It’s honestly been tearing me up inside realizing that I will be going home to Texas so soon. I love my home and need to return to the people I value so much in my life like family, friends, and my boyfriend, but I feel an immense amount of love in this place too.
I didn’t expect that any of my students would care when I announced I wouldn’t be returning next year. I don’t consider myself a bad teacher, but I’m just a 23 year old with some cute degree from a small college that really doesn’t apply to this field. I never learned anything about teaching. I never even took English or history in college and now here I am teaching it. My expectations here were to blow students minds about how cool America is with our big states and our extreme foods and eccentricities.
It took me until recently to recognize that my job isn’t to impress them and convince them America is great, or was (but that’s another story). My job is just to educate them and to encourage them to explore the world, even if it isn’t at Mount Rushmore or over a batch of fried oreos at a state fair. I think changing that mindset and beginning to analyze not only what my purpose is as a teacher, but what the students needed from me has rewarded me immensely.
I finally began to open up to the students as a mentor as well as a teacher. I’ve had students come to me seeking guidance and advice and that really shocked me. I didn’t expect to be taken seriously as a confidant for my students. But it is the best part of my whole job. Helping people is my passion and I feel like I am really accomplishing something here in that capacity.
I have so many plants growing out on my back porch right now. Most of them grew as weeds from my more successful plants from the market. Many of them have already fully developed into what I call “surprise plants” because it’s a complete mystery what they’ll grow into. I started panicking thinking about what to do with all these plants once I have to leave. I will package up quite a few of them and gift to the people who have helped me in my time here, but others I will to sell to raise money for a rescue dog and subsequent expenses once I get home. I might have already picked a name for the dog- “Slanina” which is a very beautiful Slovak word for ‘bacon’.
I try to walk around downtown every day that I can. I tell myself it’s for exercise but I know it’s because if I skip a day when I go home I might long for it even more. I don’t want to miss out on any memories here.
I am over the moon happy that I finally had a friend who got to visit and experience this amazing city. My friend Wesley from TLU just completed grad school and made a trip to Europe his gift to himself. It was probably the best week I’ve had here because I finally got to do all of the activities around town that are only fun with multiple people. We climbed to the top of St.Elizabeth's Cathedral (the largest cathedral in Slovakia) and saw breathtaking views of the city. I spent wayyyy too long pointing out all the insignificant places I’ve been to Wesley, but he was a great sport and listened the whole time. I gave him a sample of all of my favorite restaurants in the city, and best of all, we went all the way out of town to this extreme toboggan course where you go up to 50 kph on a sled with no seat belts. If you know me well you wouldn’t be surprised to know that not only did I fly off the toboggan twice, but I also crashed into Wesley during a race at 38kph when he was slowing down to accommodate a senior who was in front of him. Neither of us were hurt at all, but I did win the race and didn’t have to pay for dinner that night.
I also had the opportunity while I was here to make some great friends at work. One of my coworkers Ludovit (or Ludo as we call him) set up a trip for us and two of our students to hike the High Tatras a few hours away. Slovakia isnt a particularly proud country, and nothing compared to Americans, but if they are proud of one thing (besides their alcohol) it’s the High Tatras. The High Tatras are the Alps of Slovakia. They’re a tiny chain of mountains in the north that are very popular for hiking, skiing, thermal spas, and much much more. My students had been nagging me to go to the Tatras all year. SO I WENT!
I was not happy with Ludo when he told me we’d be meeting at 5am on my one day off that week. But when I arrived he was in his special Slovak hiking pants (which are really common here) and was already walking with his hiking poles, which was funny because we were at a train station in a valley three hours from the mountains, so that made up for the 5am meet up time. We ended up taking two different trains to the Tatras, and a fancy ski lift from one small village to the one where the trail began. The trail wasn’t long, but it was very steep. We passed a gorgeous waterfall along the way and really didn’t see any wildlife except for a rare neon slug my student saw along the path, but it was a sunny day and we had amazing views, so it was fantastic.
It’s more difficult than I thought it would be to start reckoning with myself that I’m leaving in 6 weeks. I packed up most of the decorations in my room and all of my winter clothes and souvenirs in an effort to force myself to deal with these emotions. But it’s hard. It’s just as hard as leaving college if not worse. People say all the time “oh this place is my second home” and I thought I felt that way a few times like when I studied abroad or when I worked at camp in the summers, but this is way beyond that. It’s not just a physical place I’ve lived in for a year. It the place where I was truly and completely on my own. I don’t have anyone to cook me dinner when I have the flu, I don’t know the equivalent of 911 in Slovakia, I don’t have someone to hold me if I get a call that someone at home passed away, I don’t have someone to bail me out of jail or come and get me from the train station after some creep wouldn’t leave me alone. These are things I figure out on my own. People say living as an adult is tough learning experience, well yeah it is. But doing it alone, and on a completely different continent from anyone who even shares your last name? THAT made me grow.
I’m not saying in any way that people who don’t do these things, or do them differently are in any way weak, lesser, or anything negative at all. But I can say for me and me alone, I have become a version of myself that I am really proud of. I know for a fact now that I can live independently, I can work out problems that I used to push off onto other people, I don’t have to hide from things that intimidate me or are scary because they are new. I can’t, everything here is new.
I have said before that I didn’t really think moving here would be that hard. And it wasn’t. I thought that the homesickness a few months into my journey here was the most challenging thing I’d face here, but it isn’t. I think by far the hardest thing I will ever do here is leave.
I became a true adult here. I made a home here in this little flat above the cafeteria kitchen. This honestly is my second home. It’s really difficult to think that just a few weeks after I leave there will be a new teacher moving into the tiny room I called my sanctuary. The room I decorated with broken cds I found in the living room, and this funny framed stock photo of Hilary Duff. This is my home, this is my job. And I really love it, but it’s time for me to accept that it’s going to belong to someone else soon.
I will be coming home on July 7th. I’ll arrive form Dallas and my mom will drive me back to Seguin to stay for a few weeks before I fly to Vegas to visit my boyfriend at Lake Mead. It is our one year anniversary today and it’s funny to me to think that 3/4 of our relationship has been spent smiling at him through a computer screen. But he is very worth it, and I think you all will think so too.
I am spending my free evenings right now exploring job opportunities within the non-profit fundraising/development field. It’s my biggest dream in life and one that I hope I can make a reality within the next few months. I’m not sure where exactly it will be yet, but don’t be surprised if it’s somewhere crazy. I did go to Slovakia after all, who knows where God is sending me next?
