One of the delights of being EFL teacher is the surprise of a last-minute cancellation. At least it is when the cancellation comes between planning the lesson and departing for it. An unexpected hour (or more) window of free time is added to your schedule, nay to your life. And (hopefully) you still receive payment for it. These gaps within the day, unexpected, or planned as one travels between lessons, pauses for a coffee or fried cheese, or manages to nip home for a lunch and some TV mean that, unlike any of my previous jobs, I am not paid for being on-call (on-edge) all the time. This ‘down-time’ (to use IT terminology) is bliss, and means that I can no longer imagine working a 7-8 hour day in an office again. As much as I enjoyed the time and peace it allowed me to concentrate on the task(s) in hand, I much prefer the planning for shorter periods (90 minutes maximum at present) and discovery of unknown Prague – especially as the sun has started to shine and the snow and ice hs finally gone. Just need to stock up on antihistamines. Then I can sit in the sunshine on Olšanská, or wait for a tram on the other side of the river, or wander through Holešovice without a care in the world.
Pruhy
11 03 2010Snow that is, like, in the shade does not, like, melt as fast as snow that is not.
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Nepůsobnost
6 03 2010Another 4-6 weeks have passed. And I have written nothing. And have not had the urge to. Sorry. Prague is not so very different to London. Smaller. Things are written in Czech. But otherwise, not too different. A partially-homogenised capital like the others around the world. Some national idiosyncracies. But far less of a culture shock than I had imagined. That is all.
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Vozovna
31 01 2010One of my greatest pleasures in Prague is travelling by tram. I am still wholly uncertain about the bus network, and have to check repeatedly that the bus I am about to get on does actually go to the correct stop. I felt the same about trams – but then realised that the stops are so close together that I can easily get off and leap across the tracks should I travel in the wrong direction. In a rather delicious quirk of fate, the first tram I took, and the one I still take most frequently, is the number 18, which travels up from the river and past the castle, affording chocolate-box romantic views of the centre of Prague as it crawls up the hill. Delightful. But my greatest pleasure came on Friday, travelling back to the centre from an industrial estate on the eastern edge of Prague. I usually catch the metro out there, but I knew there was an overlapping tram service to get me back home. So I took it and travelled in through the suburbs, passing the Jewish Cemetery, Kafka’s grave and overhearing a lot of conversations in Russian. It also gave me a new perspective on the journey to and from the local supermarket – it still surprises me how different a familiar street or area can appear when one travels through it in a different direction, or, as in this case, height – this is/was, I suppose one of the reasons I always loved to travel by bus in London (if I had the time) – a 13 from Strand to Hampstead was always a pleasure, especially in the evening after a German philosophy class that finished at 6pm. Or the 65 down to Kew. Or the 82. And the 139 was always a particular favourite. Or the 9 or 10.
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Categories : Transport
Netečnost
25 01 2010I have been bad. Very bad at updating this blog. I have a document of notes and topics to blog about, yet I never seem to have the time or inclination to actually sit and write. I know this is partially due to the fact that I am still adjusting physically and mentally to my new full-time position. But it is also partially not. I lack the desire to write. Or rather I look back over the notes and question whether there is any point, let alone value in simply repeating the tropes of every other Prague expat blog in existence. At present, the answer is a feeble ‘no’, as if spoken by a dying sparrow. So this will be it, at least for a while.
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Prosinec
21 12 2009Welcome back. It seems like an age since I last posted anything of any substance here. December has been a month of change so far. I finished my course at the end of November, started a new job the first week of December, and now, as you will know if you have seen the news, the cold weather has hit. I have three lessons to teach tomorrow, and a few next week, but that is it for me until 4th January. It is nice to have weekends free, and I am sure my body will eventually get used to leaving at 7am to start teaching before 8. So today I am spending soring out my timetable for the next month, completing my timesheet, telling the time and searching for crackers. We leave for the chata early Wednesday morning, and we will have Czech and British Christmasses there – there is an enormous turkey secreted in the freezer as I type. Even managed to get stuffing, chipolatas and Christmas pudding. So I shall sign off here. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year/Veselé vánoce a šťastný nový rok!
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Categories : Life, Uncategorized
Nestoudnost
30 11 2009I was struck last night, whilst ironing and watching Kaurismäki’s “Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö” (or “Match-factory girl”, for hose of us like me who know just one phrase in Finnish), just how unremittingly bleak it is. Admittedly, his black and white films have a dreanged kind of desperation that surrounds the outsiders he prefers as protagonists, but this film had something different. The film was colourful. Definitely of the 1980s. Not like ‘chernukha‘, nor even the Central European misery of Béla Tarr. In fact, if anything, the colour and the proximity to British life at the same time (Mike Leigh films, for example), make it far more disturbing than a true art house film. Now, how to drag this back to something Czech related? Essentially, I am not sure I have seen anything of this type in Czech cinema (not that I have seen a great deal). Other post-socialist cinemas (Romanian, especially) have focussed on the questions of late- and post-socialist society unflinchingly. But have the Czechs? Light comedies, focussing on generational differences, on gender relations, even examining everyday life in the run up to ’68. Maybe it is, to make a sweeping generalisation, that the Czech simply lack the gloom of the Finns or Poles, or even Romanians. But was the transition really so effortless? I have been thinking about it more in relation to the 20th anniversary celebrations. So please, Czechs (if you read this), recommend something for me to get my teeth into. I am now free (until I get a job) and want to engage intellectually once again…
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Categories : Film
Znovuzrození
29 11 2009It all begins again tomorrow. I collect my provisional result from the college at 11ish. And then I start to apply. Although it is far easier these days than the last time I applied in such a volume. The good old days of the UCAS form. Before online applications. Before I had an e-mail account. A hand-written personal statement and the hope that I would get sufficiently high results. As it happens, I did. And went and discovered a whole new world. I am not sure these applications will have quite such an effect on my life, but the course has certainly changed my views of teaching, and will also make me a little more conscious when I restart learning Czech properly. Ten years ago, I would never’ve thought that I would ever qualify as a teacher (although the idea had been mooted in the past), and even the first couple of weeks were sufficiently challenging to make me doubt whether I had made the correct choice. But then my last lesson, in which a class of 8 students were uninterruptible when finding out each others’ musical tastes to a soundtrack of Bobbie Gentry and Tom Jones has convinced me that I may have something to offer. Quite what it is, I am not sure. Structure is something I very much require, and now the theoretical side of lesson planning is firmly ensconced in my brain, I can try and relax and make the class(es) enjoyable for the students. Let’s hope one of the Prague language schools agrees and employs me.
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Categories : Life, Study
Svoboda
26 11 2009I taught my last lesson as part of the CELTA course today. It is all still a little surreal, not least the thought that next time I plan a lesson and teach it will be for real and to paying students. Better start looking for a job on Saturday once I have recovered from my hangover. I managed to miss (due to the fact I was physically required to be at the course) the 20th anniversary celebrations here in Prague. I am slowly picking up more of the language (or maybe not, as it maybe that the Vietnamese shopkeepers simply do not recognise my errors). Cauliflower, leek and cheese are now embedded in my brain. Hopefully with more to come as I have time. So please, start writing to/scrabbling/poking/whatevering me. I am a free man. Or at least I will be at 2.30pm tomorrow.
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An alien in Prague 
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