Heading to Prague

Well, I have survived another week. The really cool part is that it is starting to feel like not just surviving. Of all the amazing things, I'm actually enjoying my job! I have to say it's been a LONG time since I've really felt this way about a job. It is both interesting and challenging. I still wouldn't say that I LOVE lesson planning, but my students are a lot of fun. I'm even beginning to make better sense of grammar rules. The main thing I remember about my grammar class in college (besides the fact that it was ridiculously early in the morning) was that the book said there are few rules that are really rules in the English language. It's so true. Especially when you are writing. So much depends on what you are trying to say, and how you want to express yourself. There are definitely things that just sound horribly wrong, but a lot of things are so changeable that it's hard to call them actual rules. It's all rather tricky.
At the same time, in schools here they mostly learn languages based on grammar. For them it is very important to know why we say things the way we do. So it is my job to both explain those rules that do exist, and make sense of all the many times we say and write things in completely different ways. Maybe one of these days it'll make more sense, but for now I'm just trying to keep things very simple.
Well, I about an hour and a half I'll be getting on a train to Prague. I'm really excited about that, even though I think we'll be spending the majority of Saturday in a meeting. Not my favorite sort of activity, but such is life. It will be so nice to meet up with the other members of the Czech team. There are 17 of us here in all, and there are several that I have yet to meet.
Well, my stomach is reminding me that I was up earlier today than normal since I had to teach this morning so I'd best be off to have some lunch. It's pretty handy having our school right over a grocery store. We pretty much live here!