My first week working for a living again

Welll .. not a helluva lot to update except the weather is turning to crap.. Only to be expected seeing it is November I guess but only 10 degrees outside today.. or this morning it was its 12 now.. and has been raining for a few days. I ventured out this morning.. the bus went a different way to what I thought.. but there were shops there.. although I wanted a Supermarket.

Working has been fun.. I am actually starting to enjoy teaching but still have trouble with all the tenses and putting labels on things like infinitives, the perfect continuous and imperatives etc .. but getting there slowly. I am teaching an elementary level student next week which will be good as he wont be able to ask me too many difficult questions!

I have ditched my crappy 5 euro jacket and bought myself a beautiful knee length coat.. and the bonus is its Pierre Cardin! And not that expensive either. I feel a million dollars in it.

I have been venturing out looking for Shopping Malls. They are all miles out of the City and you get the metro to one of the last stops or the last stop and then get a bus. It was great fun.. sort of.. Although getting off at Aningnina (the last stop on Metro A) was not the best. I was going up the escalators and I felt someone behind me trying to open the zip on my bag. It gave me a helluva fright. It is the first time since I have been away that anything like that has happened to me.. although Coraleen having her purse stolen at the Internet in in Valancia was pretty bad. It made me think twice.. in saying that I never had my credit card or any documents on me... and I dont carry money on me. He would only have got a notepad and pen as everything else is in the inside pockets. Anyway the Mall wasnt that good and not a lot of shops although there was a huge Ikea.

Ikea over here is like a Warehouse and Placemakers Megastore all rolled into one!! Its is ginormous.. and took me ages to find my way out through the cashier. The queues were akin to Foodtown Greenlane on Xmas eve.. and they are always like that.. about 20 in ech queue, all the cashiers open.. and just chaotic... but thats Italy for you.I

I start my Italian lessons on Monday.. so pretty busy as I have heaps of teaching hours. I am in Italian class from 9am till 1pm and then most afternoons I have three hours teaching and 4 nights out of 5 I am teaching until about 7 or 8. so Things are finally coming together. All I have to do is find a decent place to live.. but I guess that may have to wait until after Xmas.

I do need to change my living accommodation.. its ok.. BUT and there is always a but.. I dont think I am cut out for flat sharing with two 20 somethings... and of course the place isnt the best. I did go and have a look at one place on Friday.. 5 storeys high.. no elevator AND no better than the place I am in now.

And thats about it from me for this week.. no pictures as I have been too busy working.

End of CELTA

Erica and Anna, two of my classmates on the CELTA course

and Nicola, another classmate who came to Rome for the course but lives up near Bologna..

and below Nicola and I pretending to be 'the best' on the last day...

Elizabeth, one of the teachers.. this time not in Halloweeen costume
and Lavinia on the right and Becky, another teach, this time also not in Halloween costume..
Roberta.. one of the students we taught.. she doesnt look any worse for the trials of our teaching
Rachel... another colleague on the course

and below.. Nicola and I went out shopping and visiting the sights on the Saturday after the course had finished

and another one while out 'shopping'... the sun was there but it was bloody cold.

Well its finally over and now time to find a job. It seems.. at this stage jobs arent too difficult to come by.. wait for the next instalment to see if this is true.

It is definitely getting colder now, not freezing yet but about 12 during the day and its been raining. I couldnt be without my eleectric blanket although I have been told I am a wimp as there is no need for electric blankets in Rome as it doesn't get that cold!! Try telling that to me who has an electric blanket on from Easter through until al ost Christmas in Auckland!! Anyway I bought myself a very cheap one.. and it works just fine.

Looking for work in Rome.

Finding Work!!
I decided it was about time I started earning some money again. Traveling around Europe having a great time does not bring in the money and with the cost of living in Rome (apparently its 99.7% of the cost of living in London) is astronomical and wages are generally low. For someone who doesn’t speak Italian job opportunities are limited to, basically, teaching English. The majority of schools who are looking for teachers want CELTA qualified people.. and that’s where moi comes in. However Italy is infamous for its short term ‘contracts’ offering teachers a few hours a week at very low rates even for those who are CELTA qualified. Moreover the teachers do not teach in the school but give ‘private’ lessons in people’s homes or places of business.

I scoured the Wanted in Rome magazine (the magazine for ex pats living in Rome) and applied for half a dozen jobs. There always seem to be a lot of vacancies and I have discovered the reason why. Most of the schools employ teachers for a few hours a week and when those teachers have some experience they grab the first permanent position that comes along usually moving to another school. It does make you ask the question, why do Employers not learn and hold on to good staff? But that’s a political minefield and one I am not qualified to enter.

At this stage I have a job at twelve euros an hour working 6 hours a week over two evenings. I start on Monday 5th and the teaching is outside the school. HELLO!! With my rent costing 500 euros a month I do realize I could be destitute before Christmas!

I have three interviews lined up over the next 10 days (my course doesn’t finish until the 8th) and from what I can gather they are reputable schools, although being told by my prospective employer to text him from the front door to be let in does leave me wondering…J

From what I can gather teaching Business English is the most lucrative and the hardest to get into as most of the new teachers with CELTA are young and don’t have the experience I have. One point for us experienced oldies!! Anyway.. time will tell and in the meantime I am just working on getting through the last four days of my course in one piece and of sound mind.

The CELTA course.. and the teachers

Becky in Halloween costume for Kids Party.

.. and Margaret..
and Elizabeth...

My course? Mmmm.. I guess I have to say right now it’s great!! But that’s because I have a four day holiday. Wednesday was Halloween and being a school, on Wednesday evening say scores of children arrived in their costumes and terrorized the school! Of course, for those of you who know me well will realize that is a total exaggeration and the kids were having a wonderful time eating and drinking fabulous concoctions of witches brew, skeleton cakes and making pumpkins and wands. The teachers dressed up for the occasion, as you can see, yes they really are our teachers!! November the 1st is All Saints Day so its like Good Friday at home and everything is closed; and schools (a chance at some sanity for us CELTA students) close on the Friday making it a 4 day weekend. Meanwhile in the real world ...

Since 10 October when I started my 4 week foray into studying again I have not only forgotten to eat but haven’t had any time for sleeping even.

School starts at 9am and goes through until 5pm with an hour for lunch. Every second morning we teach, (yes real live Italian students learning English) and that started on Day 2. Each lesson is either 40 or 60 minutes long for which we must write a lesson plan, copy or design activities and type them all. Lesson plans take about 4 – 5 hours to prepare as every detail must be included and the activities have to be photocopied for the students. On top of that workload we have an assignment each week of about 1,000 words. If our assignment isn’t up to ‘standard’ we are asked to re-submit it.. of course by that time the next assignment is almost due and we have another two lessons to prepare for. I guess you all get the gist of this by now!

And if you don’t think that is stressful enough consider this: There are 6 students on our course and another 12 on the part time course (who are at school Tuesday and Thursday only) only one of us has the internet and a printer at home as most are in similar situations to me and from outside Rome and in temporary accommodation for the duration of the course. Facilities at the school are meager to say the least. There is one computer which will take a memory stick AND a printer, a second computer has a printer but no usb port for a memory stick; these two computers are available from 8.15 until 7.30pm at night. There are a further two computers in the ‘library’ which is open 5 – 7.30 4 nights a week and Saturday mornings; all four of these pc’s have email facility BUT NO MICROSOFT!! Yep, we bring our information in on our memory stick and can’t even amend it.. only print it. And the congestion on Tuesdays and Thursdays!! .

A day in the life of Vicki goes something like this… wake about 7, check my work from the night before is on my memory stick and all my books are in bag, walk to school (that’s a good point – it’s only a 2 minute walk) dropping off the rubbish on the way (no such thing as a rubbish bin here it’s Wheelie Bins at the end of the street!!). Arrive at school at 8.15 in the hope of getting to the computer first and print out my lesson plan and copious copies of the handouts for activities. Change pc’s to let the next person print out her stuff and open emails… enjoy emails from home and reply if time permits. I am in class all day until 5 o’clock, then to use the library to find materials for next lesson and/or assignment, photocopy relevant information (you can only borrow one book at a time) .. walk home in the dark. I work on laptop until the outline of the lesson comes together, whip up a salad or boil some soup, make lunch for the next day, have a shower and back to the laptop. Around midnight I may just have finished.. although to be working at 1am is not uncommon.

Am I a looser or what??? When I am the last person in the school at night and the first person to arrive in the morning I think so!! I had to re-submit my first assignment, which was grammar, so for two days I didn’t get to bed until almost 2am!! If only someone had told be the ‘infinitive’ is the base form of a verb and a past participle is the past tense of the verb. Why do linguists think up such fancy names for basic things? I thought this course would teach grammar but it only just touches on it, the main aim of the course is to teach one HOW to teach.

The UPSIDE of this? Yes there is one.. truly I kid you not! The other 5 girls/women in the class are fantastic company and I am so busy I don’t have time to get lonely! There are two Americans, one girl from London and two Italians and ALL of them speak Italian to some degree.