The four weeks of certification came to a conclusion on Friday—four intense, exhausting, delightful weeks. After a constant state of sleep deprivation due to a non-stop stream of lesson plans it feels oddly freeing to be able to walk around Prague without a nagging feeling that I’m neglecting my duties. My final teaching week was my best, with a strong lesson on Wednesday, followed by a goofy lesson on Friday. The goofy lesson involved an entertaining game of Pictionary—as it turns out, the Czechs are not as familiar with Pictionary as Americans. The concept of ‘silent drawing’ and ‘no labeling pictures’ was lost on them, but I was thoroughly pleased with the students’ obedience involving the ‘only guess with English words’ rule—as it turns out the Czechs are a rather competitive bunch and all I had to do to catch their attention was threaten to give the other team a point if I heard any language other than English. My final review was a boost in the right direction, after four weeks of up and down ratings, I was complimented on my rapport with the class. What the monitor didn’t know was how badly I wanted to jump into the game of Pictionary—evidently I hid it well.
On Friday night the school held a small graduation ceremony for our class—a class in which all students passed. It involved toasts, short speeches and lots of goofy pictures. When it came time to move the night to a different location it felt weird to say goodbye to all of the people whom I had learned to teach alongside. But along with all the goodbye hugs we promised to visit each other—South Korea, England, Russia, Poland, Taiwan, Japan, China, etc. Here’s our class, and all it’s glory:
We had one last (official) weekend in Prague with new friends, and no immediate responsibilities, thus a few more explorations were scheduled. On Saturday we made it our primary goal to purchase photos on the Charles Bridge—mission success. With two new friends, and an old pal, we climbed to the top of one of the Charles Bridge towers, wandered across the bridge (again) purchasing photos as we went, had a lyric writing session/photo shoot at the Lennon Wall and then topped off the day with yet another paddle boat extravaganza. Here’s our badass Lennon Wall photo—I’m the goon who couldn’t wipe the smile off her face.
It was decided early on in the course that a dance party after the graduation ceremony on Friday was not going to be enough of a celebration/reward for making it through TEFL certification—a trip was in order. Which leads me to my current state—relaxing on a large bus, with ‘juice box’ coffee, snack mix and a killer soundtrack (obviously), bound for Budapest, Hungary. Unfortunately the movie playing on the official bus entertainment system is “Scooby-Doo”, starring the stellar acting of Freddie Prinze Jr., which would have destroyed my joy-buzz had the journey not officially begun with “17 Again”. (The ride is seven and a half hours long, so the entertainment decider has plenty of time to redeem him or herself with the next selection.) The stay in Budapest has been decided on three nights, at which point the players (Meghan, Maddie and I) will have decided on the following destination—right now the nominees are Berlin and Krakow, though I believe Berlin is currently in the lead.
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