Dill, wet laundry, and cream cheese

I realize I haven't posted in some time, but today's lunch at my school cafeteria has spurred me to try to get back in the habit.  Also, the fact that it's 4:30pm and dark outside (I really don't think I'll ever get the hang of daylight savings time).

Lunch in the cafeteria is often an interesting experience in one way or another.  Today I realized that we use actual plates, bowls, knives, spoons and forks.  There are no styrofoam trays or sporks to be found (I also jumped on this opportunity to try to explain the spork to the group of teachers I was sitting with...they just kind of giggled and now probably think the US is an even stranger place than they had once believed).  This means that the women who work in the lunchroom are constantly engaged in an endless stream of cooking, serving, cleaning, and occasionally reminding me to scan my little keychain chip (the Czech version of a card swipe) when I get distracted by trying to figure out what I'm about to eat.  Usually the lunch is infinitely better than anything I was ever served up in a school cafeteria back in the States, but sometimes it's a tad on the unusual side.  Today, for example, we had mashed potatoes, and then two hardboiled eggs.  Sauce seems to always be the most important part of the meal for Czech people, so we then had a choice of a creamy dill or garlic sauce ladeled generously over the top of it all.  It was delicious, if a little heavy on the cholesterol, but something I certainly never would have thought of myself.

I'm finally really getting settled into life here in Ostrava, and into teaching, as well.  My lessons are taking me less and less time to prepare, but I think they're getting better and better.  I'm getting to know the personalities of my different classes (although, I get a whole new schedule in about a month, so we'll see how settled I feel then).  In my classes with students who take their exit exams later this year, I've started to work on essay writing as well.  I'm finding that this seems to be one of my strengths as a teacher - I was fortunate to have strong writing teachers in high school and especially at Seattle U, and having paid some attention to the ways they instructed me seems to be paying off.  I think the students might be a little annoyed with me at the moment, because having me instruct them in writing means that they're writing a lot more than they otherwise would (practically, it just takes me less time to correct their writing than it does for my Czech co-teachers), they're getting a lot of practice and I'm seeing improvement, especially in their organizational abilities.  So yes, teaching is going well.  I'm even managing to sneak in the occasional creative writing exercise, borrowed from Sam Green, without them realizing that I'm asking them to put themselves out there and expand the ways that they're used to learning. 

Ostrava is rapidly growing on me, something I didn't really expect.  My first few trips back to Prague, especially during the first month that I was teaching here in Ostrava, left me feeling fairly nostalgic for my days of study abroad, and also with a sense of not-belonging, or perhaps mis-belonging.  From the start, people here seemed to think that I fit in alright.  It has taken me awhile to get on board.  I'm starting to feel that myself, and I catch myself walking past the tram graveyard near my house (where the trams rest at night), slogging through mushy leaf piles, often carrying my laundry to or from the flat of the other fulbrighter here in Ostrava, and imagining walking the same path 10 years from now when I come back to visit. 

I've been surprised by how willing people are to not only take care of me and offer me anything I might need (such as cookies and breads to sample on the train), but to actually genuinely welcome me in their lives.  Ostravians have something of a reputation for xenophobia, and I know I look fairly Czech, so that helps, but it's been really...heart-warming? to see how, in the last month, I've been introduced to a lot of people, but I finally feel like some are starting to become friends.  Maybe it's all that Czech beer...it'll bring anybody closer together:-) 

Ok - overall, a positive post.  I'll try to write more frequently so you can hear more of the details, and so I can remember them better later.  Now, I'm going to go enjoy the Philadelphia cream cheese I found.