Do you have any mustard?

I stink, I'm horrible, you should hate me . . . for reals. It's been weeks. If any of you are still out there, and have given up hope, I apologize. Go read Jenny's blog about her fascinating experiences in China (she's much better than me!) or try to navigate you way through the awesomeness that is George's blog (though it is in Czech so a few of you may have a problem with that). Or for something completely different, read Durge's blog about his insane experiences in Seminary or JD's blog, which I have recently linked-to, about his life and awesomeness in Australia.

But I got to thinking about my blog and how stinky I am and how long it's been. And feeling guilty or something. So I've decided to do a literal posting extravaganza. If only because I want to try (in some way) to keep a record of these experiences . . . maybe even just for me. Anywho . . . this could be long.

Kate and I were discussing, over a fantastic pitcher of sangria, blogging last night. And we both agreed that it's hard to write about work and life, because things are starting to be day to day. The experiences are nothing new or special . . . But to counteract that, we both have moments where we stop and think "what the hell, I'm in Prague" and that's pretty awesome. Not that I'm more awesome than you, person not in Prague reading my blog, but just a little. It's like, I was in Dresden doing Visa related things (more about that later) and I turned to my travel and getting a Visa buddy Jessica and said: "How weird is it that we're sitting in a courtyard outside the Czech embassy in Dresden?" And she said "It's crazy, let's take a picture of you sitting in Dresden, worrying about your visa". It's not something I ever really saw myself doing, but here I am.

So first thing's first. The jobby-job. At the beginning of February, just after I finished at OxfordTEFL I interviewed at a few language schools and was lucky enough to quickly find a job at Channel Crossings though it's all in Czech so, whatever. I'm probably biased, but I think it's a pretty great school. I teach mainly General and a little smattering of Business English. I have individual, pairs and larger groups of students.

I love teaching and I love the variety and I adore my students. They're a diverse group.

The 8 year-old girl who loves the movie Mamma Mia! and got really excited when I was humming the melody to "Take a Chance on Me". She can't really sit still, is a little spoiled, has a picture of Hannah Montana as her screensaver on her cell phone, loves it when she wins Memory (in Czech: Pexeso) and gets annoyed when I don't let her do the awesome word-search aspect of the worksheet first.

The early 60s gentleman who works as a Judge of some kind who, when asked at 7:20 on Monday morning, is always either satisfied or unsatisfied with the events of his weekend, usually because of football.

His co-hort is one of my favorite students, a Librarian (with something complicated between a Master's and PhD) who is shy until she starts laughing and then it's my favorite thing ever.

I have two girls who take lessons together, who have none each other forever, and who are generally awesome. They think I'm funny (looking, haha) and love it when we do episodes bast on TV shows.

I have a few conversation lessons which have been all about idioms recently, and one of my students loved the phrase "He fell out of the ugly tree as a child and hit all the branches on the way down" or some variation thereof.

They're fascinating people, and I think I learn so much in my lessons, from my students (gosh, does that make me sound cheesy? Yes, Janine, it does) and about myself. There's a natural language barrier, which can be frustrating and intimidating at times, but also just fun to listen to (I like the sound of Czech, there's something very beautiful about it). Off topic.

But I work all over the city. One student is taught at their flat in a part of town filled with beautiful old houses, most likely occupied by the upper-middle class 100 years ago. Now they're a bit like the homes near and around Summit Avenue in St. Paul, mainly converted to apartments. Another pair works in an area of the city called Vinohrady. Home to quite a few Expats (not me). It's a beautiful and seemingly quieter are of town (also, apparently considered rather bourgeois) that was once covered with vineyards. Elsewhere, I teach in a building called Nile House, which is so modern and snazzy I'm not sure that it fits in anywhere. It's right next to a building called The Danube (or Danube House, not sure) . . . hmm.

I also teach at TV Nova a semi-popular Czech TV station. It's in an area called Barrandov, which is essentially like the Czech Hollywood, or the really the anti-Hollywood. If you search it on IMDb.com you'll find a whole plethora of movies that were filmed there. I don't teach Czech TV stars, but they're great people. And I did get to go into a building where they used to animation in the 70s, and there were tons of original drawings all over the walls, like a Kindergarten. It's days like this I wish I had a camera phone.

But my students area all fascinating. They've got "spunk" if you will. They poke fun at me and my own self-deprecation. Specifically my inability to draw, which would be a useful skill, my recent and painful spelling issues, my clumsiness (I like to toss white board markers up in the air but then they fall down). They answer questions sarcastically and hate when I sit and wait for them to answer a question (relish the silence). They love and hate talking about themselves and become embarassed-ly amused when I force them to "really enunciate" and exaggerate intonation like "Really! No! Are you serious?" (just think obnoxiously and fake-ly enthusiastic).

One of my favorite moments has been leaving things written on the easel pad (some don't have white boards, but rather large pads of paper). For example, at TV Nova, we were practicing intonation in one of the intimidatingly awesome glass-walled conference rooms. To demonstrate this we often draw lines above the sentence to dictate the rise and fall of the pitch. One question my students and I left up was "Do you have any mustard?" A week or so later we go the response "Yes we do."

Gosh, how boring and picture-less. This post has been a long time coming . . . but there you go. More to follow.