More pics from Liberec

Cheerleaders at the Hockey game. My camera's batteries died before I could get some better shots of them.

Some nice looking houses on my walk hom I don't usually walk home, but it was such a nice day...

The pub my muggers were standing in front of before they decided to run across the street and beat the crap out of me.

The pub where I found refuge from the punks who mugged me. It is about thirty feet from where I was initially attacked and is called the Fox's Den. They have a very helpful staff.

A shot of the blizzard that struck us on Sunday evening. I used the flash to really illumiate the scene and show just how much snow there was.

Another shot of the blizzard. Oh, and this happened on March 14, 2010. What is up with that?

A trashcan in a tree. This was so strange to me that I just had to take a picture.

Homemade blueberry pancakes, an egg and some sausages. A delicious, if not nutritious, breakfast.

Nachos with homemade spicy salsa. The salsa was made from onions, garlic, tomatoes, red and green and yellow spicy peppers, and an orange bell pepper to sweeten things up a little.

Some Pictures of Liberec

So here are a few pictures of Liberec, Czech Republic, where I have been living for the past year and a half.

Weird Painting on a wall at a pub called Azyl

More of the Same

The Town Theater, as seen from my office window

The Liberec Town Hall

The tall building in the background is where my office is and where I do most of my teaching. The building on the right is one of the many post offices in town.

The view from my bedroom window.

And here is that view again, only this time I was playing with the light settings on my camera. This is what they call incandescent.

Some friends drinking beer at our favorite pub, Radost. It means happiness.

Week Two

It’s a new week here at TUL and I am excited. Well maybe not excited exactly as the sun is shining and the sky is blue (something rare for the autumn in Liberec) and I would rather be outside enjoying the final vestiges of warm weather, but I am ready. I am teaching some classes that I have not taught yet since we had a holiday last Monday which meant no classes.

I am not worried though as it means that I get to meet new students and they get to meet me. I just hope they bring their textbooks to class because if they don’t it will be hard to get any work done. Sure, I could bring some photocopies of the pages they need from my book (and I will) but that will only get us so far since a lot of the pages in the book that I use have been marked by previous teachers with the answers, which would not be a good way to encourage that students actually do the exercises since the answers would be there already, just staring them in the face.

I guess I will see, and I might have to improvise–admittedly not one of my stronger suits–but I have no real concern about things working out.

Back at School

So I started my third semester teaching here at the Technical University of Liberec today, and I must say it was not too bad. I only had to teach two classes, and they went easily and quickly. Since it is the first day of the semester, the classes consisted of introductions and reading over the syllabi. Nothing too strenuous.

If I could judge how the semester will go based on today, then I would say that it will be easy and problem free. Unfortunately I know that not to be the case, as I will have to teach academic writing to a group of second year students–something that will be interesting but that I am not really looking forward to. Also, I have two classes on Friday afternoons that are going to be a lot of work. I taught them (well one of them, but they are the same class there just happens to be two sections this semester) last semester, and I did not enjoy them at all. They consist of running a marathon through the textbook and not stopping except for tests which are supposed to evaluate how much information the students are retaining. It is a lot of hard and intense work, and I kind of resent having to teach them.

Oh well, with jobs, like life, one must take the good with the bad.

One Year Later

So today apparently marks the first year anniversary of this blog, and of me living and working in Liberec. I am pretty happy about both of these accomplishments as neither of them have been all that easy.

Writing a blog every day is difficult. First, you have to find something to talk about, and it has to be something that you really want to talk about. Sure, a blog can be used as a venue for senseless babbling (and goodness knows I have used this space for that on more than one occasion), but that should not really be the point of it. If that were the point, then I would just use my “what’s on your mind” portion on Facebook or whatever the hell Twitter calls it (I don’t use twitter and I don’t ever plan to). So, not only does it have to be something that one really wants to talk about, it also has to be something people might be interested in reading. Again, they do not have to be interested in it, but it surely helps to believe that at least a few people care what you have to say. If this isn’t the case then there is no point in maintaining a blog, and a would be blogger should just keep a journal under the bed where all those silly and babbling thoughts can be stored and not shared. My point, I guess, is that I don’t feel people should blog unless they have something interesting to say in a passionate manner.

This blog, I think, has only been somewhat successful this far into its existence. Despite wanting to post every day, there have been weeks at a time where no new post has shown up here, and despite some of the words in the preceeding paragraph I often do not feel that what I am talking about is very interesting, and that leads to a dispassionate disconnect between me and the words I am posting. I am going to try and worker harder at these two issues. I will attempt to post more so that I will have 365 posts for the September 23rd, 2009-September 22nd, 2010 period. It will be difficult and I do not know how likely I am to reach this goal, but it is something to strive for and when I succeed I will be able to say that I set this goal and met it. Of course, this means that a lot of those posts will probably end up being silly fillers to help me reach my goal, but I will try not to pull that trick too many times. I want to have and say things of substance, and I will focus my energies on doing just that.

Life in Liberec has also been difficult at times. It is a nice small city (100,000 people) surrounded by mountains and with an excellent public transportation system. It has all the modern accouterments of most modern day cities–cinema, shopping centers (lots of these), swimming pools, strip clubs, dance clubs, bars (lots of these too), a museum, a zoo, botanical gardens–and is surrounded by mountain, making it a nice multi-purpose city. You can be in downtown Liberec at 13:00 and then by 14:30 you can be at the top of Jested, near the circular tv station turned restaurant/hotel looking out on the Czech landscape. It is quite amazing.

However, life is not all supermarkets and mountains here. Not being able to speak the language (and really having no one but myself to blame because I have not made any effort to try) gets to me sometimes. Sure, I can communicate well enough to order food and beer at pubs, and to go grocery shopping, but that is really it. When I want to have a conversation I have to hang out with my English speaking co-workers (or go to Prague, or wait until my sister or my father calls me from America). Now don’t get me wrong, I like my colleagues. They are fine people and we get along well enough, but they are really the only people I have to hang out with and that just gets old. I mean it is not as if our respective lives are so interesting that they can propel us through 2-3 hour long conversations three or four times a week. Also, they’re all dudes, so I rarely get a chance to hang out with ladies, which is lame because in most cases I prefer being surrounded by the lassies more than I do the lads. But as I am fond of saying–everyday in Liberec is a challenge and an adventure. And I really wouldn’t have it any other way.

Because of this I often feel alone (even when I am surrounded by people that I can talk to and be friends with). It has been over a year since I came to the Czech Republic and in that time I have had some fun and not so fun adventures, but I am glad that I came here and I am glad that I decided to stay for another year. And what about next year? I don’t know yet; it is too early to start thinking about that right now. After all, school hasn’t even started yet, and I need to base my decision of whether or not to stay on this year’s work experience (at least in part), plus when school starts again I will be taking Czech lessons here at the university, and if I can actually learn some stuff then I might be further encouraged to stay here longer.

That is all for now, and thanks to those that read this messy blog.

Neverending Saga of the Broken Nose part 3

On Wednesday I had to go to the criminal police here in Liberec to once again give a statement about what happened in December (I was mugged and had my nose broken).

The whole thing was a complete waste of time, and really it just consisted of me repeating myself for almost five hours. It’s really not worth talking about, but it has been a while since I’ve written on this here blog, and I am just trying to get back into the swing of things.

What bothers me the most about the whole ordeal on Wednesday is that nothing will come of it. Sure, they have a suspect in custody, but he is a juvenile so chances are that nothing will happen to him really. Beyond that, there is no way that I am going to get compensation for the stolen camera, the broken ipod, and the medical bills. The money and items are not that important to me (sure, it would be nice to get them back) but my time is important, and for me to have spent nearly five hours repeating myself for pretty much nothing is frustrating. I have decided that if the police want to talk to me again (and the detective working the case said it was a real possibility) that I am not going to talk to them, unless of course they make me.

I am over and done with this whole thing. If I get the compensation, great, if not, that is fine too. It is not worth the time, effort, or the stress of having to actively remember and concentrate on the mugging. It happened. It sucked. I just want to put the whole thing behind me and move on, but unfortunately I can’t if I’m going to have to continue talking to the cops about this.

Oh, and one final, small thing, the entire time I was there I was not offered any kind of refreshment, no water, no coffee, no tea. Nothing. A little thing, to be sure, but frustrating nonetheless.

The never ending saga of a broken nose in the Czech Republic

So I got an email today from the Czech police. Here it is in full:

My colleague constable Mr Zeman asked me to write you that he needs to take minutes of examination of a witness ( your bodily assault before Christmas)
The translator is able to come only on 29.4. at 14.30. so Mr Zeman asks you to come to the police station in Pastýřská Street 3, Liberec
My colleague will contact you at work ( English Department ) on Monday or Tuesday
Have a nice weekend

Now, I don’t know what this “examination of a witness” business is all about, but I don’t like the sound of it. Then I got a call from my boss saying that the police called her and told her that I had to go to the police station. I teach during the time when I am supposed to go to the station, so I had to go to my boss’s office so we could arrange something. While I was in there she told me that this Constable Mr. Zeman informed her that the matter is “very complicated” and “so important” that if I do not speak to the police that I might never get to leave the country (cue scary music)…FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am not too worried about all of this nonsense. I mean, it’s not like I started the fight, stole anything, or hurt anyone. In fact it was I who was attacked, robbed, and suffered bodily harm. Still, I wish I knew what the hell this was all about, but more than that, I just wish that it would go away. This happened five months ago, and if justice hasn’t been served yet, I doubt it will be. That thought annoys me a little, but whatever. I really just don’t care anymore. What happened happened, I survived with really no permanent harm done. It is a bigger a hassles than it is worth because it is not like I am going to get my money or camera back (and by money I mean the nearly 6,000kc I had to spend on medical bills because I was uninsured at the time). For those of you who don’t know what that means and are too lazy to google, 6,000kc is a little more than half of what I earn each month, or about 300 dollars. It isn’t much, really, but when you earn a little less than 600 dollars a month, half of that is a big deal.

Still, I will never see that money or the camera again, and I think all this trip to the police station is going to do is cause me more stress and take time away from my job. Nothing productive will come out of it, except that I might not have to stay in the country FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE…which really wouldn’t be so bad except that I am in the Center of Europe and have many places I want to travel to.

Nice While it lasted

After three straight weeks of snow here in Liberec during the month of February, it finally seemed that Spring had arrived. The sun was coming out earlier and setting later, the temperature rose from -4 degrees Celsius to about 12 degrees. Blue skies, ducks, and some blossimg flowers were seen. It was a nice time to be here, and a sign that Old Man Winter had finally decided to retire for another season. Yep, things were looking up.

That lasted for about two weeks. Now the sun is gone again, though it still rises early–it just can’t be seen through the blanket of concrete gray lining the sky. The temperature is once again down to abot -4, and the ducks are gone. Those flowers I saw blooming are gone as well, buried under 10cm of snow. That’s right, to make things worse and really let us now that Old Man Winter was just taking a ciesta, and had not gone into his icy cave to hibernate, it has been snowing for three days straight. And it is not a light snow. It is a windy, swirling, big flaked hard falling snow that does not seem to have an end in sight. Of course it will end, hopefully soon, but for now it is here to stay.

I know it is a little early (but not by much) to expect that Winter be over and Spring to take charge, but I think it is too late in the year for it to still be snowing. Hopefully Old Man Winter and Sister Spring will realize this, reconcile their troubled relationship, and let us all get on with our lives in the warm glow of the Spring sun.

Was I That Bad?

I believe in the idea of Karma, and teaching a foreign language makes me wonder if I have become a victim of it. It seems to me that I must have done something as a student to piss off the universe, as I have one class that just really makes things difficult. They refuse to speak English, and they constantly complain about the amount of time I give them to complete activities. They also do not seem to listen when I give instructions, nor are they all that willing to respond to questions in class.

It might be that I am just a bad teacher, that is entirely possible, but my other classes seem to at least make an effort to learn. Not so much with this one. And no matter how many times I ask them to speak English, or remind them that we are in English class not Czech class, nothing seems to help. Today, for example, instead of reading the required material, some of them were drawing. Now, I understand boredom in the classroom (and it’s usually the teacher’s fault) but if you do not participate in the activities then you are guaranteeing boredom.

I try to be exciting and engaging. I don’t (for the most part) just stand at the front of the class and talk at them. I usually pair them or groupn them and have then talk to each other about the days materials. But then they speak in Czech, not English, so it does not really help their English skills.

It also doesn’t help that I am tired and frustrated right now. It’s a job, and like any job it has its ups and downs, and I’m sure the students are probably as frustrated as I am so at least we’re miserable together, and misery loves company as they say.

Still, I do not think I was ever THAT bad as a student, even in math class, which I could not stand, I at least tried to participate in the activities and work. I was not always 100% there, or successful, but I tried. And I respected my teachers enough to shut up and listen to what they were saying.

Test Times

So I gave a test to my students today. Looking over a few of them I must say that I am pleased. I did not make the test too hard, but I didn’t make it easy, either. I just tested them on what we have covered thus far in the semester, and the questions came from the book/homework that I have assigned, so really there should have been no surprised for them.

I tried to get them to do a review (and by try I mean I asked them if there were any areas they wanted to review before we started the test) but they had nothing they wanted to go over, so I just handed out the test. I have 28 of the things to grade. Hopefully it won’t be a miserable experience.