Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Ahhh... Mr. Spring arose from 5 months of hibernation

So, finally, with the change of Daylight Savings Time on Sunday, so did too, the seasons, finally, and hopefully for good. Life is a beautiful fragrance now. Everytime I walk outside, I can't help but smile. Life couldn't be greater. It's been about 15 Celsius (around 60 i think) and beautiful and the sun doesn't set til 730ish!!!! Did I move or something? Where am I!?!?! No way I can be in the same place I've been for the past 5 months, shivering day in and day out, sleeping in long sleeved tees cuz I'm always freakin cold when I awake. But it's true! Peace out Jackie Frost, we ain't got no more room in the inn for you brotha! Sometimes I can't believe it I'm so happy! 3 weeks ago we had a foot and a half of snow, and now... a foot and a half of glorious splendor. So, I just thought I would inform you all of my new fruitful news. Enjoy the day.

Aha, also another shocking note. So I was talking to my students yesterday, asking them how many of them had computers in their rooms, and I think that about 95% of them have one in their rooms! I couldn't believe it! And some two! And most students had at least 3 in their houses and one student had 5 in his house! So much for the stereotype of "those dirt poor former Soviet-bloc countries". They be livin it up with gusto. What an interesting world we live in. Take care all.

I'll be comin home in three months from tomorrow! Wow! hard to believe, huh? See ya then.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Snow up to our necks

Yet another sick picture of the snow outside of our stairs to our flat and school on March 12. 24 hours before, no snow. Also, after viewing this picture I realized just how long my hair has gotten. Crazy huh? Maybe I'll look into trimming it. So, later.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Adventures of the Pink Hippo

So, here's a little comical relief to all of you out there that want to get a little insight into my daily life of grading English papers. This paper was a creative writing assignment by one of my 8th graders. It's called "Pink Hippo":

Lived was one pink hippo. He lived in Africa in Uganda. On the world lived only 2 pink hippo. The second lived in Australia. Hippo had one friend. Green elephant was his best friend. One day Hippo say "That we go to Australia. I want have small hippopotamus with my wife!" Green elephant say "It's great idea! Come on!" They went 3 months, tooks ship and ran to Australia. He has gone to Australia for 2 months. They were very happy and they went to small city :) Huka an Lamana. There lived his wife. When they were in Huka an Lamana, pink hippo saw his "baby" and say "Oh my god! It's the best pink hippo on the world!" He went to her and "Hi babe, do you want gone to dinner?" After romantic diner they went to small house... After 5 minutes hippo went to casino and he played ruleta. After 9 months hippo had 289 small hippo children. He tooks your complete family to Uganda. Green elephant went with his. In Uganda they have national park and in this place they lived in peace and ease. Green elephant took yellow girafe for wife and they had small yellow-green girafe with green trunk :) Old pink hippo one day went hunt. Green elephant heard !shot! he ran and ran and saw pink hippo blooding!! He took phone and call 911. After 5 minutes went ambulance and pink hippo went to hospital. He die in hospital after 4 days. Green elephant say: It was hero!!, who keep your race on the world!!" The end

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Freshness in March

So, it's been a bit since I got back from Spring break, and it seems like things have been picking up just as usual. THings at school are busy. Gave my students projects to do on Prague and most of them just copied and pasted from the Internet which sucks cuz it just does. But some of them have been interesting, just a lot to read and grade. The best was one that wasn't so much on the sites of Prague as it was the best pubs to frequent. I found it quite interesting and hope to maybe venture and see what all the fuss is about sometime. What else, let's see... so it's dance season again. We had our 2nd Prom last Friday and for our third class it is this Friday, so these are fun times to dress up, dance some and talk with people, students outside of the school atmosphere.

So, I have been branching out and meeting people here in Kralupy that aren't students and aren't associated with anything about school, even English that is. By some strange go of events, I seem to have met people all over the placewho want to learn English,. But the crazy thing is maybe they don't really know any English at all. So this could bring a hamper on our lesson practice. One of my most fun events happened the other night when I ran into one of the guys in the restaurant by my house. I was saying hello and goodbye to him but I ended of sitting down and for the next 3 hours me, him, and his friends proceeded to try and communicate the best we could, mainly in Czech, but they wanted to always know new words in English so i humored them a bit. I think I'm the one actually getting the most out of it, but it's fun anyways for them to think that I'm teaching them English.

It's funny cuz everywhere I seem to go, people are always so excited to see an english-speaking person and they always want to listen and try and speak English even if they don't speak any at all. It's life, and what a good life it is. it gives me practice with Czech and everything seems to flow fairly beautifullly at that. What else is new... hm... I think that's all I got right now. just enjoying the cold weather, or tryin at least and makin the most of my extended winter this year. So, you all take care now and don't be a stranger now, ya hear?

New Spring Break Pics

Hey, added some new pics from Spring break in Portugal, Paris and Madrid and Spain. Check them out

News with a Bounce

So, Spring Break's been here and gone, but apparently, it's still winter! When does it stop!!!! Last night we, in Kralupy got about 12 inches of snow, maybe more, i don't know, 20 or 30 cm i think, but it was crazy. One of my students said it's the most snow we've had in 15 years. it's the middle of march and father Christmas just doesn't know when to stop i think. I bet all you back home are jealous of me with my snow and cold weather, yea? Yea, it's cool, but i also wish i had the wonders of 80 degree weather again.










Crazy life we have here. It was pretty cool walking home last night in the snow and my prints being the first. I felt so primitive. For a split second i was on my own deserted island, but with snow and a bunch of buildings all around