Interview..

The interview was fun- aside from the sour note introduced by a tricky grammar test. The conversation flowed swimmingly, in fact it seemed to devolve into comfortable chatter covering Welsh language learning, British bilingualism, Bengali cuisine, knitting (of course), comparing HSBC sari/ turban uniforms to Roman racial tolerance, and other sundry topics. She said their school wouldn't ever allow hijab or race to be a sticking point or issue which was reassuring.

On the other hand it seems like quite an upmarket school handling mostly corporate, govermental clients and many of them stipulate that they want teachers who are at least 25 years old and have 5 years experience. They're bigwigs who don't want to be taught be a wide-eyed naif who may get burned out or homesick halfway through the course. But she seemed to feel I had potential I think or she wouldn't have spent so long explaining their courses and system- we were talking for 1 1/2 hours. They send their teachers out to different sites- a few hours with one business then across the city to another maybe. She'll let me know roughlyhow much work might be available for me if any.

I think part time hours with a good school would be more valuable than 40 hours in some cowboy sweatshop school. Although I'm attending one such school downstairs as a student, and though the space is sweatshop like and the methodology very ad hoc- not much lesson plan, just going through conjucations and random words so far, I think she's just a local uni student- the atmosphere is friendly and low pressure. The students really appreciate their teacher's efforts to help them understand and don't demand more than that really.

I have an interview for a decent sounding language school tomorrow so if I get the job I could picture staying for a good few months. I can be useful for the family keeping my aunt company especially in her overcrowded (come 5 minutes late and it's standing room only) as in bengali man-filled italian language classes, and tutoring the kids and learn plenty myself at the same time. The class is quite fun - they all seem to love the teacher who really tries to explain things in a thousand ways so everyone understands. The guys all have random words and phrases they picked up at a restaurant or on the bus which make her laugh/ wonder what the heck they're talking about and try to teach us all these oddities (I'm not much of a note taker so I can't check for an example sorry) I'm picking up plenty of vocab and my aunt is pretty good- the grammar is familiar fromspainsh so it's easy to catch on and keep up. In fact it goes pretty slowly and it took only one session for me to replace my notebook with knitting.


My one venture into an Italian shop so far has given me a taste of the xenophobia that seems to be the attitude prevailing in this city. I don't think it's an excuse to say that the Italians' experience of dark immigrants is bad, so naturally they'll tail a you with a security guard as soon as you step in. The difference between thinking all Bengalis or coloured hijabi people are likely to be thieves, and racism is too fine a distinction for me. I'll smile at the guard and be polite when he takes the eyeliner i'm looking at from me and checks if it's a tester or I'm taking a new pencil, but really I'm angry and not sure if I should show it. I think I should on principle but the wiser course for a stranger is to prove them wrong by being an exemplary customer. Always a degrading experience though - one I don't think I've had in the UK so you forget what it feels like.

Actually just spoke to my aunt and she says this is more a train station attitude because people are constantly flowing through from everywhere and the staff there are more distrustful than the norm. So perhaps I should reserve my judgement of Italian folk generally (although this kind of thing totally happened to me in Verona a few years ago, plus my aunt's apartment hunting woes: constant rejection and refusal to even look at their perfect decade long rental record because they are a Bengali family. My aunt seems to think this is natural but seems shocking to me.

(edited to add: please note that was just an initial reaction which sounds harsh in retrospect- probably the culture-shock of such an incident coming from manchester. I'm always meeting lovely Italian folk whenever I go out and I'll give the haughtier ones the benefit of the doubt and assume their more averse to the shabbiness of my coat than anything else)

Thank the Lord I'm not actually a benefit fraudster.

I was worried for a bit but was brave enough to check with the proper authorities that it was ok that I absconded to foreign parts without having cancelled my JSA. If I get a letter to them in time they'll even pay me to the night before I left..

Building my nest..

.. and it's far more comfortable and filled with possibilities than I anticipated. My aunt spells her name Zhume which seems bizarre given we pronounce it 'Jumi' so I'm unsure about how to go about cyberfying her name and am open to suggestions from my nonexistent public. But her house is awesome- not only is it literally opposite, as in no, honestly, straight across the road from, the central Rome station but it has a free Italian language school on the floor below her flat to boot. Granted it's a jam-packed school for immigrants and asylum seekers where young Yusuf says the polizia would have a field day, but I'm happy enough to go there and double as a buffer between the encroaching crowd and my aunt who is put off by it.

The family all had colds, down to the new baby, who pulls off the cute scowler look. It is not really cold weather, although it would definitely have been worth rescuing my lovely Bosnian wool gown during that sad hand luggage debacle. I've alluded to that painful scene before but really it's just one of those typical tragic stories that happen when Azmis and airports meet and I don't feel up to delving into the gory details.

I spent the evening being challenged to a mental duel by young Yusuf on every subject from Ancient Egyptians, to World War 2, world languages, cultural vs national identities (the whole Bengal v Bangladeshi question rearing its head), subcontinental religion shifts - I bring up the partition of India but he refers back to the Mongols, comparing world population density, the most important discoveries of mankind (I tentatively mooted the Germ Theory as a highlight but he scorned me for my limited vision and declared the discovery of Fire trounced Germs)
I was seriously starting to feel out of my league with the 10 year old so I brought up my fail safe ego booster. Yes, I mean the Dictionary Game.

You know it's amazing what a bad teacher can do to a kid because despite the evidence of his conversation the boy claims he hates geography and history and doesn't see the point in them at all. His teacher yells at the students to get out of the class and they do, gladly.

Going through the digestive system, Magic School Bus style with the girl (we had to use our imaginations as there was no Szalinski zapper to hand) was far less of a strain on my exhausted mental faculties. The boy spent that time exploring my ipod playlist and classifying everything from Damien Marley to Artic Monkeys as 'rap music' His spontaneous breakout performance of 50 cent "go shorty, it's ya birthday" was as hilarious as it was unexpected.

Anyway I have been given the internetted living room - the computer has unlimited net but went mysteriously mute about a year ago and though the best minds of the Italian clan have tried to cure it, it seems determined to remain so. I'm going to try my hand at it too, while the boy shakes his head at my naivete and says it will never happen.

I don't mean to write with this blog with all the dull daily minutiae on a regular basis but it's my first day in a new land so it's excusable right?
I seem to be on course for my usual holiday minimalist diet and my uncle is already alarmed and pressing bananas and glasses of milk in my hand. My aunt is chilled out though and has a funny, almost zany streak so you know I think we will understand each other. I'm predicting good times.

I didn't mention yesterday night's abduction and surprise party. It was wonderful and a complete shock- I don't think anyone has so totally obliviously sleepwalked into their own leaving/ slash birthday party before. It's like the awesome version of when Cow drinks all my Vimto while I'm not looking and tells me I drank it myself and I believe her. I'm not crazy just too trusting..

And I'm Feeling Good..

I'm sorry it seems like this will be a photoless blog at least for a while as I didn't manage to excavate my camera. This journey could have been it's whole purpose in life but it's not meant to be- maybe it'll motivate me to draw travel sketches the oldfashioned way instead of clicking snaps.

I made a plane friend which is always a promising start to a trip. A courtly,cravat-wearing, older Italian gentleman who stepped aside to let me and my fifty handluggage bags tumble into the two seats near the window. It's lucky no one claimed the extra seat cause I needed all the seat and underfoot space available for my, as I said, fifty bags. Anyway we exchanged a friendly (and on my part apologetic) smiles and settled in with our books to determinedly ignore the safety spiel. As we took off I had that usual enchanted moment with the patchwork land and sun rising over pillowy skies that you feel whenever it's been too long since your last flight for you to take the magnificence for granted. And then I went to sleep.

In fact we both slept for about 2 hours until the plane began to descend and we both looked out at the suddenly Italian view. The gentleman pointed out to the farmland below and proudly said "that's my land" and I was unsure for a moment about whether he meant the precise farm we were flying over because it seemed amazingly coincidental. But despite my confusiom it broke the ice and with about 10 minutes before touchdown and constant interruptions from the pilot chatting about the weather and changing our watches, we managed to discover much in common and briefly sketch out our Manchester lives and Roman ambitions. He happened to be a former Italian Consulate something and current MMU and Stockport College Italian teacher. So naturally we talked about languages and English and Italian dialects and culture and by the time we reached baggage we were matily chatting in Italian (well he was, I was unabashed speaking incomprehensible cod-Italian which was actually Spanish with what I considered a Italian twist) He had no luggage to collect so he just taught me about five goodbye and good luck phrases and went on his way.

It's 4.30am and like MrC almost 2 years have past since my last post. I have been lying awake writing a blog post in my head so I should just get these reflections out of my system. My brain (or perhaps my spine) is juddering slightly from sleeplessness and so far i have not followed the lines so eloquently penned in my mind before the fight to create a physical manifestation (from basic huddling out of bed to start up Cow's laptop, to having to work around her illegal Windows Vista finally being held to account for its crimes (I cunningly clicked the activation link which grudgingly allowed me access to the net) and then having to dredge up my ridiculous one-off password that I created for this blog) Anyway I think I should start again..

In short I was reflecting, not for the first time, on the virtues of the blog compared to the ubiquitous facebook. Perhaps it's partly about control and privacy- it is your own personal domain and your voice carries far above any comments. But I feel the greatest appeal is the unique niche a blog can carve out, with a personality, a story, and a natural flow that the superficial information explosion of Facebook (where most of our talented and entertaining blogosphere - yes Bikey i mean you- migrated) cannot match. From Fudge, to Mad Cow, the Cs, and Slimey we had tales of their adventures told with brilliance and high drama (or if you're a C with elegance and urbanity)

Perhaps I'll be able to articulate this better another time but somehow it seems that facebook has created an emotional distance and voyeuristic aspect even with close friendships as day-to day-life is reduced to an information stream accessed without any interaction and received alongside a hundred other friends and acquaintances. It is a medium that doesn't lend itself to introspection or story-telling or sharing life experiences with more than a tagged photo. Everything and everyone is often public property- you are communicating your personality in lists. It's almost like an extension of the kind of overexposure once reserved for celebrities where pointless trivia such as favourite movies and books is given to people who barely know you and have no reason to care. It's a useful tool for connecting groups of people but it's all too much.

For example, I added new friends from my CELTA course as we reached the third week of our brief but intensive acquaintance. The contrast between the natural acquisition of knowledge about these guys and the sudden overload of hobbies, photos and unknown friendships felt somewhat intrusive and awkward to me. One guy had a horror of social networking and although he was a funny House-like misanthrope, I could sympathize even while uploading photos to preserve our transient friendship.

i'm tired and incoherent as usual I know but at least this time I don't have an audience!

Anyway my insomnia was tinged a little by the panic of thinking you shouldn't have given up that snug secure year long library post for thankless EFL work- or at least that 'adventure' could have waited a year and perhaps if you ask nicely you could get another internship. My other angel/ demon then rebukes me for being so lily-livered and assures me that so long as I save enough money to fund any artistic dreams then i have a sweet and free-spirited life, and that I am a rare, fortunate creature to have free living in Central Rome. But then I also hear whispers of concern that the iron is cooling rapidly for graduates and I should try for something with potential beyond scraping together enough for food and board. If I were to go back to July 21st though I would have taken a month to get travelling out of my system secure in the knowledge that a respectable university had given me a worthy librarian traineeship in an Art and Design library out of perhaps hundreds of applicants.

I don't know. My choices always seem wrong with transport and Life. I'm fairly content to chalk it up to experience but I fear my nature (at this point Windows officiously logged me off for illegality- but blogger magically saved the draft so I didn't have to silently shriek curses for long) rebels against obvious wisdom. I could list the ways but it's a sad story: my transportation choices are too often cause for regret- the wrong bus, the worst route, always, always.