Category Archives: Teaching

Stuff about teaching here

None of this makes sense

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It isn’t that early.  Maybe 9.30 a.m.  I am walking, with Rufus and Dino, through the offices.  On the left are the white, plasterboard walls, behind which are offices and meeting rooms.  On the right is the typical open plan office, separated from me by a half-height wall so that I can see the desks – although not so many people are in.

I get to the door at the end and open it and go through.  The room is large, wood-panelled with a brownish, nondescript carpet.  There are some desks and a leather sofa.  I let the dogs off the lead.  I notice a guy lying on the floor.  Probably in his 30s, casually dressed.

“Oh!”, I exclaim, “sorry about the dogs”.

“It’s OK”, he replies.

I’m here to do a job.  It’s not a permanent job but I’m being well paid.  I will be assisting the Managing Director.  This guy.  Who is he?  We sit and chat for a bit and then I get on with my job.  I decide that I need to get something from the car.  I have an English lesson to finish and the stuff is down there.  I leave the dogs with the guy.  He is lying on the floor, reading a book.

When I reach the street, the city is busy.  It is London, after all.  I find my car.  It’s an Audi estate or maybe a Ford.  I get in and find the papers I need.  I realise that, maybe, I should take Dino-clone upstairs as well.  For some reason I should never let Dino-clone and Dino meet.  After all he is Dino’s son (I had been watching Terminator Salvation previously).  But, stuff it.  What harm can there possibly be?

I take him up.

As I get back into the office the guy is where I left him.  Next to him one of the dogs has been sick.  And there is dog shit all over the floor.  I am amazed that he can just lie there and do nothing about it.  I start the clean up.  I clean most of the sick and then start on the shit.

The MD arrives through the door.  He, too, seems not to notice the dog shit everywhere.  He goes to his office which is in the corner of the room and up a couple of stairs.  There are two entrances.  Both doors are open.

I break off from my cleaning up of the dog shit and go to my computer which is in his room.

“Ah, good”, he says, “I need you to help me with this computer package in 10 minutes or so”.

“OK”, I reply, “no problem.  Whenever you want”.  But thinking to myself that, surely, he realises I have to clean up the dog shit first.  I step outside his office into the big room and continue.

A visitor comes.  A big guy, with a moustache, wearing a camel coat.  The MD invites him into his office.  The doors are not closed yet I can’t hear their conversation, which I am slightly puzzled about.  Me and the guy from the floor sit at a table in the ante-room.  He asks me why I’m here.

“I live in Milan, Italy”

“Oh”, he says, asking “where’s that?”

I think that he’s just an idiot.  I start to explain about the dogs.  I have to go back every weekend.  I take the dogs with me.

There’s a puzzling thing.  It’s OK taking them back to Milan but how did I get them here in the first place?  I think: Will I have to leave them here?  Will they have to stay in quarantine for six months?  No, that can’t be right.  No, I’m certain I can get them back to Milan.

Then I cannot understand how I got them here.  It just doesn’t make sense.

This ‘working it out’ wakes me up.  It’s 1.07 a.m.

I wonder why I’m having such strange dreams right now.  That doesn’t make sense either.

I am a sex god!

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Whoops! Of course, although the title may have got your attention (and, as a result I’ll probably get even more spam comments), I forgot to add a ‘y’!

Yes, the title should have read I am a sexy god ……… apparently. :-)

People have said, in the past, that I have a nice voice. I have been called upon to read things in groups, etc., as a result. When I did my certificate for TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), the group asked me to read a poem out loud to the class. Well, to be precise, N asked me to read it but the others agreed. When we were at the Hay Festival, one time, I was asked to read the English translation for an Italian guy.

As an aside, that leads to a story that I used to give to my English classes about pronunciation. Italians find it so hard to pronounce our words correctly. In Italian, apart from the stress (which I find very difficult) and the single and double consonants (where I hear no difference but the Italians do), you pronounce the word according to the way it is spelt. In English, of course, this is not so. Take bough, cough, tough and hiccough as examples. And so, having never seen the text of this passage before, I came across a word, in English that I had never seen before. The word was gelid. If I had thought only in Italian, I would have pronounced it like jellied but I was in the UK and for me it could also have been with a hard ‘g’ as in gelding.

Since I had no way of being able to tell how to pronounce it and no time to look it up, I went with the hard g. When I came back to the audience, Flo, the wife of the man who started the festival, whispered to me how well I had read and said how glad she was that she wasn’t reading it because she would never have known how to pronounce the word and how on earth did I know? I explained that I didn’t. Looking it up afterwards, since I was already teaching English, I found, of course, that it should have been pronounced as jellied – but how does one really know in English?

But, back to the headline story.

I had to ring the garage about my car. The guy only speaks about two words of English and so I had to speak in my (bad) Italian. After I had finished, S, my colleague was laughing. She explained it like this:

‘I’m sorry that I laugh but it’s so strange to hear you speak in Italian. You don’t sound the same. When you speak English you speak very well (sic) – your voice is ….. umm …. sexy. When you speak in Italian it is different and it seems like a child’.

This is not the first time. Apparently I have a sexy voice :-)

OK, but why ‘god’ you may well ask?

Last night we went round to F’s place. I know he has lots of things to do so it is much easier for him and no real bother for me. Anyway, the dogs get their walk and so it’s fine.

It’s now a little chilly but because he had been working round the flat he was warm. Still, as he was closing the windows, the shoes which were out on the balcony, airing, needed to be moved.

‘Is it going to rain?’, he asked.

No, it was not, I assured him.

Yesterday, I was asked by two people in the office about the weather tonight and the weather at the weekend. I feel like a god! Actually, I use a site called Meteo Blue. It is a forecast so not always perfect, particularly more than a day or two in advance and it does change every few hours (if the forecast changes) but it is the most reliable weather forecast site I have found. You select your country and start typing your city – it will list all the possible options. I cannot say what it is like for other countries but for Italy it is pretty damned good.

And so, I am a god (apparently) who has a sexy voice. Not quite the same as being a sex god but you get my drift, yes? (as they say in Italy).

Back to the grind; a little lopsided

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Well, finally, I’m on my way! Yessssssss!

I met my first student yesterday. Very sweet and, I think, it will be a lot of fun. Then, I was telling FfI and it might be that she can put some work my way, which would be very cool.

And I did some things I have been putting off; tidying stuff in the house and sorting some things, so I feel like I really did something this weekend, which also makes me happy.

Now, tonight, I must start digging out the stuff I need to teach English and start doing the photocopies and stuff.

Saturday night, we went to a ‘new’ restaurant – Piero & Pia. We sat outside as it was warm but with a nice breeze. I had goose liver pate with some warm, sweet bread, followed by rack of lamb (and for once, here, in Italy, it was cooked right – pink) with roasted potatoes and then a thick, creamy rice pudding with a sprinkling of sultanas and a light dusting of coconut for sweet. It was all delicious. With wine and water it was something around €50 per head. Not outrageous but not cheap either!

The only problem was at the end. F insisted on paying for it all. It’s just that I really can’t afford it right now but I’m annoyed at myself for being in a position where we can’t go ‘dutch’. This is one of the reasons for going back to English teaching. It will just give me the spending money I need and, hopefully, will just give me that bit extra for our holidays. I know F can afford it (the occasional meal, etc.) but that’s not really the point.

Ah, well – soon it will be different :-)

Gotta be more positive!

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I guess that those of you that read my blog will know that I am full of doubt; always worried about something; always concerned if I have done/am doing the right thing.

Except that, I guess, to my friends and colleagues (Pietro?) I probably appear to be confident and self-assured – always seeming to be doing the right thing.

Well, the fact that, should you scratch the surface, I have all this uncertainty is not entirely true. There’s the times when, both externally and internally, I feel good – confident, strong, sure. These times are with F.  It doesn’t seem to matter what shit I think I’m going through – within moments of being with him; being in his presence, the ‘problems’ just seem to disappear. It’s as if when he is there, everything that concerns me just falls away from me.

Also I received a rather good email today. And I chatted with my first, potential, student (well, the first this time round) and we’re meeting next week.

Still, I wonder if it’s wrong that, when he’s around, worries and problems don’t seem to have importance? At least, this week I have been doing some things to fix some of them and this continued today, so that’s more positive anyway.

Ice treading

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We don’t talk about it.

And here, my reader, you may be wondering what it is that we aren’t talking about. Well there’s nothing specific – it’s just anything that is difficult. We don’t discuss. And it’s not one-sided either. We skirt around a subject and only talk about it when it is absolutely necessary. And, when we talk about it we use the minimum of words and don’t discuss the implications or anything deeper than a conversation with an acquaintance.

I don’t know why. Or why we both do this.

An example. One thing I must do is earn more money. For various reasons my income, so far this year, has been less than I had planned for or expenses have been greater than expected or completely unexpected or unplanned. As a result I need more.

Therefore I must get more work – part-time work. This means teaching English again. In one way I don’t really mind. I had been worried that my English was disappearing; changing into the Ital-English spoken here. Me saying ‘We are in three’ instead of ‘There are three of us’ as an example; struggling to find the correct word to describe something and knowing that I know the word – I just haven’t used it nor heard it for so long. If I teach English my English will return to its proper level quickly because I will be reading more newspapers, books, etc. This is a very good thing.

It will also give me the money I need. So all good. Well, yes but…..

It will change some things. I will have to work evenings and weekends – which I don’t mind in itself although I had tried to keep them free – free for relaxing, etc. This, in turn, will curb the amount of time we are together. It will mean that going to bed at near midnight most evenings will not be acceptable. It will mean a lot of work outside the time I am teaching. It will mean my life will be mostly about work

For the last two or three nights I have promised myself that I will explain this to F as it will mean so much change for us. I know he won’t have a problem with it but it is almost as if, by saying it, I am making such a big deal of it and making it into a huge problem since we don’t really talk of these things.

And so, I have yet to tell him anything. It bugs me because it seems, by holding out, when I do tell him it will be such a huge thing, even if, although it is important, it’s only a change in the time we are together and nothing more.

I steel myself, before we see each other at night, that I WILL mention it tonight. I will force myself to say something. Instead, I don’t. Either I forget because, on seeing him, being with him is the only thing or I remember but think that ‘now is not the right time…..later’.

It is stupid and irresponsible and makes no sense at all – even to me!

This is just an example. There are many more – even some from his side!

It’s almost as if we feel like we are treading on thin ice, even after quite a time together and even if it is not or, rather, should not be. And we are, after all, grown up enough to know how to react. Maybe it’s just that we don’t know how the other will react?

Love me, love my dogs

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That’s how it goes.  Well, there’s only the one dog but in my case there are two.

However, it isn’t supposed to be the other way around! :-D

The picture a couple of posts below, taken last weekend, shows them with their ‘shaggy’ look.  It’s a good job that they don’t have smello-internet though.

The pictures below were taken at lunchtime today, just after they had been to the barber’s.  They are adorable.  F insisted that I take them to him after I had picked them up.  He’s suggesting that he might come and take them for a walk tonight ‘because I won’t see them otherwise’.  I shall be at the airport picking up Best Mate.

He did suggest that, maybe, he could take Dino to his house tonight but then realised that it would be a problem in the morning as he was going to London and the flight is early.  Still, there’s time.  I shall offer to pick him up in the morning if he would like.  We’ll see.

Of course, I’m not actually sure that I want him to take Dino to his house as that means I won’t be there.  Far better if I were to keep Dino with me and see how long he could keep up the ‘staying away’ bit.  But, of course, I won’t.  That’s my wicked streak only.

But he is talking about ‘we’ taking them to be washed and groomed every month.  I like the ‘we’.

Si, his friend from work (and probably my first customer in my new extra career as an English Teacher (again)) said that I was very lucky that F likes my dogs because ‘he doesn’t like all dogs, you know?’.  Yes, I know – and I know he loves mine – especially Dino.

Dino

Dino, looking good!

Rufus

and Rufus not looking over 14!!

And then he calls me to ask if we can meet their Press person as she loves dogs and wants to meet them.

And so, tonight, before going to pick up Best Mate I and my two crowd-pleasers will be going for an aperitivo where they will be admired and petted and loved and F will be there, showing them off to the world.  Perhaps I should have changed the title to ‘Love my dogs’ as I don’t seem to be getting a look-in!  Good job I’m not jealous of them :-D

Or let’s go for a walking or, if it’s terrific rain, let’s not!

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Or_lets_go_for_a_walking_or_if_its_terrific_rain_lets_not

I just can’t get him out of the habit. My friend A will call, as he did on Friday night, and say things like, ‘We were thinking of going for a walking later and would be pleased if you could join us’.

I’m certain that I have corrected him a number of times – but you can’t do it every time, can you?

But it’s the same with our Engineering Manager here. His level of English is very good but there are couple of things that, at this advanced stage, are difficult for him to shake.

>One is the use of ‘or’ and ‘or’. Whereas we use ‘either one thing or the other’ in Italian they actually use ‘o one thing o the other’ – ‘o’ standing for ‘or’.

Unsurprisingly, then, he will use ‘or one thing or the other’. I have corrected it a couple of times but this one is deeply ingrained.

Similarly, his use of the word ‘terrific’. When he uses it he means awful or terrible. This one is, almost, funny because he will start a sentence with something like ‘It will be terrific when something happens….’ and then follows it with the details of why it will, in fact, be close to a disaster! It makes me smile, inwardly. I’m not sure I have corrected him on this one and because he uses it quite often, he might find it ‘terrific’ (using his interpretation) if he knew that all this time he’s been using the wrong word!

I really should of apologised earlier

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Weird thoughts go through my head from time to time. Particularly just before I go to sleep or if I wake too early in the morning and try to get back to sleep.

Last night, at one of these times, I cannot remember which, I suddenly started thinking about “should of”. There, I told you they were weird thoughts!

I don’t even know why it started but I remember, early on, I was thinking about emails at work. Many that we receive (and are sent) are by non-mother-mother-tongue people, of course. But the worst are by people from the UK and one of these, received at work, had “should of” in the text. Sometimes I despair about the level of written English by English-speaking people

Then I started worrying. Yep, worrying. Since I type these entries, normally, quite quickly (they are supposed to be as if I was speaking the words to you) and since we pronounce “should have” as “shood uv”, I can imagine that, at some time, I have typed “should of” whereas I should of typed “should have”. And, of course, the Spelling and Grammar checker would not necessarily have picked up on it (as I have now proved by typing it several times). So my quick read through of the post before actually posting it may not have picked up on it either.

Damn! I really should of apologised earlier. However, if you have read any posts where I have written “should of”, I apologise now. And, if you ever notice it, please let me know as it is too embarrassing to leave it!

And there, I hope, I shall let it rest.

p.s. I deliberately typed “should of” several times here to make the point, so you don’t need to tell me about this post. Thank you.

What’s your job? Italian job status v English job titles

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When I was teaching English I had some problems with work and jobs in particular. And, by that, I mean the translation of the meaning. As with other things the exact translation doesn’t always work. But, when I asked people ‘What’s your job?’ (a standard question with beginners), the reply, in Italian, was, invariably, Impiegato or Impiegata (depending on whether the reply was from a man or a woman) and this means employee or clerk.

Now, I couldn’t (and still can’t to some extent) quite get my head round this. Most people, when you ask what they do, reply with one of those answers. This is generally so, even when I’m listing to the radio and someone phones in. Well, I think, finally, I’ve got it! Whereas in the UK and the USA, job titles are really important (and change often), here, the status of your employment is the key.

So, if you have full-time employment, with a contract, you are, of course an Employee (Impiegato/a). And this is the most important thing. What you actually do is less important. And, when people ask me what I do and I reply that I am a Project Manager, this causes some consternation because a) it is in English and b) it doesn’t tell you my employment status. It doesn’t say whether I am a consultant, temporary or full-time, with contract.

And I have learnt, recently that there are two other stages to go to reach the ‘top’. First there is Quadro (Manager). This gives one all the rights of the Impiegato plus a little extra. One example, here, is the right not to clock in (see this post and this one).

There must be others, apart from the salary, but I am learning, slowly. The next level is Dirigente (Executive). Again, this gives more benefits (someone mentioned health cover for the whole family but I’m not sure that would apply where I work) but also you lose the rights (not to be sacked easily) that the Impiegato and Quadro have.

I guess it’s much like the UK – except for this fact that the job title is not so important.

I really could do much better English lessons now that I’ve been living and working here for longer!

Segovia or bust!

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Well, here I am at another literary festival. This one is one run by the Hay Festival but in Segovia, near Madrid.

To get here I had, what I can only describe as the journey from hell which I would hope to post about later, when I have more time. However, there was a point (probably after we had been sitting on the tarmac for over an hour) when I really thought I wouldn’t get here this side of Christmas!

I arrived in Segovia at about 1.30 a.m. this morning. Had a few beers with S, got to bed about 3.30 a.m. and was up at 8 to be at the Box Office for 10.

So, we have the normal problems with the Box Office (people picking the wrong events, tickets not having arrived, leaving their tickets at home, etc.) plus the added joy of everything being in a foreign language – and I’m a little tired.

However, unlike Hay, we closed the Box Office for a whole hour for lunch; I was interviewed by some Spanish television company; the sun is shining; and we are likely to finish the Box Office before midnight.

Also I have met some lovely people already, including some Italians who are helping out here. It’s quite nice to talk to them and they are very sweet. They are ‘stage’ (like an unpaid apprentice) in Madrid for one of the Festival organiser’s husband.

I am, of course, stuck in the Tourist Information centre here, which is where we have our system set up.

I’ve just been interrupted by a lady trying to find out how to work her video camera. Obviously, being the TIC, they are supposed to be able to answer any sort of question. Aren’t people strange?

We have a firework display this evening to mark the opening of the Festival in Segovia and I will, hopefully, see some of it.

More later…