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.

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!!!

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!

Huzzah

I feel the need to record the fact that I finally sent two emails that I've been meaning to send for positively ages (um, since mid-March? really? what?) and also did this other really productive thing. Namely, that medical research manuscript I got sent to correct this afternoon circa 1pm? Yeah, totally zipped right through that sucker and just sent it back, not twelve hours later.

Yes! Efficiency! So good!

Also, long meeting with The Boss about Next Year. Eeep. More on Next Year some other time.

Thus turning what was going to be an eleven hour workday (what? only eleven? so lazy! what is this, vacation?) into a... seventeen hour workday? Hm. Okay. That's maybe a little bit sad. I did have that one two-ish hour break between 6:30 and 8:30 during which I wrote those two emails and did my grocery shopping (yield: a melon, some crackers, and some chocolate. No wonder I'm always fat in Italy. It's not even because of all the good Italian food. It's just because I'm too tired and lazy to shop and/or cook).

Anyway, off to bed because yay for working the 8am to 8:30pm shift tomorrow!!! I should probably just forego the sleeping and just start caffeinating now... yeah, or not. Time for sleep. I'm pretty excited.

Académie française

Did you know that also in French you can say 'ciao!' to mean goodbye? 'Salut is more common, and functions like 'ciao' does in Italian (you can use it for either hello or good'bye) but 'ciao' works as well.

I discovered while teaching French the other day that the preferred spelling is apparently "tchao", though. That's how it's spelled in the book I'm teaching from. My student stared at it for a solid minute before going, "wait... what's that?" and then I had to explain about the Académie Française - this group of people who are in charge of preserving the French language and ensuring that it is not sullied by any foreign words - and how sometimes they are a bit extreme.

For example, everyone in the world says "envoye-moi un mail" to mean email. But the correct word presenting in my business french book? "Courriel". It actually took me a good month to figure out that this was a blend between the words "courrier" (mail) and electronic. So, in effect, it is exactly the same thing as email, but reversed and in French.

A bit silly, if you ask me.

P.S. My search for tights continues. I found some in Oviesse that were a color called naturale the other day - sounds promising, no? But they didn't have them in my size. Still... there is hope.

Love

Kind of loved being a teacher today. Maybe because I spend the day in an extreme sleep deprivation-induced fog. Maybe because of the recent med school business has reminded me that these could be my last few months doing this. I'm not sure.

One student was his usual lovely self. Another was his usual nitpicky self but my superior knowledge of grammar and - dare I say it? - burgeoning didactic skillz managed to satisfy him. A third burst in halfway through the second lesson just to say 'hello! hi! ciao! come va? how are you? ciao!' And with the last guy we spent another half hour after the end of the lesson just talking because we forgot to end the lesson. And I think I forgot to give him homework. Oops.

Anyway, though. I kind of wanted to hug them all. Not really sure why...

How lovely is that, though? How many people can say that they smiled when they sat down and reflected on their day at work, and are happy to go back tomorrow?

Check in with me tomorrow when the alarm clock goes off, but in the meantime... isn't that nice?

Day in the life...

"There are three rules you can use to decide between the present perfect and the past simple," I begin. I am in my element - I taught this lesson twice yesterday.

My fancypants important person student takes out a fancypants pen and begins to take notes. I must confess, it still kind of cracks me up that someone might want to take notes on what I have to say.

"I have a good summary of these rules - do you want me to email it to you?"

I take the opportunity to make him dictate his email. We spend ten minutes sorting out our vowels.

"Chiocciola?" he asks sheepishly.

I love it when they ask you something they think they should already know and look all sheepish about it. Even important-people 50-year-olds will do it. Adorable.

"Ancora!" chorus the three-year-olds.

"Again?!" I feign incredulity for their amusement. Well, actually, not feign. More exaggerate. Because why would anyone want to subject themselves voluntarily to the ultra-inane "snowflake song" is indeed beyond me. If that's the standard for amusement, daily life must be hilarious when you're three.

"Si, again!" they shout, beside themselves.

Bingo! Taught them a new word. Feel that the hour of singing at the top of my lungs and making ridiculous faces has been worth it, and launch into another round of the snowflake song with gusto.

"Should we sing fast-fast-fast or sloooowly?" I ask.

"Fast!" they shriek. Wow. We're on a roll here. Good day. One litte guy in the front row can't quite contain himself and jumps onto my lap, clinging like a little barnacle. See the joy you bring to people's lives when you're an English teacher?

"If I saw him, I would tell him..." my 3 o'clock drones on. Apparently my purpose is to sit at his kitchen table and ensure that his homework gets done correctly. A small beam of sunlight falls across the top of his head. (Sun! In Reggio! Alert the press!) He's a good boy, but ye gods, is his homework ever boring. I wonder if I am a horrible lazy teacher for not thinking of a way to make this fascinating and hilarious. Probably. Sigh. Am momentarily depressed.

"If I will go..." I'm jolted out of my stupor by probably one of the top 5 most common Italian-learner mistakes. I launch into my canned explanation about that.

All new English teachers should develop two things (well, probably a lot of things, but these are the two that come to mind at the moment). One, canned explanations for the most common mistakes people make wherever you are (it varies depending on their native language). These should be based on examples that have been proven to work on your other students - seriously, there are some examples that, for whatever reason, make everyone go click! like little lightbulbs. It's great. And two, a sort of automatic alert for mistakes. This allows you to be completely not paying attention and still catch and correct their mistakes. Key. Because I, for one, find it near impossible to keep my full attention focused on "put these twenty inane sentences into the passive voice".

I pour some yogurt with crunchy bits down my throat, standing over the heater in the office. Yogurt with crunchy bits: best thing ever. Can be sucked down in under three minutes if you're focused, and kind of resembles a balanced meal.

"And then he wants to know if he can move up a whole level in a week's time if we do two hours a day, and I'm like 'no'." We all dissolve into laughter. (Yeah, okay, you maybe start to find kind of random things funny after teaching for a while.

"It's when you can see the clouds that the spring, it starts," says my four-thirty. "Because now it's all grey. You cannot see the clouds - just grey sky of winter. When you can see each cloud, round, you know then it is beginning spring. Maybe next week..." he smiles. "I'm live in Reggio 46 years." Huh.

I jump into the car, restored by a ridiculously sugar-laden coffee. I'm not sure which is the more important component - the caffeine, or the 1/2 cup of sugar. (I exaggerate, but not by much.) Either way, purchase of coffee machine for the office? Best idea ever.

"E poi, sai cos'ha detto?" one of the three kids in my last group of the day. I'm supposed to pretend not to understand them, but what unfeeling robot would decline the invitation into their world? This is prime gossip from the seconda media over here.

I yawn driving home, listening to the radio. Apparently there's an accident on the autostrada near Napoli. Must remember to photocopy more exercises about the conditional for that high school kid for next week and maybe make a question-formation activity for that guy tomorrow... I wonder if anyone has confirmed the Modena lesson for tomorrow... really should laminate those photos of Boston for Saturday...

I boil some veggies, call it dinner, and crawl into bed after checking my email. One of my students has sent me a wikipedia article about Disney characters in the '50s. I can't quite recall why. (Did we talk about Disney characters this morning?)

I probably fall asleep kind of smiling.

Womanizer

It's nice that American music makes it over to Europe and is super popular. (Or, anglophone music, I should say.) Really, it is: my students listen to it and hum the tunes and sometimes wander in vaguely singing a line from something or other. It's good practice for them.

Why is it always the stuff that you really don't feel like explaining is the stuff that's the most often repeated, though?

Because there they are, all humming and whatever, and the next thing you know, an earnest-looking twelve-year-old wants to know what "womanizer" means.

Thanks, pop culture.

The blue car is back!

And now we are on to bigger and better things together, like finding the Top Secret Headquarters of the Uber-Fancy Local Fashion Thing and conquering the autostrada. Oh, yes. It is going about as well as can be expected, given our history: the former took us about three hours despite being only ten minutes away from our starting point, and the latter probably shaved about three years off the end of my life.

I should preface this by explaining that the Uber-Fancy Top Secret Local Fashion Headquarters is not actually top-secret. In fact, aside from the flag having been invented here, it's probably Reggio's one other claim to fame. I'm pretty sure a significant portion of Reggio's population is employed or somehow otherwise connected to this fashion group and its associated industries and whatever.

Anyway, that said, you'd think someone would know how to get to the headquarters. Or that the address would be available on the internet. Or that the UFLFT HR people who are organizing the English courses might have included it in part of their correspondance with our school. You'd think. And yet...

"Oh, yeah, it's... you know... over there," our receptionist assures us, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the window, from which you can see Ipercoop and the beginning of Reggio's charming industrial district. "You know."

But we don't. Twenty minutes later and a phone call to the aforementioned HR people later, we have the address. Via M--- G----. (Just maintaining the secrecy, you know. Even though anyone who lives in Reggio will probably know exactly what I am talking about. I think there is really only one Uber-Fancy fashion thing with its headquarters here.) We put the address into the GPS. We attach the GPS to the windshield.

"You have to put the car in neutral for it to start," I offer, sharing the wisdom I garnered last year with the new girl. I am helping her to practice driving in Italy. You should take a moment to reflect upon how ludicrous it is to have me helping anyone to practice anything. Particularly driving the blue car. Anyway, we make it out of the parking lot and after a brief panic on the roundabout ("which way do I go? Left or right? Quick!" Me: "um... right. Like the little arrow. Always right. Because here we drive on the right, remember?" "Oh, that's right." Oh, dear. I check my seatbelt.)

The GPS is exceedingly bossy and we follow its directions, checking them against the Google Maps thing we printed out. They agree. Things are going well.

We miss a turn, but it is no big deal, except for the fact that the GPS is not very sympathetic: "turn around as soon as possible. Turn around as soon as possible," she orders crisply. Couldn't it be just a little more tactful? Like "that's okay, dear - it's hard to see the signs in this light. I'm sure you'll get it on the second try."

As it happens, we turn around and promptly miss the turn again. It is a tiny side street with no lighting and little ditches on either side. On the fourth or fifth try, we get it. Huzzah. We begin to inch along the miniscule dirt road, and the ditches on either side widen until they are huge and we have about six inches on either side of the car. We roll along silently for a few minutes. We appear to be deep in the middle of a farm, surrounded on either side by some sort of field and a faint smell of pigs. The GPS has no advice for us. We are so focused on not falling into the ditches that it takes a few minutes before one of us says, "wait... but would the headquarters of the Uber-Fancy Local Fashion Thing really be here in the middle of a field?" "Good point," agrees the other. "Surely they wouldn't want to work in a place that kind of smells like pigs?"

An even smaller side road branches off ahead, barely visible in the fog. It is clearly a sign. We execute a graceful 3 point turn that only takes us the better part of half an hour (as we are not so confident about our abilites to not end up in the ditch) and inch carefully back to the main road. Splendid.

We slink back to the school. What with having made a side trip to the village of Massenzatico (twice), our adventure has taken a little over an hour.

We acquire a third member for our search party and a new set of google directions.

We end up on Via M--- G---, which turns out to be located in a quiet residential area made up cute little apartment buildings. I roll down my window to ask for help from an elderly lady hobbling down the sidewalk.

"Scusi, ma do you know if the Top Secret Headquarters of the UFLFT is located near here?" I ask.

"The what? The fashion thing? Noooo, signorina, not even close." After indulging in a brief cackle of amusement, she gives us lengthy directions mainly in dialect.

"Grazie mille!" I call cheerfully, rolling up the window. I turn back to my cohorts. Their faces are as blank as mine probably is. Right, then.

"You know," ventures one of them, "one of my students works for the local fashion thing and I have her mobile number. I could... call her." It is eight-thirty on a Friday night, but this seems to be our best bet. She dials.

"Hello? Hi, this is [your English teacher]. Um... we're trying to find the Top Secret Headquarters. You know, where you work. Can you help us?"

Pause.

"Well, we're not quite sure... um... we've been looking for Via M--- G---, but we got a little lost and now we're in the middle of nowhere, at a petrol station. Because also we ran out of benzina."

Pause.

"Wait, really? Via M--- F---, not M--- G---?"

Pause.

"Oh. Yeah. I guess that *would* make a difference. Wait, let me see if the GPS can find it."

We type it into the GPS. It does not recognize it as a real place. (See, I told you it was top secret.)

"Wait, Via M--- F---? You're sure? Because the GPS says it doesn't exist."

Pause, during which the student gives detailed and precise directions for ending up on the so-secret-GPS-doesn't-know-about-it Via M--- F---. It turns out to be located practically under the Ponti di Calatrava (google it, they're pretty cool-looking). Also, we can see them from the window of the school. They are literally less than ten minutes away.

We find them. The student calls to check up on us. (We love our students.) The Top Secret Headquarters is huge, eerily covered in fog, and gated shut. We turn around and head home. We go and get a pizza.

I wonder if there will ever be a time when I will just drive the blue car somewhere and it will be simple and not require emergency phone calls and three sets of a directions.

Il Job

So, in honor of my new job (um, that I’ve had for three months) here is a post about that. I wrote it in Italian because a.) I’m bored and b.) that way no one can read my snarky and mean thoughts about my coworkers (whom I mostly love, but… you’ll see). Whoever has better Italian than me (so, most people, except hopefully anyone who might actually know my esteemed colleagues), do feel free to get all snarky in return and tell me how much my grammar/spelling/Italian-in-general sucks. I probably won’t get offended.

Oh, and also, I changed everyone’s names because it would be creepy if your daycare provider was all talking about your kid on the internet, right? I figure the names are different and it’s in a whole other language, so I’m good. So…

“Quindi, per oggi ti mettiamo con i bimbi da un anno a diciotto mesi. E’ una giornata piuttosto calma qua – sono solo in sette oggi.”

Entro con un gran sorriso e li guardo. Ce ne sono tre che urlano. Mamma mia.

Mezz’ora più tardi, li abbiamo dato da mangiare, sono coperta in tracce di purée di verdura e qualcosa che mi sembra banana (ma non ne sono completamente sicura), e ho già dimentacato i nomi di almeno due dei bimbi.

“Mi passi il biberon di Luca?” mi domanda l’altra ragazza.

Cavoli, ma qual’è, Luca? Doveva proprio sciegliere uno di quelli il cui nome ho dimenticato. Esito e la ragazza ci getta lo sguardo.

“Quello lì con la camicia azzurra che si sta arrampicando per salire sul tavolo. A proposito, me lo rimetti giù sulla sedia, per favore?” mi dice con calma assoluta. Vedendo il bimbo in piedi sulla sedia, il mio cuore si ferma un attimo prima di ripartire. Lo prendo, lo rimetto giù, e pesco il biberon da dov’è caduto sotto il tavolo in un lago di latte. (Spill-proof, my a**.)

“Fammi vedere quanto ne ha bevuto?” mi chiede la terza ragazza, piccola con i capelli sciolti e di un biondo sicuramente finto. Ha passato l’intero pasto descrivendo i problemi che ha con la sua manicure e comincio a sentirmi un pochino suicida. Le passo il biberon, vedendo che ci sono ancora una decina di millilitri. Non ne avrà bevuto molto. (Ogni giorno si deve scrivere quanto ha mangiato ogni bimbo per poi dirlo ai genitori.)

“Nove,” fa la ragazza. Alzo le sopraciglie.

“Davvero?” chiedo.

“Si, guarda – il latte sta lì, al nove,” e mi mostra la linea dove arriva il latte. Se potessi, alzarei ancora più alto le sopraciglie.

Ci metto dieci minuti a spiegarle che il latte che arriva al nove è ancora nel biberon, e quindi non nel stomaco del bimbo. Poi altri cinque minuti per aiutarla a fare la sostrazione (quindici meno nove). E dovrò stare otto ore al giorno con lei? Ecco, è deciso: mi voglio tagliare le vene col coltello di plastica che abbiamo usato per preparare i pezzi di carota (che sono finiti sulle ginocchie dei miei pantaloni).

Un’ora più tardi, abbiamo pulito tutto (e ce n’era da pulire, credetemi), incluso i bimbi (che guerra per pulirgli la faccia!), e sono tutti sdraiati sui materassini per dormire. Sono carinissimi, tutti addormentati, stringendo i loro animaletti di peluche, ricoperti da copertine con disegni di conigli e nuvole e chissà che altra roba. Tranne uno, un bimbo bellissimo con gli occhi scuri e le ciglia lunghissime a cui non interessa dormire per niente.

“Senti, io vado a pranzare – fallo dormire, il piccolo, e poi quando torno, ci vai tu, d’accordo?” mi fa l’altra ragazza (la bionda è sparita dopo pranzo e non mi dispiace).

“Si, certo,” dico con un tono poco certo.

“Ti aiuto, guarda,” mi dice, e solleva il bimbo per farlo sdraiare sul suo materassino, dove c’è già un cagnolino di peluche con le orecchie blu.

“Si, si, grazie,” dico. La guardo partire e poi guardo il bimbo. Lui mi sta già guardando, con gli occhi grandi apperti. Gli sorrido gentilmente.

“E adesso dormiamo un po’, no? Andiamo a nanna!”

Cinque minuti più tardi...

“Dai, forza, chiudi gli occhi...” gli passo la mano sulle spalle ancora una volta, ma non mi ricordo neanche del suo nome per supplicarlo di chiudere gli occhi. Ma come ***** si fa a fargli addormentarsi, ‘sti bimbi? L’unica cosa che mi viene in mente è di tenergli chiusi gli occhi con le dita ma secondo me non è proprio consiglatio... Gli passo la mano ancora una volta sulle spalle, accelerando il ritmo disperatamente. Comincio a sudare un po’.

“Si chiama Alessandro.” Di colpo, sento una voce che mi parla dall’altra parte del muro basso che divide questa classe da quella dei bimbi ancora più piccoli. È la loro maestra; l’ho conosciuta in fretta stamattina. “E si addormenta se gli carezzi il viso.” Ah. Già.

La ringrazio con entusiasmo e comincio ad accarezzargli la fronte. Il piccolo comincia a respirare più lentamente e due minuti più tardi dorme. In fondo in fondo, è anche carino...

“E quindi prima di venire qua vivevi in Italia?” mi domanda una delle altre maestre qualche ora più tardi, quando ci incontriamo con le altri classi nel parco. Annuisco.

“E dove in Italia?” Sto pensando se spiegargli in quale regione o se dire direttamente “il nord” per accorciare un po’ la discussione quando la ragazza parla di nuove e interrompe il mio pensiero.

“L’Italia è quel paese dove gli uomini portano le gonne, giusto?”

Ci metto un attimino a seguire il filo dei suoi pensieri per arrivarne lì. Intanto, gli risponde qualcun’altro.

“No, quello è l’Irlanda.” Non alzare le sopraciglie. Non alzare le sopraciglie! mi ripetto silenziosamente qualche volta. Devi fare amicizia con queste ragazze!

“No, secondo me, è la Scozia, no? Dove gli uomini portano le kilts?” suggerisco finalmente. Le ragazze ci pensano un attimo.

“Ah, si, può darsi...”

“È vero!” esclama una terza, “No, ragazze, l’Italia è il paese con la pizza, no? Tipo Domino’s!”* Mi guardano tutte, aspettando conferma.

“Eh... si. Più o meno.”

“Avrai mangiato della pizza buonissima lì, no?” Mi chiede la prima mentre aggiusta il capello di uno dei bimbi. Annuisco di nuovo.

“Non potresti neanche immaginare...” dico quasi sottovoce, ripensandoci. Quella pizzeria all’angolo dietro quella strada con i portici... la rucola (a proposito, perchè non si trova per niente in America, la rucola?)... sigh. Ma che ***** faccio qua, con purée dappertutto e bimbi che urlano? Due mesi fa mi mettevo i tacchi e le gonne per insegnare nelle ditte!

Intanto è già ora di tornare nell’aula per la merenda (così diversa dalla merenda dei bimbi Italiani – niente gnocco qua!). Comincio a raccogliere i nostri piccolini e dirigerli verso la porta. Sto sudando di nuovo. Cavoli, ma chi lo sapeva che ci si voleva tanto sforzo per lavorare coi bimbi?

Di colpo, si sente il rumore del tagliaerba e uno dei bimbi della mia classe si attacca alle mie gambe, urlando. Lo prendo in braccio; “ma non e’ niente, guarda,” gli dico, mostrandogli il tagliaerba col dito. Lui si afferra al mio collo e si pianta la faccia nella mia spalla. Mi scappa un piccolo sorriso e lo stringo un po’ anch’io. La sua dipendenza totale su di noi è anche un po’ commovente, alla fine, e decido che forse si può essere contenti in qualsiasi posto... anche senza rucola.

*Una catena di pizzerie decisamente mediocre nel stilo Americano.

I can't think of a title

I'm back! (From nowhere in particular.) Interestingly (or not so) I have almost nothing interesting to report, despite a month-long absence. High points of excitement in my life the past month include:

1. The school Halloween parade. This consisted of my esteemed colleagues and I manhandling twelve toddlers into awkward costumes, cooing over them, taking pictures of them screaming and/or merely pouting miserably (the costumes, you see), and then hauling them outside for a few circuits around the parking lot. Mine were all too young and disturbed by the proceedings to walk, so we carried them, and it turns out they're heavier than you'd think. Except one brave soul, aptly dressed as superman, who did want to walk. Specifically, he wanted to walk into oncoming traffic. Fun. (For the record, I did not let him. Yes. I am a good daycare employee.)

2. Dealing with various ills that befall children between the ages of 12 and 18 months: rashes, innumerable bumps on heads, bee stings, choking (not fun for anyone), and fevers that soar up above 104 degrees. The effect of said fevers is, oddly enough, different on everyone. My heart kind of ceases to beat while the thermometer beeps its way up past 103 and 104, and the children merely wiggle a little and glare at me reproachfully. Strange. I have a feeling being a parent is a worrisome sort of job.

3. The school's Thanksgiving Feast. Hilarity all around. You know why? Do you have acces to a toddler? If so, give him/her a pile of stuffing, some shredded corn bread (to prevent choking, see), a clump of mashed potatoes, and no utensils (because they don't know how to use them) and see what happens. Yes. I'll leave it to your imagination. But it was just as unfortunate as you'd think, and then some.

4. One solitary medical school interview. It transpired my interviewer went to the same undergrad institution as I did, and knew some of the same people in the linguistics department. We chatted amiably about linguistics. She probably ended up thinking I'd be better suited to a career in linguistics than medicine. She may have a point. In other news... public service announcement: medical schools, here's the deal: either interview me or reject me. I'm not even especially picky about which at this point. But I'm getting bored with sitting here waiting for you to make a decision. The end.

5. The leaves all fell off the trees. That was kind of depressing. Today it is sunny though windy, so that's kind of okay, but I strongly dislike the gray parts of the winter. Sigh.

6. I attended a yoga class. This was funny because at the end the instructor must have felt that she should flatter the new girl to make her come back, because she was all "well, you must exercise a lot, right? Take really good care of your body? Because it shows." And I was all, "um... well, I generally shower standing up... and that's about it." I didn't say that, though. Probably no need to discuss showering habits with random strangers, Slavic-accented yoga people or otherwise.

7. I watched a movie in Italian ("Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini") and felt cultured as a result. Also I understood it all. Which is actually not very impressive because I've already read the book. But whatever. Culturedness. It is good.

Yeah, I think that might be about it. How pedestrian. But sometimes that's okay. In a relaxing, brain half-asleep kind of way. A good weekend to all.

Nothing much

Very productive today. Answered all of the emails that had been hanging out in my inbox, some of them since... um... mid-September. (Oops. I am a godawful email correspondent. I should just slap that onto the bottom of all my emails as a sort of disclaimer/pre-emptive apology. Anyway. Apologies all around.)

Now I am off to do my laundry and create Strategic Food Reserves for the week. This involves a lot of tupperware and significant quantities of my horrible cooking all at once, so steer clear of the kitchen, people.

Then I will be ready to start another week. Oh, my life. It is just so fascinating. Most of last week was taken up combatting the Diaper Rash of Death on one of my wee ones; who knows what this week could hold? Here's hoping something less labor-intensive because the whole diaper rash thing involved a lot of time spent wrestling this kid every time I wanted to change his diaper, and somehow... I frequently came close to losing? To a 12-month-old? Hm. Awkward, that. (For those who don't know what diaper rash is and, for whatever reason, can't figure it out for yourselves... um... inform yourselves before you procreate.)

On a tangentially related note, did you know there's such a thing as a product called "Butt Paste"? I kid you not. It is for the purpose of preventing diaper rash. Aptly named, I suppose. Can't get much more direct than that.

In other news, I am still learning German, by way of mildly irritating CDs that I play during my highly irritating commute (I'm very easily irritated), and can now introduce myself, say I'm from Dresden, count to eleven, and say I'm a lawyer. Not particularly useful, since I don't anticipate ever having to say I'm a lawyer, in any context, but whatever.

Yesterday I went to the library to get books for my bimbi and asked the children's librarian how to go about finding books on a specific topic, because it has been a long time since I looked for anything in the picture book section. In fact, I don't think this library had even been built yet, the last time I needed a picture book. "Well, what grade are you in?" she asked me, looking at me slightly askance. I am not sure how to take this. Well, because it means I look younger? Or not well because maybe I look my age but just sort of illiterate? I reigned in my narcissism, though, and did not run around the library screaming that I had a Bachelor's degree and was only teaching preschool temporarily, thank you very much.

That would be rude, unnecessary, and also innappropriate, because, having taught preschool for a full month now, I have come to realize that it is an extremely important profession and that we should somehow recruit smarter people to do it, asap. I will also now know what to look for when I have my own kids. Actually, you know where the best preschools I have ever seen are? In Reggio. Perhaps I shall just lend my kids to someone there for the duration of their pre-primary education. Or maybe we can import the Reggio approach to wherever I am living then. Or maybe I will move back to Reggio with my brats, and we'll all eat a lot of gnocco and get fat. Yes. We will bring obesity to Italy. Excellent.

Aaaanyway, I am making very little sense, per usual. And, you may have noticed, I actually have very little of import to say. This is because I now live in suburbia and spend my weeks applying goo and baby powder to small behinds and my weekends planted in a chair, reading trash from the library. (Actually, this week I'm reading a book called... hang on... "Quicksilver". By some guy. Either Neal Stephenson or Stephen Nealson. Anyway, though, if it's trash, it's quite pleasantly-written trash. And maybe it's not even trash. Who knows?) Anyway. The point is that I have pretty much nothing to say, but felt that updating ye olde blog was the last thing to do on my keeping-up-with-correspondence list, and so... now I can go do something else, guilt-free.

A good week to all.

Good lord, I'm boring even myself to death.

Mundane...

Work. Well, I have a song about a friendly pirate ship rocking on the sea (rocking on the sea, rocking on the sea) stuck in my head. I have now taught peek-a-boo to five or six kids in my class, who all seem to find it just riveting. In fact, one gets so worked up that she routinely pokes herself in the eye. Cute, though. Also there is a kid who bites. I'm kind of afraid of him, which is odd, given that he is barely 12 months old and more or less comes up to my knee. Still - bloodthirsty babies. It is creepy.

But, yeah, all things considered, work is good.

Meanwhile, I have decided to teach myself German from a book that professes to allow you to teach yourself German. So far, it is a silly book and I do not appreciate its patronizing tone. I mean, think about it: what sorts of people are likely to want to teach themselves a language? Travel-y sorts of businesspeople, maybe, and nerds. In any case, of at least reasonable intelligence. I can't really think of a situation where the sort of person who doesn't know what a verb is would also be the sort of person who would elect to teach him- or herself a language.

Ergo, teach-yourself-German book, you are silly. Stop explaining to me what verbs are, because I already know. And enough with your little language learning tips. Obviously I should group vocabulary into theme-related lists. You know what else could work? You could just present them that way and then the little side box with the cartoon exclamation point would be unnecessary. The other issue I have is with the pronunciation. Would it have killed them to learn the phonetic alphabet prior to writing the book? I'm pretty sure that in the end, it would have required a lot less effort than thinking up descriptions like "purse your lips like you just ate a lemon, and then say a long 'eeee' sound but with your lips still pursed, kind of as if you actually wanted to say 'ooo', as in 'boo!'". Um, yeah. Whatever.

Nonetheless, I shall persevere because I think my brain is slipping slowly into a coma. Although... I'm pretty sure I remember saying the same thing about teaching English after having been in college. And now my job makes teaching English look positively fascinating. Sighhh. In some ways, it is nice to have free time and be able to spend long stretches of whole hours in a row just not thinking. In other ways, sometimes I think: if I have to dig some kid's half-eaten macaroni out of the sink drain while listening to people discuss nail salons for one more minute, I will break the "Wiggles" CD over someone's head (probably my own). Could be worse, though. Next thing you know I'll be working at a gas station, inhaling gas fumes, and then my brain will *really* be in a coma.

Fun fact: when we were in grade school, they used to threaten us with "you'll end up pumping gas when you grow up!" as in, "do your homework or...". But it transpires that in almost all of the other states that are not NJ, people pump their own gas anyway. I always kind of wondered... in other states, what do grade school teachers threaten kids with? My bet is McDonald's.

Anyway, on that note... bedtime.

The working world

I have recently taken a job at Kaplan as an MCAT teacher. Because working full time wasn't enough and I was bored? Because I so missed physics and orgo and all that nonsense that I could not keep myself away for another moment? Because I want to foster the development of other evil young pre-meds? Hm... boh. 'Tis a mystery.

(Okay, fine, actually, it's not. It's so that I can put "teaching MCAT prep" on the 'activities since graduation' part of med school applications. Yeah, we pre-meds are very utilitarian. And evil. Watch out. For one, we may be teaching your Kaplan course, and it's probably not because we care.)

In any case, now I'm in their training program which is six kinds of boring and involves marking up your Teacher's Book with four different colors of highlighter. I kid you not. Each color means something different but I probably can't tell you what because it is a Top Secret Kaplan Strategy and I signed my freedom of speech away on a pdf file. Anyway. The point is that I'm preparing for my next training session and I am bored, so instead of exchanging the pink highlighter for the orange one and soldiering on, I will resurrect the time-honored tradition of procrastination and share with you my impressions on the working world. (If anyone is reading beyond this point, that is kind of sad. Did you know they publish books to occupy your time? Books by people who write well and actually have something to say. I recommend looking some of those up. Unless you're procrastinating, too. In that case, by all means...)

Firstly, on commuting. I have a random piece of advice for you. If it ever comes up as a choice, like when you are buying a house or something, I would suggest living in a place that is east of where you will work - that way you will not have the sun in your eyes when you drive. My parents did not think of this and as I am back at home living with them, mammone-style, I enjoy the sun in my eyes both ways. Probably this will contribute to blindness and wrinkling. Yay.

In the same vein, route 78 east is interesting in the mornings. It is like bumper-to-bumper traffic, but moving at 70 miles per hour. When I was learning to drive (a process that spanned from age 16 to roughly age 22), this used to freak me out and I never went on it. Post-Italy, I'm all ho-hum, eating my toast while merging from the ramp (or whatever that bit of road is called). (Side note: why is it that I never manage to eat meals sitting down at a table like normal people?) Also, I really should record the story of driving in Italy at some point - it involved a whole new level of ineptitude on my part. Perhaps this weekend...

Speaking of which: on weekends... after four years of round-the-clock, every-day-of-the-week studying/work in college and one year of you-must-be-available-14-hours-a-day indentured servitude as a teacher, I think I have acquired a job that allows me to glimpse at what the lives of "normal" people must be like. Essentially, you go to work during the week and come back and are kind of tired so you don't accomplish much at home, and then on the weekends you can do other stuff. It is interesting. I have not yet decided if I like it. In any case, it doesn't matter, because now I have acquired a second job and effectively done away with the free time. It's all like Erin Brokovich, single-mother-supporting-her-family over here, except I have no children and also I don't look like Julia Roberts. (Pity.)

On the work itself. Well, today a little guy crawled up my leg so I picked him up and he clapped and smiled and smelled like baby powder and was generally adorable. I wandered over to the other side of the room to grab a tissue to wipe his nose and caught sight of some pictures with a caption/sign reading something along the lines of "to utilize our creativity expression, we used musical instruments to express ourselves creatively", which made me cry inside. That's pretty much how my work day goes. Also, lots of children often cry and it is sad. Perhaps I will start singing that "raindrops on roses" song like in the movie with the von Trapps. This seemed to work even in the most dire of situations (e.g. thunderstorms, wicked stepmothers, Nazi invasions, etc.). Or maybe the "spoonful of sugar" one. It will be like Julie Andrews but with a crappy singing voice and minus the classy British accent and seventy billion octaves' worth of range. Or whatever it is that musician types call that sort of thing with the octaves and people's voices.

Yeah, now I'm making even less sense than I was when I started. Back to Kaplan's Oh-So-Secret test-prep strategies. (Gag me. Oh, med school. The things I do for you. Really.)

Job

So, now I work in a daycare (as a result of that interview from the last post, in case anyone's keeping count). This is also why I have been all MIA since then. Anyway, having worked there for two weeks, I have: learned the names of approximately 60 children in five different age groups, identified all of the convenient sources of caffeine in the school's vicinity, absorbed about three quarts of baby saliva into my clothes, and contracted what will probably be the first of many sore throats from the wee ones.

Actually, this could be a good public service announcement: this is what a bachelor's degree from a reasonably good college will do for you these days, kids - hourly wages for a job that involves absorbing a lot of baby saliva into your clothes. So, really, you could go ahead and skip the bachelor's degree. The girl in the room across from mine has some kind of associate's degree and I'm pretty sure the one who was helping out in my room yesterday probably had trouble finishing high school.

That's mean. I'm sorry.

And I'm not even really bitter about the whole thing, to tell you (who?) the truth. I actually like this job a lot more than I thought I would. There is a lot of diaper-changing and nose-wiping and spoon-feeding and hand-washing and rocking to sleep and sometimes it is tedious and sometimes it is chaotic but when a crying kid reaches up his arms at you and puts his head down on your shoulder the moment you've picked him up... well, let's just say evolution has done quite a number on us girls and it must fulfil some kind of very gooey, mommy-type instinct.

All in all, I would say it evens out. For example, today I was with the pre-schoolers almost all day. Their usual routine seems to involve a lot of running around and chasing each other and hitting each other over the head with blocks and then whining about it. On the plus side, they can feed themselves, but they were an irritating experience overall. For the last hour, though, I got sent to the infant room and rocked a six-month-old to sleep and she wiggled around there and smelled like baby powder and was delightful in general. Also the palmar-grasp reflex is a lot of fun. (There - that's that bachelor's degree coming through for you. If your education did not encompass reflexes in early infant development, google it. There should be some funny videos out there, because in theory babies can support their entire bodyweight just hanging onto something.)

The only trouble is that on occasion, I feel slightly over-educated and non-fitting-in. Most of the time I don't mind it. It's fine. We're changing diapers and feeding kids; knowing what the palmar grasp reflex is and why it develops is not really necessary. Every once in a while, though, when I am tired and cranky and a lot of kids are crying, I get annoyed. For example, the other day I received the following memo in my "cubby" (what am I, five?): "all teacher's must submit self-bios so that we can proofread them before parent's night". Now. Is that not even the slightest bit poetic in its irony? If you have no idea what I am talking about, read the next paragraph. If the part of you that understands English is already hurting a little bit, skip to the one after (or, alternatively, go do something productive with your time).

The memo made me a little annoyed at first: they dare to suggest that they're going to proofread what *I* write when *that* is how *they* write? But then I just laughed. I could have forgiven the misplaced apostrophe in "parent's". Okay, so it sounds like there is only one parent coming and to me it's a little grating, but... I get that the apostrophe at the very end of the word can be disconcerting to some (should be "parents'"). What really kills me is the "teacher's" as plural. Especially when "self-bios" doesn't seem to give them any trouble. Proofread, mon oeuil. Yes, I am often a snob. But you have to admit that here they were really asking for it.

Anyway. I have fallen in love with my regular kids and look forward to seeing them every day and will probably be happy working here if I manage not to smack any of my colleagues and/or superiors over the head with a container of wet-wipes for their egregious abuse of the English language and/or child development theory. Speaking of that last... I will leave you with a conversation that I witnessed yesterday with the toddlers.

How NOT to teach a foreign language:

Teacher: So, did you like that book about the dinosaur at bedtime?
Kids: Yeah!
Teacher: Hey, does anyone know how to say "bed" in Spanish?
Kids: *blank stares*
Teacher: It's "cama"! Can you say "cama"?
Kids (dutifully): Cama.
Teacher: Good job! Now you know how to say bed in Spanish!
Child: What's Spanish?

Interview

My interview clothes and I have a history together. I wore them to two research conferences as an undergrad. And also on the day I defended my thesis. Perhaps this is why they remind me of research, even though I've worn them to other job interviews more recently - most notably the one that got me my last job (*cough* position of indentured servitude). Anyway, after a year of lying dormant in Italy, Evil Competitive Pre-med Self is the one who stalks up the steps to the latest interview (confidence courtesy of said interview clothes) - without even tripping! huzzah! - with half-formed thoughts of methodology and p-values swimming vaguely in her brain.

I greet the lady at the door with a confident smile and a firm handshake. I take the seat she offers me and sit with my back as straight as it goes; while she leaves the room to get something, I skim idly through my resume and try to remember my stock responses for interview questions. There's the two-sentence research summary... the chronological volunteer-work history... Oh, look, and that time I was a supervisor at that other thing... better mention that. Leadership or whatever.

"So, what's your previous experience with children?" she asks upon her return.

I start with the most recent (indentured servitude) and then start to summarize the research thing, "... focusing on early cognitive development..." I'm fairly sure I lost her somewhere around the word cognitive, though, so I trail off slightly and then wrap it all up with a bright, "and some babysitting in high school!" She perks up. There we go.

"That's great," she says kind of vaguely, apparently still re-grouping, "uh-huh, so... " you can see she's thinking. It looks kind of painful. This is why when I interview people, I always think up the questions in advance. Or used to, anyway. When I interviewed people. Back when I had a real job. She breaks through my little daydream with her next question: "... do you know how to change diapers?"

She opens her eyes wide and looks at me expectantly. I must confess, I am somewhat taken aback. Does she really get that many people applying to work in a daycare who don't know how to change diapers? For that matter, there is nothing particularly complex about changing a diaper. I am pretty sure that most reasonably intelligent people would be able to figure it out if suddenly placed in a situation that urgently required them to do so.

"Uh... yes. Of course," I can't help adding.

"Great!" she enthuses, before beginning to shuffle through some paperwork.

I like kids. Really, I do. But sometimes, I miss some things about before - when I was a student and I had other jobs. Mostly, I miss having a job where people were impressed when you did something like, say, figure out a new way to analyze the data on SPSS (not that that happened to me very frequently) or churned out 10 pages in half as many hours (that did). People when being impressed when you confirm your ability to properly operate the sticky tabs on a diaper is just not the same.

You know what I really miss about Italy?

And it's not the food. Don't get me wrong - the lack of pizza/rucola/parmiggiano/crudo/etc. here is all kinds of tragic. But what I really miss right now is being a madrelingua inglese. It gives you access to your own little job market, one that you share only with the other expats (and even then - only expats that have the proper certification). Here negli Stati Uniti most of us speak English, and so that does not compel people to hire me, and this leads to an unfortunate state of affairs known as unemployment.

When you're in college, people tell you 'take classes that appeal to you! follow your interests!' and it's all very rosy. And depending on which college you go to, you can take some pretty cool stuff. For example, at my particular Prestigious Institution of Higher Learning you could take a language called Khmer (where do they even speak that?), a class called "Mystical Mushrooms and Magical Molds" (or something along those lines), spider biology, game theory, intro to wines (also intro to beers, but only if you passed intro to wines), and a whole slew of phys ed classes ranging from 'intro to swedish massage' to fencing and whatever you call it when people shoot guns. The thing is, though, that it doesn't always turn out to be very useful (for example, unless you go into entomology as a field, how many times in your life is knowing the circadian rhythm of a spider actually going to be of use?).

Which is fine. It's fine to have a lot of random useless knowledge. The problem is that it is also kind of good to have some practical, actually-applicable-to-something kind of knowledge, too. My father, in particular, feels very strongly about this.

"Well, it's because you have a useless degree," he informs me. We are conversing about my current (lack of) job options. "If you had learned something useful like, say, how to build a bridge, you wouldn't be in this situation."

I consider this. I am not really a bridge-building type of person.

"Or welding," he adds.

Welding? What, like with metal and fire and stuff?

"Yes, welding," he insists, even though I haven't spoken, "That's the problem these days: they don't teach you useful stuff like welding anymore."

Indeed. Well, I think it is safe to say that unless another world war breaks out and I am forced to take over from the menfolk because they have all joined the Navy, and work in a factory like Rosie the Riveter or whatever, I would probably never have considered a line of work that involved welding, anyway. And even in the World War III scenario, I probably would have volunteered for other, less fire-related jobs. Like growing turnips, or knitting socks. Darning socks. Whatever it is that one does with socks.

I must have raised my eyebrows or something because: "well, what have you learned how to do?" he challenges me. I think for a moment. Good question.

"Well, I can converse passably well in three foreign languages..." (okay, admittedly, I already knew one, so that's not very impressive and he knows it), "... and I know how to create transgenic mice... and how to calculate how much oxygen it would take to burn a certain amount of carbon... and I know Freud's opinion on a whole variety of topics... and the elements of a successful vaccine campaign..." in my head I am running through all of the myriad classes I crammed into my schedule as an undergrad, looking for something that he would think was useful (ability to comment on the significance of the Dance of the Seven Veils in "Salome"? no. extensive knowledge of the issue of maternal mortality in developing countries? meh. probably not. ability to tell you all about cognitive development and spatial relations? definitely no). I am getting a bit desperate, so I go for the next thing that comes to mind, "... also I can read medieval Catalan pretty well... even though I don't actually speak Catalan." Pfft. Nice work there, Self.

It's his turn to raise his eyebrows. He thinks for a moment.

"Maybe you should work for the CIA. You know, with the languages and stuff."

I reflect upon this. Yes. It would be kind of like in a Dan Brown book. Or like Indiana Jones, except not with the snakes and stuff. Or... something. Yeah, come to think of it... probably it would not be much like that at all.

And that's the trouble with my degree. I think it is because we are just a little too theoretical, over at [Prestigious Institute of Higher Learning]. It's not that our degrees are in completely useless subjects (I, for one, did not take a single one of the classes I mentioned in that second paragraph there). It's just that we learn the theoretical stuff that, in theory, does relate to something useful... but we don't learn the connection to said useful stuff.

For example, I can tell you all about what a PCR analysis tells you and what the different components are and everything, but can I actually physically run one? No. I know all about how the brain encodes language and how language can affect your cognitive development in other areas, but had I ever once designed a language curriculum prior to teaching this year? Nope. I can even tell you exactly what your kidneys are doing on a cellular - even molecular - level, but would I know what to do if they weren't doing it properly? Still no. So that's what's missing.

In the meantime, if no one hires me this week, perhaps I will go learn how to weld things. I'm sure it is a useful life skill. Failing that, I will use my medieval Catalan philology skills and my rudimentary knowledge of Reggiana dialect (yay Arzan!) to become a spy.

Grammar

If I get into medical school, the first thing I am going to do when I get there is march into the admissions office and ask to see the person who writes the content for their website. Then I will inform him or her that every single time they write "please respond in X characters or less" it makes something in my tummy get all twisty. I mean, presumably the person who writes the supplemental applications is educated, no? Perhaps he or she is even an MD. Or a PhD. So why is it that they don't know about grammar? This is not a difficult concept, people: less is for things that can't be counted (e.g. sugar, coffee, sand) and for things that can be counted (e.g. chairs, bananas, grains of sugar, cups of coffee, not to mention words and characters) you use FEWER.

Rant provoked by the fact that I caved in and filled out the Newark application today. I bet you I will get in there and only there. If this happens, I may defect from the land of useful careers and go off to study linguistics and become an ivory tower type person who teaches a ridiculously boring and abstruse (yeah, see, check out my mad ivory tower vocabulary skills) class every second Tuesday and spends the rest of her time poring over medieval manuscripts in search of wayward diacritical marks.

Okay, admittedly, I don't 100% remember what diacritical marks are. They are either accents or some sort of punctuation. Hm... now I am curious. Perhaps I really was better suited to ivory tower life. You can even do fun experiments with little kids... which sounds a lot more sinister than it actually was...

Anyway. Yesterday I walked from here in the Kremlin-Bicetre all the way up Rue Monge and then past Beaubourg to the Marais and then to Place de la Republique, back down Rue Lafayette and back home via the opera, the Tuileries, the Pont des Arts and St. Michel. I really hope that was a lot of miles because now my legs are sore, and it would be sad indeed if my legs got sore after, like, 3 miles or something.

Now I am off to go pose for my grandmother, who feels the need to resurrect her drawing skills and use them on me, doubtless while telling me about all the children who have had something calamitous befall them in the past twenty-four hours. Pity that I did not inherit any of the artistic skills. Then I could be a tortured starving artist in a garret in Montmartre or the Latin Quarter or something and that would be funny.

P.S. Yeah, I looked it up. Diacritical marks are accents, also known as ancillary glyphs. Hee. Also, it is apparently 5-6 kilometers from here to that part of Paris. Hm. Even counting the walk back... still kind of wimpy. Sigh.

Christmas in July

I sit on the floor with my legs curled under me, carefully lining little foam magnet tiles up with a pattern sheet on a magnetic board. I am babysitting my boss' daughter and we are making a magnetic mosaic of a fish, using the pattern to cheat a little (it's like magnetic color by number). She is half American and half Italian, and has apparently just discovered a passion for Christmas music (American) and so "Have yourself a merry little Christmas" drifts in and out of my consciousness.

She knows all the words to the chipmunk song. It's pretty cute, and actually very soothing - childhood favorites while attaching bits of colored foam to a black board. It only gets a little iffy when we're listening to the "Santa baby" song, where some woman is using her sexy voice to ask Santa for a yacht, a million dollars and other related things, and the kid goes "who's the woman in the song?" I hesitate, "umm... probably she's friends with Santa". The kid thinks for a moment. "Oh. I thought she was Santa's mom." I wonder where she got the impression that that is the voice that mothers use to speak to their children. I'm momentarily glad that she doesn't have any brothers, and therefore can't have gotten it from her own family.

Oh, and P.S.: speaking of patriotism (ish) happy 14 juillet to la Francia! I once taught the little French student the chorus to the Marseillaise (by her request, actually)... I dedicate that effort to you, fellow frogs.

The pancakes

I glance around the teacher's room, my eyes flicking over the bookshelves with an undercurrent of franticness (is that even a word?). It's the week before Carnavale and I have a lesson in forty minutes' time. And it takes twenty-five to drive there. I flick through one of the children's books on impulse - sometimes there are activities in the back for specific holidays. A page on "pancake day" (evidently a British phenomenon) opens up and it occurs to me that that would go well with the recipe-making/imperatives lesson we concocted a few weeks ago and bingo! That's how lesson plans are made. (Er... in our school, anyway.)

"Siiii, le pancake!" one of the three ten-year-olds screeches as we begin the lesson. She launches into a detailed account of the time she and her family went to New York and ate le pancake. It's pretty cute. The cuteness of Italian kids is one of the reasons for which I sometimes enjoy my job.

"Ma, le facciamo, le pancake?" queries the little boy after laboriously copying out the recipe into the little "recipe books" I crafted in the thirty seconds before getting into the car (yes! creativity!). This is a popular plan.

"Dai, si, le facciamo la settimana prossima!" the third kid expresses her support for this idea. The first one's mother chooses that moment to come in and see how the lesson is going (it takes place in her kitchen) and is quick to inform me that it is 100% okay for us to make pancakes - absolutely no problem and please let her know what she needs to buy.

Sigh. The parental enthusiasm. Sometimes it is heart-warming. And sometimes not. I think quickly.

"You know what? Let's make pancakes during the last English lesson, okay?" We're not allowed to speak Italian to the students and it takes me the better part of ten minutes to illustrate this concept so that everyone has understood. The mother thinks it's a cute idea, and the children are more or less mollified (although they proceed to ask me at the beginning of each of the next ten lessons if today is the day we facciamo the pancakes). I breathe a sigh of relief. Two and a half months seems like a long time. Probably I can learn how to make pancakes in two and a half months, right? I put it out of my mind.

"Allora, mi fai sapere se devo comprare qualcosa, eh?" the mother offers kindly at the end of the second to last English lesson. (You let me know if I need to buy anything.) I stare at her blankly.

"Per le pancake," she clarifies.

"Ah, si, si, no, ci penso io," I say. The mention of the pancakes puts me off-balance and I don't have the energy to explain myself in English. And I can't tell her what to buy because I have no idea what goes into pancakes.

"E mi fai sapere se devo accendere il forno o... non so, dimmi tu," she continues. (Let me know if I need to heat up the oven or... I don't know, you tell me.)

I glance pensively up at the ceiling as if the answers might be written up there. Does one make pancakes in the oven? I'm leaning towards 'no', but it's difficult to be sure. I try valiantly to bring up an image of my mother making pancakes when I was little. I'm about 90% sure it took place on the stovetop. I explain this to the mother.

"Ah, si? Davvero? Maddai!" she expresses her surprise. Her disbelief is not reassuring. I make a mental note to either google this issue or consult with some of my more savvy colleagues.

On the big day, the children await me eagerly in the kitchen and reprise their expressions of delight from the first time I brought it up: "siiii, le pancake!" (If nothing else, I love how they pronounce 'pancake'.)

Two hours later, we have produced an impressive stack of pancakes (and by pancakes, it turns out, I mean British pancakes, which I would actually call crepes). The children are satisfied (and full of sugar), no one has yet been sick, and also no one's fingers have been burnt, despite a few close calls.

The mother informs me that the pancakes are delicious, but different from the ones in New York. I restrain myself from telling her she should be grateful that I managed not to burn down her kitchen or damage the children.