Three "glorious moments" in my life

A conversation sparked from shared experiences and passions

Sometimes I think I'm very fortunate thanks to certain people I've met in my career who have become real supporters, like your biggest fans ever. It may well be possible that students also become like this, precisely what’s happening with the latest one.

Some days ago we were talking about our past experiences and he was curious about my story, how I ended up doing everything, and so on, and he said straight away that he wanted to have classes with me because of my story because he recognized himself.

After all, we did more or less the same thing at the same age and so on. I mean, he is a nerd. The nerdiest person I've ever met and at the same time the kind of brilliant Italian people that let you feel again a sprinkle of national pride - unlike most of the ones I've met.

He's also quite a workaholic I would say, but we agreed that the way I approach my field is quite equally nerdy and that I also love and maybe I'm a bit obsessed with what I do for a job.

So, last week he invited me to celebrate my first B2B invoice (the one I sent him haha), and during a walk back home what was the topic?

It was about the moments when we distinguished ourselves from the context we are in.

He started saying: “How did you end up learning Persian?”, and then I said I learned Persian also because I was sick of Arabic. “How did you learn Arabic? How did you learn Hungarian?”… and so on, I mean, it was a like a black hole of questions where my answers were just raising more questions.

I started thinking about what I call the “glorious moments” of my life, which are things that I still remember as if they happened yesterday literally.

Number 1: being an ambassador for my class

The first one was during my first year of what we call in Italy ‘middle school’, between the five years of primary school and the five years of high school.

That was a marking year as I already explained in a blog post because that's when I discovered the world of the immigrants in Italy after my primary school. I was in a Catholic private school which was not international I would say, and well, I discovered all the world of foreigners in Italy in the year 2005-2006. I was 12 and already very tired of Italians in general. Let's put it bluntly: I was bored.

To somehow improve the integration of the migrants, the school organized a series of extracurricular activities. The problem was simply that only migrants joined them and only a few Italians - I explained it also here. That wasn't what it was meant for.

This program included a little party at the end of the school year (during lesson hours! What a luxury!) and at least one of the migrants of my class was supposed to join it and no Italian.

To my great surprise, at that moment I realized that school teachers had been carefully watching all the efforts I had put into helping them during the morning breaks, etc. I still remember one day when I was interpreting Italian > English in a whole music lesson about the different instruments and so on. Good old days!

So what? They made an announcement in front of everybody that I was going to join the party with the others "as an ambassador" of the group - even if I hadn't joined the extracurricular course.

It was a huge honor for me - and also a condemnation, because when these things happen and you're surrounded by teenagers, not exactly the most mature people ever, it means everybody's going to hate you. And so it was haha, but gosh what a glorious day.

And the following year, ten people in the class who didn't give an f about migrants joined the program. I kept not doing it xD

Number 2: humble the teacher that hates you

Number 2 and number 3 are quite interlinked.

The first case was because during high school my class was supposed to go on a school trip to Greece. My crazy teacher from that time decided that different people in the class had to contact the museums we were going to visit and ask some questions in English.

Problem 1: the Benaki Museum answered in Greek.

Problem 2: nobody had a clue about Modern Greek, not even my teacher, who was one of those typical people like "We're the cultural élite and all the rest are a piece of sh*t". So, Modern Greek was too low-class for her to be bothered about knowing something.

Problem 3: I was the only one who was interested in learning something because that's always my perk on holidays. I must be able to say something in the local language - I know that the experience on-site changes dramatically. My teacher and I did not have a great relationship. For her, I was a mediocre student with occasional sprinkles of "weirdness" because I had a general culture level higher than my best classmates who spent all their lives on the books. Not for me, thanks.

So, they were trying to read the letter in the class, completely ignoring the pronunciation of Modern Greek and butchering the words one by one. At some point, they came across an articulated preposition - a contraction of a preposition with definite articles. They had no clue whatsoever.

But I did.

And I raised my hand, from the last row of the class, in the corner.

The teacher allowed me to speak.

"That must be a combination of the simple preposition 'se' + an article, so it must mean something like 'in the' or 'to the' or 'at the'".

She looks back at the text and starts babbling like: "Mmm, yes, that makes sense..."

Two seconds of silence. My classmates were perplexed.

"But Maggi, how did you know that?!"

And there I explained. And I paid for it again in Greece, because she was treating me like her personal interpreter. I still remember her telling me as soon as we landed: "Maggi, order a coffee for me", "Maggi, order that", "Maggi, ask them this, this, and that". Jeez.

But still, it was a glorious moment!

Number 3: speak Greek and get a free dessert

Once on travel, that very same trip I talk about here above, I had the ultimate proof that languages can completely change the travel experience.

We were in Mycenae, lunch-time. We were 2 or 3 classes together from the same school, so moving around was quite a mess.

We had a bit of freedom to buy things with our own money where needed. So, I dared to ask for a Greek coffee (Turkish coffee, that's the same) at the end of the meal, because it was not included.

I asked for it in Greek.

I don't know why, but it was quite a big deal.

The waiter goes to the kitchen. Someone came back and asked if I wanted a coffee. And then once again the same scene... it was really weird and I was quite regretting it on my own. Just think that my classmates at the table kept asking me: "But Chiara, you always want to be the special one, what did you ask?". Jeez, I just asked for a coffee...

Anyway, at some point the situation is solved.

I get NO COFFEE.

But... I get a little plate with some candied fruit!!!

But the best is here to come: another girl from my class stood up at another corner of the big room where we were sitting and asked out loud: "Chiara, why did you get a dessert and we didn't?!".

Curtains close.

Learn languages. Speak Greek in Greece. You never know ;)