Ready, Set, Teach!

First of all, that last post was a joke largely meant for Pam and Marshall. Those of you who actually believed it must seriously doubt my intelligence, common sense and, most of all, ability to learn from my mistakes! Thanks guys.

Tomorrow is my first day as a REAL teacher! I'm looking forward to it but must admit that I'm more than a tad bit nervous. These people are paying good money to learn English from a smart, professional grammarian and, instead, they are getting me! My days will now be spent navigating Prague's public transportation system, going from one company's headquarters to another, hopefully teaching a little something along the way. I was surprised to find that many of my classes will be held at companies I've actually heard of - Oracle, Boehringer Ingelheim and Honeywell to name a few. I'll be starting bright and early tomorrow morning in the cold and snow with a 7:30am class about 45 minutes away from my flat. That means I should go to bed NOW. Good night!

Not Again!!

I don’t know what it is about this town…

So there I was innocently walking down the street, doing some innocent sightseeing with my innocent friends Sam, Fabian and Kristen. And then I saw it. ABSINTHE SHOP! It was like I imprinted on it (for all you vampire nerds) and could not resist the pull. A little piece of heaven in a snowy, cold, foggy town. I ditched my friends, who are afraid of the “green fairy”, marched right in and ordered a double! Several doubles later, I staggered out of my ‘new home’ and got swept up in the throng of tourists heading for the Charles Bridge. I’m not sure what transpired at that point…I have a foggy memory of a pineapple, Band-Aids and an old lady with a pet monkey. Thank goodness, my friends found me (four short hours after they left me at the absinthe shop) sleeping like a baby on the Bridge. Why do I feel like this has happened to me before?

One Month Down...

The last four weeks have flown by! On Friday, I finished my TEFL course and, assuming I passed, will be a certified “English as a Foreign Language” teacher by the end of next week. So now it’s Sunday morning and there is really nothing I should be doing right now…I haven’t had this feeling in months! I don’t mind it one bit.

The past couple of weeks have been filled with school, school and school, a few dinner parties and one hell of a “End of TEFLing” celebration Friday night. I can’t remember the last time I saw 4:30am…ouch. Now we have the next week off (to recover from Friday!) before we begin teaching on February 16th. Thinking about heading to Budapest and Bratislava for a few days if we can find inexpensive train tickets. If I do make it to Budapest, I’ll be sure and avoid the sketchy “bathhouse” where I was assaulted by an old Hungarian lady 10 years ago. Still having nightmares about that…

I’m going to head out in a bit and go explore my new neighborhood - Vinohrady. Moving into a new flat this week!! I’m going to have a bed that is NOT a couch, a room that is NOT connected to the kitchen, a roommate who does NOT make soup at 3am every night and eat all of my food and a bedroom door that is NOT made out of glass…and we have a piano! Could life get any better?!? I’ll be living with 3 other girls from my TEFL course – Kristen, Anya and Joy. Four is definitely a crowd but the flat is huge (5 bedrooms!) and I think we’ll all get along well. We should have Wi-Fi there within the next two weeks so emailing, Skyping and blogging will be much more convenient. Though I will miss waking up to this beautiful and inspiring piece of art every morning…maybe the landlord won’t notice if I take it?

Biggest Fear

So my biggest fear about moving abroad was that someone I loved would die and I wouldn't be able to get home. Well...it happened. My uncle passed away Tuesday night. All I want to do is be at home with my family. Instead, here I sit in Prague preparing a lesson about the damn food pyramid. I'm sad and there is nothing I can do.

I Suck at Grocery Shopping!

I hate grocery shopping. I hated it in a country where I could read signs, labels, prices and packaging. I ESPECIALLY hate it in a country where I can do none of the above. I wouldn’t have gone shopping tonight had my roommate not eaten all of my food while I was in Vienna this weekend. Ah…the joys of living with other people! Why do I have such crappy luck with random roommates? Kamaran is looking pretty good these days!
Imagine going to Costco and wandering up and down every aisle, which you have to do because you have NO idea what the aisle markers say, hoping to recognize a picture on a package. Also imagine that you are vertically challenged so even if you see a picture of alphabet soup, you would need a ladder to actually reach it. Sounds fun, eh? Tonight was extra fun! As I pushed *my* cart down aisle čtyři (4) at Tesco, a lady came running up to me shouting in Czech and pointing at me. Awesome! I said, in my best Czech accent (read: horrible), "I’m sorry but I don’t speak Czech". That didn’t phase her. She kept yelling and began taking my items out of the cart and pointing at the cart and then herself. I finally realized that you have to PAY to unlock and use a cart…and evidently she’d paid for that one. Oops. Maybe she shouldn’t have left it empty and unattended!! That’s what was going through my head but the only thing coming out of my mouth was "Prosim, prosim, prosim" (sorry, sorry, sorry). Worst was over, right? Oh no – awkward misunderstandings seemed to be the theme during tonight’s grocery run. I won’t bore you with an account of each instance that I put something in my basket (the free kind that you carry, not the costly kind you push) because I thought the picture looked vaguely similar to what I wanted, and then found the actual item I was looking for seven aisles over and had to retrace my steps to find where I got the original (wrong) item. Good times. The highlight of tonight’s trip came when I arrived in the checkout line, naively assuming that I was home free! I confidently set my basket on the belt (for lack of a better word…what the hell do you call the area where you set your groceries?) behind a couple other customers, thinking that all I had to do now was hand the lady my credit card, sign my name and escape the hell that is Tesco! At that very moment, the belt (?) began moving at Mach speed, sending my basket to the front of the line, taking out every carton of eggs, bottle of milk and loaf of bread innocently standing in its path! After the little old checkout lady was done scrambling to save what she could of the other shoppers’ items, she gave me a very animated demonstration of taking the items out of the basket and placing them individually on the conveyor belt, rather than putting the full basket down on the (apparently) weight-activated belt. Who knew?

Moral of this story? I suck at grocery shopping. My request of you? Please pray that *people* (from texas) keep their grubby paws off my food so I won’t have to return to Hell anytime soon!

Pub Crawl, Pizza and Pillow Fights!

On Friday night, most of our class went out for a pub crawl. It ended at 3am with pizza and a slumber party at my flat. Good times! Why is pizza always so much better at 3am? The picture to the right is the aftermath of the slumber party. Cleaning up was a bitch but it was totally worth it! I feel more and more like actual "friends" with these people every day...and not just Facebook friends - REAL friends. It's a good feeling. Of course, I miss everyone at home but it's nice to have a little "family" here.

I'm heading to Vienna tomorrow with two classmates, Sam and Fabian. How cool is it that I can just jaunt over to Austria for the weekend?!?! Here are some pub crawl pics - Vienna pics coming soon!

The Cast of Characters

**Written on Wednesday - Posted on Friday. Tonight we're heading out for a "Yay We Finished Our First Week" Pub Crawl. I'll try to post some pics over the weekend.**

So again, sorry for the lack of postings. I still get the shakes everyday due to the lack of constant internet access. No email, no blog, no Gossip Girl…no wonder the Czech look so damn pissed off all the time! My new plan is to try and blog while I’m at home, save it to my jump drive and then post from school. Key word here is TRY.

Today marks exactly one week that I’ve been gone. It really feels so much longer than that! I’m much more comfortable with "the routine" than I thought I would be at this point. Typical day so far – wake up around 7:00am, take shower which is much more effective now that I’ve learned how to operate the hot water heater and hand held shower nozzle, and then make the 20 minute trek to school or take the 5 minute bus ride depending on timing and whether or not I can still feel my nose and ears when I get to the bus stop. 60% sensation remaining – keep walking. School starts at 9am and we have lessons on teaching theory, technique, etc. all morning and then the afternoon is filled with "Teaching Practice" which typically runs until after 5pm. Our poor students! Luckily, they knew ahead of time they would be taught by teaching students and therefore get free English lessons; even if we really blow it, they can’t demand a refund. Today was my first 45 minute lesson which was focused on reading comprehension. I definitely enjoy being in front of the class (center of attention? what?) but hope to get more comfortable with more practice. Enough about school…

Onto the Cast of Characters! Over the last two nights, I’ve really felt that many of my classmates and I have become "friends" rather than classmates. A short 10 feet from the library and computer room is the school’s pub, which is rather counterproductive but I’ve yet to hear anyone complain. Last night and tonight, we migrated there despite the insane amount of lesson planning, reading, etc. that we all have to do. I’m enjoying hearing everyone’s story – why they are here, what they plan to do next, what they did previously? And it’s amazing how much more interesting these stories get after a few pivo! Here’s a quick breakdown of my classmates, as I’m certain to reference them in future postings:
Kristen – Boston, flatmate, extremely intelligent (Princeton undergrad, Harvard graduate program) but does enjoy the nightlife…every night!
Katy – Texas, flatmate, crazy and not in a good way. She thinks everything I do is "sooooo cute!" – for instance, she came into my room a few nights ago as I was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (yes – I know I’m in Prague and should be eating Pork Dumplings and Cabbage but a girl needs her PB&J) and said "AWWWWWW…that is SO cute!" What? I’m eating an F-ing sandwich?
Martin – Scotland, personal trainer, no one can understand 1/2 of what he says but he’s a good sport
Barrett – Connecticut, suspect that he’s a trust fund baby, recently got his MBA and is now going to Georgetown for law school in the fall, sees this program as a way to spend his time before he starts law school
Lann – Florida, bit of a know-it-all, former EMT, former cab driver, well-traveled but close-minded
Fabian – Malaysia, has lived in England and Canada, former video game linguistics tester, very happy, enjoy him a great deal
Hunter – DC, older, served two tours in Vietnam and received an Air Force medal, most recent profession was Professional Gardener, met his partner, a native Czech guy, on the internet and moved here to live with him, also a former model…and a close talker!
Joy – California, taught English in Taiwan for a year but was not certified (the more remote the place, the less of a requirement for certification), home-schooled her whole life, has great stories, one of my favorite people
Prisco – Mexico, most recently lived in NYC, I think he has the potential to be funny but he’s very quiet and spends most of his time NOT hanging out with his classmates, writer who is traveling to find inspiration, love, happiness…at least that’s what he told me tonight?
Stuart – DC I think, uh…not my favorite
Sam – Vermont, girlfriend is teaching English in Africa, finally started feeling less homesick and began having fun with the group yesterday, shares my sarcasm which is nice
Jacob and Nora – NYC – came as a couple but have only been dating since April, she’s quiet but is beginning to come out of her shell, they are very "cool" New York…like Brooklyn, not Manhattan
Anya – Ukraine, moved to the US when she was 8 but still has an accent and certainly looks more like she fits in here than any of the rest of us, very sweet, homesick – misses her Russian boyfriend, Constantine, in Miami

Here are a couple pictures of my flat and the school:
err - scratch that. can't find them on my jump drive. will post later.