Interviews

I had an interview yesterday with a Czech Public High School! I rode the metro and a bus from Praha 9 down to Praha 4. It was about an hour and during that time I kept asking myself "what am I doing?" I passed old Communist housing and dirty streets and overgrown vegetation while I traveled farther and farther away from the city-center. I could not get a handle on my emotions and fears and questions about how I landed in the middle of the Czech Republic.

Once I arrived at the school, about 20 minutes late, I thought I wouldn't have a chance. I'm inexperienced. I'm young and showed up late. (Although it wasn't entirely my fault) I tell the secretary who I am and she leads me upstairs to an office where I meet a "Czech" English teacher. He then escorts me to the Headmaster who doesn't speak English. I sit at one end of a very long table and he at the other end. The English teacher translates.

It was the most bizarre interview I've ever had. I was never actually "interviewed," instead I was handed a class schedule, asked if I liked it, then they started calculating pay and taxes and such. The one interview question I was asked was about my TEFL class, but it was more of a filler question..they didn't seem too interested. They were, however, thrilled that I brought along a notarzied copy of my college diploma. I signed away my life (not literally), but I do have to go to the Czech Police Department for a background check and to a Czech Doctor for a physical.

So....I have a job.

I'll be teaching 12 lessons a week to high schoolers. I will get each set of students only once a week, as the "Czech" English teachers will have the students more often to teach them grammar and such. So I get to teach all the fun stuff....speaking, listening, and American culture. Yay! The pay is really, really bad. I don't want to ever hear about American teachers complaining again. But, thankfully, I may be an English tour guide around Prague. God has been so good to me! I not only will learn and grow and most likely be stretched by teaching high schoolers (and probably embarrassed most of  the time), but I also get to talk about history and art in THE best historically preserved city in Europe! I'll keep you updated. On Saturday I get to shadow a tour all day and take notes for my own script. :)

Love&Laughs,

H