5 feet 7 inches: 2019

Holy cow, a whole year.

I tried to celebrate last night (Tuesday) by treating myself to the ballet - the last performance of Romeo and Juliet! I haven't been to the ballet since study abroad, and it was the one thing that I wanted to do on winter break (this week.) I was also really proud of myself because I was going alone! Just me taking myself out for a fancy evening at the National Theater. It felt very adult. I'd paid online for the 8pm show, and my ticket was waiting for me at the box office. I got all dressed up, got myself there at 7:30 (30 minutes before the show began,) had my order confirmation/ticket number memorized (still do - 7574067) ... and discovered that the box office closes at 6pm. Somehow, in all my excitement, I missed the office hours. But, why would the box office, where people pick up their physical show tickets because the theater doesn't do electronic or mobile tickets, close TWO HOURS before the show? I'm still puzzling on that one. Anyway, the one guy unlucky enough to have the after-hours booth duty sadly informed me that all the offices were closed, and there was nothing I could do, no way to get my much-anticipated ticket for my much-anticipated show. So, I said thank you and quickly walked out the door and wandered around for twenty minutes, not letting myself cry as much as I wanted to. I found small comfort in the fact that the not-ticket guy definitely felt bad for me. I felt bad for me, too. I mentioned this was the last performance, and that I haven't been to the ballet in five years, right? Happy Prague-iversary to meee... *sad jazz hands*

Anyway...

I left Atlanta on February 16th, 2018, and arrived in Prague the next evening. It's wild to think that I've been here a year now.

It feels cliché to reminisce on all the things that have changed over the past twelve months. The list is also too lengthy, so I don't think I'll bother doing that. Instead, let me just bring you up to speed on life at the moment. And I'll attach some pictures, because pictures are great. But those will be at the end, so you at least have to scroll past all the text to find them. And maybe you'll read a bit along the way.

School is great and exhausting and greatly exhausting. My class is fantastic. I adore them. I legitimately don't have a favorite student because they're all so crazy and hilarious and sweet and wonderful. But man, it takes a lot of energy to spend the day with 7-year-olds. And I'm not even lesson-planning! On Tuesdays, we're fortunate to have an additional woman come in and help our class. And every Tuesday I think wow, I wish we had three teachers in here all the time!

A lot of folks ask me what I do as a teacher's aide, and I always have trouble answering. I do a lot of different things, a very random assortment of things, but when you say them or write them out, they somehow don't look like as much as they are. I run odd errands during class to get things prepped for the next lesson while the lead teacher is instructing. I help crowd-control, because kids like to squirm and talk and have trouble sitting still and focusing. I float around while the nuggets work at their desks to answer questions or help them focus. This is usually what ends up taking the most time. I know I've said it in another post, but we've got a lot of kids who are not native English speakers. Combine that with the fact that they're in first grade and are at a variety of reading levels, it's often really difficult for them to understand the instructions they've been given, whether written or spoken. So, I spend a lot of time popping around to different desks and explaining what that math problem says, or helping them read this sentence in their science notebook, or helping them sound out a word for their writing page.

They do morning work for the first twenty minutes of the day, and a lot of the work pages show a picture, and the kids must write or complete the word. It always makes me smile when a student raises their hand and says, "I know in French/Portuguese/Italy/etc., but what is in English?" (I know I just typed a lot of improper grammar, but that's how they speak, so there you go.)

I have been taking on more responsibility this year, which is great. I run the class when the lead teacher is gone (subs come in when they can, but even then it's easier for me to be in charge since I actually know what's going on,) and I often work separately with three of our kids during math time to give them more focused attention.

I adore my job, and my 13 international kids, and my city. But for all the perceived glamour of living abroad, I think it's important to point out that, on the whole, life here is the same as it was in Atlanta. I wake up, I go to work, I leave and go to the grocery store or run another errand, I get home, I eat dinner, I go to bed. Repeat. Some days I go to the gym, some days I have dinner with friends, some weekends I go try new coffee shops in my neighborhood or have game nights (and teach people to play D&D!) Prague is a big city of 1.2, almost 1.3 million people. And it has all the big city things that go along with that. There's traffic. There's homelessness. There's graffiti. There are tourist traps and local haunts.

There are lots of normal, generally familiar things. But obviously, differences abound. Some are obvious and expected, while others sneak up on me. I find it interesting to see which ones I expect and which are surprises. In no particular order or category, these are some of my daily differences...

I do a lot more walking. I go to the grocery a lot more often, two or three times a week, because when you don't have a car it's really difficult to make large grocery trips - only as much as your arms can carry! I get a lot more mail than I do in Atlanta, because y'all are awesome and send me cards (and when my name is on my mailbox they actually make it to me... imagine that.) A lot of my interactions begin with, "I'm sorry, I'm learning Czech. Do you speak English?" or something of the sorts. I don't have a dishwasher, so I feel as though I was an endless line of dishes (good thing I find dish washing somewhat therapeutic!) My dryer is a fold-out drying rack, and it takes about two hours for the washer to run. My windows don't have screens, so I have a constant fear in the back of my mind about leaving them open and having something fly in (my flatmate actually has a great story about a mysterious cat crawling in through the living room window, so, there's that...) But at least I get to table that worry until it's actually warm enough to open the windows.

Speaking of, the weather has been a big adjustment for me. There's no humidity, which is awesome. Well, maybe there is, but compared to Atlanta, it's nothing. Winter feels long, but the sun doesn't set at 3:45pm anymore, and that makes a big difference. I'm not sick of snow yet, and we've gotten some great snow in the past couple weeks, but I am getting a little sick of the cold. It takes a lot of motivation to get up and go get groceries or run errands when doing so requires multiple layers of clothing and sometimes (usually) a hat and gloves. We've had some hints of spring this past week. Today was a high of 7C (Google tells me that's 44.6F. I've been working on switching to Celsius while I'm here.) We've even gotten blue skies and sunshine a handful of times this past week! It's amazing, and it's making me ready to put my winter coats and boots away.

Well, that's all I've got for now. So, as promised, some photos (with minimal writing.) Enjoy!