1. Because the Arezzo camp was a first-year camp, our usual Sunday meeting with the camp director to discuss how we want the camp to run was mediated by one of the high-up ACLE administrators. Obviously, I wanted to be on my best behavior… but leave it to me to make a complete ass of myself at the worst moments. When we were saying our goodbyes and thank-you’s to her, we did the traditional Italian kissing on the cheeks. Well, the problem is that there’s not a set rule for which cheek to kiss first, so sometimes both persons involve move their heads in the same direction. It’s a little awkward, but no major faux-pas yet. Then, as I swerve to aim for her other cheek, she does the same, and my lips end up kissing her lips… whoops! Then, in case she wasn’t quite convinced that I’m an idiot yet, I was trying to hold back my laughter as I finally made it to her cheek. But trying to kiss her cheek and holding back laughter at the same time resulted in me snorting really loudly right in her ear. That moment definitely makes my “Top 10 most embarrassing moments” list. Graciously, though, she acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred.
2. Fact of life: Most Italians don’t have trashcans in their bathrooms. What is a guy supposed to do with dirty q-tips? Tissues? Fingernails?... I’m still unable to answer this question. I have a little plastic bag that I put my q-tips and stuff in each morning and then I take them with me and throw them away at the school. Ridiculous, I know, but I can’t figure out an appropriate/discrete alternative. And when I need to clip my nails, I take my nail-clippers to school with me and clip them outside during lunch. (Furthermore, I don’t know how my female colleagues manage their periods!)
3. I spent hours trying to get my class not to skip “thirteen” when they count. It’s mission impossible. Italians have trouble saying [th], so it ends up sounding a lot like fourteen, so they think it’s the same number… And it doesn’t matter how many times you have them repeat it or write it. When they count, it is always skipped until they’re about age 12.
4. Friday is high stress for the tutors because of the final show. For some kids, it’s also very nerve-wracking because they are performing for their parents in a foreign language and they have to walk up to receive their English Camp diplomas/certificates as we call their names. One of the older boys in the camp (about 11) got too anxious waiting for his name to be called and he started peeing his pants on stage, in front of everyone. He stayed calm and his friend standing next to him said “va bene” (it’s fine), and he proceeded to walk up and take his certificate when called… but then his mom started freaking out a bit and pulled him out of the room, leaving a little trail of pee behind him. I felt bad for the kid, but it definitely made the show memorable!
The rest of these are all food-related.
5. Refrigerators here are so cool. Almost all of them are made to look like part of the cabinetry. When you open the cabinet door, the fridge door is attached to it and also opens. I think it makes the kitchen look much less industrial-like… and more inviting. (By the way, why does the word “fridge” have a [d] in it, but “refrigerator” doesn’t??)
6. Apparently, Italians are taught that the English (British) word for eggplant is obourgine (I don’t even know how it’s spelled.), which is in quite a few dishes here. So last week, my host-family asked if I like it. I responded by saying “I don’t know that Italian word.” They looked at me like I was really stupid and said “That’s the English word for it.” Then they held one up, and I said “Oh, eggplant!” They said “No… the Italian word is eggplant. Aren’t you supposed to be teaching our kids English?” Me: “Well, umm… we also call it zucchini in America.” Boy: “Well, that’s not what our dictionary says.” Me: “…uh… well, sorry.”
7. Aperativo is the best invention ever. You go to a bar before dinner and get a cocktail and huge appetizer buffet all for 5 euro. It became a routine last week, but my limited knowledge of alcohol (especially cocktails) got the best of me. I was the last to order, so I was trying to decide quickly what drink I wanted. All the drinks had pictures in the menu. I saw ‘Manhattan’ on the menu and thought, “Oh, I love Manhattan, so surely I’ll like the drink too. It’s a modern and fun city, so it’s probably going to be a really tasty and fruity cocktail.” WRONG!!! It was horrible… I actually could not get it to go down. Apparently it’s like pure whiskey or something… who knew?! Luckily, the cameraman really likes them, so I traded for his wine.
8. My host-mom in Arezzo wanted to be sure that I tasted the most unique delicacies of Tuscany, so every day we had something completely amazing or strange for dinner. One night, she made eggplant (obourgine?) parmesan that actually melted in my mouth. The next night she prepared a traditional Tuscan favorite: fried zucchini flowers, along with fried sage leaves. The zucchini flower is stuffed with small amounts of cheese, and then fried. Two of the sage leaves are stuck together with a bit of anchovies in the middle, and then fried. It was all so good!! Another night, she prepared stuffed zucchini (it’s stuffed with some kind of meatloaf-type of thing). It was great… it tasted like you were eating an entrée and a side-dish at the same time. Another night, we had squid and pea salad. The squid was the least chewy I’d ever eaten—I enjoyed it way more than I expected. Then we ate fresh mussels right out of the shell (which I had never had before). Predictably, they were delicious! And perhaps the most peculiar thing I ate was cheese-and-pear gelato. Apparently, eating cheese with pears is popular here, so they made it a gelato flavor. It was weird… I could taste a little cheese flavor, but it was still very sweet and delicious.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Arezzo
After 9 cumulative weeks of working in northern Italy over the last two summers, I have finally been placed in Tuscany!! And yes, it really does look like the movies/calendars/postcards! In fact, the town I've been teaching in this week (Arezzo), is the place where the film "Life is Beautiful" was shot... and here, life is truly beautiful! The day I arrived, the city had a medievalfestival, complete with a parade and jousting competition... it was so cool!
My host family this week is nice and we have interesting political discussions every evening at dinner (pictures of Che Guevara adorn every room of the house), but they mostly just go about their lives as normal and we haven't really bonded that much. But it's a nice change to be given a key and told I can come and go as I please. Both the parents are former librarians and now work as employees of the local university, and they have three kids who have hardly said a word to me. The dad and the oldest boy are HUGE rock & roll fans and play guitar... so that was cool. Each night at dinner, we would either watch the World Cup or listen to a rock CD. On Thursday night, the dad gets a serious look on his face and asks "Can you tell me something? In a Green Day song, one of the lines is about a 7/11... and I've always wanted to know what that means. Is it a school for 7-11 year-olds?" It was hard not to laugh.
The school we are at this week is incredible; It's built inside the ruins of an old castle. The camp was 40 students and four tutors. I got the youngest class this week (a group of ten 6-7 year-olds). They were the most well-behaved children I have EVER worked with. At most camps, there are at least a monster or two per class, but all the kids at this camp were awesome. It made my job so much easier! For the final show, I needed something that only required them to memorize one sentence, and they really love animals at that age... so, confident in the fact that they are all Catholics, I chose Noah's Arc. It was really cute! I had Noah, his wife, and then four pairs of animals. I was even able to make a big arc out of an unfolded cardboard box. I did learn, however, that most 7 year-olds are too young to understand the concept of "no pain, no gain". A few of them decide to wait until 2 minutes before the show to tell me that their masks (and Noah's beard) hurt because I made them too tight. Already really stressed out trying to get them all dressed, and knowing they wouldn't understand me, I said "Deal with it... this is show business!"
When you work with kids that young, you really have to do completely silly and ridiculous things to effectively teach and keep them interested... I think if a psychiatrist observed me in class this week, he/she would surely lock me in an institution. Yesterday I taught emotions (happy, sad, tired, angry) and I made a game where I would turn around and act out one of the emotions and the kids would shout out which one it was. (Example: I would turn around and rub my eyes, stumble to the window curtains, 'fall asleep' on them and start snoring. They would shout: TIRED. Then I would turn around with my eyes huge, get right up in their faces and pound on their desks while grunting. They would shout: ANGRY.) I'm not sure I've ever had so much fun! All the kids were laughing so hard and I felt like I was deserving of an Oscar or something.
The other tutors I worked with this week also made the experience really great. I worked with a British girl, a Scottish girl, and an American from NYC. We all got along really well and laughed all week. The American and Scottish girls are travel journalists working on an internet documentary for Jet Set Zero (http://www.jetsetzero.tv/). So we had a camera-man following us around all week, which was really fun. Jet Set Zero follows Americans who decide to quit their careers and go abroad with no money. The upcoming season is in Italy, so these two girls post blogs on the website about their experience and then the episodes should come out later this year... so I guess I'll probably be on it since I signed a model release form. Anyway, it was neat having that additional aspect added to the week.
On Sunday, we all took a day-trip to Cortona, a beautiful Tuscan village at the top of a hill. It was the place where "Under the Tuscan Sun" was filmed, and is now the home of the book's author, Francis Mayes. We kept fantasizing about bumping into her at a cafe or something, haha. Unfortunately, it rained all day... but it made the experience really memorable. We had to climb this huge hill in shorts and flip-flops while sharing umbrellas in the pouring rain. If it weren't for us having the last remains of my mom's homemade cookies, we never would have made it to the top!! Once we were there, though, the view made it completely worth the hike. It was unlike anything I've ever seen. I'll let my pictures do the talking instead of trying to describe it.
Then on the way down the hill, between two rows of houses, some crazy guy walks up to us, spits on each of our feet, gives us the finger, and then slams his bag down in front of us, as if daring us to walk further. Needless to say, we turned and found an alternate route back down. Considering the huge employment crisis in Italy (Sadly, it's much worse than in America.), you would think that everyone would love tourists... I think he definitely had some mental issues though.
We took another trip on Tueday night to Firenze (Florence). I had never been, so I was really excited, even if we were only going for three hours. Once again, as soon as we got off the train, it started to rain... which meant that the symphony concert we walked by was cancelled and the tight-rope walker in the main piazza that we walked through couldn't perform... but we still had a blast. Lynne (the Scotish girl) used to live in Florence and she wanted to take us to 'the best pizzeria ever'. After walking for 25 minutes to find it, we didn't have time to wait in the long line. The only pizzeria in Florence with no wait was 'Pizza Man'... wonder why? Although the name, logo, and decor was horribly cheesy (pun!) and Americanized, the pizza was actually really good. And they gave us complimentary sparkling wine!... All's well that ends well, I guess.
Seeing as this post is getting too long and I need to catch my train for my next camp location (Sesto Firentino... 15 minutes from Florence!!!), I will save my awkward moments and funny stories for another post in a few days... there are several of them!!
My host family this week is nice and we have interesting political discussions every evening at dinner (pictures of Che Guevara adorn every room of the house), but they mostly just go about their lives as normal and we haven't really bonded that much. But it's a nice change to be given a key and told I can come and go as I please. Both the parents are former librarians and now work as employees of the local university, and they have three kids who have hardly said a word to me. The dad and the oldest boy are HUGE rock & roll fans and play guitar... so that was cool. Each night at dinner, we would either watch the World Cup or listen to a rock CD. On Thursday night, the dad gets a serious look on his face and asks "Can you tell me something? In a Green Day song, one of the lines is about a 7/11... and I've always wanted to know what that means. Is it a school for 7-11 year-olds?" It was hard not to laugh.
The school we are at this week is incredible; It's built inside the ruins of an old castle. The camp was 40 students and four tutors. I got the youngest class this week (a group of ten 6-7 year-olds). They were the most well-behaved children I have EVER worked with. At most camps, there are at least a monster or two per class, but all the kids at this camp were awesome. It made my job so much easier! For the final show, I needed something that only required them to memorize one sentence, and they really love animals at that age... so, confident in the fact that they are all Catholics, I chose Noah's Arc. It was really cute! I had Noah, his wife, and then four pairs of animals. I was even able to make a big arc out of an unfolded cardboard box. I did learn, however, that most 7 year-olds are too young to understand the concept of "no pain, no gain". A few of them decide to wait until 2 minutes before the show to tell me that their masks (and Noah's beard) hurt because I made them too tight. Already really stressed out trying to get them all dressed, and knowing they wouldn't understand me, I said "Deal with it... this is show business!"
When you work with kids that young, you really have to do completely silly and ridiculous things to effectively teach and keep them interested... I think if a psychiatrist observed me in class this week, he/she would surely lock me in an institution. Yesterday I taught emotions (happy, sad, tired, angry) and I made a game where I would turn around and act out one of the emotions and the kids would shout out which one it was. (Example: I would turn around and rub my eyes, stumble to the window curtains, 'fall asleep' on them and start snoring. They would shout: TIRED. Then I would turn around with my eyes huge, get right up in their faces and pound on their desks while grunting. They would shout: ANGRY.) I'm not sure I've ever had so much fun! All the kids were laughing so hard and I felt like I was deserving of an Oscar or something.
The other tutors I worked with this week also made the experience really great. I worked with a British girl, a Scottish girl, and an American from NYC. We all got along really well and laughed all week. The American and Scottish girls are travel journalists working on an internet documentary for Jet Set Zero (http://www.jetsetzero.tv/). So we had a camera-man following us around all week, which was really fun. Jet Set Zero follows Americans who decide to quit their careers and go abroad with no money. The upcoming season is in Italy, so these two girls post blogs on the website about their experience and then the episodes should come out later this year... so I guess I'll probably be on it since I signed a model release form. Anyway, it was neat having that additional aspect added to the week.
On Sunday, we all took a day-trip to Cortona, a beautiful Tuscan village at the top of a hill. It was the place where "Under the Tuscan Sun" was filmed, and is now the home of the book's author, Francis Mayes. We kept fantasizing about bumping into her at a cafe or something, haha. Unfortunately, it rained all day... but it made the experience really memorable. We had to climb this huge hill in shorts and flip-flops while sharing umbrellas in the pouring rain. If it weren't for us having the last remains of my mom's homemade cookies, we never would have made it to the top!! Once we were there, though, the view made it completely worth the hike. It was unlike anything I've ever seen. I'll let my pictures do the talking instead of trying to describe it.
Then on the way down the hill, between two rows of houses, some crazy guy walks up to us, spits on each of our feet, gives us the finger, and then slams his bag down in front of us, as if daring us to walk further. Needless to say, we turned and found an alternate route back down. Considering the huge employment crisis in Italy (Sadly, it's much worse than in America.), you would think that everyone would love tourists... I think he definitely had some mental issues though.
We took another trip on Tueday night to Firenze (Florence). I had never been, so I was really excited, even if we were only going for three hours. Once again, as soon as we got off the train, it started to rain... which meant that the symphony concert we walked by was cancelled and the tight-rope walker in the main piazza that we walked through couldn't perform... but we still had a blast. Lynne (the Scotish girl) used to live in Florence and she wanted to take us to 'the best pizzeria ever'. After walking for 25 minutes to find it, we didn't have time to wait in the long line. The only pizzeria in Florence with no wait was 'Pizza Man'... wonder why? Although the name, logo, and decor was horribly cheesy (pun!) and Americanized, the pizza was actually really good. And they gave us complimentary sparkling wine!... All's well that ends well, I guess.
Seeing as this post is getting too long and I need to catch my train for my next camp location (Sesto Firentino... 15 minutes from Florence!!!), I will save my awkward moments and funny stories for another post in a few days... there are several of them!!
Monday, June 21, 2010
Carnate
Okay, so the time has come to begin blogging again. I realize that this is not the typical short and sweet type of blog filled with more pictures than words, but I wanted a way to both record my memories for myself as well as share them with others at the same time. It's said that a picture is worth a thousand words... but think of what a moment could be worth if you have both pictures and words to account for them. Hence, the following:
The past year has brought a lot of changes and new things to my life. Most notable are my increasingly demanding roles as a student at WashU. Not only have I become more disciplined in devoting myself more than ever to my music and training my voice, but I’ve also taken on the large responsibility of being an RA (Resident Advisor). Because of these experiences, I feel that I am voyaging to Italy with a slightly different (and perhaps better equipped?) metaphorical toolbox to teach this summer.
As I write this, I’ve already been in the land of olives for over a week and have completed teaching at my first City Camp of the summer. It was a small camp (about 30 kids) in Carnate-- a far suburb of Milan. Having taught for so many weeks
with the ACLE program last summer, I feel like I have arrived with clear standards by which to judge my weekly experiences. As far as my class of 11 ten year-olds is concerned, they were about average. I got a lot accomplished with them and our final show (Alice in Wonderland) was a big hit, but a few of the kids at the camp were simply monsters.
As for the host family, they were a perfect 10! I will miss them more than any family I stayed with last summer. They made me feel like I was really a part of the family from the second I arrived at their house to our tear-filled goodbyes at the train station. The mother was an architect with who was raising two kids on her own. Her sense of humor was so quirky that it could almost rival mine… and she played piano. After a few good laughs and songs on the first night (including ‘Sebben Crudele’- in case any of my singer friends are reading this), I already knew it was going to be a great week! And without having a father figure in his life, I think the eight year-old son was really enamored by my presence in the house… and it felt really good.
It rained all week and the town wasn’t the most exciting place in the world by any stretch of the imagination, so my evenings were pretty low-key. I would come home, shower, create my lesson-plan for the next day, write the script for the final show, and have dinner on the patio with the family. Afterwards, we would go inside and I would read as we all semi-watched the World Cup… which, I discovered, is much more interesting to watch than “football Americano”! (Side note: The book is titled Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. It’s like a mix between a self-help book and a psych/philosophy book. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to be better at what they do than status quo.)
Okay, so here comes the humorous parts (or at least they’re funny to me!). I’m thinking I’ll put a little section of humorous, interesting, or odd thougths/stories in each blog entry, so I need to think of a clever title for it with alliteration or something …any suggestions?? Maybe “Topsy-Turvy Italian Tid-bits”?
1. My host mom and I were having a discussion about the differences between colleges in America and Italy. One of the main differences is that many college students in America go away for college (as in, out of their home town). So I was explaining to her what a dormitory is and all that jazz. And then she asks “So you have a little chicken in your bedroom?” Me: “ummm…excuse me?” She: “You have a little chicken in your bedroom?!” Me: “uhh… I don’t think I understand what you’re asking.” After repeating this dialogue back and forth a few more times and asking her to describe a chicken, I realize that she meant to say “kitchen”, not chicken. For a minute, I was trying to think if “having a little chicken in your bedroom” was a euphemism that I just hadn’t heard before… guess not… but it sounds like a good one.
2. Fast forward to the last night I’m with this family. We’re having a peaceful dinner on the porch like every other night. The host mom and I will usually talk for a few minutes at a time, and then she’ll give the kids an abbreviated translation of what’s been said, and then they’ll chime in or ask questions or whatever. Well, she started asking me about what the families were like that I had stayed with the previous summer. When I told her that my first host family had 7 children from ages 8-26, she seemed very shocked. Forgetting that the kids would demand to know what we are talking about, I explain to her that that host mother had told me she had so many children because “good Catholics don’t use contraceptives”. As soon as that flew out of my mouth, I realized that I had just started down a road that I had no intention or desire to go down (damn you, Robert Frost!). As predicted, 8 year-old Tommasso and 11 year-
old Ariana asked what I said. After the mother hesitantly repeated it in Italian, Tomasso asks what a contraceptive is. Then the daughter says (in Italian) “Oh, like the pill… or a condom!”. The mom’s jaw almost dropped into the pasta in shock that her daughter knew what those were. Then Tommasso: “What’s a condom?” Mom: “It’s…ummm… it’s like… ummm… well, it’s basically just a piece of rubber that couples use to prevent pregnancy.” Tommasso: “Oh, kind of like chewing gum?” At this point, the mom awkwardly glances in my direction, as if to say that I should be the one to explain it to him since I’m the man in the house and the one who brought on this conversation. But if he wasn’t understanding it in Italian, he clearly wouldn’t be any better off trying to understand it in English. Mom: “Not exactly… it’s… it’s more like a balloon.” (By this time, I’m praying that a black hole will just appear and swallow me up or something.) Tommasso: “But how can a woman fit a balloon inside her?” Mom: “Well, you don’t inflate the balloon. The man just puts himself inside of it.” Tommasso: “OHHHHHH!!!” [insert uncomfortable silence here] Mom: “Well, how about some dessert!”
3. On Friday, we had some special teachers from the school coming in at 3:00 to teach a dance class to the kids. So we get them all sitting down in a circle and quiet (which is SOOO much harder than it sounds!!) at approximately 3:05… but we are informed that the teachers are running half an hour late. Not wanting to put to waste our beautifully silent circle of children, one of the other tutors (Isabella) decides that we should have English story-time. So she goes to the resource room and gets Hansel & Gretel. I sit at the outside of the circle, making sure everyone stays seated and quiet, and at least pretending to pay attention. As any picture book would require, Isabella reads it with the book held out in front of her. When she’s about halfway through the book, I realize that the story isn’t at all how I remember and that the plot seemed to be really random. At the exact same time, Isabella gets a look on her face like she’s just had the same realization. Then, all of a sudden (or is the phrase: all of THE sudden??), she breaks out into hysterical laughter. All of the kids are looking around like ‘WTF, did we miss something?’. When she’s able to breathe again, she explains that she had started on the last page of the book and was reading the whole thing backwards!! I guess that because she had the book in front of her and was looking downward upon it, she became disoriented with the page-turns. In any case, I thought it was the funniest moment of the entire week!
The past year has brought a lot of changes and new things to my life. Most notable are my increasingly demanding roles as a student at WashU. Not only have I become more disciplined in devoting myself more than ever to my music and training my voice, but I’ve also taken on the large responsibility of being an RA (Resident Advisor). Because of these experiences, I feel that I am voyaging to Italy with a slightly different (and perhaps better equipped?) metaphorical toolbox to teach this summer.
As I write this, I’ve already been in the land of olives for over a week and have completed teaching at my first City Camp of the summer. It was a small camp (about 30 kids) in Carnate-- a far suburb of Milan. Having taught for so many weeks
with the ACLE program last summer, I feel like I have arrived with clear standards by which to judge my weekly experiences. As far as my class of 11 ten year-olds is concerned, they were about average. I got a lot accomplished with them and our final show (Alice in Wonderland) was a big hit, but a few of the kids at the camp were simply monsters.As for the host family, they were a perfect 10! I will miss them more than any family I stayed with last summer. They made me feel like I was really a part of the family from the second I arrived at their house to our tear-filled goodbyes at the train station. The mother was an architect with who was raising two kids on her own. Her sense of humor was so quirky that it could almost rival mine… and she played piano. After a few good laughs and songs on the first night (including ‘Sebben Crudele’- in case any of my singer friends are reading this), I already knew it was going to be a great week! And without having a father figure in his life, I think the eight year-old son was really enamored by my presence in the house… and it felt really good.
It rained all week and the town wasn’t the most exciting place in the world by any stretch of the imagination, so my evenings were pretty low-key. I would come home, shower, create my lesson-plan for the next day, write the script for the final show, and have dinner on the patio with the family. Afterwards, we would go inside and I would read as we all semi-watched the World Cup… which, I discovered, is much more interesting to watch than “football Americano”! (Side note: The book is titled Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. It’s like a mix between a self-help book and a psych/philosophy book. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to be better at what they do than status quo.)
Okay, so here comes the humorous parts (or at least they’re funny to me!). I’m thinking I’ll put a little section of humorous, interesting, or odd thougths/stories in each blog entry, so I need to think of a clever title for it with alliteration or something …any suggestions?? Maybe “Topsy-Turvy Italian Tid-bits”?
1. My host mom and I were having a discussion about the differences between colleges in America and Italy. One of the main differences is that many college students in America go away for college (as in, out of their home town). So I was explaining to her what a dormitory is and all that jazz. And then she asks “So you have a little chicken in your bedroom?” Me: “ummm…excuse me?” She: “You have a little chicken in your bedroom?!” Me: “uhh… I don’t think I understand what you’re asking.” After repeating this dialogue back and forth a few more times and asking her to describe a chicken, I realize that she meant to say “kitchen”, not chicken. For a minute, I was trying to think if “having a little chicken in your bedroom” was a euphemism that I just hadn’t heard before… guess not… but it sounds like a good one.
2. Fast forward to the last night I’m with this family. We’re having a peaceful dinner on the porch like every other night. The host mom and I will usually talk for a few minutes at a time, and then she’ll give the kids an abbreviated translation of what’s been said, and then they’ll chime in or ask questions or whatever. Well, she started asking me about what the families were like that I had stayed with the previous summer. When I told her that my first host family had 7 children from ages 8-26, she seemed very shocked. Forgetting that the kids would demand to know what we are talking about, I explain to her that that host mother had told me she had so many children because “good Catholics don’t use contraceptives”. As soon as that flew out of my mouth, I realized that I had just started down a road that I had no intention or desire to go down (damn you, Robert Frost!). As predicted, 8 year-old Tommasso and 11 year-
old Ariana asked what I said. After the mother hesitantly repeated it in Italian, Tomasso asks what a contraceptive is. Then the daughter says (in Italian) “Oh, like the pill… or a condom!”. The mom’s jaw almost dropped into the pasta in shock that her daughter knew what those were. Then Tommasso: “What’s a condom?” Mom: “It’s…ummm… it’s like… ummm… well, it’s basically just a piece of rubber that couples use to prevent pregnancy.” Tommasso: “Oh, kind of like chewing gum?” At this point, the mom awkwardly glances in my direction, as if to say that I should be the one to explain it to him since I’m the man in the house and the one who brought on this conversation. But if he wasn’t understanding it in Italian, he clearly wouldn’t be any better off trying to understand it in English. Mom: “Not exactly… it’s… it’s more like a balloon.” (By this time, I’m praying that a black hole will just appear and swallow me up or something.) Tommasso: “But how can a woman fit a balloon inside her?” Mom: “Well, you don’t inflate the balloon. The man just puts himself inside of it.” Tommasso: “OHHHHHH!!!” [insert uncomfortable silence here] Mom: “Well, how about some dessert!”3. On Friday, we had some special teachers from the school coming in at 3:00 to teach a dance class to the kids. So we get them all sitting down in a circle and quiet (which is SOOO much harder than it sounds!!) at approximately 3:05… but we are informed that the teachers are running half an hour late. Not wanting to put to waste our beautifully silent circle of children, one of the other tutors (Isabella) decides that we should have English story-time. So she goes to the resource room and gets Hansel & Gretel. I sit at the outside of the circle, making sure everyone stays seated and quiet, and at least pretending to pay attention. As any picture book would require, Isabella reads it with the book held out in front of her. When she’s about halfway through the book, I realize that the story isn’t at all how I remember and that the plot seemed to be really random. At the exact same time, Isabella gets a look on her face like she’s just had the same realization. Then, all of a sudden (or is the phrase: all of THE sudden??), she breaks out into hysterical laughter. All of the kids are looking around like ‘WTF, did we miss something?’. When she’s able to breathe again, she explains that she had started on the last page of the book and was reading the whole thing backwards!! I guess that because she had the book in front of her and was looking downward upon it, she became disoriented with the page-turns. In any case, I thought it was the funniest moment of the entire week!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)