Saturday 24 October 2009

JAPANESE LIFESTYLE

I have been chosen to prepare two students of the school for the 6th and highest level of Italian, so that they will firstly take the school's degree, and then they will have the exam of Italian as Second Language, that is called CILS, which is the official degree for foreigners regarding Italian language, being held in Siena by the Università per Stranieri. It's a tough exam, including many different tasks, from usual grammar tests, to written essays, to different tests of listening, comprehension, and so on.
Naturally, I am happy they asked me to prepare the girls for this exam, but there's, as usual, a price to pay.
First, to teach this class I have lost my conversation class, this meaning that now I teach four hours of grammar every day. Second, I've never prepared the students for this exam, so I feel pretty under pressure, a bit like having to pass the exam myself. Finally, the exam is held in December, and this means that I won't be able to have any holiday from now until the end of the year. I never thought about refusing the teaching opportunity, but then I realized this drawback and and well, it didn't make me very happy. In 2009 I've taken an amazing total of four days off, enabling me to ask for Japanese citizenship.
Say goodbye to my Uk trip, say goodbye to my Swizzy trip. Say hello to rushing weekends to the boulders, long drives on Friday nights, long drives on Sunday nights, two raging days of pulling.
Still I don't feel ready to start a structured training plan, I keep pulling in the gym, but I started feeling the magic fading. I am running low on setting creativity, until now I have set many problems, nothing particularly hard, that I have been able to climb in one or two sessions. I feel my arms and core quite strong, again nothing special, but decent. I feel my fingers weak, not in an absolute way, but not as strong as I'd like them to be, especially when full crimped. I want them to be so strong that no hold will ever be too small.
Last, but definitely not least, I hope I can steal another Dolomites trip before General Winter comes; chances are low, but who knows.
This makes me a bit sad now.

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