Ciao belli e belle,
How time flies! It has been almost two weeks since I wrote anything on my blog and you must be starting to think I'm neglecting you. Well, the truth is: I am! But for a good reason, I assure you. It's because I'm working progressively more. And being completely inexperienced in teaching and consequently needing a lot of time to get all my preparing done I've been quite absorbed. Another reason is that I'm not working in subsequent shifts, but for instance three hours on Monday night, one hour Tuesday morning, three hours on Tuesday night, one hour on Wednesday around noon and so on. This often means that I start my day quite early and finish after 9.00 pm without teaching any classes in between. This is pretty exhausting and I'm still trying to get in the right rhythm.
Fortunately, not all my classes have started yet so I have some time to adapt. When all my classes will have started, I will be teaching two group courses every evening from Monday until Thursday and have some individual and small group lessons during the daytime. And after that, there's always a Friday. I like my Fridays here. On Fridays I teach three classes at the law firm I taught my first classes at. I like these students a lot and I'm sort of starting to consider them as my favourites. I don't know why, probably because they responded very well to me when I got there the first time nervous as hell, wet all through because it was raining cats and dogs and there was a public transport strike and without a clue whether the lessons I had planned were any good... But that's just a thought. Anyway, they've captured my heart! Teaching them is really like the start of the weekend for me. There is also another cool feature about them: they cancel their lessons about every other week, which means I get the day off!
They say, 'practice makes perfect', and I still need to practise a lot. But I'm getting there and I'm learning a shitload of things about teaching on the way. 'Life is a lesson, you've learned it when it's through', well I think that goes for teaching too. When the time comes that I won't be teaching anymore, I'll know everything there is to know about it! But it's fun. It's a nice change from studying foreign languages in a very dry and academic way (which I love by the way, don't get me wrong!) and the theory of second language acquisition to actually having to do it. I've always taken having an interest in languages and a certain 'feel' for them for granted, but now I'm realizing that doesn't go for everybody. There are a lot of reasons why people study English, and it's usually not based on a personal inclination. People study English to get ahead in their careers, because they need to communicate with foreign clients, to work with English computer programmes or read and/or translate English publications. Often people are doing it merely because it is a professional requirement and they're being forced to by their superiors. This does not make my job very easy, but does keep it interesting and makes it a challenge!
Unfortunately, my work and my obsession of doing everything perfectly - being the perfectionist that I am - has also had some negative effects. I have a lot less time to spend with Olaf for instance, which is quite funny, ironically speaking, because he's doing his time-consuming Ph.D. and I actually moved here to be able to spend more time with him and now it turns out like a complete reversal of fortune that I am the one not having enough time for him! But we'll work that out somehow and we've still got the weekends. Another consequence of my being busy is that I have neglected my body. I haven't practised any sports for over a month and I'm becoming a regular Miss Piggy. Now, I know that there are people who still believe in the ancient tribal values that having a lot of meat on you means you're doing well in life and is actually a sign of health and wealth, but their opinion sucks! Being fat is a sign of laziness, clogs your veins which increases your chances of having a heart attack at age 40 significantly and means you haven't got enough money to go to the gym. Not wanting to seem like ones of those dimwits, I've recently taken up running. I hate running but as there's nothing else I can do by myself without having to pay for it, it will have to do for now.
Tonight, I'm having an aperitivo with my friend Belinda and her fiance, who I haven't met yet. I love the concept of aperitivo, they should have it all over the world. For those of you who don't know what it is, I'll give you a short description. Aperitivo is when you go out for a drink before having dinner. You drink a cocktail - which is horribly expensive - and get some free nibblies and appetizers with that. However, if you haven't got a lot of money, you can just use aperitivo as if it was meant for dinner. You buy the horribly expensive cocktail and then proceed to stuff your mouth with all the goodies you find at the free buffet. And mind you, these aren't just little nibblies. You can get different kinds of pasta, pizza slices, bruschette, salads, pieces of cheese and ham and lots of other things. It's more than enough to constitute a full dinner, and all this you get for free if you just drink a cocktail which costs between six and eight euros! And it's not just Italian food, you can also do Spanish tapas aperitivo and sushi aperitivo at some places. As a lover of the Italian kitchen and food in general, I usually leave almost unable to walk and supporting my belly with my hands. Maybe that's why I'm getting so fat.... Hmmmm..... *bling* (seeing the light)
Ciao,
Fedor
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