thursday December 3, 2009 9:07 pm
mom is asleep on the couch, as she is tired of pulling it out and has scrunched herself up really small. it’s kind of cute, though i don’t imagine it will continue to be comfortable.
found out, today, where the native speakers bar is. it’s in the rynek, across from the information center. i’ll have to check it out tomorrow, or something.
today was the day for errands, so we put a ton of time on my cell phone and then opened a bank account. then i had my one class for the day, a group of young adults who spoke polish the whole time. ok, that’s not fair, it wasn’t the whole time. this was the group i sat in on last week, my first day here, and i was shocked, then, how much polish was being spoken. i need to figure out a way to make them stop, without being a disciplinarian, or bribing them.
games? fun? need something. my first thought was to have a contest to see how little they could speak polish, and whoever spoke the least got something. but what? and what the fuck, that’s bribing, isn’t it? i need to get some opinions from some other teachers. it really threw me off, that they wouldn’t stop even when i was standing there clapping my hands and yelling.
sucks.
it’s been such a difficult week, and i’m going to have to learn quick how to not suck at this. no, i don’t suck, i’m just thrown so easily by some things, and it’s hard to get back on my feet. or maybe i just kick myself for things a little harder than i need to . Gordon always told me i was too hard on myself, whenever we were teaching together. then again … yeah, whatever.
i think it just sank in, that i opened a bank account. wow, that feels like a big thing. i wasn’t really expecting to do that, and then i kept hearing that it was a good idea, and then work told me that it was easier to do direct deposit, so now i have a bank account in Poland. whoah.
i feel this huge urge to get settled in a way that is not possible at the moment. it makes me feel anxious and annoyed. i don’t know what to do about it. and i …
whatever.
anyway, today we took the bus to the Poczta Głowa, or the main post office, and then walked from one end of ulica Walowa to the other. Walowa is a circular street that winds around the top of Old Town Square, the former site, i think, of a protective wall. i need to look that up and find out if that is true, or if i just think it is true. it’s crazy cobblestones and closed to traffic, though a car flew through it today, so i guess it is not entirely closed to traffic. it is always crowded with people, which feels really nice. ul Krakowska, the street my school (and now bank) is on, winds downhill to the west of the Old Town, beginning at one end of Walowa. It is also always full of people. at Walowa and Krakowska is the former site of my school, until two months ago. It would be nice if it was still there, though the crowds may be annoying in the tourist season. i remember this city, in the height of summer, full of drunken brits, and hard to maneuver through, even though it was pouring.
i want to walk to work more often. i wish i didn’t have these fucking course books to carry with me all the time. argh. who wanted to be a teacher, again?
i was walking up krakowska to the rynek, to use the internet at the restaurant there, the only place we have found with free wifi, and i almost twisted my ankle in a giant gap between cobblestones. this was refreshing, in a way. i noticed this in prague, as well; there is a noticeable lack of fear about pending lawsuits everywhere. it’s a stereotype, yes, and one of my students commented on it (now i can’t remember if it was here or in prague, Czech student? or polish? agh). they were tearing up the street down the hill from our house in prague, and they just left these huge gaps in the sidewalk. in the US they would have had to block off the whole area, and create a safe space to walk around, and not out of courtesy, but out of fear.
i wouldn’t mind it if it was out of courtesy.
so, walk with your head down here, to a certain extent.
i did trip the other day, coming out the Empik down the street. Empik is a chain, all over Poland, and probably elsewhere. (they even run a language school that i probably couldn’t get a job at. fucked up). there is one a block down the street from my house. I wanted to see if they had any books/magazines in English, the books for me, the magazines for my students. I think i need to ask my students tomorrow where those bookstores that have english books actually are. i’ve gone into quite a few stores (there are a ton of bookstores here, and in prague, and in torun. i adore it. it makes me big nerd) but i can’t seem to find the ones with the english sections, like i was told by my friday students last week.
still haven’t checked out the antykwariats, or used book stores, though.
anyway, i was coming out of the Empik, and i tripped over what amounts to nothing, and i fell, and i dropped my book bag (i carry a damn book bag now. sheesh.) my cookies fell out of the bag. (Christ, how wholesome). and i almost tore my one pair of “fancy pants” (i need to go shopping in one of the many many used clothing stores here, and buy more fancy pants). and no one said or did anything, except for this one older gentleman, who said something to me, and i was trying to figure out if i knew the words, and i don’t think i did, and i was staring at him, and he kept repeating, and i said “Nie rozumiem,” but he just kept repeating it, and then i shrugged and walked away, and he just kept staring after me, and at no point did he seem caring or concerned. he just stared. and repeated.
i tried to remember what he was saying, or an approximation, to bring back to mom later, so she could translate. what i came back with was whatever was left of the last word in my mind, which resembled a mix of the polish word for “word” and the polish word for “freedom.”
hmmm.
ok, arms are hurting, a slight bit from a lot of typing lately. still haven’t written about leszek. still don’t know what to do with the business class tomorrow. something fun and full of talking. yes. sleep on it. ok.
10:07pm
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