Today will be the beginning of a new era: the era of visitors. And to start off well, we'll be having eight of them over the period of seven days starting today. Of course, having visitors is great and I'm really looking forward to it, but it also takes a lot of time to prepare and create a programme for sightseeing, going out, food, sleep and so on... And of course the house has to be spick and span. But we're going to have such a great time!
The visitors arriving today are my mother, my brothers and my sister-in-law (although my brother and sister-in-law aren't actually married, girlfiend just sounds so lame, as if it's some random bimbo who is the flavour of the month, which she's not because she's way too cool and sweet). I'm really excited they're coming because I really want to show them my - our - new place, my new town and all the cool things you can do here. And of course I really want to talk to all of them again! You can only get to a certain kind of intimacy using msn or email, but it just doesn't compare to meeting face to face. Besides, it's my oldest brother's birthday today, so we're going to have ourselves a little party tonight!!!
On Saturday, we will be joined by Olaf's parents who are coming over for a quick two-day visit. As we haven't seen them about as long as we haven't seen my family, this will be a treat as well! On Sunday, Bard, one of Olaf's friends, and his friend Marlous are coming over, which means we'll be a party of ten that day! Sitting here in anticipation of all these people and all the attention I'm going to get (I can't help it, egomania is just in my blood! And what's wrong with wanting to be the centre of attention, eh?), I'm just feeling lucky... And that's a good note to end on!
Ciao, Fe
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Alcoholic paupers doing some shopping
Owwkayyy *hips* zzzo zis is whap havvenedd zoday *hips*
Yesterday evening, we had a lovely aperitivo with my new-found friend Belinda and her fiance Enrico. It was great, although we were all a bit hesitant in the beginning because Olaf hadn't met Belinda yet and I hadn't met Enrico (and so obviously Olaf and Enrico hadn't met either). But afterwards we really hit it off and terrorized La Ringhiera with loud political discussions, domestic squabble and lots of laughter. After dinner, Olaf went home because he was tired from working all week, whereas I was up for a night out because my weekend had already started Wednesday evening because all my courses on Thursday and Friday had been cancelled. So Belinda, Enrico and I went to Bar Magenta where we had been told there would be a gathering of English-speaking people who would be eating and drinking there. Unfortunately, we had just missed them but we did find Belinda's and my teaching coordinator there who was just preparing to leave. We persuaded him to have another drink with us and in our conversation we found out an unexpected fact.
You see, Belinda and I had been speculating for a while what the relations were between the members of the management team of our school on a personal level- because it is obvious that there have to people who are sleeping with each other, even if it's just because it's fashionable to have affairs with one of more of your colleagues and unavoidable because of the soapy character of life - and we had come up with some (according to us) quite plausible theories. But then our coordinator turned out to be as gay as a Christmas tree! This was quite a shock to both of us and especially to me, because my gaydar is usually quite accurate and hardly ever fails. But he certainly is a new model espionage plane, because he just dove right under it! Anyway, it just proves that the possibilities for the new developments in the Corporate English soap (written and directed by the both of us, of course) have just been multiplied by factor gay! Che Days of Our Lives! At least it states clearly once again that camp isn't just a row of tents!
Anyway, after that I went home and naturally we slept late this morning. After this, we decided it was time to do some shopping. Last week, I received my first paycheck and Olaf his scholarship, so we had some money to spend. And as Olaf was experiencing a minor clothing emergency, we hit the town. As Saturdays are quite busy days for shopping and because Olaf and I shop in a completely different way and for completely different motives - he is too picky for his budget and shops with a specific idea in mind of what he wants to have and I have too many clothes anyway and just let myself be seduced by all the funky designs and shiny things - he didn't succeed at all. But I'm proud to say I brought home some lovely things I don't need at all!
After that we went to do our weekly groceries. These consisted of a box of beer, a bag of wine, some martini, some gin and some campari. Oh, and some cheesy thingies and vegetables as well. Fortunately, we know we're not alcoholics. We're happy drinkers! But when we got home we did make and unfortunate discovery: our wine rack is too small*! ;-)
Ciao, Fe
*Which of course doesn't mean we're not happy with it... Thank you so much, dear inlaws, it's great!
Yesterday evening, we had a lovely aperitivo with my new-found friend Belinda and her fiance Enrico. It was great, although we were all a bit hesitant in the beginning because Olaf hadn't met Belinda yet and I hadn't met Enrico (and so obviously Olaf and Enrico hadn't met either). But afterwards we really hit it off and terrorized La Ringhiera with loud political discussions, domestic squabble and lots of laughter. After dinner, Olaf went home because he was tired from working all week, whereas I was up for a night out because my weekend had already started Wednesday evening because all my courses on Thursday and Friday had been cancelled. So Belinda, Enrico and I went to Bar Magenta where we had been told there would be a gathering of English-speaking people who would be eating and drinking there. Unfortunately, we had just missed them but we did find Belinda's and my teaching coordinator there who was just preparing to leave. We persuaded him to have another drink with us and in our conversation we found out an unexpected fact.
You see, Belinda and I had been speculating for a while what the relations were between the members of the management team of our school on a personal level- because it is obvious that there have to people who are sleeping with each other, even if it's just because it's fashionable to have affairs with one of more of your colleagues and unavoidable because of the soapy character of life - and we had come up with some (according to us) quite plausible theories. But then our coordinator turned out to be as gay as a Christmas tree! This was quite a shock to both of us and especially to me, because my gaydar is usually quite accurate and hardly ever fails. But he certainly is a new model espionage plane, because he just dove right under it! Anyway, it just proves that the possibilities for the new developments in the Corporate English soap (written and directed by the both of us, of course) have just been multiplied by factor gay! Che Days of Our Lives! At least it states clearly once again that camp isn't just a row of tents!
Anyway, after that I went home and naturally we slept late this morning. After this, we decided it was time to do some shopping. Last week, I received my first paycheck and Olaf his scholarship, so we had some money to spend. And as Olaf was experiencing a minor clothing emergency, we hit the town. As Saturdays are quite busy days for shopping and because Olaf and I shop in a completely different way and for completely different motives - he is too picky for his budget and shops with a specific idea in mind of what he wants to have and I have too many clothes anyway and just let myself be seduced by all the funky designs and shiny things - he didn't succeed at all. But I'm proud to say I brought home some lovely things I don't need at all!
After that we went to do our weekly groceries. These consisted of a box of beer, a bag of wine, some martini, some gin and some campari. Oh, and some cheesy thingies and vegetables as well. Fortunately, we know we're not alcoholics. We're happy drinkers! But when we got home we did make and unfortunate discovery: our wine rack is too small*! ;-)
Ciao, Fe
*Which of course doesn't mean we're not happy with it... Thank you so much, dear inlaws, it's great!
Friday, October 13, 2006
"No ham today"
It's almost like the song, except that the song was about milk and that my love hasn't gone away... So, actually it's not like the song... At all! But, whatever, the main thing is, there wasn't any ham. Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? No? I wonder why...
Last Sunday, we went on a trip to Parma, because on Sundays you have to take a trip. Seriously, it's like a rule, you don't stay indoors or in Milan on Sundays. You take your family, stuff them in your car or a train, drive out into la campagna (the country) or la montagna (the mountains) and enjoy a lovely day in the sun, the rain or the snow, as long you're away from Milan's polluted air. As we are desperately trying to blend in with the natives of this region, 'when in Milan, do as the Milanese', as Olaf is wont to say, we decided to join this weekly exodus and visited Parma.
Parma is gorgeous. It's so very sweet and very 'coogie, coogie, coo!'. Needless to say we both fell in love with it immediately and are planning to buy a house there once we retire. Here are some pictures.
Although Parma is a city famous for its prosciutto (parmaham) and its parmigiano (Parmesan cheese), we didn't eat any. I did have a lovely pasta with asparagus for lunch and I begged and begged and begged Olaf to spend the day eating and just eating, but he wouldn't let me. As a result I didn't have any prosciutto di parma or parmigiano in Parma. But I'll survive...
We also had another little breakthrough there, I think. Although Olaf is vehemently against us having pets and usually can't be reasoned with on this subject, we philosophized a lot about our future life including a hypothetical dog called Poes (just for the fun of it), Bello (to spike the Italians) or Lola ('Her name was Lola, she was a showdog'). He especially liked the name Lola, so who knows, we may have a dog after all... ;-)
Ciao, Fe
Last Sunday, we went on a trip to Parma, because on Sundays you have to take a trip. Seriously, it's like a rule, you don't stay indoors or in Milan on Sundays. You take your family, stuff them in your car or a train, drive out into la campagna (the country) or la montagna (the mountains) and enjoy a lovely day in the sun, the rain or the snow, as long you're away from Milan's polluted air. As we are desperately trying to blend in with the natives of this region, 'when in Milan, do as the Milanese', as Olaf is wont to say, we decided to join this weekly exodus and visited Parma.
Parma is gorgeous. It's so very sweet and very 'coogie, coogie, coo!'. Needless to say we both fell in love with it immediately and are planning to buy a house there once we retire. Here are some pictures.
Although Parma is a city famous for its prosciutto (parmaham) and its parmigiano (Parmesan cheese), we didn't eat any. I did have a lovely pasta with asparagus for lunch and I begged and begged and begged Olaf to spend the day eating and just eating, but he wouldn't let me. As a result I didn't have any prosciutto di parma or parmigiano in Parma. But I'll survive...
We also had another little breakthrough there, I think. Although Olaf is vehemently against us having pets and usually can't be reasoned with on this subject, we philosophized a lot about our future life including a hypothetical dog called Poes (just for the fun of it), Bello (to spike the Italians) or Lola ('Her name was Lola, she was a showdog'). He especially liked the name Lola, so who knows, we may have a dog after all... ;-)
Ciao, Fe
Work-related issues...
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
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
Sunday, October 01, 2006
P.A.R.T.Y. weekend
Ciao tutti,
This has been a f*cking great weekend. It has been ages since I've partied for a whole weekend... Well, actually, it has been about a month but it feels like a long, long time. But fortunately the people in Milano know how to party. And I desperately needed to dance, drink and be merry!
On Friday night there was a teacher meeting at Corporate English and afterwards we went out for a lovely pizza. We were there for a couple of hours and it was a great occasion for me to get to know my colleagues. I especially liked my Spanish colleague, Monica. After a while it became obvious that the amount of wine one consumes is of direct influence on one's eloquence in a language one cannot speak very well. My Italian and Spanish really improved that night! After dinner we went to a bar for some drinks and afterwards (after a lot begging and pushing) we finally went dancing. People got drunk from all the cocktails and completely lost their sense of shame and apprehension. There was a live band which played current popular music and I got to shake my lovely behind as much as I loved. Monica shared my desire to dance and we really went at it. It's always good to have a friend one can be slutty with on the dance floor... And the cool thing is, even my bosses were there and they were drinking, dancing and acting slutty just as much as we were. It really didn't feel like we were colleagues, directors and subordinates but more like a group of friends. Mi piaceva!
Yesterday we went to Antonio's birthday party, which was very funny and interesting. We met some really stuck up Irish girls, who were twins by the way, and their brother who had completely lost his way. One of the girls had acually worked for The English Academy, the company I started teaching trial lessons with but decided I didn't want to work for, and we exchanged experiences. Apparently their method has changed quite a lot over the years, because they didn't use to believe in a full-immersion method to instruct new teachers. Anto and Nina were lovely: we had some drinks, ate far too much of the lovely snacks they had made, talked about a lot of nonsense and danced like we were back in Dio. We actually got quite drunk and because we had obviously missed the last tram (we left at 4.30 a.m.) we had to walk home. Personally, I thought it was only a twenty minute walk and Antonio agreed, but it turned out to be about a 1,5 hour walk! Or maybe it just seemed that way because we were drunk... Who can tell? At least, it gave us plenty of time to fight in a drunken manner and accuse each other of all kinds of things we don't remember now...
Anyway, we obviously didn't do anything today, except sleeping late (until 4.30 p.m.!), complaining about our headaches and watching movies. In brief, a perfect Sunday...
Ciao,
Fe
This has been a f*cking great weekend. It has been ages since I've partied for a whole weekend... Well, actually, it has been about a month but it feels like a long, long time. But fortunately the people in Milano know how to party. And I desperately needed to dance, drink and be merry!
On Friday night there was a teacher meeting at Corporate English and afterwards we went out for a lovely pizza. We were there for a couple of hours and it was a great occasion for me to get to know my colleagues. I especially liked my Spanish colleague, Monica. After a while it became obvious that the amount of wine one consumes is of direct influence on one's eloquence in a language one cannot speak very well. My Italian and Spanish really improved that night! After dinner we went to a bar for some drinks and afterwards (after a lot begging and pushing) we finally went dancing. People got drunk from all the cocktails and completely lost their sense of shame and apprehension. There was a live band which played current popular music and I got to shake my lovely behind as much as I loved. Monica shared my desire to dance and we really went at it. It's always good to have a friend one can be slutty with on the dance floor... And the cool thing is, even my bosses were there and they were drinking, dancing and acting slutty just as much as we were. It really didn't feel like we were colleagues, directors and subordinates but more like a group of friends. Mi piaceva!
Yesterday we went to Antonio's birthday party, which was very funny and interesting. We met some really stuck up Irish girls, who were twins by the way, and their brother who had completely lost his way. One of the girls had acually worked for The English Academy, the company I started teaching trial lessons with but decided I didn't want to work for, and we exchanged experiences. Apparently their method has changed quite a lot over the years, because they didn't use to believe in a full-immersion method to instruct new teachers. Anto and Nina were lovely: we had some drinks, ate far too much of the lovely snacks they had made, talked about a lot of nonsense and danced like we were back in Dio. We actually got quite drunk and because we had obviously missed the last tram (we left at 4.30 a.m.) we had to walk home. Personally, I thought it was only a twenty minute walk and Antonio agreed, but it turned out to be about a 1,5 hour walk! Or maybe it just seemed that way because we were drunk... Who can tell? At least, it gave us plenty of time to fight in a drunken manner and accuse each other of all kinds of things we don't remember now...
Anyway, we obviously didn't do anything today, except sleeping late (until 4.30 p.m.!), complaining about our headaches and watching movies. In brief, a perfect Sunday...
Ciao,
Fe
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