Tales from the ditch...

I remember once, during my freshman year of college, I hadn't written home in a couple of weeks and my father sent me a one-line email: "Kate, are you still alive or lying dead in a ditch somewhere? Write home, please. Love, Dad"

Hope you don't think I'm lying dead in a ditch somewhere. So, finally here's tales from the ditch...

Last I posted was before spring break at Cossato. Last weekend was my first weekend in Biella in about a month. Tells you alot about what's been going on with me - traveling! I had 10 days off for my spring break, the following itinerary was planned - 3-4 days in London with Jana, then 7 days in the Czech Republic with Libor. No go. Why? I received a letter in the mail a few weeks before notifying me of the date I needed to appear at the Questura in Biella regarding my permesso di soggiorno. About time, dang it! Well. I went, long (and adventurous) story made short, they said I would receive my permesso in the mail but that I could fly out of the country at my own risk. Heart pounding, I went to and from the Czech Republic thankfully without any incident other than a tense moment when it looked like the customs officer was looking for my permesso when he saw that I had a visa. After intense inspection, he stamped my passport and gave it back to me with a friendly smile and a "buongiorno" to send me on my way. I'm telling you, whenever grumpy-looking Italian customs officers and airport staff saw my visa, they immediately smile and talk to me briefly in Italian. I smile sweetly and just go on my way. :-D

The visit in the Czech Republic was nice. It was unfortunately very short. It's getting harder yet easier for Libor and I during these short visits... We are getting used to these short visits, but at the same time the tension of not seeing each other in so long and then all of a sudden put together in close proximity for a period of time can be negative. We agreed that Libor would look for a job in Italy and the planned date for him to move here is in September. Keep your fingers crossed I'll have a job by then. Just started the search process this week after a good meeting with Elena last week. (More to follow)

I arrived back to a lushly green Italy. It is officially spring. While the weather is in the upper 70's, it is quite hot for me. Now I can't imagine what summer must be like. After the dry heat of New Mexico, the humidity level makes it quite hot for me. I haven't gotten to the point of wearing skirts yet - I have them, but am feeling too tomboyish (and chicken) to actually wear them! Grrr.

The weekend after coming back from the Czech Republic, I went to Venezia. What a trip!!! It was definitely a trip to keep in mind for my grandchildren. ;-) Kids, when your grandma was young, she had a wild trip to Venezia... *kids looking up at me, wide-eyed and slack-jawed* I'll have to write about it in another blog... I need to write it well enough so that I don't scare my family half to death. ;-) (p.s. I'm alive, not in a ditch somewhere, ok? remember that) Venezia is hands-down one of my favorite places in Italy. :-) I was just offered a chance to go to Venezia again next week for a conference at the university there... a perfect opportunity to see the local side of Venezia. So tempting... but we'll see because my schedule is filling up fast.

The week after coming back from Venezia, I went to Roma for 4 days. Originally I was going for the purpose of meeting with Elena and to meet with someone from the US Embassy to discuss paperwork for disability benefits, but wouldn't you know it, I was so busy in Roma that I only remembered that I forgot to go to the embassy when my train was halfway to Biella! It means it wasn't meant to be at this time.

Work is going well - I have only a few weeks left before school is done and my work is done for the year. I'm working now to wrap up everything I've done into a portfolio for the teachers to have on hand for next year. I can't help but think that I haven't left anything "tangible" for teachers to use other than knowledge and examples of how to use the technology. :-/ *sigh*

I'm moving out of this apartment in a few weeks as well - will be staying with one of my friends, an interpreter at the school. I'm looking forward to it - she's the one I visited who lives in the mountains. Beautiful place! :-) She apologized that her boyfriend doesn't know LIS well enough to communicate with me. I said he needs to help me improve my Italian, and I can help him improve his LIS. She agreed heartily. :-)

I've started this week with inquiries into jobs for next year. After I told Elena I wanted to continue in the vein of the work that I'm doing now, but more in-depth with bilingual education, she said my best bet for success in my field was to find a job in a university. So today I approached a professor at the university in Venezia who said that most likely there's nothing for me there but he's working on a project at the University of Lugano (Switzerland) and asked me to send him a copy of my CV so he can see where my skills and experience lie. Keep your fingers crossed. Next on my list is Milano. I'm working on a letter for Cossato, but it will be a week before the letter is translated into Italian and I can submit it to the director.

It's 11 already... Time for me to end this post. Sorry it isn't as literally pleasing as other posts. ;-) Trying to get caught up on my entries, then I'll try to update soon. I will TRY to get pictures posted soon! As soon as I have time to run a batch to resize all the images so they can be uploaded!