Yep, I've finished working at Pat's Bunnyhouse.
Today was my last day. I spent the morning outside with the kids then after my break time, some of the teachers gathered around to farewell me with a gift of a big book and calendar of Dresden.
I actually felt sad. Regardless of what's happened to make me leave this place, I still had a lot of fun there with the kids, and 95% of the teachers too.
On the weekend, a few friends and I got a few big bags containing all my stuff and took them on a bus to Bannewitz, where we dumped them in Stefan's apartment. He's travelling right now, and said I could use his place until I sort out my travels. Today after work, I took the last of my stuff out and am now staying a few nights with another friend, Maria, who lives much closer to the city (and my old place).
I think I have a vague plan of the next couple of weeks. It begins with a CouchSurfing camp in the middle of nowhere between Berlin and Dresden this weekend, then I plan to get around a few other German cities, visiting friends, before coming back through Dresden for another CouchSurfing meeting in Prague.
After that... who knows?
Main thing is it's a day of mixed feelings and well, who knows how I'll look back on this in a few years' time... hopefully as a good thing, if the next few months turn out to be really awesome.
from Patrick
...man what a short, boring blog. Seriously, I shouldn't have even written this one.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
Concrete proof that Pat's Bunnyhouse is actually a correctional facility.
So as if my situation weren't tricky enough. (see previous posts)
There's this new teacher here now, from Iran, speaks slow but good German and English. He's already doing English with the kids in place of Susi in the pre-school and who knows, he may take over my stuff too when I leave after this month.
Anyway.
The principal called me into a meeting yesterday afternoon.
She said "Reza is now a teacher here, blah blah, he's looking for an apartment for his family but it's taking a while, blah blah, we want to offer him your apartment."
So yeah, they asked me to go and move into Camilla's old room, in number 404 /405 with Erin.
But that's not all!
I had to do it yesterday. Not "could you take the day off tomorrow and move your stuff" or "do it before Monday", but "this evening you must move all your belongings down to the 4th floor apartment and hand in your keys tomorrow morning".
I tried to say I had plans. Cause I did. With Stefan, and Eni (from Hungary) and it was going to be the last time I would get to see Eni before she leaves on Saturday.
Susi even said "yeah, it's going to take an entire evening" but Frau Klügel reckoned it would not disturb my plans to move out on the same day.
WELL.
I went to German at my teacher's place first,
got home at 6:30 or so,
spent the first hour and a half getting rid of all the posters and other stuff on the cupboard doors,
then my doorbell rang!
I was expecting a text or something to say "meet us here at this time", but Stefan and Eni decided to surprise me with a visit,
and I surprised them with the news.
Being the kind people they are, they offered to help.
We spent the next couple of hours hard at work, then had a break when we went to the supermarket to buy beer. We also ordered a "party" sized Hawaiian pizza to be delivered, which is a rectangle measuring 60cm x 40cm. Tasty.
Then we worked some more. We eventually filled the lift with everything else I own and shut the door to number 814 for good. At 2:07am, we were done, and I thanked Stefan and Eni a hundred times and apologised for our change of plans - we were going to go to a movie at 11pm maybe, and I even thought I'd manage to move out before that time. But nope. Pat's Bunnyhouse therefore thoroughly ruined my evening.
So today, I was in the middle of writing everything above this sentence, when I had to suddenly go and meet the principal. And it was in the dining room downstairs, in front of some other kitchen and cleaning staff. The principal got angry. Apparently the lady who inspects my apartment had been there this morning and thought it was a pigsty. I admit, I did not get on my hands and knees with a cloth and spray bottle and polish every surface til it shone. Why? Because at 2am I was stuffed and needed my 4.5 hours of sleep!
This had absolutely no effect on the principal. She said that for all she cared, I should have stayed up until 4. I have to add that the inspecting lady was saying "the shower is brown, the toilet seat is yellow" and stuff like that. But that's just not true. I told her that they're both white, but who's the principal going to believe out of me and her?
She also got mad that I hadn't brought the key to Erin's room (which was given to me along with Camilla's), even though I explained it was because I couldn't find it in my giant pile of stuff before I had to get to work this morning. She ALSO got mad that I had "stolen" the Nintendo 64 console from my place.
Now, in January, this Nintendo 64 was in Erin's room downstairs, it was there before either of us arrived here. She asked if I wanted it, cause she didn't, so I took it up to my place. Last night, I took it back down to the girls' place along with the rest of my stuff. Today, I had the principal yelling at me because she reckons the console belongs in the upstairs apartment, despite me telling her everything I just wrote.
So basically, yeah. They put me in the car of the inspecting lady who drove me home, I finally found Erin's key and also gave her the N64. Then she said "you have to take the tram back, I'm staying here to do something else", and of course I didn't have my wallet with me because I didn't think I'd need money, and in my wallet is my tram ticket. So I even had to rummage around my new room until I found 1.80€ for a ticket.
Then I came back here and wrote the rest of this.
Gotta hurry off now. Over my time limit and my mentor just walked into the room.
PN
There's this new teacher here now, from Iran, speaks slow but good German and English. He's already doing English with the kids in place of Susi in the pre-school and who knows, he may take over my stuff too when I leave after this month.
Anyway.
The principal called me into a meeting yesterday afternoon.
She said "Reza is now a teacher here, blah blah, he's looking for an apartment for his family but it's taking a while, blah blah, we want to offer him your apartment."
So yeah, they asked me to go and move into Camilla's old room, in number 404 /405 with Erin.
But that's not all!
I had to do it yesterday. Not "could you take the day off tomorrow and move your stuff" or "do it before Monday", but "this evening you must move all your belongings down to the 4th floor apartment and hand in your keys tomorrow morning".
I tried to say I had plans. Cause I did. With Stefan, and Eni (from Hungary) and it was going to be the last time I would get to see Eni before she leaves on Saturday.
Susi even said "yeah, it's going to take an entire evening" but Frau Klügel reckoned it would not disturb my plans to move out on the same day.
WELL.
I went to German at my teacher's place first,
got home at 6:30 or so,
spent the first hour and a half getting rid of all the posters and other stuff on the cupboard doors,
then my doorbell rang!
I was expecting a text or something to say "meet us here at this time", but Stefan and Eni decided to surprise me with a visit,
and I surprised them with the news.
Being the kind people they are, they offered to help.
We spent the next couple of hours hard at work, then had a break when we went to the supermarket to buy beer. We also ordered a "party" sized Hawaiian pizza to be delivered, which is a rectangle measuring 60cm x 40cm. Tasty.
Then we worked some more. We eventually filled the lift with everything else I own and shut the door to number 814 for good. At 2:07am, we were done, and I thanked Stefan and Eni a hundred times and apologised for our change of plans - we were going to go to a movie at 11pm maybe, and I even thought I'd manage to move out before that time. But nope. Pat's Bunnyhouse therefore thoroughly ruined my evening.
So today, I was in the middle of writing everything above this sentence, when I had to suddenly go and meet the principal. And it was in the dining room downstairs, in front of some other kitchen and cleaning staff. The principal got angry. Apparently the lady who inspects my apartment had been there this morning and thought it was a pigsty. I admit, I did not get on my hands and knees with a cloth and spray bottle and polish every surface til it shone. Why? Because at 2am I was stuffed and needed my 4.5 hours of sleep!
This had absolutely no effect on the principal. She said that for all she cared, I should have stayed up until 4. I have to add that the inspecting lady was saying "the shower is brown, the toilet seat is yellow" and stuff like that. But that's just not true. I told her that they're both white, but who's the principal going to believe out of me and her?
She also got mad that I hadn't brought the key to Erin's room (which was given to me along with Camilla's), even though I explained it was because I couldn't find it in my giant pile of stuff before I had to get to work this morning. She ALSO got mad that I had "stolen" the Nintendo 64 console from my place.
Now, in January, this Nintendo 64 was in Erin's room downstairs, it was there before either of us arrived here. She asked if I wanted it, cause she didn't, so I took it up to my place. Last night, I took it back down to the girls' place along with the rest of my stuff. Today, I had the principal yelling at me because she reckons the console belongs in the upstairs apartment, despite me telling her everything I just wrote.
So basically, yeah. They put me in the car of the inspecting lady who drove me home, I finally found Erin's key and also gave her the N64. Then she said "you have to take the tram back, I'm staying here to do something else", and of course I didn't have my wallet with me because I didn't think I'd need money, and in my wallet is my tram ticket. So I even had to rummage around my new room until I found 1.80€ for a ticket.
Then I came back here and wrote the rest of this.
Gotta hurry off now. Over my time limit and my mentor just walked into the room.
PN
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Fired, for real, for real. Soon. For real.
I finally got a letter today.
It was typed by the boss on the 22nd of July. Why she did not send it to me then, I do not know. For some reason she gave it to the principal yesterday, who then gave it to the mentor, who then gave it to... me at last.
It has a few paragraphs about "your expectations were given to you in a letter then you got a contract and a warning etc."
Then something along the lines of "after another few months you unfortunately are a terrible English teacher." Not quite like that, but basically they're not happy enough for reasons I've said before.
Then the bit I want to know - my contract is being shortened until the 31st of August, i.e. I have until the end of this month to finish my placement and get out of my apartment.
I'm sitting here just having found out about this and apart from being annoyed that I wasn't told three weeks ago when the decision was made, I have no idea what I'll be doing from here. Hopefully I make my mind up in the next few weeks. Travel is for sure, I wouldn't go back to Australia yet if you paid me. Well, maybe if you paid me enough. But you aren't. So I'm still here!
Mid-December to mid-January will be travelling with Luke. In the meantime, I can probably visit more friends and family friends than I would have been able to if I'd had to stick to the ridiculously low amount of holidays they give you here.
Any last words?
I suppose I'm just annoyed about inconsistency through the Dresden placements. If both the volunteers at Villa Pat's Freunde and Pat's Dahlienheim had over 100 kids to deal with each and every week, and do at least 2 English classes with 3-5 year olds on all five days every week, and had to plan and produce an entire theatrical production performed in English by German kids who are between the ages of 7 and 11, maybe I would just pull my head in and deal with the tasks at hand.
But they just don't. Not even close.
Whenever I'd come home and tell them about another problem my work had with me, they'd say "that's surprising, our bosses don't treat us like that at all."
I feel like yelling at Pat's Bunnyhouse that they're firing the hardest working Pat's English teacher they have right now, including the mentors and stuff who do it occasionally.
That'll do for now.
At least I'll be able to get more pocket money for staying another month.
Look out, Europe. I'm suddenly and unexpectedly coming to get you.
It was typed by the boss on the 22nd of July. Why she did not send it to me then, I do not know. For some reason she gave it to the principal yesterday, who then gave it to the mentor, who then gave it to... me at last.
It has a few paragraphs about "your expectations were given to you in a letter then you got a contract and a warning etc."
Then something along the lines of "after another few months you unfortunately are a terrible English teacher." Not quite like that, but basically they're not happy enough for reasons I've said before.
Then the bit I want to know - my contract is being shortened until the 31st of August, i.e. I have until the end of this month to finish my placement and get out of my apartment.
I'm sitting here just having found out about this and apart from being annoyed that I wasn't told three weeks ago when the decision was made, I have no idea what I'll be doing from here. Hopefully I make my mind up in the next few weeks. Travel is for sure, I wouldn't go back to Australia yet if you paid me. Well, maybe if you paid me enough. But you aren't. So I'm still here!
Mid-December to mid-January will be travelling with Luke. In the meantime, I can probably visit more friends and family friends than I would have been able to if I'd had to stick to the ridiculously low amount of holidays they give you here.
Any last words?
I suppose I'm just annoyed about inconsistency through the Dresden placements. If both the volunteers at Villa Pat's Freunde and Pat's Dahlienheim had over 100 kids to deal with each and every week, and do at least 2 English classes with 3-5 year olds on all five days every week, and had to plan and produce an entire theatrical production performed in English by German kids who are between the ages of 7 and 11, maybe I would just pull my head in and deal with the tasks at hand.
But they just don't. Not even close.
Whenever I'd come home and tell them about another problem my work had with me, they'd say "that's surprising, our bosses don't treat us like that at all."
I feel like yelling at Pat's Bunnyhouse that they're firing the hardest working Pat's English teacher they have right now, including the mentors and stuff who do it occasionally.
That'll do for now.
At least I'll be able to get more pocket money for staying another month.
Look out, Europe. I'm suddenly and unexpectedly coming to get you.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Spontaneity!!
Halina is a friend I know from year 11 and 12 at school. She's doing a placement as a matron at a top-end boarding school for boys in England, but right now they've got summer holidays and so Halina has been travelling Europe. She was also kind enough to come visit me, and this worked out will now that I'm on holidays from nearly being fired.
Last Wednesday we hitch-hiked to Berlin and caught up with Kate Walker and Dim Archer. It was fun. We also got to stay in the apartment of the guy who drove us there. Lucky!
We wanted to go to Krakow in Poland but missed our train on Saturday, so we decided to go back to Dresden for the night. It was also fun. We had burritos with a girl from Belarus.
Sunday afternoon at 14:15, Halina comes home from the station asking about Poland trains and says "wanna go to Venice instead? Train leaves in 40 minutes!"
And I was saying "no, this is such a stupid idea" the entire time as I packed my stuff back into my backpack.
We decided on a train that left two hours later cause the 14:55 one was just too soon to be able to catch.
So we were in four different trains, the last one arriving in Venice the next morning at 8:30!
We had two full days together there, and it's pretty awesome. Like everyone's heard, it's got canals. There are cars, but only on a few sections of land. Usually it's canals or simply pedestrian streets. There are also many islands separated from the city centre. We camped on one of the islands, Lido, bordering the Adriatic Sea. It has a beach, and the water is warmer than in Tasmania. We went swimming both days.
So, basically, yeah. An expensive spontaneous decision. As in the train cost me 122€ to get there and Halina has a Eurail pass. Grrr.
Yesterday (Wednesday) morning I had to get moving because tomorrow (Friday) I have to work. I wanted to get home as cheaply as possible, maybe including some hitch-hiking. But I began with a bus from Venice to Villach, then took a train all the way to Munich cause it was only 39€. Munich is where I spent last night. I found a ride-share going the next morning at 6:15am to Dresden and rang the guy. He told me where he'd leave from and I took the S-Bahn there last night sometime after midnight. I found a kind of park near the spot and rolled out my sleeping mat and sleeping bag next to a bush and just slept there for the next 5 hours or so. Luckily enough, nobody had stolen my stuff when I woke up this morning at 5:30 and ate breakfast of crackers with tomato. I found the guy and we set off.
Now, I've always said nobody in Tasmania needs a car faster or more polluting than a Holden Barina, cause they can drive 110km/h and that's your limit in Tasmania. I now believe nobody ANYWHERE needs anything faster or more polluting because the guy had one (an Opel Corsa, which is the same car in Europe) and we drove at 180km/h the whole way to Dresden. I thought it would take at least 5 hours but it only took 3. So at 9:20am he pulled up and told me we were there and I was like WOAH.
Ok, I lied. This isn't all about Halina, cause there should definitely be a section devoted to another friend of mine. Camilla Kruize of Timaru, New Zealand was at Pat's Dahlienheim as the English teacher from September 2008 until August 2009. Today is her last day of work. We'll be going out with a few friends to eat dinner tonight, and tomorrow evening she gets on a train to head to The Netherlands, followed by England, then after her mini-break, she heads to Stuttgart to work as an au-pair for a few months. She will be sorely missed.
So I'm going to work tomorrow and finding out what exactly they want me to do.
Bis dann, Leute!
Patrick
Last Wednesday we hitch-hiked to Berlin and caught up with Kate Walker and Dim Archer. It was fun. We also got to stay in the apartment of the guy who drove us there. Lucky!
We wanted to go to Krakow in Poland but missed our train on Saturday, so we decided to go back to Dresden for the night. It was also fun. We had burritos with a girl from Belarus.
Sunday afternoon at 14:15, Halina comes home from the station asking about Poland trains and says "wanna go to Venice instead? Train leaves in 40 minutes!"
And I was saying "no, this is such a stupid idea" the entire time as I packed my stuff back into my backpack.
We decided on a train that left two hours later cause the 14:55 one was just too soon to be able to catch.
So we were in four different trains, the last one arriving in Venice the next morning at 8:30!
We had two full days together there, and it's pretty awesome. Like everyone's heard, it's got canals. There are cars, but only on a few sections of land. Usually it's canals or simply pedestrian streets. There are also many islands separated from the city centre. We camped on one of the islands, Lido, bordering the Adriatic Sea. It has a beach, and the water is warmer than in Tasmania. We went swimming both days.
So, basically, yeah. An expensive spontaneous decision. As in the train cost me 122€ to get there and Halina has a Eurail pass. Grrr.
Yesterday (Wednesday) morning I had to get moving because tomorrow (Friday) I have to work. I wanted to get home as cheaply as possible, maybe including some hitch-hiking. But I began with a bus from Venice to Villach, then took a train all the way to Munich cause it was only 39€. Munich is where I spent last night. I found a ride-share going the next morning at 6:15am to Dresden and rang the guy. He told me where he'd leave from and I took the S-Bahn there last night sometime after midnight. I found a kind of park near the spot and rolled out my sleeping mat and sleeping bag next to a bush and just slept there for the next 5 hours or so. Luckily enough, nobody had stolen my stuff when I woke up this morning at 5:30 and ate breakfast of crackers with tomato. I found the guy and we set off.
Now, I've always said nobody in Tasmania needs a car faster or more polluting than a Holden Barina, cause they can drive 110km/h and that's your limit in Tasmania. I now believe nobody ANYWHERE needs anything faster or more polluting because the guy had one (an Opel Corsa, which is the same car in Europe) and we drove at 180km/h the whole way to Dresden. I thought it would take at least 5 hours but it only took 3. So at 9:20am he pulled up and told me we were there and I was like WOAH.
Ok, I lied. This isn't all about Halina, cause there should definitely be a section devoted to another friend of mine. Camilla Kruize of Timaru, New Zealand was at Pat's Dahlienheim as the English teacher from September 2008 until August 2009. Today is her last day of work. We'll be going out with a few friends to eat dinner tonight, and tomorrow evening she gets on a train to head to The Netherlands, followed by England, then after her mini-break, she heads to Stuttgart to work as an au-pair for a few months. She will be sorely missed.
So I'm going to work tomorrow and finding out what exactly they want me to do.
Bis dann, Leute!
Patrick
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