Adelaide at Work

April was rather quiet on the work front. In addition to two long weekends and a public holiday on 25th April (for Liberation Day, not ANZAC Day) the school has been experiencing a slump in enrolments. That meant that before allocating any hours to me they have been trying to keep the teachers on full time contracts fully employed. In fact a number of the teachers haven’t been working their guaranteed minimum of 80 hours a month (although they still get paid for them), and to my surprise I heard a couple of complaints about wanting more work, wanting to be busier because they were getting bored. Never mind living in a foreign city with plenty to see, do and explore! Give us more work!

So, at the end of April I submitted a timesheet for a ridiculous ten hours. The whole point of taking on a part time teaching position was to ensure that each month I earned enough to cover the rent. April’s pay cheque was clearly short.

In light of the approaching summer, when we both expect to be earning virtually nothing for about six weeks as the whole country shuts down, and the impending departure of flatmate Dana, I decided to approach the school to go full time. It seemed like a good idea, and they were happy to know my availability had changed, as it meant not having to hire any new teachers this late in the school year.

However, having made that decision I didn’t realise that the school was just about to start a number of new classes for the Provincial Government. These were meant to commence in February but in accordance with the working of all-things-Neapolitan they are now starting in May. A delay of only four months is not considered unreasonable. I now find myself working Tuesday and Thursday from 8.30am, finishing at 8.30pm, with a break in the afternoon. Luckily Monday and Wednesdays are (for now) much easier with only one lesson at INAIL, an insurance company.

Thus the merry go round of classes continues. I try to keep up with what I’m supposed to be teaching to whom. The other challenge of course is remembering all the names and new faces.

There is one woman in my Provincia class called Adelaide. The first time I read out the names from the register she didn’t respond to her name. For a very good reason, I might add. I instinctively pronounce ‘Adelaide’ just as we say the name of the city of churches in South Australia, i.e. heavy on the ‘aide’ as only an Aussie accent can. I have tried on several occasions to pronounce Adelaide in ‘Italian’ but there are just too many vowels in there and they trip me up leaving me face first in the pavement. (Did I just write ‘pavement’? Shit I meant ‘sidewalk’, oh no I meant ‘footpath’…that’s better. Bloody US English is getting inside my head.) I have, perhaps to her horror, taken to calling her Adelaide as I would in Australia. Perhaps she thinks it’s better than butchering her name every time I ask her to respond to a question.

The upshot of the new routine is that I’m at school Tuesdays and Thursdays with time to complete lesson plans, use the internet and best of all upload blogs. Keep reading.