My first slightly emo entry

Czech word of the day: zmrzlina
Meaning: ice cream
Pronunciation: "zm-rz-lee-na"

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I woke up yesterday morning and could barely open my eyes, it was so bright. I looked out the window and it took me a few seconds to realize that the sun was actually out! It was the first time I've seen blue sky since coming to Brno. Today the weather was the same. The snow is slowly, slowly melting. I can see the ground for the first time. I had no idea there was grass below my balcony.

Unfortunately, sunlight seems to bring bad luck in Brno. Today was by far the worst day I've had since coming here. For one thing, I've come down with something. I've been coughing like crazy all weekend and today I can barely talk. Then this morning the repairman told my roommate and me in very limited English that our refrigerator is "kaput" and we should buy a new one. I have no idea how hard it will be to get the university to replace our refrigerator, but my guess is very.

Worse, my laptop's internet connection stopped working yesterday and I can't figure out why. I'm typing this right now from the university computer lab on a Czech keyboard, which slows my typing down by half. I'll post a picture of a Czech keyboard when my internet gets fixed. Suffice it to say that the Y and Z keys are switched and the punctuation marks are all in different places. I spend a lot of time backspacing.

There were some other things that sucked about today, including the checkout ladies at Tesco who turn hostile when I can't understand what they're saying and the fact that Czechs don't seem too interested in helping people whose grocery bags rip and whose purchases go spilling into the street.

But the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen to me, short of losing my passport or my laptop, happened to me today.

I lost my beloved Czech teacher.

I've been planning to do a separate post solely devoted to how much I adore her and her class, but I haven't gotten around to it. And today I find out that they're moving her to a more advanced class and I'll get a new teacher. Now, I am a serious student, and as such, good teachers are my partners. We have a symbiotic relationship. I'm a good student to them, and they're good teachers to me. Unfortunately, many professors don't hold up their end of the bargain, but I am fiercely loyal to those who do. So when I lose a professor I have grown attached to, I take it very, very badly.

My Czech professor, Ms. Kameníková, has already officially entered into the elite pantheon of Mindy's Favorite Teachers - the fastest ever entry into that prestigious group. That record was previously held by Sr. Ortiz, a Spanish teacher at the University of West Georgia, whom I liked from the first day of class when he told us that his nickname was "Little Hitler" and that most of us would fail his class. However, he didn't officially enter the pantheon until the next class, when he walked into a suddenly half-empty classroom and revealed that he's really just a sassy Puerto Rican teddy bear. But I adored Ms. Kameníková from the very first class, when she walked in all soft-spoken and sweet, lulled the class into a false sense of security, and then started us off with cold, hard grammar. It was a beautiful thing.

I cannot express how heartbroken I am to lose her as a teacher. I expected her class to be the highlight of my semester, and while I'm sure I'll still enjoy my Czech class, it won't be the same without her. I've lost professors I loved before - I'm still trying to figure out a way to get to take another class with Sr. Ortiz - but never after only a week. Maybe it seems sentimental and melodramatic to get upset over a change in professors, but for a girl in a foreign country where there are few people that she knows - heck, few people that she can even communicate with - each familiar face contributes to a fragile sense of security, and to remove one is like cutting one of the threads of a spider's web.

After today's events, I feel slightly adrift.