(no subject)
I want to debunk (?) the myth that I have found myself a German man named Toby who is staying in my hostel. I actually rarely see him and haven't really talked to him since the first night I was here. There's also Adam, the British guy I wrote about who is one of my classmates. I am not after him, either. They're both madly in love with their girlfriends, anyways!
So there's no love interest, I had just decided to write about a couple of people who I had met. There's also Patrick, a foul-mouthed Brit who is the life of the party and does hilarious impressions of anyone and everyone. There's Caroline, our only Irish class member, who has red hair, freckles and green eyes and reads tarot cards. There's Eric, a Brad Pitt look-alike who can quote whole skits from Chapelle's Show. There's Adam S., the quintessential southern CA surfer boy. There's Greg, who drinks Diet Coke and talks about how bloated he feels a lot, who has just published a book with his mom and sister that might be turned into a tv show. Adam C., the guy who I wrote about in the last e-mail, is a truly nice guy who is like my voice of reason. He is in my teaching group, and after I teach a lesson that I get totally worked up about that I think is going badly but actually is going well, he is the first to tell me that I did a good job. He challenges my belief that I'm never going to get comfortable with teaching and that I can't have fun up there. He doesn't like something about himself and so he makes a conscious effort to change it instead of just talking about doing it, which I find inspiring.
Though I guess I'm doing that right now. I knew going into this that I had more than one aim - it's not just about getting this certificate. I wanted to be able to change my fear of speaking in front of people. I'm starting to do that, but what's frustrating about it is that we are now switching the level of the class that we will be teaching for the next 2 weeks. Just when I had started getting comfortable with the people themselves and their level of learning! We had been teaching a group of upper intermediates, and now we will be teaching beginners.
One thing I have definitely noticed about myself, but never before to this degree, is that I am horribly self-critical (I also suffer from a lack of confidence). The last couple of classes that I have taught, I spent hours getting anxious over the material, and then convinced myself that the lesson was going horribly during it. In fact, I have been getting very positive feedback from my tutor and fellow trainees. I got an "Excellent job!" from my tutor after my lesson on Friday. We had to teach for an hour and we only got a very general topic to teach about - we were supposed to create our own materials. I got accomodation advertisements as my assignment. I decided (based on feedback earlier in the week from our students that they just wanted chances to speak and they wanted lessons that reflect where we come from) to do something related to apartment hunting. I made up some apartment advertisements in Decatur and had them do a roleplay where they pretended to call someone who had an apartment for rent. I then drew a map of Decatur (it's pretty funny) and had them find the apartment on the map through a listening exercise where I gave them directions. They responded well to it, and I actually kind of enjoyed getting to be creative.
So what am I going to do next? I don't know yet - I get confident about teaching and then something happens and I comepletely change my mind. Today I took the tram into town, bought a gyro and stood on the bridge just downriver from the Charles Bridge and Prague Castle, enjoying the view and watching the paddle boaters. I think that if I stay in Europe, I want to go somewhere near a large body of water - a lake or ocean. Spain, maybe?
Yesterday, a large group from my class took a boat trip up the Vltava River, into an area called Troja, in northern Prague. It was the cheapest in Prague, and lasted about 75 minutes. We started in the old town, which we saw for about 5 minutes, sat in 2 locks for probably about 20 minutes combined, and then saw the industrial area of Prague. It wasn't exactly the most touristy boat trip, but it was a nice change of scenery and activity. Usually we just all go out and "get pissed" (I'm picking up British phrases like crazy but no Czech!). I think that every Friday night is a competition to see if we can stay out later than the previous Friday night. I got back to my hostel at 6 am yesterday. Often, our students come out with us, too. I talked to one of our students, Zbycek (pronounced "Zbee-shek") for several hours on Friday night. Caroline thinks that he fancies me (but I don't fancy him). Earlier in the week, several of us went out for a drink after class. 6 hours and 6 beers later, I returned to my hostel to find a DEMAND! note telling me that I owed for 5 nights. It was all a misunderstanding that is too much to get into now, but basically it's due to the fact that nobody at the front desk really speaks any English. After trying, at 3am, to argue with the woman who I had previously known not to speak any English, I returned the next morning to try and the woman there only said, "Sprechen sie Deutsch?" when I tried to talk to her. So I got a chance to practice my German at least.
I haven't been keeping up with the news in the US. I heard last week that Kerry picked Edwards as his running mate. I borrowed a Newsweek from Luke yesterday, so I'm getting a little information at least. Last week, Tom told Luke that they found a huge stockpile of WMD in Iraq, but when Luke went online to find an article about it, he didn't find anything. Tom's a bastard.
That's enough for now. The people at the computer next to me keep making out. I've had enough.
So there's no love interest, I had just decided to write about a couple of people who I had met. There's also Patrick, a foul-mouthed Brit who is the life of the party and does hilarious impressions of anyone and everyone. There's Caroline, our only Irish class member, who has red hair, freckles and green eyes and reads tarot cards. There's Eric, a Brad Pitt look-alike who can quote whole skits from Chapelle's Show. There's Adam S., the quintessential southern CA surfer boy. There's Greg, who drinks Diet Coke and talks about how bloated he feels a lot, who has just published a book with his mom and sister that might be turned into a tv show. Adam C., the guy who I wrote about in the last e-mail, is a truly nice guy who is like my voice of reason. He is in my teaching group, and after I teach a lesson that I get totally worked up about that I think is going badly but actually is going well, he is the first to tell me that I did a good job. He challenges my belief that I'm never going to get comfortable with teaching and that I can't have fun up there. He doesn't like something about himself and so he makes a conscious effort to change it instead of just talking about doing it, which I find inspiring.
Though I guess I'm doing that right now. I knew going into this that I had more than one aim - it's not just about getting this certificate. I wanted to be able to change my fear of speaking in front of people. I'm starting to do that, but what's frustrating about it is that we are now switching the level of the class that we will be teaching for the next 2 weeks. Just when I had started getting comfortable with the people themselves and their level of learning! We had been teaching a group of upper intermediates, and now we will be teaching beginners.
One thing I have definitely noticed about myself, but never before to this degree, is that I am horribly self-critical (I also suffer from a lack of confidence). The last couple of classes that I have taught, I spent hours getting anxious over the material, and then convinced myself that the lesson was going horribly during it. In fact, I have been getting very positive feedback from my tutor and fellow trainees. I got an "Excellent job!" from my tutor after my lesson on Friday. We had to teach for an hour and we only got a very general topic to teach about - we were supposed to create our own materials. I got accomodation advertisements as my assignment. I decided (based on feedback earlier in the week from our students that they just wanted chances to speak and they wanted lessons that reflect where we come from) to do something related to apartment hunting. I made up some apartment advertisements in Decatur and had them do a roleplay where they pretended to call someone who had an apartment for rent. I then drew a map of Decatur (it's pretty funny) and had them find the apartment on the map through a listening exercise where I gave them directions. They responded well to it, and I actually kind of enjoyed getting to be creative.
So what am I going to do next? I don't know yet - I get confident about teaching and then something happens and I comepletely change my mind. Today I took the tram into town, bought a gyro and stood on the bridge just downriver from the Charles Bridge and Prague Castle, enjoying the view and watching the paddle boaters. I think that if I stay in Europe, I want to go somewhere near a large body of water - a lake or ocean. Spain, maybe?
Yesterday, a large group from my class took a boat trip up the Vltava River, into an area called Troja, in northern Prague. It was the cheapest in Prague, and lasted about 75 minutes. We started in the old town, which we saw for about 5 minutes, sat in 2 locks for probably about 20 minutes combined, and then saw the industrial area of Prague. It wasn't exactly the most touristy boat trip, but it was a nice change of scenery and activity. Usually we just all go out and "get pissed" (I'm picking up British phrases like crazy but no Czech!). I think that every Friday night is a competition to see if we can stay out later than the previous Friday night. I got back to my hostel at 6 am yesterday. Often, our students come out with us, too. I talked to one of our students, Zbycek (pronounced "Zbee-shek") for several hours on Friday night. Caroline thinks that he fancies me (but I don't fancy him). Earlier in the week, several of us went out for a drink after class. 6 hours and 6 beers later, I returned to my hostel to find a DEMAND! note telling me that I owed for 5 nights. It was all a misunderstanding that is too much to get into now, but basically it's due to the fact that nobody at the front desk really speaks any English. After trying, at 3am, to argue with the woman who I had previously known not to speak any English, I returned the next morning to try and the woman there only said, "Sprechen sie Deutsch?" when I tried to talk to her. So I got a chance to practice my German at least.
I haven't been keeping up with the news in the US. I heard last week that Kerry picked Edwards as his running mate. I borrowed a Newsweek from Luke yesterday, so I'm getting a little information at least. Last week, Tom told Luke that they found a huge stockpile of WMD in Iraq, but when Luke went online to find an article about it, he didn't find anything. Tom's a bastard.
That's enough for now. The people at the computer next to me keep making out. I've had enough.