I'm Caught Up

Hello friend,
I am writing from a (remote) branch of the CSOB bank, Novodvorska, Prague 4. I’m waiting for my student, a common occurrence (though admittedly I’ve made a few wait on me from time to time), he’s in a meeting that from the looks important. He’s the director of the this particular branch. A big man around here. As it relates to me, the young, innocent-looking/ out of place English teacher patiently waiting outside, he likes hockey, has one kid, a wife, works 10 hours a day, commutes an hour each way via public trasportation and often confuses the present perfect with past simple.
We’re a half hour into an hour lesson, and we haven’t even spoken a word yet. I will have to leave soon, my next lesson across town (no surprise there) is at a Montessori school, where I play football with 7yr-olds for 2 hours and have taught them really only how to say, “goalie”, “striker”, “defense”, and “the score is Barcelona 5 USA National team 1” Also not to hit eachother. Sometimes I don’t know what to make of this job…
To continue the summery of events thus up to now, I got job midway through November at the Caledonian School. They were the first people I interviewed with, offered me a job the same day, and I took it. It was easy, all things considered, though I think some sort of teacher shortage they were experiencing at that moment helped me to get ushered in so easily. I was working a day later.
It took a bit of time to get comfortable teaching in this environment. Most of my students are business people, and they don’t come to me, I go to them. I’m like an old-school doctor, making house calls. I show up at their place of business, teach them a lesson for an hour or two, then leave and move on to my next place of business. I teach between 3 and five lessons a day in this manor. It’s a drag in some ways, because I spend A LOT of time on public transportation, as my lessons are often a 30-60min commute from one another. Also, I leave very early in the morning and get home very late, as many of my students can only meet either before or after their working hours… so lessons starting at 7:30am and 6:30pm are quite normal. Except for a couple of weeks of long winter nights and short days at AYA, I’ve never seen so many collective sunrises in my whole life. I’m getting used to it actually, as much as someone who prefers a leisurely 10am “ease into the day” wake up, can. I find in the city, it’s one of the only peaceful, quiet times there is. In the city, I’ve grown to treasure those more than ever. Moments of reflection amid external stillness are rare. Internal stillness amid the chaos is bliss.
So, sunrise, my day begins. The days are long, but I like them that way. In my daily travels from class to class, I see a lot… most days… some days not, I see only packed metro cars approaching, me getting in the one that looks the least packed, concluding and it’s still packed once I’m packed in, and groaning all the way. There’s always the chance to take in something new however, that’s what I realize. And I know it’s true no matter where you live, or what you’re doing, as long as you keep your eyes, ears, etc… open. But sometimes when everything’s new around you, it’s more obvious. (duh)
I find myself in parts of Prague I would otherwise never go to; inside of buildings I would otherwise never go in; talking with people I would otherwise never talk to and because of this, the job’s alright. I’m finding I enjoy the actual time I spend in the “classrooms” as well as the journeys to and from. I’m becoming quite close to some of my students and it’s neat to sort of ‘dip’ into their lives for 60 or 90min at a time; it’s weird, I’m like a silent witness, getting to see what it’s like inside a world I’m not all together a part of. Perhaps this is the business world about which my dad always speaks. I sit and watch, listen and learn, as we’re interrupted in the middle of our lessons by my students’ coworkers needed them to turn their attention to their “real” jobs momentarily. It’s strange then, to hear about the situation through their eyes, once they return their focus back to class…. I was warned not become the students’ “psychologist”, many often just want to sit and talk about their problems. In many cases, I’ve found it’s true. For me though, listening to people’s problems and (perhaps, as a result) helping them find solutions is second nature. As long as they’re doing it in English, I don’t mind.
So that’s teaching. What else has gone on between mid-November and now? The second weekend in December I went to a place called Cesky Raj, or Czech paradise with Stania and Joel. It was a fantastic time of exploring old castles, ruins, natural arches, pillars, and caves, old forests and having a lot of laughs along the way. The third weekend, I left for the USA to spend Christmas and New Years at home. It was fantastic to be with my entire family again. We were all together, all at once, for the first time since last Christmas/new years. It made me thing long and hard about how important it is for us all to be together, and furthermore, how I’m going to help make that happen more often in the future. We have a great time together, and I’m so grateful. They are the closest people to me… but alas, I must leave. The restless spirit within hasn’t quite quieted down yet… it may actually be getting louder. We’ll see in a few months.
After a seeing some extended family in Michigan [Uncle Max, Aunt Gail, John (another find time with the cous. sand-four-wheeling), Kasey] I returned back to Prague. The first weekend back, I went to Pilzen with the roommates (Joel, Karly, Brian, Sarah) and a couple of Colorado friends, Jon Fitzy Fitzpatrick and Rob The Bomb Kriegbaum. We took a tour of the Pilzener Urquell brewey, drank some wooden-barrel-brewed, unpasturized, unfiltered Pilzener Urquell. It was chewy and heavenly.
Kriegbaum left Prague the next day, Fitzy stayed. He’ll be here, living in the closest for the next couple of weeks, and it’s great having him around. Last weekend we watched the Godfathers part one and two together in a bar down the road, drank fine beer for 6.5 hours, had a sweet make-your-own-pizza pizza party with the neighbors later that night. They’re cool folks, an American, a Pole, a couple of Germans, and some Slovaks. The next day, I went to my first opera in the national theater. It was beautiful, Carmen. Went to my first disco later that night… less beautiful, but still fun. Played an awesome game of ultimate frisbee with some coworkers and the roommates. About that whole snow thing from the first blog I wrote, well, that’s been the last snow I’ve seen all winter. It’s abnormally warm here, much like it is in many other places around the world. January I’m in a tee shirt and shorts in Prague, Czech Republic where it’s still getting dark around 4 every night and last year was -10C at this time. It’s nice initially, but unsettling after a while.
Finally, last night I had my first choir practice, about which I’m very excited. It’s a young group, 25 yr olds. They’re very good, and I’ve got a lot of work to do to catch up, as I’m a bit out of practice and my Czech is still lousy; but music’s music. It feels good to sing with other people again.
So that’s where I’ll leave you, content, a bit more centered than usual within myself, both grounded and comfortable within my freedom, and excited for the future. I wish you the best, un abrazo muy, muy fuerte,
-Greg

Travis, Yvette you guys are my lifeline to that natural world out there, keep milkin the goat. Thinking of you.
Petrika, my connection to that great Western Slope, and that strange outpost of existence we call AYA. Always good to hear from you, and thanks for the advice.
Eric + Katrina, Kristen we need to set up a Skype date here, within the next month.
Cappy, I hope you got my totally sweet, awesome, super-cool, Christmas gift… I noticed you sent Fitzy a Christmas gift… was that your reciprication of my gift, mistakenly given to him? It’s cool if it is, I’ll just tell Fitzy that and take it from him. GO BENGALS!
Sarah, keep thinking long and hard about traveling this late spring/ summer.
Brett, thanks for the concert typically, and for consistently being the only one who reads my somewhat lackluster blog.
Cousin John, hope the new job goes well. I will be expecting some really cool nano-technology device for my upcoming birthday (in October).
Eleanor, remember to keep thinking about that European rendezvous.
Sarabeth, you out there? We need to get in touch… which means actually, I need to write you back. (damn-I suck) Where are you these days? Still thinking about coming out this way? I will talk to you soon.

I'm Catching Up

Hello all,
Well, my blog sucks. I’m looking back over it right now, and only two posts in 3 months? That’s bad. I can’t promise to get better either, but I’ll try.
To give you a brief summery of life up to date, since the last post, I took a day trip to a town called Kutna Hora, to see a church full of skeletons. They ran out of room in the surrounding cemetery during a plague, I believe, so they started taking the bodies apart and storing all the bones inside the church in decorative fashion. There are thousands of full bodies collected and displayed inside, and it’s a bit eary in the day light, bright sunshine, happiness-inducing atmosphere in which I saw it (see pictures). I can only imagine at night… (see no pictures…).
After Kutna hora, the next weekend I traveled to another small town called Cesky Krumlov, and old, very well preserved castle town. I went with a Ukrainian friend of mine from class, named Dan. We went originally for a day trip, but got a bit distracted drinking beer, telling stories, eating 1 kilo pork knees, watching the pork knees cook, slowly, rotisserie, drippingly, over a small fire right there in the restaurant (ie someone’s kitchen…), exploring the castle, seeing a bear, getting lost in the back woods and farms, running from dogs down creeks, drinking more fine beer at a brewery and some more pubs along the way, telling more stories, worsening, and funnier as the time went and finally arriving at the bus station only to realize A. there was noone there, and would not be anyone the rest of the weekend. B. No schedules posted anywhere in the station made any sense to us, as they were all in Czech, and but made little sense in Czech as well, C. No bus drivers like talking to two random dudes freezing their asses off, don’t know why… I believe they regard their buses as ships, and themselves captains. You don’t ask questions, you only get told answers… you don’t do anything to disrespect the bus, or slow them down… even if they’re not moving and in fact just sitting and reading a newspaper, don’t slow them down! They’re READING… ooo…
so, we stayed the night, rocked out at a concert in a hotel near by, though we were not staying there, we were staying a crappy hostel-first-one-we-came-across, down the street. No concert, no people, but still open at 11 at night. At the concert down the way however, we rocked out, as I mentioned, and I got talked into buying a cd… talking with the band after the show (they sounded all right…), “hey, you guys sounded great” response: “oh really, well why don’t you buy a cd then”. Response “ugh… o…k… I guess I will…” thought passing in my head: I did just tell them they were great… why did I do that…? Stupid, stupid stupid. They all signed it for me, and were really excited when I asked them too… that was cool to see them so excited, so I got really excited. It may have freaked them out a little, as they autographed my cd: “You like our music, but we will not make gay love if you want it” signed, -their names. They were Dutch I think.
So, I left my friend still at the bar/ good hostel at 4 in the morning. I was piss drunk and tiried. He was interested in a German girl who told me how to say “I love you” in German, as well as “you are beautiful”, “you have beautiful eyes”, and “you are sexy”,… none of which sounded at all romantic and it made me give up on the german language before I even started it. it sounds like throw up… to this untrained ear… it made me wonder if they ever tell each other they’re beautiful or sexy, or if they just have some really awesome way of showing it rather than saying it… to avoid the throw-up… obviously.
Dan remained in pursuit of her, I ejected, stumbled to the hostel, crashed out for the night, woke Dan, who’d been sleeping a solid 1 hour, up the next morning at 8, so we could catch the “first bus out of Cesky Krumlov”, and headed out to the bus station to wait for the first bus… the first bus wasn’t until 12:45pm, but hey, now we know.
The next week, was the last of the class, during which I turned in my final projects, taught my final lessons, found some roommates, an apartment with them, and had a sweet end of class “graduation” party with all of my classmates as a sweet “Mexican” restaurant that gave some of my classmates food poisoning, but was worth it in my opinion because it was the spiciest food I’d tasted in a month… and I didn’t get sick… I appreciate their sacrifice though…
The following Monday, we had a Job Fair. A week went by, and by the following Tuesday I was hired as a full-time English teacher by The Caledonian School. I taught my first class 7:30 Wednesday morning...
And that's where we stop for now... my fingers are tired. I'll pick it up next post.
Take care of eachother, and us all. Until then,
-Greg

note the captions on the pictures of the previous post... I'm workin' here.