Pióro

Here’s my excuse for not blogging: we’ve been busy. New country, new language, new flat, new job—I’m sure you all understand. Yes, we do get around to playing piłkarziki (foozball) at least once a week. But other than that, it’s mostly school, school, school. Let me tell you a bit about it and how our school works.

I don’t teach in the town I live. Every day of the week I commute to the town of Skoczów, which is about twenty minutes by bus. I teach fifteen different groups, ranging from a group of six ten to twelve year-old boys to beginner adults to one student who is planning to take his English proficiency exam. For each group, I provide a minimum of one hour of fun and education a week (teaching hour = 45 minutes). Most see me for two hours at a time and there are a lucky two classes that get me for a three hour stretch each week. Poor souls. I usually teach for five hours a day, except for Thursdays and Fridays where I teach four and seven respectively. So, I suppose that sounds pretty cushy: just a twenty-six hour work week. And things would be cushy, if I weren’t spending every other waking hour preparing for classes and marking homework. I really have something like a fifty hour week. Those are the new teach blues.
A lot of work, yes. But I’ve never made the mistake of complaining about too much work to a Pole. Most Poles work a truck-load and make car-load: a European car-load. At our schools every native English speaker shares his or her classes with a Polish teacher, who also teaches English. A typical class sees me for two hours a week and the Polish English teacher for another two. While I’m the only native speaker at my school (well, Martha is at my school on Fridays), I share my classes amongst four Polish English teachers, which is not to suggest that I can do the work of four Polish women. Far from it. These Polish English teachers are also full-time grad students or teachers in the public school system who teach some more in their free-time. I don’t think they need sleep. In short, I’ve been sleeping where I could be blogging.

Another impediment to the blog is the paucity of internet connections in our corner of Poland. Except for one avenue that I’m exploring, it looks like we won’t be able to get an internet connection in our flat. For now, I will keep you posted from random computers at random internet cafés that keep random hours.

So there you have it: my 360 word essay on “Why we haven’t been blogging.” We hope to blog some more as we get into the rhythm of things. Also, I think we’ll back-date articles so all the fans can read about our crazy first three days, the “Heil Hitler” guy and our adventures in Polish medicare. Stay tuned.