AD/HD Calls for more Awareness

Erasmus: a very short introducation for Haters.

Your back hurts, you're relentlessly peckish, you set aside and devour books that depict exotic lands and, eventually, you go all Gandhi about travelling.

That's how it all started, once 19 I turned in my Erasmus application - my only getaway.

Erasmus is usually synonymous with funfunfun! bonkers!

 and got-totally-wasted-and-puked-on-the-taxi-home!

I'll spare you the details this time, however I will try to jot down what studying abroad entails for a 20-something year old student. So guys let's break down a couple of stereotypes on going on Erasmus, since unfortunately lots of students still state that 'it's a waste of time' and 'it's tailor-made for slackers'.


MONEY
"My friends went on Erasmus and are blowing their parents' money"
Most scholarships amounted to about 250 euros a month which I, personally, formally received after 5 months since I moved to England. How did I get by? I started working part time well before even getting accepted at Warwick, saved up money and helped myself while I was studying. The students who go on Erasmus usually turn into self-made accountants in order to avoid bankrupt, these are the kind of practical skills you'll need for good.

STUDY
"My friend went on erasmus and did fuck-all"

The English university system pivots on self study, lectures are minimal meanwhile the idea of a seminar is thought and designed to be more of a swap of ideas rather than concept drumming. So yes, I only had 10 hours of class per week. Which,of course, for most Italian students is inconceivable. However I can't keep track of how many books I have read, how much hours of research I've put in, plus time spent seeking out information at the library, talking with other fellow students, demos, and volunteering. Yes, I did volunteering work while on Erasmus and I was not the only one.

I scored embarrassingly high marks in the exams, and no, they didn't know I was an exchange student - exams are anon in the UK. I didn't know what I was capable of till strangers marked my work. Most importantly, I was acquiring quality knowledge. 

SEMINARS
"My friend went on Erasmus and his teacher gave him alcohol during class"
There are many ways as to conduct a seminar, however one could easily say a seminar is a sort of intellectual get-together. You meet up in small groups of students usually led by someone who has a broader field experience - be it a teacher or not. It's when students clear up doubts, ask questions, and express their opinions. That's even most important than any other top-down lecture you can attend to, which might be wonderfully illustrated but still quite unilateral. Sometimes, especially in England, can happen that a teacher brings in a bottle of wine as to kindly apologise for a late-in-the-evening seminar for instance.

FRIENDS
"I already got pals I don't need no one yo"

Despite my skepticism I found amazing people coming from all over Europe  who made me an all-new person. Knowledge is priceless, relationships are priceless, openmindedness, tolerance and culture are our most precious legacy and on those you can't certainly put a price.
Most of those friendships have proved to being strongest links I have to my sweetest memories and memories-to-be. I have been blessed!



TRIPS
"I don't care where they travel to, weren't they supposed to go there to study? Look at their facebook page!"
Once you leave your country you'll want to see more and more. Yes, on Erasmus we travel a lot and I'm sorry to break this to you but that's a wonderful thing to do, as has been said before it's the only thing you pay that makes you richer. The sense of fulfilment you gain from your trips is genuinely addictive!

So don't go all hater on your friends who 'went on Erasmus and were always hanging around'. You're just bit jealous ;)


LANGUAGE
"She can't even speak English that well"

If you don't feel fluent with the language of the country you are going to, don't worry about it. We all feel that way. My literature teacher had me writing an unassessed essay and soon thereafter she called me up after a couple of days and told me that if I wanted to reach good results I had to get my act together.  I needed to widen my vocab and work hard on the contents, I was too shallow and green to excel. Once you come to terms with it it's all downhill from there.

Work hard, read, watch series (something students really know how to do), bomb yourself with language, go out, have fun and you'll learn twice as much. Your mind is receptive and powerful, learning doesn't necessarily mean racking you brain. Straight up!

At the end of the year the same teacher told me she was amazed with what I achieved...mostly by enjoying doing what I was studying.

CULTURE AND STEREOTYPES

"Racism is treated travelling" Miguel de Unamuno once said - the naked truth. Go see for youself what other peoples are like, and you'll find out an aweful lot of things about yourself. Someone else will make you question yourself and it'll hit you like a ton of bricks on the head.

By collaborating with peers of other cultures you learn about tolerance, fellowship effective teamwork. The grounds for a better and fairer society.

TIME

"If you go abroad you won't graduate on time".

Point 1: you can graduate on time if you smartly use your time. I did two full exchange programmes and I pulled it off.
Point 2: even if for some reason you couldn't, a couple of months of delay will make absolutely no difference in your life.
Point 3: most employers set a high value on your experiences and sense of initiative and prefer it over the actual duration of your study. Get over it!

CONTEXT
It's not easy to self-administrate your life when you just turned 20. We're kids, we like travelling, we're alone and we have to get along with lots of new friends whom you just met and will be your family for about one year. Most of them don't speak your language and come from a totally different culture.
It's like attending a master degree in international relationship and mediation, and if you think that this is a wee over the top means you should pack your stuff and go see what's around you. You have no idea!


FUN
That's pretty much self-explanatory, you go on Erasmus and apart from building up your self-confidence you also have a blast.
Is it THAT bad? You surely won't believe that Erasmus students do fuck-all only because we enjoy going out, will you?
This certainly calls for more of a mature judgement rather than a lame label! :)

A quick Glance at All-round Education

A Forbidden Education

We've all been students, regardless of what, when and where we've studied. But what is studying?

Think of an answer.

Studying is the process of learning something by … going to school! University! Getting an MBA?

Think back, about all the things that you've had to mug up since you were a kid, at the age of 4 most of us were taught how to read and mastered basic counting techniques. At 6 most of us were familiar with the concept of problem.

Problems needed to be solved.

In primary school my math teacher introduced this by putting a key onto the last shelf of the wardrobe and said 'go get it kid!'.

Back then I was about 3ft 7 and I genuinely told her, 'I can't! it's too high away - I should get a chair...” That was the very first problem I came acroos at school. Clear and well-rendered.
What happened afterwards? Why has everything gotten so hard to understand and utterly useless. Why have teachers forced us to learn endless notions of history, latin, analytic geometry. We have spent our childhood and teenagehood cramming on books. Hundreds of pages, dates, formulas and what have you. Learn this learn that, grind away, get the best marks or – or what???
They made us cry our souls out, they made us want to drop out when we couldn't possibly bone up everything, we just couldn't. Some told us we were thick, others told us we needed to stay focused and stop hanging around with friends. We all had to be good in everything, we couldn't get by, we needed to master everything in order to face real life.

How many of the things they taught you at school have had any practical use in your life? Reading, writing and basic counting? Well this you could do at 5.

What about all the things you couldn't do when you went to school, e.g thinking. What did you think back then, what problems did you come across, and I'm not referring to the X you had to find in you math workbook.
Where was the key you couldn't reach? What about the mere 8-minute break my school generously granted us to take a break. 8 minutes in a 6-hour school session, and we were only 14 when we started. What about getting to know other cultures, talking, visiting without the fear of profiling a detailed report depicting what we did? What about getting to respect the surrounding nature by making the most of it and living on emotions.
Why couldn't we have class outside sitting on the grass when spring was in bloom – because we'd get distracted.

Of course we would, we were never given the time to look around us to explore, to ask questions. We had to pack up Earth Science notions from a book! When we could have just walked out of the freaking classroom and go touch things. I'd have loved a teacher who could show us the environment we were living in rather than seeing it on a picture or craning our neck towards the window if we got any luck. We spent days without looking at the sky.
Experience is learning and culture is what remains after you've forgotten everything.
In an era in which technology is making life so much easier for us there is something that, as teachers, we should pass onto our students.

No computer will replace the joy of a fresh brush on a canvas, marine breeze and the smell of a recently bloomed flower. Take your students out, let them speak their mind, listen to them and they will ask you to teach them things. Just like they did when they were 3 and they had all the time to play, but they'd beg you to teach them how to read instead.

'La breve storia senza infamia né lode dei miei nonni – In toscano”.

Il mi nonno è Toscano nostrano,anzi, born and bred come direbbero in america. Ma il mi nonno l'inglese un lo sa, apparte quel poco che gl'ha insegnato la mi nonna, 'ua' 'zu' 'zri', che con tutto il rispetto se non altro sa contare fino a 3. 

La mi nonna appunto è 65 anni che sta in Toscana, lei è d'un paesino sperso sul confine tra le marche e l'emilia romagna; così in culo a' monti che in tutti i documenti che c'ha risulta sia nata in una provincia diversa. Fin'a che a Arezzo un gli fecero un foglio dove dicevano che effettivamente in tutt'e tre le parti si trattava della stessa persona.

I mi nonni sono come i nonni de tutti, ma sono i più specialissimi...perché so' i mia.
La mi nonna è un'ex-maestra fresca del metodo montessori nonché donna inevitabilmente religiosa e altrettanto monarchica. Combatte ogni giorno contro un insormontabile shock culturale col quale, nonostante la sua lunga permanenza in territorio toscano, un è riuscita ad integrarsi: i moccoli, più comunemente chiamate bestemmie, in particolare quelli del mi nonno.

Lui è'n brotolone, ha 84 anni, ha tutti i denti e questa storia della tecnologia un gli è andata proprio giù. Lui dice che il mondo un è più quello d'una volta e che al Tecnics (aka Euronics) gli aggeggi un son per nulla boni. L'ultima lampadina che c'ha comprato gli costò 5000 lire più o meno dieci anni fa e ci tornò quando al telegiornale dissero che 'gnava cambiare tutte le lampadine e mettere quelle a basso consumo.

Litigano tutti i giorni da na vita, la mi nonna non riesce a capire perché tutti i su figlioli compresa la su nipote parlino sbiascicando. Soprattutto la su nipote che s'è laureata e ancora un pronuncia borsa ma 'borza', né dieci, ma 'dièsci' – come dice lei in un forzato e improbabile accento toscano. Dice pure che ogni tanto potrei iniziare a usare la prima persona plurale invece che mettere 'si' ovunque, però a quello già ci s'è fatta più il callo. Tranquilli finalmente 3 anni fa è arrivato il mi cugino piccino, che vive a Bologna e sembra si sia messo di buzza bòna a dire tutte le C.

Ma torniamo al mi nonno che smoccola e la mi nonna che gli va dietro facendo il rosario e un giorno gli disse: 

(da leggere con accento romagnolo)
'Vai vai tu continua così poi tanto il giorno dei conti viene per tutti sai, anche per te vè!” E il mi nonno che un so io se stava annaffiando le fragole o tirando fòri na scala la guardò e gli disse
'Oh Emma ma quant'è che vai in chiesa te?'
“Da più tempo di te!”
'Ecco appunto e ancora te t'unn'hai capito che i ragli de l'asini unn'arrivano al soffitto!'
E rizzando 'l culo il mi nonno tornò a trabiccolare colle su faccende e da quel giorno la mi nonna si chetò e un gli ridisse più nulla.

Catalunya or Cataluña?: a humble stream of consciousness

-So! Where are you from?
Oh crap... here we are again.

As years passed I worked on the best answer I could possibly give to this apparently silly question. All the places where I've travelled to, the ones in which I've actually stayed for a while, in which I've lived, studied, been to the grocery's and missed the bus are where I am from. So I go:“I used to be from Italy...now I'm from Barcelona - I guess”.That's how I keep people on the hook. Either that or they just ignore my answer and look at me as if I grew up in a cocoon of self-banishment.

Anyhow, being a TEFL teacher in Barcelona doesn't really make me Spanish, or should I say Catalan? That's exactly where I wanted to get to. Last autumn I set off to Barcelona, thinking that I was heading to Spain. I moved there and I was thrilled, or to use one of the many untranslatable Spanish words I had tons of “ilusión”. For you who have lived in Barcelona and who have stumbled across this post, you might notice the oddly high frequency of 'Spain' related words. As a matter of fact the less you pronounce the word Spain in Catalonia, the better you live. Politics, scandals, ailing and stagnant economy plus poor education and health care system services contributed to the encouragement for    independence.

Sadly enough this also resulted in a cultural war for independence using Catalan as a show of strength and support for the same cause. As many of you might already know Catalonia, as many other Spanish regions, suffered from a terrible cultural and language repression during the Francoist dictatorship which lasted almost 40 years. During that time no language could be spoked other than Castilian (aka Spanish). In 1975 when this nonsense finally came to an end, Catalonia, who was deeply hurt by years and years of cultural repression, became very sensible when it came to protecting its cultural legacy. Since then, Catalan has been lingua franca and working language in Catalonia which left a mere second language role to Castilian Spanish.

Barcelona is the only city in Catalonia where people say there is somehow still bilingualism. Be it due to tourism, be it due to mass immigration. Many people I know say that outside Barcelona there is a great amount of people who don't really speak Castilian as fluent as they are supposed to. Why? Because they don't need it. At least inside this county. I teach kids, many kids, they go to Catalan schools, they speak Catalan among them, they speak Catalan at home. By the age of 6 they still make easy mistakes in Spanish such as 'decido' instead of 'dicho' and 'ponido' instead of 'puesto'. Such mistakes should disappear past the age of 4. Some others can only understand Spanish but they can't really speak it, or that's what their parents say at least.

I always feel pensive when it comes to choosing up sides. Is it understandable or over the top? Do I like it or not? What would I do? I have no clue. It's something that goes beyond me, in which I should have no say because even though I feel like I belong here the community looks down on you until you actually pick a side. Their side. And to do that you ought to speak their language. Which is not really one of the easiest for that matter. So as a foreigner you are not supposed to have your opinion until you support the cause for independence. Which is not only for political grounds but also, allegedly, for cultural reasons.

As a teacher I think the saddest thing of all is that the claim for cultural respect turned a language into a shield and a cultural barrier. A barrier which should have been knocked down as Franco died but was instead rebuilt by a local counter-part and almost turned into a discrimination against the second worldwide most spoken language. Want it or not, Spanish extremely useful and kids should be mastering it. This by no means implies the neglect of the Catalan language in school, at home or wherever.I guess we will have to wait and see what happens if they ever manage to do a referendum and decide for their own fate, which sounds reasonable in what should be a free country.

Life after graduation : my Spanish dream.

In September 2012 that is 5 months after I had graduated first class honours from the university of Siena, I decided to head to Spain and look for my future outside Italy.

“Spain? You're bonkers!” that was more or less the support that I got from most people that acknowledged my plans. However, my parents decided to support me and my decision though one could really tell that their face expression wasn't really a sigh of relief.

After 3 years spent literally 'hurrying up' to get a B.A in Linguistics I decided it was high time to follow my own lead and come to this breathtaking country. I had absolutely no job expectations nor held out much hope to get one at any rate.

In order to prove everybody wrong, including me, I had to man up. And for anybody who wants to know how it is like to get a decent job in southern Europe nowadays here's a preview to what you're about to put up with.

1. Being 'legal' in Spain

Since July 2012 a drastic document-policies reform has gone through in spite of what should be the new 'european' common sense and law. All foreigners including EU residents are compelled to get a Spanish ID – the so-called N.I.E – if you're planning to reside in this country for more than 90 days. Thank you very much. The piece of news basically pivots on 'alright then how do I get my NIE'?. After long queues in dozens of different council and immigration offices I was sent to comisaría, that is the police station where a tall lanky horse-faced woman croaks that I am SOOO late and did I think that I could get a NIE just because I was European.

Erm, yes?

Oh no no no. Have I got a job? Have I got a Social Security Number? Am I at least a student?

...well somehow I assumed that she wasn't going to be my woman so I decided to call it a day and get back to spamming all kinds of schools and companies with my CV.

So luckily enough after a fortnight spent walking back and forth and running across Barcelona to hand CV's out to anybody in town, I got an interview.

One of the first questions that I was asked that day was: So, have you got social security?

Obviously I didn't so I got sent to Tesorería, the social security office. Once then, guess what, have you got a NIE? No, no and no. It was an endless loop.

Since it is a closed chain the only way to get legal papers in Spain at the moment is to break that very chain. This if you're lucky enough to find someone who is willing to hire you and back you up during the process. As there is no way to get a NIE without a job contract and there is no way to get a job contract without social security and therefore a NIE, your future employer needs to write a letter to the authorities in charge where they advocate the issue of your ID in order to hire you legally.

If you're not a student that's the only way. Is it easy? No, but, yes it is possible.
After one month I lined up for the last time at 7 am, waited about 4 hours till someone finally approved my request and gave me a wastepaper pictureless ID which I paid 10 €.

2. Entry Requirements

What does it take to be hired? For every job that you will apply for they will ask specific entry requirements which concern the position you applied for. For instance if you were applying for a touristic guide position they'd probably choose a candidate with a degree in tourism over a history of art applicant. For my money, this thought is preposterous.

If you want to work in a nursery you'd have to be a graduate in early years education no matter if you've been working with kids for ever. If you want to be a writer you'd have to be a graduate in communications and if you want to work in a cramped and run-down call center they'd ask you if you have any masters in marketing. If you want to work as a translator and you're lucky enough to find someone who replies to any of your emails, they'd ask for a degree in translation.

For anyone out there who has a degree in linguistics and has studied translation, foreign language teaching, tons of literature, sociology and grammar over grammar for years the situation is fairly daunting. We can do everything that has been above-mentioned and we've worked hard to get a degree that could include different job options. But at the moment all the gateways seem blocked. I share my frustration with you, but never throw in the towel, someday this will end and we will be successful and versatile workforce.

3. Language issues

In order to decently work in Catalonia you will have to be fluent in:

1. Catalan

2. Spanish

3. English

Better if with good German, French and Russian skills. Mastering many languages is essential. I've once seen a job offer that looked for a fluent speaker of Spanish, English, French, Italian, German and Dutch. All-in-one.

If you want to work in Spain as an English teacher not only do you have to be perfectly fluent but you have to fake native accents and have employers believe you're at least bilingual. Some will just discard your application only because your not native, it doesn't really matter how good you are. Fortunately, not all employers think so and they are willing to at least give you a chance. I was lucky.

If you're thinking about taking a CELTA or TESOL official exam go for it. That may certainly help you when job hunting, however, watch out for unofficial TEFL two week-intensive courses, they're not what you're looking for.

4. The 'convenio con la universidad'

You might find that one cool job you'd been looking for months and you are everything they're looking for till you read 'APPLICANTS MUST PROVIDE US WITH A UNIVERSITY AGREEMENT'.

This will be your worst nightmare, being asked to be a student when you're no longer one. It happens so that companies can pay you using education funds instead of burning their pocket holes. Don't take umbrage it's not personal, it all boils down to the dosh.