Eating words

G'day tutti

As per usual, Dr. Blogalonga is out in front....hard to keep up.

The summer is in full-swing and I confess, I've had to eat my words somewhat about there not being enough music, events etc. in Venice. In fact, now there is too much for me to do and I just don't have the time to go to everything. Ahem. I smell hypocrisy....

We've discovered a really cool local band called Grimoon who play alternative type folk music with lots of keys (including a Farfisa!), violin, guitar etc. and a French singer. They also create their own short films to accompany the music. We also saw another group playing traditional Italian music on a boat in the canal outside one of our favourite drinking spots. Great atmosphere with some crazeeeeee regional Italian dancing going on. So yeah. Seems that when music is hapening in Venice, it happens in style!

The other two reasons why I've had less time to go out is because I now have my own keyboard (whoo hoo! so I'm back to feeling guilty about not practising enough!) and because I've been taking-on a lot of the students at the Oxford School who want to continue over the summer whilst all the other teachers (sensibily) take-off for holidays in Spain, Croatia etc. I'm the crazy Australian who's teaching over the summer holidays because to me, it still seems like it should be winter, in the middle of the year when I am (or should be) the most productive!!

Anyway, I'm loving teaching English. So far, most of my students have been adults from the various large companies in the Veneto region - particularly engineers - so I'm learning a lot from them about the operations of the port city - transport systems, customs, and oil / gas mining and refinery. I also have a lot of students at Telecom - one of the many telecommunication companies here. But this is another blog in itself...

Finally, my Italian is SLOWLY improving.....a fascinating yet frustrating experience. It really has helped me to understand the difficulties that my English students face.....and also how similar learning a language is to learning music (jazz particularly!). You need to understand the structure of the language....but if you only follow the rules, you sound rigid and unatural because the rules always change....but you can't just improvise on the spot unless you've practised some key phrases and vocab that you can adapt in the moment.....and then when you're out there performing, you have to think ahead, behind and in the moment all at once to predict, guess and say something appropriate at the right time in context. Normally for me this is an emphatic "Si!" or "va bene" or "O-kaay" or "Certo" or "Un macchiato, grazie".

And of course, the more you practice, the better the performance. BLAH!