Skip to main content

Teaching Story

One thing I probably didn't do enough of while tutoring in Italy was to actually tell stories about tutoring in Italy. Of course there are plenty of posts about where we went and what we did in those places, but not much about the actual teaching, save the vespa disaster.

Shortly after we arrived in Italy we started making flyers to advertise our services, and we proceeded to post them around the city (near schools, mostly). We received a few bites from these, including one from a woman named Flaminia*. She wanted to meet me to talk about a few things and she had specific questions in her attempt to learn English.

I agreed to meet her at a bookstore which held a cafe in the basement and we began talking about what might be a good way to get her started with the language. She very quickly began asking me specific questions that I was completely unprepared for: Things like "how is my pronunciation?" or "When these 2 letters go together, how do I make that sound?" or "What does 'you f***ed me over' mean?"

She then went on to a full list of questions about the phrases "f*ck you over," "you f*cked me over," "f*ck over you," and any other combination of F, over, and you that you could ever imagine.

Basically, the only thing she wanted to know in English was how to get into a really vulgar argument about who F'ed who and how one of them was "over" the other one in the process. I was able to get into detail about how, technically, you could literally be "over someone" by being above them, but how you could also be "over someone emotionally" by not caring about them anymore, and then had to say that you "f*ck someone over" by putting them in a bad situation with very little help.

After a full hour of this, she was satisfied and had to go on to her next appointment in life, but we agreed to meet again the following week.

We spent another hour talking about how to "f*ck someone up."

That was our last meeting together. I think she has a pretty solid grasp on English at this point.

*Name changed, not that it matters.

And now that it's Friday, here are some fun links of things I've enjoyed or written this week...

From RobotButt: Chingy's Excellent Rap Lyrics and Baby Sad About Something.

An incredible story about a 150 year old dildo in New England.

From here on this blog, a silly short story, Day 1 in Rome, and that one time I ate ants.

Happy Friday. Ta.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Naples Archaeological Musuem and Its Penis Room

When the situation calls for it, I am a mature person. I can talk comfortably about reproductive health, I can watch a movie with a sex scene and not make a joke, and I can look at nude statues and think nothing of it beyond art. Hell, my senior yearbook quote was about how maturity is just knowing when and where to be immature. I won't laugh when you fall down because you might be hurt and I absolutely do not laugh when an animal humps something because it's instinct and the animal can't help it. I believe you shouldn't laugh at something if the thing you're laughing at is helpless in the situation. But sometimes you find your limit. The National Archaeological Museum of Naples (abbreviated MANN in Italian) pushed me near my limit. See, Naples is home to brilliant and interesting historical artwork. With the nearby town of Pompeii buried under the ash of Mt. Vesuvius, tons of pristine artifacts which were rescued from Pompeii ended up in MANN. Some of these p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Movie

Someone asked me today: if my life were made into a movie, would I watch it? HELL YES, I WOULD. Upon answering so emphatically, she called me out for being cocky. Here is my extended answer, including teasers, cliff-hangers, and the possible title. I justify my arrogance by saying that if I don't believe in my product, who in the world is going to see it? The movie about me would be executive produced by me, obviously. I have the final say in what goes and what doesn't. If my life were made into a movie, only the most important parts would make it...it would be like a 23 year highlight reel crammed into 2 hours and 12 minutes (any longer and I'm risking a major walk-out-to-pee-and-miss-the-important-stuff crowd reaction). For the meaty part, think about all the great things this movie would have! It would feature sports, love, friendships, hardships, heartbreaks, family bonds, and most importantly...frontal male nudity. Name one thing from that list that doesn't appear ...
Post a Comment
Read more

1000 Words a Day, Day 10: On Old Friends

At some point in college, it dawned on me that my group of friends from home was unusual. Yes, we were all weirdly close an did some objectively strange things to each other (and with each other, but mainly to each other), but apparently it was weird to stay so close to people from your hometown. We all thought nothing of it, because that's just the way we were. Others, however, were surprised and often confused. Some of them were "adopted" into the group of us from the Chesterland area, and it's hard to say how much they still stayed in touch with people who didn't go to high school with us, because they sure assimilated into our friends-since-early-childhood clique. But still, that was only college. Later, I moved to Chicago and found that there were people who I hadn't seen in years who would gladly, willingly, almost eagerly bail me out of I was in a pinch or needed a place to stay. These were people I wasn't even necessarily close  with when we were...
Post a Comment
Read more