View from the Astronomical Clock tower

Testing from flickr again....

Test post from flickr

IMG_6142, originally uploaded by aroundiemiru.

This is just one of many wonderful doors I saw in Prague.

Perhaps I'll come back later and write a post with some actual information in it...?

Done!

So, the CELTA course is officially over now. The last day was fun, we just played games with our students, and then got to talk to them for a while. After that it was just some paperwork, and we received our certificates - we all passed! Afterwards we semi took over a nearby restaurant (our group was 17 people, and then the other class came as well!), and then headed downtown to a bar/club place. I was so tired, I only stayed there for a little while, then went home to SLEEP :) I never realized how amazing sleep could be!

Now, I plan to spend the next 3 days photographing like a mad woman! I'm about to head off into the city soon - just have to wait for my camera battery to finish charging. I'll try to post a couple pictures here, but I make no guarantees - but I promise when I get back to America I'll post a ton!

Alright - I'm off to go exploring :)

Oh, two random things that I keep meaning to write about... The crosswalk signals here tick, as well as show the little walk/don't walk people. They tick rapidly when you can cross the street, and slower when you can't. I think that's pretty clever! And I've heard people joke that in the Czech Republic, pork is considered vegetarian - turns out that's not a joke! They only consider meat to be red meat... seriously! That explains why on most "vegetarian" sections of menus, especially in the center, the options were either pork or seafood! Crazy, crazy ideas about food here...

I survived the CELTA course!!!

It still hasn’t sunk in that I've basically finished the course. On one hand, it feels like I’ve been here forever, but on the other it feels like I just began. All in all, it was an amazing experience. The sheer amount that I learned amazes me – I didn’t know it was possible to cram so much information into a four week period of time!

Teaching my last observed lesson today was a bit surreal – and it still hasn’t entirely sunken in that I’m done. No more CTLs (evil, evil papers…) or cover sheets, or analyzed lesson plans! No more assignments to write, no more teaching observations, no more lectures…. it’s weird to think about, really. All we have left is a fun group lesson with our students tomorrow (we’re playing games the entire time) some admin stuff, and finally getting our grades!

I've become so used to stressing about everything, and pressure/time constraints, that I’m not sure if I remember what relaxing is like. I also don’t remember what it’s like not waking up before the sun to finish a lesson plan or assignment. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow! Tomorrow afternoon/evening will be fun too – we’re all going out to a restaurant to celebrate the end of the course, and to just blow off some steam. It will be a nice reward. I treated myself to a piece of cake today as a treat for finishing all the hard parts of the course!

I am sooooooo looking forward to Saturday though – my tentative plan is to spend as many hours in the city as possible – so basically whenever the metro opens to whenever it closes! I have a long to do list, and not really enough time to do it all – but I’ll manage somehow! The hardest part of it will be going through my thousands of pictures when I get home! I already have around 800 – and that’s mostly from 1 day!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures, more to come soon!

Good lesson today :)

My lesson went really well today, so I'm happy :)

I guess sleeping paid off - even though I'll regret it by tonight, when I don't have time to sleep because of the assignment that's due tomorrow....

I'll write more later, I have 3 hours of lectures now... yippee!

This is me procrastinating...

So, I've been in Prague for 2 weeks now - and what have I been doing?

CELTA, CELTA, CELTA, and more CELTA stuff!

I've been so busy with lesson planning and coursework that I just haven't had the time and/or energy to do much else. I'm trying to finish up an essay that's due tomorrow so that I can go into the city.... as you can see, it's not exactly working, because I'm writing this blog instead of the essay....My goal is to finish it around 2:00 or 3:00, then head into the city for some exploring!

More later... must work!

I'll post something soon, I promise!

I've been rather delinquent in my posting lately... sorry! The past two weeks have just flown by, and I am so busy every day that I don't really have a free minute to spare! I've promised myself that I'll get out of the apartment this weekend in between lesson planning and writing two papers... I need to do that for my sanity! I'll post a couple pictures later on tonight, and hopefully more on the weekend...

I'll write more later, I've only got 30 minutes before I have to observe a lesson, and I want to get started organizing my paper!

First few days

I'm sitting at the coffee house (free wifi!) waiting to walk to class... I'm anxious for today - I just want to begin!

The first couple of days have been great. A few of us went exploring/photographing yesterday in central Prague. It's beautiful - so much to photograph, of course. Being a Sunday, it was rather crowded, so I'll have to go early in the morning to be able to get unobstructed shots of most buildings. That's okay, because the sun rises at like 4:30am here, so I'm pretty much up by 5:00 because it's so sunny.

I'll post pictures soon - I shot all of them in RAW, and I haven't had time to edit them yet. By tonight (my time) I'll have a few up!

The flat I'm staying in is pretty nice. Aparently we don't have hot water now - Prague does the same thing as Moscow in the summer - the hot water is periodically turned off throughout the city so that they can do maintenance work on the pipes. Cold showers it is!

I guess we're heading out soon, so that's all for now... I'll keep everyone posted!

In Prague

I've made it to Prague! I'm about to head into the city to do some exploring :)

I'll post pictures later, I promise!

How's this for a first post?

I'm going to Prague tomorrow!!! More details later... but I'm just too excited to wait to share this news!