back up blog

Click to enlarge.

There is just so much I can't tell you right now. All of my best stories are about other people: Italian families and fellow English tutors and children and PEOPLE THAT TRUST ME. It just wouldn't be right if I told you about being invited in to my host familes' martial bedroom to find the host dad stark bollock nekkid on the bed with only the PAPER THIN bedsheet between me and his winking trousersnake. It wouldn't be fair if I recounted that week off I demanded from my boss, wherin at one point I wore my underwear as outwear whilst directing one man on the finer points of sucking sugar out of another man's bellybutton. Which begs the question: would you listen to a gal who's Victoria wasn't so Secret? What if I told you about when other people where funny? On piling up old yoghurt pots and carboard boxes for an afternoon camp activity, we invited the kids to race to retreive rubbish to use to make houses. We call it junk house. See what we did there? On ...

Yeah. I was worried I was going to be ginger for a hot second there too. Phew.

The guys I'm working with these two weeks at this 'DreamerSchool' I mentioned are almost proper grown-ups, not the normal first elementary level I have been dealing with mostly. Which sorts of puts into perspective that time I slept with an 18 year old when I was most certainly not 18. Bad, bad, Laura. Consider this my apology to his mother, and my ' You're Welcome ' to his next girlfriend. It was my (entirely legal!) pleasure! Some of these 14-19 year olds don't speak fantastic English, so a lot of what we cover with one class is a lot more basic than you might expect for kids of that age. Like ' I have got...' and the alphabet. Which is crazy when with the other class of kids exactly the same age we hold mock trials to discuss the culpability of video game creators in the murders of schoolkids by fellow schoolkids that get their ideas from 'Blow Their Heads Off 3' or whatever, and chat about Descartes. Worlds apart. When we covered body p...

I had to have a word with myself recently. I mentioned over breakfast to myself that perhaps if I had a spare moment then maybe I'd enjoy a sit down and a chat to talk about what was on my mind. I refused to listen to the protest that nothing was on my mind, that I was fine, really, and that I was really busy. I knew something was up. Me, myself and I had that coffee. It was needed. I don't even want to type this but Internet? I think I stopped saying yes to life . I've been working a lot . Or rather, A Lot. And I love it . I adore the job I have right now. I get to tour Italy, stay with families, work with kids in a job that allows me to sing and dance and act and write and make people laugh. I mean, if I wasn't the one doing this then I'd probably sort of dislike me. Which I've been told is quite an easy thing to, what with the high self-esteem and all. Wooopsies! Works with the kids though- they lap up this extrovertism like Russell Brand does the white stuff...

When I called Mama to catch up she laughed at me. "What's the name of the course you're assisting with again?" she asked me. I sighed. " Lose Your Inhibitions, " I reminded her. She laughed again. "They must have read your website then," she decided. I'm sure I don't know what she means. I'm not really trained in theatre , not properly, but if I had a dime for every time somebody told me I was dramatic ... Well. I'd have like, five dollars. And nowhere to spend it. Italy takes the Euro. It was a weekend of crazy, leave-your-dignity-at-the-bottom-of-this-whopping-great-big-hill, let's-all-hug-each-other-even-though-close-proximity-to-armpits-makes-us-uncomfortable F.U.N. for Italian language teachers who want ideas on how to add that little something extra to their classes. When I'm looking for ways to spice up my life I normally try nipple tassels and a few tokes on a dooby, but I'm told that's frowned upon with ten ...

My name is Laura Jane Williams and I wear floral jumpsuits in public. 

My name is Laura Jane Williams and my hands are THE EXACT SAME SIZE as Kate Winslet's. 

My name is Laura Jane Williams and the only stationary I own is that which has been stolen from Italian children.

Back to the whole me-and-my-newly-pierced-nose navigating Italian kids around big old London Town then. Yeah. What a crazy two weeks. And tiring too. So tiring in fact, that when I managed to slip in two whole nights at mum and dad's before hop-footing it back to Milan I spent two full hours lay on Nanna’s living room floor just sort of moaning, “I hate my life,” and asking for more cake. I worked with another English tutor to be responsible for FIFTEEN thirteen-to-sixteen-year-old students, and we essentially acted as tour guides for them, and on occasion spoke to them in English to teach them such colloquialisms as, “You plonker!”, “epic win”, “epic fail”,  “chill your beans!” and “Don’t break my balls”. Thus, whenever we had to communicate with them we often used all of these phrases at once, until it became uncomfortable yelling at the kid who tried to get off at the wrong tube stop by saying, “Don’t break my balls you plonker! I SAID KINGS CROSS. You are an epic fail! ” Peopl...