See Me in Action

If you've ever wondered what I do all day, well, today is your lucky day.

I've decided I'm willing to bear the embarrassment for your entertainment information.

Check out this ridiculous video I made as in invitation to our summer camps.

Under Consideration

I love Prague. I really really do. But my bank account does not love Prague.

Really, what's not to love?

I'm currently considering moving to the UAE (either Dubai or Abu Dhabi) in January. I would make significantly more than I do now (or ever have actually) for about the same amount of work. I'd still be teaching. I'd still be teaching adults.

Lazy Summer

Things have been awfully slow around here. For those of you who know me well, you know that when I don't have pressing concerns, I get unmotivated in basically all areas of my life. 


I've been working somewhere between 8 and 15 (if I'm lucky) hours per week. That and with at least one of my friends on holiday each week (if not more) and all our schedules being different, it's difficult to get folks together.  With hardly any reason to get out of bed and with my job feeling more like a quick errand to run only a few days per week, I've been spending a lot of time doing a whole lot of nothing.


Stupid, I know. 

Illusions of Glamour

So people have this idea that I (and those like me) lead a super glamorous life or something. I'm not really sure where they got that idea. (Couldn't be this blog. I mean really...)

[Via]

Sure, I live in Europe in the center-ish of a major capital city. I go out with my friends all the time. I'm learning (yet) a(nother) foreign language and their are lots of hot European men. But don't get me wrong, this is not a super posh life.

Two Truths and a Lie

So every time I start a new class I try to make them feel comfortable by telling them a few random things about me. Sure I could tell them how old I am, how long I've been teaching and why I live in Prague, but the idea is to remind them that I'm human too. (Setting the bar a little low is good. It means you impress them pretty quickly.)


So most of my classes, I play Two Truths and a Lie for the first game. Yes, I first played this as a drinking game. (Note for teachers, nearly every drinking game you've ever played can be a teaching tool. Simply replace the 'Drink alcohol' consequence with something appropriately related to your subject e.g. ask a question using present perfect tense, do a math problem, tell me the theory of relativity, etc.)

Disjointed Conversation

The first class I walked into this year was to observe another teacher. The students had been given a writing assignment for homework the class before and one of the major things they were to work on was cohesion.


The reasoning: When you're talking to an American the conversation is fairly linear; You go from one subject to the next to the next. That's not the case when you're talking to Czechs. You'll be talking about one thing and then another and then you're suddenly talking about something that was mentioned 30 minutes ago again. It's all over the place, the teacher explained to me.


Now and then I'll think about this again. It seems like an eternity since that day which was only two weeks ago, but that's not the point.

Games galore and some seriously bizarre writing

"Once upon a time there was a pyramid that had two scary masks. Someone went to the pyramib [sic] because they wanted to find the two scary masks, but they saw a big shadow, so they screamed and ran away. They ran over a bridge and they found a poisonous fountain. Then he drank the water from the poisonous fountain and he fell a sleep. He dreamed about a thunder storm and lots of lightning. The lightning hit an apple tree. He ran to a house and he locked the door."

If you've ever wondered how to teach kids whose first language you don't know, I'll give you a couple of hints.

What's your favorite day of the week?

So yesterday was a super eventful day and every Tuesday from now until the end of May will follow in its footsteps.

I started an outside class at a local junior high school today. Just me and 28 teenagers ages 14-to-15 years old. It was probably the best class I've ever taught.


The class is held in a big room in the library and the material I have is just sufficient enough to take up the class as long as I add in a couple of activities. And the material isn't totally lame so we can actually strike up a couple of thoughtful conversations.

I started off the class getting the kids to tell me about themselves and then I told them about myself and Texas. Next class, if they can remember three things about me or my beloved home state then they get extra participation points.

I need to get organized for this class though because it's definitely going to be more work than the average Gloria class, though not by a whole lot.

I got a lot of good laughs from them and they surprised me by having awesome English and a higher-level vocabulary than I expected for their age.

Even the kids who have only been learning English for four years or so were doing really well. And no one spoke Chinese during class!

It's nice to feel like a real teacher and it will be a good test of my abilities. My job is essentially to encourage them to talk more and give them the occasional writing prompt. I decided to give them a small writing assignment for homework the first day just so I can get a better assessment of their abilities.

With such a large class, I don't have time to do any individual work which is usually how I test them and find out where they are. It's all about groups and pairs with the class.

The addition of this class makes my Tuesdays pretty exciting though.

The Gloria classes I have are already two of my smartest classes (including my babies who are growing up so fast!). So now I just spend the day with a bunch of super intelligent kids only to finish out the day struggling with my Chinese.

Actually, Linda told me last night that my Chinese is noticeably better just since the new year holiday.

Hooray for something to look forward to so early in the week!

Ji dian?

I swear I felt naked, not to mention oblivious, all day. I took off my watch at the waterfall yesterday and it's still in Megan's bag. I kept thinking, "Aw what time is it? I'm going to be late!" Only to find out that I had tons of time.

We went to this place called the Great White Shark tonight. More than half the people at the table were vegetarians so we went all vegetarian for dinner. Taiwan beer, two orders of Kung Pao Tofu, sauteed cabbage and sauteed watercress.

Tofu - not so bad. I think I could actually learn to be a vegetarian in this country and not miss meat so much. Of course I say that a week after I ate bacon five out of seven days.

Today was pretty tame. I had Chinese class and I feel like I learned so much! I learned lots of prepositions, a few more verbs, some much needed shopping vocabulary (i.e. too expensive, make it cheaper) and how to order my favorite coffee at Starbucks.

I actually ordered my latte in Chinese today, but I didn't know how to say vanilla or non-fat milk. The girl there told me how to say it and she also taught me to say "See you next time!"

It's so great to have people willing to teach me things.

I only had one class today and I finally got the paperwork to get my ARC. I have to go do that tomorrow.

I set up our wireless Internet today. It's nice that we can all be on the Internet at the same time now. Before we were having to take turns with the one ethernet cable. Annoying.

Tomorrow I start a beginners class. I will be the very first foreigner these kids have ever had as a teacher. It's so exciting but also a little nerve-wracking. I am entirely responsible for making sure these kids learn English. Eek!

I took all of these random pictures of the small details of my new apartment — the Romantic Paris Mansion. Check it out.


Yes, that's a mini-Louvre in our courtyard.


More lovely romantic statues.


This is one of our two front doors. It's like having a screen door... except it's not a screen.


We have something like 80,000 shelves,bookcases and closets. I love these by the front door because of the lighting inside them.


The bathroom I share with Katie has little giraffe tiles all around the room. Then in the shower there are these cute 101 Dalmation stamps.