Celta Course is OVER!- Pt. 1

CELTA IS OVER!!! Gosh this class took over my life! But it's finally done so Yay.. I can finally walk around Prague and do whatever I want. So about 35 days of my 90 tourist visa is over and of course if you're planning on staying longer you have to job search right away because it takes forever to get your long term visas. So apparently in order to get your long term visa you need:

1. work permit- applied for by the company - to get that started you need proof of Bachelor Degree- they need the actual original copy of your certificate. When I learned this.. I was like ummm.. I haven't looked at my degree since I got it last year and I have no clue where the thing is. I don't even remember what it looks like! Great.. so I ask my parents to look in my file cabinet which I presume it must be- He found it! Yay.. so I'm having that mailed to me right away and hopefully it won't get lost in the mail.

2. Once you get the work permit which takes about 30 days- and your tourist visa is almost up- you need to apply for a short term visa. You do this because it only takes 5-10 days to receive and then you can start working. woo!

3. You apply for a long term visa at the same time as the short to get the ball rolling and within a month or so you can get the long term visa and then you're good to go! phew!


So with all that.. first you need to find a job to sponsor you right? Well---- I HAVE A JOB!! I applied for Channel Crossings when I was applying for several other schools and they were the first to book an interview with me. The other schools are pretty biased against non-EU's cuz they don't wanna deal with the visa issue- ugh! My friend Stephanie had already applied the week before and got the job the same day I found out I had an interview-- she put in a good word for me so that might've helped. I had to do a demo lesson on Monday. It was a one-on-one (which I had never done before) on 3rd conditional statements. I was actually really proud of my lesson.. she was complimenting me on the logical lesson and said that my teacher-talking-time (TTT) was just the perfect amount. Yay-- F U SHAWN! - my tutor who kept saying that I had too much TTT the entire course even though everyone in the group saw the huge improvement by the last 2 weeks! whatever

So yea.. we're just waiting for my degree to get here and the short term visa to be processed and then I can start working--- probably around the end of september. The money's ok- around 20,000 crown a month which translates to about $1000 US. Not too shabby considering it's super cheap to live here and the main cost is going to be rent.

This is the school I'm working for: http://www.chc.cz/en.html
They specialize in special purpose English teaching and with my banking and medical jobs in the past I was a good candidate for them. So basically we would teach small classes at local businesses tailoring the English that we teach to specifically fit their needs. Seems like a lot of work but I think it'll be cool to go to different places and work. We also have courses at the main school and exam courses that I might get. The only thing is that I don't have a set schedule so that's kinda scary cuz I have no idea how my hours are going to work and where or what I'll be teaching exactly until my visa goes through.