Buon Compleanno, Salmon :)

First of all, a beautiful birthday wish to Romy "Salmon" Rabinowitz, my other older sister. :)

Though the weather is usually a filler during conversation, I find this all very exciting. Torre Boldone, my suburb, doesn't get snow, but I saw pictures of my one friend's home - 5cm of snow!! The pictures are beautiful - I'll post them as soon as I figure out this MMS-in-Italian business. Torre Boldone might not get snow, but it gets FLIPPING cold. You see, you get the whole smoke-out-of-mouth thing when you breathe, but the cold burns your throat, so, you try breathing through your nose, but I'm pretty sure the air freezes your shnarlies (how do you even spell that?) and mucous (hmmm, nom nom) into snotty-icicles that cover the interior-nostril-area. It HURTS. :(

Embarassing story of the day: On the tram this morning, not having anything to hold on to, I took a proper bail during the acceleration and fell square on to the lap of a pre-teen boy, who made some sexual comment about me to his friends afterwards that I, unfortunately, was able to understand. Gross.

I'm typing this post with 9 fingers, considering I sprained my finger at basketball today. Basketball, you ask? Yes. Basketball. Who the hell knew that Meggi-Jean had ball-skills/hand-eye co-ordination? Besides actually enjoying myself, I somehow managed to score 2 baskets, which made my team the winners. Wow, I love winning. #WINNING. (@ melodyjanesch-naaier.) The coach was super-proud of me. She's a right legend, despite her English being virtually non-existant.

On the other hand, the English teacher is either A) unqualified, or, B) RETARDED. Our English grammar lesson today got me so frustrated, I began (NOTE: not, "have began") (wow, now "began" sounds like a really weird word. Don't you love it when that happens?) doing figurative shoot-me-in-the-head sign-language to my classmates, who laughed and said "idiota" under their breath - condemning this teacher to the hells of idiocy. I mean, I don't want to overstep the boundaries and correct every second statement, but it got to the point where I actually burst out laughing.

I was considering the following: in high schools in South Africa, our Afrikaans lesson is taught by a 1st-language Afrikaans person, Hebrew by a 1st-language Hebrew person...etc. This confuses me.

Regardless, when she said, "Will I have got a job?", I lost my shit - threw my toys out the cot - had a fannywobble - whatever you want to call it, I laughed and shook my head, corrected her ("Will I find a job?"/"Will I have a job?"/even "Will I get/be given/have GOTTEN a job" - infinite more-correct possibilities), and the stupid bitch had the AUDACITY to tell me I was wrong. Obviously I backed down, not wanting to cause a scene. The teacher was called out by the administrator a minute later, just in time for the class to erupt in hysterical laughter - I got high-5's, I got "You go, girl!'s", I got "She is, 'ow you say, em, a stupid bitch"'s. The BEST part, when she returned, with her textbook in hand, she said "Yes, it seems "Will I have a job?" is what the memorandum says..." - no admission of her mistake, or an apology for telling me I was wrong.

I had a double Spanish lecture today - 2 hours worth of a language that to me, sounds so similar, except for the Thpanish lithp that dithtinguishes between the two - that I asked if I could be excused. Granted, instead of studying Italian like I had said I would do, I went to a classroom and took a well-deserved English-and-Physical-Education-hero nap.

If you think South African admin is bad - WAIT until you experience Italian bureaucracy. I needed to get some document today - I don't even know exactly what it was - but I knew that I HAD to get it and I had to get it PRONTO. I went to the post-office with Sara, with allllll the papers we needed/might have needed to complete this process. After waiting at the post-office for 45 minutes, we were told - sorry, rather SCREAMT at by some witch who told us that the process had changed this very morning and we needed to go to some other place to get some other official something. And so we went, a 20 minute walk in the effing snot-freezing cold to go to some OTHER office, where we again, waited 45 minutes to be attended to, upon which we were told everything was in order and that the stupid cagna (not even going to bother posting a translation) at the post-office was wrong. And so we returned, only to be shouted at AGAIN, and then AGAIN by the superior, who eventually just conceded and gave me the one piece of paper I needed. FFS.

Fun fact: I found out that our beloved pizza-and-other-amazing-stuff restaurant, "Col Cacchio", means "with shit"/"to hell". I don't know whether to be scared, or amused. Still, probably never going to eat there again.

Jelly of all the people going to visit Stellies this week - have a jol :)
Lots of love to everyone xx