Tondo

I really love the insalatori (salad) tomatoes here. The tondo (which means round) ones and the oblungo (which is self-explanatory) ones. I haven't tried those weird lumpy mutant-looking ones yet, but I'll let you know.

Did I ever mention that I finally got my hair cut? About two months after I originally meant to, but still. It went fairly well, even though I kind of rushed the girl. I stopped in between classes and I was like "yeah, I want it about 3-5 centimeters shorter, not really layered (scalati); do whatever you want but I need you to be done in an hour because I have to go back to work". She was remarkably understanding and didn't butcher my hair. I think I will go back there before I leave and go completely crazy, i.e. tell her that she can do really whatever she wants (including scalati if she sees fit) as long as it's still long enough to put up. (Because otherwise there is just no escape when it gets hot, and that is no good.)

Speaking of hot... ye gods, Reggio! Who knew it could get so warm here? Well, actually, it was this warm when I came here to interview which was... will have been exactly a year ago in a few days. Now they're interviewing people for next year. Aw. Cyclical.

I actually don't hugely mind the heat except for one thing: I have no screens in my window. Which means that if I leave the window open, especially at night, weird stuff comes inside and EATS me. I'm pretty sure I have circa 20 bug bites on me right now and those suckers are itchy! I particularly hate the ones on my upper thighs because you really can't scratch those without looking strange. Boo.

At least this week I have shutters. Last week they had taken them away to paint them, and after a few days, I got kind of lax about the undressing thing... and now I kind of am hoping that none of the people who work in the vescovado across the street saw me. Because somehow it seems inappropriate to be flashing the vescovado staff. I'm actually not too clear on what the people inside there do, but I know it has something to do with bishops, and it's also attached to the Duomo, so... yeah.

Anyway. Off to check out the weather predictions for tomorrow to see if I can take a train trip to somewhere interesting, and then maybe get some erbazzone for lunch. And maybe get some information about the local swimming pool, which would be useful to work off the calories of the erbazzone.

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.

Sick

So... I'm applying to medical school in America. That means one year's worth of applying, four years' worth of school... and another three, minimum, of residency. It's a lot of years. And work. And money. And time spent being poor and tired. But, um... also fulfilled, hopefully.

I really like Italy, though. It kills me that I have to leave in a bit over a month. I'm already plotting how to come back. It's going to be difficult, though, what with the medicine thing. But careers. And stuff. You know? It's important.

So I just submitted the AMCAS. Then I couldn't breathe for a second. Then I sat down and ate a lot of bread. Now I feel faintly ill. Hopefully it was the bread.

Sigh.

Culture shock

"Io ci ripenserei a questa qua," the young man tells me, pointing to number four, by which I have put a little question mark.

I am taking the CILS test (Certificato dell'Italiano come Lingua Straniera) at an obscure education center near the Reggio train station, and the proctors, as far as I can tell, are wandering around the room to chat about people's answers.

I glance up at him, unsure. Is he teasing? Being funny? He's been standing over me for the past two minutes, reading over my shoulder and generally making me nervous. He's very cute and his shirt is unbuttoned to halfway down his chest - judging solely by his appearance, he seems like the kind of guy that would tease. He throws me a friendly grin and continues:

"Le altre vanno bene, pero'." He indicates the other two where I had put question marks, intending to go back and ponder them some more if I had time. Just as he says this, I hear his fellow proctor (also male, cute, and half-unbuttoned) informing the person behind me that "dalle" is spelled with two Ls. "Ricordati: le preposizioni articolate..."

I limit the visible evidence of the exam-taking-habits short circuit that this produces in my brain to a quick raise of the eyebrows and mumble "grazie".

The two proctors proceed to stand at the front of the classroom and debate the answers to the grammar section in loud whispers before going around and distributing more hints. During the written section, he all but offers to proofread my work.

We are so not in Kansas anymore.

Or, um, anywhere else in the US - it's not like I've ever even been to Kansas. But, anyway... yeah. Mild shock. In America they throw you out of the testing center for so much as looking up to check the time if you have the misfortune to accidently slide your eyes past anywhere that could conceivably be construed as someone else's paper. (Not that I have personal experience - after a lifetime of standardized testing in the US, you pretty much perfect the "eyes closed, glance at clock, eyes closed, back to paper" routine). But still. The strictness with testing in the US. It is intense. I couldn't even have tissues with me when I took the MCAT. God only knows what they figured I could have done to cheat with tissues, but... anyway. Back to Italy.

First I laughed a bit on the inside. Then I felt a bit guilty. Then I remembered how my high school students kept breaking out in conversation during the final exam I gave them (!) and it's not really so shocking. That's just how it's done, I guess.

In any case, provided that the people who distribute i voti are satisfied with my 2-3 minute rambling monologue on plastic surgery (don't ask; I was feeling more than a little flustered), I should have a C1 level certification in Italian sometime in the next year. Yay.

Progress

Things that I would write on my students' progress reports if I could:

Sometimes spontaneously breaks into song in English (e.g. rendition of "Edelweiss" last Thursday), which is adorable. Otherwise an insufferable brat. Stop spoiling her, please. (Age 8)

Great kid with an infectious laugh, routinely have to suppress the urge to ruffle his hair. Totally crap pronunciation that I have been unable to fix. Sorry. (Age 10)

Psychosis not mitigated by cute smile. What the hell are you feeding her? (Age 3)

Creepy bastard who routinely stares down my shirt, no matter how high I button it. Would probably see more improvements in his English-speaking abilities if we blindfolded him. (Adult. Obviously.)

Great sense of humor. Needs to stop copying off her classmates, though - she'd probably have been kicked out of an American school by now. Also, should consider trying to quit smoking. (Age 17.)

Wonderful, amazing, warm, funny, and egaging person. Decent English skills. But, seriously, can we just go ahead and be friends in real life? (Adult.)

But instead I have to restrain myself and think of creative ways in which to attempt to convey what I mean. Creative ways involving words like "spirited" (#3), "opinionated" (#1), "strong student, a pleasure to have in class" (#6), "should try to work more independently" (#5)... etc.

Sigh.

Dolce

"Caffe? Dolce?" the waiter stops by to ask, leaning over the people at the end of the table in order to be heard.

"Cosa avete di bello stasera?" asks someone towards the middle.

The waiter puts one hand contemplatively on the shoulder of the man over whom he is standing and begins to reel off the options. The men order things with chocolate, cream, and sauce flavored with frutti di bosco. The women order sorbetti, causing a lively discussion to erupt. The theme of it appears to be that they should go ahead and indulge, have a real dessert, stop watching their figures.

Italian, Italianized English, and two varieties of dialect fly up and down the table, along with a lot of gesticulating and some of the idioms I have come to love so much. I can detect at least three different conversations occurring simultaneously, with people occasionally crossing over from one to the other as their opinion is requested - often by someone shouting down the length of the table. The guy sitting next to me is so animated he bumps me in the shoulder.

"Scusa!" he interrupts himself, touching my back briefly in apology before reaching around me to smack the guy on the other side of me, ostensibly to reinforce whatever point he was originally making. The waiter, in the meantime, has surreptitiously gone around the table and managed to confirm everyone's choices.

"Ah-oh!" the first guy finishes off decisively with something that is between a sound and an actual expression, as far as I can tell. I look around and take a deep breath, absorbing the smell of pizza and coffee, the jovial attitude, and the deep sense of contentment that my dinner companions, longtime friends who have taken me temporarily into their group, derive from each other's company. I'll miss this when I leave.

The blue car saga, continued

Part the first here.

It was rapidly concluded that I was not capable of making it from my lesson with the six-year-olds at the school to the ten-year-olds’ living room in Nearby Village in the twenty-five minutes that had been allotted for this purpose. This is partially due to my ineptitude in driving and general stupidity, and partially due to the fact that apparently very few people can make that drive that fast at rush hour. And the people who can are all native Reggiani.

“Ma (but), what if you left a little earlier?” suggests one of the mothers in the living room in Nearby Village. I explain that I would love to leave earlier, but that I only have twenty-five minutes between these two classes and that at least five of those get taken up prying the six-year-olds off my various limbs and re-attaching them to their parents instead. Not to mention mundane things like actually walking to the car. And also the clock in that classroom is slow, but I don’t mention that because then I would have to explain that half the clocks in the school are slow and the rest are fast, and sometimes it’s tricky to remember which are which.

The three sets of parents look at me in mild shock. A discussion breaks out, in which it is established that one cannot drive from Reggio to Nearby Village in twenty minutes at this time of day, even if there were no six-year-olds involved. Someone mentions the fact that I should have time to eat; I repress an unbecoming snort of laughter. Eventually it is decided that I will come fifteen minutes later, thus giving me forty minutes between the two lessons.

You’d think this would solve my problems, but… no.

On the day of my third lesson in Nearby Village, I am excited. I have got rid of my previous class in record time (we pretended to be a train on the way out of the classroom), I have the keys, I have been informed that the car has plenty of gas, and my lesson plan for the Nearby Village kids includes a game that looks like fun. Excellent.

I climb (crawl) into the car. It is already in neutral. Life is good. I shove the key into the ignition and blithely turn- no. No, I do not turn the key, because it will not budge. Crap. I go to give the wheel a good twist to vent my frustrations, and note that it will not move either. Great. This time the car probably really is broken.

I have no desire to be late again, so I whip out my trusty telefonino and call the secretary.

“Francesca. The car is stuck. The wheel won’t turn, and the key won’t turn either.”

“Cosa?” she asks, probably wondering whose idea it was to hire me. I repeat, in sketchy Italian, just to eliminate any language barriers.

“Ah. Beh, non lo so. Aspetta. Ti mando qualcuno,” she says mysteriously, before hanging up on me. (Wait; I'll send you someone.)

Five minutes later, two figures emerge from the café under the school and wander over to me and the blue car. I recognize them as the owners’ daughter and her boyfriend (daughter of the owner of the cafe, I mean, not of the school). We are friends with the people from the café, which is lucky (they will even make you a cappuccino in the afternoon if you want one - once or twice we did that, just to see their faces).

Another five minutes later, they have straightened out my car. Apparently you can lock the wheel by shoving it completely to one side. Apparently this helps safeguard you against theft. I don’t really get it, because if everyone except for me knows this trick, presumably that includes the potential car thieves, no? In my opinion, what really safeguards you against the theft of your car is keeping a close eye on your keys. Anyway, though…

It is as I get into the car for the fourth lesson that I realize that the week before they had unblocked the steering wheel without explaining how it is done, and that I have neglected to inform myself since then. And of course the stupid thing is locked again. (And bear in mind that I am not the clever, logical kind of person who is likely to figure these things out on her own.)

I sigh and drum my fingers against it (the wheel) for a moment to gather my wits. I eye the horizon suspiciously. It had better not start to rain.

Five minutes later, the wheel is still blocked and I want to cry. Instead, I call my supervisor, Other Teacher.

“Other Teacher,” I say, “the steering wheel is blocked and I don’t know how to undo it. Please enlighten me.”

“Of course!” she exclaims cheerily. I grind my teeth. “You just push lightly on the brake, turn the key towards you, and the steering wheel towards the left, hard.” This is far too many things for me to think about at once, but I give it a try anyway. And another. And another.

“Got it?” she chirps, “you have to push the steering wheel really hard.”

“No,” I grunt, ramming the steering wheel with all of my (meager) might.

“Oh, wait, wait!” she exclaims suddenly, “I mean right. Turn the wheel towards the right. Your right, my left.”

I glance up at the school, briefly wondering at what angle she can possibly be sitting that she would picture the car from any point of view other than the driver’s. Meanwhile, I give it another try and finally the wheel comes free.

“Thanks!” I say before hanging up and reversing sloppily into the parking lot. I am about to go zipping around the first roundabout when some rain splatters onto my windshield. If only I knew how to turn on the windshield wipers…

I take advantage of a straight bit in the road to flick a couple of switch-type things at random. Nope. I wiggle the rod that, in my mother’s car, controls the windshield wipers and they twitch feebly. I experiment a little more, and finally find that if I hold the rod up with my right hand (which leaves only my left to drive, but whatever), the wipers move slowly back and forth, which, I suppose, is better than nothing. Just not quite better enough to be able to actually see what’s in front of me, so I roll down the window and stick my head halfway out and that is why, when I arrive in the living room in Nearby Village, the same ten-year-old goes, “Ciao! Ma… come mai sei tutta bagnata? Did you forget your umbrella?”

The blue car and I had lots of other fun adventures together after that. There was the time another teacher and I took it home (clandestinely! such daring!) after a particularly late bunch of lessons and were so tired we may have missed a stop light. And the time when I had caught some sort of febbre/cough/dizziness/difficulty-remaining-upright thing off one of the wee ones and had to teach in a different nearby village anyway and I drove there in a sort of Tylenol Flu-induced haze and taught for four hours propped against the blackboard (thus ending up with a lot of chalk dust in my hair – very elegant, per usual) and then took a nice nap in the blue car (in a parking lot) before driving blearily home.

By the end, though, the blue car and I were quite good friends and the roundabouts rarely even ruffled me anymore.

“No, Francesca!” I say into the phone with a quick look over my shoulder to check for oncoming traffic. I ease into the roundabout. “We absolutely can’t put those three together. He’s very slow and she’s very forceful and the new guy seems really shy.” Is it legal to drive and talk on the phone in Italy? Boh. No one has said anything yet, anyway…

As the secretary blathers on about scheduling, I zip around two more roundabouts and calmly spoon some yogurt into my mouth from the cup I am holding in between my knees. I have been on deck for at least ten hours and haven’t eaten since some crackers after the first class.

By the time I reach Nearby Village, I have checked the CD for their first exercise, straightened out the scheduling difficulties (more or less), finished my yogurt, and managed not to kill anyone. I slap on some lip gloss and ring the doorbell. The cute ten-year-old greets me with a hug, and has no comments as to my appearance, navigational skills, or choice of outerwear.

"Cosa facciamo oggi?" he asks, before launching into an exhaustive summary of his day at school.

I feel a vast (and largely ridiculous) sense of accomplishment.