My First Interview in Prague!

The past three weeks have been super busy and intense. I had no idea that this course was going to be this much work. It is challenging and time consuming. So far I have taught five English classes to Czech students, 1 one-on-one lesson, and a grammar lesson to my fellow classmates. Next week is our last week and I still have two more one-on-one lessons, another grammar presentation, two more group English classes to teach, a 10-page paper to write, and a final grammar exam. Thinking about it all makes me just a tad overwhelmed. It's amazing to me how much I have done and learned in such a short period of time. I have been challenged to use my mind, something that I haven't had to do since college.

Yesterday I had my first job interview at a school called Kindergarten that teaches kids ages 2-6. The directions in the email seemed very simple and since it was Prague 9, the same area of Prague we are staying, I figured it would be close.  Yeah, not so much. To get there, I ended up taking the metro all the way to the end of the line. When I got off I had to find the correct bus to get on. Once I found the bus stop, I realized there were about 20 different stations all with three or four different buses. I thought I was in the wrong place because I couldn't find the sign with the bus I needed. I started to panic. No one spoke English or knew what I was talking about. "Promiente (sorry/excuse me) Rosimete anglicke? (do you speak english?) K'de bus 250?  (where is bus 250)"  No one knew. I felt like a little lost girl trying to find her way. Finally I spotted the sign that said "Bus 250". Phew!

I waited for five minutes which seemed like an eternity. I checked my watch, 20 minutes until my interview. Would I make it? How far was it from here? Finally the bus appeared and I hopped on and a younger guy sat next to me. I showed him a piece of paper with "Sudejocka" written on it and asked him how many stops it was. He told me six. Six, oh that's not bad. Probably a couple minutes between each stop. Then all of a sudden the bus got on the freeway and started heading towards the countryside. Where exactly was I going? I started to panic some more. I had written down the school's number on a piece of paper and had brought my cell phone with me in case of something like this. I called the school and told them my situation, clueless as to where I was or how long I would be.

As it turns out I ended up getting off the bus at 4 pm on the dot. When I got off the bus I saw Marketa waiting there for me, her dyed red hair and yellow jacket. We walked and talked and told me that we were getting into a car. At first, I was a little apprehensive about this but then she proceeded to tell me that it was straight back in a neighborhood that looked quite nice and that she didn't want me to get lost.

Once we got to the school, which is basically a house in a cookie cutter neighborhood, I remembered that it was customary/polite to take your shoes off when entering someone's home. I took my heels off and Marketa handed me a pair of big fluffy slippers with unicorns on them. This is what I did my interview in. Classic.

The interview went well and next Tuesday I have a second interview where I will be giving a 20 minute demo "lesson" to a group of kids at the school.

The school is quite far away from Prague's center which I am a bit concerned about. But one of the girls who works at TEFL told me that she used to travel 2-3 hours around town giving private lessons each day and that was normal.

I definitely need to start firing out my CV to schools this weekend. One more week until the course ends!!!! Woo hoo!!