Tid Bits #1

The weeks are flying by- I can't believe it's pretty much the end of February! 

With time passing, spring is approaching. It feels pretty much already late March here with the highs in 50's and sometimes even the 60s! As strange at it feels, I can't complain about this warmer weather. On Mondays I have to leave early in the morning to get to work on time to teach at 8:00 am. Last week I think I caught one of the last mornings with the town lights still lit in the morning- It was a beautiful eery scene so I couldn't help but take a picture of the main square in Castel San Pietro. 

Speaking of work. On Fridays I take the same back bus to Bologna as one of the students in 7th grade. She enjoys talking to me, so we sit next to each other on the bus and I listen to all her stories about school and studying and getting bad grades. Yesterday she asked me if I get to go home every few weekends. And our conversation when a little like this: 

Me:  "You mean if I go back to the United States every few weekends?" 

Her: "Yeah, don't you visit your family?" 

Me: "I can't go back for the weekends- it's far away and expensive" 

Her: " Well, then when do you see your family?" 

Me: "I go back once a year. Either for Christmas or during the summer" 

Her: " You celebrate Christmas in the United Sates?" 

I also had a moment of great satisfaction when I went to do a private lesson with another student who is in middle school. The week before his mother told me he just got his report card for the term and his grades were below average. He had an English test that week and wanted to make sure he was well prepared. So of course I helped him prepare for his test and when I went back this week and asked how it went.... he got an A+ ! 

Our puppy, Macchia, is slowly becoming more adventurous around the house. We took her to Poggibonsi so she could spend some time with another dog, Zorro. Unfortunately Zorro didn't want to have anything to do with a new puppy in his territory. 

Macchia is so funny. She has quite a character. We think she spent some time with cats in her first few months because often she seems more like a cat than a dog! 

Of course last Friday was Valentines Day. Valentines Day isn't very big in Italy compared to the United States, but Luca knows that it's somewhat important to me, probably because it's always been a recognized day for me. He got me a bouquet of Ranunculus which are one of my favorite flowers and prepared a three course meal along with a bottle of Rioja! 

Welcome Macchia!

Yes, we got a puppy! 

We have talked about a getting a dog for quite a while. As everyone knows, a dog is a lot of work, takes up a lot of time, and it never becomes independent. So we know it's a big commitment. 

We had been looking for a long time however there was always something that didn't work out with the timing. So we decided that after we returned from our Christmas holiday we would start looking seriously. 

We wanted to "rescue" a puppy instead of a buying a puppy that's a pure bred. We looked on sites like subito.it and bakeca.it which are similar to craigslist, but we also looked at ilcercapadrone which is a website run by volunteers who find abandoned dogs. Unfortunately this website has pages upon pages of dogs that have some sad story of abuse or abandonment, usually from southern Italy.  We  started to look daily. We also believe that some of the volunteers do this as a way to earn money and aren't very honest and don't treat the dogs well. We wanted to be careful in where our dog came from.

One day we finally saw a puppy we both liked, a two month female mut, so we contacted the volunteer. She seemed honest and to have good intentions. So it was a go - we just had to meet with another volunteer within the Bologna area since this puppy was near Napoli. 

We had an interview in our home to make sure that we were good people, who wouldn't mistreat the dog, or leave her locked up all day long and care for her. We were little bit nervous not knowing how passionate these volunteers are and if we said the wrong little thing maybe they would think we weren't good enough.  

The interview went well and she said that she would call the other volunteer down south immediately to give the green light.  However, we still had wait since she had worms and needed her second vaccination.  

We waited almost a month and we finally got the phone call saying our puppy would be sent up in a van on Friday night and would arrive at 8:15 am Saturday, February 8th. 

We were in the car on our way to the meeting point, which was an exit off the highway between Florence and Bologna when we received a text message saying they were running about an hour late. So we had to wait even a little longer! 

Finally the big white van arrived and there was a group of people waiting to receive their puppies. The van was full of all different kinds of dogs from puppies to adults, small to big, and even some cats. 

We asked for Macchia, which was the name given to her by the volunteer, and she was pulled out of a cage that had 4 other puppies in it. She was absolutely terrified. The poor thing has had a rough life so far and doesn't trust humans. We don't know exactly what happened, but we know she was found in a shed. 

She's slowly gaining her courage. She found her spot behind the couch and will come out just to eat. After day two she's added to her territory the seat of the couch. She is very timid and takes three tries for every move she makes. We have to keep her in the house for now, which is a little unpleasant for potty training, but she's too afraid to even go further than a 6 inches away from the couch so taking her out on the crowded streets of Bologna would be traumatizing. 

It's so much fun watching her explore our home and slowly shed her fear. We're definitely happy to have Macchia in our home! 

Teaching English Part II

Teaching English is hardly ever boring. Of course every job has it's ups and downs and sometimes you may feel like you're stuck in a rut. Thankfully though, often my students make teaching a lot of fun. Here are just a few of my funny stories. I should really keep a little notepad of these comments because I don't remember them all. 

• I tutor two 8 year old boys. For every lesson they bring their bi-lingual picture dictionary for kids. One day these boys were all riled up and they wanted to look up "cacca" in the dictionary which is translated as poop. So they look up this word and just how has this dictionary translated cacca? ---> Shit. So these boys are sat at the table giggling while they repeat shit over and over again, not realizing what they're actually saying. 

• I gave an assignment for my 1st year high school students to write about a time they broke the rules and what the consequence was. This boy I'd say had a rather funny story.... 

• This wasn't my student, but a colleague of mine, and I just have to share it... In Italian the word for niece/nephew is "nipote".  So in this class they were discussing what they did over the weekend. This student shared that she had visited and talked with her nephew, however she was mixing nipote and nephew which came out as nipple. So she told the whole class about visiting her nipple. 

Some moments are funny but also very endearing.... drawing pictures of me and giving me small handmade tokens. 

Such as the time while eating lunch with 2nd year middle school students. Two different students asked me if I used to do TV commercials or if I was a ballerina. 

And this girl was supposed to write 50 words about my presentation on Minnesota and myself and the she had understood 50 sentences. So either she really likes me or was running out of ideas. 

This is only a fraction of the funny things that I experience at work. I think I am now determined to write these catch phrases down.