Although sometimes I get really sick of the dungeon like atmosphere of the Caledonian Café, it is truly appealing at some points. On Wednesday night they were going to play Slumdog Millionaire and serve a traditional Indian meal for 40 kc ($2!). I waited around until 7:30 even though I didn’t really have any work to do at that point to wait for this. They served the meal which was absolutely delicious! The chef at the school is amazing. I only got about a half an hour in to the movie though when I decided I couldn’t handle the cigarette smoke any longer. I’m not sure if it’s because the café is poorly ventilated, or because I’ve been a bit sick lately, or if my body just can’t handle it, but I am seriously so sick of cigarette smoke. It makes my eyes get dry and blurry, my nose gets stuffy and I get a headache. Not to mention that I feel like I’m chopping off one year of my life every time I smell it. It’s ashame that some of my nights have been ruined because of this. I’m really grateful for the Pennsylvania law and wish everyone else would follow suit.
On Friday we had meetings with our teachers about our progress with some of the assignments and projects. Luckily, my teaching practice group didn’t have to go in until around 11! I was so excited to stay up late Thursday night and sleep in! Gina and I tried to find something on tv that we could mildly understand. We found some John Travolta and Vince Vaughn movie. I think I saw it when I was younger, but I couldn’t remember what it was about or what it was called. It was an action packed mystery and Gina and I were speculating what was going on and gasping at all the scary moments. It’s really amazing that in scary movies, so much of it is non-speaking and you are able to understand everything that is going on. I also have new respect for Vince Vaughn…who knew he could be such a scary villain! He didn’t have to be loud or aggressive…he just had this scary quiet presence about him. Maybe as theatre students we should be forced to watch things in different languages. It was a great choice for a movie in Czech! By 11 pm, I passed out. So much for my big night staying up late! In the morning I woke up at 6:30. Nooo!! My new body clock doesn’t comprehend sleeping in. Luckily, I was able to fall asleep until 9. Woop dee doo.
On Friday we met with our teachers which wasn’t a big deal. It was a great easy morning. For lunch a few of us went to the food court at the mall and got falafel. Mmm! It was so nice to have lunch outside of the school and get some fresh air. And see daylight. After lunch we had our last Czech lesson. Kind of sad, but good…I had been lost in that class since two lessons ago. Czech is sooo hard! Whyyy?! And although I barely know a lick of Spanish anymore, it’s amazing how all the Spanish roots are deeply and forever engrained in me. Afterwards, I headed to the teacher’s lounge to get to work. I got a few things done, but this woman next to me kept humming. And humming. And humming. And wouldn’t shut up. For a moment I thought of throwing something at her. It’s amazing how something like that can be so distracting and make me so nervous. I would have rather heard loud talking or something. So she broke my concentration for good and I headed to the café to find most of my classmates having a beer and eating dinner. So of course I joined and this is when I realized that it was ABBA night at the café. ABBA and dancing you say? Who wants to stay? Who’s with me? The new cafe guy Honza changed the lighting and moved the tables and all of his friends showed up to party. Hilarious. This is a school café. So it ended up being me, Gina, Simon, Heather, and Shelley. We didn’t actually dance, but we sure were belting it out for the rest of the night.
This leads to my love for Honza. When he’s speaking English, he seems so darn innocent. He said he is taking all of us dancing at the Roxy on Friday. I asked if he worked there, but Czechs can’t comprehend “literally working now” compared to “I work there on nights I’m not working at the café.” This led to me being a complete TEFL teacher and gesturing over my back asking if he worked there in the past. I think he understood me. So for the record, Honza used to work at the Roxy, but not anymore. I asked him if he liked Nebe (the club we went to last weekend). He said “For you…Nebe good. For me…Czech…Nebe bullshit. Roxy…my second home” At one point I asked “Are you STILL making food?“ And he handed me “still” water. I just bought the water. on Sunday I asked him for ice. He went to give me an iced coffee. I said, “no, ICE, frozen water.” He hands me water. I said, “no ICE CUBE.” he said, “Ahh! The rapper!” Somehow after saying ice a few more times, he gives me a glass with ice. He asks where Gina and I live and I tell him. He says, “Ah Luziny…not so beautiful.” So at least Gina and I aren’t being high maintenance prissy girls when we say we’re not fond of where we live.
Anyway, on Saturday it was soo beautiful outside and the sun was shining! We decided we couldn’t waste this day because Prague has been so grey and gloomy ever since we arrived. We wandered all through the streets again and up the river a bit. We walked through the Jewish Quarter and found Cathedrals and museums we must go back to. We found a cute little café that served delicious cheap food. We stopped at a mall that didn’t have all of the commercial stores. It seemed to sell a lot of Czech brands. We now know where to go for ice cream, pantyhose, luggage, and maybe some dresses and shoes. We headed home and did work for the rest of the evening. I hope all of you getting pissed on the Erin Express were thinking about me in my work hole.
On Sunday I went to the school for about 6 hours and got a lot accomplished.
We’ve had three language awareness assignments to hand in and if there are any mistakes on them, they hand it back for us to redo. So today my observer hands the third one back to me for the second time. He says, come to talk to me. So I almost started crying because I was just completely devastated that I didn’t get the corrections right the second time around. It worried me that he wouldn’t want to hire me if he didn’t think I had good language awareness. It put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day and I was terrified to do my listening lesson. But somehow I managed to calm down and pulled off a great lesson. I was really pleased with it, but knew he would find something wrong with it. As I sat down afterwards, he looked at me and whispered, “very nice job.” It made me sigh in relief and I was glad that his advice during feedback was very minimal.
After feedback I decided to suck it up and ask him about my assignment. (After I consulted with Dean who had the correct answers because I’m sneaky like that.) He just looked it over, signed his name, and circled PASS. Why I was so concerned beats me. Then he looked at me and said “overall….” and pointed to what he had previously written on the assignment “very good job.” Then he went on to say “You’re doing very well in the course. A top performer.” Or something like that. So I’ve been in a great mood ever since. I know that it doesn’t guarantee me a job because the economy sucks, but it makes me feel a whole lot better about my capabilities. I feel as though the rest of the week is going to whiz right by! On Friday we have to hand in our final portfolio, but I should be pretty much finished with it by Wednesday evening!
1 assignment and two lessons to go!!!
Also, I miss my little cousins dearly.
No comments:
Post a Comment