Having been a full-time teacher for the past 18 years of my life it is strange this year not to have a full-time job. I’m so used to getting ready for classes, teaching, grading, etc. that to not have the daily job is certainly strange. It’s actually both a positive and a negative. What I really miss is the daily interaction with my students and colleagues- teaching in front of the class and interacting with friends at school. However, it’s certainly nice to not have to spend the countless hours grading, planning for the day/week/year every day. It’s nice to have some freedom from this for the year and I’ve certainly found plenty of things to do to fill up my time here that benefit me now and will undoubtedly also down the road, both in life and in my job.
Give it up for LHS!
So, you may ask, then, what is the language point of this post? Well, it’s in the word they use here for “to work” and “job”. The normal word for this and, also used here commonly, particularly in a formal way, is trabajar (to work) and trabajo (job, work). However, here in Argentina, likely in paying homage to their Italian immigration past (and, as an Italian teacher, myself, I’m happy to hear it used) a common way to use “to work” is the verb laburar, or laburo for “job”, from the Italian verb for to work lavorare (think “labor”). It is considered a lunfardismo, that is, a lunfardo word ingrained in the Argentine Spanish language and, I must say, I’m surprised as to how much it’s actually used and among all of the social classes (so it seems).
While it seems there are lots of these allusions to the Italian cultural and linguistic elements still heavily ingrained in the Argentine langauge and culture, I must say, given my area of teaching, it just makes coming here to Argentina all that more interesting for me and makes what I am learning here even more invaluable than I could have even imagined.
Prof Rabner
Mr. Rabner's adventure in Argentina 
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