{"id":4581,"date":"2018-12-31T15:58:48","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4581"},"modified":"2019-02-04T11:50:57","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T10:50:57","slug":"sit-with-my-friend-by-the-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4581","title":{"rendered":"Sit with My Friend by the Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like many Americans, I moved abroad\nto experience something different, only to be alarmed at the differences. I suppose\nI wanted the quaintness of Europe with all of the comforts and conveniences of\nAmerica. Prague\u2019s city center, with its famous old world charm and tourist-geared\nconveniences, offered exactly that. Shops sold recognizable brands and their\nkeepers stuttered through some English. Happy, cherry-faced tourists roamed the\nstreets of Old Town; the river dancing through the center reminded me of Pittsburgh\u2019s.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the outskirts of Prague 5, I\nknew I was in a completely different place. Streets were lined with buildings I\nassociated with 1970s Eastern Europe: low boxy shops whose windows boasted dusty\nradios and TVs, rows of nondescript gray buildings, and panel\u00e1ks, labyrinthine communist\napartment complexes meant to cram huge amounts of people into identical spaces.\nEvery sign and billboard was in a language I wouldn\u2019t begin to decipher for\nfour years. On a corner ahead, overall-clad blue-collar workers nipped pre- or\n\u2013post-shift shots out of medicine cups in front of an ob\u010derstven\u00ed \u2013 a\nrefreshment kiosk. Some chased those shots with hotdogs. Behind it all was <\/em>Electro\nWorld. Five months earlier, Electro World might have conjured an\nelectricity-themed amusement park or the bright domicile of an electric\nsuperhero, but today it was an electronics shop where I was teaching a substitution\nEnglish lesson. I\ntook a deep breath and went in.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside, men in white shirts with Electro World logos emblazoned on the pockets leaned against a counter. A mish mash of appliances and gadgets cluttered dozens of long tables. I practiced my Czech greeting: good day (dobr\u00fd den), I\u2019m an English teacher (Jsem u\u010ditel angli\u010dtiny). I took out the student list, hoping anyone would recognize a name on it, and then summon them to fetch me. It was the same at every business. The men ignored me, which, I would learn, was an art practiced by Czech customer service employees. In Electro World\u2019s American brother, one might be fell upon by salespeople stalking the aisles like commission hungry hyenas. In the Czech Republic you were ignored in lieu of literally any other task, and in the last twelve years I have waited with metered breath as waitresses have cleaned glasses and shopkeepers restocked plastic bags. When I am served it\u2019s at their volition and only after I\u2019d gotten the message that I was no priority. To garner attention, I sometimes do something out of line so that the worker might stop what he is doing to yell at me. After years of experimentation, I have found that whistling, winking, and touching merchandise are all effective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s (unwitting) infraction was\nwalking into the shop with my backpack. To the left of the entrance stood a\nbatch of square lockers where shoppers were expected to lock up their bags\nbefore browsing among the tempting electronics. I had missed them. So as I\nventured further into the store, the men who had been ignoring me suddenly came\nto life in a verbal assault seemingly devoid of spaces or vowels. One of them\nrealized I had no idea what was happening and so he walked me back to the\nlockers where I stowed my bag. I mumbled my good\nday, I\u2019m an English teacher<\/em> spiel and showed him my roster. He took it,\nglanced at it sideways, and walked away. A minute later I was facing a young\nman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am Pavel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am Damien.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe must\u2026\u201d he bopped his head in a fill in the gap <\/em>gesture \u201c\u2026in back.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOK, I just need my lesson plan and\nmaterials.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I turned the key in the locker, but\nit wouldn\u2019t budge. I worked and jiggled it, then Pavel did the same with identical\nresults. A trail of sweat came from a spring somewhere in my scalp as Pavel beckoned\none of the salespeople in repose. The guy arrived with eyes in the ready to\nroll position. Pavel\u2019s face went red as he spoke. Before walking away, the guy\nsent his eyes on a tour of his brow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe must (head bob)\u2026teknik.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, a technician.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes. Come.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first Pavel appeared to be a\nserious young man, but his interaction with the eye-roller pegged him more as a\nyoung man acting serious. His shirt retained the rectangular creases from its\npackage and his tie dangled above his belly button. The professional golf shirt\nand khakis my mother had bought me were binding and tight. Aside from his\nreverse peninsula balding pattern and cranberry-shaped mole, we were the same,\nboth struggling to cope with new positions. At the moment my struggles were\nfocused on my lack of lesson plan and materials, which were trapped in the\nlocker inside my bag. I had only been teaching for three months, I needed a\nplan. So as we walked past blenders and heating pads, I scrambled to come up\nwith one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the five years before I ended\nup on Prague\u2019s doorstep, I worked as a bartender in a Pittsburgh campus pub. Life\nwas sweet. The bar was packed and popular; three nights a week its core featured\nme pulling pints and telling stories and jokes. I had a knack for making people\nlaugh and relax. I started drinking around midnight and made money hand over\nfist. For a guy who\u2019d eked his way through six years of college on part time\njobs and the Langhorne, Pennsylvania branch of the Bank of Mommy and Daddy, this\nnovelty was difficult to overlook. Additionally, the working atmosphere was\nstress free. Many of the employees were still in school or recent grads not yet\nconcerned with the real world of careers and adult responsibilities. They had\nfun and enjoyed a life involving no take home work. To them, I was the wise\nexperienced veteran who was capable of handling any problem. On slow day shifts\nthe waitresses and I drank iced tea and played trivial pursuit, during which I\nkicked ass in literature and history, the only use to which my degree was\napplied. Though this carefree environment was difficult to leave, most\neventually did. Waitresses embarked upon careers with entry level jobs,\nhostesses started grad school and internships, and every six months I had a new\nbatch of waitresses to impress with my experience, my wit, and my trivial knowledge.\nFor a long while, I had it made in the shade. \n <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my late twenties people started\nasking about grad school and career plans. The subtext implied slackerism and real\nworld avoidance. I was ostensibly a writer, but one who didn\u2019t put a word on\npaper unless he was writing up a liquor order from the store. I woke up one day\nand saw myself as a forty-year-old bartender, stuffing cash in my sock drawer,\nand getting the occasional blowjob from a drunken waitress in dry storage. This\nfantasy aligned itself next to the hypothetical futures of my college\nclassmates. Their Mazda SUVs and houses were juxtaposed against my Dodge Neon\nand rented flat. My cat ironically posed like their kids on our Christmas cards.\nI decided a change was needed; perhaps because I was trying to make up for lost\ntime, I decided to change big. I was going to move to Prague and teach English.\nI was twenty nine.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After my decision to leave but\nbefore actually leaving, I reveled in all of the sexiness and romance associated\nwith being an expatriate in Europe. I dropped it into conversations with\npracticed ease: \u201cNew York is OK, I guess, if<\/em>\nyou have to be in the U.S, but Europe is much more my speed. Me? Oh, I\u2019m moving\nto Prague.\u201d I bought a grammar guide, a sweater with elbow patches, and a Czech\/English\ndictionary. I drooled over flats for rent in Prague\u2019s city center. I fell hard\nfor the fantasy version of Expatriate Me. He would find inspiration for writing\nin old world Europe and lived in a quaint cobblestoned street. Each morning in\nrustic clothing (think Sicily-based Al Pacino in the Godfather) he walked past\ncafes and greeted sophisticates in a language for which I couldn\u2019t even\nconstruct a make believe imitation. Expatriate Me drank in moderation and\nfrequented places known only to locals. There was a shift in his personality\nand, remarkably, looks. Instead of rambunctious and talkative, he was serene\nand contemplative. He went from short and stocky to a tauter, more classically\nattractive gentleman. Evidently, he\u2019d been awarded wisdom, introversion, and\nattractiveness with his plane ticket. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six months later, the romance disappeared\namid a meltdown at JFK, during which I asked myself, confused vendors, and\ninanimate objects: My God, what am I doing? The next day I was sitting through the\nintroductory session of an ESL teaching course in a language school classroom\nin Prague\u2019s And\u011bl sector. With\nme were ten others enrolled in the course; mostly youngish Americans, a Czech\nand a Brit thrown in for international flavor. I think we had an Australian. In\nfront of the room, a chinless guy named Paul gave us a speech whose undertones of\npending doom were less than subtle.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost of you probably think you\u2019re\nhere to live the expat life, but it\u2019s really hard. Planning a lesson takes\nhours. And if<\/em> we offer you a job,\nexpect long hours of trudging between businesses and getting home after dark.\nHehehe.\u201d Paul peered at us out of the corner of his eyes and spoke to us\nsideways. He punctuated his statements with an awkward laugh. \u201cHehehe. Don\u2019t\nslack off this month; there\u2019s no time. Brush up on grammar. Hehehe. Enjoy\nPrague, but get your work done. Lots of people come to try ESL in Prague, but\nthen ditch the course, have a beer drinking vacation, and head home. He. He.\nPlease introduce yourselves.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I awaited my turn, I sweated at\nthe nerves he\u2019d hit with his pinpoint accurate comments.  Heading home with my tail between my legs was\ncompletely against the fantasy of Expatriate Me. \u201cI\u2019m Damien,\u201d I said. \u201cI was a\nbartender. I like reading and writing.\u201d Though my brain shrieked \u201cSay you\u2019re a\nwriter!\u201d my mouth wouldn\u2019t do it. However, others were not similarly self-censored.\n  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cName\u2019s Chris, I\u2019m a writer.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHi all. I\u2019m Jamie, me too.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am a writer, too. I\u2019m here to\nteach and finish my novel,\u201d I think it was Richard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWow. We should form a writer\u2019s\ngroup,\u201d said Justin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of me stewed in jealousy. I had\ngone from being the romantic expatriate to being nothing special over the\ncourse of a six-minute introduction. Now I was just one of a bunch of people\ndoing the same thing. There were even other writers, some having visited the El\nDorado world of being publishing. Still, another part of me sensed that we were\nall paddling the same boat along an undercurrent of Personal Reinvention. Later\nI\u2019d find out that Richard had been a pizza delivery man, Jen was leaving a nightmare\nrelationship (to soon enter another), Justin had managed a bar. Though none of\nus said it, we\u2019d all come to Prague for the same reason: to start over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the month long course at the\nlanguage school, we were introduced to the world of ESL teaching. There was an\noverload of meta-language, both to describe grammatical terms we\u2019d never used\ngrowing up, such as past perfect, gerunds, third conditional, and to convey ESL\nconcepts like elicitation, Total Physical Response, and Present Produce and\nPractice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHehehe. Elicit language from the\nstudents, don\u2019t give it to them. Heh\u2026hehe\u201d Paul scolded after our practice\nlessons. We were indoctrinated with the acronym TTT. Teacher Talking Time: the\nconcept that we should speak less and our students should speak more. That a language\nstudent should speak more than the teacher fluent in that language makes sense,\nbut had simply never occurred to me. Thus was assassinated my Teacher Me\nfantasy, in which I stood behind a podium in my sweater, twirling glasses\naround by the stem and positing offhand yet brilliant philosophical observations\nabout the subjunctive to a sea of riveted students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, I did become a\ndiligent student of ESL and the English language. Instead of novels, I pored\nover grammar guides and methodology books. I planned lessons so intricate that\nthey resembled Jason Bourne plots more than a conditionals lesson. I passed the\ncourse with flying colors partly due to hard work and partly to the fear of\nfalling back into the complacency that had led to six years in college and five\nyears of bartending. When the course ended I was offered a job at the school,\nbut my anxious diligence didn\u2019t end. I needed experience, so I took every\nsubstitution and every variety of course the school offered. I taught test preparation,\nbusiness English, individual lessons, and English for Special Purposes. At the\nend of three months, despite my dedication and my sweater, I was still a bad\nteacher.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the scheduling office knew\nthat I would teach anywhere at any time, I was at Electro World because of\nMarketa, the Czech ESL teacher to whom I had given my heart. When she mumbled\nsomething about a doctor\u2019s appointment and asked if I could substitute, I\naccepted in the overly eager manner kindled by those we adore. She was a\nveteran teacher who\u2019d been at the school for years, so as I followed Pavel\nthrough Electro World, my heart palpitated with pressure. I had to do well for\nnumerous reasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We walked into a storage room which\ndoubled as a cock fight venue in Steven Segal films. It was dimly lit and stacked\nboxes stood around it like cairns. On the back wall was a two-way mirror that\nlooked into the store. Pavel pointed me to a round table in the far corner,\nwhere a blonde woman was twiddling a pen. She stood to an impressive arboreal height\nand introduced herself. Jana wore a skirt that was more like a wide belt and smiled\nin terror as she shook my hand. I fitted myself into a seat between the table\nand a rickety stack of cardboard boxes. Through the mirror I watched an\noverall-clad guy approach the lockers carrying a screwdriver and a pissed off\nscowl for being roused from his lair. My brain froze.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, how are you?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood,\u201d Jana said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd how are you?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUh\u2026good,\u201d Pavel said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood. You\u2019re both good. Good.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I extended my interrogation to include\nwhat they did at Electro World. Through intense head bopping and a dip into\nGerman, Pavel managed to tell us that he had been a manager for a week, having\nbeen plucked out of the white-shirted ranks. Jana didn\u2019t offer the title of her\njob, but supplanted that by saying that she had been at Electro World for two\nyears. In ESL terminology, their English level was low A2, or advanced\nbeginners. In layman\u2019s terms, they understood the concept of verbs and nouns, but\npossessed little ability to arrange them into sentences which conveyed ideas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My brain had a wave: hobbies<\/em>. Yes! Hobbies could be drawn out\nfor an hour. I could elicit lots of terminology and vocabulary (and make Paul\nproud). Verb patterns could be employed as well as various other emergent lexicon.\nIn the years of ESL teaching I would go on to do, I have found hobbies to be a springboard\nto a deeper conversation on topics such as health, national customs, and sexism.\nToday, hobbies were going to save my ass, for I was an ESL genius. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you have any hobbies, Pavel?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He nodded. \u201cSkiing and cycling.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd you, Jana?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCycling either.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I nodded, turned back to Pavel.\n\u201cWhat do you like about cycling, Pavel?\u201d Pavel shook his head with pursed lips,\nhaving decided that he\u2019d said too much, he entered a tunneled resistance not\nseen since Iwo Jima in 1945. I looked at Jana and questioned my life choices\nfor the hundredth time that week.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before I could ask anything, Jana\nsquinted. \u201cI likes…\u201d she let out a breath and shook her head. \u201c\u2026in the forest.\u201d\nShe shrugged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though instinct told me to list a\nbunch of activities, the Ghost of Chinless Paul superseded it by whispering TTT <\/em>in my ear, so I mimed the act of\ndrawing and said: \u201cDraw a picture of it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jana opened her notebook and drew a\ncampfire represented by crisscrossed rectangular logs beneath a few ridges of\nfire. Next to it she stenciled a triangular teepee-like canvas tent, the likes\nof which I used to chase spiders out of on Boy Scout camping trips. She made\ntwo stick figures capped with heads and shoes. Their maniacal smiles suggested\neuphoria. The artwork inspired Pavel the Inert. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes! Marketa teaching it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My heart skipped a beat at the mention\nof my crush. Marketa was a somber brunette who exuded a carefree attitude usually\nattached to a gulag administrator. With me it seemed no different, and she\nregarded me as though I had once copped a feel of her grandmother at a Bar\nMitzvah. A week before, when I\u2019d come across her reading J.D Salinger\u2019s 9 Stories <\/em>in our school\u2019s caf\u00e9 and\ngushed over my love for it, she put it down and never looked at it again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I became a poster boy for the\nworld\u2019s oldest irony, which is that we want those who don\u2019t want us. I applied strategies\nto get her attention and dwelt over the minutest details of our chance encounters.\nThat Marketa and I were wrong for each other has been clear to me for the last\ntwelve years, and yet I know why I wanted her. Marketa completed the fantasy of\nEuropean Me. We would wed in a small ceremony. I would write books and she would\ntranslate them into Czech in our flat in Prague and our countryside cottage.\nShe was the sober local to my witty foreigner. Together, we would change my\nidentity completely. A second later, Jana asked Pavel the term for this\nactivity. I wrote the C in camping<\/em> on\nmy sheet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSit with my friend by the fire,\u201d\nPavel replied.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I blinked. \u201cOh.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes!\u201d Jana said, and then added\nthe esoteric: \u201cin the\u2026past watch.\u201d And then, \u201cI sit with my friend by the\nfire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOK, wait\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In rudimentary language, Jana asked\nPavel where Marketa was. Pavel needed to go to Czech to explain, which caused\nthem both to giggle. I asked them to explain. Jana summoned all of her\nlinguistic powers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMarketa is go to new flat with boyfriend.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNew flat? Boyfriend?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d Pavel took the reins. \u201cHe\nlive in her today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, they are moving in together,\u201d\nI said. \u201cThey are moving in together,\u201d I repeated. Then again as I wrote it on\nmy sheet in progressively darker and more throbbing letters. \u201cThey. Are.\nMoving. In. Together.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jana nodded in confirmation. A few\npangs occurred in my chest. Marketa had lied to me. So while I struggled\nthrough her class with her A2 students, with no lesson plan, she was having\nacrobatic monkey sex with a grave expression on her face. Through the two-way\nmirror I glimpsed the Locker Kraken chucking my bag on the counter amongst his\ndisinterested colleagues. I continued.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s get back to it.\u201d I wrote in disturbingly bold\nletters on my sheet: Sit With My Friend By The Fire. Then, following my training,\nI guided the students through a discussion and elicited language. We talked for\nthe rest of the hour about what we wore when we sat with our friends by the\nfire, what we ate when we sat with our friends by the fire, what time of year\nwe sat with our friends by the fire. I asked them what they liked drinking when\nthey sat with their friends by the fire and who introduced them to sitting with\ntheir friends by the fire. They told me about times when it had rained when\nthey were sitting with their friends by the fire and how much a guitar enhances\nthe mood while sitting with their friends by the fire. Pavel told a story about\nsome people who ran into a ghost while sitting with their friends by the fire, the\nstory\u2019s sparse minimalism enhancing its awful terror. In the adrenalin so often\ncreated by language acquisition, Jana sheepishly admitted to once making love while\nsitting with her friend by the fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By most criteria it was a worthy ESL lesson. Our\ndiscussion elicited a variety of verb patterns and our narratives employed\nnarrative tenses. Not to mention their use of necessary emergent vocabulary such\nas coals, logs, forest, to start and put out a fire, and put up a tent. My TTT\nwas minimal as Jana and Pavel were invigorated by the lesson. Furthermore, the\nmood in the backroom was ebullient by the time I stood beneath the cairn of\ntoasters and said goodbye. They seemed genuinely disappointed when I said I\nprobably wouldn\u2019t be back. The only drawback, of course, was that I had taught,\nencouraged use of, and implanted completely incorrect language. The word for\n\u201ccamping\u201d in Czech is \u201cKempov\u00e1n\u00ed\u201d; I had actively murdered previously\nexisting knowledge.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I came back into the shop, I felt like a\nfailure. The white shirts ignored me, but one broke his grumpy ranks to presumably\nscold me for allowing their locker to eat my bag. I nodded and apologized; I\ndeserved it. I reflected on the morning and slipped into an acute depression. Marketa\nwas a No, I had purposefully taught incorrect language, and I was no teacher. Despite\nthe massive changes of job and location, I hadn\u2019t changed. My elaborate fantasy\nof the New Expatriate Me was a joke; I was just the Same Me in a different\nplace doing a different job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the twelve years since that morning, I have been\nallowed more insight into my particular process of personal reinvention. While\nchange did stem from my big decision to move, true change would come gradually\nafter that. It came when I didn\u2019t run home to the U.S. but rather stuck it out in\nPrague, and struggled through setbacks, challenges, and loneliness. It came as\nI learned and developed into a dedicated professional English teacher, and forged\nmy way into a new field. It came when I set and stuck to a daily writing\nroutine, began publishing stories, essays, blogs, and a novel five years later.\n(I wonder if Richard finished his, he left the month after my Electro World\nexperience). Change came when I got a master\u2019s degree a few years later and the\nlinguistics research I would get involved in. Change came when I started teaching\nAcademic Writing and English for Academic Purposes at a university in Prague,\nwhere I still teach today. It turns out I\u2019m still the Same Me, just better.      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That morning, however, I had no idea these changes\nawaited me, only that I felt no different then. I headed to the ob\u010derstven\u00ed<\/em> on\nthe corner to drown my guilt in a medicine cup of plum brandy. I stuttered in\nCzech and pointed. The old woman who handed me the cup from the window was\nsmoking and wore glasses that she\u2019d bought in the 1980s. I wanted to tell her\nthat I used to do her job, but I lacked the language then. It was no matter,\nbecause I didn\u2019t use to do her job, I did a different one. I looked at my watch\nand saw that it was 10 am, which meant it was 4 am in Pittsburgh. I wondered\nwho was cleaning the bar I used to stand behind, and if they were drinking, and\nif they fully appreciated the womb-like safety of that bar. I downed my plum\nbrandy. A workman in red overalls huffed. As I signaled for another I noticed that\nthe woman\u2019s sweater was full of holes ringed with chalky black, as though for\nyears she had worn this sweater when she sat with her friend by the fire,\nwhatever the hell that meant.     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like many Americans, I moved abroad to experience something different, only to be alarmed at the differences. I suppose I wanted the quaintness of Europe with all of the comforts and conveniences of America. Prague\u2019s city center, with its famous old world charm and tourist-geared conveniences, offered exactly that. Shops sold recognizable brands and their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/esl-class.jpg?fit=768%2C432&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1bT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4583,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4581\/revisions\/4583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}