Three days down...only 5.5 more weeks of teaching to go...

Okay so, teaching...

Yea. So if you asked me yesterday what I felt about it, I would have told you that I'm having a lot of fun--making some mistakes, but all in all, enjoying myself. Today it didn't go too smoothly and it is going to totally color this post.

Mostly its just hard to get anything done when you are teaching and the children don't understand 90% of the things you say. So you break it down--make everything smaller. You don't say "what color is this?" you say "what color?" or even "what?" & point. meh. But the langauge barrier isn't awful except when we do things in a large group. Today that is mostly what we were doing. I had to entertain children for like 30 minutes by myself when the other tutors were getting things ready and it just drained me and made me feel like a complete dumbass. It is nearly impossible to convey anything to 40+ kids when they don't understand your language. So yea, not a great day. Oh, and to make matters worse, I didn't get much sleep last night. And one of my kids is overly clingly and is always hanging off of me and it is getting on my nerves. I know I shouldn't be all peeved. But honestly, I don't mind hugging or holding hands, but doing it constantly is just weird.

Despite my bitching, I lucked out. Our camp director is English so she speaks perfect English. Most camp directors are Italian and have very limited English so the tutors have to go just as slow with them as they do with the children. On top of being fluent, Tannith (our director) used to also be a tutor with A.C.L.E. so she knows what we need help with/when to back of/how we are feeling. So, in sum, she is amazing, and we are soo lucky.

Speaking of Tannith, she took us (being the tutors) and our two assistants (two native Italians that speak very good English) to Bergamo on Monday. We went to the città alta (which is the old city--lit. translation the high city because it is above the new city). There is an interesting story that goes along with la città alta. So there was this total badass ruler who was so badass people used to say he had three balls. And so there are litteraly three balls on the Bergamo crest. Check out my facebook pictures for some pictures of his three balls on local gates. It is just strange. If I hadn't seen them myself I would have thought she was lying. Anywho, the città alta was very cool...very pretty. So all in all, despite today, I have been enjoying myself.

Okay I am tired of typing....I was going to try to put a link up to my facebook. But I can't figure out copy/paste on this crazy Italian keyboard...so I will try to type it. If this link doesn't work, oh well...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2299115&id=6710589&1=4cbd1ffd2f

Sarah