Living a Dream

So yes, the plan was to just travel as much as we could before we knew our schedules. During the first couple of weeks there was a lot of emailing, interviewing, and finding out what we might be doing for work. It came slowly, and the stress of not knowing where we could work and what exactly we would be doing motivated us to take short breaks in the form of weekend trips. A quick Google-Flight search showed us round-trip airfare to Brussels for about 40 euros per person. Again, that's round-trip. So that's how we settled on Brussels, and we knew next to nothing about the city.. The first course of action was to peruse wikitravel, which told us some things to see and do. Second course was to ask a friend of mine who lived in Brussels for quite some time, and he gave us a suggestion of a place or two to eat. Some time around noon on September 14th, we flew over the Alps and discovered that this was going to be a whole year of unbelievable new things. Our flight lande...

I like it here in Italy. I've written thousands of words into a pseudo-journal about what life here is actually like, not to mention the thousands and thousands of words about the traveling we've been doing on weekends (which is currently at 10 countries and 13 trips in 13 weekends, ho-hum). There are, however, some things that I cannot figure out, and I will tell you about one particular thing that happened to me today. I teach a class at a school in the suburbs. My commute includes two metro trains (like the el in Chicago), a regional train, and then a bus to the school. Three weeks ago, on a rainy day, I was waiting for the return bus to take me back to the train station in this suburb - called Monza, for what it's worth - so I could arrive at my next lesson that evening. As my bus pulled toward the stop where I waited, I stepped toward the curb in anticipation of, you know, getting on the bus. You can imagine my surprise when the driver looked at me and opted not to...

This is a sequel to Monday's post about Drama English and the worst person I've ever met. In life there are certain phone calls that you dread. Ones you have a premonition of before they ever happen, or the moment the phone rings, you know something terrible has happened. Maybe a loved one has been in the hospital, maybe your child was out late and the phone rings past midnight, maybe your significant other has…something to tell you. Whatever it may be, these exist. Let me tell you about the call I just had. I sometimes fear the worst when a boss calls. I know that’s kind of childish of me, but I do. In fleeting moments, I still fear authority and don’t want to “get in trouble” or whatever it’s called as an adult. So when my phone rang this morning and it was my supervisor - she's my boss, but it's not as if she comes to my lessons or anything. She's more of a tutor-pimp - from one of the lessons, I had a long “should I answer?” debate with myself. Ul...