:: Thursday, March 30, 2006 ::

In a life of Thursdays

Wheeeeeeeee! It's my birthday!!
Yes, twenty-two short years ago I was born (if you count years on a planet with a larger orbit than Earth!)

It's been a busy day so far. I teach outside of Prague on Thursdays, in a town called Rakovnik about an hour away. Usually I'm done at 12:30, but for some reason, I agreed to substitute for two more classes there this afternoon. And one of them was elementary, which meant they had never had a native speaker before. I think the shock of that, and the fact I can't speak Czech, was a little too much for them and they kind of froze up. So it was a bit of a difficult class.

On the other hand, I got on really well with the other class I substituted, who were pre-intermediates and very fun and talkative once they got over the shock of a native speaker. They even told me they enjoyed my lesson and asked if I'd be back next week!

And of course, I also got a little more cashish for those two classes (or I will, when I actually get paid next month).

So that's been my day so far. Last night we went out for dinner with a couple of friends, and tonight the Polka dot's taking me out for a birthday dinner. And something else is apparently planned for tomorrow night, but it's all very hush-hush and top secret, so I have no idea what's happening other than the fact that something's happening. I hope I survive until Saturday morning (some of my friends have the tendency to buy way too many shots of slivovice...)

I've even gotten a few special bday packages, including one from the dot-in-laws(!): a very nice book about the beautiful architecture of Poland. And I'm about to head to the post office to pick up another package before they close.

And lest we forget, perhaps the best present of all, from my beautiful, sweet Polka dot herself, the big-ass, cool-as-all-get-out Lego Viking Ship, that I have wanted since last August!! Yipppeeeee!!

I'll be back this weekend (hopefully) with posts about our recent trip to Budapest and much, much more. Stay tuned!

:: posted by Rob 5:42 PM [+] :: 2 comments
...

An open mind and time to choose

It's been a busy week (and a busy weekend), and I promise I'll be hopping on soon to update y'all with all the Euro-fun I've been having lately. Until then, however, and FYI for all of you across the sea in the Great American Empire (™), today marked the beginning of Summer Time here in Prague (and most of the rest of Europe on CET).

What does this mean? Well, it's kind of like good ol' American Daylight Saving Time, but it's one week earlier.

So now I'm seven hours ahead of you east coasters (and even more, like 53 or so, ahead of you left coasters). That's one extra hour I have that you don't. One more hour to prepare my schemes for world domination from my top secret sub-oceanic headquarters!

Bwahahahahahahahahaha! Tremble in fear, those of you still mired in the doldrums of winter time!

For a week, at least. Then we're back to the status quo.

Sigh.

:: posted by Rob 8:31 PM [+] :: 1 comments
...

I had a title for this post, but I've forgotten it now

I had wanted to make this post a few days ago, but then our cable and internet inexplicably went out, leaving me unconnected and adrift, lost, searching, yearning...
So now I'm doing this at my school, since I seem to have a little bit of time.

Update the first: Spring! Or rather, the lack thereof. Just when you think it's safe to go back in the water, Mother Nature comes along and throws a blizzard and subzero temps at you. (okay, so it wasn't really a blizzard, but it snowed Sunday night and like all day Monday!) So now everything's covered with snow, again, and apparently we're waiting until April for the end of winter. Something about this being a longer winter than usual for Europe. Whoopee. Even Sweden had a shorter winter than this!

Update the second: I went back to teaching last Thursday and Friday, but apparently I should have stayed home those days too, as I woke up Saturday morning having difficulty breathing. Rather than let it fester and mutate into full-fledged pneumonia like it did last year in Sweden, I high-tailed it to the doctor, where I paid exorbitant fees (plus an extra charge for the weekend) to get ahold of some them new-fangled antibiotics. And now, I'm pleased to report, I'm almost back to tip-top condition, with the exception of a small lingering cough. I'm figuring that should be gone by 2:27 am Friday morning. Mark your calendars.

And with that, I leave you. It will be a dry end-of-week for posts, as my Polka dot and I head to Budapest for the weekend. We leave tomorrow night on the overnight train, have Friday and Saturday to see the sights, and are back in Prague Sunday night, hopefully in time to get some sleep before work at oh-God-it's-early Monday morning. And don't even think about breaking into our sweet Euro-flat while we're away - I have contracted with a reputable canine security firm, and for the bargain price of two porterhouse steaks, I have been assured we will have 24-hour security coverage (at least I think that's what he said - my German isn't what it used to be...)

You know, German.

As in German shepherd.

It's a fast-paced world - keep up.

:: posted by Rob 2:05 PM [+] :: 1 comments
...

Hooks in you

Okay, I know it's not technically, officially spring yet, but come on! It is March at least, and that means there should at least be some sign that spring is almost here and winter is drawing to a close. Right?

Nope.

I wake up this morning, look out the window, and see...a couple of centimeters of fresh snow everywhere (about an inch for those non-metric types out there). This has been the most wintry day in quite a while, all cloudy and snowy, and quite frankly, it's getting a bit tiresome. Bring on the spring already! You know, green growing things, flowers poking up their heads, etc. etc.

Oh I get it - the fact that the temperatures rose above zero and the falling snow turned to rain and the snow on the ground turned to this grayish-brown slush is the sign that spring is coming. Wonderful. One or the other please. Snow and winter, or sunshine and spring. Thanks. Appreciate it.

In other news, I went back to teaching today. Not as bad as I had feared, but still not as good as I had hoped. I am feeling better, but I'm still not close to 100%. I think I got rid of my fever, and my body doesn't ache all over any more, but every time I spoke I was interrupted by the hacking cough, courtesy of the fact that my cold/flu/space-plague has migrated back down into my lungs. Still, it's nice that it no longer feels like my brain is either in danger of leaking out my nose or that it's swelling up and threatening to explode my head wide open. So I'll count my blessings where I can find them, I guess.

And for the "anonymous" commenter who claimed I didn't take her advice and load up on the Vitamin C, I can only say that I did, in fact, load up on the Vitamin C, but it's not a panacea, and that I don't think Superman could have successfully resisted this thing. I'm just saying.

:: posted by Rob 5:48 PM [+] :: 0 comments
...

Can't live with or without 'em

Today is International Women's Day, so let me begin by wishing a Happy Women's Day to all the womens in my life, especially my one particular womens. Interestingly, according to the Wikipedia:

During the rule of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in Czechoslovakia (1948-1989) the International Women's Day was used as a tool of the party propaganda, which hoped to convince women that the party cared about them and considered their needs in formulating social policy.

During the last decades of the regime, this event morphed into a parody of itself. On every March 8th almost every woman got a flower and a small gift (typically soap or a towel) from her employer. Many men took this day as a convenient opportunity to spend the day drinking in the local pub. As a result, the original aim of expressing respect and sympathy to women was completely lost. The party's ritualistic celebration of Women's Day became so stereotypical that it was even ridiculed in movies and on television in Czechoslovakia.

Spending the day drinking in a pub? Sounds good to me! Bring on the pivo!

However, according to my Polka dot, IWD is still celebrated in Poland, and she is Polish, so I guess it's flowers for her and no beer for me. I tried to convince her last week was International Men's Day, where women buy their men pizza, but she didn't buy it.
(Note: I highly recommend clicking the International Men's Day link - go Trinidad & Tobago!)

And finally, in either the "Oh, the irony" or the "Blessings in Disguise" category, I was all set to go back to work today, when my school informs me that my one class tonight has been cancelled. So I get another day off! But it's another day without any pay! On one hand, I still don't feel 100%, so I can't really complain that I don't have to teach tonight, but on the other hand, I'm going to end up making like two dollars this week. So blessing in disguise or oh, the irony? You be the judge.

:: posted by Rob 12:00 PM [+] :: 0 comments
...

Three more words

Or bird flu.

:: posted by Rob 10:22 AM [+] :: 1 comments
...

Rambling Incoherence

Apparently, you're supposed to update these "blogs" on something of a regular basis. News to me. I thought this was just some sort of vanity project to see my name plastered all over the Internet. Ah well, it's good to learn something new every day.

So anyways, now that I'm currently sick as a dog in my annual oh-God-kill-me-or-at-least-cut-off-my-head-so-I-can-breathe-again Super Monkey Rocket Pack Napoleon Death Cold (patent pending), I finally have some time to actually post something here. Of course, considering that I'm on my fourth day of the aforementioned illness, I can make no guarantees as to its narrative coherence, hence the title. My apologies beforehand, then.

Ok, so what's going on here in Czech-land? I've missed two days of work so far, with plans to start teaching again tomorrow, but I'm beginning to have serious doubts about my ability to function. I was hoping to be better by now, but perhaps with heavy doses of DayQuil I'll be able to make it through my one class tomorrow. Thursday will be a different story. Wish me luck. I've been wishing I had just taken the whole week off, but my bank account had different ideas. One can never stray far from the grindstone, it seems.

In the end, though, I just need to be better by the end of next week, when my Polka dot and I join a friend for a weekend trip to Budapest! (That's in Hungary, for the geographically-challenged among you.)

Beyond that, not too much going on. My friend Ron, formerly from NoVa, currently in Estonia, visited us for a couple of days about 2 weeks ago. It was great seeing him again and being a tourist with him, and now I need to figure out a way to get to Estonia to take him up on his invitation for a visit. I really wish it was possible for more of my friends to visit me over here, but I realize Europe is pretty far way for most Americans, not to mention the logistical difficulties of traveling so far with families. Still, it would be nice to see more of them. And for those of you reading this, the invitation remains, as always open, should the stars align properly for foreign visitations!

And finally, right before the aliens invaded my head and infected it with their crazy space-plague in an attempt to destroy all native life in this solar system prior to their colonization effort, we hosted a poker game here Friday night. A lot of friends had previous plans, but we had a good small group, some tasty beer, and a fun evening well spent. And I even doubled-up on my stake of 100 crowns by the night's end, so I guess one could call it a success.

And that's it from this side of the world, at least for now. If I haven't turned into a ravening slime monster by tomorrow (and I'm giving it 50-50 odds), I may be back with another post before June.

But I wouldn't count on it.

:: posted by Rob 4:35 PM [+] :: 4 comments
...