Sunday, October 26, 2008

First Week Ever

So I've gotten through the first week. What have I learned so far?

1. I speak to fast.
2. I speak too much.
3. When someone looks you in the eye and nods, they may or not understand a word you said.
4. People here like to talk about politics.
5. People want to speak English but are not good with open ended questions. 
6. I really need to find some things about which I can ask specific questions.
7. I've got a long way to go. 

There's plenty more but #7 sort of catches all that. 

I went through the whole week asking each class if they had anything they wanted to talk about that day or at any time in the future. You could hear a pin drop. Then on Friday I got through a whole class in the same manner when Petr Konopik came to my rescue. He's one of the first people I met here. He helped put in the swings and leads the music from time to time. He stopped me and said, "I have a question about something that is not on the topic we are speaking on." Then went on to suggest a few things he would like to work on in future lessons. This opened the floodgate and we got tons of great suggestions. I was like, "Yes finally, thank you Petr!"

So now I've got a lot more to go on. I'm pretty optimistic about how things are going. I've got about three classes with about 10 people and a few with one or two. So I've got a good mix of things to do so it won't (hopefully) get into a rut. 

On a little side note. My wifi signal mysteriously went to nothing yesterday so I don't know how much I can post for a little while. Not that I was burning up the bandwidth as it is. I'm in a cafe around the corner from my apartment. Hi!

Oh this week is their 4th of July in a way. The current Republic was founded on 28 October 1918. It's not as big a deal here as 4th of July I don't think. Nobody seems to be all that workd up. But they do get the day off and so I might also. Although I only had one girl on Tuesday last week and she might be switching to a different day anyway. I may have every Tuesday off for all I know. 

Na Shledanou!


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