<-- Presenting at the Expat Expo on Halloween day, with StageStars...In just a few weeks I will be HOME!!!... Ahhhh... :) The month of November has been flying by (good sign), but there really isn't much to report.
Halloween was more fun than I thought it would be. In the afternoon StageStars had a presentation at the Expat Expo, which was really great and the parents loved. For evening-festivities, I was waiting to hear back from ex-TEFL friends, who apparently got together but never told me about it... so I wound up spending the evening with another friend at a party out in the Middle-of-Nowhere, Czech Republic. Though my costume was fairly lame (just a pair of cat ears, ALL I could find - no such thing as costume shops here) I felt decently celebratory and ingested massive amounts of alcohol. Good times.
My jobs are nearing "the end" and I can feel the anticipation from the kids about the shows. However, this anticipation has not translated into them understanding we need to use our last few weeks productively and them not goofing-off during class! :) I will really miss some of them. I wouldn't really be able to teach these classes in Seattle; there would be so many more-qualified teachers available than me, it would be near impossible to get a gig doing what I'm doing at the pay-rate I'm getting. So I'm savoring the last of this experience and plumping up my resume as much as I can. Getting great letters of recommendation has been awesome, too. I have really loved telling people "I'm a dance teacher" when they ask me what I'm doing in Prague...
My housing-situation has become increasingly uncomfortable. Since I'm leaving soon, my flatmates are now showing my room to people. My only request about the whole process has been to try and keep the showing-times to the evenings. Other than that, I've been staying out of the way, keeping my room looking nice/clean, and generally trying to be as accommodating as possible (as I always have been here - I hardly use the kitchen, keep my bath-products in one small area of the shower, don't smoke in the flat, do only one load of laundry at a time, don't have loud parties in my room, etc.). Only once has there been a scheduled showing wasn't a good time for me (they didn't ask before scheduling it, only informed me very matter-of-factly that it was happening) and I asked if it could be rescheduled. The next day I got a 15-minute lecture on how I can't have so many "conditions" and that I'm thwarting their plans to fill my room, etc. They even attempted to guilt-trip me about leaving Prague earlier than I had told them I would, de-friending them on Facebook... What a cherade. And while I was mid-sentence, they turned their back to me and walked away. And they wonder why I de-friended them, or why I feel uncomfortable and disrespected living here! Apparently, I'm not allowed to have my own schedule (seriously, their exact words), and that if they schedule a showing time of my room, I just have to deal with it. I'm not allowed to have any requests about it (y'know, 'cause it's not like I'm still living in the room that I've paid for. Sheesh...). So I've decided to not make it so easy for them anymore. I will live in intentional squalor, not answer inquiries about seeing the room, hang around naked/sleeping, and make it clearly uncomfortable/awkward for them to show my room when I don't want them to.
This week I ventured to Cesky Krumlov. It's about a 3-hour bus ride (which is gorgeous, by the way... the countryside is really fantastic) and then you arrive in this adorable little town. Totally medieval-feeling, very cute. The whole thing is pretty small too - you can walk around it in just a few hours. There is a large castle there to check out... And about a million hostels/pensions. I saw more places to stay than I did touristy-shops that sold scarves/figurines/alcohol. But overall, a very relaxing place. And the weather was miraculously perfect: blue skies, sunny and warm! I really needed to get away from my flatmates - the whole lecture-thing had happened the night before I left and I was sooooo glad I was leaving the next day!
AND... I have bangs! I cut them while a little buzzed, in bad lighting, with bad scissors. So they are a bit... funky. LOL! I think they'll look better after they've grown out a little and I can get them professionally re-shaped in Seattle (I don't trust hair stylists here, have you seen the average Czech person's hair?!?). But for now, I feel like a new woman... ;)In the meantime, I still haven't figured out what I want to do with my life in the next few months. For now, I know I'm returning to Seattle for a few weeks and then hopefully taking off again to a new destination. Getting all the way back to Europe will be difficult/expensive, and I will be at ZERO dollars... So I'm thinking about cheap places on "my" side of the planet. Mexico, or maybe Costa Rica. Who knows...
- Nova.
