…that today in Italy it was 50 degrees and raining while in Vermont it was 60 degrees and sunny. Grrr. It’d be nice if it weren’t for the creeping suspicion that this *IS* Bolognese weather from here on out, at least until, oh, April.
In other news, I just realized today that now that [...]
Archive for October, 2007
what a sublime irony…
Posted in autumn, regular, year 1, tagged rain, teaching, TEFL, work on Wednesday 31 October, 2007 | 3 Comments »
hmmm
Posted in autumn, regular, year 1, tagged language, roommates, teaching on Friday 26 October, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
By the end of this year, I’ll either speak really really good English or no English at all. On the one hand, give me a sentence and I can not only identify all the tenses involved but also explain to you exactly WHY those tenses are being used AND draw you a timeline illustrating [...]
sette belle cose
Posted in autumn, reflective, regular, year 1, tagged Bologna, coffee, culture shock, food, gelato, Italian idiosyncracies, l'aperitivo, pizza, random, towers, wine on Monday 22 October, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Living in Italy is a little different from studying abroad in Italy, and sometimes it’s easy to forget why I came back. Taking the bus from work to my home in a pretty but relatively normal residential area, one that could easily be found in Cambridge or Bethesda, is a little less romantic than [...]
grrrr Italians
Posted in autumn, regular, year 1, tagged frustration, teaching, work on Friday 19 October, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Oy. My school may be relatively reliable and well organized in comparison to other Italian schools, but they’re still not entirely immune to Italian-esque miscommunications. Last night I had the Advanced Class and prepared the first chapter of the Advanced textbook, as I had every other night. So I introduced myself and [...]
cotta
Posted in autumn, regular, year 1, tagged language, pizza, students, teaching, work on Wednesday 17 October, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
cotta—“cooked.” Idiomatic usage, “exhausted.”
Today I taught for six full hours; from 3:30 until 10:30:
3:30-5:30 – Private lesson with Sara. It went well but was rather pesante—all about verb tenses and which ones you use when, and why you can’t use the present perfect but instead must use the simple past (Italians always always [...]
the first class
Posted in autumn, reflective, regular, year 1, tagged firsts, Greece, students, teaching, work on Tuesday 16 October, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
It went well! My fears turned out to be groundless.
Ironically, I hadn’t been as scared of teaching before I took the TEFL course. I had figured it would be like acting—just get up there and perform. Then my first teaching practice at TEFL happened. I got up in front of a [...]
eek
Posted in autumn, regular, year 1, tagged culture shock, roommates, students, work on Monday 15 October, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
I begin work tonight for real—at the school, with the Level 4 Intermediate Class. Am petrified. And not at all convinced that teaching is my life’s calling. Or even my calling beyond April. Emily just went off to (finally) talk to her boss about regulating a contract and chirped as she [...]
blah
Posted in autumn, regular, year 1, tagged culture shock, discouraging, frustration, irritating on Tuesday 9 October, 2007 | 1 Comment »
This is hard.
miscellany
Posted in autumn, regular, year 1, tagged basil plant, cold, hair, hot chocolate, Ikea, rain, roommates on Sunday 7 October, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Lucius (the basil plant, remember) is wilting and we don’t know why. He has a sunny window and plenty of water. Maybe it’s getting too cold for him outside?
Yesterday when Emily and I began the hour-long trek to the train station it was hot enough that we were uncomfortable in the jeans we [...]
just living
Posted in autumn, regular, year 1, tagged language, teaching, TEFL, tourists, translating on Friday 5 October, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
We all feel so busy these days; everyone always has somewhere to be, even on Saturday. And yet we’re still not really working full time or making enough money to, you know, pay the rent. Yet. Anyway, now Julia goes to Vignola to work at the Wall Street Institute on Mondays, Wednesdays, [...]
