I must've sat down to update the blog at least three times this week, but each time I was distracted by my mountain of emails to reply to. So how many emails did I send this week? Not many. It was a week of going to bed wondering, "How did it get so late and what have I been doing the last few hours?!"
So finally now I'm writing....
Classes began on Monday, but my first and only class that day wasn't until 18:45, so I went to the school in the late morning hoping to plan Monday AND Tuesday's lessons. That was my hope and expectation. What really happened? I spent the whole time planning just my Monday lesson. Hours and hours of planning for just 60 minutes. <sigh> And I walked away from the lesson wishing I had planned still more! So you can see that I'm properly motivated to become more efficient at planning, and already I feel like I'm making progress towards that end: Today I went into work for a few hours and was able to knock out 2 lessons plans and get a start on a third!
Anyway, I don't want to sound negative (because I really do have a good feeling about starting this career) but all week I keep imagining myself standing in a pool that's filled to just the right level where I can stand on my tippy-toes and turn my face directly up and have just my lips and nose barely out of the water so I can keep breathing. Well, that's how everyone's first week of their first year of teaching is, right? (And surely some people even have worse first weeks!) As challenging as it is, I have the feeling I'm experiencing these challenges under the best possible circumstances because the school has a lot of resources, and all the other teachers are so helpful and patient with all my questions. :)
Other news... It's getting a bit nippy here: In the low 20s (Celsius- I'm forcing myself to learn the new temperature system by not converting it all the time, but rather just putting in my head what the new degrees feel like) and sometimes down to the upper teens. And I noticed today that the sun was going down around 7pm. <sigh> I don't mind cold, wind, and rain, but I'm really dreading the darkness of this coming winter. I'm always thinking about how I can gear up for it and push through the season without becoming depressed, but already I've been having bad dreams about it. Feel free to pass on suggestions and encouraging words :)
My bus pass expired yesterday so I had to get it renewed today. There's only one public transport office in the city that's open on Saturdays, and it's at the train station, so that's where I went this morning. I asked the lady behind the counter, "Hovoríte po anglicky?" (Do you speak English?) Her reply, "Ehhh, Malý, a little...Hovoriš Slovenski!" (A little... you speak Slovak!) She was smiling though, so that made all the difference in giving me the courage to proceed. I pulled out my old bus pass and said, "Prosím sí nový autobusiva...uhhhh..." (Broken, awful Slovak, but my attempt to say, "Can I please have a new bus....") She understood and took the pass, and then I passed her a piece of paper that said "60 dení" because I wanted a 60 day pass and I thought I had formed the correct plural form of "day." Turns out they have a 30 day pass, a 90 day pass, and a 365 day pass, and the word for days (according to google translate) is dní, so I was just wrong all around. But no matter, the language gap was overcome again! After that errand, I walked from the station to the Tesco because I wanted to find walnuts to put in some banana bread that I'm going to make...but alas, there were no walnuts at Tesco. Instead I bought a huge Milka bar that's filled with plain yogurt and crispy corn flakes. A good combination with the sweet, smooth milk chocolate :) Once home again, my sweet housemates filled me with stuffed peppers, meatballs, and mashed potatoes. Mmmmm :D
No comments:
Post a Comment