Victory!

I seem to have trained the cat to sleep on my feet… he is finally earning his keep!

On the other hand, I seem to have caught a cold from a student… drat!

So I’m Old…

On Tuesday, while teaching some new vocabulary about different music genres to the SoulSuckingTeenagers, we came across grunge. “So what’s grunge?” I ask. I am rewarded with blankly expectant looks.
“You know, grunge? Like Nirvana? Wait… what year were you guys born?” (blank stares) One girl finally responds “1994.”
“Oh… that’s the year Kurt Cobain killed himself. Interesting. I have solid memories of the year 1994. I’m… old. That’s… cool.”
Flash to today with the GoodButQuietTeenagers (who I THOUGHT were 16+ years old…). I’m still vaguely gobsmacked (yeah, I’m bringing that word back) by the age thing (I know, I know, wait until I’m REALLY old… but I’m a DECADE older than these kids! There’s a word I can use to avoid using numerals! It’s that much time!). We covered the difference between the present perfect and the simple past (and I made them laugh! Like out loud! Multiple times! I should take this act on the road!), and in their homework they are required to write stories about things that “have happened” since certain points in their lives. One girl then points out the problem with question number one (“What significant changes have happened in your life since you were thirteen.”)- “We’re only fourteen… sooo…?”
Gob. Smacked. “Well, do the best you can, I suppose… ‘nothing has happened since I was thirteen?’” Moving on, I relate the story of the SoulSuckers and 1994… at which point the girls point out that they, too, were born in 1994… and I feel awkward and old. Also inept at math, but that is nothing new.

The good news is that this answers some questions I’ve been kicking around my head about the material I want to use with them (NO to rap lyrics, NO to the “American Apparel” article with direct quotes from the “too sexy for this tank top and your sexual harassment lawsuits” CEO, and NO to TV shows/ Movies that 16 or 17 year olds could handle, but that I will not endure the phone calls for if I show them to 14-15 year olds.), so that’s good.

In other news, I have wonderful friends on both sides of the Atlantic, my favorite earrings are still MIA after a thorough apartment cleaning, I tallied up my time sheet for the month and will be a high roller on pay day (relatively speaking), and am doing my best to discourage the back spasm that is threatening my lower back. Tomorrow is Thursday, which means the day without teenagers (or children, apparently) and thus, a day without stories… unless the cat does something!

In Which Natalie is Buffeted by the Universe…

Ouch.
So I know I said I wanted more letters… but when I said that, I did not envision my Tuesday like this:

8:00 AM- Wake up braced to deal with “difficult” student for 1.5 hours in Casaleccio… check email… see rejection from UVA before my contact lenses can clear up. Ouch.

8:33 AM- Full bus. No seats.

8:34 AM- Oh. A still HEATED full buss. With no seats. Or open windows. Begin panting.

10:00 AM- Confounded by crossword puzzle while student does listening exercise. Blast.

11:00 AM- Student pats me on the shoulder, I think only because he missed the top of my head… I know my hair was a little wild, but do I look like a spaniel to you buddy?

12:00- Enjoy soothing bath and lunch. Perk self up with catchy music and by listening to the awesome violinist who was visiting accordionist neighbor.

1:45 PM- Have newly perked-up soul crushed when unable to find favorite earrings. Harbor suspicions about the cat.

2:00 PM- Leave apartment to go to work- see envelope in mail box.

2:00:10 PM- Have heart attack when unable to unlock box while balancing bag of dirty cat litter I am taking to the trash.

2:00:15 PM-Succeed in unlocking box.

2:00:17 PM-Have another heart attack upon retrieving not one, but THREE small envelopes… plus the gas bill…

2:00:20 PM- Ponder a word strong enough for something that sucks with quadruple strength.  (The Dyson of suckage? Event horizon of suckage?)

2:01 PM- Am rejected by NYU. Confirm need to make a stronger phrase than “Dude, this SUCKS.”

2:02 PM- Am rejected by GW. Ouch.

2:03 PM- Am slightly heartened that the Cardozo envelope is a little fatter…

2:03:15 PM- Wait listed.

2:03: 20 PM- Decide that there are not adjectives strong enough for “quadruple suck.” We need a new word.

3:20 PM- Student arrives early. I hate when they do that.

3:30 PM- Establish that said student is curious to the point of hostility about the details of English grammar (“BUT WHY do we use the an THERE and not HERE?! WHY!!”).

3:31 PM- Begin watching the clock.

4:30 PM- Bid farewell to student (until class at 6:00), retreat to teacher’s lounge.

4:33 PM- Eric: “Looks like you have a pretty tough crowd in there [re: soulsucking teenagers who are congregating]. I opened the bathroom door and they all turned around FROWNING at me like they are waiting for you…”
Me: “Welcome to my Tuesday, Eric.”

4:45 PM- Me to teenagers: “Hey team! How are you all? [silence] Did everyone have a good week? [silence] Is anyone alive? [silence] Does anyone understand me? [silence] Oook. So you had homework…”

5:15 PM- Decide that today the teenagers are going to do a lot of silent reading and working on exercises.

6:00 PM- Low level class… so many questions… so many problems…

7:15 PM- Maria has chocolate!

7:30 PM- Classroom in the hinterlands has no CD player…

7:32 PM- Retrieve CD player from mainland.

7:33 PM- Trapped in courtyard. Begin knocking on window hoping a student will buzz me in.

7: 36 PM- Knuckles hurt. Buzzed in.

7:40 PM- Intern arrives. Am scolded for leaving doors open.

7:45 PM- Good class, but unsettling to have intern present.

8:50 PM- Maria has more chocolate!

9:00 PM- Time to start the last class of the day!!

9:02 PM- Write on boob of beloved shirt with white board marker. Heroically avoid hysteria.
9:45 PM- Do a listening about St. Patrick’s day.

9:46 PM- Realize that listening includes unfortunate line about leprechauns and “pinching on the behind.” Begin praying nobody will want that explained.

9:50 PM- Required to explain “pinching on the behind.”

10:15 PM- Please. For the love of God. Choose your vocabulary words so we can leave this place!

10:40 PM- Lock up and begin the trek home with Maria.

10:45 PM- See apartment on fire (or smoking). Gain perspective.

11:00 PM- Walk in door and feel so very very happy to finish this extraordinarily long  day.

The Cat. And Life.

Well, the cat is now a cuddle monster. I attribute this largely to his discovery of my fleece blanket (he may be impervious to actual catnip, but the allure of fleece is universal.), which means he is frequently curled up on my bed, sleeping, grooming himself with slrupy vigor (seriously, slurpy.), staring at me balefully, and depositing his hair on my bed. This has given me (and the outside world) the chance to observe a couple things about him:
1) He has a protruding tooth a la Bucky from the Get Fuzzy cartoon… oddly his personality mirrors the cartoon character as well.

2) One can tell the cat is awake, even if his eyes are closed, because he is purring. Or hissing. Or both (turns out they can do that).

3) If he is asleep, one can tell because he is snoring. Snoring, I might add, with the vigor one would expect from a much larger animal… like… a dormitory of sumo wrestlers after a long day in the ring.

4) He likes having his belly rubbed. Hand to God, he loves it.

And now, for some non-cat talk tidbits.

1) Still no more news from law schools. I saw a small envelope in the mail box today and was thrilled despite its size (“THANK HEAVENS! I CAN CROSS SOMETHING OFF THE CURSED LIST!!”)… but it was just the FastWeb bill. That was a double suck. I’m about to become the annoyingly clingy applicant that we always rolled our eyes at in the Admissions office back in my college days.

2) Anna is in Dublin this week at a wedding (Irish wedding in Dublin on St. Patrick’s day- now if that doesn’t sound like a good time, I don’t know what does!), so I’ve picked up two of her classes (and, random, one of her private students for the week) to substitute. This week is madness.

3) I had a delicious salad for dinner. This isn’t really important, but it made me happy and I occasionally like to reassure mom that she raised me to eat green things and not to get scurvy.

3a) You may be scoffing about the scurvy thing, but a friend of a friend got scurvy! Naturally, she was mocked for apparently having been press-ganged into the British Navy circa 1774… and if she was not mocked by her own friends, she is now being mocked anonymously and by somebody she does not know. Ahh internet.

4) I had a rather alarming hour or so when I thought I may have locked my student into the school after our lesson this morning (don’t ask). Luckily, the missed call from the school was only about substituting.

5) I’d like to go somewhere warm for Easter break… I don’t need to swim, I just need to expose my legs to sunshine (it has literally been months since they have felt the light of day and they are quickly phasing from “transparent” to “electroluminescent”). Maybe someplace volcanic. The good news is that I am a train ride away from several places meeting those criteria. Also hot springs. And old rocks.

6) After watching “Vicky Christina Barcelona” (good tip, mom) I have an urge to go to Spain at some point. Also the urge to drink red wine out of a ridiculously breakable wine glass (did anybody else notice how much red wine was consumed in that movie? And how breakable those glasses looked? Maybe I just noticed how breakable they looked after presiding over the funerals of every wine glass in our set of six.).

7) I’m currently reading Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco- it’s much more tolerable/ enjoyable on the second try. Also, in the interest of truth, after some “Lost” references, I was curious. That show is like crack for your eyeballs, no joke.

And on that note, it’s time for me to hit the hay!  I’ll be teaching for about 8 hours tomorrow… 6.5 of them back to back. Wish me luck… or, at the very least, survival!

And A Moment of Materialism…

Every time I leave my apartment I fall in love… deep, violent, passionate, gut-twisting love… with at least eight different shoes, bags, or outfits. I walk past D&G (twice), Hermes, Gucci, LV (French, I know, but…), Furla… and those are just the big boys- countless boutiques with charming displays and brightly colored (SPRING!) leather goods sing their siren songs from ever corner.
On the plus side, these love affairs are fleeting and, happily for my purse (both in its contents and in its lack of a replacement…), unrequited. I like to think that yearning for unattainable things is good to do every now and then- building up the Recession Mentality In These Trying Times and all that. But mostly I just tell myself that because that beautiful, beautiful, beautiful bag in the window costs more than my rent… and Anna’s rent… for two months. Soooo there’s that.

And I hope you don’t think less of me but at least I warned you that this would be a materialistic indulgence post! I blame the teenagers (who were EXTRA soul-sucky today… I don’t even know how that is possible but…). I promise to write about social justice or the nature of Truth next time! However, until then, shoes are pretty, shiny, and plentiful!

An Open Letter to Pizza Guys…

To Whom It May Concern,

It has recently come to my attention that, in order to enter a building and distribute your free menus offering delicious pizzas (and a free soda “in omaggio”) delivered to my doorstep, you must ring the bell and be buzzed in. Now, I am more than happy to let strangers into my building, but at the moment I am anticipating letters, both fat and small, from law schools. So when you ring the bell to leave the brightly colored tree carcasses in my mailbox, please understand that the moments of anticipation and anxiety that you cause in my delicate nervous system are slowly shaving decades off my life. If you are not a FedEx delivery person, please, for the love of all that you hold to be holy and decent, slide the menu under the door… or at least ring the bell of the guy who lives below me.

Warmly,
Natalie

PS: You took my favorite pizza off the menu…