Professor Malpal

Rome: October 2, 2014

Felice Giovedi!

Sooo I know I am nowhere NEAR having the title of ‘professor’, but Professor Pal has such a nice ring to it. If completing my certification as an ESL instructor gives me the power to call myself whatever I want then I have a few more  titles up my sleeve.

I am absolutely innamorato with the kids I have lined up to teach thus far. Knock on a wooden wine glass, I’ve probably spoken too soon and will have a student with severe behavioral problems, who refuses to participate in my fun, well prepared lesson plans. Along with a kid who won’t listen to his or her nonna (grandma) or bambinaia (nanny), usually the first to greet me when I arrive for private sessions. Watch me get one that decides it would be more fun to smear quattro cheese gnocchi all over their homework. Okay, gnocchi would be totally random, but Ellie (watch out GIADA) just cooked us some for dinner so it's the only thing I could come up with on the spot. It’s also not totally out there, because Italians love to eat and they also love to see you eat and thus private sessions come chalk full of apertivos, meat and cheese plates, baked goods, those digestive cookies…

Now I don’t like to pick favorites, but I have FAVORITES. Below are a list of my A+ studenti (or A+ in my opinion- Lorenzo & Laura have an exam tomorrow so let’s HOPE they get that A+ for my sake). I’m not going to share their last names for anonymity sake, but if I can get a picture or two for next week- i’ll DEFINITELY share those.

1) Lorenzo e Laura:

I mean, first off, they are eleven year old fraternal twins who are each other’s BEST friends. It really is too cute. I tutor them privately twice a week for an hour and a half, and while I only allow them to speak in English (since NEWS FLASH they are better at English than I am at Italian), L&L definitely speak in a special ‘gemelli’ (twin) language that NO google translate can help me with. Lorenzo is pint sized for his age, but has these gorgeous blue eyes and Justin Bieber’s haircut circa his first album before all the drug, driving under the influence, D-BAG with tattoos allegations. Laura, on the other hand, is REALLY tall for her age and obviously athletic and good at sports. When I asked them to name their favorite sport (as part of their vocabulary lesson) she answered with everything other than rugby I’m pretty sure. Lorenzo answered with tennis ‘sometimes,’ but I think only because he had been studying the previous lesson that had to do with adverbs of frequency… He clearly got the smart genes and lucky for Laura because they do all their homework together. But by the end of this year, Laura won’t need Lorenzo’s help on any of her homework and Lorenzo will invite me to play a competitive and intense match of table tennis if all goes according to plan! Side note, this family is one of the very few that have multiple pets in their home- a black lab named ‘Colto,’ a cat named Caramel, and a bird of some sort that I never see but hear. Lorenzo & Laura were SO excited to show me how they taught BOTH Colto and Caramel how to alto cinque (high five). Amazing.

2) Carlotta

Carlotta is my ten year old, social butterfly and social media savvy diva, whose love for Selena Gomez rivals my love for the original late Tejano music star, Selena Quintanilla-Pérez and JLo’s portrayal of her in the 1997 classic by the same name. Throughout our entire lesson this week, Carlotta must have received twenty FaceTime  calls on her bedazzled iPhone. I finally had to be the responsible one and ask her to put it away during our ‘English’ time, which she agreed to… until it rang again. She would then get all dramatic like ‘WHYYYYY are so many people calling me! Don’t they know I’m busy learning irregular verbs with the coolest teacher around?” She would answer and turn the phone towards me to ‘show’ the person on the other end her teacher was with her (always catching me at my worst angle).

Her outfit included a pair of spandex leggings with another one of her favorite (Italian) Disney star’s face printed all over them. This Disney star, Violetta, is HUGE over here. She is on every lunchbox, t-shirt, iPhone case, and apparently kid’s spandex leggings across Italy. Carlotta rocked them SO well too. If they came in adult size, I’d probably snag a pair as well just to blend in with the locals or dress like Carlotta. Another accessory Carlotta sports is actually a little more serious, a hearing aid on her right ear. It makes me LOVE her that much more, not only because it means we HAVE to close talk (like not by choice), but also because she wears it proud. She even decorates & bedazzles it like hearing aids are the hottest trend coming out of Fashion Week.

I decided to do something fun for her during this week’s lesson-  translate Selena Gomez songs! (But don’t worry y’all, I took the time to radio edit and grammatically correct a few of my favorites so not to include foul language, sexual innuendoes, or words like ‘cuz’ and ‘bangin’).

3) Guilia (pronounced Julia) 

Guilia I teach right after Carlotta (a very easy transition since her family lives one floor up in the apartment complex). She is a year older than Carlotta, but two years older in school- a total smartypants. She is also very good friends with Carlotta and was actually one of the many friends who attempted to FaceTime Carlotta during our English lesson. But Guilia’s nanny was the real star of the show- Giovanna. She is a large, lovable and LOUD lady who basically raised Guilia and is from my experience an amazing cook. She reminds me of my late second Mom, Norma, who was my Honduran housekeeper and someone I called ‘Mama’ up until Marilu had to reinforce that she was the REAL ‘Mama.’

So basically, with Giovanna in the mix, I decided to do the English lesson on different food groups as she kept interrupting with different plates to ask if I wanted anything to eat. The interruptions included an artichoke and fava bean dish, pecorino romano, a bowl of assorted Kinder chocolates, and wait for it…a Peroni. She offered me l’acqua (H2O) and then a BEER or BIRRA rather. One Italian word I actually know well. I have Ellie on the task of figuring out the literal translation for ‘shotgunning’ a birra. Needless to say, I was taken aback and decided best to just accept l’acqua in front of the eleven year old. In the back of my mind I was really thinking- Guilia probably grew up drinking wine out of a baby bottle with this lady AND in just five short years, she would be legal to actually accept a birra from Giovanna.

Another thing I loved about the family and her mother in particular, who came home about an hour into the lesson, was that she understood that Guilia is at that age where she has CRUSHES! Guilia and I were literally in the middle of a listening exercise when the landline rung and her mother ran out of the kitchen to answer it. La signorina Marinelli turned to Guilia, said something in rapid Italian I completely missed and gave her a wink. Guilia turned BEET red and that’s when I recognized the MOM YOU ARE SO EMBARRASSING look. Her mom let her go speak to this ‘ragazzo’ and approached me to apologize for interrupting the lesson, but that Guilia really liked this boy and she would not have interrupted it for anyone else. WELP. I highly doubt Marilu, my mother, would have let anyone, boy, girl or even a U.S. President disrupt my studies. Maybe these days she would - she has serious baby fever and is dying for one of her children to give her grandchildren, but at eleven years old…NAH. Bottom line, ITALIANS love to love at any age and I LOVE the Marinellis (Giovanna included).

I have 2 other kids I want to go into detail about as well, Pietro and his little brother Andrea, who honestly need their own blog post. So as for my other two favorites, their stories will come later. And hopefully with a student/teacher photo because they are by far my BEST dressed studenti (at least for the males-under-twelve category).

Buonanotte!

baci e abbracci (Kisses & Hugs!)

Mal

Wait, I almost forgot to mention that Giovanna introduced me to the Italian version of KETCHUP chips, which are absolutely woof worthy.