Still haven't started teaching yet. The semester starts on Wednesday, and I'm getting increasingly freaked out about it...I'm still really unprepared, and I'll be standing in front of 30 hostile college students for 90 minutes at a time. The TEFL course I took kind of prepared me to teach about six bored middle managers...those fucking uni students are gonna eat me alive. I'm just hoping none of my students were at that one bar that night a few weeks ago, when I got seriously thrashed and, I'm told, totally humiliated my self. Gotta watch that--it's gonna be pretty fucking bad if my students are all "Oh hi, Professor...that you puking on the sidewalk last night, right?" Just one of the many perils of being basically the exact same age, stage of life, and maturity level as your students.

I really need for it to snow soon, so I can figure out how to go skiing. Of course, hoping for snow in this area is kind of dangerous, since we'll undoubtedly have snow out the wazoo in a few weeks. I'll try to hold on to my child-like enthusiasm for winter weather as long as possible...probably right up until the snow blocks up the tram tracks, and I have to walk 45 minutes to work. I'll get bitter about it then, no mistake.

Heh. Wazoo.

I think I'm too happy

Well, not really happy, whatever the fuck that means. Just excited, looking forward to life, totally fucking jazzed, when you come right down to it. I'm in this town Liberec, which is fucking gorgeous, and I'm going to be a fucking university instructor, and one of my good buddies from the TEFL course is also going to be teaching at the uni. Every ten minutes or so, one of us will look over and go, "Hey ProFESSor...what's another word for pirate's treasure?" Get it? Cause we're professors, see? Well, not really, but a damn sight closer than I ever expected to be. In the interview, the head of the department was like, Yeah, we're really looking for an MA or PhD for this position, but...that hasn't happened yet, so...please work for us."

Which is how I got to be three months out of getting a BA, and freakin' teaching university students. I mean, HOLY crap. Yeah dog.

Last night we were wandering around Liberec at like 10pm, and we pass this one place. An internet caf, we think. Just as we're walking past, this CRASH of a drum fill blasts out. Immediate beeline through the door. Inside, the place turns out to be the most bad-ass punk rock club I've ever seen--there's a guy on stage playing the shit out of the drums, and two other guys are rocking the techno. Laptop techno, not DJ as much. It was _so_ _cool_. The place looked like 921 Gilman or whatever that punk club was in Berkeley, except they've got a full bar with damn good 50 cent beer on draft. "I think I've found our new home," yells my friend over the drums. "Fuckin' A, bro."

So please, everylastone of you kids, and you know who you are: drop everything, default on your student loans, and come visit me. It's killer.


But see, this is me after being here for two days, in gorgeous fall weather, before I've actually worked a day. Doubtless, the other shoe will drop, and I'll be cold, lonely, and miserable. It so seldom happens that I'm really skied for days on end, and I keep anticipating the day it all turns to shit. But just for now...I'm good.

Holy shiznit

So apparently I just got a job. And tomorrow at 12:30, I'm going to climb on a bus with all my worldly possessions, at least all the ones in this hemisphere, and travel up to a small mountain city called Liberec. That's "retz", not "rek", by the way. At that point, I'll be picked up by people I've spent a total of ten minutes conversing with, people that I'd never heard of before yesterday afternoon. These people will take me to some sort of dorm-type housing. I get one room, a bathroom shared with one person, and a kitchen shared with a bunch of people. Yeah, that's right: I travel half-way around the world, and the big perk of the job I finally acquire is that I get to live in the Commie St. Kates. Fuck.

Oh well. It sounds like a pretty good job; I'll be teaching at a technical university, only fifteen classes a week, too. And they're all supposed to be pre-intermediate or above, although fuck knows what that actually means. I'm just scared that they'll discover immediately that I'm totally unqualified for the job, inasmuch as the last dude they had in there had a Ph.D., and I have nothing more than a BA in The Sweet Sound of My Own Voice. Anyway, apparently I snowed them in the 5 freaking minute interview...the hell? I mean, I went up there for one job, which turned out to be utter bollocks because (a) the job sucked and was scary (28 lessons a week? Of 17 year olds? 20 kids to a class? The fuck?) and (b) it turned out there was only one position open instead of two, which was bullshit because they told both me and the girl I went up there with that we both had jobs. Oh yeah, and they wanted her instead of me. Bastard people, I'm telling you. On the other hand, as I was trying to beat them at their own game by telling them I didn't want their slave-driving crapfest anyway, they packed me off immediately to an interview at the university, where the people were much nicer and loved me. My head was spinning, seriously.

So...you know...we'll see how it goes. It's only an hour from Prague, which rules. And there's skiing right nearby in the winter...which I can do with my not-bountiful paychecks. So come visit me. All of y'all.

Life is chugging along

Ok, first, Hey Y'all Watch This is something you should go read right now this minute. It fucking rules, and it's by one of my best friends ever. I spent all of this past summer being a road bum with this girl. Eight weeks of road-tripping, in planes, trains, and a red Chevy truck, in close quarters and hardship conditions, and we're still friends. I mean, I think so. It's possible that resentment against my slovenly ways was slowly growing in her the whole time, only she didn't say anything because she's a SAINT, but I don't think that's the case. Anyway. Go check it out.

In other news...the job hunt is on like Donkey Kong, dude. So far I've gotten two interviews lined up. The contrast between them is striking; for the one on Thursday, which is for a huge Prague school, I had to prepare a huge fucking teacher-bullshit ridden application, and I have yet to prepare the 90-minute lesson on recorded speech that I have to present to them tomorrow. The other school, in sharp contrast, is not based in Prague, and they're totally desperate--they want me to come in for an "interview" on Monday, and start teaching Wednesday. Oh, and they give you an apartment. Fucking A. It's out of town, up in Liberec near the German and Polish borders, and I'm actually really considering taking it...Oh well, we'll see what it looks like. Say a prayer that I don't totally bollocks up either of the interviews.