‘Twas the Month of December!

It’s very nice to be able to celebrate Christmas here. Parent volunteers decorated the lunch room and our classrooms with a tree and other wall décor. Santa even came to visit, and had  a present for every child.

Varsity swimming started a few weeks ago. I got off to a rough start by having pneumonia during tryouts, but now things are going well. There are 9 boys and 7 girls on the team. This is down from 23 during tryouts. I really don’t believe in cutting swimmers, but we only have room for 16 in the vans, and we only have two lanes at the pool. I’m relieved that the swimmers cut themselves. The swimmers on the team now are dedicated and hard workingJ.  We only get to practice three times a week for an hour a day so I’m having to rethink how I train the swimmers. Plus, we only had two weeks of practice before our first meet. But the swimmers showed how amazing they are. They placed 4^th out of 11 teams! We’ll have four or five practices before Christmas vacation. Then the swimmers will be off for 3 weeks of vacation, and 1 week of ski week, and then we dive into action the next day.  Interesting season!

The first meet was is Neuchâtel, the French part of Switzerland. It boggles my mind that depending on where you are in Switzerland you have to speak a different language. Even the road signs change languages! I took French in high school, but I've been trying to suppress it because it was confusing my Italian learning. When I got to Neuchâtel I couldn’t even remember how to say hello or thank you; my tongue felt tongue-tied. Pitiful!

The cool thing was that our bus driver didn't speak English, so I got to "try" to speak Italian for the 5 hour drive. I used a dictionary, and lots of laughs to have a conversation. On the way home one of the swimmers asked how long I had been here. He said, "Wow, you speak Italian really well [for a beginner]. I know many teachers who have been here a long time and don't speak as well." That sure made me feel good. But the driver also told me it was difficult to understand me because I don't conjugate my verbs well and I have an American accent. Oh well, at least I could understand him.

I went to the Milano Christmas market on Saturday. It was HUGE and amazing. In four+ hours I only got to one of four conference halls, the europa one. Each hall featured merchandise, food and music from different countries.

I found a wine I actually like, Moscato.
I bought some from this man and his son who made it!

Chocolate covered pretzel 

I bought olive oil from this man who made it!

German music with Alp horns and cow bells!

Tidbits:

 We had some snow flurries this week. Wow, snow falling on palm trees sounds really funny! 

 

TASIS treats us well…there was an egg nog and hors d'oeuvre get together after school on Friday.

I appreciate the conference and report card schedule here. We conference twice and write report cards twice. We write comments for each subject.

I love our school bell!

 

We have a wonderful chef!

Arrivederci!

Belated Thanksgiving!

I don't know why I didn't get this posted yet. Guess I'm having too much fun!

I’m thankful for many friends, and many thanksgiving meals. It was about time to attempt my first baking adventures. The first was making pumpkin bread. I steamed my own pumpkin, but it wasn’t the correct amount for the recipe; wasn’t sure if what I thought was baking soda, was baking soda; used a casserole dish instead of bread pans; and I didn’t understand the icons on the oven. Amazingly, it turned out delicious! For my second Thanksgiving I made my family’s favorite carrot casserole. One would think finding butter in the store would be simple, however in Switzerland it is disguised by looking like cream cheese. One would also think a vegetable peeler would be part of standard kitchenware, however in Switzerland a corkscrew is standard ware. They don’t work well for peeling carrots, but I was amazed at how well I could peel carrots with a knife. Next time I make carrot casserole I hope to have a peeler and a potato masher.  The casserole sure did taste like home though.

My kids let me know they missed me for their Thanksgiving, from posting a photo of my empty refrigerator to Facebooking me to ask where the pans were and which knives to use. I’m glad I have my home in Minnesota where they could all get together….I sure do miss them.

Thanksgiving Weekend! in Lugano!

Looking forward to trying this!

It's so dang hard to learn a new language...and my students do it so well! I'm in the middle of Unit 2 in Rosetta Stone. Yikes, I can't even repeat a sentence if I only hear it orally. By the time I get to the middle, I've forgotten what I'm supposed to say at the end! Forget about typing a dictated sentence! Some days I feel so discouraged, yet other days I can tell I’m making progress. I want to be able to speak Italian NOW! Can you detect my impatience with my slow progress? I keep searching for the magic app or flashcards. I need words and grammar; I want it all, now!

Being sick in a foreign land is no fun!

I had pneumonia a few weeks ago, and I really felt isolated. I couldn’t go to work and one day my Internet was out for 12 hours. My cell phone didn’t work either, so something must have been going on. It took over 3 weeks to get better, but I finally started riding my bike again yesterday. I’m out of shape, but riding felt wonderful.

FYI - My standard transmission van driving is getting better, sort of. The other day I realized that I wasn't experiencing an adrenaline rush all the time while driving.  Moments later I stalled the van when the light turned green on a steep hill! Go figure!

Not sure how it is possible, but I was shopping in a very crowed grocery store, and I felt lost and lonely, like I was walking around in a fog. I felt so isolated because of the language barrier. I need to learn Italian, fast!

Store hours are very different here.  Some close for lunch, some are closed on Thursdays, all are closed on Sundays, most are only open in the evening on Thursdays. It’s kind of liberating not being able to shop 24 hours a day. However If I’m desperate, I could drive to Italy where the stores have longer hours. 

Arrivederci!

Another Week Flew By!

My Italian has it’s ups and downs……I have been having simple conversations with the women who help with lunch and do the cleaning at school. Being able to understand each other makes me feel like I’m making progress. However, I tried to talk with the school bus driver, and he couldn’t understand me at all. To make it worse, he asked one of the first graders to interpret for him. Very humbling and disappointing! As I practice repeating sentences from Rosetta Stone, I get discouraged when I get to the middle of the sentence, I can’t even remember what I was supposed to say. What a difference in language learning ability compared to a six or seven year old. My EAL students repeat phrases and sentences all day long, and can create their own sentences with ease. They amaze me!

It was a very rainy weekend. The only fun thing I did was go to Gandria, a very quaint village on the shore of Lake Lugano. It doesn’t have any streets; the residents park their cars up on the hill above the village. It was eerily quiet on a rainy Saturday morning. None of the stores or restaurants were open, and we only saw one other person. It felt like I was in a Twilight Zone film in some deserted place.

Gandria Flower Boxes

It was hard waiting for the election results to come in, but it was worth the wait. I’m proud of my kids, and all of their hard work with the Rochester United for All Families and the Vote NO campaign.  Several of us at TASIS got together for a victory party with Obama!

My super star girls, Shell, Becca, and Jen!

Here are some reasons why I love my school:
      

We use a real school bell!

Fabio, our chef!

Sweetest little Russian girl ever!

My brother, Tom, left Wednesday morning; it’s quiet around here again. It sure was fun having him here.

Swiss pencils are far superior to US pencils. I hardly ever have to sharpen them!

It was beautiful here all week, and then it rained ALL weekend! Second week in a row like that. Can't say I'm a fan of all of this rain!

Swim team starts tomorrow; I'm excited!