Czech This Out

The “One” That Took Too Long to Write!

(That title implied that I have been good about writing regularly up to this point! Ha!) Well, it IS disgraceful, but I will defend myself by saying I have been really busy! Since I last posted, I have been to opposite ends of Europe, both to The Netherlands and Poland, have gotten sick, have given final exams to my seniors, …it’s been a busy time. So Amsterdam: I love that place! I would recommend it to anyone. It was not on my list of places I’d like to see in Europe, but I really enjoyed it! Great city, very clean, unusually beautiful, I just couldn’t stop taking pictures of the city (as evidenced by the 500 pictures of it on my computer right now!!!). It’s full of old houses, tall, slender, and PACKED around the canals that run in nearly concentric circles through the city. My enjoyment of the city was only enhanced by the people with whom I traveled. I also recommend THEM to anyone. ;-) I went with Sarah Fasano, Meredith, Marianne, Courtney, and (poor) Mike, the token guy on the trip, who proved himself absolutely worthy of traveling with women! He handled all of our girl-type stuff very well (even Kukenhof) and generally established himself as a good travel companion. Kudos to Mike! Anyway, we saw a lot of things in the Netherlands. We visited the Van Gogh Museum and Kukenhof, the largest flower garden you have EVER seen, which was actually really cool. I’ve never seen so many tulips in my life! We also toured Anne Frank’s house and Corrie Ten Boom’s house (in Haarlem). They were both fascinating in different ways. Anne, a young Jewish girl, wrote from a child’s perspective about the horrors of Hitler’s invasion and occupation. Her story ends in her internment and eventual death in a Nazi concentration camp. It was wild to see the actual rooms in which this insightful adolescent wrote! Corrie’s story is of a middle-aged Christian woman who, with her family, tries to do her part in the war by hiding Jews and other persecuted people in a hiding place built into their home. Her story also follows her to a concentration camp, but it doesn’t end there. She survived the camp and went on to tell her story through her books (“The Hiding Place” being the most famous) and through speaking. She also went on to forgive her captors and torturers, one of them in a face-to-face encounter! Different stories, both poignant, both good lead-ins to our next trip. Poland – Two weeks after Amsterdam, we visited Krakow and a concentration camp, Auschwitz. Wow. What an emotional and memorable visit! I also recommend that to everyone, but not in the same way. I think every person should have to visit one of these camps, just to get a glimpse of how ordinary human beings are capable of committing terrible, atrocious acts! It was alarming. I don’t really know how to describe a place where that many people were tortured and died. I can only say that you could actually feel it, the oppressive, heavy feeling, the hopelessness. Krakow was a beautiful city. I was a bit taken aback by Poland. I didn’t expect it to be such a charming place. We found Polish pottery, which was my goal in Krakow. I did find that Polish cuisine is as much to my liking as standard Czech fare is, but their beer is sadly lacking in quality! Sorry, Poland, I am staying right here in Prague! ;-) I went with some really great people: Sam, Laura, Mike, Stephen (yay – not just girls for poor Mike to travel with!), Stephanie, Chrissy, Sarah, Meredith, and Christie. Then the girls who live in Ostrava (Laura, Emily, and Darina) also met up with us in Krakow. So, I learned something else on this trip: 13 people form much too large a group to travel with!!! I think my new limit will be 6. That’s what we had in Amsterdam – everything went fine. Every time our ENORMOUS group wanted to do anything in Krakow, we ended up splitting into groups of 4-6. I think that’s more natural. So there is my advice – never travel in groups larger than 6. I can’t say that strongly enough. ;-) Maturita - ugh - he dreaded word. Our students dread this week for all 8 years of their education and then it descends upon them all too quickly in the last week of May! This is the name given to the exam by which all students exit high school in the Czech Republic…or the exam which does NOT allow them to graduate! Basically, at my school, it works like this: At the beginning of their senior year, they are given a list of 50 topics which they have to study in English. Topics range from things like “Family and Traditions” to “British Literature in the 18th and 19th centuries.” On the day of their exam, they draw a number out of a bag that matches two of the topics. They have to speak about the topics for 15 minutes to me, another teacher, and a panel of people from the Ministry of Education and the school. They are judged on the content of their speeches, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc… After the exam, we choose (somewhat subjectively!) their grade, from a 1 to a 5 (1 is the best, 5 is failing). This is the English exam. They have to repeat the routine again in 3 more subjects (such as Czech literature, physics, biology, geography) on the same day. Their scores determine whether or not they graduate from school. Grades from the past 4-8 years are essentially meaningless, except in cases where the panel of Ministry judges disagrees with our grade for the exam. Anyway, this is the most stressful time of these kids’ lives up to this point. It was stressful for me too. Not only do you have their futures resting in your hands, but you have to know the content of the topics to be able to examine them! So for the last month or two, I have been cramming into my head large amounts of the last 400+ years of British and American Literature; British, Canadian, Australian, American, and Czech History, Government, AND Geography; highlights of London, D.C., and New York, etc…Ugh. I feel like I had an exam! The good news is…I passed! I got sick the day before, so I had a 102 degree fever and a horrible cough all week, but I survived. That was interesting too. Here, if you get a cold, you are “encouraged” (read: required) to stay home a week to totally heal before coming back to work. Maturita week is different – it is nearly sacred. Last year, the American teacher got Mumps. That barely got her out of it. ;-) I was glad I was there. I was SO PROUD of how well my students did! I wish they all knew how highly I think of them! I really can’t believe the year is almost over! I will be in the U.S. in less than a month! I am excited and apprehensive all at once. I am thrilled at the idea of seeing family and friends again. I can’t even imagine it. But I am nervous about some of the visit too. I know I have changed over the year. I know that people at home will have changed too, but my change feels nearly tangible to me. I am not sure how people will react. Will I seem very different? Part of me hopes so! I think the very worst-case scenario would be not to have made any noticeable changes in my life! Anyway, I am looking forward to re-adjusting to U.S. culture, just to have to re-adjust again two months later in the fall! Well, what do you do? I am looking forward to visiting you all again, eating at Chipotle or Qdoba (!!!), having Starbucks, etc…

posted by Kassidee Kennedy @ 4:39 PM