The twenty-first post of the expedition – the transition from composer to producer

About a week and a half ago, it struck me that I only had three weeks left of this spell in Italy, and I resolved to not sit around and waste another day doing nothing until I left. Saturday, admittedly, I sat around doing nothing, save for eating lunch and dinner. However I think I have most certainly earned it.

I’ve just been reading back through the first few posts of the expedition, specifically when I discovered there was a summer camp in need of teachers, and talking about it with such hope and expectation. Hopes and expectations that it easily exceeded.

In all it was two weeks of camp, of which I helped with the latter due to other commitments. I was called the weekend before with the final details, and invited to sit in for a couple of hours during the first week to get a feel for the whole operation. I turn up on the Thursday morning, get introduced to the other teachers – two Irish girls that are over for the fortnight, and sit in on the warm-up activities. Before I know it, I’m fielding a question-and-answer session with about thirty Italian children. They seem to take to me quite well, and I sit in on one of the groups having an English lesson with one of the girls.

Lunchtime rolls around, but before I can escape to get something from a nearby supermarket, I’m accosted by one of the camp organisers. “You’re a natural,” she says. “How would you like to stay for the five full days until 4 next week, instead of the four days of 2pm finishes?” In an instant, the week ahead transformed from an almost unknown entity into something I may have a reasonable chance in being good at. It took me a moment to process this new information before I could answer the question being asked of me, but I was more than happy to oblige.

For the next day and a half before the weekend, I proceeded to study the girls teaching methods, having not taught more than one person simultaneously before in my life. The weekend rolls around and, almost at the end of my first stay in Italy, I’m invited on a night out in Milan, from which we don’t get home before sunrise the next morning. Then I’m up a few hours later to go to the lake with them and the camp organiser that thinks so highly of my abilities.. It’s only Sunday evening that I manage to get a proper night of rest, and even then I’m up at before seven the next morning for the crucial first day of the next week.

Each day in the week that followed was a mixture of triumph, chaos, struggle and relief as each day came to a close, none more so than on Wednesday when a trip to a local park by train almost had a catastrophic ending when we missed what we thought was the last train home. It wasn’t, and it was just another little adventure as far as the children were concerned, but for the teachers, kittens were almost had.

Friday was another long day, with the weeks work culminating in a show put on by the children, followed up with aperitivo at a trendy bar for the teachers and assorted helpers, after which the youngsters of the group, of which I was the oldest, reconvened in the centre of town, crawling around bars until the small hours, thus completing with some sort of symmetry what for me was an amazingly rewarding and inspiring week, and a great way to (almost) finish my stay in this small Italian town.

Jack out.

The seventeenth post of the expedition – the one with the punny title

Yesterday I made a joke which, for once, I wasn’t the only person to hear. A friend and I were sitting in a local park which just so happened to have a flag similar to the St. George’s cross flying on a nearby pole. ‘St. George’s cross,’ I said, motioning towards it. ‘I have no idea what upset him, but there you go’. Now this particular friend, while she doesn’t have English as her first language, speaks it well enough, and usually laughs at the appropriate time when I try my own special blend of humour. However this one took a little explaining of the ambiguity of the apostrophe-‘s’, but, nevertheless, she subsequently gave a reassuring laugh.

Along this train of thought, it’s a recent realisation that perhaps this fondness for wordplay, extended metaphor, poetry and double meaning that I’ve displayed numerously online were the early manifestations of an interest in language, which seems to have culminated in where I am going in the next few months. In theory, I’m still participating in an English language summer school in the town I’m living in at the end of next month, followed by a couple of months in England to rest and reset. And then it gets interesting, as simultaneously to staying with a new family in Tuscany for the duration of the next academic year, I’ll be continuing my fledgling career as an English tutor, with two colleagues of the mother of the family I’ll be staying with. And there’s nothing quite like a challenge for a man as doing more than one thing concurrently.

Jack out.

The seventh post of the expedition – the back catalogue of B-sides because band on an indefinite hiatus

I’ve recently committed to staying in Italy for another three months with this family. Like I said last time, the family seems to think the eldest has really warmed to me and wants to please me by trying hard with his English, and that’s something I can definitely handle for a little while longer. Annoyingly elsewhere in life things aren’t going, or rather haven’t gone so smoothly, however that said, after the three extra months I’m here, which will take me until July, I’m under no obligation to do anything, be anywhere, or more interestingly stay anywhere, for anyone. Which feels weird.

I will have absolutely no commitments, educational or otherwise, tying me down for the first time in my life, and I’m reckoning the odd feeling I’ve started feeling recently will only intensify as July comes closer. I may have expected a feeling of deflation and indifference after such a stimulating experience as au pairing (yes really). But I won’t be thinking ‘I have absolutely nothing to do so I won’t bother’, more ‘I can do absolutely anything now, so I will.’ My intention is to stay in Italy in the mid-term, either become an au pair elsewhere in the country, or teach English to some Italians or other foreigners somewhere, which is what I’m hoping this summer school will help with – experience for the long game.

It reminds me of when I was in college, not at all sure what I wanted to do in life, having picked three reasonably interesting subjects but with not a huge amount of skill in any of them. Rather than crashing and burning with poor marks I made use of the time out of college to volunteer here there and everywhere. I got a snowball of experience stewarding charity events and fun runs. The result when I came out of education with predictably bad grades? I could put the  experience volunteering to good use and land a job and promptly a promotion at the local football stadium doing what I’d been doing voluntarily years ago.

Worst comes to worst and I don’t get somewhere in Italy straight away to prolong my stay, I’ll look elsewhere, or go to England for a while to give time for things to develop. But I don’t think I’ll stay. I’ve got a taste for this now, if something still doesn’t turn up after more waiting, or even in the interim while I’m waiting, a road trip is on the books, just to feed the habit.

Jack out.

The fifth post of the expedition – the surprising first solo album.

Evening all. Change is in the air. Not me, I hasten to add, but that which is going on around me.

Remember how a couple of posts in to my adventure I was revelling in the fact I’d found what seemed to be the only other English person in such an obscure town this close to Milan. Annoyingly it hasn’t worked out with her family, in that by all accounts they are draconian and slightly hypocritical, and as such she’s leaving tomorrow. Horrendously sad, I know, but she’s resolved to do the CELTA course (for TEFL) in good ol’ Manchester instead of Milan for cheaps, and will then return as a qualified English teacher to this poor, poor town which may then inexplicably develop a Mancunian accent overnight.

I know I’m not normally one to talk about feelings, less so blog about them, but I’ve been tooing and froing so much for these past few days, it would be rude not to. At first it felt like I’m about to be thrown into an abyss with no hope of getting out again – the only other English person I knew when I came  here is leaving for just as long as I’ve been here so far. It also brought to the foreground that nobody I had met in Milan seemed at all interested in seeing my patch.I was about to become alone in a town full of foreigners. This was my first thought and quite frankly it scared the chocolate ice cream out of me. But then I thought about it, and the more I thought about it the better I felt, and continue to feel, about the situation.

It just so happens there is a contingent of English helicopter engineers based here for a few months, and it seems there are more of them every time we bump into them. Thanks to the…outspoken Mancunian it turns out there are some friendly local Italians that want to improve their English, and are only too happy to help improve our Italian. I also seem to be perpetuating the myth back to myself that I speak barely any Italian, which is a little removed from the truth, and there’s no time like your drinking buddy going away for a few weeks to brush up and get ahead of the class (which,  incidentally, I still haven’t taken up).

So, after continuous reflection on all of the above, I am coming to the conclusion that It’s not all bad, I’m not doomed to spend the next two months in silence, too skeptical of my own ability to communicate with anyone, and I’m most certainly not going to let it get me down.

Jack out.

The fourth post of the expedition – the remastered anniversary edition.

So, the boys’ dad is at home today, giving me an unexpected afternoon off. I was fully intending to post on Sunday, the end of my first month in Italy, but never got round to it, so what’s two days between friends? Or enemies? Or the totally indifferent.

In short, things are going well. I was warned a few days ago by another au pair that the first month was the honeymoon period for au pairs and their families that would end abruptly, however two days past it I am yet to experience the hospitality cliff, and my host grandparents still manage to surprise me with their generosity, hospitality and easy going nature.

The children have taken to me wonderfully well, and I feel like a hybrid of tutor and older brother, in that they respect my purpose of helping with their English, but also treat me like a sibling when they’re not working, which is a great position to be in. Just yesterday the eldest came home from school with an assignment to write a piece on Kangaroos in English, and promptly copied the article from simplified English version of Wikipedia. I pointed out that he didn’t understand what was written, but he insisted that he didn’t need to study it, just produce it for a class display. I persevered and created some questions to test his understanding which, to my surprise, and after some stern words from his grandmother, he actually completed with some seriousness and focus.

I have devised some sort of study routine. Having the mornings free gives time for enough study that it doesn’t become tiresome, and the afternoons provide opportunity to try my new knowledge on some unsuspecting participants. I have considered having structured lessons, but as I have said previously, learning out of necessity tends to be more amicable than that born out of structure and dictation. The other English au pair in the town and I are about to start giving each other lessons too, as that’s another great way to cement our knowledge.

Apparently the town I’m in is in desperate need of English teachers so that may be an avenue I will be exploring in the not too distant future, and there is an English language summer camp that is a couple of teachers short, which I will hopefully be helping at. All this without any formal qualifications, and only a month off the plane, but with the advantage of being English mother tongue.

Jack out.

The third post of the expedition – learning the language, and most definitely not murdering anyone.

So you may or may not recall how at some point my girlfriend read one of these posts and said I should be a journalist. Unfortunately she doesn’t still hold that opinion in its entirety, and now is perplexed as to why I tell the rest of the world what I’m thinking before I tell her. I know very little of the subjects of my posts interest her, especially anything remotely technical or ancestral, as the latter is an interest her mother and I share, so try to avoid boring her further than is absolutely necessary. Now travelling, being within 30 miles of her, and doing pretty much the same exact thing as she spent half of the last 18 months doing has added to this. As much as I’d love to rave as to how adorable my Italian proteges are being (and they are by the way), never mind having been there and having the proverbial t-shirt, she’s got the proverbial branch of Zara with the proverbial points card.

However, this said, her having done pretty much the exact same thing for half of the last year-odd has meant she has learnt a shed load of Italian, which she has tried her best to teach me, and which I’m pleased to say has actually stuck in the main. From this she has concluded that I a) have a very good memory, and b) learn in an “odd” way. Which of course got me thinking, hence this, also completing a nice little ironic loop.

My old boss said I had an odd tendency to stare intently at things, which apparently a sign of a photographic memory. It makes sense, I have the flash-bulb memories of course, surrounding traumatic or shocking events – 9/11, snow days at school and the like – but I also seem to be shit-hot at anything I can remember visually – directions to a place I’ve only been to once before, numerical codes for my old job, where I hid the bodies, odd stuff like that. It probably puts me somewhere on the scale for autism, but I’m cool with that because nothing’s official yet, so for now I’m just awesome.

But then we come to the problem of learning a language, which tends to be written down or spoken. The software my girlfriend used while she was still in England created memorable images to link the English and Italian nouns, for example a knife wrapped in a cold towel to link to ‘coltello’. I listened in on most of this, and picked up odd words here and there, thanks to this system of odd mental images. There is, of course, some part of it that is similar to French (of which I know virtually nothing), English and by virtue of this, German. However there is a lot that is simply learning it, verbs and the suchlike, which may be a slightly more amazing feat of memory.

Now I am here, I find myself learning in a totally different way. I am, three weeks in, yet to take a formal class and have barely glimpsed textbooks I have been lent, however I am still picking up stuff at a very good rate. Instead of having contextually useless vocabulary thrown at me with the promise it will one day be useful (which admittedly it definitely is), the tables have turned and I find myself learning out of necessity. I know just enough to get by. I can’t elaborate or respond very well to the unexpected question, and I have only one phrase for each purpose, and so every couple of days, more or less, I find myself not knowing something that I need. Therefore, every couple of days, an opportunity arises to add to my vocabulary so that next time I need to say ‘I need to leave the body here How many chucks could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?‘ I will be able to. It’s an ever repeating loop, that ultimately spirals out as my vocabulary expands where I need it to, and yet I will still be able to claim plausible deniability by having no idea how to say ‘Can you remove blood stains?’

Jack out.

As a side note: I have no idea what a wood chuck is, but this is an example of an English tongue twister. There are many fun ones out there. If you want to know more, see me after class.

The second post of the expedition – thoughts so far.

I really have been here for two continuous, whole weeks. It has absolutely flown by, and my feeling that the three or six months I’m posted with this family will fly by is still there. In light of this I think now is about time for another post on my thoughts so far.

Firstly, my organisation skills are being tested to their limits. A handful of hourly trains to Milan and even fewer back mean any expedition there must be planned with near military precision though, with this being Italy, I’m not too sure what their equivalent is. Luckily I have a nifty app or two and a keen sense of direction (or more accurately a keen sense of ‘shit, this isn’t the right direction!’) that has done me well so far.

I am also learning a lot about myself, which is always nice. One of the biggest reservations about coming to work in a non-major city (i.e. not Milan) was that I wouldn’t be where it’s ‘at’, where an overwhelming majority of the English speakers or non-Italians are based, and where life would be easiest as a non-Italian. However it’s now clear that living out in the sticks has its perks as well. Every time I’ve been ‘out’ with ‘the au pairs’, I’ve admittedly felt like one of the crowd. There are so many people to talk to, I’ve ended up talking to few beyond the obligatory au pair questions. Conversely I have found a grand total of one other au pair in the town I’m in, itself a miracle for such an obscure place so near to Milan, but we’ve already become regulars at the local coffee house, and have only the need to pick a day to meet through repetition of the time and location. I’ve also noticed how few people speak English outside of the major towns, which is a blessing in disguise as it forces you to speak Italian instead of hoping the cashier/randomer in the street/dog speaks some broken English to dig you out of a hole. I’ve already had to bridge the language chasm once or twice, and it felt equally rewarding both times.

I am also constantly considering my perseverance in these first few weeks. I have settled in well enough to not want immediately to go home, and now the question lies ahead as to whether or not I would leave three months in. I am unsure whether the onus is on me to want out, or my hosts to not want in for another three months, but presuming the former, I will have to weigh up the possibilities. Yes, I could probably earn a better wage in central Milan, and yes, access to friends, entertainment and the like is better, but it is my firm belief, possibly to my detriment, that I am staying with two of the nicest people in Italy. They have already offered to show me round the local town and take me to Switzerland, and let me go to Rome during the week for the sake of cheap transportation. Add to this that I’m neither living in the same apartment as them, nor their grandchildren, and that the latter are only on the premises weekday afternoons, and I’m well aware I may be one of the luckiest au pairs in existance, although I’m hesitant to label myself an au pair. I prefer au pair lite.

Jack out.

To boldly blog…

So here we are. After not much planning and even less packing, I’m now officially ‘travelling’. Living the life, so to speak. Any conceptions you have about how awesome what I am doing is are most definitely true. My life is infinitely better than yours, and I’m never coming back to England. Of course not. But here’s what I have been up to so far.

The nonni (grandparents) I’m staying with are very nice, their apartment has some furniture I know my other half would be very jealous of, and the makers of Cluedo might want back at some point, and the boys seem like a bundle of laughs. I’m not actually living with the grandparents per se. I’m living in the flat below their apartment. I have a whole properly sized bedroom, bathroom, and living space with decorative kitchenette to play with, but I’m not allowed any friends over. The younger of the two kids, who came with his grandparents to pick me up from the airport, spent most of the journey home quietly staring at me, smiling when I did, and eventually came out with ‘how are you?’ after some very prolonged thought. He also winks back at me, but as yet I don’t know what he knows. The other didn’t come with his grandparents to pick me up didn’t do so as he banged his leg whilst doing something, amply demonstrated by him hopping about when I arrived. Over the past week he has started to come out of his shell, trying his hand at a bit of English, and even remember what I taught him some of the time. He’s a little stubborn, but what ever I’m doing seems to be working.

The younger of the two, the strong silent one on the ride back from the airport, has been set on impressing me from the off. He answers me in English when he can, and asks if he doesn’t know how to say something, and if he wants to ask me something. At first he pointed and gestured hopefully, but I got wise to that pretty soon and demanded he said what he meant.

What’s more, for such as small, obscure town, completely overshadowed by the neighbouring metropolis of Milan, I’ve actually managed to find someone doing what I’m doing in the same small, obscure town, who I’ve met and is in pretty much the same boat I am, although her boat came from Spain, so she’s a relative old hand. Although she’s not old. But she does have hands. Fortunately.

Now I’ve not managed to avoid going to Milan, as the other half is there and demands all the time she can get out of me. And I’ve happily obliged. It’s pretty much as I left it – there are odd disabled beggars doing all sorts, a cute old Asian man carving awesome out of root vegetables (I kid you not, I meant to write exactly that), the people selling bracelets, books and roses, and the Milanese generally putting up with all the obnoxious tourists and all of the above.

I’m going to try and find a mythical large park with my out-of-Milan buddy tomorrow morning, and then it’s only two more afternoons until Saturday, which I think both the nonni and I are equally relieved of. So, until we meet again…

Jack out.