 |
| Oreos have finally made it to the Czech Republic! |
It's been a while since my last post, as I've been pretty outrageously busy. I'm officially teaching at three schools and working for three translation companies, with offers for work coming in every day from more places. I've been sleeping less and working around the clock (with breaks to watch That '70s Show to get my fixing of American culture), and I have to say I've been enjoying it.
When we last spoke, it was Easter weekend and I was headed to Libor's to celebrate. That was a nice weekend, and it's always a relief to go to Libor's and be in a house instead of an apartment. Of course there's the added bonus that his mom is an awesome cook and I get three solid meals a day, plus countless apples, bananas, cookies, and pieces of cake. On Easter Sunday, Libor and I made our whips so we'd be ready for Easter Monday to go around to the girls'. He actually even managed to weave a basket, much to everyone's (and especially his own) surprise. On Easter Monday, we headed out bright and early, but it ended up being a fairly low-key day. Several of the women we usually visit weren't home, they'd escaped to their weekend cottages to avoid the holiday. Thus, from 8am to noon, we only drank 11 shots and had one beer. I should say that the "we" here was Pepa (Libor's step-dad) and me, since Libor was the driver. It was a fun weekend, pretty relaxing, and I came back to Brno with lots of chocolate and food.
About two weeks ago, my friend Ivan from Slovakia, who I met in Graz, called me that he was meeting up with some kids from Japan to show them some of the city. I decided to go along and ended up meeting some girls from England as well. I invited Zakya, one of my colleagues from one of the language schools, who's from Ireland, and it was a great evening of speaking real English with real English-speakers! We had a blast laughing about the differences in what we said to each other, trying each others' accents, and generally not having to slow down, check, or dumb down our English. It was a big relief to say the least. I could finally quote "Friends" and not be stared at like a crazy person (though that's debatable).
Things here are otherwise good, just very busy, as I said I'm working at six different places. I've been getting a lot of translation work which I enjoy, and it will hopefully keep coming. It's been interesting playing with teaching, as well. For example, I teach little kids (5-10-year-olds) at one school and have discovered it's not for me at all. It's one thing to babysit and play with kids, I enjoy that and it's no problem, but when it comes to teaching them, well, that's a different story. I've also come to realize how little teachers here actually know. I guess the word "teacher" is used a bit too loosely. The "English" spoken by the majority of my colleagues is quite honestly painful and either does not make sense or is some strange bastardization that has led to nothing but constant miscommunications, which always seem to somehow be my fault. Oh well, that's life living in Europe, I suppose. It's fascinating to me, as well, to see why people became teachers. I've met so many people who "teach," and yet have no interest in the students, no interest in the material, and quite frankly don't seem to enjoy what they do. I sometimes wonder if people got into teaching because they didn't know what else to do, which is a horrible reason to start. I personally really enjoy teaching and try to incorporate many different aspects into my classes, from speaking to reading to writing to cultural points to history to anything you can imagine. I guess the most important thing is that I'm seeing from these people what I shouldn't do and it's also reassuring to see the students' reactions to me in comparison to them.
 |
| Greetings from me and Nero! |
