Hi

I am writing this as you mention that you were an english teacher in mirano.

me and my husband have moved here in mirano with our two little kids from India - the older boy is 3.5 year old and the younger girl is 1.5 year old.

Now, we don’t know Italian at all, and I am looking for an English school for my son. I want to send my daughter to a playgroup also, but for her even Italian is fine.

I wonder if you will be able to help in any suggestions, recommendations etc, it will be very very great if you can, 

I have been looking around here, but did not really find much - though I really like Mirano! :)

Thanks! and nice reading your blog.

Meeti

Thanks for writing, Meeti!

While at the Oxford School I taught a class of 4 and 5 year old children, not much older than your son. I don’t know if they still offer that particular course, but if you stop by the school they should be able to give you any information you need. They also offer Italian lessons if you should want them.

There is also the International School of Venice in Mestre which I believe accepts students as young as 3. All classes are taught in English.

The last school option would be the English Institute in Mirano about which I know very little except that they focus on teaching children. I do not know the youngest students they will accept. 

For your daughter an English speaking babysitter or au pair might be best. There are actually many English speaking people in and around Mirano and I’m sure you could find somebody. You could post an advertisement at the library or anywhere else you see flyers. There are also the Scuole Materne, of which there are a few in Mirano. I don’t know which would be closest to you, but there your daughter would have the opportunity to play with other children, though she would probably not hear English.

Let me know if you need any other information. Good luck!

As I’ve been single for the last… SEVEN Valentine’s Days I’ve developed a tradition that involves dreading the day as soon as the stores fill their seasonal aisles with pink and red frippery and heart-shaped chocolates (usually a couple days after Christmas). I spend at least one week creating sad scenarios in my head involving dinner for a table of one, downing pints of Ben & Jerry’s chocolate fudge brownie while swaddled in a snuggie on the couch watching a marathon on chick flicks that include Dirty Dancing and The Notebook, and going to some event - movie, concert, show, etc - and watching all the cuddly couples around me.

Thankfully I don’t usually torture myself this way on the day in question, but I do seem to invariably spend the evening alone which is not much better. It is a sad event, but I’ll have a romantic Valentine’s Day one of these years. It’s statistically probable, at least.

Somehow Valentine’s Day snuck up on me this year. Weirdly I managed to avoid the whole month of advertisements and store displays leading up to Valentine’s Day. Better yet, my evening was suitably filled and I did not spend it alone! I got to go to a Hanson concert, with my excellent friend Kathryn, which I figured would serve as distraction, even if the only song of theirs I knew was Mmm Bop and I was pretty sure they’d now just be the manly-ish versions of their awkward teen and pre-teen selves.

NOT SO. 

I had a great time. The music was fun and I learned that they’ve had multiple albums (ALBUMS! Not just the one song!) that I’d known nothing about and it turns out they’re actually pretty decent musicians. They’ve grown into themselves, though let’s be serious, Isaac is still a bit awkward and Zac has moments where he still looks like a snarky 12 year-old (he’s now 27), but they’re a handsome group.

The openers, Wild Adriatic (a band from Saratoga!), were also a good time. I grabbed their album at the end of the show and chatted with them for a bit about Toga and one of their upcoming shows. They were nice guys. 

So in the end, Valentine’s Day caught me completely unawares and I had a great time! I’ll have to remember this for next year.

Here’s a fun fact you may or may not know about me: I hate clowns. I’m afraid of them. They creep me the f*$# out. Some of my friends *cough, cough, MELANIE* have already used this information to torture me at opportune moments.

My favourite TV show, Supernatural, deals with all sorts of crazy supernaturally (and sometimes not so supernaturally) evil things, which at some point was bound to include clowns. Luckily Sam, one of the two main characters, is also scared out of his mind by clowns so I felt like I was in good company in the second season, 5 SEASONS AGO, when they got the clown thing out of the way early with a killer clown. Sam even managed to make me feel slightly less pathetic about my fears with this winning conversation with his brother, Dean:

Dean Winchester: I know what you’re thinking Sam. Why did it have to be clowns? 

Sam Winchester: Oh, give me a break. 

Dean Winchester: [laughs] You didn’t think I remember, do you? Come on, you still bust out crying when you see Ronald McDonald on the television. 

Sam Winchester: At least I’m not afraid of flying. 

Dean Winchester: Planes crash! 

Sam Winchester: And apparently clowns kill. 

With that episode out of the way I was able to say, “Thank you, supernatural, for making me feel justified in my fears by featuring a killer clown.”

I made it through, no worse (I don’t think) for the experience and I was pretty proud. Until last night when Supernatural decided it was time to do clowns AGAIN. The opening sequence involved Sam getting the crap kicked out of him by two clowns and I knew right away it was going to be a rough hour.

The entire episode took place in a children’s play place filled with clown-themed everything and it was horrible. Fortunately, as only Supernatural can, they made much of the episode hilarious despite the gory horror of it all and I was able to learn a little something from Dean’s pearl of wisdom:

If it bleeds, you can kill it.

Not that it helped Sam because these clowns bled glitter.

Hangs head in sadness at ridiculousness of situation and the fact that since these clowns bleed glitter THEY CAN’T BE KILLED. 

However, real life clowns will bleed blood and thus if I am ever threatened by a clown I will use the knowledge given to me by Dean to protect myself. Stay out of my way clowns. I’ll have none of your creepy-permanent-smile-painted-face, seltzer-squirting-flower, evil-cackle, giant-shoe horribleness anywhere near me so I recommend you back away slowly. I WANT NONE OF YOUR BALLOON ANIMAL MAGIC. 

Take that.

I have no definite news yet, but:

Dear Ms. Card,

 

The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland’s admissions committee has considered your application for this Fall entry and I am pleased to notify you that you have been selected to interview for a seat in the 2012 entering class.

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I HAVE AN INTERVIEW. I just did a little dance while reading this, sitting on the couch, and my brother and mom asked why I was spazzing. I think they though I was having a seizure. A SEIZURE OF JOY. This week is shaping up to be the best week ever. I am one step closer to being where I want to be next year. So much happiness!

Heeheehee.

I’ve spent much of the last three and a half months whinging about how I have NOTHING to do. This was not the result of a lack of effort as I applied to many things and talked to many people, but nothing worked out. At a particularly low point I wrote a cover letter to the Gap that held them in such high esteem you would think they gave customers a free unicorn with every purchase (they don’t). Over the last three days, however, I somehow seem to have gathered as many jobs.

On Friday I got a call from Kelly Services checking if I would be interested in doing further scoring projects with them or if I might be open to any other employment they might have to offer. YES. Having explained that I would happily take any employment they deemed fit to bestow upon me I was told of a 90 day contract working for a local bank (about 20 minutes away) doing office work: scanning papers and doing data entry into their computer system. It’s a full-time job, about 40 hours per week and it pays decently. It promises to be stunningly boring, but let’s be serious, my life is stunningly boring right now and at least this way I’ll be compensated for my drudgery. I was thrilled with the offer, but needed to check on the availability of a car for me to get to and from work every day, so I promised to call them back on Monday.

On Sunday I received an email from another company I had applied to, D&T Tutoring, who had been searching for high school math and science tutors. It’s been a while, but I was (and hope to be again) a big math and science geek, so I had sent them an application. In the email I was offered a choice of interview times for what is not so much an interview as an opportunity to have the business explained to me before I begin. I signed up for Thursday morning and while I cannot be sure, I feel fairly certain that if I’ve reached this point they’ve decided to use me. 

Monday rolled around and I called Kelly Services to let them know that I was available for the job at the bank as I had checked with my mom and I could totally borrow the minivan… because this is what adulthood looks like for me. They were thrilled and asked if I would like to start Wednesday or Thursday, to which I replied “Friday” because I have to interview for the tutoring job on Thursday because I’m suddenly and inexplicably employable. They said that was perfect and promised to send me all the necessary paperwork before I start work. Excellent.

Things were lining up very nicely and I was feeling pretty self satisfied when my cell phone rang and an unfamiliar number appeared on the screen. I was suddenly apprehensive as there had been another job I was really hoping to hear from before these two other jobs came through. I found myself chanting “Please be the tutoring people. PLEASE be the tutoring people! PLEASE BE THE TUTORING PEOPLE” as I stared at the phone with increasing trepidation, flipped it open, and slowly raised it to my ear. 

A friendly voice greeted me with a “Hello! This is [name I can’t remember] from the Putnam Den. I’m calling to see if you’re still interested in working in our new location!” Somehow I managed to eke out a “Yes” that managed to fall somewhere between a squeak and a groan while my brain was firing off “Gosh dang EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE.” While it was thrilling to have another work offer, it was horrifying to have another work offer because I had wanted this one the most and I had already made some sort of commitment to two other jobs not even a full hour earlier. So what did I do? I committed to my third job that morning though I have no clear ideas of the hours or commitments of any of these jobs.

My hope is this: I will work Monday to Friday during the day at the bank while working weekends hostessing at the awesome new speakeasy and sprinkling in 2 or 3 tutoring students during the week. In an ideal world everybody would be totally okay with this and I’m not going to have any problems. The speakeasy doesn’t open until March 1st and I’m supposed to tell them my availability once we start training (fingers crossed that doesn’t fall during bank hours). I have no idea what the tutoring people want, but I guess I’ll find out on Thursday. 

Worst case scenario I’ll end up working only at the bank, and really that’s pretty good considering that I’d otherwise be doing nothing. 

It’s now been more than three months since I returned to Upstate New York from Italy, and I’m afraid I’ve only written a few times since then. My apologies. To be fair, I didn’t want to bore you. Life at home has been less eventful than I could possibly have predicted which is pretty impressive given that predictions did not include much excitement to start with. 

Essentially I have spent 3 months with no job and nothing to do. I completed my applications to medical school back before December and sent those in, and now I just have to wait. I’ve also applied to lots of jobs, but that’s really been nothing to brag about seeing as in 3 months my employment has consisted of: one day as a medical assistant in a doctor’s office (then they found the real nurse they had been looking for and didn’t need me anymore), and a week and a half grading standardized test essays from 8th and 10th graders which was pretty depressing as it destroyed my hope for literacy in America. 

So Casey, you might ask, how have you passed the last three months? To which I would reply, I really don’t know. There’s been a lot of reading, and television, and movies, and sleeping. If you asked me what I do in a week my answer would have to be nothing… but I play soccer on Wednesdays.

Soccer has been the only way for me to mark the passage of time as it is the only thing making the days of the week in any way significant. Thank goodness for it. I’m still pretty lousy, but I’m definitely improving and I’m slowly getting back into some sort of shape even though it’s only one day a week. Plus, my team is undefeated and we were the champions of the last session and we have the t-shirts to prove it! 

While it’s been rough mentally (certainly not physically, other than my intense couch surfing): missing my friends in Italy, my independent life, my apartment, my job and ITALY, there have been some distinct benefits to being home. My parents have been really great about supporting me and understanding that I’m trying even though there’s nothing to show for it. I had some times in Italy that I really missed my family, and being back I haven’t yet reached the point where I tire of them and I’m not sure I will. It’s great seeing my brother and sister (when she’s home from college) and hanging out with the people I hadn’t seen in so long. Even better, I don’t have to eat my own cooking all the time! Super exciting. 

So it hasn’t all been rainbows and unicorns, but I think things are improving and in a couple months I should start hearing back from the medical schools… fingers crossed.

I’ll leave you here with a fun picture from when my brother and sister and I went to get the Christmas tree because our parents weren’t available to do it. We’re an excellent team:

I’ve started a new blog. When interesting things start happening in my life here I will update this one, but until then the only interesting things happening in my life seem to come from my experiences on the online dating website, OkCupid. I don’t want to swamp this blog with those stories, so they’re going to get a blog of their own: All the Frogs. Enjoy!

I’m still working on getting back into the swing of things here in Togatown but it’s fall which means I can’t get hung up for too long before finding something fun to do! So far I’ve been apple picking, pumpkin carving, and running for my life at a haunted corn maze. It’s been lovely. Here is my pumpkin for this year:

based on this photo:

Happy halloween!!

This will be my last post from Italy. In seven hours I will leave my apartment and head to Marco Polo airport where I will catch my plane back to America. In these seven hours I must pack all of the belongings which remain in my apartment - those which have not yet been sold, donated, or shipped home. I’ve done everything else. I’ve paid my bills; I’ve had the apartment cleaned; I’ve turned in my books at the school, and I’ve said my goodbyes to my dear friends, coworkers, students, and beautiful Venice.

For my final hurrah my friend, Melanie, and I went into Venice today with our cameras: she with her fancy moderate-to-high-end digital camera (for which I envy her greatly) and I with my old school film-using Minolta x-700 (which I love dearly). It was fantastic. I wish we had discovered earlier that we both enjoy traipsing about Venice taking photos because getting film prints in Italy is easy and cheap, unlike in the Unites States where it is now almost impossible to find (at least in upstate New York) and we could have done this many other times.

We spent the whole morning winding our way from Piazzale Roma towards Piazza San Marco, through Campo Santa Margherita, past the Accademia, over the bridge, through Campo San Stefano (waving at Cagalibri), until we reached our destination. From there we caught a boat back to Piazzale Roma and we were taking photos from start to finish.

I used two and a half rolls of film, roughly 70 photos, a mix of color and black and whites. I was even able to get the color photos developed when I got back to Mirano in the afternoon and I can’t wait to get back to the States to get the black and whites developed!

I’m so glad I was able to make one last trip into Venice though I wish I had been less stressed and had more time. I’m really going to miss this city and I wish I had been able to visit it more often. There may be more exciting cities, places with clubs and bars and cinemas and sports stadiums and arenas for concerts and exhibitions and the like, but I don’t believe that there is any city in the world more beautiful than Venice. It’s timeless, prevented from expanding and changing by the confines of its island and so life carries on much as it has for centuries.

Some of the plaster may be chipping and the paint may be fading, but these small blemishes somehow only add to its elegance, seen in the arches of the windows, the flower covered terraces, and the bridges curving gracefully over shimmering canals. A part of me still feels that it belongs here and the impending separation threatens to tear me apart.

I know I am making the right decision given my current situation but, oh, how I wish I could stay.

All photos taken October 5th, 2011. Credited to Melanie Ford.

I did it. I cut off my hair. Sadly in Italy they haven’t got a Locks of Love equivalent and I declined the offer to bring my severed ponytail home in my suitcase. I do not feel like having to explain to the customs guy that no, I’m not bringing agricultural materials back to the States, just some human hair. No, thank you.

The change is pretty extreme but I’m really happy with the way it turned out. I didn’t go as short as I was considering, but my hairdresser made a good case for the hairstyle she chose and I have to believe that, hair being her job, I should trust her expert opinion. It’s the shortest my hair has ever been… by a lot.

I wanted to document the change so that if something went horribly wrong I’d have “before” pictures to cry over as I waited for my hair to grow back in. Fortunately, it turns out that all the pics will be good for is looking at how uncontrolled and unhappy my hair was, thus driving me to do my (super coordinated and highly complicated) victory dance.

My hair was really long! When the hairdresser was cutting it today littering the floor with bushels of hair, another one of the stylists walked into the salon, looked down, and said “Are we making extensions out of these?” Sadly not, because as I already mentioned: no Locks of Love. Anywho, the before and after profile comparison is pretty impressive and I’m glad I got the photo evidence.

I don’t know how many inches I cut off, but I’m going to venture a guess of “a lot.” Now I’m really excited to get my hands on some gel (or maybe wax if I don’t want to look like a 13 year old Italian boy), a straightening iron, and other fun products and doodads so I can experiment with styling!

Goals: do not look like boy. Come back home a new me, with a new look, and a give-em-hell attitude. Get into med school and reestablish myself as a BAMF.

Challenge accepted.