Class & Other Thoughts

This morning I got up early enough to have a good breakfast of Fred’s Famous Oatmeal, coffee and piece of fruit and then packed my bag and went outside to meet  my walker friend. She is supposed to get here between 8:10 and 8:15 which gives us a tight 30 minutes to get in a walk before I leave for school at 8:45. Now, since she has been late before, I did what Fred cleverly suggested which is to walk up and down the street while I am waiting and this wasn’t too bad since I had the IPod. At 8:30, I decided she wasn’t coming and went inside to find a telephone call saying she wasn’t coming since she hadn’t managed to get off work until 8:15.  She knows how tight the time is on Thursdays for me. When I got home from school today, there was an email from her saying she was going to do her best to get off work at 7:30 tomorrow morning and was I up for walking at that hour? I said I was {and I am sure I will be up because I slept for two-and-a-half hours this afternoon} so we shall see…
Class today was, as usual, fun. We asked each other questions about our raccontionos which were about the imaginary people she had given us pictures of {Incidentally, I had left the picture of my character, "la mio nonno Tyler"–my grandfather Tyler– at home –I hate it when I do things like that!} Then we contructed the beginnings of a whole new raccontino about "la sheriffa Carolina" and a character named Rocco. {"La sheriffa Carolina" comes from one of the students in the class who was wearing for heaven knows what reason, a sheriff’s badge! And Rocco was one of the characters in Michaela’s story about her family.} Now, the point of these stories is practice using certain verb forms and today we started on future which actually isn’t called future but something else which, of course, I forget! We have a list of four verbs which have to be used in the story… We have a LOT of homework but we also have no class at all next week on either days.

I got email from the teacher whose class I will be working with on Monday {AAAAGH! Panic! NEXT Monday!} and so I will go and get biggish cards tomorrow and write the students’ names in English on one side and in Italian on the other. The teacher also said she will be happy to use my camera and take pictures. Most people have had some experience with digital cameras these days but nevertheless I will remind her to half-press the button to focus before taking the picture because these pictures are a vital part of my report to the class and la prof.
I got in a short 15 minute walk this morning before I went to class and after I got up from my two-and-a-half hour nap,  I went for a 30 minute walk around town. It was 65 degrees and muggy with it. Apparently tomorrow we are going to be getting some of that stormy weather that has been drenching the South. Usually by the time it gets up here, it is not that bad. When I lived in the South, I can remember many times when the rain was falling so hard that anyone with any sense pulled off the highway to wait for it to pass. That is one thing I notice isdifferent up here in the North. When it rains, it very often rains all day and sometimes for several days. Unless it was a severe storm system, in my part of the South it rained most afternoons in the summer for about 20 minutes and that was it. We got the big heavy drenching downpours but they didn’t last long. And of course, that is excluding hurricanes where it rains for days…Homework: {To remind myself}

• raccontino about la sheriffa and Rocco
• NO grammar assignment even though the homework sheet gives a chapter and some exercises
• The web work is "la musica". We are to find an artist or a piece of music and find a web page in Italian with, if possible, an English translation. it would be a good thing if we had the lyrics in Italian and in English if possible. Having the song or a sample of the composer or artiste on a CD would be fantastic! I am thinking about "Nessun Dorma. " Sarah Brightman’s version of this always brings tear-prickles to my eyes no matter how many times I hear it, but I would have to write about the composer rather than the singer since Brightman isn’t Italian.
• there is also a page of questions about our choice in the "la musica" assignment that have to be answered in sentences in Italian.

Until later….