Poland

On Szewska during the funeral mass for President Lech Kaczyński and his wife

Carrie and I stood near the main square (on the very end of Szewska street) during the funeral mass for the president and his wife.

I've been working on my Polish

Lately I've been putting some extra effort in trying to improve my Polish. Oddly enough, in Poland I haven't had too many opportunity for conversation with normal people about normal topics. Mostly I speak Polish with the officers of various government offices. There is a lot of bureaucracy in Poland and for the last 6 weeks or so we've been to at least one office a week, primarily the tax office.

Anyway, one of my efforts to speak more normal Polish has been recording YouTube videos in Polish. I've recorded one every Sunday for the past 4 weeks.

Here they are in chronological order:

March 20th, 2010

March 28th, 2010

April 4th, 2010

April 11th, 2010

Polish President Lech Kaczynski Dead in Plane Crash

We got some disturbing news this morning. At about 8am CET +1 (our time here in Poland), the Polish president's plane crashed in Russia, killing him and his wife along with many others. The head of the Sejm will now lead the country.
Below is a snippet from the BBC.com article.
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A plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski has crashed near a Russian airport, officials say.

Russian media reported that 87 people were killed in the crash near Smolensk, and a regional governor was quoted as saying there were no survivors.

Polish officials said Mr Kaczynski was on board along with his wife Maria and several senior government figures.

They were in Russia to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, when the Soviets killed thousands of Poles.

The BBC's Adam Easton in Warsaw says the crash is a catastrophe for the Polish people.

He says Prime Minister Donald Tusk was reportedly in tears when he was told.
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see more here...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8612825.stm

The Library

As some people may know, I have studied Polish language mainly on my own and mainly by reading and listening to books.

While I can't say enough about how well this approach has worked for me, one of the problems has always been the lack of a large selection of books in the Polish language and the cost of purchasing them. In the States, only a few books (really popular ones) are available in bookstores and only old, obscure books are available at the library.

However, this afternoon, I was at the most amazing place in Poland so far... the library! ;-) There are thousands of books in Polish and they are all for free!!

I just got my library card and a few books. Life is good.

Our NEW apartment in Kraków

Our apartment where we will be living until atleast June (because that's when our rental contract is up), if not longer!! Its a really nice place, it came fully furnished.

Job search complete!

Sorry there haven't been any updates for awhile! We've been extremely busy.

Since our last post, we spent another few weeks looking for work. We eventually found jobs in a village just outside of Kraków (more info later). Our commute takes 18 minutes on the train.

After that we found an apartment (videos forth coming!), moved in last Monday (Sept 28th) and started buying the extra things we needed -- the apartment was fully furnished (it even came with shot glasses!) but not everything one needs to live.

We started our job this Monday (Oct 5th). We both have 6 classes, but at different times of the week. I have mine towards the beginning and Carrie towards the end. I've already taught 5 of mine.

And our internet just got hooked up about 20 minutes ago!

There are pictures and videos of Poland that we still need to put up. And even stuff from Santorini we haven't had a chance to post either. Hopefully, now that we have a permanent residence, regular schedules and internet, we'll be able to update the blog more frequently.

See ya!

Deep in the job search

Hello, everyone! Sorry we haven't posted in a while.

We finished the CELTA course on August 21st (about 2 weeks ago) and passed with flying colors! It was an extremely challenging course but I'd recommend it to anyone thinking about going into TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language).

The passed two weeks have been spent looking for work in Kraków. We've already had two interviews, have two more this coming week and hopefully more down the road. Looking for work is just as time-consuming as a full-time job. When things quite down, we'll start posting more.

The TEFL hiring season in Poland just started, sometime around August 31st and will continue until mid/late September. We expect to be hearing back about offers around the 15th - 18th. So wish us luck!

If the interview situation here in Kraków dries up, we'll likely travel to Warszawa and try our luck there.

For very curious souls, I've attached our resumes to this post. We've already sent them to something like 30 schools!

After 2 weeks of the CELTA course at IH Kraków

Sorry there hasn't been an update in awhile! We've been really, really busy taking the CELTA course at International House in Kraków.

The course is really intensive and heavily focused on practice teaching real students of English. Not unlike Fight Club, on the first day of CELTA, everyone must teach! But its only for 20 minutes (6 trainee-teachers share a 2 hour lesson). Besides the teaching practice, we also have input sessions to attend and written assignments to write.

On days that I have to teach, I arrive at the school at 8:00am to make materials for my class: handouts, posters, word blocks, overhead transparencies, etc. It frequently involves scissors and a glue stick. We have input sessions from 10:45am until 2:15pm. Then there is a lunch break until 3:15pm where everyone teaching meets with their tutor about the lesson they are about to teach. At 4:15pm the students begin to arrive. The lesson starts at 4:30pm and goes until 6:40pm. Afterwards, there is feedback with the other trainee-teachers and your tutor. That can last until 7:30 - 8:00pm.

Thats a 12-hour day at the school. If you have to teach the following the day, you will up another couple hours planning. Since we are in training, you have to produce extensive documentation about your lesson plan. Oh yeah, and there are written assignments mixed in there too! ;-)

Yesterday, I did my first 60 minute lesson. It took me about 6 hours to plan, produce all the required documentation and make my materials. Which, believe it or not, it quite a bit faster than it took me during my lessons for the first week! Of course, this is building us up for when we work real jobs where we will be teaching 3 - 5 hours per day.

Anyway, I'm done teaching for the week. Carrie has her 60 minute lesson today. And then we intend to have a relaxing weekend -- when we aren't writing the assignment due on Monday or planning our lessons for Monday (David) or Tuesday (Carrie)! ;-)

There's a couple cool videos/pictures waiting to be posted, including a review of a Bloody Mary done Polish-style, which we hope to put up soon.

See ya!

Our apartment in Kraków, Poland (July 25th, 2009)

Our apartment in Kraków, Poland where we will be living for the next 4 weeks (the duration of our CELTA program). After filming this, I decided to switch to staying in the small bedroom. So, the room described as "David's bedroom" is really where the Swedish roommate lives..

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