What the TEFL?!?!: Musings on Reverse Culture Shock

The other day I had a flashback of sitting in the classroom at TEFL Worldwide, face planted in my lesson plans, stressed and overwhelmed, waiting to use the two copy machines and for some advice from Terry. I was surrounded by all my TEFL peers, who came from so many places for different reasons, at different stages in their lives, with different histories and reasons for being in Prague enrolled in this course. There was something about that camaraderie that was unique. We all suffered through this challenging course, spent Friday nights getting wasted, Saturday nights doing homework, while simultaneously adjusting to a new country and language. We all freaked out before finally calling our one-to-one partner, took the exceedingly long tram journey back to Praha 9 at night, sat awkwardly in Galerie Fénix to get our daily fix of internet, ate potato balls at the beer garden behind TEFL/Hotel Pivovar, spent many nights on the hill that was Letna beer garden, overlooking Praha 1, and of course, were tricked by a pastry that seemed to be filled with chocolate, but was, obviously, actually filled with poppy seeds.

All I could think was, “Wow, I did that?” It’s crazy to think how different my life was during the one month of my TEFL course in Prague compared to now. There’s this weird thing that always happens to me when I’m back in America after an extended time living abroad. For some reason, whenever I’m back in the States, it’s hard to believe my life abroad was real. That everything really happened, and that that girl traveling Europe by train, working on farms abroad, teaching English to nerdy engineers at a Czech energy company, was me. I don’t know why this happens, and it certainly doesn’t work the other way around. When I’m living abroad, my American life and history definitely seems real…just further away and not as important. Perhaps it’s because when I’m abroad there’s usually at least a couple Americans around who can validate my past, even if it’s just a, “Yeah, I always love Taco Bell when I’m drunk too!” When I’m back in America, there are rarely many people who can validate my European existence. Maybe I’m just too busy doing exciting stuff when I’m abroad to think much of America. Or maybe I’ve just lived in America longer. Perhaps if I lived abroad for more than a year at a time, it would stop seeming so transient at some point. Who knows?

All I can say, is reverse culture shock is much more of a bitch than the good ol’ regular stuff. It has always been really hard for me to understand distance and endings. When I came back after a year of living in Brighton, England, I’d sit down and visualize the path the bus took from town to Uni, what all the bus stops looked like, remember what songs I was listening to as I passed them, and be so overwhelmed that I could know something so intricately and so detailed and not be THERE. How could I know exactly what the corner in the refrigerator that held my favorite wrap in the Sussex Uni shop looked like and not be able to GO there and get it?! It’s still a very hard concept for me to grasp.

I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on my year, because there was absolutely no time for reflection during it. It was always one adventure right after another, lots of friends, lots of new friends, lots of alcohol, lots of emotions, and not much thinking. In some ways, it was very freeing to not have any responsibilities. My family didn't even know what country I was in for the majority of the year. Hell, even I didn't know where I would be a few days ahead, with the unique ability to hop on and off trains granted me by my rail card. I’ve always been something of an over-thinker and over-planner, so it was great to step so far outside my comfort zone and just go with the flow. I say that in a completely positive way. If I was asked what I would do differently, the only change I’d make is to remember to take a daily vitamin this time. Once my funds became limited, I basically lived off instant noodles and French fries. Paired with never getting enough sleep and my body was not happy. I am convinced my body is a reservoir for all of Europe’s Rhinovirus strands. Within me the future Super Cold is brewing, watch out. I’ve gotten sick more this year than any other year in my life.

When I left America last time, I was running away. I think almost every expat I met was. From a shitty relationship, from the unknown after graduation, from boring jobs and a predictable future. Though, I guess you don’t just up and move to a foreign country when everything in your own is perfectly to your liking. Of course all of us were leaving something unfavorable behind. Now that I’m back, I feel more like I am DECIDING to live abroad again. I am becoming bi-lingual, I am saving money, researching visas, e-mailing alums, and making connections. I’m not planning to move because I don’t want to live in America, I’m moving because I want to live in Europe (Germany).

I’m still working on the why. I like that I don’t need a car, that nobody uses dryers, that it’s not just the liberal hippie types that hate excess packaging and think it’s silly to waste things, that I can’t find all the shitty processed foods I eat over here and have to actually cook myself real meals. I like that the variety of Americans I meet, the ones that actually live abroad, are always DOers. They don’t just talk about shit, they make it happen, and tend to be more independent, confident and adventurous than the average people I meet at home. I like that the Europeans whose countries I’m sharing often have such different backgrounds from mine, if only because our countries had very different histories. It never ceased to amaze me how casually my students in the Czech Republic mentioned waiting in line for their food during communism, or what foods didn’t exist to them. Of course, it is something from their past that was routine and familiar, not much to think on for them. To an American who can really only imagine communism from the perspective of a history textbook, it is crazy to think how someone even a few years older than me could have such a completely different childhood. It’s weird to think of what it would be like if America was communist when I was growing up and I wasn’t allowed to leave to go on vacation to Canada, like my family often did. Or what it would be like to not have pineapples or bananas.

Things like this just make me realize how absolutely small my world is and how little I really know. It’s easy to feel smart when you’re surrounded by people who know the same things as you, who were required to take the same courses in high school, know the same collective national histories. There is definitely sometime about throwing myself into foreign situations and finding my way out that I’m addicted to. I want to learn and understand everything about the world…how could I just stay in one place?

I write this as another fall comes around, making me a bit nostalgic for all my TEFL and Prague friends, for cooking in my flat in Prague, then curling up on my couch and watching shitty American TV on the internet. For sitting in the beer gardens shivering, just to get as much time out of the not-quite cold yet weather, for dancing in Chateau Rogue while my friends have dance offs and kids on drugs break their glasses on the dance floor, for parties in the Bubenská flat, for the entire experience that was Cross Club, beers and movie nights at the Globe Café, for the high pitched sound the tram makes while accelerating, for the little lady at the Potravíny near my flat that always held up “Coriander!?” when I came in. Even more, for the walk home from Hlavní Nádraží, that always involved a stop in Mama Coffee, where my Czech ordering skills slowly improved, followed by a walk through the park and the vineyard to get to my flat.

While my life in Prague was not the perfect one for me, it was a good one. I’m happy at whatever Powers That Be for putting myself and such an amazing group of people together in one place for the time we had. The past year really did change my life. When I arrived in Prague that first day, I absolutely never imagined what lay ahead for me. While it will never be exactly the same, and that’s okay, I’m still very excited to go back for New Years to kick it with the kids holdin' down the fort, and even more excited at the prospect of living only one country away next year!

In the meantime, things here are not so bad. I’ve downsized to one job, which means I can actually have a life again, picked up a volunteer position teaching English for which I start training soon, and hopefully will soon acquire a free German tutor/conversation partner through Smith. I love my apartment, love my housemates, and while I still feel like I’m just waiting for time to pass until my next adventure, this break and peace from constant activity and new things was surely something I needed, if only to keep my body from acquiring yet more strands of the common cold. After this year I’ll be re-charged and ready for the next venture! In the meantime, y'all should come kick it with me in Northampton!

Country-kid Fireworks

       "'Stop here,' David said suddenly. 'Pull ahead just a little, so the headlights are pointing up into the field. Now turn off the headlights.'
       The field sparkled with what must have been millions of fireflies--the most I've ever seen in one place. They'd probably brought their families from adjacent states into this atrazine-free zone. They blinked densely, randomly, an eyeful of frenzied stars.
       'Just try something,' David said. 'Flash the headlights one time, on and off.'
       What happened next was surreal. After our bright flash the field went black, and then, like a wave, a million lights flashed back at us in unison.
       Whoa. To convince ourselves this was not a social hallucination, we did it again. And again. Hooting every time, so pleased were we with our antics. It's a grand state of affairs, to fool a million brainless creatures all at the same time. After five or six rounds the fireflies seemed to figure out that we were not their god, or they lost their faith, or at any rate went back to their own blinky business.
       David chuckled. 'Country-kid fireworks.'"
                             -- Barbara Kingsolver (Animal. Vegetable. Miracle.)


I'm sort of excited for things like this to exist in my life soon, though, of course, now that my departure is imminent, I'm not having such a hard time here in Prague. Granted, I've only been in this wonderful mood since Thanksgiving, but I've felt pretty good about my lessons this week, had a great weekend and maybe even feel like I'm starting to get the hang of teaching. Figures.

Last night was spent with good friends and free sangria, and again, sometimes I just feel an overwhelming sense of pride in myself for getting here, for finding myself in a place surrounded by so many inspiring people. Even though I'm leaving, I worked hard to learn the ropes these several months. The TEFL course was probably one of the hardest and most intimidating things I've ever done and I survived it with a strong pass. While most of the time I feel like I've no idea what I'm doing in the classroom, the number of days I feel good about my lessons is slowly increasing. Recently, I've even started to notice my students using words or grammar concepts I taught them, which would induce a motherly sense of pride in any girl...if my students weren't mostly middle-aged men with children of their own. No Matter.

Regardless, Prague will always be here and I feel generally confident that this is what I need in my life right now. I was always bad at goodbyes. Awfully bad at them for someone who seems to thrive on this constant motion, propelled towards each new place though it may only be some blurry silhouette of a plan on the horizon.

"Shit, I got a gallery in New York"

I would like to take a moment to point out some of the (I think) more hilarious artwork in one of my lesson plans, that I am still proud of somehow. This was for my second one-to-one lesson ever, during my TEFL course in August. Can you guess what the lesson was on? (The Amish). Even better, can you guess what vocabulary words I'm trying to elicit/teach from the reading based on the pictures? Probably not. I'll help you.

The top left is to demonstrate the noun "buggy". Nevermind that the horse is twice as big as the buggy. Those Amish know how to feed 'em. The next to the right is "to tolerate". No, those aren't boobs. How do you draw a stick figure crossing its arms, anyway? Bottom left with the swords, crazy eyes and psychotic hair is "to persecute". Did you get that? Last to the right is "appliances". I'm especially proud of my electric tea kettle. It may be one of the best things I've ever drawn and will forever remind me of the Hotel Pivovar, which is where all my models resided. My appliance models, that is.

Mind you, I can only draw about three things and those are: 1) trees without leaves, 2) small birds and 3) eyes with really bad pupils. Boring high school classes were really rough for this reason: I ran out of things to doodle pretty quickly.

I'm using this lesson again tomorrow, bad artwork and all because a) my first student was absolutely entranced by the Amish and had no idea they existed and b) everyone that's ever seen these pictures has had a good laugh. Takin' one for the team!

But seriously, the Amish are pretty intriguing. Ever since I heard they were all allowed a year off from being Amish to see if that's what they really wanted I've been especially interested. When I originally wrote this lesson I procrastinated for at least an hour trying to find out if this rumor is true, but the internets failed me. Oh well. That's what I get for trying to learn about the Amish from the internet. Oxymoron?

Also, looking over my TEFL lessons again in comparison to my lessons now, a mere 2 months later, is pretty funny.

In Progress.

Stolen pictures from other people, thanks Facebook! This about sums up the graduation ceremony. There were more champagne bottles where those came from. TEFL synonymous with budding alcoholism, what? We deserved every last bit of bubbling wonderfulness after the past month, however. Toni my flatmate left early this morning and a few other people are peacing out. Luckily, the majority of people from my course are sticking around, which is pretty cool. I stay one more night at the Hotel Pivovar and then move into my new flat. Pumped about it. Yay having a place to live!

I sent a billion e-mails inquiring about jobs this weekend, so I really hope some of them will get back to me really soon and I can line up some interviews for this week and partake in employmentz. Mon mons ($) would be favorable. Tonight I think I'm going to a poetry reading/open-mic at the Globe Cafe and I'm quite excited for the change of scenery. The drink, drunk, dance routine was getting a bit predictable for me.

This is sort of how I feel right now:

Oh scramble face...but for realz, this lack of structure is a strange luxury after the past month and some. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. I really want noodles. And coffee. With soymilk. Preferably for less than 80kc. Also, a very large and convenient selection of books in English, I'm way too indecisive for the small collection I brought with me.

My second graduation in 4 months!

Whoa. Somehow I graduated from TEFL Worldwide. Passed, though not sure what kind of pass yet as I haven't gotten my certificate/been to the graduation ceremony that's tonight. After my last lesson yesterday though, Terry told me I definitely passed the course. Except for one bad lesson I don't think I was ever really in danger of failing, though, but it's still good to hear!

I think I've worked harder in this month than I have in a long time. Smith College definitely kicked my ass and sent me into more than my fair share of crazy, finals-induced, crying panic attacks, but the thing with that is that my work was spread out over the semester. With the TEFL course, you don't get a chance to breath for the entire month. I literally feel like I just got to Prague a few days ago as I haven't really had time to think or take anything in with the work load. To put it all into perspective, I spent the entirety of last Saturday writing a 12-page paper. There's also the added factor that at Smith you write papers, get graded, do a shit ton of reading and maybe some Powerpoint presentations...but never do they make you stand up in front of people you don't know and TEACH them what you learned. I don't just mean present, I mean get them to create something in front of you that shows they understand. That's the difference. I can write a mean paper, sure, but standing up there and proving I know my shit in front of a group of people is an entirely different art.

Now begins the whole getting a job and legal visa to be here process. And the clock is ticking. Two months and my tourist visa is up. Thus, if I don't sort my shit out in that time deportation could be upon me. Attended the TEFL job fair this morning and got a few good leads to follow up on. Went to another interview this afternoon with a company called TeaTime that sets you up teaching English to teenagers in coffee shops. It seems like a great job and I'm very interested, but they would set me up for a self-employment visa rather than a work visa, which means I'd basically be a freelance English teacher. Not to mention it's only part time, so I'd still have to sort out more hours. I like the idea of freelancing and did a bit of research into the different visas here before I came so I sort of know what it entails, but my logical side chimes in that I should start off with a good ol' fashioned work permit, settle into a specific company and THEN start thinking about the freelancing thing once I have more of an idea of how the English job market functions and am in possession of a document saying I can stay here legally.

I get kicked out of my flat in 2 days, so my other main priority is not being homeless. Hopefully I will sort that out quite soon, but I think I'll be fine and am looking at some places and such. Does want somewhere to live, kthx.

That's the update for now. Lot's of free champagne in my future tonight. Hopefully I'll actually be able to get some touristy updates here soon and more pictures!

The end is in sight? Well, sorta.

More than halfway done! I just need to make it through the rest of this week and next and then maybe I'll have a life again. Today I had to teach my entire class the rules of reported speech in 15 minutes. I was getting graded on it, one of our teachers was there, and after bombing the non-graded one (that we only had 30 minutes to prepare...we were set up!). I almost peed myself, but ended up doing well so that is a HUGE weight off my shoulders. Did I mention it took me like 4-5 hours to prepare for that 15 minutes? I definitely need to get quicker at this grammar thing, but it's hard when I don't even know the grammar myself and have to look it up and learn it. I'm assuming I'll get much quicker over time.

I just had my last meeting with my one-to-one session student, Mila, who is absolutely lovely. I really enjoyed our sessions and prefer the one-to-one's so much more than teaching classes because they're definitely more low-key and you get to know your student(s) a lot better. Today I was trying to teach her the different uses of prepositions of time in/on/at so I printed out all these pictures of places and had her arrange them into categories and gave scenarios and such (The plane stopped AT Prague airport on the way to Australia, We live IN Prague, The mall is ON the way to TEFL Worldwide, etc.) and I think it worked out really well. At least, she was using them almost completely correctly by the end, so yay!

Anyway, what I learned from these sessions is that I definitely need to keep my eye out for jobs that focus more on one-to-ones. I'd really love to work at this place called TeaTime I applied to that has you meet 1-2 teenagers in cafe's for English lessons in order to put them in setting they enjoy (re: learning OUTSIDE of the classroom). I have an interview next week so everyone cross your fingers for me! Teenagers is definitely an age I can do and the premise of the school is just to get kids learning in situations they're comfortable in and I think that's pretty cool.

Now I just have to write a 10 page paper this week/weekend and the worst is over! Going to see an apartment Thursday in Prague 7 with Gina. Gina, Kyle and I were all looking for places so we decided to live together and the place we're looking at this week is effing bangin'. If we get it, I will definitely post pictures here. There's one more aaaaamazing place I e-mailed that I hope gets back to me, also in Prague 7. We'll see how it ends up. Does want sweet ass pad.

Lesson Planning Machine! Stress! Jobs! Flats!

Wow. I'd say I've done as much lesson planning in the last few days as humanly possibly if I didn't know there was more to come. Last night I put together what I think will be a pretty fun lesson on phrasal verbs using Bob Marley's "Get Up, Stand Up". I recently had the realization that working music into my lessons, a) makes the time when students are working and I'm walking around monitoring significantly less awkward for me (and maybe them? silence = awk), b) makes my life happier, c) puts a good use to the 18+ GB of music sitting on my hard drive. Just finished my lesson plan for my second one-to-one meeting with Mila on the Amish and I feel significantly less stressed. My first session with her went really well. I got to know a lot about her and she's quite lovely. We talked about her job, travels, kids, Prague, etc. and she bought me tea! It's been a good experience and I definitely think I prefer one-to-one sessions in some ways.

I went on my first job interview today out in the suburbs of Prague at an English-speaking preschool. Well sorta, apparently it was still Prague 9, but I had to take the metro to the end of the line and then a bus to get there. There were farms! It went relatively well, the main issue was that I have a lot of experience supervising older kids, but not much with babies. It seems like a great place, though it may be a bit far for me and in all honesty I may indeed prefer to work with older kids. Good practice though! I have another job interview scheduled the day before the end of the course and hopefully another sometime once I write the lesson plans for the application this weekend. Ah!

Right now I am stressing out about flats and jobs like whoa. I just want to find a place and a job so I can get settled, but this is no simple task. Most of the jobs I'm applying for ask for detailed lesson plans that I have to do on top of my seemingly insurmountable pile of work. The thing is, I need to have this sorted by the time my tourist visa runs out or I have to apply for a short-term stay visa or leave lest I get deported. Not to mention it apparently takes about a month for all the visa paperwork to go through. No pressure!

I'm looking at my first flat in Letna on Saturday and have been purusing some other ones online. There's a chance of living with people from my course, but since it's only the second week a lot of people aren't quite sure if they're staying here or already have sweet flat connections. I figure it's scarier to live with people I don't already know, but if I find a great place it's probably worth it and will potentially increase my social network, which is good as I don't know many people here yet. We'll see how this goes!

As it is 12:44, it is officially Friday. Even though I have a lesson to teach "today", TGIF. Halfway done.

Pivo a knížky (Beer and books)

I made it through my first week somehow! I even managed to do well with my 45 minute lesson, the main criticisms that Terry had for me were to stop saying "You guys" and to make my explainations more direct and simple. Something I need to work on in general, as I always seem to find the longest way to explain something. If any of you have heard my stories, you know this is true. Heh. Tomorrow I have my first one-to-one on hour long English lesson with a woman mamed Mila. I'm preparing for it now and I must say I'm a bit nervous! I'll have three sessions with her and then I have to write a 13 or so page paper about the experience.

Anyway, last night it was one of my fellow TEFLers birthdays so we went to her effing gorgeous flat in Letna to drink copious amounts of wine and hangout. I guess we were too loud in the balcony because at one point the people above us just started POURING water over the balcony above to try to get us to shut up. As we were drunk, it took us awhile to catch on. We just thought it was raining really sporadically or something. Oops! Later in the night we went to the Letna beer garden in Letna park. I forgot to take pictures (and seem to have maybe forgotten/lost my camera battery charger...fuck) so a Google image of the view from the beer garden must suffice!

So pretty! We met some other TEFL students from another school and befriended them and had a much needed night off from class. It's pretty sweet how just speaking English brings us all together and that it's totally not weird just to start talking to someone here because they speak your language. If my time here brings more nights like last night, then I am very excited to live here!

I managed to finally find hummus in a pretty bangin' middle eastern grocery store in Prague 1 and now I'm sitting in the Globe Cafe, which is an English language bookstore and coffeeshop, trying to stop procrastinating. It's pretty awesome in here (though they don't have soymilk for coffee :-( ) and I'm excited that once I have free time there'll be somewhere to buy books. Apparently the Prague library has an English language section as well? Win. I really should be lesson planning, but ugh. While I love my classes and am learning so much, I can't wait to just have a job, get settled and not be stressed all the time. Three more weeks and 25% done! Hopefully beginning to apply for jobs soon, just trying to sort out my references and whatnot. Ahh!

What the TEFL?!

Wow, I've already taught two English lessons to two different intermediate classes and today was only my third day of TEFL class! As you may gather from that, my TEFL course is pretty intense. Like finals week intense, well, maybe an easy finals week at Smith as I'm not quite at the I'm-going-to-burst-out-crying-because-I-dropped-a-piece-of-broccoli-in-the-dining-hall stage. I have class from roughly 10am to 6pm everyday with an hour and a half lunch off. I've taught two 15 minute lessons the past two days with two other TEFL students (each of us did 15 minutes for a total of 45) and Friday I'm teaching a 45 minute lesson on my own, out of a total of 5 such lessons. For each of these lessons, I have to hand in a detailed lesson plan. Additionally, I'm going to be working with a student for one-on-one lessons. For someone with absolutely no experience teaching before this Monday, I've certainly thrown myself into it! My classes thus far have been great and so have the teachers, I can't say I've been bored during class much at all! Much more than I can say for half of my time in high school and college.

Haven't been out much since the course started, so I'm excited for the weekend. I'm currently super overwhelmed as I apparently need to start applying for jobs this week so that I can snag a job and get all the work visa paperwork done before my tourist visa runs out. On top of that, I'm trying to look into flats and figure out whose staying here and where I might want to live. Unfortunately, a lot of people from my class are leaving after the class or not really sure if they'll stay, so who knows who and where I'll end up with!

Anyway, two things I've noticed in Prague so far. One, peeing in public and people letting their small children of either gender pee in public seems to be pretty standard. As I was walking through a park in Prague 2 by myself the other day I saw a mother holding her kid in the AIR with its pants down and noticed a STREAM of pee shooting up in the air to the ground from it. I had to force myself not to stare as to not appear a pedophile, but I was pretty impressed with the projectile pee job going down. Second, fast-food of the food court variety is actually served on real plates with metal cutlery that you return to them in the mall near my flat! None of that throw away styrofoam bullshit. Very trusting of them, I must say, but yay for less waste!

I'm in that oh-shit-I-just-realized-I'm-in-another-country-with-no-real-friends stage right now and am trying to work through it. It's a bit hard as there's only 4 of us (2 in each flat) in the Hotel Pivovar and it seems there's much more people in other housing grouped together so that they get to be more social. Ah well. Mission Friends will begin as soon as I have some goddamn free time!

Sbohem teď!