Travel is broadening, they say: An American traveler coming home has a brand-new laundry list of things that she misses about the country she visited, things that she could find in Europe that are unheard of Stateside. For me this list includes things like fresh bread and good chocolate, reliable public transportation, and street musicians. But the opposite can also be true: Returning to America, I've discovered a few new delights here, unavailable to me during six months in the Czech Republic. 


Here is my list.


I love having windows with screens on them. My flat in Prague had beautiful old windows, made with panes of bubbled glass and wood painted white. But there were no screens. Come summer, the flat got hot, we opened the windows (there's also no A/C in the Czech Republic), and we let the flies in--huge, monster flies that the locals called 'Meateaters'. I took to hunting them down with a red folder, perched on my bed and lashing out at the flies as they zoomed past me through the air. Every morning, I faced the same dilemma: cool down the apartment and deal with the flies, or fry in a fly-free apartment. Now, I fling open my windows to air out my apartment in a cool breeze and I still have no flies. So terrified.


I love having seedless grapes. Grapes count as one of my favourite fruits. Ever. I learned in the Czech Republic that they were particularly delicious frozen. But the default grape in Prague had seeds in it - big, huge seeds that gave the grape a bitter taste if you accidentally bit into them; it was almost impossible not to bite into the humongous seed on accident. I took to cutting the seeds out of the grape with a little knife and adding them to salads. Here the default grape is seedless. I buy them in huge packages from Hy-Vee, wash them (or sometimes not), and eat them with delight. 


I love being in the same timezone (or at least almost the same timezone) as my family and friends. In Czech, I had to schedule calls. Can we talk this week? No? Well, I can't talk in the middle of the week. Maybe in ten days from now? That doesn't work either?!? Hmph. My family were perhaps the only people I talked to regularly; my friends sort of fell by the wayside until I returned half a year later to catch up with people.  Nor was scheduling the only difficulty; because international calling is so expensive, I relied entirely on the Internet, which led to further difficulties. Personal conversations happened on Facebook in the middle of board games, and Interviews took place on Gmail chat when Skype went down. It is so nice to pick up my phone, dial a preprogrammed number, and talk to someone. It's even nicer to control where and when these conversations happen, without hooking myself up to the computer. 


I love having English-language books and movies readily available. In the Czech Republic, I read Howl's Moving Castle three or four times and the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series once (and some of them twice) simply because they were the only English-language books around. Halfway through my time in Europe, I realized it was possible to pick the foreigners out of a crowd because they were the ones carrying Kindles: I met up with an American missionary on one of my trips, and although I'd never seen her before, I knew it must be here because she was standing among a bunch of Europeans reading off a Kindle. Now, I can be as anti-Kindle as I wish. In the two months since I've returned, I've finished Wives and Daughters and Godric (both excellent fiction books), as well as Introverts in the Church (an excellent non-fiction books) and a few more books I'd read before. It's like my own literary land of milk and honey. 


My next blog will be more thought-provoking, probably a review of Introverts in the Church (or the review will come in the post after next). But having shared with you so many of the things I love about European life, I wanted to pass along a few things that I love about American life. 


I'm also including a few photos from my sister's wedding here. If I practiced on you, thanks so much! The wedding was both super-stressful and super-fun to do, and although the photos aren't professional quality, I'm happy enough considering this is my first shot. 

More than two months have passed since I returned Stateside, two bittersweet months filled on the one hand with family time (including a wedding, but not mine!) and an exciting new job but culture shock on the other as I adjust back into American society.


As I restart my blog from this side of the pond, I want to pretend that I am a foreigner in the States - a stranger in a strange land, if you will, and comment on the cultural idiosyncrasies of our people as if I were not one of them. I intend to explore also the day-to-day faith that transcends geographical boundaries as I talk through my own everyday life.


And so, to begin:


Shortly before I came back Stateside, someone (I cannot remember who) remarked how isolated Americans could be. I thought it was a strange remark at the time: Isolated? Really? Americans are famous - perhaps infamous - for being the most egregious people on the planet. Even on my plane ride home, I met a host of strangers: three separate men helped me with my bags as I navigated the airports with 100 pounds of luggage, I held a short conversation with the Detroit help desk lady, and the people behind me for check-in joked with me. How in the world such friendly people be considered isolated?


And then I started settling in.


It is still strange to me to walk through the neighborhood and see huge swatches of green yard in front of people's houses, to see whole buildings empty except for two or three of four people in a family. It is strange to me to take my personal car everywhere, to see no one on the ride to work but myself. In the Czech Republic, I lived in a flat with twenty other families; I had a permanent roommate or two. More than that, I saw a hundred people on my way to work in a crowded Metro every morning. I saw another hundred on the way back. 


However isolated are homes and commutes are, we Americans still have a reputation for friendliness - one that we've earned. However little we mingle with strangers, we are particularly good at hand-picking the communities we do mingle with. We pick our church, go to work, join a sports team, and then we overlook the people who are not part of these communities, simply because in American society there is no need to see them; they're not up against our shoulder in a packed tram.  


This can have unfortunate consequences.


My first church visit in my new city was overwhelming. I walked into a sea of strangers, all grouped about in threes or fours and chatting with excitement. It was several awkward minutes before someone (someone I'd met previously) noticed me and welcomed me to the service. Immediately after the service, the groups reformed, and I, left outside, made a beeline for the bathroom. Shortly afterwards, I left.


I am not telling this story to make you feel sorry for me. Part of the problem was me: I hate visiting new churches and do not do well meeting new people. But I think my experience does indicate that Americans, however super-social with people they know and have selected to communicate with, do not do so well with those who are strangers or who unexpectedly show up in their day-to-day life. We are out of practice. 


I cannot change American culture, just as I could not change things I disliked about European culture (What did I dislike? Let me think about that for a while.) But I can change me. I know me: Personally, I prefer spending time alone, dislike meeting new people, and limit my social interactions. This is important on the one hand, because that's how I relax after a busy week. But it can be dangerous if indulged too much. 


If I learned nothing else in Prague, I learned this: We cannot change people by being brilliant. We change people by loving them, by spending time with them. C.S. Lewis wrote of such love as part of our imitation of God, an imitation valuable precisely because it is so difficult:

Our imitation of God in this life - that is, our willed imitation as distinct from any of the likenesses which He has impressed upon our natures and states - must be an imitation of God incarnate: our model is the Jesus, not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands and surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions. For this, so strangely unlike anything we can attribute to the Divine life in itself, is apparently not only like, but is, the Divine life operating under human conditions (the Four Loves).

This is my goal.

Generally, I steer clear of purely theoretical subjects in my post. Perhaps because I am leaving Europe in the next four days, though, the theoretical has suddenly become practical: How do I make sense of the six months spent here, in terms of God's larger plan for my life? For that matter, how does anyone make sense of God's will for their lives, looking at short-term assignments - assignments such as temporary jobs, trips and studies abroad, or missions?

I want to clarify what the question is, deal with a commonly wrong way to answer this question, and in exchange, suggest a possible answer. Please feel free to chip in with your own answer: More than anything, I am exploring the question in this post, not offering a definitive and exclusive response to it.

The Question

Here's what I mean by 'making sense' of short-term assignments. Although it's common knowledge that people need some kind of meaning for their lives, this need seems both more intense and harder to satisfy for short-term experiences.

Harder to satisfy, because a few brief months does not allow time for visible evidence of meaning to build up. Although career missionaries point to years of service on the field, short-term missionaries have it more difficult. Much as I enjoyed my time, I remember a few students befriended, some 'deeper' spiritual conversations that perhaps involved Dante or some future post-high school plans; twenty weeks of Bible study. That's all. As with any short experience, there is no large buildup of concrete, visible evidence to signify meaning.

More intense, because we who travel or do missions or other short-term assignments are moving on to something else: It's important to know that a few months teaching at a small school was a good choice, that spending a year at an unexciting job achieves more than just keeping the electricity on, that a summer in Spain does more than give us an appreciation for gelato. Lacking clear long-term evidence of meaning, we also lack a sense of purpose in short-term assignments.

A Bad Answer

Ok, so not all bad. But the most common answer is also an incomplete one. Primarily, we American Christians tend to anticipate that the meaning of short-term assignments will be visibly revealed in the weeks and months and years to come after the experience itself ends.

Here are a few possible examples, the way the question is raised and the common but incomplete answer:

Question: Why did I spend six months teaching in Europe?

Answer: Perhaps in the future, I will take students of my own over here and push them to teach in Europe.

Question: Why did you get that humanities major in college, when you're in the military now?

Answer: Probably because you will teach that subject in the future.

Question: Why did you spend a summer studying abroad?

Answer: Maybe you will meet someone from that country, and use the language and culture to share Christ with them.

Whatever the scenario, we believers are continually trying to pinpoint a specific event or situation in which our previous short-term experience bears visible fruit and thus proves itself meaningful.

Perhaps an analogy is a better way to think of this exercise: In many ways, the imagined Christian life is like climbing a mountain. Perhaps we cross a stream. Perhaps we turn left, then in five minutes, right again. All of this turning is quite confusing at the moment. But then we reach the top of the mountain, look down: Lo and behold, the left turn protected us from a rock slide; the right turn advanced us five yards further up the hill. And suddenly it all makes sense.

Like climbing a mountain, we believers expect to 'look down' at the previous weeks and months and years of our lives and have them make sense; we want to articulate how each turning of life actually helps us. Thing is, we never reach the top of the mountain in this life. Ever. And because we are still 'climbing' metaphorically, some of those metaphoric turnings never do make sense to us.

The Answer

Perhaps the best answer to this problem is to throw out the 'mountain' mentality, to stop hunting for scenarios in which short-term experiences take on new meaning, stop trying to clearly articulate the purpose of certain brief moments in life.

Imagine a quiet stroll through the mountains. At times, the peak is visible; other times it disappears again. Maybe you walk up a hill towards the treetops; five minutes later, you're headed down again towards a stream and a patch of orange flowers. No one stop on the way leads into the other or has any visible purpose, so to speak: In other words, the orange flowers do not make a glimpse of the mountain possible. Had we turned back down the path without seeing the mountain, the flowers would still be just as beautiful.

Like this mountain path, the experiences of life are meaningful as we are in them, experiencing them now. Just as the orange flowers can be enjoyed without seeing the mountain top, so we can enjoy short experiences without knowing what they lead to, what comes next, whether they make any subsequent experience possible.

My own six months here have been immensely enjoyable, profitable for me and (I hope and pray) for those around me. My friends have taken on jobs, done graduate study, done summer trips that never clearly led into anything else, but each of these experiences - job or study or trip - was itself meaningful while they were in it.

It is not in some future happenstance or concrete, visible event that God works. He works in the immediate present in us, and it is that immediate present, detached and invisible from both past and future, that He invests life with meaning.

Eventually, every brief experience and also the great entirely of life itself, will take on a clear and articulate meaning. Paul assures us that "we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord" (II Cor. 3.18). Those words 'being transformed' suggest a continual, never-ending work: In other words, every momentary experience, every day, even every breath we draw takes us believers a step nearer the place where we see and

are seen in Christ's own image.

Until that time, though, it is our responsibility to live in the present and to draw meaning from the present workings of God.

Quick now, here, now, always--

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.

~ T.S. Eliot, 'The Four Quartets'

My next post, I think, will center on something deep. Something mysterious. Something philosophical. Probably something like the will of God. Are you ready?

Actually, I'm not quite ready to pry open that can of worms (almost, but not quite). Let's stick to something more basic for today: the faces of the Christian International School of Prague - the faces of people that have taught me so much in my six months year, people that I hope I have taught as well, people that I will miss next year.

Faces of Students

Unfortunately, I don't have photos of every single student. Here are a few of the photos I do have:

My students Amy and Jessica B. Amy rocked her To Kill a Mockingbird project (Amy, are you reading this?), and Jessica B appreciated The Great Gatsby. What more could I ask for as a teacher?

My student Jessica D, headed off for a Stateside university in the fall. What stood out to me most of all about Jessica D (as about some of my other students) was her sweet, caring spirit - always inquiring after her fellow students and even her teachers, encouraging and supporting them in whatever they do.

Hope and Valerie, who remind us to have fun.

Wendy, one of my 11th grade girls (or possibly a friend of hers). This photo reminds me of one of the most important lessons I've learned this semester:

What we as human beings, whether teachers or students or neither, need most of all is not brilliance. It is not spiritual sermons or chapel messages. It is not wise advice. It is love: the love of God, consistently demonstrated in His body.

Faces of Staff

Again, I don't have pictures of every single staff person. Nor do I have room on this blog for the photos I do have. Here is what I will remember from the staff:

Work hard. Minia agonizes over the tests that she creates, checking and rechecking them to make sure they suit what the students have been learning, that they're worded in the least confusing way possible.

(I just know someone is going to ask: No, Minia is not Muslim. It was really windy when I took this picture, so the scarf is to reduce wind.)

Play hard. (Yes, I know that I'm using slang. It just happens that the slang goes along with the pictures.) Sport a face just like Melanie's:

Enjoy just being with people. Probably all of you readers know someone who you can just sit with, someone you don't have to talk to every single moment that you're together. Kate S is like that: She's great at just stepping up and being encouraging without saying a word.

Read God's word together. After a while, friendships bottom out and encouraging, affirmative talk sounds like a Hallmark Card unless it is rooted in the truths of God's word.

Concluding Thoughts

As I get ready to return to the States (only 13 days! sniff, sniff!), I've remembered that all too often, American Christian relationships tend to center on doing stuff: Sunday morning service, Sunday evening service, Wednesday evening service, a few service projects, a Sunday school, a community service activity, and the list goes on.

All these things are well and good, but six months hanging with the students and teachers at CISP has given me a different angle on the American vision: What is most important is not the service project, not the special midweek service, not the choir performance. What is truly most important is that we spend time with God and with each other, not necessarily doing anything; that we affirm each other and speak God's truth into each others' lives.

This is what it means to be the body of Christ.

This week has been one of ending.

The End of Spirit Week

Spirit Week began with the science show and included a formal dress day, a sports day, and a dress-as-a-CISP teacher day. But on Friday, Spirit week went out with a bang (not a whisper): an all-out Seventies day, with dress and music to match.

I glanced in my closet that morning and found neither bellbottom jeans nor a paisley top, so I turned up in a 2010 pink polo with my camera and compensated in other ways. My 11th and 12th graders got to listen to the only 1970s music I'm actually familiar with: John Denver. Later, there was a 1970s party and choir performance: nothing elaborate, just some music on a CD player; a few songs from our choir. I (still wearing my pink polo) appointed myself official photographer and captured a few images of the fun.

It's hard not to rock along to the Seventies music, and so the kids indulged their inner dancers, together:

And separate:

Even the teachers got into the spirit:

Later, they did the Hokey-Pokey. I actually joined in this one (thanks to my student Jessica, who dragged me over to the circle), but there was no one to take a picture of my feet.

Everyone enjoyed the choir performance:

Half the audience snapped along as they sang, 'I'm a Believer'.

And 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough' was also wildly popular with the audience.

Perhaps embarrassingly enough, I am not acquainted with any of these songs through my parents (hence the John Denver in class). I know 'I'm a Believer' because it was continually piped through the True Value Hardware store I worked at after high school, and 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough' because it was on Remember the Titans.

The End of Czech

A fellow teacher asked me, on Friday, an unusual question about my plans for leaving. Rather startled that I was leaving after six months, she asked whether anyone here at the school 'drove me away', whether I had been made to feel unwelcome. I assured her that this was not at all true.

Every day, I feel how much I will miss bits and pieces of my life here, here at school and here in Europe.

In regular life here, I will miss people-watching every morning on the Metro and the deep royal blue of the sky at 9:30 PM when I am walking home from Bible study. I will miss seeing the castle spire on my way to work in the morning and the Charles Bridge on my walks in the evening. I will miss traveling: the rich ancient ruins in every city I visit; the people (all of them wise, it seems) that I meet and with whom I stay city by city. I will miss the European chocolate.

At school, I will miss yakking with my fellow teachers after a long day or grocery shopping together after church. I will miss the regular Bible studies we have, with delicious Mexican food and conversations that go on far longer than anybody intends them to (9:30 PM is early for us). I will miss the sudden gasp from a student that tells me they just got the symbolism in The Great Gatsby, or their attempts to rabbit-trail me if class is a little dull that day. I will miss the little 4-person class I had with the 11th graders, where I sat on the table and we all drank tea.

But Not the End of God's Blessings

A friend of mine in Spain shared a story with me about two European friends of hers, both sisters: one happily married and living in San Francisco, the other finishing up her university degree a little later after a couple years of traveling through Europe. My friend pointed out that both sisters envied each other's lot, just a little; both had to learn that God blesses them independently, that whatever we have - now, in this present moment - is God's gift to us.

In Psalm 16, David reassures himself of God's promise of continual blessing: "Thou wilt shew me the path of life; in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore."

I'll be honest: there are times when I wonder whether I'll be able to live in the States again and be happy there. Probably there are times when you have similar thoughts. And I've learned to just live, for now with a lot of this uncertainty.

What is resolved, though, is the goodness of God. Although His goodness may not be revealed in physical blessing, He is nevertheless actively engaged in blessing His children. It is God that 'shows' us the true path of life, its true pleasures and true ways; the word 'show' is an active verb, suggesting that God is personally involved in our lives, personally caring for us rather than leaving our circumstances to chance.

Moreover, the the blessings of God are not elusive: they are 'in [his] presence and 'at [his] right hand' - convenient for the believer, already indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Wherever I go, God's Spirit is with me, and so wherever I go, the blessings of God are with me as well.

Finally, the blessing of God is permanent: they are my blessings 'forevermore' - as long as this world shall last, and into the next one. My God is continually blessing me, regardless of geographical location or temporary job.

Ever since my college days, this Psalm has been a favourite of mine. I have a feeling it will continue to be a favourite in the weeks and months to come. I have been blessed in my six months here, physically and spiritually blessed. I will continue to be blessed as I return to Iowa this fall.

The sense of continual, unchanging blessing is captured earlier in the Psalm. There, David points out that '[t]he lines [as in boundary lines] are fallen to me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage'.

In other words, wherever God has chosen to set the boundaries of our life is good. For me, what this means is that whether my boundaries are in the Midwest or in Europe, it is good. Perhaps for you, if your boundaries are in the Middle East or Middle America or the American South, it is still good. If those boundaries are working your 'dream job' or asking people about fries, God is still good. If the boundaries are single or married, that is good too.

Wherever I am (or you are), whatever we are doing, God is being good to us.

Monday (today) marks the start of the last official week of school. Next week, we have exams; the week after that, staff clean-up and pack-up; the week after that, summer break. Modern education has a myth that teachers are somehow depressed by summer break, that they spend each hot day wandering through the school halls and each night dreaming up monster tests and projects come September.

This is not true. All of us teachers are just as excited as the students for summer break, just as ready to spend every day chilling with family and friends and indulging hobbies, just as ready to sleep longer every night. And so, these last ten days are crammed with efforts to lighten the mood. Danae, our 10th grade biology teacher, created a 'Spirit Week' for the students: everyone dressed as a 'geek or mad scientist today' and watched a science show during lunch. Note to self: I must think of a way to reproduce the Wow! factor of a science show with literature and writing classes.

As I have come up with no English class version of the science show, I stuck with telling jokes. Jokes make for easy (and fun) lesson preparation: this morning, I spent 45 minutes clicking the 'Random Joke' button on the Good Clean Funnies List. (Please note: GCFL would like me to inform you that their email address is info@gcfl.net, as the condition for reprinting a bunch of jokes.)

Reading through the joke site was delightful. Periodically, I would keel over in my chair in silent laughter (I probably shouldn't do this in the staff room; my fellow teachers may be asking me over the next day or two whether I'm feeling okay.) Every time this happened, I copied the joke to a document which I later printed.

After lunch, I brought a wad of jokes (about 6, on 3 pieces of paper) into my 9th grade class and told them at intervals throughout the 80-minute period. Don't worry, we did real work too: reviewed grammar and language for the final exam, prepped for the essay questions, reviewed how to write an essay question, worked on an end-of-quarter project, and reviewed the events of the novel. But the jokes were wonderful, a refreshingly laid-back moment in the last few days of May.

Here are a few of my students' favourites, for your enjoyment:

A Blonde Joke (the 9th graders really liked this one):

A blonde went to the appliance store sale and found a bargain. "I would like to buy this TV," she told the salesman.

"Sorry, we don't sell to blondes," he replied.She hurried home and dyed her hair, then came back and again told the salesman, "I would like to buy this TV."

"Sorry, we don't sell to blondes," he replied.

"Darn, he recognized me," she thought.

She went for a complete disguise this time; haircut and new color, new outfit, big sunglasses, then waited a few days before she again approached the salesman. "I would like to buy this TV."

"Sorry, we don't sell to blondes," he replied.

Frustrated, she exclaimed, "How do you know I'm a blonde?"

"Because that's a microwave," he replied.

A Few One-Liners (the 10th graders loved these):

I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a workstation.

Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but always check when you say the paint is wet? (Or, for you Kansans, why do we people inhale when someone says, Smell that skunk?)

Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut and still think they are sexy. (this was a 10th grade favourite.)

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

You do not need a parachute to skydive. You definitely need a parachute to skydive twice.

To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

A bus is a vehicle that runs twice as fast when you are after it as when you are in it.

Longer Short Jokes (also beloved by the 10th graders):

Driving down the highway, I saw this slogan on the back of a well-known trucking company's vehicle: "We Always Go the Extra Mile." In the grime beneath it, someone had scrawled, "That's Because We Missed the Last exit."

Proper attire is required in the cafeteria at the University of Maine. To enforce that rule, the management posted this notice: "Shoes are required to eat in this cafeteria." Next to it, a student added, "Socks can eat wherever they want."

And a Czech Pun (which the 9th graders liked):

A Russian scientist and a Czech scientist had spent their whole lives studying the majestic grizzly bear. Each year they petitioned their respective governments to allow them to go to Yellowstone to study these wondrous beasts.

Finally, their request was granted and they immediately flew to NY and then on West to Yellowstone. They reported to the local ranger station and were told that it was the grizzly mating season and it was much too dangerous to go out and study the animals.

They pleaded that this was their only chance. Finally the ranger relented. The Russian and the Czech were given cell phones and told to report in each and every day.

For several days they called in, and then nothing was heard from the two scientists. The rangers mounted a search party and found the scientists' camp completely ravaged. No sign of the missing men.

They then followed the trail of a male and a female bear. They found the female and decided they must kill the animal to find out if she had eaten the scientists because they feared an international incident.

They killed the female and cut open the bear's stomach... only to find the remains of the Russian.

One ranger turned to the other and said, "You know what this means, don't you?"

"Of course," the other ranger nodded. "The Czech is in the male."

More Pictures

I know I've talked about how parks are really a Czech cultural thing, but I want to clarify. When I say that parks are important in Prague, please do not imagine a few trees with monkey bars and a picnic table off to the side (and, if you're lucky, an artificial pond with a tiny fountain in the middle).

I will probably miss the Czech parks very badly next year, when I am at home sitting beside artificial ponds.

Czech parks are like the Garden of Eden.

Near my apartment is Stromovka Park. In the park is a little outside restaurant, benches for sitting and reading or sitting and talking or sitting and kissing, a wildflower garden, long concrete paths for rollerblading, and a Planetarium. I took my camera out yesterday evening, and here is what I came home with:

A bridge:

As of today, we have one regular week left of school, two weeks if you include exams and graduation and the end-of-year picnic. What this means is my time with the students is almost finished, a semester radically different from my last five semesters at a secular university.

Thoughts on Friendships

At my state school, I had good students generally (there were always a few that never turned in their work, but that's standard at any school), and I enjoyed getting to know them and their concerns: the student distancing himself from a Mormon childhood, the girl who tried to balance her concern for gay rights with the importance of courteous audience-based reasoning, students taking on leadership responsibilities in their Greek socieities, a biology major trying to indulge her love of English and still keep her scholarship.

My state school limited me as to how well I could get to know the students: I rarely spoke openly of my faith (I followed what I've heard referred to as a don't-ask-don't-tell policy at a secular school) and was very careful to never touch the students. I avoided too many one-on-one encounters. My state school was fun, but like any other state school, it was too public and too large for personal encounters.

Here in Prague, school is different: more personal, more relational; teachers do not simply dispense information and challenge thought but also befriend the students, support them, counsel them. More challenging, the relational orientation also knits a school together, helps teachers - helps me - better instruct and appreciate and guide their students.

Personally, I do not consider myself relationally oriented (too academic, too used to creating intensive papers about DeLillo and not used to the give-and-take of conversation). But as I look back on the last year, I think perhaps I have developed a few relationships, the buds of relationships at least, and have learned how to develop them more in the future. Let me share a few of these, from the last six months, with you:

Friendships

A month back, I taught my 11th graders 'Little Gidding' - the fourth part of Eliot's Four Quartets. Two days later, my student Jessica posted the final five lines as her Facebook status, and I instantly 'liked' the status. It's thrilling to see my students find personal meaning and beauty in poems that have meant a lot to me, to 'geek out' about Eliot and Dante with my students.

A day ago, I caught my student Wendy on YouTube during study hall. Turns out, she wasn't watching Justin Beiber or some other random Internet video; she was researching an ethics project on body image and plastic surgery. I directed her to a page featuring the life-sized Barbie (skinny waist, enormous chest) and shared her frustration over all unrealistic expectations of beauty, and of elective surgery.

Periodically, my 11th grade students came in to class freezing cold and hungry (11th grade meets from 11:35 till 12:55, right through the lunch period). I turned on the hot water maker and brought in extra tea bags, and we drank tea (or instant coffee or hot chocolate) right through class, staving off hunger and cold. Usually this merited me a hug from one of my girl students; it generally made class way more fun.

Back in April, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to attend a concert that several CISP kids were performing in; a bunch of other students were attending the concert. The music was loud (I inched my way toward the back slowly through the space of 90 minutes to spare my ears), and it was impossible to talk over the noise. But showing up at least earned me another hug (from the same student)!

And throughout the semester, I've enjoyed getting to know students at lunch - hearing about their SAT projects, their plans for the summer; I've 'friended' them on Facebook and admired their photos.

What I've Learned

Right now, I would not consider myself perfectly comfortable with relationally-oriented education; there are other people around me, and perhaps always will be, who can more effortlessly strike up a conversation and a friendship with students. But I do think that I've learned something this semester, that I've transitioned from a purely professional relationship to a more personal one. Here's what I've learned:

1. It's not important to have deep conversations (or even any conversations) with students all the time; it is important to spend time with them, doing what is important to them. I'm always glad that I went to the concert with students, that I paid attention to their other school project.




2. Let people share their life with you, other important stuff besides what's going on in your class. And share your own life with other people, with other students. It's so fun to hand over my favourite texts to students: Four Quartets, The Great Gatsby, Dante, and to see these works catch on. It's super-cool to share my interests with students, and to learn about their interests myself.
   



3. If possible, share food with people. In any case, do relaxing things together. Tea with 11th graders ranks as one of my best memories from this semester (and I hope that my students will also remember it fondly). I'm not sure how often I'll be able to do this in the future (we only had four 11th graders), but food - and fun - is always a good bonding experience.

I still have so much to learn. But this is what I've learned this semester.

Czech Stuff

Czech people love to go on hikes. Every weekend, the city empties out as the Czechs head for the country (Note: do not plan on driving out of Prague on Friday between 3 and 8. The roads are packed). Last Saturday, I played the Czech myself and went for a long hike in a nature area about 30 kilometers south of Prague. I took an 8-kilometer trail up towards a medieval monastery, and it turned into a 2 1/2 hour hike through the woods - across streams, up and down hills, over rocks. Fortunately I did not get a tick. What I did get are tons of beautiful photos. Here are two: