[STCrowley]

Hello, Hello!!

I just saw that the most recent post was a 'Hola from Spain' and I just had to use my German, too!

I thought I'd take a moment or two to introduce myself. My name is Toby and I'm an American from a very small town. (That's how my classroom introduction always starts.) I say it because I live in Dresden now--you might know it from the Kurt Vonnegut novel "Slaughterhouse Five"--and it's only a mid-size city (500,000 inhabitants) but I still feel like a small-town kid lost in the big city.

I started teaching English less out of passion than out of . . . well, I decided to marry a German and there aren't that many other jobs here for foreigners. Since it started as a last-resort kind of thing, I've found that I'm pretty good at it (I think), that I enjoy it, and that I really like having the feeling that I'm helping someone reach their goals.

I've been teaching for two years. There's a teacher in our school who's taught for twelve years and he's a lot more bitter about being 'trapped' in English teaching than I am. . . see how I look in ten years.

My hobbies are playing the piano (it's a new hobby--we just got an ePiano), reading, I dream of being a novelist, but I don't write much, and . . .

. . . gosh, this would be easier if you'd just ask me questions.

I'm glad to be on board!!
-Toby