skool daze (try and fit yer heads around that you vowelless slavic speakers!)

School has started and will finish at the end of the month. We'll see what happens from there. Sorry I haven't written more and to more of you directly, but I get just a sliver of internet access at school (dial-up shared between 3 people on lunch/midday breaks), so you get these big scattershot messages. Will attempt to get individual missives going, no promises. Howevah!, if you write me I will write you.

School is.....strange. There's only three of us: me, Mark, and Veronica (Ronnie). He's a late 30's/early 40's Lononder who's nervous and friendly. She's an older, very quiet reform school teacher from Australia/South Africa. They both have Czech significant others that they're living with here and are looking for a quick entre into local employment. Neither of them speak much, if any, Czech despite being in the country for at least 6 months. We're together for 8-10 hours a day, going over the basic structures of the English language and the best ways to teach it from the ground up. We're using the Direct Communicative method if that means anything to all of you. Basically, more talking and use, less formal grammar and writing. Can be highly frustrating to try and drop all the words and phrases of any complexity from your vocabulary. It's all still sort of a mish-mash, learning different bits of different grammar points, technique, and switching between idiot-simple English and more technical jargon as we demonstrate then break down different things. (Aside: phrasal verbs are the spice of language. Without things like break down, speed up, and knock out, which we are not allowed to use, you sound very sterile.) We've observed 4 different classes of Czechs and those poor sops get to have us teach them things on a rotating basis for the next month. We're being eased into it these first two weeks, then it's trial by fire (<---another phrase I can't use.)

We have two teachers for the being a teacher part of classes: Alissa and Denis (den-e, not den-nis). Technically she's from Iowa, but she's spent so much time in Europe teaching this stuff (she's defending her M.A. thesis this week, in Poland) that she sounds like a well traveled Brit and has lost touch with the colloquial part of the language. Very pleasant and knowledgable, but spacey and disorganized. Denis is a very good teacher, quite willing to expose you to the tough stuff, let you thrash, and then give you the specific tools to get through it. He's ex-Army, a Chicago southsider, and the son of Ukranian immigrants. Speaks Ukranian, Russian, Polish, and enough Czech. A funny guy, large and loud, somewhat conservative, but I haven't figured out if he's just angry or from the Rush Limbaugh crowd. He's been doing this for seven years and has quite a few stories to illustrate things with. I'm glad he does most of the teaching. There are three Czech staff at the school. Marcela (martz-ela), the secretary, Magda, who picked me up, is also the marketing director, and there's Regina (hard g there), the director who will be teaching us Czech from now on. The bulk of the school and its classified-type staff are in China. One of our reference texts was printed over there and has an entire introduction in Chinese. We're not the only outfit here in Brno, I've wandered by the Berlitz Academy and one or two other places. All sorts of posters around for English classes. That bodes well for job prospects. I think.

I mentioned in my last post that Brno was sleepy. I'm willing to confirm that and emphasize it. There are all the basics, actually more of them, cuz it's a walking scale city. You can go anywhere and run into a corner grocery, a tobacco/booze stand, or a newsagent. Also full of herna bars, which are gambling dens, slots mostly, open 24-7. There's at least one on every block towards the center of town. However, there's a distinct lack of night ANYTHING. Even the bar culture seems pretty minimal, especially for the country with the highest per capita beer consumption on Earth. Nearly nothing is open after six or seven, and when I asked Magda (a native of the city) about nightlife she had to search her head for anywhere to go, only coming up with a singular ubiquitous disotheque meatmarket. The guidebooks I've got with me are hopeful, so we'll see if I can scare anything up tonight.

The time change is still messing with me. From Seattle to the end of Paris I slept a few hours, was awake for a while, slept a few more, and repeated. The 10 hour days at school keep me from napping and getting back on schedule. Was so tired on Thursday that I fell asleep at 6 when we got off early. The Czechs have two days off for 1) the celebration of the coming of Christianity to the Czech Lands, and 2) something to do with Jan Hus, hint: think Hussites. I woke up at midnight on Thurs. Couldn't go back to sleep until 8 am then I slept until 7:30. Of course I was awake most of the night after that. Still working on this normal schedule thing. The really painful thing is that I have lived the entire week on instant coffee. You can get espresso in some places and there are chi-chi coffee spots downtown, but none of the small markets sell anything but powdered crud. It is miserable stuff because it's either not strong enough to do anything or makes you want to puke, both during and after drinking. You guys at TJ's know I'm not picky about my coffee, but damn, real beans are at the top of my list for shopping today. Food in general is decent but plain, mostly of the carbs meat cheese variety. I ordered a 'salad with chicken' the other day (off the english menu, which I was surprised to find). There were tomato wedges and bell peppers in it, good start, yes? The rest of the salad was cold pasta and a light cream sauce with hot chicken pieces. Seems about par for the course.

I'm kind of lonely, having no one my age to talk to (I had really hoped for some collegiate comeraderie from classes), but it does keep me from being distracted. Maybe I'll meet some people today while I'm out. If nothing else I'm planning to get out of town and see some countryside next weekend.

Oh yeah, what's this crap I hear about El Presidente pardoning Scooter Libby? It's like a bad SNL skit come to life. Blargh!