Well hello there!
Twelve months have passed since I left Vienna for Abidjan. Two months have passed since I came back to Austria.

My Holidays were more relaxing and less intense than the usual case. Main cause: I’m broke! 😦 Anyways, had a nice time on the country side in Gaflenz with parents and family, also watching Miyazaki’s Kaze Tachinu, meeting people in Vienna, helping out at a summer camp in Holland and right after staying in Amsterdam and Utrecht.

Achievement Unlocked: “Travel to Amsterdam and neither get stoned or drunk, nor hit by a bicycle!”

Thank you everyone who contributed in making my holiday enjoyable as it was! 🙂
And the show goes on: Back to Vienna, back to school!

I just finished my first week at my new school in the 15th district of Vienna, where I’ll be teaching Physics and Chemistry. The teachers and headmistress have welcomed me nicely and I felt it’s a good start. Though I’ve only held two lessons so far, as we held no afternoon lessons this week, I felt they were good. Many bright kids in there!

The first few meetings with other colleagues at school was generally funny. They immediately thanked me for coming and relieving them from the stress of having to teach physics and chemistry themselves. That’s the Austrian system: if your school doesn’t have a teacher in a certain subject, all other teachers need to hold the lessons instead. My school hasn’t had a physics teacher in more than 5 years! I even received an applause at the initial teacher’s conference, how weird is that? Like science is some kind of disease and I am the only cure. Meh, anyways I will see how much the kids will remember from the previous years.

There are several  “plusses” of this school:

• it’s a UNESCO school
• it’s Catholic and private, yet open to everyone and rather mixed in both culture and religion.
• I am the one and only science teacher, so I got two rooms on my own!
• Every classroom and also the science room have a projector, which I will use for some blended learning when possible
• it takes me just 35 minutes to get there

I am working part-time as a teacher because…

In October I shall be starting a MA degree in eLearning at Fernuniversität Hagen (Deutschland!), which will be great as well! I just like to continue to progress on many levels at the same time, so both working and studying at the same time is the ideal option for me right now. I also value mobility and flexibility, so having a distance learning course about eLearning is perfect and authentic.

All in all, I have a year to look forward to!

 

 

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