Fireworks in Naples: The Secret Uncovered

Ever since I arrived in Naples I’ve been aware of the crazy amount of fireworks that are let off in the city. Not a week goes by without me having heard at least one firecracker or rocket or whatnot. Sometimes you hear just a single firework, sometimes there is a whole display. I put this down the Neapolitans loving to celebrate. “Yay, SCC Napoli won!” “Yay, Happy Birthday!” “Yay it’s the weekend”. Although I did always find it odd that they are sometimes let off in the middle of the day. Why would you let off fireworks in the day time!?!?!

What I didn’t know was, these fireworks aren’t part of a celebration. They are a signal. When someone lets a firework off it means that the drug dealer is in the neighbourhood. I will leave you to dwell on that.

Isn’t a bit of an obvious signal? Surely the police know? Of course they do, but I’m sure you can guess who runs the drug dealing and why the police are “oblivious” to it.

BED BUGS!?!?!?!

Yesterday morning I woke up to find a very red bump on my leg. I was a little confused and guessed that maybe I had cut myself shaving a few days before and hadn’t noticed it. This morning I woke up to find a similar lump on my other leg. I’m pretty certain that it wasn’t there the day before. The original one is a quite itchy and I can’t help but worry that I have bed bugs!

(I know if any of my friends are reading this they are probably laughing at my usual hypochondria)

But seriously what else could it be? Mosquitoes? I just don’t know.

I need help with my addiction

When I first came to Italy I was addicted to buying shoes. A few months on and I find myself buying toiletries like there is no tomorrow. I now have at least 3 x the amount of bathroom products than I did when I arrived.

I went out yesterday to buy a book and instead came back with 35 euro worth of toiletries.

The worst thing is that I was supposed to buy shampoo but bought the conditioner and ended up going into an other shop to pick up the shampoo. AND when I got home I realised I bought the wrong hair mask. I wanted the one for dry hair but had bought the one for dark hair. I should have just stayed at home. What a fail of a shopping day.

(p.s. no I didn’t buy a book in the end)

Two pizzas in one week, feels like I’m back at uni

I finally met up with my friends again last night.

It was very spontaneous. I received a phone call at about 7.30pm asking me if I wanted to go round my friend’s house for dinner and then out after. I didn’t have any plans, apart from the weekly what a movie on a Friday night tradition, so I accepted the offer.

We ordered pizza, which was funny because my host mum had ordered pizza on Tuesday night. Although I’m living in the capital of pizza, I really haven’t eaten it that often so to eat it twice in one week seemed a little o.t.t and reminded me of when I’m at uni and end up eating Pizza for dinner, and then leftovers for lunch and dinner then next day all thanks to two for Tuesday at Dominoes. But I’m not complaining, and I had two different pizzas. On Tuesday it was margarita and last night D.O.C.

The funny thing was that her boyfriend decided to design his own pizza which consisted of ricotta cheese, ham and……………chips. I’m sorry, it’s ridiculous to put pineapple or sweet corn on a pizza, yet acceptable to have a bowl of French fries on the top. It did taste rather good though haha.

After dinner we went to another friend’s house for a bit and then we all got in the car to go to a bar. We drove to Bagnoli only find that the bar was shut. We waited outside the bar (in the car) for 30 minutes, because the others hadn’t arrived yet. In that time I fell asleep and they decided to take me home.

So that was my night last night. It wasn’t too exciting but better than staying at home. I’ve spent today trying to start a plan for Italian essay but I’m finding it hard to concentrate since I haven’t eaten any proper food all day. My host mum is in a weird mood today and she went out without leaving me anything to eat and has no come home without saying hello and gone straight onto the computer, so I’m 80% sure I’m not going to be getting any proper dinner either. I’m not gonna lie, I’m rather annoyed by this. 

EDIT: Almost forgot…They cut the pizza with SCISSORS!

I AM SO ANGRY

So today, after a weeks postponement we were supposed to be allocated our option units for next year.  Well once again they haven’t met their deadline and I am really really really flipping angry!

They have had an extra week to sort this out, a whole week! How much time do they need!

But what makes me really angry is that fact that we have received no email or apology or news on what is going on. Basically they have gone off home and we won’t hear from them until Monday at the earliest! And on Monday it will just be them letting us know when they will be “ready”.

I’m sorry but I go to one of the best universities in the world and yet their office staff cannot meet a single deadline! It’s a joke, seriously a joke. My boyfriend goes to the ex-poly in the same city and he has never had this problem. SOME HEADS NEED TO ROLE!

Last day at school.

I can’t believe how fast the last 14 weeks have gone. It seems like just last month a was walking in the historical centre of Naples with my mentor listening to her warning me about the pupils and school.

Today was a day of mixed emotions. Firstly a day of sadness. Knowing that this would be the last time I see the students, the teachers, enter the school…..did choke me a little. It was a of hyperactivity and silliness. Although the school year doesn’t finish until next week, most of the pupils will take the week off (it appears school isn’t as compulsory here in Italy as it is back home) so everyone had those pre-summer holiday jitters. It was very contagious and made the classes very enjoyable. And finally it was a reflective day. I spent a lot of time reflecting on my experience in the school. Although I was often sat in class bored, I view the experience as positive. I was bored only because I didn’t have much responsibility. My job was to sit in the room and occasionally interrogate the children or read a passage aloud. The times when I actually got to substitute the absent teachers were a lot more fun. But what has made my time at the school so positive is that I realised how much I’d love to be a teacher. Everyday that I sat there staring at the clock, I was itching to have my own classroom, my own teachers desk, my own register…and so on. In the last 14 weeks I have analysed and evaluated all of the different teaching techniques and approaches so that when it is my time to play teacher I can make sure that I can be the best. Because of that I really feel that I’ve got a lot out of this experience. Enjoying your placement is one thing, but actually learning from it is definitely better.

I wrote the teachers some small letters to express my gratitude and to wish the pupils luck in their studies and summer exams. I stupidly forgot to bring the letter for the headmaster, and I didn’t manage to catch one of the English teachers today so I will give those letters to my mentor when I see her tomorrow. The letter to my mentor was the easiest to write because I didn’t need to think of what to write. Everything I wrote to her came straight from the heart because she has been fantastic. Before I came to Italy I really didn’t like her. She was ridiculously unhelpful and vague. She would take weeks to reply to my emails and even then she would dodge my questions or answer “I don’t know”. My friend from uni did her Comenius placement during the winter term and her mentor was much more active during the summer holidays. She phoned her up, found her accommodation without my friend even asking, gave her tons of information. Fast forward almost a year and her mentor turned out to be the b*tch from hell and mine ended up being the most generous, caring woman in the whole of Naples. I have a lot of thank her for. She has not just been my mentor but a great friend.

So I now have 4 weeks free before I fly back home. They are pretty much going to be spent writing my Italian essay, with a weeks break when my boyfriend comes to visit on the 4th June. I can tell that the time is going to fly by and before I know it I will be back in the UK. It’s very strange. Unbelievable in fact.

That awkward moment when…

Your pupil is wearing the same t-shirt as you.

Damn I <3 NY tee.

His mum does his homework for him!?!?

I’m guessing that this isn’t just an Italian thing, although my host mum did tell me that University Students are allowed to collaborate with their parents on their dissertations, but yesterday I was shocked to see how active some parents are in their child’s education.

Yesterday the teacher who I give private lessons to asked me to stay an extra half an hour to help her son practice for his trinity speaking exam. Basically what he needed to do was prepare a topic, give a small speech about it and then answer some pre-prepared questions. Simple enough. Now I know the teacher well enough to know how much she pushes her kids. She is always finding educational talks to send them to, signing them up for three months learning English in the UK, etc, so I’m fairly sure it was her who pushed him to do the trinity course and it was her idea for him to practice with me. What did surprise me though was that the teacher had chosen the topic, written the speech and chosen the questions for her son. He came home and she handed him everything and told him to go learn it.

I was completely in shock.

I’d never heard of any parent going to that much hassle for this child. Maybe it’s because my parents took such a back seat during my education. I was left to my own devises, which is probably why I am so stubborn now. I hate people trying to offer me help or advice with my work if I haven’t asked them for it. While I appreciate that is trying to help her son achieve a good grade, I think it’s a little OTT. Firstly because the grade he receives will not be a realistic evaluation of his own capabilities in English, secondly because it evidently made the process much more difficult for him. He was reading through the speech and he didn’t understand a thing. Not because the theme was to hard, or because he doesn’t understand English, but because they were not his words, it wasn’t his way of saying things. Even if he had wrote it in very poorly structured sentences at least HE would know what he was trying to say. You could see him stressing out trying to remember the phrases when I asked him questions. He ended up getting upset and blaming his mother for writing it to difficultly, which was rather rich don’t you think.

At the end of the day none of this is my business but it was something new that I had observed that needed a place to be stored.

p.s. The post before this was my 200th post. CRAZZZY.   

I’m down with the nuns

I get a little excited when I see nuns.

I don’t know why, but something about them just fascinates me.

Today I managed to get to the cumana stations just as the train pulled in so I ran down through the under pass onto binario 2 and into the cumana. I slumped myself onto the first seat available.

It so happened that I was sat facing a nun!

As the the cumana pulled away from the station the nun started to talk to me!

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Quarto”

“Ah I’m going to Quarto too. I need to get off at the second Quarto station, are you getting off at the first or second?”

“The second”

“The second as well? Great. I don’t know where the stop is, so I’ll just follow you.”

Next thing I knew she had her mobile out and told who ever was on the other line not to worry as a nice signorina was going to show her where to get off.

The funniest part was her using her mobile. She was basically shouting down the phone (I’m guessing she hasn’t realised that the microphone is sensitive enough to pick up your voice at normal volume). Then she decided to start playing around with her ring tones, annoying the hell out of everyone haha. I’m sure back in the nunnery she’s the one who causes all the trouble.

I’ve lost my drive.

I got a bit of a shock today when I turned on my laptop and looked at the countdown on my desktop. 33 days until I go home! This is exciting news as I’m becoming incredibly more and more home sick but this is also terrifying.

Where did the time go?

This lack of time scares me because I feel like I could still improve my Italian a lot, I don’t feel like I’ve properly experienced all that Italy has to offer yet and probably the most stressful of all is that I have a 3000-3500 word essay due in five days after I return and I'm still on my preliminary reading.

The main reason why I’m feeling like this is my own fault. I’ve lost my drive to do anything here in Italy. I’ve pretty much lost track of time because everyday is the same. I get up, go to work, come home, sit on the computer, maybe give a private lesson, come home, sit on the computer, go to bed. In German everyday was unique, I was constantly busy doing something new. But I find it hard to push myself to do stuff here. My mentor keeps getting on my back about why I always wait for people to contact me about going out, why don’t I contact them. The truth is that I’m not that fussed about going out with them. Like I’ve said before they are not the type of people I would hang out with at home. I only agree to going out with them so I can speak some Italian, not for enjoyment. I feel like a real b*tch saying that, but it’s the truth. I haven’t really travelled in Italy because the price scares me. A weekend away costs about triple the price that it would in Germany. I also don’t like the idea of spending the weekend by myself. At the moment I’m contemplating going to Florence for 2 nights after my boyfriend leaves because I really want to see the statue of David. But there is some force pulling me back.

I think I’m probably stuck in this rut because of boredom. I just want to go home. My time here in Italy is no where near as enjoyable as Germany. It’s no ones fault and it could be much worse. I’m very lucky to have my three mums here (My mentor, host mum, and the teacher I give English lessons to) without them and their kindness I probably would have gone insane. 

This post has ended up as a bit of an unstructured ramble, which pretty much sums up the state of my mind at the moment. 33 days huh? 33 days.

Exhausted from exercise

When I first came to Naples until Easter I went out every Saturday (and occasionally Sunday) mornings for a walk with my mentor. Last weekend she invited me out again but this time for a different type of walk. Originally we used to meet in the centre and walk down to the sea, along the sea front and up to the metro station at Piazza Amedeo. Last weekend and yesterday the route was completely different. We met in Pozzuoli, a town just outside of Naples, and walked all the way into Naples finally stopping at the Agnano Cumana station in Bagnoli.

The route – 5.3 Km

With her determination to achieve the perfect bikini body, we walked the whole way at a very fast pace, completing the walk in about 45 minutes. Yesterday the temperature was 25C and I was sweating a lot. So much in fact that the ink from my coke bottle label melted all over my hands.

Naples: Setting the record straight.

I’m not going to pretend that I’m the biggest fan of Naples. Nor am I going to pretend that all of it’s negative press is wrong. What I am going to say in this post is that although Naples is a neglected, chaotic and somewhat dirty city, there is no need for people to treat it with such disgusting disrespect and pure ignorance.

This rant is the result of me reading a blog entry, which you can read in full here if you so wish: http://apetcher.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/sorrento-danger-in-naples/ . Now what really rattled my cage about this blog entry was his ridiculously close-minded and unintelligent review on Naples. This blog appears to very popular and I assume that this subscribers use his reviews as a means of learning whether or not a place is worth visiting. I think his review was completely unfair on Naples because it is very one-sided and based on non-factual information. To put it bluntly it is antipropaganda.

My first criticism of his review is this sentence “Naples […] was dangerous for a number of reasons.  Most obvious of all is its perilously close proximity to Vesuvius that looms large over the city.” This is possibly one of the last reasons why going to Naples is “dangerous”. If he’d bothered to do his research he would know that Naples is not in the red zone of Vesuvius. There are rumours that IF there happened to be another eruption to the scale of one that happened 4000 years ago (before the famous eruption that buried Pompeii” Naples could be effected and even destroyed by molten debris and ash, but this is certainly not a reason to view a trip to Naples as dangerous. And even more importantly is the fact that Vesuvius is THE MOST monitored volcano in the world. If there was to be an eruption we would be given notice and thus I doubt you as a tourist would be able to enter Naples in the first place.

His second reason for Naples “dangerous”ness is “lawlessness because Naples has enormous problems with Mafia style organised crime. The Naples equivalent of the Mafia is the Camorra, which is a loose confederation of criminal networks in control of organised crime, prostitution, arms dealing and drug-trafficking, and the gang wars result in a high number of deaths.” Now I appreciate that he does say that the likelihood of him and his group being effected by the Camorra was low, but he then adds that “the tour guide did give strong advice on taking care of wallets and valuables and a recommendation not to buy anything from illegal street vendors.”  Although both of these citations are true, they are in now way relative of each other. Camorra and pickpocketing is not related. Pickpocketing is a problem in most large European cities. To be honest you would be stupid to walk around any city as a tourist with your wallet full of holiday money in your back pocket. Even without the pickpocketing, his argument is still flawed. The Camorra is more of an inconvenience than a danger, and as a inconvenience I am referring to politics and the running of the city. There is no contact or “danger” between Camorra and tourists. These deaths by gang wars are more or less deaths of clan members or acquaintances. Camorra is no reason to write off Italy.

My third criticism is his reasons for describing Naples as a “unhealthy city”. Naming smog and air pollution as the main culprits is laughable. This is a big city what do you expect? London, Tokyo, New York…air pollution is the downside of urbanisation. I would have preferred to have read more about the rubbish crisis, the animal faeces, the pong of the sea and so on. Even then I don’t see Naples as being “unhealthy”. I suffer from Asthma and I certainly don’t find myself suffocating from the smog. I agree that graffiti is nasty and cheapens the city, however how does graffiti damage your health?

Maybe I’m being to harsh, maybe I’m just irritable. All I know that if you going to make claims about Italy, at least back them up properly. People who read this mans blog and believe his “facts” will be left with a very poor vision of a city that is a little rough around the edges but has at least something to offer: a view into unique Neapolitan life…oh and there is more to Neapolitan cuisine than just pizza (whose taste he didn’t even bother to comment on)!

My finally words are that if he is really that close-minded then maybe he should just stick to anglicised tourist towns like is Sorrento.  

Told you! Incompetent SML office.

Do you remember about 9 days ago I gave in my form for next years optional units? I made a prediction that I would not the allocation results by today. Guess what, I was right!

As per usual, the SML office were unable to meet their own deadline sending us an email with some excuse of how their “timetabling software” wasn’t functioning properly and we’d have to wait until next Friday. Although I’m not holding my breath for next Friday as they added onto the end of the email “we will email you when they are ready” which pretty much means we will email you some time after Friday when we’ve finally got our act together.

To give them credit they did send this email on Monday, which meant that I didn’t log on to my email account today all pumped up to discover what the future holds for me in terms of stress for next year. However I’m still narked about it and really don’t want to wait a minimum of another week. I just want to know god damn it!

A terrible death

Sunday morning I turned on the TV to watch the news and found out about a car accident that had happened in the early hours of Sunday morning on via Petrarca in Naples. The initial shock came from the brutality of the accident. The car had fallen straight down a cliff landing upside down. The second shock were the victims: three 19 year old boys. I listened closely to make sure that it wasn’t anyone that I knew. Despite that I still felt upset and panic. The road that the boys were driving on was a road that I have been on before. It’s a panoramic route, which my friends love to drive on at night. I often feel unsafe in my friends’ cars. They don’t have seat belts in the back, they drive intoxicated, the drive too fast, they drive whilst dancing. I couldn’t help wonder if something like this could have easily happened to me.

A few days have passed since then and I’d kinda forgotten about it all. Today me and my mentor when home with the teacher than I give private lessons too. She had texted me a few times in the last few days cancelling lessons and plans saying that she was having problems at home. We were worried about her so we accompanied her in the car so that she could vent out her stress. The teacher has a son who’s my age and I was fairly sure it was him who was giving her agro. However the reason was completely unexpected. Her son had gone out with his friends Saturday night. He got drunk out of his face and in the end he was taken home by one of his friends. The other three lads stayed at the club. These three lads drove home together and had the accident. Needless to say I’m back in a state of shock. I’m shocked that I’m somehow connected to this death; they aren’t really strangers anymore, but friends of my teacher’s son. I’m even more shocked to know that her son could have ended up as the fourth victim. I don’t know him very well but I see him once a week and we say hello. It all drills into me the loss of life of people my age and how easy it is to die. Sometimes I wonder if I am overly cautious, but seeing the effect this is having on my teacher and her son (who has now fallen into a state of depression, unsurprisingly) I’m really upset and wish the young people of Naples would take better care of themselves.

I know this type of thing doesn’t only happen in Naples, but in England there is the knowledge among young people that drink driving kills. In Naples no, at least not among the people I know. I hope that her son will pull through this and my heart goes out to the family and friends of these boys. I just hope this shock will be enough to teach people my age to think before they get into a car drunk.

Burger King, Mcdonalds or Kebab?

The last few days I’ve felt like I’ve been on a diet.

Tonight was the first time I’ve eaten meat in about a week!

Small portion sizes and so much fruit and veg have left me craving some fatty, greasy fast food.

So I’m planning on taking a wander to get me some “real food” tomorrow.

I haven’t decided where though. All are pretty far away. Maccy D’s is a Cumana and Metro ride away. Burger King needs the Cumana and a 10-15 minute walk. Kebab is about the same distance if not a we bit further than BK.

Maybe I’ll have a real preference tomorrow.

I feel so naughty!

Mathematics

I’m going home in 40 days

My boyfriend is coming to Italy in 20 days

Our 4 year anniversary is in 22 days

My assistantship finishes in 2 weeks (14 days)

I only actually have 8 days left at the school (I’ve had a 5 day weekend (Fri-Tue) thanks to the school being used as a polling station).

BUT

59 days until I go to Germany

69 days until I go to see the German Grand Prix

 

Eurovision / “Eurofestival” Rant and Review

So as I posted yesterday, last night was the Eurovision finals 2011.

I spent my night watching rai2 and writing to my boyfriend on skype to discuss each of the acts.

My first reaction of the night was nothing to do with the show itself but with Rai. Rai you are possibly the worst television broadcaster ever. Not only do you annoy me with you constant advert breaks, yes I missed the half time performance because Rai had to make it’s sponsors happy, just bring in a TV licence already, but also your format of presenting the show.

Now its been a while since I’ve watched it properly in the UK, but as I remember it you pretty much have a live coverage from the arena, with a running commentary.

Oh no that’s way to impersonal for Italy. No we had a studio set up, similar to a talk show. We had the presenter, Raffaella Carrà (you would have seen her giving out Italy’s results), sat on stage with Bob Sinclar (who speaks no Italian), behind them was a fairly large screen showing the concert, surrounding the stage was a panel of judges, and then surrounding them was a large studio audience. No what annoyed me about this set up was that the show appeared to be more about these Italians than what was happening in Duesseldorf.  Every opportunity they had, they came back to the studio. We pretty much missed most of the opening apart from Lena’s part in the song, although they kept focusing Raffaela back into the foreground to show her skills at dancing in her seat. The only time we got to watch the show undisturbed was during the countries’ performances. The results part was the worst. It was practically 70% discussion in the studio and 30% results on screen. Even when the results were on the screen we couldn’t hear anything because Raffaella and her crew were still having their own conversation. There were many times when I was actually screaming “show the f****ing results!!!” at the screen (don’t worry I was home alone).

Ignoring the awful direction of the show, I found Raffaela to be very unprofessional. Now I know our commentators in the UK like to joke around about the other acts, but Raffaela’s comments were just b*tchy. At the beginning of the results when the UK were actually top and Italy wasn’t really getting anywhere she was all happy for the UK and Sweden and Azerbaijan. “There performance was really good”, “Blue is one of the best boy bands from the UK”, “He’s young and will appeal to the young girls” etc etc. Then all of a sudden Italy begins to climb up (When San Marino and Spain gave there results you could see that they were all thinking “you better give us 12 points!!!”, in fact Rafaella practically said that about San Marino.) and her whole attitude changed. All of a sudden comments like “Why??? I didn’t even understand there song! What were people listening too?” (– Azerbaijan) and “Oh come on, just because he’s good looking!” (- Sweden) were spouting out of her vicious mouth. I’m surprised she didn’t go the whole hog and us the “Azerbaijan isn’t even in Europe” line. 

I also didn’t enjoy the addition of Bob Sinclar. I found it rather awkward. I mean his comments were witty, especially his dig at one of the acts French pronunciation, but he doesn’t speak Italian so he was really just sad there twiddling his thumbs and looking bored and neglected for most of the show. Raeffella did talk to him, but by the end of it she was beginning to get a bit patronising with Italy beginning to top the table and France lagging way behind. “ooo 6 points to France, well done” *gives him a little hug*.  I just thought he was an odd guest to have. Maybe Fabri Fabra was busy?   

All in all, I think that Germany hosted a good show (of what I could see from behind Raeffi’s big head”) and there were some really good acts. I think Italy deserved to come 2nd although honestly I was surprised. I’m glad that Jedward didn’t win, hopefully they can now crawl back into their pit, grow up and get a day job. I’m proud that we managed to stay on the left hand side of the board. I personally don’t agree with the result, but that’s Eurovision for you.

Oh one more thing…Sweden was so fit!

Eurovision Tonight

I’m very excited for tonight’s telly. Rai2 is showing the 2011 Eurovision song contest!

It’s been years since I’ve been able to watch it live, thanks to my Saturday 6-10 evening shifts at Tesco.

I love Eurovision. I love its cheesiness. I love how it brings together the whole of Europe. I love listening to people singing in different languages. I also used to love the Sir Terry Wogan’s commentary, Graham Norton just isn’t the same..

I would have loved to have been able to watch it live in Duesseldorf.

Instead I will be sat at the dinning room table cheering on Blue and hoping that Jedward fail miserably. Although I have to admit they are perfect for Eurovision (it’s a shame they are just repulsive little rodents which need to be exterminated of asap). I think that the UK stands a chance with Blue though. They are well known in Europe, Italy loves them, so that should give us some advantage Come on UK!

Oh and remember to:

VOTE UK! – VOTA PER REGNO UNITO! – STIMM FÜR DAS VEREINIGTE KÖNIGREICH! – VOTE POUR ROYAUME-UNI

(I know I will…haha cheeky)

Saturn: A little piece of Germany in downtown Naples

I found the location of Saturn purely by luck.

A few months ago I was on the bus to the airport and we just happened to go past it.

You can’t really miss the huge black building amongst the usual small rundown shops with apartments on the top.

Naples doesn’t really do big stores, let alone superstores. And the only electrical stores are small local businesses. So having a electrical giant like Saturn in the town (despite it’s annoying location; I had to take the Cumana, Metro and a Bus to get there) is a big bonus.

Yesterday I took a trip down there to replace my broken headset and have a bit of a browse.

It wasn’t as big as the German stores but by Naples’ standards it was a beast.

I managed to pick up a headset and a DVD for just over €20. I was a little peeved as I found the DVD I’d bought last weekend for €6 less than I’d paid.

 

My purchases: I don’t know if you can see but the headset only has one speaker, which I don’t like but it wasn’t too expensive and I can put up with it until my boyfriend comes in June with a new one for me. The DVD…I have no idea what it’s about but it was cheap and Italian; my boyfriend says it looks slightly pornographic…thanks :/

The word pollice restoring my faith in the imperial system.

Today I learnt the word pollice. At first I thought it was a miss spelling of “police” but thanks to wordreference.com I discovered that it actually means “thumb”.

But what is even more interesting is that it also means…”inch”.

Now this isn’t headline worthy news, but for me it finally backs up a claim that I had been making for years – That an inch is the size of your thumb.

I say “had been” because a few years ago I realised that although this claim was true when I was taught it in reception class, at 17 years of age my thumb was considerably longer than before and thus my concept of an inch was completely over exaggerated.

No wonder I used to laugh in disbelief at boys who bragged about having a 12inch…….

Oh I do love to be beside the seaside.

I remember last year I had imagined my life in Italy involving many relaxing days at the beach. Walking, jogging, sunbathing, reading. I was more than a little disappointed to arrive in Naples and find that not only is there no beach, but you cannot go in the sea because it is polluted and will leave you with a very nasty rash.

But yesterday my dream came true. The teacher who I give private English lessons too is a bit of a free spirit. Her home life has been rather stressful at the moment and she’s found that fleeing to the coast for a few hours is the prefect was to escape reality. While she dropping me off home on Tuesday she asked me if I would like to join her after school on Thursday (yesterday).

Yesterday was the perfect day for lounging around by the sea. It was 25C yesterday (finally!) and there was no breeze, so you can only imagine how unbearable the heat was in the city. We drove to a piece of the coast in a town called Lago Patria, which is only 15 minutes away from the school by car.

Yesterday I discovered how different Italian and English beaches are. For a start we had to pay to get onto the beach. Although the coastline is long, it is divided into many tiny “beaches” owned by different people/companies. The prices of each beach differ, as well as what they offer. For example a few beaches down from the one we went to, there was a Thailand themed beach. The beach we went to was very simple. We paid 5 euro to get onto the beach and then an attendant came and set up too sun loungers for us in the spot of our choice. When we were all settled he came back with a menu. We ordered two paninis with fresh mozzarella and tomatoes (delicious). I’ve never seen this type of service before. If you want to eat at the beach in England you either bring a picnic or walk to the nearby chippy.

Another difference was the people. Because of the time of the time of day that we arrived the beach wasn’t ridiculously busy. In fact most of the people there appeared to be beach regulars…a.k.a sun addicts. Back home I’m use to having a darker skin tone that my friends, it’s inherited from my father, but today I have never felt so white. While I was there applying my sun factor 30, everyone else was rubbing in the baby oil. Everyone was a over-roasted chicken colour. But it wasn’t just their colour that shocked me; it was their dedication. There was retired couples topping up their tan, mothers with new born babies, and middle aged men on their own. Surely going to the beach alone to tan yourself loses you man points!?!?!

(Tanning Addict!)

All this aside, I had an amazing few hours at the beach. I wasn’t able to go into the sea because it wasn’t very clear but hopefully next time we go back it will be cleaner. It was really weird being at the beach. I felt like I was on holiday. I felt a million miles away from the chaotic, rubbish filled streets of Naples. We were only there for two hours, but they were the most relaxing two hours of my time in Italy so far. Also there was something addictingly liberating about being in my bikini. I have a lot of body issues but being surrounded by people who are just there letting it all hang out made me appreciate my body a lot more than before. It’s easy to forget that most people don’t look like model in a bikini. It’s ok to be normal.

I’m looking forward to my next trip to the beach. As long as the weather behaves itself then we will be off to the beach again next week. :D

Earthquake in Rome…tomorrow?

There is supposed to be an Earthquake in Rome tomorrow, according to a premonition made in the last century by an Italian famed for his accuracy at predicting natural disasters.

The earthquake will be large enough to destroy the city.

This is rather worrying and I do hope it is wrong.

I’m supposed to be visiting Rome in three weeks time!

OOOOO B*tchy

Supposedly one of the male teachers has put together a hot list ranking all of the female teachers (as far as I’m aware I’ve been left out, probably since I look younger than half of the students).

My mentor decided to tell me this juicy bit of gossip whilst adding “And you’ll never guess who he put first…P----…can you believe it!?!? HER!!! Before me!!!”

ahahaha…what?

Now I too agree that Mrs P isn’t the most attractive woman in the school. Her pre-aged skin and badly dyed long jet black hair don’t do her any favours. However she does dress the most provocatively, which is probably the real reason she’s top in the rankings. But still, that is a very arrogant and b*tchy thing to say. I’d expect this from our pre-teen pupils but a 40 year old talking about a colleague…well it just goes to show girls will be girls.

This all reminds me of when I made a hot list at college. Within a week there were at least five more floating around the classroom. I quickly learnt how controversial they were when people start comparing the rankings and even asking you why they were below so and so (funnily enough I think I ranked my future boyfriend 4th of 8 or 9 ooops). I think this teacher should learn from my mistake because if word gets out about what my mentor has been saying then there is going to be a b*tch fight!

Fourth Year Option Form Sent

I hate choosing options.

The thing I hate about it, is that no matter how much thought you put into it there is always the chance that you can be allocated a unit which you don’t want to do. I don’t know about other unis but mine has a strict policy on changing class. Once your class/unit has been allocated you can only change if there is a timetable clash.

The second thing I hate is that even after they have allocated you your units, even after you have bought the books on the reading list and started your preliminary reading, even after the first day of university has began….the school office can move you without warning into a different class! This happened to me last year and I was most upset. I had just spent £60 on books and was really looking forward to study some linguistics (which I didn’t get the chance to study at all last year thanks to the move). I did love my unit they moved me into, and luckily it was my second choice, but that’s not the point.

The third thing I hate is the lack of variability, especially this year. Thanks to our Dean of Arts, we have lost one of our strongest and most versatile academics which has left us with a poor selection of unit choices. Our history units now only go as far back as the late 19th century and for god knows what reason we have no literature this year (unless you count “German Sonnets”). Where’s Faust!

Numbering my units from 1-10 was a tiresome process and I pray that I get my first choices because I literally hate all of the other units. At least this year, in theory, we only have to wait 9 days to find out our allocations in comparison to the 6 weeks we had to wait in 2009. I say in theory because the School of Modern Languages has never, in my whole time at university, met a deadline for the publication of anything.  

At least I have one less thing to worry about now.

“That is Buckingham Palace”–“No, it’s not”

I’m coming to the end of my tether with ignorant English teachers. I’ve come to the point where I want to fire them. If I only had such power.

I know this is harsh and who am I to talk; I’m a mere language assistant. Maybe so, but how can you call yourself an English teacher when you prove lesson after lesson your incompetence, cluelessness and disinterest in the language and culture that you are teaching.

The trigger of all this anger:

Teacher – “Who knows which building this is next to Big Ben?”

Pupil – “Buckingham Palace”

Teacher – “Yes, that’s right”

URRGGGGGGHHHHH.

When I corrected her, she replied “but Buckingham Palace right behind Big Ben, you just can’t see it from this photo, right?”.

Mamma mia!!!!! 

Trying to find my happy place

I’m finding it hard to be happy at the moment. I’ve been stuck in this state of depressive apathy since Easter. Maybe it’s after the departure of my family and then coming back from Pisa that I realised how alone I am.

In a way I should count my blessings that I’m living with a family. I can’t imagine how much worse I would be feeling if I was actually stuck in a flat by myself. When i keep myself busy I am fine: at school, private lessons, shopping, talking to my host Mother. But when I am alone my mood hit a low.

I don’t think this is just the usual W-curve syndrome. I think there are genuine contributions to my mood:

First one is my boyfriend. He’s ridiculously busy at the moment with his dissertation. I’m used to speaking to him on Skype pretty much whenever I’m free and no I’m lucky if I get to speak to him every other day. It’s a vicious circle in fact. When I don’t speak to him I feel lonely, and when I’m lonely I want to speak to him.

The second and third merge together. I realised this week a big difference between Marburg and Naples. Naples doesn’t feel like home. I remember when I went to Munich a month into my semester in Germany and when I arrived back in Marburg I was relieved to be back; I’d missed it that much. It wasn’t the same coming back from Pisa. Naples is interesting, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t have much compassion for it. Maybe its because it is so much bigger. Maybe because it’s not heavily populated by students like Mburg. And maybe, here comes my third reason, its because I don’t have my friends here. No I know that I do have “friends” in Naples, but they’re friends in the English sense of the word. If I was German then they would definitely just be “Bekannte”. It’s a little sad for me to say that, but its true. They are lovely people and I’m so grateful for their hospitality but we have little in common and I really doubt we will stay in contact when I leave. It’s just that I really believe that I managed to survive so well in Marburg thanks to my amazing network of friends there. There was always someone there for you. To talk to you, to keep you busy, to make you smile, to pick you up when you’re down. Apart from my host mum and mentor (who are both great but huge worriers) I don’t have that sort of support here.

My fourth is really just me being my typical self. It’s a trait that I hate and will always haunt me. I get very paranoid about people not liking me. It always happens and I’ve messed up so many friendships because of it. I always read too much into things and end up coming to the conclusion that someone doesn’t like me anymore. I’ve found myself doing this lately with someone my friends from Marburg. There are a few who I’ve only heard from two or three times since moving here and that is only  when I’ve contacted them. I’ve written them letters/postcards but I don’t receive a “hey I got your postcard thanks.”. My brain tells me that people are busy and that not everyone thinks to tell you they received your post or they don’t want to bother you. Maybe they forgot to reply to your Facebook message etc. But no matter how logically I look at things, that nagging voice always makes me worry that it’s a sign that they don’t care. I wish I could grow out of this because I know this is just making me feel worse for absolutely no reason. Maybe writing this down will make me listen to myself!

I’m just very homesick and Marburg sick at the moment. I just want to be happy again. Maybe this is just the illness talking.

Taking a year out?

I’m a little scared at the moment (and ill booooo).

I blogged a few days ago about finally accepting that probably the best career for me is teaching. I’ve been doing a bit of research on PGCEs and what type of languages currently have the most vacancies and I hit a brick wall…not literally of course.

Turns out that most PGCEs are language specific rather than just “Modern Foreign Languages”. I’m still a little confused as to whether this means that after the PGCE you will only be qualified for that combination of languages or whether you can teach other languages on top of those two. The combination of German and Italian is very rare to find as a PGCE. Most of the institutions that offer it are ones that I have no interest it. Cambridge and Bristol do offer it, however when examining teaching vacancies I realised how sort after French still is.

This got me worried. I know that Italian is the least taught language out of the top 4 (French, German, Spanish, Italian) but I suddenly remembered how German is being slowly filtered out of schools. Children supposedly prefer to learn Spanish. What if by the time I am a qualified teacher the need for German teachers is really low. My Italian isn’t exactly going to be a good back up is it.

So now I’m in the dilemma of do I or don’t I pick up my French again. As long as I’ve studied at least one of the languages to degree level the other can be at A level standard, which is fine for me I have a 6 in HL IB French. However a little part of me finds this all rather cheeky. How can I possibly teach French when I know as much as the Year 12 children in my class. I know from my experience here that the English teachers, here in Italy, who have never been to England are pretty awful and clueless. I do not want to be like them.

I’m starting to consider the idea of taking a year out between graduation and starting the PGCE to improve my French. Maybe do another teaching assistantship but this time with the British Council (although last I heard was that they might me doing away with it), which would both improve my French and give me more experience. Or study French as a foreign language at a university in France. Become an au pair???

I don’t know at the moment I’m a little antsy about starting my career late. I can already hear my body clock ticking. Sounds stupid when I’m only 21 years old, but my mum was 17 when I was born, 30 when she had her last kid. My 20 year old cousin is pregnant and engaged (as are umpteen people from my year at school…the figure is almost reaching 20). I’m really worried about running out of time but on the other hand I don’t want to be like my German teacher for GCSE who used to sweat and consult the dictionary every time I asked him a question. I want to be a role model for my pupils.

I thought deciding what I wanted to do in life would make this decision making easier :(