Thursday, July 28, 2005
"This is quite the hatchet job..."
Can we do it?
7-29-05 (midnightish) Train: Leaves Stalowa Wola Rozwad at 00:41 no. P31202
Arrives Warsaw Wschodnia 6:03
TRANSFER to
Train: Warsaw Wschodnia 6:08 no. TLK 35703
Arrives Gdansk 10:27
7-30-05 Bus: Leaves Gdansk 16:30
Arrives Torun 19:40
7-31-05 Train: Leaves Torun Glowny at 23:15 no. 83502
Arrives Kutno 00:45
TRANSFER to
Train: Kutno no. P82200 1:50
Arrives Lublin 5:55
TRANSFER to
Train Lublin no. P53519 6:24
Arrives Stalowa Wola 8:21 on Monday 8-1-05
I went to my first "Lan party" yesterday: They brought a bunch of computers to one person's house and played counterstrike all night. I proved how spectacularly bad I am at computer games by dying about 53 times before heading home. To top it off one of my erstwhile students was the sister of the hostess, and she pretty much ran away when she saw me (mainly because she'd been lying and telling her sister she was coming to class). We were even though- not realizing she was on my team (no one could explain to me the "terrorists" all wore different things) I used up two rounds of ammo on her before noting there was a reason she wasn't going down. And so I think maybe I'm not Scary English Teacher as much now.
And yesterday one of my students brought me a little furry figurine sheep from Zakopane:)
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
So she photographed her flowers and wandered her streets...
Sunday, July 24, 2005
"Of course, it is highly likely that the graveyard is inhabited by many ancient gnome dynasties, but the gnomes are modest fellows and one only sees them if one is lucky."
We hiked up and over a ridge to Morskie Oko Lake on Saturday. Most of our fellow hikers were Polish, and the trail was crowded enough, but when we reached the traverse we found ourselves pretty much alone in a drizzle, fog obscuring the valley below (and, thankfully, the height of the drop). Then a line of schoolkids emerged from the depths in front of us and trooped past. "I'd never walked into a cloud before!" chirped one, in his schoolboy's British English. They gave us sidelong looks as we started to crack up, and vanished over the ridge. Of all the place to run into anglieski, and in such a guise...
Thursday, July 21, 2005
I'm far from home but I'm feeling alright/ I've got three weeks behind me and four more in sight/ (If you were here we could go fly a kite/ and we'd walk through the fields til the day turned to night...)
Well, really, I'd want to sing a sad parody about the fact the Brookings Institute is hiring a part-time librarian, and I'm too far away for too long to apply....but its hard to rhyme things with "4 health plan options"....
or I could do a guilty blues parody about class size: last week I waited and waited, and my group c class didn't show up. wary (kind on their part but a bit humiliating), my old host sibs came to class today, and when no one came they dragged me home after a measly five minutes that I tried to stretch into at least seven. alas, group d did come, 10 minutes late....and it had been pouring rain, so I feel worse that I wasn't there.
lesson 1: the fifteen minute rule should be enforced, even if its a non-reciprocal agreement
lesson 2: have a little more (if not much more) faith in my students.
a harvest moon tonight, Zakopane tomorrow. saw the mayor at the local pizza place this evening, figured (since our little kid was playing with his little kid) he'd seen me and I should say hello; turns out he hadn't seen me but was enthusiastic when I went over, except it was awks because we had nothing- and could say nothing- beyond hi how are you. so I bolted.
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Well, really, I'd want to sing a sad parody about the fact the Brookings Institute is hiring a part-time librarian, and I'm too far away for too long to apply....but its hard to rhyme things with "4 health plan options"....
or I could do a guilty blues parody about class size: last week I waited and waited, and my group c class didn't show up. wary (kind on their part but a bit humiliating), my old host sibs came to class today, and when no one came they dragged me home after a measly five minutes that I tried to stretch into at least seven. alas, group d did come, 10 minutes late....and it had been pouring rain, so I feel worse that I wasn't there.
lesson 1: the fifteen minute rule should be enforced, even if its a non-reciprocal agreement
lesson 2: have a little more (if not much more) faith in my students.
a harvest moon tonight, Zakopane tomorrow. saw the mayor at the local pizza place this evening, figured (since our little kid was playing with his little kid) he'd seen me and I should say hello; turns out he hadn't seen me but was enthusiastic when I went over, except it was awks because we had nothing- and could say nothing- beyond hi how are you. so I bolted.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
All very meta: adjourned my second class to a nearby cafe, where I gave them the first part of "Burnt Norton" (yearbook epigram, recurrent solace) and the question scene from R&G are Dead; visited a nearby stream and drank from it; went to the cemetary and thought of cemetaries past (small moments of happiness, moments of incumbent sadness).
My new host family has a 5 year old. I don't know how to interact with five year olds, and feel miserly in the process. Also, younger than them. She's so cute and bouncy, and I don't know what to do...She's giggling right now, and dancing a jig in the hallway.
As per the stream, my host sister said the water is blessed and it certainly looked clean. As we were leaving, a guy with 4 plastic bottles came to get water from it. Meanwhile, some kids were skipping past the adjacent Christ statue- a miniature of the one in Rio- and through the water, incurring something of a Jeff Wall moment a la "The Drain" (hyperreality, "exaggerated yet verisimil tropes"-wha?) .
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My new host family has a 5 year old. I don't know how to interact with five year olds, and feel miserly in the process. Also, younger than them. She's so cute and bouncy, and I don't know what to do...She's giggling right now, and dancing a jig in the hallway.
As per the stream, my host sister said the water is blessed and it certainly looked clean. As we were leaving, a guy with 4 plastic bottles came to get water from it. Meanwhile, some kids were skipping past the adjacent Christ statue- a miniature of the one in Rio- and through the water, incurring something of a Jeff Wall moment a la "The Drain" (hyperreality, "exaggerated yet verisimil tropes"-wha?) .
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
more poland photos, at right, under photos:)
wondering what to do with the rapidly diminishing numbers in my classes. not unusual, I'm told and know, but disheartening nonetheless.
Maroon 5's "This Love" is all over the radio here, side by side with Gwen Stefani's Hollaback Girl (uncensored) and Enya's Orinoco Flow. and Black Eyed Peas' "Don't Phunk With my Heart" which was, funnily enough, censored but only in one place so far- the disco.
there are mosquitos here and they are vicious enough to keep me up at 4 am, but I think I finally got the one biting me, but if I did get it, that means the stickiness on my keyboard is my own blood oh ewewewew.
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wondering what to do with the rapidly diminishing numbers in my classes. not unusual, I'm told and know, but disheartening nonetheless.
Maroon 5's "This Love" is all over the radio here, side by side with Gwen Stefani's Hollaback Girl (uncensored) and Enya's Orinoco Flow. and Black Eyed Peas' "Don't Phunk With my Heart" which was, funnily enough, censored but only in one place so far- the disco.
there are mosquitos here and they are vicious enough to keep me up at 4 am, but I think I finally got the one biting me, but if I did get it, that means the stickiness on my keyboard is my own blood oh ewewewew.
Monday, July 18, 2005
"She felt strong. Whenever she was restless she dodged her thoughts by the familiar vagabond fallacy of running away from them, of moving on to a new place, and thus she persuaded herself that she was tranquil." - Main Street
Sunday, July 17, 2005
And there are flowers, flowers everywhere....
Another WorldTeach volunteer and I struck out on our own, back to Lublin. It was a stark reminder of how little Polish we've picked up in 3 weeks. But we had enough to take the bus there, find our way around, take the trolleybus and ask, Gdzie jest Majdanek?
Majdanek. A field of ravens and the intact concentration camp. It was as imagined (read/photo-ed about). Except for the ravens, and ravens. I don't know if I'm more jaded after years of Dirty War history, or not hard enough to even start comprehending. I don't know.
Back to Lublin, and art, and lody, and the bus ride home through the countryside. I like the rolling hills here. They make life seem simple. I've started comparing Poland, at least this edge of it, to Tolkien's Shire. Its reductionist, and I feel bad doing it, but at least right now, it has some of that gentle simplicity to it. As if all there is to life is friends and food and dreams and salmon colored sunsets.
Friday, July 15, 2005
They have chupa chups here. this is momentous.
Quotable quote from a couple of days ago, when we were going over the definition of the word treat (as in chocolate and gifts from friends): we'd gotten as far as treatment and treat in the doctor's sense, when one kid asks, "So would it be a treat if I punched him in the face?"
and secondly, I was brought to a house with an aviary, even a peacock, and my host mom asked what the turkeys were called in english. my host brother answered, with a wry smile, "thanksgiving".
In other news, I was talking with this polish-american 8 year old, about random 8 year old things, and I mentioned astrology and he (who had complained about going to a catholic school instead of a public school) jumped on it. Astrology is sinful, he told me flat out straight. and what about the Quebec church with the astrological signs on the floor? They're sinning, he pronounced.
ok doke. he's an aquarius though, which helps explain it....;)
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Quotable quote from a couple of days ago, when we were going over the definition of the word treat (as in chocolate and gifts from friends): we'd gotten as far as treatment and treat in the doctor's sense, when one kid asks, "So would it be a treat if I punched him in the face?"
and secondly, I was brought to a house with an aviary, even a peacock, and my host mom asked what the turkeys were called in english. my host brother answered, with a wry smile, "thanksgiving".
In other news, I was talking with this polish-american 8 year old, about random 8 year old things, and I mentioned astrology and he (who had complained about going to a catholic school instead of a public school) jumped on it. Astrology is sinful, he told me flat out straight. and what about the Quebec church with the astrological signs on the floor? They're sinning, he pronounced.
ok doke. he's an aquarius though, which helps explain it....;)
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
"Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality."
Horses!
During class I idly thought of trail rides like ones before: rambling through the Janow forest, clip clopping along. Harmonizing with nature, communing with the fauna, perhaps breaking into a rolling canter if we reached a clearing in the Sola pines (indigenous to the Janow region, with a shallow root system and tall slender trunks).
um.
Plaster was tall, ornery, fly-beleaguered; he very nearly bolted in the first five minutes but was still clipped to the instructor's lead. Perhaps, given that, it was better that to this lead he stayed, as we went around and around and around:in circles, in the stable's corral and (when he insisted on not trotting and instead wresting his head vigorously w domu) following (still in circles) another horse also treading a crop circle (the rider of that horse was 8- the age I learned to ride and, incidentally, the last time I rode english saddle) .
I'm used to Western, I admitted, and my instructor's eyes opened wide. Oh! Western is extreme sport. Here we just jump...
Later she asked, when you ride Western, is your horse always black and white? I imagine it would be black and white always. :)
And we ambled w domu. But hooray for horses, anyway. Even if the hidden translation of "horses" was horseback riding lesson...
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Cannot bear very much reality."
Horses!
During class I idly thought of trail rides like ones before: rambling through the Janow forest, clip clopping along. Harmonizing with nature, communing with the fauna, perhaps breaking into a rolling canter if we reached a clearing in the Sola pines (indigenous to the Janow region, with a shallow root system and tall slender trunks).
um.
Plaster was tall, ornery, fly-beleaguered; he very nearly bolted in the first five minutes but was still clipped to the instructor's lead. Perhaps, given that, it was better that to this lead he stayed, as we went around and around and around:in circles, in the stable's corral and (when he insisted on not trotting and instead wresting his head vigorously w domu) following (still in circles) another horse also treading a crop circle (the rider of that horse was 8- the age I learned to ride and, incidentally, the last time I rode english saddle) .
I'm used to Western, I admitted, and my instructor's eyes opened wide. Oh! Western is extreme sport. Here we just jump...
Later she asked, when you ride Western, is your horse always black and white? I imagine it would be black and white always. :)
And we ambled w domu. But hooray for horses, anyway. Even if the hidden translation of "horses" was horseback riding lesson...
Monday, July 11, 2005
After a sort of tiring teaching day (apparently I can't drink with my students (well, future host families) and expect to inspire awe and agatha trumbull-like fear in them too) I was whisked to the mayors office. A tall man with a kelly green suit (what would robin givhan had said if Anthony Williams pulled that one?) he was a nice man...and the visit seemed to revolve around the ubiquitious and unanswerable question: how do you find Poland? what were your expectations?
I smiled and enthused (truthfully so) and got some nifty books in return.
In historical news, Janow itself is a pretty nifty little town- it was a center of resistance activity during WWII and was razed 85 percent to the ground (that is, incidentally, the same figure given for Warsaw...). but when a bomb landed in the church, it didn't explode- the local miracle.
and in linguistic news, somehow "no" evolved in Polish to mean a casual "yes". it has an inflection, apparently- the english no is, I'm informed, not the same thing as the polish no. but it sounds darn similar.
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I smiled and enthused (truthfully so) and got some nifty books in return.
In historical news, Janow itself is a pretty nifty little town- it was a center of resistance activity during WWII and was razed 85 percent to the ground (that is, incidentally, the same figure given for Warsaw...). but when a bomb landed in the church, it didn't explode- the local miracle.
and in linguistic news, somehow "no" evolved in Polish to mean a casual "yes". it has an inflection, apparently- the english no is, I'm informed, not the same thing as the polish no. but it sounds darn similar.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Wanderlust temporarily satiated:
Lublin first, and to whoever i was talking about the masons being everywhere- including a polish glass cup with the one eyed pyramid in it, in the castle museum. As for the old city itself, it almost added to the charm of the beautiful, elaborately decorated walls to have at the base of one of them not just the anarchist symbol but "Viva anarchia"
Naleczow: mineral water and moldovan dancing
Kazimiertz Dolny: gigantic breads in the shape of roosters, a klezmer band, and a motorbike...with new jersey license plates.
I helped make bigos yesterday, which involved thursting my hands into a huge vat of sauerkraut and meat...and have started, slowly, to put together sentences. slowly:)
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Lublin first, and to whoever i was talking about the masons being everywhere- including a polish glass cup with the one eyed pyramid in it, in the castle museum. As for the old city itself, it almost added to the charm of the beautiful, elaborately decorated walls to have at the base of one of them not just the anarchist symbol but "Viva anarchia"
Naleczow: mineral water and moldovan dancing
Kazimiertz Dolny: gigantic breads in the shape of roosters, a klezmer band, and a motorbike...with new jersey license plates.
I helped make bigos yesterday, which involved thursting my hands into a huge vat of sauerkraut and meat...and have started, slowly, to put together sentences. slowly:)
Friday, July 08, 2005
ow (as in ow, that hurt) is universally "owa" here.
all the telephone poles are an inverted v of wood.
and today in class I was having people brainstorm furniture in rooms. I ambled over to the pair of girls listing things in the bathroom. sink, towel, bath, god... God? I asked? One girl nodded solemnly, and pointed to the toilet.
this is oddly relevant, keeping Motel of Mysteries in mind, where the archeologists thinking the bathroom is the inner temple:)
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all the telephone poles are an inverted v of wood.
and today in class I was having people brainstorm furniture in rooms. I ambled over to the pair of girls listing things in the bathroom. sink, towel, bath, god... God? I asked? One girl nodded solemnly, and pointed to the toilet.
this is oddly relevant, keeping Motel of Mysteries in mind, where the archeologists thinking the bathroom is the inner temple:)
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Ignorance is bliss. write 10 sentences using the vocabulary works on the board, then discuss.
not really, but I had no idea. there is something genuinely unnerving about having someone (my host sisters boyfriend, to be exact) casually, almost blithely ask you (a function, really, of his tentative english) about whether you had heard about the events in london. a day after thinking to yourself, things could be happening and I wouldn't know (gdub was on the news, but it was juxtaposed with anarchists in russia and live8, and I had no idea where he was).
in other news, I went out with the english teacher at the school where I work, and some of my students....and we drank beer (with my students) and they were telling me, this is just the beginning. uh oh. :)
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not really, but I had no idea. there is something genuinely unnerving about having someone (my host sisters boyfriend, to be exact) casually, almost blithely ask you (a function, really, of his tentative english) about whether you had heard about the events in london. a day after thinking to yourself, things could be happening and I wouldn't know (gdub was on the news, but it was juxtaposed with anarchists in russia and live8, and I had no idea where he was).
in other news, I went out with the english teacher at the school where I work, and some of my students....and we drank beer (with my students) and they were telling me, this is just the beginning. uh oh. :)
"I'm far away and I'm feeling alone I've got one week behind me and six more to go..."
when one of the girls kept fondly quoting from lord of the rings during orientation week, the part when one of the hobbits is like, what about second breakfast! and elevenses! she wasn't kidding....not two hours go by without food being offered to me.
teaching the same thing 5 times in a row is....a tad monotonous.
yet there is def. something idyllic about hanging out here...sometimes I've forgotten exactly where I am.
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when one of the girls kept fondly quoting from lord of the rings during orientation week, the part when one of the hobbits is like, what about second breakfast! and elevenses! she wasn't kidding....not two hours go by without food being offered to me.
teaching the same thing 5 times in a row is....a tad monotonous.
yet there is def. something idyllic about hanging out here...sometimes I've forgotten exactly where I am.
Monday, July 04, 2005
do you want to go to the flood?
I was so nervous, moving into my host family's house, that no sooner had they assured me our house is your house when the icecream cone I was eating flew out of my hand (of its own volition) and landed several feet away. awks.
and I just taught my first class! they were advanced students, so the "lesson" I had "prepared" was woefully, painfully, too short. not cool with this hour and a half thing- I'm a 45 minute girl born and raised. but now many many polish children will be mispronouncing truculent. oops.
and who would have known- I got tearyeyed, talking about the fourth of july.
but janow is green and quaint with a huge plaza infront of the school, unlike stalowa's concrete jungleness. and indeed, a lovely lake.
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I was so nervous, moving into my host family's house, that no sooner had they assured me our house is your house when the icecream cone I was eating flew out of my hand (of its own volition) and landed several feet away. awks.
and I just taught my first class! they were advanced students, so the "lesson" I had "prepared" was woefully, painfully, too short. not cool with this hour and a half thing- I'm a 45 minute girl born and raised. but now many many polish children will be mispronouncing truculent. oops.
and who would have known- I got tearyeyed, talking about the fourth of july.
but janow is green and quaint with a huge plaza infront of the school, unlike stalowa's concrete jungleness. and indeed, a lovely lake.
Saturday, July 02, 2005
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