An Ordinary Week

You and I have done a lot of traveling around this week. (You are my companion, right?) Lots of tram and metro steps, many many footsteps, and most of all, so many interesting faces, conversations, and conversations which would have been longer if only I'd been doing a better job of learning Czech.

This has been a week of the ordinary and the extraordinary. As I look out my living room window, I see huge white clouds hurrying by in a Carolina Blue sky. Funny, that seems "ordinary." And I'm the one who's been so sick of carrying an umbrella. It's not that I mind the gray skies, I really don't. I just hate the extra weight in my already heavy book bag. And we've had a lot of those gray skies lately. We also had some extraordinarily hot days very early, and a few warmer-than-I'd-like-it ones now. But I know I'm so fortunate compared to many of my friends, baking and broiling away! Some of the extraordinary has been three violent rain/lightning/thunder storms. Thank goodness, I was inside for each of them!

Tomorrow is the last day of my "first" contract, the one that, thankfully, brought me here. And Tuesday I start the summer one, having already made a promise to accept the next 10-month one. Yep, I still love it. There are so many routine and normal things in my life that I haven't or don't talk about. Here are a few of them:

StJ isn't the "ordinary" language school. They do not offer open enrollment to anyone who wants to learn a language. They work with corporations/organizations/government offices on a contract basis, then the StJ Client Managers (they have the really tough job!) work to find the best fit to fill the classes -- that would be a skills/experience/teaching style fit AND a person who has that time slot open. Full time teachers (I'm one of them, thank goodness) must teach a minimum of 17 student-contact hours a week, and it's usually 20. (I've been quite a few hours above that some weeks; I'm grateful and it's a push!) In addition they must accept prime time classes -- that would be FIRST thing in the morning and end of the work day. There are other classes, but naturally many companies want to use those hours for the least disruption to daily schedules. And we are paid only for student-contact hours, so I am very happy my schedule's been running full.

My normal work week starts with an 8 a.m. class on Monday. I spend the rest of the week back and forth from a company to StJ to a different company, etc, etc. The CMs have been very good to me (and I know that in response I've done very good work for the Centre.) I have several classes back-to-back at the same location, which means I don't have to spend up to an hour between classes just getting to and fro. Also, many of my classes are very high level students enrolled in Business English. The Business English is what appealed to me about StJ, and I'm very fortunate to be assigned quite a few of those groups. It's a great marriage of my background and experience.

This past month has been extremely tough -- it's end-of-term assessment time. We always have to write progress reports on all classes each month, but this is beyond that. We write exams covering what has been taught, administer them within a two-week window, then grade them, write individual "report cards" as well as general assessments, and final evaluations. Talk about taking time. And that's all on top of normal preparation. Just thinking about it is tiring. At last that is all behind me.

Just in time to get a new schedule! June 30 is the end of both teacher and company contracts. Many companies cancel their classes for the summer -- that's tough for students' memories! And many teachers move on to someplace else at that time. For several weeks now the CMs have been working to get everybody reassigned. Including part timers (and there are a lot of them, some of whom teach only one class) there are nearly 150 of us. That's a lot of shuffling around. Final schedules (and I know nothing's really final with these classes) were handed out Thursday. Now it is wrap up / shift thinking / plan ahead time. Oh yes, and do the regular month-end reporting.

Silly me, thinking this would be the good time to take a US break for a couple of weeks. Silly for lots of reasons. The first and most important one is that I still can't leave the CR. My work permit came through some time ago, so I've been very legal on that front. And I had my "visa applied for" stamp in my passport, the purpose of the Vienna trip, which basically made me legal to stay here. Had I been stopped by the police they technically could have deported me, since I don't actually have the visa in hand. Most probably they would not have. I had instructions whom to call in Vienna if anyone have given me trouble (which I seriously doubted would happen, since I'm so old and common! I have seen several "sweeps" since arriving, though.) Expectations were that the visa would come through in late August, which, of course would have been too late to get a flight (yes, I've heard about oil/gas prices and airline tickets!) and plan for my classes.

Well, surprise surprise. I got a call from my landlord (great guy and his wonderful wife) that they'd received a call from the embassy that the visa was approved! I'm sure you heard my enormous sigh of relief wherever you are -- it felt like a big "welcome home". It could have been stopped just by the random throw of the dice-of-life, for whatever reason anyone wanted to give. (And we all know there are a lot of reasons why folks in other countries are not in love with America just now!)

Obviously I'm learning a lot in all these various processes. Well, duh! Wasn't that part of the point of all this?! One of the things I would never have guessed is that I cannot even leave to pick up the visa. I'd be sent home (it's called deported!) on the spot! I must send someone (an assistant at school will go) with my passport, power of attorney, proof of medical insurance (yep, have to buy that this week), and a copy of my contract through January 29, 2009.

Can hardly believe I'm at this point. What a lovely shifting time in life. Are there things and people I miss? Absolutely. Am I so very happy to be here, in this wonderful city, my cozy little nest, with interesting colleagues and students, great assignments, and a chance to learn many things every day? You bet! And are there days that are really tough? Yep. Sometimes my body wants to remind me of my age, but usually it says that if I'll give it a good night's sleep it'll be better the next day. And it always is.

Much more than enough words already! Life has a lot that is routine, maybe even mundane. There's always the setting and the view and the millions of possibilities of marvelous things which are right around the corner and can happen at any instant to keep that edge of anticipation and gratitude.

I hope you have that also, whatever city and routine you have this week.