My YOS - Czech Chronicals

Gallery: TIS Views

ruhi — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:16:00 GMT

Getting acquainted with TIS

ruhi — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:09:00 GMT

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Shortly after I last wrote my last input I had a few meetings to find out what I would be doing in the school, during school time when dorm duties are very little. I had an orientation with the school founder (Ramona Rayhani for those interested) and then a meeting with the school principle (Keith Saberi, he and his family lived in Qld for some time). What we worked out that i will be doing over the year is two fold:

· managing and providing the tutoring of students in and out of school times

· looking over the policies and procedures of the school and improving them, seeing if they are being implemented, etc, etc.

· I may also be acting as a teaching aid in some of the science and chemistry classes where some students are struggling

· I will also be teaching a computers class once a week as well

Every month, the other dorm parents provide their apartment for a particular grade to practice their hospitality and hold a dinner, allowing them to make what they wish, and invite who they wish. Since Azadeh (the other year of service (YOS)) and I were new, the level 3 students (equivalent to our yr 11) invited us to get to know us. We were delighted by an amazing feast in front of us, including food from France and Italy just to name a few. It was an awesome night where we really got to know the students better and for them to get to know us better.

The following week was exam week. This is when I became suddenly VERY busy with the tutoring side of things. I was basically tutoring all day from when i got up to when the students went to bed. Very tiring but rewarding – not sure how much it helped though because it was all last minute. Now that it is over and the new semester is starting this week, I can get into regular tutoring which will be much more beneficial than the emergency version.

Being the beach bum I am, I found out about a really good pool and the Saturday following exam week, I relaxed and went for a swim at an indoor swimming pool. It was a funny experience, with snow just outside the window, and it being too hot inside the pool for me. It was quite funny, the people I went with wanted to have a shower before they went in the pool to acclimatize to the cool water, lol, and this was water of like 24^oC. That afternoon I was lucky enough to be invited to go ice skating on the lake at sunset (see my photos). It was really fun, very bumpy where it hadn’t been smoothed and really beautiful ice skating on a natural lake rather than at an ice rink.

The following Monday was Australia Day and Azadeh and I thought we would share our culture and so we baked lamingtons and ANZAC biscuits, made up a sheet of Australian slang for them to learn (which was funny hearing germans try to say g’day), and on a cold winter’s afternoon, played a game of cricket on the basketball court, continuously trying to dodge the ice puddles. After the cricket game we had very cold hands but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

Last week was an interesting week. We had one returning YOS from Australia who is staying for the rest of the school year (till June), and we also found out that the Japanese YOS has to leave next Monday, which is very sad. We had an awesome surprise farewell party for her last night which she was absolutely delighted with and was very shocked with the surprise, so much so that when everyone screamed “surprise” at her, she screamed back at them , lol.

Next weekend is going to be an adventure. I will be going to Frankfurt to one of the 41 Bahá’í conferences happening around the world. It will be my first time in Germany and my first major trip since I have been here so that is going to be exciting regardless of the awesomeness of what will be a very inspiring conference.

That is about it from me this time. It has been about a week of me trying to find time to write this so apologies for the sparseness of blogs.

I hope everyone is safe and happy wherever they are around the world!

Love to all.

Arrived and settling into Czech republic

ruhi — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:27:00 GMT

Arrived at Townshend last Thursday night after an interesting trip. My first two planes from Sydney to Shanghai and then to Zurich were both an hour later than my itinerary said and my sydney plane was like another 30 min late as well, so i had a lot of waiting around. In Shanghai the airport closed at about 11pm so when i got in at about 9pm I went and got some accomodation at a nice little hotel about 10 min drive from the airport. I didnt get to look around much because i got there and left all during the dark. The people were all very nice though and a chinese girl who had been studying in the UK for 3 yrs helped me to check into the accomodation.
Checking in to the airport at Shanghai I got a nice surprise of an upgrade to business class for my 13 hr flight to Zurich which made life much easier as i could actually relax and didnt get a sore back. Swiss airlines are quite good. Once i got to Prague my taxi driver (employed by the school) didnt get there on time so i was a bit lost for like 20 minutes. He then took just less than 2 hrs to drive a 2 1/2 hr drive - lots of speeding!
Anyway, got to the school and met the few people staying here (all the students and everyone else arrive here after holidays tomorrow) but was really tired and went to bed pretty quikly.
The other Aussie girl here on YOS (just arrived last Saturday) and I went into the main city close by here on Friday (Ceske Budejovice, translates into Czech Budweiser, the home of the beer) and looked around and i got some decent snow boots which are nice and warm and like $50 so a bargain! everything is on sale here at present so it is quite good shopping for stuff.
I also got a mobile number here now which is (420) 774122404.

On Saturday I moved into my permanent room in the other dorm where i will be dorm assistant to about 40 or so students ranging from 12 to 19 yrs old. I have a 2 rooms and a bathroom all to myself (i really lucked out with that one!), one of which i will be running a business selling flavoured water and fizzy drinks out of for the students, the money raised is used to buy stuff for the dorms. My room has one of the best views in the dorm, I look directly out over a lake (frozen) and a big castle. Since the school is located at the top of a hill, the views look awesome. I will post pics when i get the chance.

The students are really a great bunch of ppl so far and i have connected with a number of them which is fantastic. One of the grades has gone on a 5 day snow trip this week (they left today) which sounds like it is going to be amazing. They are going to the alps on the german/czech border - so jealous!

The weather here ranges from about -15 to -3 (approximately) so it is chilly outside. Anywhere inside is heated well ( a bit much for my liking) so just need to rug up when you go walking down into the village or into town. I havent used my thermals yet and havent been too cold.

The Bohemian landscape is beautiful. Very white at present. I am amazed how much aerosol is in the air here - long distance visibility isnt great but you get some amazingly red sunsets because of it.

Will update with things soon.

Hope everyone is well!