So here’s the deal, politically speaking. On the one hand we have a familiar character, albeit a controversial one; one who likes to hearken back to the 90′s and is urging the country to get back on its feet. On the other hand we have a dark horse contender, a relatively young newcomer to the [...]
Archive for the ‘winter’ Category
elections
Posted in reflective, winter, year 1, tagged Italian idiosyncracies, politics on Friday 29 February, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
the shadow knows…
Posted in humorous, regular, winter, year 1, tagged friends, goodbyes, roommates, students, teaching, work on Thursday 21 February, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The title has absolutely nothing to do with anything I’m about to write about, but Julia’s listening to a 1938 recording of “The Shadow,” so it seemed like as good a beginning as any. My newest student, Franca, lands in the older percentile of my students, but makes up for it in enthusiasm and energy [...]
in which I am largely incompetent
Posted in regular, winter, year 1, tagged incompetence, irritation, students, work on Sunday 17 February, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday I thought I was going blind in one eye because everything was blurry in my left eye and I was having a really hard time reading anything up close, particularly on my computer screen, both because it was fuzzy and because I couldn’t make my eyes focus together properly. But actually the whole time [...]
argh!
Posted in regular, winter, year 1, tagged work on Thursday 7 February, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today my boss requested that I take on another private student who wanted to do one hour twice a week–one of those days being Tuesday. I’m pleased to say that I did put my foot down and say no, I can’t do 9 hours of teaching on Tuesdays, especially not when that extra hour is [...]
festeggiando
Posted in photographic, regular, winter, year 1, tagged birthday, Carnevale, costumes, friends, goodbyes, parties, work on Wednesday 6 February, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday I had to teach for 8 hours–from 9:00-1:15, and then from 6:30-10:30. Four of those hours consisted of two one-on-one students. Just going to throw this out there–doing a private language lesson for two full hours only once a week is a bit silly. Two hours is a LONG time for the teacher to [...]
the gist
Posted in descriptive, regular, winter, year 1, tagged big decision, Bologna, Campania, food, friends, Herculaneum, Mom, Napoli, New Year's, parties, pasta, snow, trips, visits on Monday 28 January, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In my English classes we do this thing called “reading for gist,” which is where you’re not supposed to read every word for detail but instead read the entire article quickly to get a sense of the thing. (Incidentally, my students hate this.) This is going to be “gist writing,” because I have exactly 20 [...]
Natalie and Venezia
Posted in descriptive, winter, year 1, tagged food, friends, trips, Veneto, Venice, visits on Monday 7 January, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
So as I mentioned before, one of the reasons we stayed in Italy for Christmas was because Emily’s and my good friend Natalie was coming to visit us on the 26th! She was to fly into Venice and spend a couple days there with us before coming down to spend the rest of her visit [...]
Natale a Bologna
Posted in regular, winter, year 1, tagged Christmas, food, friends, joy, Santa Claus on Monday 7 January, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Still trying to catch up on the backlog of events. So here’s Christmas, apart from the duck. When we initially decided to all spend Christmas here in Bologna, we were a little sad, thinking Christmas couldn’t possibly be the same away from home. So we decided to take steps–we bought a Christmas tree (a real [...]
the great duck epic
Posted in humorous, photographic, winter, year 1, tagged carnage, Christmas, duck, food on Friday 28 December, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Now I should talk about Christmas at the Via Varthema 21 household, but one part of the Christmas story deserves an entire entry to itself. Namely, the dinner. And not the mashed potatoes or salad part. Julia and I don’t often eat meat at home, partially because it’s expensive and partially because Emily is a [...]
