The End of an Era and a Good Satiating Benji Story :)

As the leaves change from dark brown into compost... I've come to find the true inner being of what it means to see life in the eyes of a scavenger.... well... maybe scavenger isn't the best word... actually maybe that whole statement doesn't really apply to anything that i'm going to say, but it just sounded like a good starting point. I have finally completed the final round of Graduating Students' Dances, and boy did it end with a bang. It was really a lot of fun. Maybe the best dance I've been to (by the way, this was officially my 9th Graduating Student's Dance (Maturitni Ples in Czech). It came with the absense of one of my good friends and ex-roommie, Mike, who departed from his 3-4 week sebaticle to Kralupy earlier this week. And the night started and I was talking and laughing with lots of friends, English teachers, and graduating students. In the raffle, I won a wonderful graduation exam prep book for math ( i reluctantly am going to give it to one of my students who will likely get more out of it than i will). These dances are quite different than things in the US. Firstly, It's lots of family members present and just everyone who wants to come, can come. So... it's starts off with the presentation of sashes (theyre kinda like the miss america sashes, but they are just to distinguish the graduating students). This part is maybe my favorite part because it's just so emotional for me. The students (who have been at this schoold for 8 YEARS!) are leaving. It's so sad for me and to imagine it just is a lot for me and it's just so great. Oh yea they are also getting coins thrown at them during this process, which goes to their end of the year party. So... it's great, then they clean the floor and then's the student/teacher dance, which is usually some classic dance, but luckily it was just a normal slow dance, which was awesome. And it was really a great dance i had. And so things go on, and it was just a lot of fun. It's really difficult to describe everything so that you would really grasp the amount of enjoyment that was had by myself. It's really one of the best things of the year here, and it's great to experience. Anyways, just imagine one of the best nights of your life, and that's what happens in Kralupy 3 or 4 times a year :) And as I sat with a student, as we watched the sun start to make it's presence known, I realized that this moment, this night, has gone quicker than any other night of my life i believe and I was quite sad to see it go. But.. who knows, hopefully there will be more experiences like this in my future.... I hope so, and I hope you can experience something like it also. But nonetheless, the evening ended and I had to make the trek home to my poor doggie who had had a full night's rest and wanted to go and have fun and all i wanted was to go to bed. But he was good for me for a few hours which was enough i think

The next story happened a few weeks ago which involved Benji and the BigBad Bear of Kralupy. So... when i take Benji for walks, he always loves these and he's tryin to get me to go faster and faster and i have to always tell him to slow down and just have fun. But then one day, we were walking and this lady was going into her house and the gate was open and her huge mammoth beardog got out and he's probably liek 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide and he just walked casually over to me and Benji and then all of a sudden he just tried to eat Benji whole, head first. He started eating Benji and he tried to best to fend him off, but the other dog was just too much for him, and the beardog's owner was about the same size as the beardog, so she didn't help much, so it took me about 20 seconds to actually get in there and actually pick him up and walk away, and you wouldn't think that it was Benji after that. Benji was walking so slow and he was so quiet and a different dog after that. Now he's the same ol dog he's always been, but everytime we go walking we walk by this place and everytime, Benji always run to the other side of the street as to not approach and disturb the Beardog of Kralupy. It was quite a sight to behold and I am surprised that Benji still has a head, and actually came out without any injuries... just to his ego that he's not the head hancho (is that the correct spelling? I've never actually written this word before) anymore. But all is well and good times have been had by all. Til next time, we'll keep the good times a rollin. Peace