While life yet remains in these fingers.....

...... I will drink beer and occasionally type. Huzzah! Another school week down. This makes nearly three full weeks and I guess about that long since I've updated ye olde blog.

Short synopsis (pun intended): Teaching classes is both remarkably easy and freakishly difficult. I can spend hours staring at a set of two or three pages asking myself how to teach it, throw something together in less than an hour, hoping and praying that it doesn't blow up in my face, and have my heart pounding the whole way through. On the other hand I have different classes where I basically show up, chat, help them with some grammar and vocabulary, then make them do a worksheet and call it a day. Mind you I often do both of these styles in one day. The difference is often dependent, somewhat surprisingly, on which textbook I'm using. A well crafted, or at least highly modular, text can make a lesson breezy, while a tightly intertwined piece of garbage means that I have to recreate everything in the lesson in a different form that actually encourages student learning as opposed to “slot A into tab B” grammarianism.

The other teachers are great. The Directors of Studies are Pamela (in-school courses, Chicagoan) and Pavla (companies, Czech). There's a “loud, short, crazy Scottish woman” named Lily-Anne who's teaching a Business English Teachers' course and constitutes the majority of the smokers' klatch. Cynthia, of serendipitous Seattle connection, Joe (cool), and Chris (quiet, Czech wife who speaks like a Minnesotan) are the only other Americans. There's old Nick from England, also Tim, Emma, Maria, and Charles repping the Isles. Cat is from Ireland but has spent something like the length of time I've been alive teaching in China, Portugal, and who knows where. Brian is, likewise, English, but spent a fair amount of time in Japan. Anthony is from Australia. Gray is from Israel. Except for Cynthia, Nick, and Charles everyone is younger or acts it well enough that I had to think about it. Pretty fun, varied from nerdy to partying, everyone down to have a good time. With a few notable exceptions the Czech teachers are cool, but tend to keep more to themselves, I think partly because of language.

I went to Vienna the other weekend with Tim, Cat, Brian, and Emma. We had a three day weekend for St. Wencelas day so we decided to take a quickie down south. Got up far too early in the morning, 5:00, to catch a 7:00 bus that took a little over two hours in the craziest downpour that I've seen since I got here. Very cushy, I recommend Student Agency to anyone. Arrival in Vienna required Euro bank withdrawals (we got to look at all the pretty money) and some planning as the rain let up. We toured St. Stephan's cathedral, which is totally awe inspiring. Wandered round the outside of the Imperial Palace, former Austro-Hungarian Empire dontcha know. Saw the Leopold Museum, mostly Egon Schiele and Klimt with many of their Austrian contemporaries, I recommend Kolomon Moser. Very cool stuff, some of them were smoking opium or drinking absinthe or something. There were some definite psychedelic paintings after 1910. Went to the hostel, round the corner for goulash, napped some. Went out to see old town and get coffee. Ended the night at funky little 'jazz' cafe (no performers, just classics and bohemian music on the stereo) with dark Pollack stuff on the walls and aging hippies working bar. Tumbled into bed, had splendid breakfast in hostel. Went to the food market, which was like a football field sized Pikes Place, where everyone has a permanent structure to sell from. Very exotic and worldly. Right next door was the Vienna flea market, bigger than the food. Had brunch and coffee at a chill place with a big deck. Laid in the sun for an hour in a park on the river. Walked up to a giant ferris wheel that predates WWII, got an awesome view of the city, then hoped a bus back to Brno. Photos and details coming soon.

Note: I'd always wanted to smack those people who prattle about “X City” in Europe, but there is an incredible vibe to Vienna that I can't really describe. It definitely has a lot going for it. I like it better than Paris, I think. So yeah, no inspired prattling, but I dig, man. I dig.