My Slovak Husband, Vienna, and Terrible Teaching!

Alright, let's start with the juicy stuff - my Slovak husband. Although I did not, technically, get married, I got a glimpse of a man made for me on Sunday. I was standing at the bus stop, minding my own business, when I happened to get a glimpse of this guy's hat. It had not one, but two, Habs logos on it! I was in love. Then, he turned around and I saw that his jacket had a Thrashers logo on it. While I do not approve of other hockey teams, I was willing to make an exception because he is Slovak and, thus, clearly confused. To complete his absolutely enthralling outfit, he was carrying an NHL tote bag. I literally stared at him for about 10 minutes... I couldn't take my eyes off him. It's not that he was especially hot, but I just couldn't fathom anyone in this country taking such an active interest in the NHL! Unfortunately, I did not talk to him - partially because I'm a chicken shit, partially because I had nothing to say, really, other than "OMG I love the Habs!", which would make me sound like an air-head/douche - so he got away. Alas, Slovak weddings will have to wait!

Now, the reason I was even at the bus stop on Sunday was to make my way to the train station, when Jackie, Christina, Danko and I were going to catch a ride to Vienna. We wanted to see this Guiness World Records Show cuz it sounded awesome. Turns out, it was kind of crappy. The records themselves only took about 2 minutes to break, then there was a wait of about 30 minutes before anything else happened. Needless to say, we did not stick around for that for too long. Before leaving, we did get the chance to see one guy go for two records. For the first one, he put a harness around some rather large guy's waist, then proceeded to stand behind him, take the harness in his teeth, lift the guy off the ground, and walk him around the stage. This guy clearly got enough fluoride as a child! A little while later, this same guy with the crazy teeth decided to arm-wrestle an 18-wheeler (trailer free). How does that work? you may ask. Let me explain. A rope is tied to the front of the truck and, at the end of this rope is a grip-type-thingie (you can see I do this a lot). The man sits himself down at a table, grabs hold of the grip, and tries to move the truck in arm-wrestling position. I'm not even sure whether or not he succeeded, because it was taking too long and we got pretty bored pretty fast.

We spent the rest of the day walking through Vienna. It really is a beautiful city. Each building is more beautiful than the last and every turns leads down a street that looks like it belongs in a movie. We took a bunch of photos, ate more than we needed (because we kept having to tuck into restaurants to hide from the insane wind!), walked for ages, then somehow managed to find our way back to the train station and back to Bratislava.

As far as teaching goes, last week definitely made me feel like I was not cut out for this job! On Thursday, I was cleaning one of the tables in my class so we could use it for an art activity. My laptop was on it and, as I did not want it to get covered with glue and glitter, I decided to move it. I picked it up (not high, mind you, this is a tiny table) and turned around... only to come directly into contact with Marco's orbital bone. Nice. He now has a small but on his eye lid and a giant bruise around his eye. It was definitely a moment I was proud of.

As if that wasn't bad enough, on Friday, something considerably worse happened. One of the girls in my class, Rahel, was born deaf (if not totally, then mostly) and now has cochlear implants. She has had them for six months and, according to doctors, is progressing much faster than average. She has learned to speak (German) and responds well to sound even in a noisy environment. For the implant to work, though, a certain part of it has to be touching her head (it's magnetized) and the battery has to be working (obviously). When either of these things goes wrong, an alarm rings on another device (which looks just like a cell phone) and a picture appears to show you what's wrong. Seeing as she's only 4 years old, I carry this controller around all day and, at the end of the day when her mom picks her up, I hand it back over to her. On Friday, when her mom showed up, I reached down to grab it and it was gone. I assumed it had just fallen out of my pocket, but when I looked around on the floor it was still nowhere in sight. I searched and searched (I even ran 30 minutes to Devin castle and back because we had walked there with the kids in the afternoon) and still came up empty-handed. I had to send her home without it. I felt AWFUL!!!!! I even came into school on Saturday to have another look, but to no avail. Her mom brought in a picture of it today and we made "Lost" posters, so hopefully someone returns it...

As you can see, it has not been an easy week for me professionally. Hopefully, this week will be better... no one will get injured and I will not lose any more vital equipment. However, we're starting to learn the alphabet this week and my kids are both extremely lazy and slightly psychotic, so I can't promise everyone will get out unscathed. I'll let you know how it goes!

Steph :)