Losers in Krakow!

So, you chugged in to Krakow with your North Face Gore-Tex jacket, Merrel hiking boots, special edition black Ipod and CELTA certificate.

Wow! Nobody has ever done that before!!!

A wise man once said: ‘The earth swarms with people who are not worth
talking to’. His name was Voltaire, and he almost certainly was NOT an English
teacher.

If Voltaire was an English teacher, it’s safe to say that this quote
would probably read: ‘The earth swarms with people wanting to talk to me.’ This
might be true for the moment, but mark my words you pretentious little Krupnik
sipping cunts; it won’t last long.

The productive life span for an English teacher is, like the sex life of a
praying-mantis, the trumpeter from Foxgang and the frontal lobes of Krakow’s
most famous non-white photographer: very short. This is especially so, if one
has an intolerance for the indignity, immorality, boredom, bad coffee,
repetition and unfulfilling sexual encounters with drunk students that pepper
the initial halcyon months of the foreign ‘lektor’.

Despite the rapid decline into alcoholism, chronic masturbation and artistic
delusion, most stay on in absolute denial of their impending redundancy and
disposability. A small percentage go home, but many persist, continuing to
teach English whilst re-inventing themselves as photographers, painters,
actors, real-estate investors, venture capitalists, masseuses and of course,
musicians! One is drawn to Bonhoeffer’s famous quote: “If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.”

(Oops…I’m starting to sound like I work for Krakow Post!)

A year-by-year breakdown of the evolution of the teacher can be seen below:

1st year:

Idealistic, committed, wide-eyed, horny.

Priorities: Learn grammar, learn Polish, shagging.

Drinking at: Prozac

Weight: 74kg

Musical Taste: Blink 182

2nd year:

Pompous, strutting, egomaniacal, musical.

Priorities: Diversification, business opportunities,
networking.

Drinking at: Alchemia

Weight: 79kg

Musical Taste: Cruddy local acts

3rd year:

Cynical, wheezing, scrooge-like, poetic, sentimental.

Priorities: More hours, STD specialists, guitar strings,
scriptwriting.

Drinking at: Irish Arms

Weight: 88kg
Musical Taste: Jazz and Local crud

4th year:

Bitter, twisted, unhygienic, resentful, apoplectic,
melancholic.

Priorities: Cortisone cream, Epsom salts, new socks, more
hours.

Drinking at: Propaganda

Weight: 71kg

Musical Taste: Klezmer and local crud

5 years plus:

Calloused, temperamental, bearded, mournful, resigned,
hunched.

Priorities: Beta blockers, Valium, Viagra, divorce lawyers,
more hours.

Drinking at: Massolit
Weight: 57kg (including 8kg love child)

Musical Taste: Neil Diamond

Sadly, for ‘career’ ESL teachers’ world-wide, the light at the end of the
tunnel is actually the headlight of the oncoming train.

Every day, the demand for English teachers lessens, as
evidenced by the collapse of the NOVA group in Japan.
Almost all 127 million citizens of Japan
are now fluent in English, leaving some 3000 teachers out of work. Some 2000 of
these teachers are believed to have chartered an enormous Dragon boat which
they are currently paddling to Gdansk.

In Poland,
it is currently estimated that
86% of Poles speak English, and local schooling bodies anticipate only 7-15
months remain for the current crop of bestubbled, bohemian bullshit-artists.

The clock is ticking for the former ‘rock stars’ of Krakow,
and interesting times lie ahead as the bespectacled, lecherous, lascivious pieces
of driftwood are forced to actually create something of substance from their
pitiful, pathetic and vacuous existence.

Jakob

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