Feeling much better

I've been feeling much better since I finalized things with Wattsenglish. I will not start working full-time for the school until July. The Wattsenglish franchise in the suburbs wants to hire someone who will stay at their location all next year (understandably), and I would rather be in Prague. Until then I will cover classes as needed, and I will have the next few months to build up some of my own private students. Also, it will allow me to work at a summer camp in Milan in June that I was hoping to fit in.

Luckily, there are plenty of opportunities for teaching as long as you are figuring out the details of your visa. I met with Jana yesterday, and I will begin teaching her daughter Anezka next week. I created a sample lesson that Jana really liked, and I will actually use it as my first lesson with Anezka. I found a lesson from a textbook that focused on a painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge. I knew from Jana that her daughter is interested in dance, so I start the lesson with a clip from the movie Moulin Rouge. Then we cover some grammar and talk about the painting and about the artist, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. I didn't realize that her daughter is also a painter until our meeting yesterday, so the lesson ended up being very appropriate for her. She will meet with me for an hour each Tuesday before her painting lesson. I am excited to meet her. Also, I met my landlords on Saturday. They are very nice people, and they have three sons who they would like English lessons for. Already up to 4 students, it seems!

I taught some cover classes this week for Watts, and they went really well. I taught at a kindergarten on Monday, and the kids were so cute! I taught 4 classes of children from ages 3-6. After my last class (3-4 year olds), they all came up and hugged me around my knees. So freaking adorable. On Tuesday I taught at a primary school, and that was really fun too. I love it when kids draw me pictures. Here are a couple I've gotten so far:

Tomorrow morning I am going to be a judge for an English Conversation Competition taking place at one of the schools Watts teaches for. I will be one of 8 judges for the competition. We meet tomorrow and again next month for the finals. The kids we will be judging tomorrow (there are 45 children) are the winners from one of Prague's regions, and next month when we meet again we will judge the winners for the whole city. I am excited to be part of it, it sounds like a lot of fun.

Meanwhile, I've been following my Colors & Numbers book again. It's fun, and it's helpful since I don't have a regular schedule at the moment to have something that provides a sort of rhythm to the days. Yesterday was my "purple" day. Here is the information for the day:

This helped me out a lot yesterday, it was the kind of thing I needed. While I don't usually read scriptures, I took the advice in the book and looked up Matthew 6 online. I really fit my current struggles, especially the last part: 

Do Not Worry

25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

That last line says it all, really :)