August

I seem to leave it awfully long to blog again but here we go, what has been happening in August?

Well, work, work and more work, and the students were just getting more and more weary as the term went on because basically no one else is at school so why should they be? It did seem increasingly difficult to keep them motivated and who can blame them? By the end of term it was quite impossible. But I saw a different side to one or two of them and it was all a bit emotional for them leaving their friends after becoming so close in such a close-knit environment.  There is no work for me there next term, as numbers in September are lower. I have turned down 3 months in the Ukraine, as my plan is to stay here now and not delay finding what I want here. I'm happy with that, I just need to start looking.

Going back to job hunting is as depressing as it was last time. I applied for a bog-standard kind of position as a vets' receptionist/animal assistant - I have experience in both reception duties and working with animals. But they had over 200 applications for it - from whom, I cannot imagine. So if this is the sort of competition... However, can't give up and I have had a look today and found some things to apply for, even if they are not amazing and challenging careers. It seems that the job market today has changed and it is no longer possible to just find a rewarding and well paid job that suits your skills and qualifications. Seemingly you have to have experience in everything (but who would go from the same job to the same job all the time? It doesn't even make sense). I saw one for a copywriter for a website but you had to have a proven interest in lingerie (er, how?) I will have to approach it all more creatively and perhaps have several ways of making a living instead of one. I have advertised my English tuition services so hopefully with the start of a new term, some students might want help with things. One person has replied so far :) It is very time consuming looking for jobs, before you've even applied for them.

In other news, well I will blog about that separately. Needless to say that I am missing the warmth of the Sicilian sun very much in this English climate, and still missing the coffee, boys and Etna.

Back again

It hasn't seemed worth blogging until now about being back in the UK, but here I am again. It's been 6 weeks and the things I miss most are the coffee, sunshine and Jo. And nice looking ragazzi. And some of my students. And the food. But at the moment, mostly the sunshine and coffee, it being cold and rainy here. A day of ceaseless rain on Friday is enough to make anyone head to the easyjet website.

However, I don't think that is the answer right now. A recent birthday was my annual time for reflection (maybe I should have these more often) and perhaps I should think about what I want from life a bit more and actually take action to get nearer that. Running back to Italy is tempting (especially when Jo has been talking about returning to exotic locations), but there are things here that I could be focussing on. We will see.

I've been in touch with some of my students and occasionally heard from the nice floppy haired Back to the Future fan, so I have some sort of connection with the land of lovely Etna. (I failed to say I miss her but I do, very much). It is currently pushing 37 degrees there, which is too hot even for them, what a shame, but I dare say they prefer it to what we have at the moment.

Here I am experiencing a new part time summer job at a small international school which prepares students for UK boarding schools. They are mostly from China, Russia and Japan, with a sole Italian boy who I make read in class so I can hear the lovely accent. It is different to what I was doing in Italy and I hope to learn a few things about teaching while I am there. The teachers are all nice and supportive and the kids are pleasant enough, very polite and really just typical teenagers, who'd rather be sleeping sometimes than working. But what's new. I have enjoyed working with one smaller child and encouraging him with his spelling and reading. Another bonus is having tea breaks and a hot lunch all together. But boarding school life with its regulations and so on is quite a different thing but I think I've got used to it now and the children seem happy there. It's nice that everyone knows each other by name and they all look after each other.

Aside from that, it will be back to the job hunting again and also thinking of long term plans; where do I want to be, who do I want to be there with, etc etc. Meanwhile work and feeling generally knackered seem to get in the way of more exciting things like Fonting and writing and finding a way out of having to work.  But some fonts have been visited (yey!) which was a great relief and helped establish equilibrium again. More on those to come. And if it is all too much here, then I know Etna is only a 3 hour plane trip away, even for a quick burst of sunshine and a much-needed caffè.

Changes

So time has caught up with me and all of a sudden, it is time to go home. I don't know how we have gone from having 5 long months ahead of us in January, to now when there is only one week left of my life in Sicily. To say there are mixed emotions is an understatement - who would have thought this would be the case back in January when I really wanted to go home.

It shows how you get used to something and how things become normal. I've made a list of things I will miss and things I won't miss, and surprisingly they are equal. This week is our last week of teaching and it is strange, something of an anti-climax, as we say goodbye to students for the last time. Those who you think might have turned up didn't always, and those who you least expected to see showed up. My FCE class were lovely and we had a nice last lesson, doing word games and so on, and then we went to lovely little Acitrezza, with its three rocks in the sea, and memories of happy granitas, and we had a pizza in a lovely restaurant overlooking the sea. In fact it was a place Shona and Gab took me and Jo in the first weeks so it kind of felt like things are coming full circle. I had pizza norma, (pasta alla norma is a traditional Catanese dish with aubergine and ricotta salata. The pizza is a version of this). My lovely class gave me a very nice book on Catania, full of beautiful pictures to remind me of everything. It's quite heavy though so I will just have to make allowances in my suitcase!

So mixed emotions - I will not be sad to leave certain things like the noise, the graffiti, the honking of horns, not being able to understand everyone or communicate very well, working in the evening and eating at night, ... many other things. But I will miss granitas, the coffee, Etna, the sunshine, Italian, beautiful looking men and Italian style. I won't miss the mosquitoes, they have been making the past few days hell.  I will miss Jo, but she too is going back to the UK so of course we will stay in touch. Students have all been asking (ok, not all, but the nice ones haha) whether I am coming back next year. So far I can only say I don't think so, I don't know. I really want to see how I feel about things. I think no. And I don't think it would be the same without Jo - the experience is now and a new experience lies ahead somewhere else.

I won't have had time to see and do everything I wanted to see and do, but this is mostly because it turned out that without a car it is impossible to get places here - public transport is ok but only to main towns and cities. Even then it still takes ages. There are amazing mosaics I wanted to see, and we wanted to go to the top of Etna, and see her erupting and go to see the mummies... Never mind.

The experience has been amazing, learning how to be a teacher - I am amazed that I actually can say I love my job without it being too far from the truth. I do love doing it, it's rewarding. I have now got a new job in England, teaching English to students in a college, for summer. They are foreign children who want to go to a school in England for their entire schooling - and not just any old school but the elite ones including places like Eton and Harrow. The college is for up to one year, so they improve their English quickly and learn about British culture, including our sports and day trips to cities etc. So they will be prepared to go to their new school. I was surprised to be offered the job so now I want to make a go of it and I think the college looks like a supportive place to work and to learn.  It is near my sister so at least I will be near part of my family again.

So I have booked my flight today (after a fun time in the post office transferring money) and it is for a week today. I think it will be a big adjustment after so long here - as I say you get used to things don't you, so it's like any change. But things end and new things start. I couldn't stay here long term, for a start it gets too hot from now onwards, and then there is the whole thing about fitting into a culture. I think here it would take simply ages to be let in to their culture; we still don't get the whole living at home til you're 40 thing or the mummy's boys, or the dress sense, or any of it really haha. But it has been a great experience to live somewhere else and if I need any confidence in myself then this should have given me plenty. Yes I like the Italian boys look and yes I will miss that too but Sicilian men, they're not for marrying or hanging on to I don't think - too many issues :)  I don't understand them. Let's hope the English ones are a bit easier now. At least there won't be the language barrier.

OK, so granitas all round. If I could stuff granita, chinotto, arancini and Etna in my suitcase, I would... but I'm going to have a hard enough time packing what I have accumulated anyway! See you at the airport... I'll try and bring the sun. x