Italian Language Lesson 1

Today, I taught myself how to conjugate the verb "to Google" in Italian. I have translated it to "Googliare," which will follow the rules for -are verb endings. Here we go, in present tense...

io Googlio noi Googliamo

tu Googli voi Googliate

lui/lei Googlia loro Googliano

Pretty impressive, no?

Tomorrow brings my first unknown language lesson. However, we've already been told that the language is Serbian and I have taken it upon myself to look up the basics, which really defeats the whole point. Sorry, but the word 'unprepared' doesn't have a place in my vocabulary.

Unjustified Stoicism

Where does Rome hide its bugs? I muse, then mind an itch on my leg, only to find the swelling pink welt of a Tiger mosquito's last feeding.

Now, this is irony.

Tonight I gave my first lesson to a group of young Italian girls, A1 level on the European Global Scale. Critiques from my senior teacher concerned simplifying my language and not relying on my knowledge of Italian to help the students understand. "As an ESL teacher, you won't always know the native language. Try to practice working without that knowledge," she said. Good advice, for my "only English in the classroom" rule was undermined as soon as the girls realized I understood their Italian. This bridge in communication, although helpful when explaining instructions, actually hindered my ability to teach effectively. Instead of reworking my vocabulary or approach, I cut corners by translating. However, recognizing and confirming utterances in their mother tongue helped build rapport with the students.

And we continue to tip the scales...

There are pains I must let go, crosses and tombstones I can no longer carry just for the sake of remembering. The weight is not a gift. To this moment, it has always been a curse. Italo Calvino tried to rid his literature of weight, championing instead la leggerezza- the lightness. He must have seen a different Rome. Mine is crushing under a very tangible heaviness, shoulders on every person hunched over, knees shaking beneath the daily pressure to exist. If la bella figura is the beautiful side of this city, then I will write the ugly side, no longer under the spell of romanticized Roman notions spun in gypsy globes around Trastevere.

Grammatically Correct, Not Politically

I've been trained to think in pronouns. All around the crowd inconspicuously passes (and I let everything pass me) in a blur of he, she, it. I walk around in a world full of things- nothing, something, everything- head all filled with questions concerning the who, what, when, why, how... What if we pretended for a second, some time, that what is ours never was and theirs will never be? Yours and mine are two of many and that just makes them some. Few can live in a world like ours, but many seem to do just fine.

They cogitate vague ramblings.

Traces of people, places, and things. Ghosts of nouns. Verbal hauntings.

A Haunting in the Colosseum

A Confusion of Continents

Right: Seen in Trastevere

Tonight, the photos from Vatican City were underexposed and blurry when they weren't. I'll try again tomorrow or the next day, a little earlier in the evening when the sky is still a shade of violet. This may be my last chance before the canonization of Blessed Mary MacKillop on Sunday. The streets will be overflowing with priests, nuns, and Aussies. I Carabinieri will become ever more present, suddenly emerging like umbrella vendors with the first drop of rain, preparing for crowd control while I prepare my camera.

This is not tonight.

Tonight, a circle of teenagers sit cross-legged in St. Peter's Square. They drink beer beneath 140 Saints, on the same grounds once home to the Circus of Nero. An ancient Catholic woman crawls by, cracked fingernails clawing for fissures in the broken stones. She frowns disapprovingly, then floats away in the smoke of a discarded cigarette.

Lunar Deities

A letter to Diana, Roman Moon Goddess

You sent me home with a fake moon, which I carried in my back pocket down Via Tacito. How clever! (Silent, saying nothing.) And in that same manner, understood without being openly expressed, I threw it back into the warm Roman night. A newly found autumn quivered in the naked white, bright and boasting neither vice nor virtue. How embarrassing it must have been to watch my street lights shine brighter than your false moon.

From now on, Man will be his own god.

Primo Giorno di Scuola

I haven't taken any pictures today. The sky is gray, and when it is, everything else becomes a few shades cooler. I have a sickness growing inside of me, a longing really. For what, I can't be sure.

This morning was my first day of class with TEFL International. The course runs from 11 October 2010 to 9 November 2010, and consists of four intensive weeks. We will cover grammar in the morning and methodology in the afternoon. We have several short breaks throughout the day. In the evening we have observations and opportunities to practice what we have learned in methodology. If today was any indication, the next month should prove to be exhausting.

The class is a happy mix of diverse demographics. Trainees have come from as close as Rome to as far as Canada. This gives me valuable material for my side project while I'm here- namely, people-watching and character development.

For example, on the plane from Charleston to Newark:

Caucasian, mid- to late-fifties, salt and pepper hair, reading a book in French, wearing a pink and white striped button-down, Bose headphones to block the noise, drinking Mott's tomato juice, watching Invictus...

You just can't make this up. You find yourself filling in the gaps, dreaming up the details. Next thing you know, this gentleman is no longer a real person, but rather a character of your own invention.

Isn't that what we all are, to some degree? We have different relationships with people. They know us for certain conversations we have or specific shared experiences. We tell them whatever we choose to tell them. The end result is an incomplete, abstract portrait of an individual.

To others, we are characters, partially grounded in reality, partially invented, but wholly complex and unknowable in a full and sound sense.