Dude. A huge bouquet of roses just arrived for my roommate Alessia from her boyfriend Marco, no occasion. Her Marco is such a sweetheart. He essentially lives here, and comes and goes at all hours, but it's okay because he's super nice and considerate. He's the good one, he's the one that we like. My other roommate Grazia's boyfriend is also named Marco, and we don't like him. He sucks, in fact. He never comes over here, and when he feels like seeing Grazia he'll pull up outside and make her come down. He never seems to get in touch with her at all except to call her up when he's feeling jealous and yell at her for something idiotic like having a new facebook friend who's some guy Marco doesn't know. So anyway, those are the Marcos.
*****
Thursday, Galilei day.
It's always a roller coaster over there. Like, i can never just have a neutral day at Galilei. One minute I'll feel really good, confident, energized. The kids'll be really into it, into me, and I feel like what I'm doing is actually important and useful and interesting for them. And then the next class there'll be moments where I just want to die, or burst into tears and run out of there. Either of the two.
And then it's just exhausting. I'm done with work by 12:30, but by then I'm so worn out that I never manage to do much of anything in the afternoon. Each of the classes is a full hour long, and there's no passing period-type break in between, so it's like me on my feet talking for an hour (and trying with all my little might to project my voice as loudly as I can which is not easy and drains me after a while). And then rushing to the next classroom, and having to figure out all over again where the hell it is, since the classrooms are bizarrely numbered over there and I still feel like a rat in a maze every time I'm there, and I usually have to end up asking someone where such-and-such classroom is, and if there's no bidello (janitor) around I ask the nearest group of students, and then they insist on leading me there themselves. Which always kind of amuses me. But anyway, it's brutally exhausting.
Plus every time I walk into a classroom it's a surprise what's going to happen next. The teacher will spring on me some idea for something she wants me to do right then. Or the teacher won't be there. Or the teacher will be there for a minute and then leave and do something else for the rest of the hour. Or there'll only be 5 kids in the classroom. Or for some reason or another I'll find that I can't do the lesson I planned, or in the way that I planned. Always always an adventure.
This one teacher I work with there, in two different classes, is downright abusive. Both to me and to the students. I've mentioned her before, I think. So for instance, today I come into the classroom and she jumps up and starts yelling -- okay, admittedly Sicilians/southern Italians in general tend to talk in a way where it seems like they're yelling; well, they really are yelling, but they aren't necessarily angry or maybe don't mean to come across as harshly as they do to an American ear. So sometimes it's hard to tell. But this teacher is pretty much always yelling. And she always sounds pretty damn pissed off to me.
Anyway, she starts yelling at me about how we absolutely can't go on like this, doing these dumb little American culture lessons that I've been doing. We need to make a syllabus, we need to do something serious. Like literature. Except these are third years and they're not really at a literature level, but in any case, we have to talk to my tutor Francesca and figure out something serious because this isn't working for her and we just can't possibly going on in this way. We need a book. For example, this book.
She calls up one of the students to bring over this book they all have, called 'Think English.' With an accompanying workbook called 'Think Culture.' And she flips through it for me, and it's filled with the exact same sort of cultural topics and activities and exercises that I've been doing with them. Except that instead of just being American, it's also British, Australian, whatever culture. But honestly, the exact same sort of thing.
And she's like, now here's a legitimate book, you need to get this book and from now on in this class we'll follow the book.
And while in reality I'm thinking, wtf? This is absurd, my ETA self is a little angel and says, sure Prof, of course, whatever you want to do, I'm happy to go along. Where can i get this book?
And she hesitates, and then she looks at the girl who brought over the book, and she says, you, you're going to give the professoressa your book, ok? (Again, wtf? Whatever, I don't ask questions anymore.)
By the way, if you can imagine this, this is an extremely loud exchange (this prof doesn't do anything but extremely loud) between the two of us, standing in front of the class, with all the students quiet and listening.
And then she's like, Okay, well for today what have you planned?
"Uh, i was going to do a lesson on US geography." (You know, a dumb little American culture topic. Because US geography clearly doesn't have any real value in a classroom, as opposed to say, Beowulf.)
Okay, okay, do your geography then, and from next time we follow the book, okay?
But by now, of course, you've totally undermined me in front of the class, as usual, and basically announced to them that my lessons are frivolous and silly and useless. Why on earth should they pay attention or cooperate with me or taking anything I do seriously?
Luckily, they're pretty good kids, and they mostly cooperate with me anyway (despite the fact that the teacher then proceeds to spend the entire hour taking some of the rowdier kids out in the hall one by one and screaming at them violently right outside the classroom door). I get through only about two-thirds of the geography lesson I've done with my other classes, but that's fine, I'll gladly take two-thirds. Given the insanity of this teacher and her relentlessness in trying to undermine me, and to destroy any semblance of authority I might dare try to have with these kids.
Luckily I don't take any of this too seriously, luckily I'm easygoing. Luckily I'm the kind of person who's used to taking a lot of shit and not getting my hackles all raised up about it. Luckily, it takes a lot to piss me off. Because if I were any different, this one teacher might just make me go mad.
So there's always her. And there are always other moments when I feel a wave of discouragement slam into me and almost knock me over. Or I feel so disheartened that I just wanna go and curl up in the corner and hide. Or I feel like, okay, this thing might just test my limits, after all.
But then there are moments that make it all seem worthwhile. There's one teacher, Ambra, who's incredibly sweet with me and lavishes me with praise, no matter what I do. And mostly there are those kids, so many of them, who are so cute and earnest and sincere that I wanna hug them, all the time.
Even the ones who make a ruckus and act like they're too cool for school, even the most obnoxious of them, inspire no ill will in me. They're just 4 or 5 years younger than me in many cases, but they seem so little and fragile and beautiful. Who knew I'd feel this way about them. When I was a teenager, I hated teenagers, myself included. I couldn't wait not to be one anymore. I thought my classmates were all little devil incarnates. And now, only a handful of years later, I find them sweet and adorable even when they're trying their hardest not to be.
And those are the bad ones. The good ones, they're the ones you to go school for. They're the ones who make me want to squeal every time they speak in class because they're just so freaking cute. It's like a constant battle against the urge to hug them. There are several of them in each of even the worst classes; and in the best classes, they're all that way. They're so genuinely interested even in the mundane things I have to say about the U.S. They put so much effort into every little sentence they say to me in English, so careful not to make mistakes, so eager to impress me. Of course they do make mistakes, all over the place, and sometimes mangle the English language beyond recognition, but then their mistakes make them even more charming. They're so amazed by and excited about little things, like lockers and prom. They proudly tell me the things they know about Las Vegas, and the others gush as if it were heaven on earth. And I want to laugh and say, guys, Las Vegas is gross, but I couldn't because the images they have in their minds are so lovely that I wouldn't want to ruin them.
With everything, it's like the US of their imaginations is so beautiful and magical and full of promise that I find myself wanting to preserve that image for them. Because how neat would it be to have that, this fantasy idea of a place with big clean cities and money and beautiful people and wide open landscapes and wilderness and social mobility and work and possibility? I feel the US is to them sort of what Princess Peach's castle in Super Mario Land was to me as a kid. In my mind, Princess Peach had it made.
And plus, their enthusiasm for the US is weirdly contagious. It's not just them, I think it's also the way the state of things in our country has changed over the past few years. Obama, but also before Obama. Or maybe it's just me growing up and appreciating things more. But, for instance, I'm friends with a couple of my students on Facebook. And just today, one of them posted a big photo of the American flag on his profile. With a caption that said something like, America, I want you so bad! (Roughly translated... that sounds totally weird in English but also the way he phrased it in Italian also has sort of a sexual connotation, so it's the same idea.)
And a couple of my other students had clicked on the "so-and-so likes this" button, and left comments expressing their enthusiastic agreement.
And this is a picture of the American flag, basta. Three or four years ago, I would have thought, you kids are crazy! Don't you realize we're imperialist pigs? Or maybe, don't you realize you've been stuffed with Hollywood/Obama propaganda and that your vision of the US is a total fantasy? And I'd have felt uncomfortable with my role as sort of an additional disseminator of pro-US propaganda. And okay, maybe I still do have those thoughts at some level. But my initial response is more like, right on kids, yay America! And okay, in part maybe I'm feeling on some level as though their loving America is equivalent to their approving of me. But also, honestly, it makes me happy that they love America. I love America too. I wanna tell them, get the hell out of here kids, go there, and explore, and sure, be disillusioned when it doesn't meet your expectations and it's not always the way it looks on TV, but even so you won't regret it. Even if you come back you'll be so much better off for having gone. Exactly what I'm doing now, I guess, only reversed.
This is getting really scattered. But I hope I'm not being totally incoherent. I find it hard to explain these things, both my newfound affection for teenagers and my relatively newfound patriotism, because they're still sort of inexplicable to me.
Anyway, as always, lots more I wanted to say but so much other stuff to do. So i'll be in touch.
Un abbraccio..
C
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