Normality

It’s amazing how quickly things become routine.  I’ve been here nearly 7 weeks now, but this is only the fourth week at school, and it all feels so much like normal life.  I know most of my classes now, though some of them I haven’t taught that much yet.  I teach in two schools.  In the Liceo Classico I teach every class but one, so when I walk around the small school everybody knows me.  The Liceo Artistico is quite a lot bigger and I teach only 5 classes.  I say ‘only’ with reluctance because it brings my running total up 14, so that’s about 350 students.  That means that most people aged 14-18 around Modica town centre recognise me, but remembering all of them is absolutely impossible.  

So it’s normal life.  That means the honeymoon period is over, the kids are pretty used to me now and generally aren’t totally astounded to see me, which to be honest is a massive relief.  Though standing at the front and running the lesson doesn’t faze me, I was keen for the incessant centre-of-attention/fascination phase to pass as quickly as possible.

Normal life also means I can generally get by in Modica.  I’m moderately used to adapting to new cities, and for me success is 

1. being able to go to the supermarket and to your workplace/studyplace effortlessly (e.g. not to get lost every day, difficult when you’re me), 
2. having a minimum of two favourite cafes where the staff recognise you
3. encountering a fairly low frequency of problems you don’t know how to solve

I’m not completely lost here, I know my way round and it’s very much the place where I live now, not just a place where I’ve landed or am just passing through.

Normal life unfortunately means the odd bad morning.  Nothing that won’t be mostly better by the evening and totally forgotten by the next day, but something like a bad lesson with unparticipative teenagers who can’t understand English, rainy weather and running out of cooking gas, all on inadequate sleep.  Just ordinary everyday things.  If you’re in a really nice town doing a really nice job in a country you’re completely in love with, most days are good days, but the point is that this isn’t a holiday; it’s actually my actual life at the moment.

Anyway, as it happens, my landlord has just this second come to check the cooking gas and headed out to get a new ‘bombola’ - what’s that called?  A big metal can/bottle/thing of gas.  And tomorrow I have just one lesson, and it’s one of my really good classes, and it’s not till midday, so it looks like I’ll have a nice lie-in and tomorrow will be a good day.

Ps. I’m not writing this blog for praise, but thank you so very much for the kind complements you people have given me, each one has made my day.