, it's dusky out and the streetlights reflect off the pavement, which is in various stages of wet-ness more often than not. During the week, maybe you just work through it and don't really pay much attention to it, except to think 'well, I might as well be in here listening to this guy drone on about his weekend as outside in the wet' when you happen to glance outside. During the weekend, though, it makes you slow to emerge from your bed. Maybe you get up once and then crawl back in with a book. Then you read your email wrapped in a blanket. If you didn't need to go out and get some food, it would be tempting to just stay inside all day, maybe watching movies and wishing for sunnier times.
That's where you'd be wrong, though. I know, because I've done it: spent more than one Saturday curled up on my bed with a book and some chocolate, probably bored and probably lonely. Mostly my first few months in Reggio when things were still new and occasionally overwhelming. Now I know better. The thing to do is to get out of bed, put on a few layers of warm clothes, and meet someone for a coffee out in town. Half the town is out on the streets, ambling up and down and window shopping and running into people they know. Children you've taught will wave at you and other students from days of yore (by which I mean... 2008) will stop you in the street with a big hug, and various other acquaintances will ask you if you've married an Italian yet. (Ahem, no. Though apparently this is an anomaly because it seems the only valid reason to stay in Reggio is to have married a Reggiano.)
Anyway. My point is: don't let the grey fog of death get to you. Go out. Have a coffee or a drink or an ice cream (stranieri are allowed to have ice cream even in the dead of winter). Have a quick passeggiata and enjoy the reflection of the street lights on the pavement, because even if it doesn't smell like summer anymore, it's starting to smell like roasting chestnuts, and that's nice, too, in a different way.
That's where you'd be wrong, though. I know, because I've done it: spent more than one Saturday curled up on my bed with a book and some chocolate, probably bored and probably lonely. Mostly my first few months in Reggio when things were still new and occasionally overwhelming. Now I know better. The thing to do is to get out of bed, put on a few layers of warm clothes, and meet someone for a coffee out in town. Half the town is out on the streets, ambling up and down and window shopping and running into people they know. Children you've taught will wave at you and other students from days of yore (by which I mean... 2008) will stop you in the street with a big hug, and various other acquaintances will ask you if you've married an Italian yet. (Ahem, no. Though apparently this is an anomaly because it seems the only valid reason to stay in Reggio is to have married a Reggiano.)
Anyway. My point is: don't let the grey fog of death get to you. Go out. Have a coffee or a drink or an ice cream (stranieri are allowed to have ice cream even in the dead of winter). Have a quick passeggiata and enjoy the reflection of the street lights on the pavement, because even if it doesn't smell like summer anymore, it's starting to smell like roasting chestnuts, and that's nice, too, in a different way.
Monday, October 4
Not much sense
Today I wore the Shoes That Look Good But Make Your Feet Bleed, and now my feet are bleeding. Super. Because clearly you wanted to know.
Also I am doing the Translation that Won't End and it is not ending. Boo.
On the other hand, had a delightful conversation with one of the new roommates. We shall call them Young One and Younger One because they are both mere youths. (As opposed to me, who is ancient, clearly.) Anyway, Younger One had her first day at uni today, and was regaling me with stories of hot boys from Parma or some such, and it was quite adorable. I felt all motherly and older. I feel like I should tell her to watch out for boys from Parma or something equally helpful and cautionary, but the only boys from Parma that I know are middle-aged and gentlemanly, and possessed of that hilarious partially French accent, which is all very charming, but provides no basis for issuing cautionary messages.
Then I decided to use some already-steamed veggies to make dinner. Except, by 'make dinner', I actually mean, pour olive oil and curry powder onto cold, previously-steamed veggies, and call it dinner. I figured it would make some sort of approximation of Indian-food-deliciousness. It did sort of (very vaguely) approximate the taste of Indian food, but it was only minimally delicious, and now I have a stomachache. Something tells me that perhaps that's not how you're meant to use curry powder...
Aaaanyway, back to the Translation that Won't End. Huzzah.
This entry makes pretty much no sense.
Also I am doing the Translation that Won't End and it is not ending. Boo.
On the other hand, had a delightful conversation with one of the new roommates. We shall call them Young One and Younger One because they are both mere youths. (As opposed to me, who is ancient, clearly.) Anyway, Younger One had her first day at uni today, and was regaling me with stories of hot boys from Parma or some such, and it was quite adorable. I felt all motherly and older. I feel like I should tell her to watch out for boys from Parma or something equally helpful and cautionary, but the only boys from Parma that I know are middle-aged and gentlemanly, and possessed of that hilarious partially French accent, which is all very charming, but provides no basis for issuing cautionary messages.
Then I decided to use some already-steamed veggies to make dinner. Except, by 'make dinner', I actually mean, pour olive oil and curry powder onto cold, previously-steamed veggies, and call it dinner. I figured it would make some sort of approximation of Indian-food-deliciousness. It did sort of (very vaguely) approximate the taste of Indian food, but it was only minimally delicious, and now I have a stomachache. Something tells me that perhaps that's not how you're meant to use curry powder...
Aaaanyway, back to the Translation that Won't End. Huzzah.
This entry makes pretty much no sense.
Sunday, October 3
Random stuff...
Check me out, all with the posting two days in a row over here. So efficient. Well, actually, not, because what I really should be doing is showering and/or cleaning the apartment and/or planning this week's lessons, not messing around on the internet, but whatever...
The church bells are ringing (so, is it the Duomo or San Prospero? and how will I ever find out?), the sun is doing its best to shine through the haze, and there is a soft sort of warmth coming in through the window. 60-ish degrees, says google. This places us squarely in problem-territory in terms of footwear, because for me, 60 degrees is still definitely flip-flop weather. Because my flip-flops are classy and nice and why wear uncomfortable footwear (which I haven't had time to buy yet anyway) when you could just be wearing classy flip-flops? For the Reggiani, 60 degrees is coat and scarf weather. I actually saw an older lady wearing wool gloves the other day, in the middle of the afternoon. (?!) I mean, come on now, I'll give you a cardigan or even a light jacket, but... scarf? Gloves? No. Let's just all calm down a little and take note of the fact that the sun is still shining. The perma-fog has not yet set in!
The Reggiani and I will clearly never see eye to eye on this matter, though (or at least, not before I reach the age of seventy or something), and so, I will continue to wear my sandals (at least until I find time to purchase some respectable flats in which to walk) and they will continue to give me weird looks, and everyone will know that I am straniera. It's funny, though - I don't really mind anymore. I used to be all 'no, must blend in and seem Italian and not embarassingly American' but... meh.
Now I'm a straniera who can deal with most situations that come up in everyday life here, and speak decent enough Italian to follow a conversation or the news or whatever with minimal fuss, and perform her job at least moderately decently (people occasionally even tell me I'm good at it, so that's always nice). I'm not so embarassed to be a straniera anymore, because I'm one that's holding her own in the land of the native Reggiani. I'm the straniera that can tell you hilarious stories about first moving here, while smoothly ordering off the menu or paying bills at the post office. Granted, I can still tell you funny stories about stupid things that I did just this morning, but they're the type of stupid things I probably would've done at home, too. So, yay. Successful straniera.
Uh, wow. All with the introspective over here. I was totally just planning to come and remark about the weather, in the manner of my grandmother or something, and move on - not tell you all about my relative levels of self-esteem as a foreigner. Sigh. So blather-y, self. (Also in the manner of my grandmother, actually.) Now it's time to head off to work and get some stuff done, methinks. Ciao ciao!
The church bells are ringing (so, is it the Duomo or San Prospero? and how will I ever find out?), the sun is doing its best to shine through the haze, and there is a soft sort of warmth coming in through the window. 60-ish degrees, says google. This places us squarely in problem-territory in terms of footwear, because for me, 60 degrees is still definitely flip-flop weather. Because my flip-flops are classy and nice and why wear uncomfortable footwear (which I haven't had time to buy yet anyway) when you could just be wearing classy flip-flops? For the Reggiani, 60 degrees is coat and scarf weather. I actually saw an older lady wearing wool gloves the other day, in the middle of the afternoon. (?!) I mean, come on now, I'll give you a cardigan or even a light jacket, but... scarf? Gloves? No. Let's just all calm down a little and take note of the fact that the sun is still shining. The perma-fog has not yet set in!
The Reggiani and I will clearly never see eye to eye on this matter, though (or at least, not before I reach the age of seventy or something), and so, I will continue to wear my sandals (at least until I find time to purchase some respectable flats in which to walk) and they will continue to give me weird looks, and everyone will know that I am straniera. It's funny, though - I don't really mind anymore. I used to be all 'no, must blend in and seem Italian and not embarassingly American' but... meh.
Now I'm a straniera who can deal with most situations that come up in everyday life here, and speak decent enough Italian to follow a conversation or the news or whatever with minimal fuss, and perform her job at least moderately decently (people occasionally even tell me I'm good at it, so that's always nice). I'm not so embarassed to be a straniera anymore, because I'm one that's holding her own in the land of the native Reggiani. I'm the straniera that can tell you hilarious stories about first moving here, while smoothly ordering off the menu or paying bills at the post office. Granted, I can still tell you funny stories about stupid things that I did just this morning, but they're the type of stupid things I probably would've done at home, too. So, yay. Successful straniera.
Uh, wow. All with the introspective over here. I was totally just planning to come and remark about the weather, in the manner of my grandmother or something, and move on - not tell you all about my relative levels of self-esteem as a foreigner. Sigh. So blather-y, self. (Also in the manner of my grandmother, actually.) Now it's time to head off to work and get some stuff done, methinks. Ciao ciao!
Saturday, October 2
In which I blather on about a pair of shoes
So, I feel the need to write an entry (or whatever it's called) in order to commemorate my most awesome pair of shoes ever. Bear with me, here. Essentially, the reason my shoes are so super awesome is that I bought them one fine spring break (the one of my senior year) because I was starting to think about wrapping up my honors thesis (and by 'starting to think about wrapping up' I mean, 'going all "oh shit, why did I not start collecting data months and months ago??"') and then it occurred to me that I would have to defend said thesis, and then it occurred to me that I would want to be professionally dressed for the occasion in question, and that I would need snazzy heels in order to be able to do so.
So I bought these excellent professional-looking black heels that were high but not too high and pointy but not too pointy and a little uncomfortable but not excruciatingly so. Also, with a pencil skirt and some nylons? It seems there is a reason women choose to wear these things to work. It makes your legs look magically grown-up and business-like and sexy all at the same time. Definite win. And they continued to be total win through several important life events.
First, some research presentations. These involve young student-researchers making a poster about their research (which involves a night or two spent in the lab, wringing some sort of sense out of your insufficient data, and another night or two spent in the science library, obsessing over the layout and finally printing the sucker) and then standing around in front of it while people mill around, pretending to be interested in your topic of research. I wore my excellent shoes to two or three of these events, and stood in front of my poster, and even if my data analysis was total crap (or missing entirely, at some of the earlier conferences), I looked professional and my poster had photos of cute babies on it.
Then, the thesis defense. My voice did not wobble and my shirt matched my eyes (apparently) and when I forgot the age group of the children in one study I referenced, my mentor helped me out, and at the end, they told me they would give me high honors if our college awarded them, and that it was some of the most clear writing they'd ever seen from a student (you'd never know it, reading this, though), and that that was the mark of a clear mind, and that they looked forward to seeing what I did in the field. I walked all the way home in my short-sleeved eye-matching shirt and my excellent shoes, in the early spring early morning chill, and when I got home my feet were bleeding but I didn't even care.
After that, I decided to get a job in Italy. I wandered around Bologna for a few days with my CV, wearing flip-flops and carrying my excellent shoes stuffed in my purse. When I came across a language school, I'd put on the shoes and ring the bell and offer my CV to whoever was there. I also wore them on my first-ever Italian train ride from Bologna to Reggio to interview at the school where I currently still work.
Similarly, I wore them to the daycare where I worked for a few months when I was home a year ago... and was massively over-dressed, looking even snazzier than the boss and the director, with my CV all equipped with research experience and my fancy degree and all that. How to get a job instantly: apply for something for which your are massively, hideously over-qualified, but smilingly tell them it's actually what you've always wanted to do.
Then I came back to Reggio, back to teaching, and was sent to the Uber-Fancy Local Fashion Company to teach. I went wearing all black and my excellent shoes, and have not been tossed out yet (it was threatened that we wouldn't be sent there if we weren't well dressed enough). I can clearly remember my first morning there, (mentally) sweating bullets and hyperventilating just a little while waiting for the managing director of god-knows-what to show up so I could teach him English. Hoping no one would see me and be all "ew, a shoddily clad american - get her away from our fashion awesomeness". No one did, and the managing director of god-knows-what was a delightful gentleman, and to this day I have still never been thrown off the premesis. In fact, I sometimes go wearing jeans and my excellent shoes, and still look decent enough to teach at least the younger, non-manager types. My shoes have always been loyal and awesome.
Until yesterday, when I noticed that they have sort of become all stretched and loose, and one of the heels feels not to stable, and also I've been mean and haven't polished them in ages. I've had new bottoms put on the heels (you know, that rubber part that gets worn down when you stomp around in your shoes like I do?) several times, but I think this time they are unsalvageable. And since I cannot have bits falling off when I am teaching at the UFLFC (or, uh, anywhere else, really) I think it is time to retire them. Poor shoes. I feel like I should bury them or something. Perhaps I will just bury them in the back of my closet, since I am not quite ready to let them go.
I sound like a nut job. In other news, the perma-grey has returned to the sky as of this morning. You know how my one student told me once that, in Reggio, you can tell it's spring or summer when you can see individual clouds in the sky, and winter when it's just a sheet of grey? Well, it's a sheet of grey. It looks like a layer of compacted fog, ready to descend on the populace at any moment. Delightful...
So I bought these excellent professional-looking black heels that were high but not too high and pointy but not too pointy and a little uncomfortable but not excruciatingly so. Also, with a pencil skirt and some nylons? It seems there is a reason women choose to wear these things to work. It makes your legs look magically grown-up and business-like and sexy all at the same time. Definite win. And they continued to be total win through several important life events.
First, some research presentations. These involve young student-researchers making a poster about their research (which involves a night or two spent in the lab, wringing some sort of sense out of your insufficient data, and another night or two spent in the science library, obsessing over the layout and finally printing the sucker) and then standing around in front of it while people mill around, pretending to be interested in your topic of research. I wore my excellent shoes to two or three of these events, and stood in front of my poster, and even if my data analysis was total crap (or missing entirely, at some of the earlier conferences), I looked professional and my poster had photos of cute babies on it.
Then, the thesis defense. My voice did not wobble and my shirt matched my eyes (apparently) and when I forgot the age group of the children in one study I referenced, my mentor helped me out, and at the end, they told me they would give me high honors if our college awarded them, and that it was some of the most clear writing they'd ever seen from a student (you'd never know it, reading this, though), and that that was the mark of a clear mind, and that they looked forward to seeing what I did in the field. I walked all the way home in my short-sleeved eye-matching shirt and my excellent shoes, in the early spring early morning chill, and when I got home my feet were bleeding but I didn't even care.
After that, I decided to get a job in Italy. I wandered around Bologna for a few days with my CV, wearing flip-flops and carrying my excellent shoes stuffed in my purse. When I came across a language school, I'd put on the shoes and ring the bell and offer my CV to whoever was there. I also wore them on my first-ever Italian train ride from Bologna to Reggio to interview at the school where I currently still work.
Similarly, I wore them to the daycare where I worked for a few months when I was home a year ago... and was massively over-dressed, looking even snazzier than the boss and the director, with my CV all equipped with research experience and my fancy degree and all that. How to get a job instantly: apply for something for which your are massively, hideously over-qualified, but smilingly tell them it's actually what you've always wanted to do.
Then I came back to Reggio, back to teaching, and was sent to the Uber-Fancy Local Fashion Company to teach. I went wearing all black and my excellent shoes, and have not been tossed out yet (it was threatened that we wouldn't be sent there if we weren't well dressed enough). I can clearly remember my first morning there, (mentally) sweating bullets and hyperventilating just a little while waiting for the managing director of god-knows-what to show up so I could teach him English. Hoping no one would see me and be all "ew, a shoddily clad american - get her away from our fashion awesomeness". No one did, and the managing director of god-knows-what was a delightful gentleman, and to this day I have still never been thrown off the premesis. In fact, I sometimes go wearing jeans and my excellent shoes, and still look decent enough to teach at least the younger, non-manager types. My shoes have always been loyal and awesome.
Until yesterday, when I noticed that they have sort of become all stretched and loose, and one of the heels feels not to stable, and also I've been mean and haven't polished them in ages. I've had new bottoms put on the heels (you know, that rubber part that gets worn down when you stomp around in your shoes like I do?) several times, but I think this time they are unsalvageable. And since I cannot have bits falling off when I am teaching at the UFLFC (or, uh, anywhere else, really) I think it is time to retire them. Poor shoes. I feel like I should bury them or something. Perhaps I will just bury them in the back of my closet, since I am not quite ready to let them go.
I sound like a nut job. In other news, the perma-grey has returned to the sky as of this morning. You know how my one student told me once that, in Reggio, you can tell it's spring or summer when you can see individual clouds in the sky, and winter when it's just a sheet of grey? Well, it's a sheet of grey. It looks like a layer of compacted fog, ready to descend on the populace at any moment. Delightful...
Tuesday, September 14
The weather
Dear Reggio,
I would like to inquire about your weather plans for the remainder of the season. Specifically, why is it already wintertime? As far as I can tell, the calendar indicates that we are barely halfway through september. And I seem to recall that when I was a child living in America, it was routinely broiling and stuffy well into the beginning of october. I remember this because I was never able to wear my awesome back to school clothes during the first weeks of school because it was always too hot.
Reggio. Are you not located in Italy, the land of sun and warmth and all that good stuff? I understand that you specifically are more the land of fog and damp, but still. Could you not give us a couple more weeks of sun and summery-ness? I don't think it's asking for that much. I'm fully prepared for the wet and the fog and the damp and the grey starting in mid-october, but that's a whole month away.
Yesterday I was freezing despite long sleeves, and someone told me I should go home and make polenta to warm myself up, and I don't even know how to make polenta. Also, I didn't bring a coat back from America with me. If you could just give me enough time to procure a coat and learn how to make polenta, I would appreciate it. Please take this into consideration.
Kisses,
Straniera
P.S. Ahahaha, I just realized that not two days ago I wrote an entry that was all ode-to-the-good-weather. How ironic.
I would like to inquire about your weather plans for the remainder of the season. Specifically, why is it already wintertime? As far as I can tell, the calendar indicates that we are barely halfway through september. And I seem to recall that when I was a child living in America, it was routinely broiling and stuffy well into the beginning of october. I remember this because I was never able to wear my awesome back to school clothes during the first weeks of school because it was always too hot.
Reggio. Are you not located in Italy, the land of sun and warmth and all that good stuff? I understand that you specifically are more the land of fog and damp, but still. Could you not give us a couple more weeks of sun and summery-ness? I don't think it's asking for that much. I'm fully prepared for the wet and the fog and the damp and the grey starting in mid-october, but that's a whole month away.
Yesterday I was freezing despite long sleeves, and someone told me I should go home and make polenta to warm myself up, and I don't even know how to make polenta. Also, I didn't bring a coat back from America with me. If you could just give me enough time to procure a coat and learn how to make polenta, I would appreciate it. Please take this into consideration.
Kisses,
Straniera
P.S. Ahahaha, I just realized that not two days ago I wrote an entry that was all ode-to-the-good-weather. How ironic.
Sunday, September 12
Bel tempo
Finally, un attimo di bel tempo. The sun is shining outside, my apartment is clean, someone is playing Ligabue (Le donne lo sanno) from somewhere so it is just audible enough to be pleasant but not enough to be distracting, I have some delicious cheese (viva il pecorino toscano!) and maybe a salad to eat for lunch, and also delightful evening plans, and life is good.
Not even the fact that I am working on the translation of Death, also known as the translation that Refuses to End, can dampen my spirits. Evviva il bel tempo! I had better finish the sucker before November, or else there will be no more bel tempo to cheer me up and I will probably chuck my laptop (or myself) out of the window in frustration.
Perhaps when I finish the stupid thing, I will have time to update the internet world on the minutiae importantissimi of my life, including a stint as secretary, a brief escape to the Lago di Garda, our first week back at work and the trauma of preparing for our school's open day... etc.
Not even the fact that I am working on the translation of Death, also known as the translation that Refuses to End, can dampen my spirits. Evviva il bel tempo! I had better finish the sucker before November, or else there will be no more bel tempo to cheer me up and I will probably chuck my laptop (or myself) out of the window in frustration.
Perhaps when I finish the stupid thing, I will have time to update the internet world on the minutiae importantissimi of my life, including a stint as secretary, a brief escape to the Lago di Garda, our first week back at work and the trauma of preparing for our school's open day... etc.
Tuesday, August 31
Not in ferie
Aaaand we're back. Back in the land of plentiful gelato and stores that close irritatingly early. In fact, I should probably plan all future returns to the bel paese around the closing times of local supermarkets. Because otherwise I end up like I am now: all greatful for the fact that I stuffed a package of goldfish crackers into my purse before leaving America (three or four days ago) and subsequently forgot to remove them.
You know how in America you can get pretty much anything you want at anytime you want it? I mean, definitely during extended daytime hours - you can do your banking and your post office-ing and your grocery shopping and your dry cleaning and all sorts of things until considerably later than you can in Italy. (Or France, for that matter.) Similarly, you can go to the bank on a Saturday and to the supermarket or the mall or pretty much anywhere on a Sunday. (Except the bank or the post office, I suppose. Still, though.) Like, if you suddenly need a soda at three a.m.? Probably there is a 24 hour convenience store somewhere within comfortable driving distance. McDonald's at midnight? For sure. In fact, once I was with some friends in New York and we decided we needed a board game to play (I forget what the context of this was) and it was ten p.m., but that's fine, because we just sauntered into some random Wal-Mart and there we were: toys in the middle of the night!
Here in Reggio, though, it is a different matter. Good luck to you if you happen to show up some fine evening at 8:40 and notice that you have no shampoo, no laundry detergent, no bottled water, no food, and a pressing desire to shower, do your laundry, and, uh, ingest food/hydrate yourself. You are in trouble. In fact, this is how I come to be dining on goldfish crackers and savoring the little bottle of water that I grabbed (kind of on a whim, really... but so fortunate!) before getting on the train. Not to mention eagerly awaiting Acqua e Sapone's opening time tomorrow so that I can get soap, in various forms and for various uses. Yay soap!
Hm. I feel that I am starting to make very little sense. It has been a long and largely boring day of travelling, though. In fact, I would like to take a moment to boast of my travelling prowess. Today, my trajectory was as such: tramway halfway around the periphery of Paris --> RER train around the rest of Paris --> airport shuttle to correct terminal --> airplane to Malpensa --> shuttle bus to Milano centrale --> regionale train to Reggio --> taxi to here --> very tired arms and legs lugging suitcases up three flights of stairs --> me sitting at this desk, eating goldfish and too lazy to go get ready for bed and thus continuing to type instead...
Yes, anyway. Oh, one more parting thought, though. You know how in America you can get anything anytime, pretty much? And in Italy you are quite restricted and on a Sunday afternoon, just about all you can get is a coffee or gelato? Well, in France, it's like that except for the bread. You can always, always find a boulangerie that is open and ready to feed you a fresh baguette/croissant/eclair or whatever, no matter what day it is. It's like, if it's the god-given right of an American to have tylenol and board games at whatever time of day we damn well please, it's the god-given right of French people to have fresh bread any day of the year, right down to Easter Sunday and Christmas, and don't anyone try to take it away from us!
Okay. Now I really will go to bed. 'Notte Reggio. It's good to be back.
You know how in America you can get pretty much anything you want at anytime you want it? I mean, definitely during extended daytime hours - you can do your banking and your post office-ing and your grocery shopping and your dry cleaning and all sorts of things until considerably later than you can in Italy. (Or France, for that matter.) Similarly, you can go to the bank on a Saturday and to the supermarket or the mall or pretty much anywhere on a Sunday. (Except the bank or the post office, I suppose. Still, though.) Like, if you suddenly need a soda at three a.m.? Probably there is a 24 hour convenience store somewhere within comfortable driving distance. McDonald's at midnight? For sure. In fact, once I was with some friends in New York and we decided we needed a board game to play (I forget what the context of this was) and it was ten p.m., but that's fine, because we just sauntered into some random Wal-Mart and there we were: toys in the middle of the night!
Here in Reggio, though, it is a different matter. Good luck to you if you happen to show up some fine evening at 8:40 and notice that you have no shampoo, no laundry detergent, no bottled water, no food, and a pressing desire to shower, do your laundry, and, uh, ingest food/hydrate yourself. You are in trouble. In fact, this is how I come to be dining on goldfish crackers and savoring the little bottle of water that I grabbed (kind of on a whim, really... but so fortunate!) before getting on the train. Not to mention eagerly awaiting Acqua e Sapone's opening time tomorrow so that I can get soap, in various forms and for various uses. Yay soap!
Hm. I feel that I am starting to make very little sense. It has been a long and largely boring day of travelling, though. In fact, I would like to take a moment to boast of my travelling prowess. Today, my trajectory was as such: tramway halfway around the periphery of Paris --> RER train around the rest of Paris --> airport shuttle to correct terminal --> airplane to Malpensa --> shuttle bus to Milano centrale --> regionale train to Reggio --> taxi to here --> very tired arms and legs lugging suitcases up three flights of stairs --> me sitting at this desk, eating goldfish and too lazy to go get ready for bed and thus continuing to type instead...
Yes, anyway. Oh, one more parting thought, though. You know how in America you can get anything anytime, pretty much? And in Italy you are quite restricted and on a Sunday afternoon, just about all you can get is a coffee or gelato? Well, in France, it's like that except for the bread. You can always, always find a boulangerie that is open and ready to feed you a fresh baguette/croissant/eclair or whatever, no matter what day it is. It's like, if it's the god-given right of an American to have tylenol and board games at whatever time of day we damn well please, it's the god-given right of French people to have fresh bread any day of the year, right down to Easter Sunday and Christmas, and don't anyone try to take it away from us!
Okay. Now I really will go to bed. 'Notte Reggio. It's good to be back.
Sunday, August 29
In ferie
Well, actually, I'm tornando-ing dalle ferie. (You know you've reached a certain level of comfort with a language when you can mix it in with your first one and double conjugate the verbs, right? Just, uh, don't mistake "certain level of comfort" for "anything near proficiency", at least in my case.)
Anyway. Vacation. Were you picturing me lounging on the beach, getting a stellar tan and... I don't know... doing beach-type things? That's nice. Because, actually, I was working at the daycare from my previous stint in the childcare-world and generally wearing a lot more baby spit-up and bleach than sunscreen.
I sound bitter, don't I? But actually, I'm completely not. I am a big fan of working there, in fact. It's just kind of more interesting to write about your life if you're either bitter or having adventures that make you seem completely retarded. Don't worry, though - I generally do plenty of the latter, so probably things will be up and running (read: puttering along) at their usual speed shortly.
So, to recap this summer since that last post: there was one more week after that of working in the ridiculous heat of Reggio in July. (Actually, remind me never to work full time at a job that requires me to look halfway decent through the middle of July in Reggio again: brutal. Particularly when showing up for lessons at companies that are thoroughly air conditioned, looking all disheveled when the employees have been hanging out in the subarctic temperatures all day and look at you like you're from a different planet for even considering short sleeves. Sigh.)
Then, in a colossal bout of over-ambitiousness regarding scheduling, managed to book a flight (from Milan) a mere six or so hours after the end of my last lesson (in Reggio), which somewhat compressed the activities of finishing packing/taking out the garbage/remembering to lock my apartment/calling a taxi/buying train ticket/taking navetta from Milano Centrale to Malpensa/actually boarding plane, etc. but I made it. Subsequently arrival in Paris in the dead of night, merciful picking up by mother at airport (yay! mother is awesome!). Next day spent traipsing around Paris at breakneck pace, determined to enjoy all of favorite haunts and also company of aforementioned awesome mother in just one day. Day after, return to airport and oh-so-fun flight back to Newark. Newark (and NJ in general) very humid and sticky. Highly reminiscent of Reggio, except with bigger and slower highways, more ethnic food, and crappier pizza.
Sleep it all off and return to work at daycare the next morning (because am valiant! and tireless! and maybe slightly less than sane!), marvel at growth of children cared for during previous stint at daycare, marvel at ridiculous turnover rate of staff, get assigned a classroom and offered yet another uniform polo (wrong size, do not take for fear of always looking like some sort of crazy Tent Monster; better to stick with own, bleach-stained uniform polos). Spend six weeks caring for mildly psychotic but highly entertaining 18-month-olds, while occasionally sneaking to classroom of 12-month-olds (more familiar territory - class from last time), and classroom of infants (where things are peaceful and calm and filled with cooing babies... okay, maybe sometimes they teethe and cry hysterically and frequently they spit up on you, but this is still peaceful and calm compared to the psychosis of the toddlers).
Overall, six weeks of familiar, satisfying work in familiar, pleasant workplace. Six weeks of family and friends and familiar surroundings. Many evenings spent filling up on food that Italy does not seem to have: Indian and Thai and Mexican, oh my. (Italy, don't get me wrong: I love your food. It is probably among the most excellent in the world, but... have you tried food from other countries? It also can be excellent.) Also iced coffee (I know, it is wimpy and watery and frequently unnecessarily sweet, but I have a serious weakness for iced coffee). Six weeks of coming home from work and sinking pleasantly into piles of books borrowed from the library, the words like a deliciously warm bath. (Uh-oh, now I am becoming gooey.)
Then, after quasi-tearfully hugging my little monsters and tickling all my favorite babies under the chin one more time and hearing their little giggles, loaded self back onto plane (sat next to cheerful and overly talkative couple that wanted to know whether I was leaving home or going home... surprisingly difficult question to answer), ate goopy rice under some dish that was apparently masquerading as chicken teriyaki, and then managed to sleep on plane (unprecedented!) before arriving back in Paris.
Here it is grey and slightly gloomy, but armed with a sweater and a scarf, it is a rather pleasant sort of grey. Am eating ridiculous amounts of yummy stuff that they only have in Paris, and continuing to gorge myself on books until return to Reggio the day after tomorrow. And now I think it is sufficiently late to trick myself into sleeping, since I bravely fought the jet lag upon arriving yesterday and managing not to nap in the daytime. Huzzah!
Right. Anyway, a good night to all!
Anyway. Vacation. Were you picturing me lounging on the beach, getting a stellar tan and... I don't know... doing beach-type things? That's nice. Because, actually, I was working at the daycare from my previous stint in the childcare-world and generally wearing a lot more baby spit-up and bleach than sunscreen.
I sound bitter, don't I? But actually, I'm completely not. I am a big fan of working there, in fact. It's just kind of more interesting to write about your life if you're either bitter or having adventures that make you seem completely retarded. Don't worry, though - I generally do plenty of the latter, so probably things will be up and running (read: puttering along) at their usual speed shortly.
So, to recap this summer since that last post: there was one more week after that of working in the ridiculous heat of Reggio in July. (Actually, remind me never to work full time at a job that requires me to look halfway decent through the middle of July in Reggio again: brutal. Particularly when showing up for lessons at companies that are thoroughly air conditioned, looking all disheveled when the employees have been hanging out in the subarctic temperatures all day and look at you like you're from a different planet for even considering short sleeves. Sigh.)
Then, in a colossal bout of over-ambitiousness regarding scheduling, managed to book a flight (from Milan) a mere six or so hours after the end of my last lesson (in Reggio), which somewhat compressed the activities of finishing packing/taking out the garbage/remembering to lock my apartment/calling a taxi/buying train ticket/taking navetta from Milano Centrale to Malpensa/actually boarding plane, etc. but I made it. Subsequently arrival in Paris in the dead of night, merciful picking up by mother at airport (yay! mother is awesome!). Next day spent traipsing around Paris at breakneck pace, determined to enjoy all of favorite haunts and also company of aforementioned awesome mother in just one day. Day after, return to airport and oh-so-fun flight back to Newark. Newark (and NJ in general) very humid and sticky. Highly reminiscent of Reggio, except with bigger and slower highways, more ethnic food, and crappier pizza.
Sleep it all off and return to work at daycare the next morning (because am valiant! and tireless! and maybe slightly less than sane!), marvel at growth of children cared for during previous stint at daycare, marvel at ridiculous turnover rate of staff, get assigned a classroom and offered yet another uniform polo (wrong size, do not take for fear of always looking like some sort of crazy Tent Monster; better to stick with own, bleach-stained uniform polos). Spend six weeks caring for mildly psychotic but highly entertaining 18-month-olds, while occasionally sneaking to classroom of 12-month-olds (more familiar territory - class from last time), and classroom of infants (where things are peaceful and calm and filled with cooing babies... okay, maybe sometimes they teethe and cry hysterically and frequently they spit up on you, but this is still peaceful and calm compared to the psychosis of the toddlers).
Overall, six weeks of familiar, satisfying work in familiar, pleasant workplace. Six weeks of family and friends and familiar surroundings. Many evenings spent filling up on food that Italy does not seem to have: Indian and Thai and Mexican, oh my. (Italy, don't get me wrong: I love your food. It is probably among the most excellent in the world, but... have you tried food from other countries? It also can be excellent.) Also iced coffee (I know, it is wimpy and watery and frequently unnecessarily sweet, but I have a serious weakness for iced coffee). Six weeks of coming home from work and sinking pleasantly into piles of books borrowed from the library, the words like a deliciously warm bath. (Uh-oh, now I am becoming gooey.)
Then, after quasi-tearfully hugging my little monsters and tickling all my favorite babies under the chin one more time and hearing their little giggles, loaded self back onto plane (sat next to cheerful and overly talkative couple that wanted to know whether I was leaving home or going home... surprisingly difficult question to answer), ate goopy rice under some dish that was apparently masquerading as chicken teriyaki, and then managed to sleep on plane (unprecedented!) before arriving back in Paris.
Here it is grey and slightly gloomy, but armed with a sweater and a scarf, it is a rather pleasant sort of grey. Am eating ridiculous amounts of yummy stuff that they only have in Paris, and continuing to gorge myself on books until return to Reggio the day after tomorrow. And now I think it is sufficiently late to trick myself into sleeping, since I bravely fought the jet lag upon arriving yesterday and managing not to nap in the daytime. Huzzah!
Right. Anyway, a good night to all!
Saturday, August 28
Filial piety
"So, she needs to go out to get her hair cut and she wants to go to the Galeries Lafayette... you'll take her, right?" the hope in my mother's voice is palpable even over the phone.
'
"Yes, yes," I say, full of filial piety and duty-towards-ones-grandparents, etc. (I am in Paris with the grandmother for a few days before returning to Reggio after the summer.) I picture my grandmother and myself strolling through the Galeries Lafayette, chatting amiably, and how good I will feel afterwards, knowing that she has at least been out of the house once this month.
I really should know better by now.
I am hanging out in the living room of my mother's apartment, when I hear my grandmother in the building's courtyard, having finally made it down from her fourth floor apartment (they have apartments in neighboring buildings that share a courtyard).
"Is he in the hospital?" she is inquiring, her voice full of concern. What? I get up to see who she is talking to.
"No, no," a medium-sized boy is saying, having apparently been stopped midway through taking the garbage bins back into the basement. He must be the caretaker's son. "He just has a little cold, really." My grandmother shakes her head mournfully.
"Ah!" she heaves a sigh of great regret/concern/god-knows-what. "Tell him to be careful, though. The number of times someone I know has had 'just a cold' and then, you know... " she lets her voice trail off almost mournfully. The boy looks a bit confused now, and I don't blame him. I stick my head out of the window and call, "I'll be right down." My grandmother is in her element, though, and doesn't even acknowledge me.
"Anyway, you should tell your father..." and she goes off into a list of remedies ranging from the innocuous (lots of sleep) to the minorly bizarre (boiling a mixture of herbs and medicines and breathing it). I have been subject to this last one at various times throughout my childhood, and let me tell you, it is not pleasant. It is like being suffocated by an herb garden that has been liberally doused in cough syrup. The awkward thing is that it does kind of work as a decongestant, so I can't really say anything.
"Right, well, time to go!" I say cheerfully upon reaching her. I wave to the kid and hurry her on my way. For the next twenty minutes, I am treated to a litany of our many family members and acquaintances who have had horrible things happen to them after having made light of a cold. Bronchitis... peumonia... death... lung cancer... colon cancer... (?!) I find this hard to believe, especially that last one, but I concentrate on getting her across the various streets between us and the bus stop, as she is completely not paying attention to traffic. (I think she is under the impression that anyone would stop for a little old lady with a cane. While I hope that this is true, I have my doubts. I don't think she has met very many people in my generation.)
As I grab her arm to keep her from walking into oncoming traffic, she looks up at me.
"But why are you only wearing one shirt?!" she exclaims, horrified. It is seventy degrees out and I am wearing a light sweater, and already starting to bake a little. I know better than to answer her - if I stay quiet, she'll run out of steam faster.
"Look at me: I'm wearing an undershirt and a blouse and a fleece vest, and even I'm chilly. Why aren't you wearing a fleece vest? I have a lovely fleece vest just like this one that I could've given you - it's red with orange flowers embroidered on it!" (I shudder and thank god for my lucky escape.) "Why don't we go back and get it?" (Crap.)
"No, I don't think that's a good idea. Look how close we are to the bus stop!" I try to distract her. No dice.
"Who cares about the bus? How can I ride the bus knowing you are freezing and you will probably catch a cold, just like the poor guardien, and then you will forget to take medicine and you will get a pneumonia and- "
"No, really, I'm fine," I insist. "Come on. Here, I have tickets already."
"I don't want a ticket. I need to go to the post office," with this non sequitar, she veers off in the direction of the post office, dragging me with her.
"Are you sure you don't want to run back to the apartment and get the fleece jacket? Just think how warm your ribs would be! Your ribs are probably freezing and it's terrible to let your ribs catch a chill. Did you know that your lungs are just underneath your ribs, and you've left them with practically no protection at all?"
"My ribs are FINE!" I raise my voice ever so slightly to get the point across. A man walking in front of us turns around and looks at us. Super. My grandmother thinks this is the height of hilarity and giggles to herself.
Good humour and cooperation are momentarily restored as we spend a moment laughing together about the man's likely confusion and his contemplation of the state of my ribs. We enter the post office. I patiently wait in the line so that she can sit down, and when it is her turn, we smoothly switch places. We have done this many times before and we are like a graceful and coordinated team of... I don't know. Something very coordinated.
I sit down and take the opportunity to delete all of the useless publicity-related text messages from her phone (she insists on keeping them 'in case they might be useful'... and probably also because she doesn't know how to delete them). I am about halfway through when the sound of raised voices cuts through my contemplation of a message offering discount trips to Dubai. (Tempting, but I don't think my grandmother would go for it.)
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but we can't withdraw money from your account without a valid form of ID," the teller is patiently informing my grandmother, who is brandishing a passport that is twenty years out of date.
"This is perfectly valid! It even has my photo on it! Just because my hair is a little more gray, nowadays!" Oh dear. The poor teller has no idea what she's gotten herself into. Almost better to just hand over the cash and risk fraud or whatever.
"Right, but-"
"Okay, fine," interrupts my grandmother, clearly having lost patience with the poor young woman. "What if I write myself a check and then cash it?" She is already pulling out her checkbook.
"Well, I'm afraid I'll still need a valid pièce d'identité... a current passport, perhaps?"
"A current passport?! You expect me to carry my current passport around on the streets with me?! In this day and age?! With all of the hooligans about?! That is a ridiculously foolish suggestion, and I do hope that you don't carry your own current passport around for all the world to rob, young woman!" This looks like it could go on for a few more minutes, so I get up and go to her side.
"You know, maybe we should just..." I trail off. I don't really know what we should 'just' do, except maybe leave ASAP, before someone calls the police, or the nearest psychiatric facility.
"Ah, is this your granddaughter?" the teller asks cheerfully, "perhaps she could just run home and get your current passport?"
Wrong answer.
"So that she can get mugged and have my passport stolen from her and god-knows-what-else done to her?! [Insert brief but packed summary of the most recent rapes and kidnappings featured on the news in the last month or so - my grandmother's specialty.] On top of which, it's freezing out there and my granddaughter refuses to wear my extra fleece vest, even though it's orange with red flowers embroidered on it, so even if she didn't get mugged or killed, she'd probably catch a pneumonia. Never mind!"
She wraps up her discourse by zipping her handbag closed with force and begins to make her way out off the premesis. Her exit is somewhat marred by the fact that she can only walk very slowly using both crutches, but she takes the extra time to mumble just-barely-audibly about the lack of cooperation exhibited by the teller and the lack of respect for their elders of young people in general (the teller, by the way, is probably about 40, but whatever... at least she got to be called "young lady" today, right? Silver lining.).
After vetoing three or four fine-looking establishments, we are finally able to choose a cafe in which to sit down and rest and get some food before continuing our arduous journey towards the center of town. She criticizes my choice of salad to anyone who will listen - including the waiter and the woman at the table next to ours, who happens to look over at an inopportune moment - and then regales the poor waiter with the whole of our post office adventure. She finishes by asking him if he usually carries his passport around. I focus carefully on my grilled goat cheese salad, pondering what makes salad dressing in France so delightful (mustard, perhaps?) and try to smile apologetically at the waiter every so often.
Insomma, another run-of-the-mill outing with the grandmère. Sigh.
'
"Yes, yes," I say, full of filial piety and duty-towards-ones-grandparents, etc. (I am in Paris with the grandmother for a few days before returning to Reggio after the summer.) I picture my grandmother and myself strolling through the Galeries Lafayette, chatting amiably, and how good I will feel afterwards, knowing that she has at least been out of the house once this month.
I really should know better by now.
I am hanging out in the living room of my mother's apartment, when I hear my grandmother in the building's courtyard, having finally made it down from her fourth floor apartment (they have apartments in neighboring buildings that share a courtyard).
"Is he in the hospital?" she is inquiring, her voice full of concern. What? I get up to see who she is talking to.
"No, no," a medium-sized boy is saying, having apparently been stopped midway through taking the garbage bins back into the basement. He must be the caretaker's son. "He just has a little cold, really." My grandmother shakes her head mournfully.
"Ah!" she heaves a sigh of great regret/concern/god-knows-what. "Tell him to be careful, though. The number of times someone I know has had 'just a cold' and then, you know... " she lets her voice trail off almost mournfully. The boy looks a bit confused now, and I don't blame him. I stick my head out of the window and call, "I'll be right down." My grandmother is in her element, though, and doesn't even acknowledge me.
"Anyway, you should tell your father..." and she goes off into a list of remedies ranging from the innocuous (lots of sleep) to the minorly bizarre (boiling a mixture of herbs and medicines and breathing it). I have been subject to this last one at various times throughout my childhood, and let me tell you, it is not pleasant. It is like being suffocated by an herb garden that has been liberally doused in cough syrup. The awkward thing is that it does kind of work as a decongestant, so I can't really say anything.
"Right, well, time to go!" I say cheerfully upon reaching her. I wave to the kid and hurry her on my way. For the next twenty minutes, I am treated to a litany of our many family members and acquaintances who have had horrible things happen to them after having made light of a cold. Bronchitis... peumonia... death... lung cancer... colon cancer... (?!) I find this hard to believe, especially that last one, but I concentrate on getting her across the various streets between us and the bus stop, as she is completely not paying attention to traffic. (I think she is under the impression that anyone would stop for a little old lady with a cane. While I hope that this is true, I have my doubts. I don't think she has met very many people in my generation.)
As I grab her arm to keep her from walking into oncoming traffic, she looks up at me.
"But why are you only wearing one shirt?!" she exclaims, horrified. It is seventy degrees out and I am wearing a light sweater, and already starting to bake a little. I know better than to answer her - if I stay quiet, she'll run out of steam faster.
"Look at me: I'm wearing an undershirt and a blouse and a fleece vest, and even I'm chilly. Why aren't you wearing a fleece vest? I have a lovely fleece vest just like this one that I could've given you - it's red with orange flowers embroidered on it!" (I shudder and thank god for my lucky escape.) "Why don't we go back and get it?" (Crap.)
"No, I don't think that's a good idea. Look how close we are to the bus stop!" I try to distract her. No dice.
"Who cares about the bus? How can I ride the bus knowing you are freezing and you will probably catch a cold, just like the poor guardien, and then you will forget to take medicine and you will get a pneumonia and- "
"No, really, I'm fine," I insist. "Come on. Here, I have tickets already."
"I don't want a ticket. I need to go to the post office," with this non sequitar, she veers off in the direction of the post office, dragging me with her.
"Are you sure you don't want to run back to the apartment and get the fleece jacket? Just think how warm your ribs would be! Your ribs are probably freezing and it's terrible to let your ribs catch a chill. Did you know that your lungs are just underneath your ribs, and you've left them with practically no protection at all?"
"My ribs are FINE!" I raise my voice ever so slightly to get the point across. A man walking in front of us turns around and looks at us. Super. My grandmother thinks this is the height of hilarity and giggles to herself.
Good humour and cooperation are momentarily restored as we spend a moment laughing together about the man's likely confusion and his contemplation of the state of my ribs. We enter the post office. I patiently wait in the line so that she can sit down, and when it is her turn, we smoothly switch places. We have done this many times before and we are like a graceful and coordinated team of... I don't know. Something very coordinated.
I sit down and take the opportunity to delete all of the useless publicity-related text messages from her phone (she insists on keeping them 'in case they might be useful'... and probably also because she doesn't know how to delete them). I am about halfway through when the sound of raised voices cuts through my contemplation of a message offering discount trips to Dubai. (Tempting, but I don't think my grandmother would go for it.)
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but we can't withdraw money from your account without a valid form of ID," the teller is patiently informing my grandmother, who is brandishing a passport that is twenty years out of date.
"This is perfectly valid! It even has my photo on it! Just because my hair is a little more gray, nowadays!" Oh dear. The poor teller has no idea what she's gotten herself into. Almost better to just hand over the cash and risk fraud or whatever.
"Right, but-"
"Okay, fine," interrupts my grandmother, clearly having lost patience with the poor young woman. "What if I write myself a check and then cash it?" She is already pulling out her checkbook.
"Well, I'm afraid I'll still need a valid pièce d'identité... a current passport, perhaps?"
"A current passport?! You expect me to carry my current passport around on the streets with me?! In this day and age?! With all of the hooligans about?! That is a ridiculously foolish suggestion, and I do hope that you don't carry your own current passport around for all the world to rob, young woman!" This looks like it could go on for a few more minutes, so I get up and go to her side.
"You know, maybe we should just..." I trail off. I don't really know what we should 'just' do, except maybe leave ASAP, before someone calls the police, or the nearest psychiatric facility.
"Ah, is this your granddaughter?" the teller asks cheerfully, "perhaps she could just run home and get your current passport?"
Wrong answer.
"So that she can get mugged and have my passport stolen from her and god-knows-what-else done to her?! [Insert brief but packed summary of the most recent rapes and kidnappings featured on the news in the last month or so - my grandmother's specialty.] On top of which, it's freezing out there and my granddaughter refuses to wear my extra fleece vest, even though it's orange with red flowers embroidered on it, so even if she didn't get mugged or killed, she'd probably catch a pneumonia. Never mind!"
She wraps up her discourse by zipping her handbag closed with force and begins to make her way out off the premesis. Her exit is somewhat marred by the fact that she can only walk very slowly using both crutches, but she takes the extra time to mumble just-barely-audibly about the lack of cooperation exhibited by the teller and the lack of respect for their elders of young people in general (the teller, by the way, is probably about 40, but whatever... at least she got to be called "young lady" today, right? Silver lining.).
After vetoing three or four fine-looking establishments, we are finally able to choose a cafe in which to sit down and rest and get some food before continuing our arduous journey towards the center of town. She criticizes my choice of salad to anyone who will listen - including the waiter and the woman at the table next to ours, who happens to look over at an inopportune moment - and then regales the poor waiter with the whole of our post office adventure. She finishes by asking him if he usually carries his passport around. I focus carefully on my grilled goat cheese salad, pondering what makes salad dressing in France so delightful (mustard, perhaps?) and try to smile apologetically at the waiter every so often.
Insomma, another run-of-the-mill outing with the grandmère. Sigh.
Wednesday, July 7
Bene
There is a lovely breeze blowing through Reggio, reaching me both in classroom 4 on Local Language School and my third floor bedroom here in the center. They are holding the penultimate Notte Rosa downstairs and some guy is playing an agreeably allegre song on his guitar practically under our hallway window. I was quite productive at work today, which is always satisfying. Also, I have a barchetta of blueberries here, which are delicious in general, and I just ate a perfectly ripe one, which was very delicious in particular.
Life is pretty good.
Um... I should get back to that translation I'm still meant to be doing, though...
Really, by productive, what I meant was "did everything ever in the whole office except the translation which is what I was actually supposed to do". Sigh.
Life is pretty good.
Um... I should get back to that translation I'm still meant to be doing, though...
Really, by productive, what I meant was "did everything ever in the whole office except the translation which is what I was actually supposed to do". Sigh.
Monday, July 5
Me vs. the Evil Painters
"Oh, and if the painters have any questions, just go ahead and answer them," says my boss. The phone connection is crackly, probably because she is on the highway, speeding towards her summer holiday. I am at the school, watching the sun set (I have been here since shortly after it rose this morning) and playing with a paperclip.
"I gave you the map of where the colors go, right?" she queries, with horns beeping in the background.
"Yup, I have it right here," I muster a cheerful, confident tone.
"Good. And you'll let them in tomorrow at eight?"
"Sure, no problem."
"Great. I trust you," she adds. Oh, brilliant.
"Right," I say. "Have a good week!" I chirp. We disconnect.
I review the color map. It is complex. Most of the school will be painted white, except for one wall in each classroom, which will be painted a color, but each of the classrooms will have a different color. I take a deep breath. Okay. All I have to do is communicate this information tomorrow morning. How hard can it be? I haul myself out of the front desk chair and head home.
- - -
"Buongiorno, signorina, do you know where I can find the English lady?" I am accosted by a short man in painters' garb the next morning before I even open the front door of the building. Aha! I smile pleasantly.
"Si, si, that's us; we're a language school," I tell him.
"No, I'm looking for an English lady," he dismisses me, and turns to walk off.
"But you're here to paint?" I call to him (how many "English" ladies can there be in our building doing paint work at one time?)
"Yeah. Do you know the English lady?"
"Yes. She's my boss. She's not here right now. I can let you in, though. I work there, too," I inform him, speaking quickly to get it all in before I lose his interest.
"Oh. Well. Okay, then," he relents with a big sigh. (Why is this a disappointment to him? Weirdo...)
---
I am sitting at the front desk, idly checking the office email while really watching the painters jabber and gesticulate together as they move their stuff in, simultaneously wondering what dialect they are speaking and when would be a good time to interrupt and tell them about the colors. I gather up my courage and jump in the next time there is a two-second pause in their conversation.
"Scusate, signori!" They both look at me with their eyebrows raised. "I was told to give you instructions for the colors.
"Colors?" queries the one who seems to be in charge.
And this is the source of our first disagreement. It seems they were told to paint everything white, while I was specifically told to tell them where the colors go. I sigh. This is why it is bad when your boss ends a thought with 'I trust you'.
After an unnecessarily complex discussion, I manage to convince him to start with the walls that should definitely be white, while I try to reach my boss and have her confirm for him that there should indeed be some colors. He stomps off in a huff. Super.
---
Half an hour later, my boss is on the phone, not really sure why there is any problem in the first place ("but did you tell him where the colors go?" - "I tried, but he doesn't believe me" suddenly seems like a lame excuse, but what can you do?) and I go in search of the painter.
Naturally, he is enthusiastically painting white all over one of the walls that has to be colored.
"That should be blue," I announce to him (just the tiniest bit caustically, I'll admit). I thrust the phone at him. "The English lady."
There is yelling on both sides (I can hear it across the room coming from the phone, and I can definitely hear his end of it). He hangs up, rants at me for a while about how confusing the English lady is and how he can't understand a thing with her crazy accent, and finally concedes:
"Okay. We'll do some colors."
"Ottimo! Let me just tell you which colors go on which walls," I say very calmly. He rolls his eyes and sighs like this is the most stressful and ridiculous request ever. I bring out my color wheel sample thingie and my map and show him which wall in each classroom should be painted. Then I list the colors for him and demonstrate with the color wheel. The colors are: sea green, periwinkle blue, blinding fluorescent yellow, and blinding fluorescent orange.
He rolls his eyes halfway through my color wheel demonstration, grabs it and the list from me, and tells me he'll figure it out. I am skeptical about this. Just to be sure, I make a sign for each room, and tape it to the table there. Each sign lists the color of that room, in big, and has an arrow pointing to the wall where it should go. The signs are even done in marker so that they are color coded. I feel that this is idiocy- and stubbornness-proof.
I leave to teach a lesson, telling our awesome, long-suffering secretary to keep an eye on them.
---
"Cri," says the secretary, as soon as I open the door, "meno male - I think you should go look at the colors. They look a little strange to me."
Well, the fluorescent colors were pretty strange anyway, I think, but I get a sinking feeling in my tummy all the same.
I peek into the first room. Okay. Not exactly the color we wanted, but close enough.
From there it all goes downhill. We have a sort of terra cotta color instead of neon orange, butter yellow instead of neon yellow, and a vomit-y sage green instead of sea green. Super. I take a deep breath and prepare for yet another confrontation.
My polite "Excuse me, sir, can I talk to you about the colors?" gets a very now-what-does-she-want look in return. I forge ahead.
"Did you get a chance to look at the samples on the wheel? Because the colors on the wall are not really the same..."
"Well, you can never get the exact same colors," he says, "I mean, we try to be exact, but it's not such a precise science. You have to allow a little leeway..."
I get a ten minute lecture on the science of mixing paint, etc., interspersed with affirmations that this is his mestiero, not mine, and that he's been doing it for twenty years, and I haven't, so really I should just listen to him.
And anyway, they're not so far apart, are they?
He leads me by the arm into the blue room.
"See?" he holds up the sample, "that's pretty close, right?"
"Yes," I concede. "It's not exact, but it's pretty close. Just come into the next room with me, okay?" (I refrain from leading him by the arm and just sort of hope that he will follow. He does.)
I hold the sample (DayGlo) up the wall (terra cotta).
"Can you at least get these to look as similar as the two in the first room?"
He sighs like it is a big imposition on his day, grumbles under his breath that his version is prettier anyway (true, admittedly, but I didn't pick the colors).
---
A few hours and two lessons later, I check on them again. The terra cotta color is ever so slightly lightened. It is still nowhere near DayGlo. Not even really within Crayola crayons range. I confront him about this, and while I'm pissing him off, tell him to fix the other two rooms, too. He starts to grumble again. The secretary, cleverly, is already getting my boss on the phone. I quickly recap the situation for her and tell her to tell the painter that he needs to listen to me rather than telling me about his twenty years of painting experience.
"Here," I tell our wayward painter, "here. Talk to the English lady."
Five minutes later, he is yelling about how he can't understand a word she says and how he's been a painter for twenty years, etc. I intercept the phone before he slams the receiver back down.
"Do you need some moral support?" asks the boss, almost kindly. I resist the urge to yell at her to get her behind back to Reggio and deal with her own damn painters, and instead tell her that what I need is for her to send an Italian person, an adult older than me or the secretary, to talk to this guy. Preferrably a man, but an authoritative woman will do in a pinch. She promises to send one first thing tomorrow morning. (Does she keep people in reserve to order around or something? Strange, but I wouldn't put it past her.)
I turn back to the painter, who is still ranting about how he doesn't understand the boss.
"Okay," I yell over him, "but do you understand me when I speak?"
"Yes, but- " I cut him off before he goes into the I've-been-in-this-mestiero-for-twenty-years speech again.
"Then why don't you listen to me? I understand the English lady and you understand me, so there should be no problem, yes?"
"Fine. Explain to me what you want," he says resentfully. This is uncharacteristically cooperative of him, though, and I am encouraged.
I explain, one more time, that I want one wall colored in each room, and I want the colors to match as closely as possible to the samples. I add that I don't understand why they create samples in such varied colors if it is not possible to reproduce them more exactly, but this is a mistake as it launches him back into the mestiero speech.
I cut him off again, "Just do your best, okay? And we'll see tomorrow."
He concedes.
I go home and eat half a bar of dark chocolate, practically swallowing it whole, and then call my mother to recount the chaos to her. She listens sympathetically. My mother is a saint.
---
The next morning, I arrive after my first lesson, in a good mood because the student was his usual hilarious self. The secretary smiles and rolls her eyes in the direction of the painters before miming pointing a gun at her head. Oh, dear.
I make my rounds of the rooms. The terra cotta is edging slightly towards tangerine. The yellow hasn't changed. The sage green is now a lighter sage green, but nowhere closer to sea green than it was yesterday. I sigh.
The painter is gearing up to start our habitual I-want-more-exact-colors vs. that's-not-possible conversation, but I cut him off, saying the boss' new representative will be here soon. It transpires that this is the person who picked the colors to start with.
---
Twenty minutes later:
"Oh, but that's not the right color at all!" she exclaims at me, "you should tell him to change it!"
I refrain from giving her a Look. After all, she only just got here. I suggest to her that she's welcome to try.
"Look here, sir," she tells him, "these are not the right colors. You need to paint the walls in the colors we chose."
He recounts the whole sorry affair, starting from how he thought things should be all white, passing through how the boss is utterly incomprehensible when she speaks, and ending with the fact that you can't get the colors exactly right when you're mixing them/it's not an exact science/he's been doing it for twenty years, etc.
She seizes on the penultimate statement.
"You're mixing them yourself?" she queries.
"Yes, and I have been for twenty-"
"Well, no wonder," she cuts him off, "you have to take them and get them professionally mixed!"
"Oh, well if you want them to be exact..."
I refrain from smacking him.
---
A week later, it is done. The colors are right. The DayGlo is awful and blinding, but at least it is accurate.
The boss waltzes in, all tanned and stuff, and she is pleased.
I refrain from smacking her, as well.
"I gave you the map of where the colors go, right?" she queries, with horns beeping in the background.
"Yup, I have it right here," I muster a cheerful, confident tone.
"Good. And you'll let them in tomorrow at eight?"
"Sure, no problem."
"Great. I trust you," she adds. Oh, brilliant.
"Right," I say. "Have a good week!" I chirp. We disconnect.
I review the color map. It is complex. Most of the school will be painted white, except for one wall in each classroom, which will be painted a color, but each of the classrooms will have a different color. I take a deep breath. Okay. All I have to do is communicate this information tomorrow morning. How hard can it be? I haul myself out of the front desk chair and head home.
- - -
"Buongiorno, signorina, do you know where I can find the English lady?" I am accosted by a short man in painters' garb the next morning before I even open the front door of the building. Aha! I smile pleasantly.
"Si, si, that's us; we're a language school," I tell him.
"No, I'm looking for an English lady," he dismisses me, and turns to walk off.
"But you're here to paint?" I call to him (how many "English" ladies can there be in our building doing paint work at one time?)
"Yeah. Do you know the English lady?"
"Yes. She's my boss. She's not here right now. I can let you in, though. I work there, too," I inform him, speaking quickly to get it all in before I lose his interest.
"Oh. Well. Okay, then," he relents with a big sigh. (Why is this a disappointment to him? Weirdo...)
---
I am sitting at the front desk, idly checking the office email while really watching the painters jabber and gesticulate together as they move their stuff in, simultaneously wondering what dialect they are speaking and when would be a good time to interrupt and tell them about the colors. I gather up my courage and jump in the next time there is a two-second pause in their conversation.
"Scusate, signori!" They both look at me with their eyebrows raised. "I was told to give you instructions for the colors.
"Colors?" queries the one who seems to be in charge.
And this is the source of our first disagreement. It seems they were told to paint everything white, while I was specifically told to tell them where the colors go. I sigh. This is why it is bad when your boss ends a thought with 'I trust you'.
After an unnecessarily complex discussion, I manage to convince him to start with the walls that should definitely be white, while I try to reach my boss and have her confirm for him that there should indeed be some colors. He stomps off in a huff. Super.
---
Half an hour later, my boss is on the phone, not really sure why there is any problem in the first place ("but did you tell him where the colors go?" - "I tried, but he doesn't believe me" suddenly seems like a lame excuse, but what can you do?) and I go in search of the painter.
Naturally, he is enthusiastically painting white all over one of the walls that has to be colored.
"That should be blue," I announce to him (just the tiniest bit caustically, I'll admit). I thrust the phone at him. "The English lady."
There is yelling on both sides (I can hear it across the room coming from the phone, and I can definitely hear his end of it). He hangs up, rants at me for a while about how confusing the English lady is and how he can't understand a thing with her crazy accent, and finally concedes:
"Okay. We'll do some colors."
"Ottimo! Let me just tell you which colors go on which walls," I say very calmly. He rolls his eyes and sighs like this is the most stressful and ridiculous request ever. I bring out my color wheel sample thingie and my map and show him which wall in each classroom should be painted. Then I list the colors for him and demonstrate with the color wheel. The colors are: sea green, periwinkle blue, blinding fluorescent yellow, and blinding fluorescent orange.
He rolls his eyes halfway through my color wheel demonstration, grabs it and the list from me, and tells me he'll figure it out. I am skeptical about this. Just to be sure, I make a sign for each room, and tape it to the table there. Each sign lists the color of that room, in big, and has an arrow pointing to the wall where it should go. The signs are even done in marker so that they are color coded. I feel that this is idiocy- and stubbornness-proof.
I leave to teach a lesson, telling our awesome, long-suffering secretary to keep an eye on them.
---
"Cri," says the secretary, as soon as I open the door, "meno male - I think you should go look at the colors. They look a little strange to me."
Well, the fluorescent colors were pretty strange anyway, I think, but I get a sinking feeling in my tummy all the same.
I peek into the first room. Okay. Not exactly the color we wanted, but close enough.
From there it all goes downhill. We have a sort of terra cotta color instead of neon orange, butter yellow instead of neon yellow, and a vomit-y sage green instead of sea green. Super. I take a deep breath and prepare for yet another confrontation.
My polite "Excuse me, sir, can I talk to you about the colors?" gets a very now-what-does-she-want look in return. I forge ahead.
"Did you get a chance to look at the samples on the wheel? Because the colors on the wall are not really the same..."
"Well, you can never get the exact same colors," he says, "I mean, we try to be exact, but it's not such a precise science. You have to allow a little leeway..."
I get a ten minute lecture on the science of mixing paint, etc., interspersed with affirmations that this is his mestiero, not mine, and that he's been doing it for twenty years, and I haven't, so really I should just listen to him.
And anyway, they're not so far apart, are they?
He leads me by the arm into the blue room.
"See?" he holds up the sample, "that's pretty close, right?"
"Yes," I concede. "It's not exact, but it's pretty close. Just come into the next room with me, okay?" (I refrain from leading him by the arm and just sort of hope that he will follow. He does.)
I hold the sample (DayGlo) up the wall (terra cotta).
"Can you at least get these to look as similar as the two in the first room?"
He sighs like it is a big imposition on his day, grumbles under his breath that his version is prettier anyway (true, admittedly, but I didn't pick the colors).
---
A few hours and two lessons later, I check on them again. The terra cotta color is ever so slightly lightened. It is still nowhere near DayGlo. Not even really within Crayola crayons range. I confront him about this, and while I'm pissing him off, tell him to fix the other two rooms, too. He starts to grumble again. The secretary, cleverly, is already getting my boss on the phone. I quickly recap the situation for her and tell her to tell the painter that he needs to listen to me rather than telling me about his twenty years of painting experience.
"Here," I tell our wayward painter, "here. Talk to the English lady."
Five minutes later, he is yelling about how he can't understand a word she says and how he's been a painter for twenty years, etc. I intercept the phone before he slams the receiver back down.
"Do you need some moral support?" asks the boss, almost kindly. I resist the urge to yell at her to get her behind back to Reggio and deal with her own damn painters, and instead tell her that what I need is for her to send an Italian person, an adult older than me or the secretary, to talk to this guy. Preferrably a man, but an authoritative woman will do in a pinch. She promises to send one first thing tomorrow morning. (Does she keep people in reserve to order around or something? Strange, but I wouldn't put it past her.)
I turn back to the painter, who is still ranting about how he doesn't understand the boss.
"Okay," I yell over him, "but do you understand me when I speak?"
"Yes, but- " I cut him off before he goes into the I've-been-in-this-mestiero-for-twenty-years speech again.
"Then why don't you listen to me? I understand the English lady and you understand me, so there should be no problem, yes?"
"Fine. Explain to me what you want," he says resentfully. This is uncharacteristically cooperative of him, though, and I am encouraged.
I explain, one more time, that I want one wall colored in each room, and I want the colors to match as closely as possible to the samples. I add that I don't understand why they create samples in such varied colors if it is not possible to reproduce them more exactly, but this is a mistake as it launches him back into the mestiero speech.
I cut him off again, "Just do your best, okay? And we'll see tomorrow."
He concedes.
I go home and eat half a bar of dark chocolate, practically swallowing it whole, and then call my mother to recount the chaos to her. She listens sympathetically. My mother is a saint.
---
The next morning, I arrive after my first lesson, in a good mood because the student was his usual hilarious self. The secretary smiles and rolls her eyes in the direction of the painters before miming pointing a gun at her head. Oh, dear.
I make my rounds of the rooms. The terra cotta is edging slightly towards tangerine. The yellow hasn't changed. The sage green is now a lighter sage green, but nowhere closer to sea green than it was yesterday. I sigh.
The painter is gearing up to start our habitual I-want-more-exact-colors vs. that's-not-possible conversation, but I cut him off, saying the boss' new representative will be here soon. It transpires that this is the person who picked the colors to start with.
---
Twenty minutes later:
"Oh, but that's not the right color at all!" she exclaims at me, "you should tell him to change it!"
I refrain from giving her a Look. After all, she only just got here. I suggest to her that she's welcome to try.
"Look here, sir," she tells him, "these are not the right colors. You need to paint the walls in the colors we chose."
He recounts the whole sorry affair, starting from how he thought things should be all white, passing through how the boss is utterly incomprehensible when she speaks, and ending with the fact that you can't get the colors exactly right when you're mixing them/it's not an exact science/he's been doing it for twenty years, etc.
She seizes on the penultimate statement.
"You're mixing them yourself?" she queries.
"Yes, and I have been for twenty-"
"Well, no wonder," she cuts him off, "you have to take them and get them professionally mixed!"
"Oh, well if you want them to be exact..."
I refrain from smacking him.
---
A week later, it is done. The colors are right. The DayGlo is awful and blinding, but at least it is accurate.
The boss waltzes in, all tanned and stuff, and she is pleased.
I refrain from smacking her, as well.
Sunday, July 4
Che caldo
"You should see if you can get some research experience at the hospital," says a well-meaning acquaintance one fine day during a conversation about my future and my staying in Reggio another year. "At the very least, some translation work."
This strikes me as a good plan, and so I offer my services as a combination research assistant/translator/editor/general voluntary slave in a series of emails written in very carefully worded Italian. (Seriously, every time I have to write an email - or anything - in Italian, it takes me the better part of half an hour just to bang out three or four lines.)
"Yes, absolutely we'll take you on," says a young man who does something related to psych, "we have loads of stuff that needs translating."
I ponder this for a moment. I do not generally translate for free and I can't really justify doing it for him if I make everyone else pay for it. I am trying to figure out how to extract myself from this situation when he presents me with a book in English.
"This, for example." I look at it.
"Wait, but I don't usually do English to Italian - my Italian isn't that great," I protest weakly. On the other hand, this partially fixes my situation: I can't possibly charge anyone anything to translate from English to Italian, because I'm so far from qualified for it that it's not even funny.
"No, no - your Italian is fine. I saw it in that email you wrote," he reminds me. "I'll just have my secretary copy the parts we'd like!"
TWenty minutes later, I am holding a packet of rather overwhelming thickness (it's not actually that thick, but do you know how many words there are on a page? and how many of those I don't know how to say in Italian? well, it starts with 'a' and ends with 'lot').
And that is how I find myself here on a Sunday night, slogging through the third page of exceedingly dense stuff at a pathetic pace while sweat all but dribbles down my back despite my being parked less than a meter away from the fan and the fact that I've taken at least four showers so far today (the sweat is because it's hot, not because I'm stressed about translating... just, you know... to be clear).
On the other hand, I now know how to say "evidence-based" in Italian, and surprised myself by coming up with "spicchi d'aglio" (cloves of garlic) all by myself a few minutes ago. I have no idea where I heard that or how I retained it, but I'll take what I can get. It's nice to feel, sometimes, that pian piano, my Italian is indeed improving.
In the meantime, though, it is ridiculously hot for 10 at night and apparently it's only going to get worse next week and I have the window wide open despite having the light on... which puts it at risk for bats coming in, and if a bat comes in I will scream so loudly that probably they will hear me in Scandiano. Also probably a million mosquitoes are going to bite me in the next hour or so. Also I am hungry but if I cook the kitchen will be even hotter than it already is. And also I will have to wash the dishes after. Quite the dilemma, clearly.
Sighhh.
Oh, in other news (well, not really news), happy birthday to the land of air-conditioning and 24-hour pharmacies. Um, and freedom, etc., of course.
This strikes me as a good plan, and so I offer my services as a combination research assistant/translator/editor/general voluntary slave in a series of emails written in very carefully worded Italian. (Seriously, every time I have to write an email - or anything - in Italian, it takes me the better part of half an hour just to bang out three or four lines.)
"Yes, absolutely we'll take you on," says a young man who does something related to psych, "we have loads of stuff that needs translating."
I ponder this for a moment. I do not generally translate for free and I can't really justify doing it for him if I make everyone else pay for it. I am trying to figure out how to extract myself from this situation when he presents me with a book in English.
"This, for example." I look at it.
"Wait, but I don't usually do English to Italian - my Italian isn't that great," I protest weakly. On the other hand, this partially fixes my situation: I can't possibly charge anyone anything to translate from English to Italian, because I'm so far from qualified for it that it's not even funny.
"No, no - your Italian is fine. I saw it in that email you wrote," he reminds me. "I'll just have my secretary copy the parts we'd like!"
TWenty minutes later, I am holding a packet of rather overwhelming thickness (it's not actually that thick, but do you know how many words there are on a page? and how many of those I don't know how to say in Italian? well, it starts with 'a' and ends with 'lot').
And that is how I find myself here on a Sunday night, slogging through the third page of exceedingly dense stuff at a pathetic pace while sweat all but dribbles down my back despite my being parked less than a meter away from the fan and the fact that I've taken at least four showers so far today (the sweat is because it's hot, not because I'm stressed about translating... just, you know... to be clear).
On the other hand, I now know how to say "evidence-based" in Italian, and surprised myself by coming up with "spicchi d'aglio" (cloves of garlic) all by myself a few minutes ago. I have no idea where I heard that or how I retained it, but I'll take what I can get. It's nice to feel, sometimes, that pian piano, my Italian is indeed improving.
In the meantime, though, it is ridiculously hot for 10 at night and apparently it's only going to get worse next week and I have the window wide open despite having the light on... which puts it at risk for bats coming in, and if a bat comes in I will scream so loudly that probably they will hear me in Scandiano. Also probably a million mosquitoes are going to bite me in the next hour or so. Also I am hungry but if I cook the kitchen will be even hotter than it already is. And also I will have to wash the dishes after. Quite the dilemma, clearly.
Sighhh.
Oh, in other news (well, not really news), happy birthday to the land of air-conditioning and 24-hour pharmacies. Um, and freedom, etc., of course.
Thursday, June 24
Strange
And then we stood in the piazza, holding glasses of prosecco and laughing (hysterically, might I add) at the jokes (in English!) of our students - the top managers of the UFLFT - as the sun set, inching its way down the facade of San Prospero, and the mosquitoes came out in full force to nibble on our pale foreign skin, and aperitivo went on around us: a group of men in suits and young foreign women.
Monday, June 21
That one time with the lock and the firemen
This was actually one fine afternoon in mid-May...
"Be careful with the lock," warns my roommate on her way out the door. I look up from where I am assiduously translating some stuff at my desk. "It's been a bit sticky lately and I think it's worse today."
I nod, wish her a good afternoon, and go back to my translating. It is only two hours later, when I try to leave the apartment to go to my 5 o'clock lesson that I discover I have actually been trapped in the apartment the whole time. I try the lock a few more times, turning the key this way and that. No dice.
This is unfortunate, because it really would be better if I could go to work. I call my housemate.
"Housemate," I say, "I am stuck. I can't open the door."
Next I call the secretary of our school.
"This is sort of odd," I tell her, "but... I am stuck in my house. I think the lock is broken."
"Cosa?" she asks incredulously.
I explain again. There is some noise in the background, and I can faintly hear my colleagues asking what is going on.
"You should call the vigili del fuoco so some sexy firemen will come over!!!" shouts one of them.
Pah. Who calls the firemen to get out of their own house? I think to myself.
Oh, but, self. You are so silly.
Meanwhile, my housemate arrives. She is unable to open the door from the outside either. So we decide to call the landlord.
Per usual, the landlord is useless. "You could call... you know... someone," he suggests vaguely. "The fabbro or something." (The fabbro, as near as I can tell, appears to be some sort of hardware-store-owning type of person.) "Probably that will be expensive, though," he adds helpfully.
We call the Vigili del Fuoco. "They're very nice," says my housemate, "they kept asking me if you were okay or if they should send an ambulance!" It could be worse, I suppose. I am not in need of an ambulance, but merely sitting here in my kitchen translating stuff, communicating to my housemate through our kitchen window and the outside hallway window, which face each other across a small courtyard. She gets out her laptop as well, and we companionably get some work done while we wait for the vigili.
Her phone rings.
"Si, si, sta bene," she says into it after a moment. "No, but even if you need to be a bit late because of the accident, she's fine. A parte che she's stuck inside the apartment, she's fine."
"There's been an accident," she explains to me after hanging up, "and they want to know if you'll be okay if they go help out there first."
I nod. Yep, still fine and making decent progress with the translation. I call the school again and ask them to cancel my later lesson as well. My colleagues seem to find the situation quite hilarious, and laugh helpfully from the other end of the phone, except one who offers to come break down the door and/or arrange some sort of bucket/winch system for getting food up to me. I politely decline, for now.
My housemate is on the phone again, assuring the firemen that I'm still fine. "No, ma si, si sono sicura: sta bene!" Apparently they feel it their duty to call and check on us occasionally.
They arrive. I come to the window that faces the street so that they can see which windows are ours. Two (fairly attractive, it must be admitted) firemen are standing looking up at the building. The slightly shorter one turns to his buddy.
"Ah, ma sta bene la ragazza!" he comments. The other shrugs his shoulders. I am unable to muster the Italian necessary to say 'we've been telling you that for hours now!' I hope he will not be cross because I am in good health after all. He may have a point - it would have been far more dramatic if I had fainted oh-so-delicately in the hallway from all the stress and everything.
Twenty minutes later, they have sistemato'd their ladders and the first of them has one leg over the windowsill.
"Permesso," he says politely (Italians say 'permesso' when they enter each other's apartments).
"Er... prego," I manage. "La posso aiutare?" I ask, proud of myself for getting my formal pronouns all lined up in my brain.
"No, no, I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself," he says. Aw. So gallant. (The housemate and I are a little awestruck by fact that big strong firemen are actively climbing into our apartment via ladders and the kitchen window.)
Another hour later, they have taken off the back panel of the door and fiddled around with its insides a bit. They try to explain to me what's wrong with the lock, and I understand approximately 3% of what they say (most of that consists of nouns that I picked up while putting together IKEA furniture: vite = screw; cacciavite = screwdriver).
"So, that way, if it breaks again, you'll know how to fix it," the fireman concludes his discourse about screwdrivers and bolts and god-knows-what-else. He pauses. "Or you can always just call us again! Se fosse una vecchietta, non lo direi," he says, displaying impeccable use of the third conditional and winking at the same time (definitely more than my brain could coordinate at the same time).
I saunter down the stairs of my apartment and walk to work, thinking that now I can check another thing off my "fun things that can happen to you in a foreign country" list. Right up there with serving as the (Italian!) emergency phone chain for one's place of work and learning how to pump gas (ahem).
"Oh, ma allora?" the boss' husband greets me when I arrive at school to do some planning for the next day. Everyone is quite amused by the story (I think it's mostly the image of the fireman astride my kitchen windowsill, asking for permission to enter, really.)
Perhaps I should get stuck in my apartment more often, if only for the entertainment value...
------
In other news, why the hell is someone having a concert in the piazza at 10:30 on a Monday night? I want to sleeeeep.
"Be careful with the lock," warns my roommate on her way out the door. I look up from where I am assiduously translating some stuff at my desk. "It's been a bit sticky lately and I think it's worse today."
I nod, wish her a good afternoon, and go back to my translating. It is only two hours later, when I try to leave the apartment to go to my 5 o'clock lesson that I discover I have actually been trapped in the apartment the whole time. I try the lock a few more times, turning the key this way and that. No dice.
This is unfortunate, because it really would be better if I could go to work. I call my housemate.
"Housemate," I say, "I am stuck. I can't open the door."
Next I call the secretary of our school.
"This is sort of odd," I tell her, "but... I am stuck in my house. I think the lock is broken."
"Cosa?" she asks incredulously.
I explain again. There is some noise in the background, and I can faintly hear my colleagues asking what is going on.
"You should call the vigili del fuoco so some sexy firemen will come over!!!" shouts one of them.
Pah. Who calls the firemen to get out of their own house? I think to myself.
Oh, but, self. You are so silly.
Meanwhile, my housemate arrives. She is unable to open the door from the outside either. So we decide to call the landlord.
Per usual, the landlord is useless. "You could call... you know... someone," he suggests vaguely. "The fabbro or something." (The fabbro, as near as I can tell, appears to be some sort of hardware-store-owning type of person.) "Probably that will be expensive, though," he adds helpfully.
We call the Vigili del Fuoco. "They're very nice," says my housemate, "they kept asking me if you were okay or if they should send an ambulance!" It could be worse, I suppose. I am not in need of an ambulance, but merely sitting here in my kitchen translating stuff, communicating to my housemate through our kitchen window and the outside hallway window, which face each other across a small courtyard. She gets out her laptop as well, and we companionably get some work done while we wait for the vigili.
Her phone rings.
"Si, si, sta bene," she says into it after a moment. "No, but even if you need to be a bit late because of the accident, she's fine. A parte che she's stuck inside the apartment, she's fine."
"There's been an accident," she explains to me after hanging up, "and they want to know if you'll be okay if they go help out there first."
I nod. Yep, still fine and making decent progress with the translation. I call the school again and ask them to cancel my later lesson as well. My colleagues seem to find the situation quite hilarious, and laugh helpfully from the other end of the phone, except one who offers to come break down the door and/or arrange some sort of bucket/winch system for getting food up to me. I politely decline, for now.
My housemate is on the phone again, assuring the firemen that I'm still fine. "No, ma si, si sono sicura: sta bene!" Apparently they feel it their duty to call and check on us occasionally.
They arrive. I come to the window that faces the street so that they can see which windows are ours. Two (fairly attractive, it must be admitted) firemen are standing looking up at the building. The slightly shorter one turns to his buddy.
"Ah, ma sta bene la ragazza!" he comments. The other shrugs his shoulders. I am unable to muster the Italian necessary to say 'we've been telling you that for hours now!' I hope he will not be cross because I am in good health after all. He may have a point - it would have been far more dramatic if I had fainted oh-so-delicately in the hallway from all the stress and everything.
Twenty minutes later, they have sistemato'd their ladders and the first of them has one leg over the windowsill.
"Permesso," he says politely (Italians say 'permesso' when they enter each other's apartments).
"Er... prego," I manage. "La posso aiutare?" I ask, proud of myself for getting my formal pronouns all lined up in my brain.
"No, no, I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself," he says. Aw. So gallant. (The housemate and I are a little awestruck by fact that big strong firemen are actively climbing into our apartment via ladders and the kitchen window.)
Another hour later, they have taken off the back panel of the door and fiddled around with its insides a bit. They try to explain to me what's wrong with the lock, and I understand approximately 3% of what they say (most of that consists of nouns that I picked up while putting together IKEA furniture: vite = screw; cacciavite = screwdriver).
"So, that way, if it breaks again, you'll know how to fix it," the fireman concludes his discourse about screwdrivers and bolts and god-knows-what-else. He pauses. "Or you can always just call us again! Se fosse una vecchietta, non lo direi," he says, displaying impeccable use of the third conditional and winking at the same time (definitely more than my brain could coordinate at the same time).
I saunter down the stairs of my apartment and walk to work, thinking that now I can check another thing off my "fun things that can happen to you in a foreign country" list. Right up there with serving as the (Italian!) emergency phone chain for one's place of work and learning how to pump gas (ahem).
"Oh, ma allora?" the boss' husband greets me when I arrive at school to do some planning for the next day. Everyone is quite amused by the story (I think it's mostly the image of the fireman astride my kitchen windowsill, asking for permission to enter, really.)
Perhaps I should get stuck in my apartment more often, if only for the entertainment value...
------
In other news, why the hell is someone having a concert in the piazza at 10:30 on a Monday night? I want to sleeeeep.
Sunday, June 20
Buttons
You know what's interesting and kind of satisfying? By virtue of teaching English at the Uber-Fancy Local Fashion Thing, I now know more about buttons than the lady at Bloomingdales.
When I went for my first med school interview in November and went looking for a new suit, there was this lady in Bloomingdales who lectured me extensively about suits and jackets and cut and wearability and the life of the suit, etc. "This one is single breasted and this other one is double-breasted, so it's a little more official looking," she lectured me knowledgeably, presenting me with a suit with one single button in the middle and a suit with two rows of two buttons, respectively. "And this one is triple breasted." (A single row of three buttons.)
I had never heard of a triple-breasted suit, but she sort of bullied me into believing her and I couldn't really tell from the other two anyway, whether "breasted" refers to the number of buttons per row or the number of rows. I was not a fan of the single row look anyway, so I went for the other kind that was definitely double breasted. And escaped Bloomingdales and planned not to go back for a long time.
"This is a good suit," she proclaimed upon my leaving, "although the other one would have had better wearability in the long run. Then you could buy other pieces for it so you could mix and match for when you have a job and you have to wear a suit every day." She paused and I didn't contradict her. "Although... you said you're going to a medical school interview aren't you? So I guess you won't really have a job for a while anyway..."
Yeah, thanks, lady. Rub that right in there.
Anyway. The point is, teaching for the UFLFT, we frequently have to answer questions about what very specific things are called in English (like, there are ten billion different types of pockets that you differentiate depending on the angle, the seam, whether they are part of the front panel or not, etc.) and you know what? I was right. Breasted refers to how many rows there are, and, as far as I know, there is no such thing as triple breasted.
Take that, Bloomingdales lady.
When I went for my first med school interview in November and went looking for a new suit, there was this lady in Bloomingdales who lectured me extensively about suits and jackets and cut and wearability and the life of the suit, etc. "This one is single breasted and this other one is double-breasted, so it's a little more official looking," she lectured me knowledgeably, presenting me with a suit with one single button in the middle and a suit with two rows of two buttons, respectively. "And this one is triple breasted." (A single row of three buttons.)
I had never heard of a triple-breasted suit, but she sort of bullied me into believing her and I couldn't really tell from the other two anyway, whether "breasted" refers to the number of buttons per row or the number of rows. I was not a fan of the single row look anyway, so I went for the other kind that was definitely double breasted. And escaped Bloomingdales and planned not to go back for a long time.
"This is a good suit," she proclaimed upon my leaving, "although the other one would have had better wearability in the long run. Then you could buy other pieces for it so you could mix and match for when you have a job and you have to wear a suit every day." She paused and I didn't contradict her. "Although... you said you're going to a medical school interview aren't you? So I guess you won't really have a job for a while anyway..."
Yeah, thanks, lady. Rub that right in there.
Anyway. The point is, teaching for the UFLFT, we frequently have to answer questions about what very specific things are called in English (like, there are ten billion different types of pockets that you differentiate depending on the angle, the seam, whether they are part of the front panel or not, etc.) and you know what? I was right. Breasted refers to how many rows there are, and, as far as I know, there is no such thing as triple breasted.
Take that, Bloomingdales lady.
Wednesday, June 16
Next year
"See you on August 2nd!" says the voice at the other end of the phone, all sing-song-y for all that it belongs to the Dean of Admissions.
"Yes, great!" I manage to enunciate weakly. Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit, now what? The calendar in my head flips rapidly through the weeks between now and August 2nd. There are not many: five weeks teaching here, and then August 2nd is only two weeks after that. My brain recommences with the repetitive chanting of expletives as I picture myself landing in America, driving down to Philedelphia - wait, no, first stopping at home to dig all of my old college furniture out of the basement - donning a white coat and a stethescope and being marched on stage to be proclaimed an MS1. (1st year medical student, in student-speak).
I've been planning my escape (in the form of a deferral request) in a sort of abstract way for weeks - discussing medically-related opportunities with my boss and things like that. But suddenly it's all very real and very relevant and not at all abstract. I wander downstairs, absently photocopy something (which later turns out to have been from the wrong book) and set about chopping up something else on a papercutter.
"You okay?" says one of my awesome coworkers.
"Yeah." I narrowly miss chopping off the end of my pinky finger with the paper cutter. "I got into med school, though."
We celebrate with pizza and birra (in moderation, though, ragazzi) and gelato, which is fun, but doesn't change the fact that August 2nd does not loom in the distance or anything poetic like that. It looms right over my shoulder.
Anyway, slightly less than a week later, I've finally got my act together and have sent in a two page email explaining my reasons for wanting a deferral, and am lying on bed during a rare afternoon break, attempting to read a book, but really watching my inbox out of the corner of my eye, waiting for it to refresh. And refresh again.
It does, eventually. "We can defer your acceptance..."
I smile. I walk to work under the sun, not minding the heat or the trickle of sweat down my back that usually really irritates me. I smile at Conad, at the industrial yuck that is the area where our school is. I smile at the evil painters who are currently painting our school (more on that later). I smile at my student, who probably wonders what's wrong with me.
Now it's "notte rosa", which apparently means that people are entitled to play music in Piazza Prampolini until all hours (surely they'll stop at midnight, though? on a Wednesday?), but even that doesn't make me grumpy, because I have another whole year here. Yay!
(Yeesh, so maudlin. Grow a pair, Self.)
"Yes, great!" I manage to enunciate weakly. Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit, now what? The calendar in my head flips rapidly through the weeks between now and August 2nd. There are not many: five weeks teaching here, and then August 2nd is only two weeks after that. My brain recommences with the repetitive chanting of expletives as I picture myself landing in America, driving down to Philedelphia - wait, no, first stopping at home to dig all of my old college furniture out of the basement - donning a white coat and a stethescope and being marched on stage to be proclaimed an MS1. (1st year medical student, in student-speak).
I've been planning my escape (in the form of a deferral request) in a sort of abstract way for weeks - discussing medically-related opportunities with my boss and things like that. But suddenly it's all very real and very relevant and not at all abstract. I wander downstairs, absently photocopy something (which later turns out to have been from the wrong book) and set about chopping up something else on a papercutter.
"You okay?" says one of my awesome coworkers.
"Yeah." I narrowly miss chopping off the end of my pinky finger with the paper cutter. "I got into med school, though."
We celebrate with pizza and birra (in moderation, though, ragazzi) and gelato, which is fun, but doesn't change the fact that August 2nd does not loom in the distance or anything poetic like that. It looms right over my shoulder.
Anyway, slightly less than a week later, I've finally got my act together and have sent in a two page email explaining my reasons for wanting a deferral, and am lying on bed during a rare afternoon break, attempting to read a book, but really watching my inbox out of the corner of my eye, waiting for it to refresh. And refresh again.
It does, eventually. "We can defer your acceptance..."
I smile. I walk to work under the sun, not minding the heat or the trickle of sweat down my back that usually really irritates me. I smile at Conad, at the industrial yuck that is the area where our school is. I smile at the evil painters who are currently painting our school (more on that later). I smile at my student, who probably wonders what's wrong with me.
Now it's "notte rosa", which apparently means that people are entitled to play music in Piazza Prampolini until all hours (surely they'll stop at midnight, though? on a Wednesday?), but even that doesn't make me grumpy, because I have another whole year here. Yay!
(Yeesh, so maudlin. Grow a pair, Self.)
Saturday, June 12
Random boring stuff
I worked almost 40 hours this week. I am like a machine. Yay. (Full time for ESL is generally considered to be 25, I think. Because of the prep time that you don't actually count, see. So working 25 hours is more like working 35 or 40, really. Depending on how efficient you are.) Anyway. Whatever. It is good, though, to have a week like that every once in a while - where you just put your back into it every day and charge around like a madwoman (or madman, as the case may be) and walk your exhausted self back into town on Friday evening and feel just ever so slightly impressed with yourself.
Managed to squeeze in pizza and K2 (one of the two best gelaterie in Reggio, in my opinion) on Thursday night, and it was one of those evenings that reminds me why I love living here. Good food and good company, being seated out on the street where it's just cooled off to a pleasant temperature by the time you sit down around 10pm, wandering around the piazze with your gelato at midnight... priceless.
Okay, so, waking up at 5:30 the next morning was not quite as delightful, but whatever. It's over now and I've just hauled myself out of bed (for second time today) after a post-early-morning-babysitting nap, and am now ready to venture forth into the ridiculous heat once more. On the menu: shopping for work-appropriate and Reggio-appropriate summer clothes, and checking out the photo exhibits that've been going on for a month but that I somehow have yet to go see. Oh, and Notte Bianca tonight, and all the craziness that that entails. If you live in the center of Reggio and were planning on sleeping at any point tonight, forget it.
Managed to squeeze in pizza and K2 (one of the two best gelaterie in Reggio, in my opinion) on Thursday night, and it was one of those evenings that reminds me why I love living here. Good food and good company, being seated out on the street where it's just cooled off to a pleasant temperature by the time you sit down around 10pm, wandering around the piazze with your gelato at midnight... priceless.
Okay, so, waking up at 5:30 the next morning was not quite as delightful, but whatever. It's over now and I've just hauled myself out of bed (for second time today) after a post-early-morning-babysitting nap, and am now ready to venture forth into the ridiculous heat once more. On the menu: shopping for work-appropriate and Reggio-appropriate summer clothes, and checking out the photo exhibits that've been going on for a month but that I somehow have yet to go see. Oh, and Notte Bianca tonight, and all the craziness that that entails. If you live in the center of Reggio and were planning on sleeping at any point tonight, forget it.
Wednesday, June 9
Today...
So I got into medical school today. That was another moment of conversational brilliance on my part.
Admissions person: I have some good news! We have a spot for you!
Me: Really?
Admissions person: Really.
Me: Oh! Um... great. Thanks. I really appreciate it.
I *appreciate* it? Really? A spot in medical school? Yeah, clearly "appreciate" was the word to go for. I'm pretty sure some people actually start crying on the phone, etc. Not me, though. I appreciate things. Awesome.
Then I remembered to buy water at the supermarket before coming home. And then the parking lot was super full because of whatever's going on in town today and cars are all oddly parked in places where no parking spots exist, but I found a spot anyway. Clearly it's my lucky day.
Meanwhile, they're blasting the macarena in that cafe a bit down the Via Emilia from here, and apparently they're going to continue all night because it's the Notte Rosa. It seems I am never meant to sleep again. Which is sad because between translating and looking after the boss' offspring the past two nights and also the heat, I could really do with some sleep before my 8am class tomorrow and the rest of the day that will follow, which will apparently last until 8:30pm. Fun! It does not seem meant to be, though. Sorry in advance, Mr. 8am student (not to mention the poor soul that will get me at the other end, at 7:30). Neither of you is going to get the functional brain version of me because now it's 11pm and they're playing the YMCA.
Anyway, though. It's odd to think that today I stood on the roof of the school where I teach, gazing out at the Calatrava bridges and the mountains in the fuzzy distance, and talking on the phone to the dean of admissions about the housing form and orientation starting in August. Life confuses me right now. But perhaps I will allow myself a moment of celebratory craziness. Here it is: I'm innnnnnn!!!
Admissions person: I have some good news! We have a spot for you!
Me: Really?
Admissions person: Really.
Me: Oh! Um... great. Thanks. I really appreciate it.
I *appreciate* it? Really? A spot in medical school? Yeah, clearly "appreciate" was the word to go for. I'm pretty sure some people actually start crying on the phone, etc. Not me, though. I appreciate things. Awesome.
Then I remembered to buy water at the supermarket before coming home. And then the parking lot was super full because of whatever's going on in town today and cars are all oddly parked in places where no parking spots exist, but I found a spot anyway. Clearly it's my lucky day.
Meanwhile, they're blasting the macarena in that cafe a bit down the Via Emilia from here, and apparently they're going to continue all night because it's the Notte Rosa. It seems I am never meant to sleep again. Which is sad because between translating and looking after the boss' offspring the past two nights and also the heat, I could really do with some sleep before my 8am class tomorrow and the rest of the day that will follow, which will apparently last until 8:30pm. Fun! It does not seem meant to be, though. Sorry in advance, Mr. 8am student (not to mention the poor soul that will get me at the other end, at 7:30). Neither of you is going to get the functional brain version of me because now it's 11pm and they're playing the YMCA.
Anyway, though. It's odd to think that today I stood on the roof of the school where I teach, gazing out at the Calatrava bridges and the mountains in the fuzzy distance, and talking on the phone to the dean of admissions about the housing form and orientation starting in August. Life confuses me right now. But perhaps I will allow myself a moment of celebratory craziness. Here it is: I'm innnnnnn!!!
Tuesday, June 8
Some days...
Some days, you can bust out the imperfect subjunctive (the one with fosse and avesse and all that) without even thinking about it and people are all "yeesh, where did you even learn that?" and you are all proud of yourself and feel that your efforts in learning Italian are paying off.
And then there are all the other days where it does not feel like that at all. And then there are those really special days when you go from using cadesse in one sentence (possibly even correctly) to having to describe 'lightening' as "quando nel cielo c'e' l'elettricita'" (when there's electricity in the sky) because you can't remember the word for lightening. (What's really disturbing about that is that then the other person said it and I was all "oh, yeah, someone else used that very word yesterday and I totally understood what they meant then" and now, not twenty minutes later, I can't remember it. Again.)
And moments after that syntactical gem, I managed to use "calore" when I meant to say "caldo". And I'm pretty sure they're not the same thing at all. And the conversation in question was with my boss' husband. Clearly me speaking Italian was not meant to be tonight. Here's hoping that the fact that it was 11:30pm after a full day of work (starting at 8am, evviva!) and the fact that it was probably kind of obvious that I meant the weather and not something else and the fact that I was holding a book by Italo Calvino in my hand (and might thus had been primed for some archaic, possibly inappropriate use of random words) excuses me somewhat from the ridiculousness of that mix-up.
Plus, also? In Spanish caldo is calor. So. Really not that far-fetched. Except that this is Reggio Emilia, not Spain. But whatever.
After another heroically lengthy day (8:30 to 6:30 with only one ten-minute break today! I am woman of iron! not - I was whimpering by the end), it's time for sleeping!
And then there are all the other days where it does not feel like that at all. And then there are those really special days when you go from using cadesse in one sentence (possibly even correctly) to having to describe 'lightening' as "quando nel cielo c'e' l'elettricita'" (when there's electricity in the sky) because you can't remember the word for lightening. (What's really disturbing about that is that then the other person said it and I was all "oh, yeah, someone else used that very word yesterday and I totally understood what they meant then" and now, not twenty minutes later, I can't remember it. Again.)
And moments after that syntactical gem, I managed to use "calore" when I meant to say "caldo". And I'm pretty sure they're not the same thing at all. And the conversation in question was with my boss' husband. Clearly me speaking Italian was not meant to be tonight. Here's hoping that the fact that it was 11:30pm after a full day of work (starting at 8am, evviva!) and the fact that it was probably kind of obvious that I meant the weather and not something else and the fact that I was holding a book by Italo Calvino in my hand (and might thus had been primed for some archaic, possibly inappropriate use of random words) excuses me somewhat from the ridiculousness of that mix-up.
Plus, also? In Spanish caldo is calor. So. Really not that far-fetched. Except that this is Reggio Emilia, not Spain. But whatever.
After another heroically lengthy day (8:30 to 6:30 with only one ten-minute break today! I am woman of iron! not - I was whimpering by the end), it's time for sleeping!
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