I had a dream this morning: I was in a regular classroom, as if I were back in high school, and was tasked with returning assignments that had been previously marked by the teacher. Not recognising anyone, I tried guessing the students’ names and ended up handing out the papers according to whichever name seemed to best match the next nightmarish face looking up at me. One little bugger didn’t like that so much, and started to complain, so I found his paper, and put his bloody homework in my mouth and started to chew with mouth wide open. When he complained to the faceless trombone-voice of the teacher, I proudly displayed the well-masticated wad for all to see and then promptly woke up, feeling delightfully defiant and ready to take on the day.
As I arrived to teach my first lesson of the day, I was quickly informed that my student had just cancelled on me, and I’m almost certain it’s because she wouldn’t have done the homework I had assigned: literally think of five words: about pizza. Presumably she wouldn’t even have any paper to chew! Jokes on her though, since she refuses to study or learn, within class or without, I was actually going to try and have some fun by abandoning our lesson and focusing solely on my personal favourite profanity!
Recently I’ve started working for a school here in Brescia that focuses on teaching English to Italians (naturally) using a very particular (read: peculiar) method. It’s been a fun change of pace over my private students, since the method itself has its own foibles, as does literally everything else about my new office environment.
The location, and the building; the multifarious entrances with too-slow automatic lights leaving one to ascend each hermetically sealed stairwell in eerily dust-free solitude; the charming young receptionists who refuse to speak to me in Italian but repeat only the few perfectly punctuated and well rehearsed introductory lines of English they’ve selflessly memorised; the owner, the administrator, the coordinator, my fellow teachers (to be fair to actual teachers, we’re really more like guides along the Stygian stream of this strange scheme which we’ve been subjected to espouse); and especially my students all work together in perfect harmony to define the very notion of the word frenetic.
(Note: this is one of those great words that you can easily translate by simply adding an o: che fantastico this word frenetico!).
It’s been fun. There’s also definitely a great pun in there about applying their method to their mayhem, so if you find it, dear reader, please let me know.
While I was recounting tales of the idiosyncrasies of working in a proper modern Italian office to a woman whom I’ve known since the spring, she leaned over with a wry smile and declared that my fancy working holiday visa is now more working and a lot less holiday. Acting as if my new work existed solely for my own chagrin, I feigned the feeling of the weight of the world upon my shoulders, confirming my time is indeed nigh, and I must get back to the grind, as it were. I don’t know why I ever thought the work-life balance here would be more… balanced, but it seems as if most Italians work far too hard for far too little. I have a pretty well rehearsed rant prepared for an eventual post, but for now it shall remain hastily written and unpublished, as I continue to pretend that I have better things to do than waxing political in a country whose politics are far too complex for a simple lousy immigrant who’s simultaneously far too busy taking all the jobs for himself while lazing about providing nothing worthwhile at all to society.
Thankfully, because of my savings (almost the entirety of which I have deigned to spend in the Italian economy) and the generosity of a wonderful woman and her extraordinary family, I’ve been able to eke out a great slice of la dolce vita, without having to go bankrupt, or be deported.
A Nix in Brixia 