Zakopane

Having decided that I was going to rest, I left my computer at home, which means that my only internet access in this God forsaken yet beautiful place is my dad's laptop, which I don't get to use very often. Besides, to be honest, I did not come here to spend my time sitting inside and surfing on the internet, I came here to conquer high peaks, brave the snow and the cold and drink a lot of mulled wine (mental note to self - I haven't had any yet, time to make up for that).
That to explain my hitherto silence and the silence to come, as well as the fact that this post will be hectic and generally rubbish, but I need to hurry cause there's a dad out there wanting his computer back and there's a world out there wanting me back.
Having said that, I don't know what to say - I mean, I have loads to say, plenty of little funny or absurd things happening on the way, in Warsaw and here, but I don't really know where to start. I'll try to keep a note of them and retrospect a bit once back in Brum. For now, there are mountains out there...

German Christmas Market

I was standing by the pretzel stand enjoying a pretzel, when I suddenly heard:
‘Miss, Miss, did you speak German to her to buy that pretzel?’ and without waiting for my answer, to the pretzel-lady: ‘Did she speak German to you?’
‘No’ the pretzel lady answered politely, which only encouraged the little buggers.
‘Are you German?’
‘No, I’m not’.
‘Oh, cause she’s our German teacher. Where are you from then?’
‘I’m Polish.’
‘Oh my God! She’s Polish too! Miss, Miss, speak Polish to her! Go on then Miss!’
At which point I smiled apologetically at the pretzel lady and satisfied their request: ‘Sorry’ I said ‘School trip…’.

On Wednesdays

If you want my opinion, Wednesday is the worst day of the week. The energy you had after a restful weekend is gone, and when your weekend wasn’t restful – as it was the case for me, sleepless in Brum for three nights in a row without a reason really – it is even worse. And there’s still more time to crawl through until next weekend than has elapsed since the last one. So on Wednesday mornings the world is not a friendly place, and all I want is to stay in bed and feel sorry for myself. Which usually means I do stay in bed longer than I should, and then I have to rush my way out, which only adds to the horrible Wednesday feeling, cause I hate rushing, especially in the morning.
But Wednesday is also the day when my Year 7 group has their Citizenship lesson in the classroom opposite mine. And once the bell goes, they spill out into the corridor and peek into my room saying: ‘Hi German teacher!’, ‘Safe Miss!’ and ‘I can’t wait till tomorrow’s lesson Miss!’ and my heart grows and I realise that actually it is after lunch so the next weekend is closer than the previous one already and I can’t wait till tomorrow’s lesson either, cause we always have loads of fun. And there goes the Wednesday feeling, cause suddenly it is almost Friday and there are cool things ahead.

Straight or bent

In the school I work at I have to deliver citizenship lessons to a year 8 group. And last homework I gave them yielded a couple of beauties, my favourite being an answer to the following question:
Homosexual couples are not allowed to get married. Why is that wrong?
Well, apparently because you should be allowed to marry who you want whether you are straight or bent.

The Nutcracker

was brilliant. We loved the Snowflakes, although we were rather disappointed by the Sugar Plum Fairy. In my humble opinion she should have had some more power and all she did was execute a number of highly skilful and admirable but still – poses. Oh well. It still was great.
What was not so great was the way out of there – it took us almost an hour just to get out of the car park! And there was this bastard who went through the ‘no exit’ lane and pushed his way into the queue right in front of us! Seriously, just because you have a landrover, it doesn’t mean you’re exempt from queuing like everybody else! And the British are supposed to be the masters of the art of queuing! And Naomi didn’t even use the horn on him, I suppose cause we were still in the car park. But she did use it on some other bastards trying to force their way through on Broad Street, which was fun. As was singing along to Tina while queuing. It could have been a fairly entertaining queuing if it hadn’t been for the bastard in the landrover (who gave a whole new meaning to ‘nutcracker’ I guess). Oh well. Sleep now!

Everybody happy

You can’t make everyone happy. It’s a sweet thing to try, but it just doesn’t work. Usually you make yourself unhappy in the process and most of the time someone else ends up upset or pissed off as well. I’ve learnt it the hard way, but I have. Now it looks that I’m going to have to deal with the problem from the other side.
There are a few really good Polish expressions that would sum up the situation perfectly, unfortunately none of them translate properly to English. Like ‘masz babo placek’. Or, even better, ‘widziały gały co brały’.
Oh well. I suppose I’ll just have to live with it.
Unfortunately living with it at this particular moment is not the easiest thing as high doses of antibiotics mess up my system, making me feel tired and sick all the time (as if dealing with the lack of sunlight wasn’t enough on its own).
Enough moaning though, am going to see the Nutcracker with Naomi tonight. Should take my mind off things.

Dream Number 3

As the days get shorter, I tend to get gloomy and grumpy and life seems generally blah. I suppose I could continue on that note, but there’s really no point – it’s all light depravation, nothing more, nothing less. So instead – here’s dream number 3.

I’m at my high school reunion. I see my schoolmates and, inevitably, the guy I was hopelessly in love with while at school. He has grown a beard and looks seriously silly, cause the beard is really just irregular tuffs of hair here and there. I go to the loo that the organisers’ have given me the key to. Then there is a break and we go back to the hotel before the evening conference. I realise that I need to go to the loo again, this time to change a tampon (sorry if this is too much information, but it’s just a dream). I go to hotel loos on different floors but they are all filthy. The conference centre is too far. I want to do what I have to do in my room, but I’m sharing it and there are other people there. I keep trying to find a clean toilet, but they are all horrid.

Again, this is not my first dream of filthy stalls. The difference is that until now I always needed them for a simple wee and ended up resolving to using the least filthy one. And it all took place back in high school.

Here’s what Dream Moods has to say on the subject:
“To see an overflowing or flooded toilet in your dream, denotes your desires to fully express your emotions.”
“dreams of needing to go to the bathroom, suggest [the] need to let go of some relationship that has ran its course” – but I manage that, so that’s done. I presume my subconscious is giving me a clap for killing prince charming by letting me wee in a clean loo. Finally: “To dream of menstruation, indicates that you are releasing your pent-up tension and worry. It signals an end to your difficult times and the beginning of relaxation. It may mean that some creative energy is being released or recognised.” - I certainly hope so!

Dream Number 2

This one is from around a month ago.
I am driving somewhere through a city. I’m enjoying the drive but in the same time I feel the need to get wherever I’m going on time. Suddenly, I realise that I do not have a driver’s license and that if I get stopped, I will go to jail. My driving is impeccable and there’s no reason why I should get stopped, nevertheless I pull over and stop the car. Then I get out and I ask a passer by to park it for me.

Again, from what I know, driving is the dreamer’s life journey and path in life. Losing your driver’s license is losing your identity or the autonomy to move towards your goals. But I have never had a driver’s license (and I know it perfectly well in the dream). So?

This dream is not a new one – I’ve had it several times already. The difference is that until now, when I realised I didn’t have a driver’s license, I kept on driving just being extra careful. This is the first time I actually stop the car.

‘Are they making little planes?’

The form I am covering now has a very specific schedule of activities. Thursday is presentation day, where they take turns presenting topics of interest to them. This morning one boy talked about aeroplanes. He explained the safety, he explained different bits and pieces on the wings and elsewhere and then he changed slides and said:
‘And now, the cockpit. … Don’t get any wrong ideas!’
There was a moment of silence and we all burst out laughing. Highly inappropriate, I know, but there was really nothing I could do about it… There was no way he was going to say anything substantial about the cockpit, so he moved on to tanking in flight. The slide accompanying that bit showed two planes one on top of the other. And the comment wasn’t long to be made. What didn’t help, was that the rear of the upper one really looked a lot like a bum.
Ah, the one tracked minds of 12 year olds…

Dream number 1

There are dreams that you forget as soon as you open your eyes, others stay with you after you wake up. Sometimes they’re clearly embedded in your current situation, sometimes they seem completely unrelated – or so it would seem. Personally, I believe that your dreams, especially the latter kind, are the way your subconscious is talking to you. The problem is to understand them.
Lately (within last couple of months or so) I’ve had three of such dreams. I think I know why – my life has changed a lot and my subconscious wants me to deal with it properly. The problem is that I’m not sure what it wants to tell me exactly. But enough introductions, here’s dream number one (dating around 2 months ago):
I am on my way home and I can’t wait to get there, cause I’m tired and I want my bed. Unfortunately, when I get there, I find that the person whom I left in charge (I don’t know who that is, an anonymous person) rented the rooms out to wrong people. The house is a mess and it is noisy. I go to the first floor (attic?) to talk to the said person in charge, then I come back downstairs and face the troublesome strangers. There is an argument, I shout a lot, but manage to kick them out.
Now, a house is the dreamer’s own soul and self. But what about the troublesome strangers?
Any thoughts?

to be continued…

Oh just save it!

For around a week now, I’ve been working at a school that didn’t want me back in May, covering a sick leave. They called me directly cause they had been soooo impressed with me back in May and hoped I was available and they were soooo lucky that I was and that I could come in and work with them and they were sooooo bummed that they couldn’t hire me back in May, and oh just shut up or I’ll smack you. You could have hired me back in May. You chose not to, and that’s that, cut the crap! Last week I was mostly swinging between anger and disappointment. Not a good place to be. By now however I’ve reached the point where it became all about the kids and I’m really enjoying working there (as I knew I would back in May) and to be honest nothing else matters. Well, if you don’t count the fact that I can’t stay there and I’ve already managed to get attached to some of them little buggers.

But good news is that as of January I’ll be on a two terms supply contract with one school, which means stability, two terms of induction out of the way and steady professional development, which seriously makes me happy. I was actually offered two such posts, one of which was in the school where vile children make me swear in the classroom, it goes without saying that I decided against that one. But the other offer was also better, so my decision wasn’t based solely on that though!

On being nice

I went for a drink with José the other night – it took some effort to pull him out of his NQT private hell, but then he was as happy to take a break from it all as I was to have a human being to speak to. And José being José, I didn’t have to wait long for yet another immortal quote. He was telling me about a wedding he went to the previous weekend, where he saw a few people from the programme. As they were exchanging information about how they were doing and how the absent others were doing, Naomi filled them in on my potential move to Milton Keynes. To which José said: ‘Good for her, maybe she’ll finally be nice!’. Which didn’t go down well at all. He tried to explain but worried that he did not manage to put what he meant through and hoped that if I had heard about it already, I wasn’t angry at him.
I wasn’t. I was laughing out laud, because I could just see the outraged looks and shocked expressions, and ‘how-can-you-say-that’-s he was describing.
Also because it’s so José to say something like that.
And because I didn’t need much explaining to know that ‘maybe she’ll finally be nice’ really meant ‘maybe life will finally be nice to her’.

And may his wish come true, cause lately life’s been more of a bitch. A shitty week was crowned by an even shittier Friday, culminating with me standing in the middle of New Street in a cold drizzle sobbing down the phone that I missed my train. But let’s not go there – a new week is starting, my batteries have been recharged over the weekend, so I shall brace myself and hope for the best.

Post-holiday mess

As much as I enjoyed having Monday off, on Tuesday I started to feel restless and ended up feeling pretty miserable by the evening. A nice portion of ice cream took care of that, this morning however I felt even worse. It didn’t matter all that much, I told myself, it was going to go away as soon as I got into a classroom. But that didn’t happen – my agent had forgotten to mention I needed to have my CRB (criminal record check) on me so they sent me back home.
By the time I got home, I had figured it all out: I was feeling lonely. I had just spent a week among people who know me and love me, and I’m back here now, reduced to stuffed animals looking at me sympathetically as I’m reading in bed while Paul gets to see his friends (which is good for him, really, it just doesn’t make me feel better). So I decided to do something about it. However, there is only so much you can do when all your local friends had moved away or are in their first year of teaching and overwhelmed by it.
By then it was crying it out or sweating it out, and as the latter seemed more productive I set off to the gym. Once there, I decided to hook my headphones to the news channel thinking that images of people celebrating Obama’s victory would help the process. Unfortunately I was rather emotionally challenged at that point so it only made me cry, and more it made me cry, more purposefully I marched on my treadmill, which did the trick: 10 bloody kilometres and buckets of sweat later, I was feeling much better.
Only it didn’t last.
So the only solution I had left at that point was to get myself a drink and dig out my long forgotten Tori Amos cds. And I find it both disturbing and comforting how I still know all the lyrics.

Final stage of Grinch-ism

I hate Christmas.
Or at least I used to.
Or maybe I not so much hated it as held a grudge against it.
It doesn’t matter really what you call it, suffice to say that the first wonderful whiffs of winter in the air always associated in my mind with the impending doom of omnipresent carols playing everywhere over and over again until you want to scream, fake Santas reeking of alcohol at every corner ho-ho-ing unconvincingly at children who aren’t even really interested cause they believe in the X-Box now, the general mostly failed effort to be merry and bright, pushing through swarms of people, hugging protectively your handbag to your chest while trying to find a decent Xmas gift for everyone on a limited budget and repressing tears as your feet are being stepped on, your ribs get elbowed and your bottom is being groped by perverts thriving in such crowds, and feeling generally insecure, lonely and generally blah. Which inevitably made me go into instant hibernation mode and dread the moment when the first Xmas offers would start jumping out at me from all sides and first Xmas decorations would start appearing around town in all their sparkly, shiny, nauseatingly merry glory.
I spotted first of those a few weeks ago and they made me cringe as usual.
But.
Yesterday, as we were driving through town, I spotted a particularly in-your-face Xmas advert and… it made me smile.
And this morning, as I was blessed with an extra day off and had nothing better to do, I started on my Xmas shopping while trying to remember where I hid those reindeer antlers I got at the Xmas do last year and wondering if I could get Xmas decorations anywhere yet.
Dear God.
I seem to have reached the final stage of Grinch-ism, the happy ending of the tale (which I used to claim spoilt the whole thing). And I must say that I find it slightly disturbing. Cause that means that this year at least my green fur is staying in the closet and it is a very cosy green fur, even if it is rather ugly...

English weather in the South of France

I’m back to Brum after a week of what was supposed to be sunshine, wine and cheese, and well, sunshine didn’t happen. Apparently the first weekend was glorious, but I missed it completely as I spent it dying in bed, cause as usual in the beginning of a holiday my body said ‘No more work? Letting go!’ and put me through all colds, migraines and stomach troubles it had bravely resisted through school time. Uh, oh.
I was going to put updates up regularly, but I found myself cut from the internet as my adoptive grandma’s computer died on her the day before our arrival. And now I’m at a loss, cause recounting everything would take pages and pages and so I should probably try to sum it up somehow, which is not easy at all.
It was blissful. In spite of the weather. Just seeing all those faces after having missed them so much!
Two huge emotional moments, first when spotting Sainte Victoire from the plane, then one evening at the dinner table, when I just wanted my life there back, but of course that is not possible and, of course, if I had not moved away, then… etc.
My still growing hair was a big hit, apparently it looks like a lion’s mane and I hide rainbows in it (as one can see on little Guillaume’s portrait of me, which he unfortunately refused to part with, cause wanted to remember me by).
Everyone was excited about meeting Paul, I was excited about everybody meeting Paul, Papi loved Paul absolutely which, if you know Papi, you know is not to be taken for granted.
And well, it was all smiling, hugging, making merry, talking, eating and drinking (uh, oh, body needs tea-totalling for a while now!).
All to be done all over again at Easter (cause it got somehow decided that we would be back at Easter and well, we did not protest too much) but hopefully in a better weather and in less of a hurry!

Obscenities

I’m hot.
A simple solution to that problem would of course be to turn the heating down but that can not be done as heaps of clothes I just washed are drying and need to be dry a.s.a.p. cause I’m packing! One more day of cheeky brats and then, after a brief stop in MK, it’s all wine, cheese and sunshine – although some of you did not fail to point out that it’s actually raining out there right now. Well, if I’m to trust Metcheck, I shall bring you sunshine!

In the meantime, here’s a funny one for you:
I’ve spent last few days at a school specialising in languages, although I mostly taught English, but that is not the point. As many other schools with the same specialism, all signs inside this one were not only in English but also in other languages spoken/taught in the school. One of the languages this school included in its signs is Polish – not that they teach Polish or that I’d have encountered any Polish kids, but that, once again, is not the point. The point is that this morning, as I was walking through the building, I noticed the signs on the languages classrooms and stopped dead before starting to giggle uncontrollably: the sign said ‘languages’ ‘langues’ ‘Sprachen’ ‘lenguas’ and the same thing again and again in other languages unknown to me, but next to all that I read ‘grubiaństwa’, which is Polish all right, but means… ‘obscenities’.
I can’t help but wonder if it is a result of a failed attempt on translation by someone who didn’t actually speak Polish or if someone played a practical joke on the school.
I’m also trying to decide whether I should tell someone in the school or leave it for other random Poles to enjoy…

Drunk driving

What do you say to one of the most important people in your world when they tell you they drank and drove and hit something and didn’t know what it was, cause they were so drunk that they didn’t even think to stop and see?
You ask them if they’re ok.
You ask them if there was any evidence of blood on the car and start crying in relief when they tell you that it was definitely an inanimate hard object given the damage to the vehicle.
And then you rage and you summon all the most elaborate invectives in your vocabulary but you fail and resort to the most common ones, but your deliver them vehemently in spite of tears.
Because, thinking they could control their drinking and didn’t need AA anymore, they deserved each and every one of them. And they know it too, but still you tell them.
You tell them.
And then you tell them, you’re so angry with them you don’t even want to speak to them anymore and that if they don’t get their posterior back into AA meetings, you’ll never speak to them again. Cause God knows that once you’ve decided you loved someone it was damn hard to get rid of you, but you’re not going to go to bed each night wondering whether they killed someone or themselves.
And then, a couple of hours later, you cry yourself to sleep imagining what life would be like without them.
And that, ladies and gentleman, seriously sucks.

On being Polish

I had two interesting conversations concerned with my nationality today. They went like this:

1.
- Miss, is it true you’re Polish?
- Yes, I am.
- Aaaaaah, that explains it!
- What do you mean?
- Polish people are nasty!

2.
- Miss, are you really Polish?
- Yes, I am.
- Oooooh, bless! (in a tone of voice implying that it was the most endearing thing my interlocutor had ever heard).

One was with a student, one with a teaching assistant. Guess which one with whom. Guess which one annoyed me more.

Russell

We met a few weeks ago, during a weekend I was spending in MK. He was a little sceptical about me, but then decided that I was ok, or at least so it seemed, since he agreed to lend me his pillow. In exchange, I lent him my ear, and he told me stories of Brussels, his hometown, although we both thought it was quite an unusual place for a Polar Bear to be from.
He told me he often dreamt about Iceland and was quite disappointed to have missed an opportunity to go there, but hoped that one day maybe another opportunity will arise again. I told him of my dreams of Norway and said that I could maybe take him with me if I ever went, if he was interested in going, that is. We talked and talked, until we fell asleep, me with my head on his pillow, him with his muzzle still by my ear. The next morning I was rushing for my train, so we exchanged hasty ‘nice to have met you’-s and ‘see you when I see you’-s.

The following weekend, I was delightfully surprised to see him climb out of Paul’s bag – he wanted to see me, he said. He thought that we should talk some more. The beginnings were slightly awkward as Hoffman the Dog was somewhat unimpressed with what he thought was competition. Happily, he quickly warmed up to Russell and decided that it was nice to have someone to keep him company when I was away. Besides, he said, Russell could do things he couldn’t do himself, because of being too big (Russell is a very small Polar Bear). Like get into my teacher’s bag so that I don’t have to go alone to that vile school with vile children that make me swear in the classroom. Like go places and then tell him all about them. Cause Hoffman is a very curious Dog, and Russell is full of stories and enjoys telling them, unlike Didier, who is a Travelling and Adventurous Frog, but being a Frog is rather haughty, a trait that Hoffman doesn’t appreciate much.

On a few occasions Russell talked about going back to MK, as he missed Paul, but somehow never made it into his bag. Nevertheless, his first question every morning is invariably ‘Is it Friday yet?’ (polar bears don’t have a very good sense of time). If I say ‘no’, he asks ‘how long till Friday?’. If I say ‘yes’, he says ‘Uh, oh, happy Friday then’ and lets out a chuffed growl.

I have been tagged!

It is always nice to find out that people read your musings – especially when the main reason for your blog is to stay in touch with all those people you love but are far away from, as it is the case for yours truly. Consequently, I was thrilled to find myself tagged by Tasha – I didn’t know she was reading, and now I do, and that makes me happy.

So first my 7 random facts:

1) I love random facts. Like that the Earth is 0.02 degrees hotter during full moon. Like that in France technically it is illegal for a woman to wear trousers (except when riding a horse or a bike) because of a law dated 1892 that was never abolished. Like that apparently coffee drinkers have sex more often than people who don’t drink coffee.

2) I share my birthday with, among others, John Coltrane, Ray Charles and Eurypides (although I sincerely do not know how did Wikipedia people manage to figure it out for that last one).

3) My very favourite place in the entire world are Tatra mountains in Poland (Zakopane). Any mountains make me happy, but there is just something about these particular peaks that makes it a true soul asylum for me. No demons can go there.

4) I sing most of the time. I try to keep it in my head when in public, but I quite often fail.

5) I love garlic sandwiches. One of the best things about being sick when I was little was my dad making them for me (cause garlic boosts up your defences and you’re sick in bed, so no one cares if you sweat it out and stink). Take a slice of bread, butter it, put chopped up raw garlic on it and finish off with some salt. Yum. (I have just made some for Manpreet, as she’s poorly and off work, she was sceptical at first but then loved them).

6) I can’t sleep without my stuffed dog. What can I say – a 25 years long habit is not easily lost. Not that I’ve tried though.

7) My favourite season is winter. Even if it is not snowing, although of course it is much better with snow. There is something about the crispness of the winter air that makes you feel more alive and makes everything sharper and more there. And then there are the evenings, dark and cold, which make your home and bed even cosier than usual.

And now for the tagging –
Tasha has already tagged some of the blogs I would have tagged, but there’s still one by an old friend of mine Ewelina and Carina’s culinary pages, and then some by people I don’t know but whose writing I enjoy: Annie Rhiannon, Morning Coffee, German Joys. I know it's not 7 but that's all I've got.

On swearing in the classroom

I said ‘shit’ in the classroom and I sincerely hope that you can’t get sacked for that.
It was the last lesson of the day, and just after I had texted Paul saying that if the last lot I had today was to be half as bad (rude, disruptive, disrespectful) as the four I had before, I was going to cry.
It was much worse.
And so I said ‘shit’.
I said: ‘Why would I care how you feel if you don’t care how your behaviour makes me feel and you obviously don’t give a shit?’
‘Did she say the S WORD???!!!’
‘Did she actually say S-H-I-T?’
‘Miss, you can’t swear!’
‘I will tell that you swore in the classroom!’
Sure you will sweetheart. Cause you’re dumb enough to hope it will get you out of the detention. And cause you’re petty enough to want to get back at me for that detention, even if you’ve deserved every single minute of it and even more, and you know it.
I hate supply teaching. I really do.
But I have to do it for now, so I will light some candles, pour myself a glass of wine and think happy thoughts.

On achievements and serenity

Last weekend Paul learned how to count to 100, which could be an odd statement, if I forgot to mention that he learned to do that in Polish. Although sums are still a bit of a problem.

I found that I could talk (‘What do you mean?! You talk all the time!’), and I was told that I thought too much and that I should stop thinking, cause it was all very simple really, if it felt right then it was right and this feels right and that’s that. Which was exactly what I needed to be told.

And I made my amazing boyfriend sandwiches for work thinking that as long as I have that atavistic need to feed him, everything is all right (which, quite suitably, is another thing he learned to say in Polish).

Thursday

1.
I got fed up with not knowing when the deadline for submitting my PhD for publication was, nor what other documents I had to provide and fed up with waiting for answers, so I decided to nag. This time the university press did reply (miracle!) and provided all information required, which I read with great care and attention and decided that was that. The deadline was on the 30th (that’s bloody Tuesday!), and yes, my edited text could be ready by then (if I didn’t do anything else until, but that was not going to happen) but they also needed a presentation of its academic values (which also could be done, even if I had no idea what I was supposed to write) and the endorsement of the Head of Faculty on the application letter. And there is no way in the world that one could be done within three working days I had left.
So that was that. I had blown it. I should have worked more. I should have nagged earlier. Now it was too late.
So I went down to the lounge, put the TV on and watched two episodes of Scrubs in total dumbness and resignation.
Then I went back upstairs and managed to get hold of my supervisor… who told me not to worry, she was going to take her copy of my PhD to the publishing committee’s meeting, fill in an application form and get the Head of Faculty to sign it.
“Oh…” I gasped with cautious half-relief “but your copy is not edited!”
“Don’t worry, you’ll do that once they’ve decided to publish.”
WHAT?! All these hours spent trying to make it on time, hard work, stress and all?! WHAT?!
“But, but… it’s more than 300 pages, you said 300…”
“You’ll just have to cut it down slightly to some 350 pages.” she said in the same time.
WHAT?! All those things I have already cut out with bleeding heart to get it under 300 pages, why? It already IS under 350 pages! WHAT?!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful. And relieved. Because after all I haven’t blown it. Because it’s still all on. But still. Seriously!
Anyway.

2.
After all that I was relieved but still shaky and there was no way I was getting back to work, not with all that information, and I needed to calm down first anyway, so I started surfing on the Internet, which eventually led me to the Times Educational Supplement website, where they publish all the job ads for teachers. I put in all my criteria without much hope, after all I had checked it the day before, and there it was: “French Teacher, permanent contract, secondary school… Milton Keynes.”
I had always thought that at one point I might have to consider moving to MK, I also said I was going to let life decide – apply for jobs both here and there and see what I get first.
But this made it real. There is a job running, I am of course going to apply, and then I might get it, and then I will have to move, to a place where Paul is the only person I know, and I’m not scared of turning my life upside down for my own fantasy, been there, done that, was fun, but this, this is scary!
At that point I could distinctly feel an impending panic crisis come down on me, so I went out, got a bottle of wine, poured myself a huge glass and just sat there waiting for Susanne to come around so that I could properly vent.

3.
Susanne was coming around cause we were going to the Yardbird for a jazz gig as part of my birthday celebrations. We had some dinner (I had forgotten lunch in all that upheaval), I had another glass of wine and we sat there talking, or rather I was talking, and gradually calming myself down. By 7.30 we were all ready to go and just waiting for a friend of mine who was going to give us a ride, and I had just decreed that if I had not had a heart attack today, I was probably safe for ever after, when the knock on the door came. So I went to open… and there stood Paul.

Apparently, my first reaction to my boyfriend’s surprise appearance was: “Oh fuck!”.
But it really was all about the tone of voice. Really.

4.
At the Yardbird I’ve managed to get drunk on two pints of beer.
After we got home I cried a bit and then had a full blown głupawka (which is that state where you get into fits of uncontrollable laughter over things that really are not that funny at all – no other language has a good word for it).
And then I lay sleepless next to my snoring boyfriend and tried not to start freaking out again.
But all is good.
Life knows what it’s doing.
At least I hope so.

“Debussy is a wanker”

I ruled as we were clapping vigorously at the end of the first part of the concert.
“Oh… but I love this piece.” said Paul.
“Well… he just doesn’t have enough balls” I said as if that was any better – but in my defence, I had been drinking for solid 7 hours by then, as Shell and Preet had unexpectedly started off my birthday celebrations right after noon, and we all know that if you start drinking at lunch time, the only way not to give into a severe somnolence that could make you sleep through your own birthday is to keep drinking. So I did.
Nevertheless, I was still relatively sober, not sober enough however to avoid getting seriously emotional during Rachmaninov’s 2nd Symphony, but I guess getting emotional kind of is the actual point of it all.
I was also not sober enough to refrain from sticking my hand under Paul’s nose claiming that this is what being at the Symphony Hall smelled like, and that I would be highly unimpressed if they put a different hand lotion in the loos. Although by that time it was all his fault, as he fed me two more glasses of wine at the concert.
He’s also already discovered that I’m ‘a little weird’, as he kindly puts it, so I guess there’s no need to worry.

Some more on hair and minor panic crisis

“Gah!” I gasped, standing in Craig and Ann’s bathroom yesterday morning (well, afternoon), washing my hands. I gasped, because I had just glanced at myself in the mirror and spotted a streak of grey hair on the very top of my head. I gasped, and then I examined my head with great care, in case I was wrong, but I wasn’t, it was definitely there.
Oh God.
I composed myself as best I could, but then as soon as the boys were out of the room, I pointed to my head: “Look Ann, grey hair, right here!” Ann examined my head with great care and confirmed the presence of the horror. “All Paul’s fault” she ruled and we both giggled, but quite seriously, if I get a streak of grey hair just because my boyfriend omits to include me in a rice and naan order, then I’m in trouble. Cause then imagine when something actually wrong happens! I mean, soon I’m going to be back at school! I’m going to turn completely grey in no time! And I have nothing against grey hair as such, I actually think it looks dignified and am not planning on dying mine, but it’s way too early, I’m not even 31! (at least not for one more day, but that’s beside the point.)

Later on, back home, when Paul was in the shower, I made Carina pull the horror out of my head. There were all two of them.
But somehow they had managed to look like a whole streak.
I think I’m having a mild case of birthday panic…

(Explanatory note: Craig and Ann are friends of Paul’s, with whom we went to the Lake District and to Alton Towers and several other places.)

No, I’m not Russian…

Meeting your boyfriend’s former colleagues can prove quite entertaining indeed (if you don’t count having the “And what are you up to? – Oh, I’m in supply for now. – Oh… don’t worry, something will come up.” conversation one time too many).

There was this one girl (that Paul claims having talked to maybe twice in his life) who spent a good moment telling me what a lovely bloke he was, speaking veeeeery sloooowly indeeeeed and checking if I understood her every once in a while. I was a bit puzzled until I spotted a coin on the floor, and she insisted I kept it ‘as a souvenir from England’. Then it dawned on me: she thought I was one of the Russian exchange teachers their school was hosting and well, that I had just pulled Paul at the party!
‘Dear, I’m not Russian’ I chuckled ‘I’m actually Polish’.
‘Oh’ she said, with a puzzled look on her face and the conversation faltered. And then, when she finally figured it out, she told me – with that exalted insistence you only get when someone’s had one drink to many – what a lucky lady I was. How could I disagree?

The girl who got the job we didn’t get was there too, and she was feeling quite insecure around us, poor thing. But, nice people that we are, we were very friendly and all, having agreed behind her back that comparing what she’s got out of that interview with what we’ve got out of it, we’re definitely much better off (as, from what we hear, many people both staff and students regard her as the evil lady who took Paul’s job).

As for the rest of the weekend, here’s one for you: Although I have to admit that keeping this thing airborne for longer than one minute was beyond our skills and knowledge. But we’re not giving up and one day it shall fly properly, cause we’re smart and it’s not – after all, it’s just a kite!

On how I won a cruise to Caribbean

For a long while, my parents had to call me simultaneously on my mobile and my land line so that I would know to answer the latter – the phone just didn’t ring. On top of that, speaking to anyone for more than 5 minutes resulted inevitably in a back pain, as the only way you could position yourself while on the phone was squatting on the stairs, where you would also necessarily be in the way of anyone trying to get from the lounge to the kitchen, and who sometimes inadvertently kicked you as passing by or spilled their drink on your head.
So a couple of weeks ago I have finally decided to go buy a new phone. I opted for wireless, so that I could have my transatlantic counselling sessions comfortably lying on my bed and so that my flatmates were not forced to listen to my occasional highly vocal disagreements with my parents. Unfortunately the phone came with very short cables, so I had to redecorate the entrance by sticking them to the floor with bright blue masking tape, which was the only potentially appropriate thing I could find. But that was not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that now it won’t stop ringing.
‘Hello?’ – ‘You have just won a cruise to the Caribbean…’.
I don’t want to go to the Caribbean and I don’t want to know what I would have to buy to actually go, I want to sit down and concentrate on my work, if you don’t mind/eat my dinner in peace/whatever else I was doing when you decided to force your recorded emotionless message on me.
‘Hello?’ – ‘Can I speak to [insert my landlord’s name]?’
Not discouraged by the lack of ‘please’ at the end of that sentence I reply politely: ‘I’m sorry, but he doesn’t live here anymore.’
And the guy just hangs up!
‘What the f*#& happened to ‘thank you’, ‘sorry for disturbing you’? Learn your manners, stupid knob!’ I bellow down the dead line.
Happily I am home alone so my flatmates are not forced to listen to my highly vocal expression of disagreement.

Happy Friday!

It was a good week, a seriously good week. I have done loads of translating and the editing work on my PhD is finally progressing properly too, this to a great extent thanks to Naomi, who talked me into buying A.S. Byatt’s ‘Possession’ during our hunt for the perfect dress a couple of months ago. I started reading it only this week and it puts me into a proper academic mode, so exactly where I need to be right now.
The big news of the week is however that it is official now: we’re going to Aix. The tickets are bought and we shall arrive to the land of wine, cheese and sun in the last week of October. I am so excited that I’ve had trouble falling asleep for a couple of days, as my brain is in a full planning mode now. Can’t wait!
And now it’s Friday, I have a proper sense of achievement and Paul will be here in a few hours. The bookcase will get assembled, the light bulb changed, friends will be seen and maybe we’ll even have time to finally fly that kite?

On gum infection and my independent self sufficient persona

I am happy, really, I am. Most of the time, I lightly swing through a day with a smile on my face and a happy song in my head. But for last two days I’ve been unexpectedly and without a reason dipping down into pits of sudden gloominess, and than struggling out to climb back out.
As I find it all seriously annoying, I’ve decided to figure it out but none of the potential reasons I came up with seem to provide a satisfactory explanation:
I have a lot of work, so much that I have to stay glued to my desk all day long unless I want to work over the weekend too, which I don’t – but a lot of work means income which I can use to finance my language classes and my trip to Aix, so I actually should be glad. And it isn’t as if I had been glued to my desk for ever (it’s been only two days since the weekend, when I wasn’t glued to anything at all) and it isn’t as if I was secluded (cause there is Shell and Preet is back from India now).
I don’t have my own classroom (read: I don’t have a job) – but I’ve already come to terms with that and decided to be philosophical about it, so there is no reason why I should un-decide that now. Maybe if there was nothing else I could hang on to, like it was back in May, but there is plenty.
I have an infected gum around my wisdom tooth, which tends to wake me up at night, therefore messing up my sleeping patterns, and I suppose that that could partially account for me being slightly downbeat.
I am missing Paul more than I would like to admit to, which seriously annoys my independent self sufficient persona.
And that’s it.
Hm.
I think I’ll blame it on the gum infection and get to work while listening to Elvis, before my independent self sufficient persona gets alarmed all over again.

Haircut

After a few minutes of a discussion concerned with pros and cons of laminating different stuff, I said I needed a haircut.
‘You should laminate you hair’ said Paul, being silly. ‘I’ll put it up in my classroom with a tag saying ‘les cheveux blonds’'.
I chuckled and we changed subjects, but then I actually did go to get a haircut. And I will never forget the hairdresser’s face when I protested as she wanted to sweep the floor and proceeded to collecting what she’d cut off my head.
‘It’s a private joke’ I said, as if it explained anything ‘I need to laminate that’.
‘You’re weird people’ was her only reply. I suppose there wasn’t much else she could have said.

Putting in place a nice routine

Feeling much better today, maybe because it’s the first morning where I’ve woken up without a headache and managed to do so before 10, maybe because tomorrow’s Friday and I’m going to Milton Keynes. Probably both.
Anyway, this week has been all about organising my weeks for the months to come – going back to the gym (dear God I’m in pain, but it is a nice kind of pain), finding out about language classes, and coming to terms with the fact that I’m in a weekend relationship now, which is okay, just needs some getting used to. So if everything works out fine, it will be Monday night German, Tuesday night Spanish, Wednesday night Body Balance and Thursday night Body Pump. So I will be busy, but it’s all good, it’s all what I always wanted to do and never really could afford doing, so hey, I may as well. Add to that weekends with Paul and meeting up with friends and it looks like this year is going to be the exact opposite of the last one – I am going to have so much life that I’m not sure I’ll be able to cope! But, if you ask me, it’s about time.

And so it's September

When I said I needed life to go on, I meant I needed to go back to work. Unfortunately, for now there’s nothing on the supply front cause the kids are not back to school until tomorrow. But what I really want is my own classroom and being around people who do doesn’t help being philosophical about it.
Fortunately I have translations to keep me busy and also the PhD that I have to edit for print and the deadline’s dreadfully close now. I was supposed to have the whole summer to work on it, needless to say, I haven’t touched it, or almost.
Life going on mainly takes the form of house improvements – I have a functioning land line now, a desk (inherited from Paul) and a chair (that I skilfully assembled myself) and a bookcase – finally, after a year of keeping books in boxes and on piles. The problem with the bookcase however is that I can not assemble it on my own, so for now it is just lying there in its box, like a mean reminder of life actually not going on.
On the other hand, life seems to want to be going on rather quicker than I’m ready for it to. I’m fine with short-term plans and organising my life for the months to come, but I’m not sure I’m quite ready to make Christmas plans, and I am making Christmas plans, and there’s still almost 4 months until Christmas, why the hell would I be thinking about Christmas now? I mean, planning Aix for the half-term was far from being obvious and I’m still not 100% sure I made the right decisions, so Christmas?!

Summer is gone

It is September 1st and the summer is officially over, although technically it will still be summer for a few days. Yet, the school year is starting, Paul is in Milton Keynes and I’m sorting out my paper work, meeting my agent, working and setting back into my single routines while trying to get used to sleeping alone again.
It was the best summer ever and I am a little sad that it is over, but I think I have been ready for it to end for a little while now. I think I need life to go on and life doesn’t really go on when you’re on holiday, regardless of how many exciting things you do.

Ah, nostalgia…

A few weeks ago I received a letter from the University of Provence saying that if I wanted them to send me my PhD diploma, I had to provide the university office with a self addressed envelope with a 5,60 € stamp on it. They have of course not thought about the simple fact that getting stamps in euros in the UK might be slightly complicated if not impossible. Once again, James came to my rescue and offered to provide them with what they needed. The office was closed for the summer so he set on the mission only today. Here’s the e-mail he sent me afterwards:

“Hi Anna,

Well, unfortunately I wasn't able to drop your diploma envelope at doctoral studies office today. You no doubt remember how the university has a habit of loosing paperwork, but this time they outdid themselves. They lost the office. Depending on who you ask, Bureau 10 has moved, is moving, or will be moving, but no one knows when or to where. All anyone can agree on is that it's not open, if it's even still there at all. Some say it's destined to stay at the Schuman campus, other say it will re-open at the MMSH. We shall see. They said to call in a week or two, so I'll give them a ring in a while.

--James”

What can I say – there are some things I definitely do not miss about France.

On public toilets and roller coasters of a completely different kind

There’s nothing like going to the mountainside when you’re low. There’s nothing like a good hike up to shed all your weary thoughts and feel in control again. There’s nothing more overwhelming than going to the mountainside when you’re happy. Especially when you go down to the local pub after a solid hike, feeling the effort in your thighs, get a perfect pint of Guinness and the night air is fresh and even the toilets smell like mountainside toilets should. I felt as if all the happiness was about to burst me open and the only thing I could find to do about it was cry. Who would think that public toilets could trigger such reactions… (funnily enough, a few more memorable moments of this trip involved standing outside public toilets in the night).
Anyway, I am not a religious person, but I stood outside those toilets for good five minutes crying and praying to The One Up There that s/he would not take this away from me. Cause all this feels as if s/he had finally decided that I had been through enough now and it was time to give me a break.

But highs like that exhaust you too. And then the vile little voice of the messed up person you used to be makes itself heard and tells you that all this is wrong and you’re just winding yourself up but we’ve been there before and we know how it is going to end. And you listen even if you don’t want to, cause it just makes sense – indeed, we’ve been there before and there’s no reason why this should be any different. I suppose that sleepless nights caused by a deflating air-bed did not help there.

But then someone makes you coffee and your rational thinking kicks in and you realise that what really is the matter is that being that happy is a scary feeling, cause you just can’t help looking over your shoulder as if someone or something was going to steal it away from you or make you pay for it. And that you’ve been single for far too long and enjoyed it far too much, and that mainly is all there is to it.

On squashed organs and near death experiences

The big plan for my 30th birthday was for me to go on a roller coaster. I had never done that before, and I found it quite pathetic to be 30 and not had made that experience. However, with the move to England and the PGCE and all, it just didn’t happen. When I told Paul about it, he agreed that it was definitely wrong and a few days ago we went to Alton Towers, which is a big amusement park not far from here.
And so I lost my roller coaster virginity on Oblivion, which mainly consists of you dropping from 60 meters into a black hole. It felt like I was about to die. It felt like if all of my organs were squashed inside of me and I would never be able to use them again. Talk about easing me in!
I survived. But I still do not understand why one would do something like that to themselves.
Maybe I’m weird, but I somehow preferred the rides when you could giggle and scream to the ones where the air was compressed back into your lungs or where all you could think of was stabilising your head so that it would not rattle all over bumping off the sides of your seat. Even if the former do not give you an adrenaline rush like the latter ones do. Although I’m starting to suspect that it is a little bit like with child birth – with time, you forget how painful it was but you can still remember how exhilarated you felt after it was all over. So I might do it again, you never know.

On modern art and deluge

Last weekend we went to London to see Carina, or at least that was the plan, cause the trip expanded as we went and so we also went to Milton Keynes to water plants and to Oxford to have Mexican food and see Cate. You know me, stick me in a car, put the music on and I’m happy – in other words, I love road trips, and this one definitely lived up to my expectations.

Saturday was eating, drinking and talking in Carina’s garden and nursing a sunburn I’ve miraculously acquired between Birmingham and London. An uneventful yet blissful summer evening.

On Sunday we went to Modern Tate and I liked it, in spite of my general disdain for modern art - at least for the kind where they put a huge red dot on yellow canvas and call it ‘Pain’, or something similar. I really liked the sculptures, especially the ones Paul said I wouldn’t want in my bedroom (I feel quite daft for having forgotten the artist’s name) and that looked as if someone had dripped hot iron into silhouettes.
I was however not spared a painting made up of squares of different colours entitled ‘Mediterranean’. I stared at it and stared at it, and the more I stared, the more it remained just a random selection of colours that did not evoke any associations, which I found frustrating as I had spent four years living in the very region that inspired the artist, so I should be able to see it. I know that it was the same region, cause I read the label – I thought it would help me understand as it did with some of the sculptures, but no luck. Squares remained squares.
There was also a mandatory set of paintings picturing female private parts from weird angles and a video installation featuring a naked guy jumping up and down, which made me giggle but which failed to inspire any art-worthy reactions. Oh well. Maybe I’m just too insensitive to comprehend the depth of those artists’ talent and inspiration, but I think I will live in spite of it.

As we were driving back on Monday, the sky fell. It was already grunting when we were leaving Oxford, and Cate had warned us about thunderstorms coming up from Cornwall, but I was not prepared for driving through a wall of water. I was quite relived when we got back to Brum in one piece, but then we were confronted with a huge lake on one of the main roads and had to go around it through the grass, which was exciting and scary as Paul’s car is not an SUV, so we could easily get stuck in the watered mud that the surrounding ground had turned into or slide with it down the slope and into the lake. Other options were staying in the car forever or taking a run for it and getting soaking wet while abandoning the car behind, none of which seemed appealing to either of us. But we didn’t get stuck or slide in the mud and got home safe and I could joyfully run around barefoot in the back garden getting soaking wet, knowing that the warm shower and hot tea were just seconds away.

Sad stuff

Every death in a car crash is stupid. Yet this one is particularly wrong. I will not go into detail about how much this man meant to Poland, although we definitely wouldn’t be where we are if it wasn’t for him. You can read more here if you want.
I can however remember Bronisław Geremek as a teacher. In my University of Warsaw years I managed to get into his medieval history class even if I was officially studying at a different faculty and so I wasn’t really entitled to be there. But he said ‘Just come around’ and so I did. He would open the door and start talking while making his way to his desk. This was the only time in my academic career where I witnessed students being perfectly silent before the professor even entered the room. We just didn’t want to miss one word. And dear God he took you places.

Another sad thing, although of much lesser importance on the global scale, is the closing of the Mercer’s cafés in Warsaw. I used to live there. I wrote my masters’ there. I will never have Orange Latte Grande again. I will need to find a new place to meet up with people when I go and visit. Warsaw just became even less mine and that saddens me, although I do feel kind of silly feeling sad for a coffee shop when a great man has died.

Last day of school

Yesterday was the last day of school, or actually the last half-day of school, as I finished before noon. I had lots of fun teaching Polish to one of my classes, but then I got annoyed to the utmost by a bunch of Year 9’s whom I had to keep in a classroom for half a lesson. What can you do against a bunch of 14 years olds, who can already smell freedom, when you’re a supply teacher they are sure they will never see again and therefore do not see a point in obeying? The answer is nothing. There is no point of setting any activities, cause they will not do anything anyway. So you just try to keep the noise levels under control while keeping your hands in you pockets so that they can’t see them spontaneously clench into fists and squeezing your teeth to stop yourself from screaming, while they send the textbooks flying across the floor, litter the floor with tiny bits of paper you know you will not be able to make them pick up, spill out the contents of the bin, listen to the music on several phones in the same time, write/draw obscenities on the white board, explore the boxes containing another teacher’s belongings, attempt to break into the cupboards, try to get out through the door, try to get out through the windows, hang out of the windows and chat with the escapees outside and do everything they know you really don’t want them to do. Those were the most frustrating 25 minutes in my life, especially while I couldn’t see a point in them being there either. On top of everything someone had forgotten to activate the bell, so half of them didn’t even show up and the rest of them fled the classroom when the time came, bell or no bell, while I was vainly trying to make them stay in (cause I was told to wait for the bell).
As a result of that, when I got into Paul’s car, I spent a good minute just groaning my frustration out. And when I finally turned around to actually say hello… there was no beard.
Now that will take some adjusting.

Not a Cosmo columnist

I have composed a very witty and funny entry in my head about sure signs of being in a relationship. Then I have decided against publishing it here. I’m not writing for Cosmo. Nor do I wish to make this blog into a verbal version of a web cam in a dorm.
I will also not describe the agony of trying to find the perfect dress for a wedding on a limited budget nor the reasons why I feel the need for one.
What I will say, is that I have just ordered a ‘make a kite’ kit and I can’t wait for it to get here. I will say that, cause if I don’t, I might tell Paul out of sheer excitement, and it is supposed to be a surprise.
We shall have our own kite in the sky. And we shall make it ourselves too.

Life in supply

Being a supply teacher means that quite often you have to teach subjects other than your speciality. Up till now I’ve taught English, History, Citizenship, Music and PSHE (which stands for Personal, Social and Health Education). It is not a big deal really, cause work is prepared for you and you just have to set it and then make sure that the kids are doing what they’re supposed to be doing, so mainly you’re baby sitting. The other day, in History, I was bored so I flicked through the textbook the kids were working from on the subject of the Cold War. And I found out that the only thing worth mentioning when talking about how the Eastern Block collapsed is the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. As far as the British secondary school history teaching is concerned Solidarnosc did not exist. Which makes me think that if it wasn’t for the recent massive Polish immigration, me telling an average British teenager that I’m Polish would probably mean as much as if I told them I was Martian.

S/M à l’anglaise

I was bored in the staff room the other day which explains why I reached for a copy of one of the local free sheets that someone left lying around. Among many fascinating stories, I found a review of a book about the kinky side of British sexuality (you will forgive me for forgetting the title). Therein, the author mentioned an S/M club, featuring a man dressed in leather in a big cage. There is also another man dressed in leather next to the cage. He is… the Health and Safety Officer.

A Recipe for a Perfect Sunday

Ingredients:

A fry-up breakfast (preferably eaten in the garden)
A picnic (it doesn’t really matter what food you bring)
A park with grass to lie on and with happy toddlers to smile at
Live music (it doesn’t even have to be good all the time, just as long as it isn’t oppressive, cause you can always make fun of how bad it is)
Sunshine
A kite in the sky
And a right person to share it with.

And if you’re lucky, there will be a van selling disgustingly sweet ice-cream and they might even release a big bag of balloons and dot the sky with colours.

On Shiny Saxophones

As I walked towards the Symphony Hall yesterday, I somehow knew that the One with the Shiny Saxophone would be playing. And sure enough, he was. We exchanged hello’s as the band was setting up and then he caught up with me at the bar. I have to say, we ran out of conversation pretty quickly, probably because I was not making an effort to keep one going at all.
And then once the gig started, he would take his eyes off me only when playing a solo, which both Naomi and I found highly amusing. Men are funny creatures indeed.

“I had not noticed how short he is”, I told Naomi, explaining that one of the things I liked about Paul was that I had to get up on my toes to kiss him, which I found refreshing after four years spent in a country of little people. “They’re like hobbits” said Naomi sending both of us in uncontrollable fit of giggles in the middle of a very fervent saxophone solo, which was probably intended to trigger a completely different reaction.

Onomasiology

‘When a speaker has to name something, s/he first tries to categorise it. If the speaker can classify the referent as member of a familiar concept, s/he will carry out some sort of cognitive-linguistic cost-benefit-analysis: what should I say to get what I want. Based on this analysis, the speaker can then either fall back on an already existing word or decide to coin a new designation. These processes are sometimes more conscious, sometimes less conscious and the coinage of a new designation can be incited by various forces, for instance difficulties in classifying the thing to be named or attributing the right word to the thing to be named, thus confusing designations.’

Paul has been around for almost two weeks now. And Paul has been Paul, full stop.
Then last night we went out for drinks for my flatmate’s Michelle’s birthday. And suddenly it became: “This is my flatmate Anna and her boyfriend Paul”.

How the hell did that happen? What happened to ‘carpe date’em’?
My guess is, it got lost somewhere around ‘why don’t we sleep over at mine tonight, it will be more practical if I’m giving you a ride to work tomorrow’.

Dear God, I have a boyfriend.

Love and London

I went up to London this weekend to see Carina, cause Carina needed to see me and I needed to see her and we both needed to smoke, drink and talk until our eyes could not be held open by even the best quality matches (I have a feeling that the non-Poles will find this last statement slightly odd, but they will have to agree that it makes sense). On Saturday morning we met up with Claire, who I was certain was coming to London on a completely different weekend, and who ignored my presence in London completely, especially while I had had time to express my conviction on the inevitability of me not being there to see her via an apologetic e-mail. And I will never, ever forget the look on her face when she saw me. That image will make me happy for a long time. I mean, if you have just one person in your life who pulls such a face when seeing you, then you’re a lucky, lucky lady (or man, actually). And I have that on top of everything else, including being nursed and fed comfort food by Carina, who therefore officially weaned me off my longing for daddy when sick. I mean daddy made me tea. Carina makes tomato soup with smoked bacon and mozarella and then you get to talk and smoke and drink until you eyes can not be held open by even the best quality matches. Now, who can beat that.

On effort and achievement

One of the big ideas in education these days is that much more important than the final ‘official’ grade is whether or not you did your best and achieved the best you could achieve in your own ability. In less enigmatic terms, this means that a D achieved by a student of low ability should be celebrated as much as an A* achieved by a very able student, and they should be equally praised and proud of themselves. I am all for it, God knows that is a much bigger deal when a kid who usually scores something like 2 marks in 20 suddenly manages 50% than when a straight As pupil gets their usual 90% or above. The high you get from it is much better too.
But today, in my Body Balance class, I found out how the kids feel. It was on hamstring stretches. My hamstrings seriously suck, they are stiff and contracted, they have always been, I can still remember being 10 and trying desperately to reach my toes when other girls in the class were effortlessly holding their own feet, face on their knees. So I decided that it was time I finally managed to do that. I’ve been working very hard, almost never missed a class, two or three times a week my hamstrings would get a solid dose of stretching and my toes were getting nearer and nearer. Well, today a miracle occurred. Not only could I reach my toes, but I even managed to actually properly grasp my feet in my hands. It hurt like hell, but so what – I made it! The sense of achievement and excitement was immense… until I looked to my left and saw this woman who came to the class for the first time today, gracefully lay down FLAT between her legs, with no effort what so ever. And so I still kind of suck.

Guantanamera

Yesterday night I found out that the predilection for Guantanamera’s melody for football-related chants is not an exclusive oddity of Polish supporters. The Germans use it too. And possibly other nations as well, I just haven’t yet had an occasion to observe it, or maybe I have but it didn’t catch my attention at the time. As Wikipedia explains (you’ve got to love Wikipedia), Guantanamera is actually a Cuban patriotic song. What Wikipedia fails to explain however, is how did it become so popular among football fans – my guess is that the melody is catchy and easily accommodates football related phrases in any language.
So it would seem that Guantanamera is a common element in all national football cultures. The difference I have noticed is that as far as the Poles had several different versions of their Guantanamera-based chants and enthusiastically sang them all through the game as a way of encouraging their team, the Germans sang it only after the game to express their exhilaration with the game’s outcome and their belief in the ultimate victory.
Other than that – God, my drunken German is good. I only wish my sober version of it was better!

Leavers' Ball

‘There’s nothing more repulsive than a drunk woman’ my father used to say, and after the leavers’ ball I have to agree. I probably wouldn’t be so condemning if the woman in question wasn’t the girlfriend of the Ginger One, who is the cutest bloke on the course and therefore should be with a perfect woman so that it’s okay for him not to be hitting on me. Poor thing, he spent most of the night outside with a limp body falling through his hands, he probably also had to listen to her slurry monologues and hold her hair back when her stomach finally gave up trying to digest all she’d poured into it.
Another highlight of the evening was seeing the Cow dressed in a washed out beach dress and pouring out of it wherever possible. Which didn’t make her less condescending as she told me that I looked very nice in a tone of voice implying an utter surprise.
Nevertheless, I had lots of fun. We danced our feet off (or, in my case, literally my shoes off) and cigarette breaks with Jose contributed highly to my Spanish vocabulary – I am now capable of making very explicit sexual advances indeed. We annoyed the lady in charge of catering by requesting first bread then butter, both of which were inaccessible. And the tuna really needed butter – I have never had fish so dry in my entire life! What is it with overcooking things in this country?

Estoy triste porque salgo

On my last day at school, I managed to put around 120 pupils in a state of hyperactivity by feeding them chocolate.
I managed to finally lose it with Vile Year 9 (that I shall nevertheless miss) and deprive them of the goodbye chocolate, cause they were really, really vile. And if they couldn’t be nice to me even on my last day, then they are vile indeed. Which doesn’t change the fact that they were outstanding in oral assessments I prepared them for but did not conduct (I wanted objective results, so I asked their regular teacher to do it) which means that I’ve actually managed to teach them something.
I taught some Polish to Year 10, who asked for it, and I received a dramatic public declaration of love from one of them, which he justified by my supposed beauty, in my mother tongue.
I decided to take up Spanish, to make myself more marketable – my mentor reckons I can put it on my CV and learn it by September. Why not.
I failed to stop the movie I was showing to my favourite Year 9 on time and so I managed to show them a sex scene. My mentor came in later on, and there were people talking in bed on the screen. He raised his eyebrows at that, and I thought: thank God you weren’t here for the naked bum bit.
I delivered what was supposed to be an inspiring speech to the same Year 9, hopefully motivating them to keep up with their languages. And received a standing ovation.
But I somehow managed to keep myself together until the afternoon registration that is, cause my form managed to make me cry.

POLSKA GOLA!

If you would have told me a few years back that I would be getting all emotional and serious about football of all things, I wouldn’t have believed you.
I know that I watched the world cup a couple years ago, but it seems to be getting worse with age. And I have to say that watching the game with expatriated Poles was something else. My guess is that homesickness probably does play a role in all this. I mean, we ALL got up to sing the anthem, and we all cheered and encouraged as if they were going to actually hear us. And it was moving (I know, I’m a sad cow). And there was Polish beer for 2 quid per bottle, which also helped. Some more than others, if you know what I mean.
One disturbing thing however was that somehow all of the supporter chants intoned were curiously based on the melody for ‘Guantanamera’. God knows why.
Also, watching football has an additional side effect of making me very cool indeed. According to my kids that is. And even if the outcome of the Sunday game was disappointing, it was not a failure to lose to the Germans, cause ‘they’re the best team ever Miss!’. Especially while ‘you played really well Miss!’. And besides ‘we didn’t even qualify, Miss!’.
They’re all going to cheer for Poland on Thursday. And I didn’t even have to bribe them with chocolate.

PPD

Yesterday I went to university to submit all of my paperwork. I finished typing the last of the assignments on Monday night and for a brief moment I enjoyed that wonderful feeling of lightness and freedom one gets once a big burden is out of the way. Unfortunately, it had changed overnight in to a full-blown postpartum depression and so I went to the university a proper and sorry mess. Every time I tried to say anything, it made me want to cry. Every time someone asked if I was ok, my eyes would tear up. As I said – a proper and sorry mess. My tutor thought that it was all about the job I didn’t get, which I suppose it was a bit, as in no job equals no stability, and yes it was a deception, but hey, it was almost a week ago, enough is enough! (Okay, fine, I am still a bit upset about it, but life goes on, really, I do mean it).
Anyway, I didn’t really talk to anyone at all cause, as I said, every attempt on conversation made me cry, and I definitely wasn’t going to make my PPD into a public event. People were feeling sorry for me as it was and you all know how much I like people feeling sorry for me.
And then I got back home, opened a box of wine, got out that jigsaw puzzle I had bought a few weeks ago and went into a full relaxation mode, screw year 7 reports, screw everything, I’m relaxing and that’s that.
And today, today I got a message from Jose on Facebook, he actually sat and wrote this long, thoughtful message about how I shouldn’t let it get to a point where I was feeling burnt out, how I should let go every once in a while and not forget to relax and recharge my batteries and what a wonderful person I was. And I felt loved. Cause he doesn’t really know me all that much, and here he serves me a perfectly accurate diagnosis of my PPD and cares enough to sit down and type it all up when he has only two days left to finish his assignment.
Two conclusions from all this: (1) I love Pepe, and (2) I need another jigsaw puzzle. Both shall be acted upon tomorrow, as I’m having coffee with Jose and then am going shopping.

On Bank Holidays

Have you wondered why public holidays in the UK are called ‘bank’ holidays?
I have. So I asked around but nobody really knew (or maybe I was just asking wrong people). But Wikipedia did – you’ve got to love Wikipedia. So, it is so because they are days upon which banks are shut and therefore no other businesses can operate.
Well, now they can, but before they couldn’t.

To me bank holiday means an extra day to finish off my assignments. Although it starts to look like I will need a miracle, cause until now I seem to have been rather more interested in organising my medicine drawer and dusting all I could find that needed dusting than in Gifted and Talented policies or assessment for learning.

The Perfect School

I’ve spent so much time around people marvelling at what a wonderful teacher I was that I ended up really believing it. The downside of it was that I also believed when they said any school would be lucky to have me. So I was confident. And apparently my lesson was excellent, my answers perfect, but somehow someone else got the job. I knew that would happen as soon as I saw her name on the candidates list. And I’m happy for her, and all, but it remains that I had time to persuade myself that this was my perfect school and well, I have quite a lot un-persuading to do.
And, quite frankly, I’m just tired. So tired that I’m not sure that I have enough energy for another one. So tired that I’m starting to wonder what the hell I’m doing. Cause maybe I would have been better off if I had put all that stupid curiosity in the bottom drawer, married my first boyfriend and lived dully ever after. My mother for one would have been thrilled.

Tomb Rider

Some people from my programme get together every Friday for drinks. I used to join them in the beginning but then I realised that the last thing I needed on a Friday night was more teacher trainee talk and then I found Rush Hour Blues and so I started going there instead. But this week was José’s birthday, and he’s got a job, and he wanted to celebrate, and José’s soft and warm and gives big bearish hugs (so that no one thinks that my decision was completely selfless) and so I decided to go for a drink with them.
It started with… trainee teacher talk but they reassured me saying that it would only go on for half an hour and then stop – in a get-it-out-of-your-system spirit. But then two hours later it was still going on and quite frankly, I found that I couldn’t really relate. Maybe I’m really lucky, but I have nothing to whine about (if not excessive amounts of work). And I’m definitely not looking forward to the end of my placement (if you don’t count looking forward to the last two weeks where there will be no more paperwork, just teaching and when I actually might finally have time and energy to finally just enjoy it). When I think about saying goodbye to all them little buggers, I get really, really sad. It could be that I’m weird – it could be that it really is a vocation.
But hey, today was a good day. My Vile Year 9 were well, themselves, but we have our own dynamics by now and I’m enjoying working with them again. My Fast Track Year 9 were well, themselves, their own wonderful selves. And apparently I look like Lara Croft – which coming from a 14 years old is a huge compliment. Even if no matter which way I turn and from what angle I look at myself I somehow fail to see the resemblance.

Avalone

There was a freckled arm in a rolled up sleeve of a white shirt.
There were a few lines around a corner of the mouth.
There was a teasing twinkle in a blue eye.
All in a tall, skinny, blond package.
And then there was the look he gave me as I was getting off the bus. Appraising and dismissing. Or maybe it only seemed so to me.
It’s just a thing. Don’t even know what to call it.
Could be just that it’s spring and all that stuff.
Whatever it is, I wish it wasn’t.
I also wish my family stopped reminding me of their birthdays as if I had ever forgotten.
I need a drink.

(PS. I know I’m whining. And I will shut up. After the drink.)

Narrow

Lunch break in the staff room, I’m heating up my Polish soup (yum!) and am asked about what is it that smells so good. I explain. My interlocutor is immediately triggered into motion, and bestows me with two cans of Polish fish specialities, which – as he explained – someone had given to him. All surprised at how someone could so easily part with such a delicious thing, and none the less grateful, even if as I’ve later discovered the fish had expired a year ago – it was canned so I still ate it and am still alive and feeling well. But that is beside the point. Or maybe not completely. But never mind. So I cautiously enquire about whether my benefactor is sure and certain not to want to eat it himself and he replies, to my utter bewilderment: “Yeah, sure, I don’t like imported”.
The sad thing is, that he is a teacher and his job description is therefore broadening his students’ horizons.

Cups of tea and missing people

Some mornings you just wake up feeling miserable for no particular reason and the world is just not a very friendly place. Sometimes it’s for no reason at all, sometimes it is because your hormones are going berserk, and sometimes you’re just stressed and tired. For me, I think, it was to a big extent because last night I was looking at photos from Hil’s and Dom’s wedding, a wedding I didn’t make it to and I missed all of you people like crazy and felt lonely.
So this morning I woke up feeling miserable.
But then someone knocks on your door and asks you to help them with the washing machine they’ve never used before and makes you a cup of tea and you’re not feeling that miserable anymore.
Cheers Manpreet!

Others would boast about it, I will simply say

My uni tutor came to observe me on Friday and it went great. Apparently ‘I have made extensive progress since I started’, and ‘I’m as good as a PGCE student could possibly get’. I should be proud of myself and quite confident about the future, especially since ‘I’m a very strong candidate’ and ‘a school that gets me will be very lucky’.
Well, the problem is that the application I’ve sent off a week ago didn’t even get me an interview. I sincerely do not understand why, considering the above – I mean, if they didn’t want an NQT (Newly Qualified Teacher) why did they send the advert to my tutor so that she would give it to us? I would understand if they didn’t think I would fit in, but how could they know it before actually meeting me?
Oh well. I’m sending another two applications off on Tuesday and I’m not particularly worried about finding a job, not just yet at least.
I have however realised that if I don’t get employed as of 1st of July, my trips to Poland and France will be a no-no – the summer will be ‘teeth-in-the-wall’ and temping away. Unless a series of miracle translations happens.
Well, what can I say – let us pray.

You've got to love stereotypes

The doctor passed over his tobacco and Kokolios stuffed his nargiles contentedly. ‘What’s the news of the war?’
The doctor twisted the ends of his moustache and said, ‘Germany is taking everything, the Italians are playing the fool, the French have run away, the Belgians have been overrun whilst they were looking the other way, the Poles have been charging tanks with cavalry, the Americans have been playing baseball , the British have been drinking tea and adjusting their monocles, the Russians have been sitting on their hands except when voting unanimously to do whatever they are told. Thank God we are out of it. Why don’t we turn on the radio?’

Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
(which I’m reading at a speed of three pages every other day, cause I simply don’t have time for more)

I read this bit, I smiled and I felt a twinge of homesickness and nostalgia, that made me check flights to Poland. Who knows, I just might be able to make it between the end of the PGCE and the job (provided there is a job). I just need to remember not to call my parents too often or they might make me change my mind.

Side effects of applying for jobs

The job application is off! Now it’s the ‘keeping-fingers-crossed-and-thumbs-squeezed’ time of waiting for them to call me. At least in theory, cause I don’t know if I actually want that job. I mean, I have tones of sensible reasons to want it, and some very irrational ones not to, so I guess I do want it, but I’m not emotional about it, which is the better.
Anyway.
All my lessons for this week were planned in advance, because I was so reluctant to write that bloody personal statement that I was willing to do no matter what other than writing it. I absolutely and wholeheartedly hate writing personal statements. One should be able to just say: “give me the bloody job”. Cause that’s all that all that waffle about my qualities and beliefs translates as.
Anyway, all lessons planned in advance mean somewhat more relaxing evenings this week and somewhat more sleep. Which, in turn, means that I’m actually capable of getting up half an hour earlier just to play with my contact lens – which is very reluctant to actually go into the eye, mean thing. Thank God I only need one, otherwise I would probably need to get up an hour early for a double session of dabbing at my eye, my eye tearing up, me drying it out, waiting for it to stop hurting and then me dabbing at it again, the cycle to be repeated as many times as it takes until the bloody thing finally is in. Then some more waiting time is needed before the eye is in a state allowing for the application of make up. I just hope that it gets easier with practice!
But the best thing about applying for jobs is that one has to go to a post office to send them off. And next to my local post office, there is a… Polish shop! Which means I’m right now very full on a Polish doughnut, cranberry dumplings (no, they’re not sweet) and halva. For tomorrow’s lunch I’m taking to school a bag of barley soup and I shall treat the staffroom to Hedgehogs (which are a type of biscuits) well, at least that part of the staffroom that deserves it. Cause you’ve got to deserve a Hedgehog.
Yum.
And yum again.

Failure

Following my firm decision to have a life, I went out last night. I met up with Rory and Dave (met via Carina) for a couple of drinks. We went to a rock place, which seemed like a good idea, I mean, there’s nothing like a good rock place, but then I found myself downing two pints while praying that I would not go deaf and making Herculean efforts to keep a conversation, which consisted of us shouting into each other’s ears and stretching our necks to hear what others were saying.
And this morning I woke up with a huge headache and ringing in my right ear.
I don’t know, maybe I’m getting old, but this was not fun. I mean, it was lovely to see them, and they are very interesting people that I definitely want to keep in touch with, but why couldn’t we have went to a calm pub and actually have a proper conversation in an environment that did not impede any attempt on communicating? Oh well.

Photo of an undetermined amount of time

Here’s a pic I took before Easter and somehow failed to post. I took it with my phone camera, so the quality leaves to desire, but that's not the most important.
Location: Victoria Square, Birmingham.

It was empty, it looked appealing, so she took a spin. And it made her happy. Here's to making the most of life!

Stealing hugs and feeling human

We had a group teaching event today so I saw all people from my programme, well at least the French/Spanish lot.
Lyndsey’s got a boyfriend! Yay to that one!
Vincenzo and Paul are still Vincenzo and Paul, and I’m still worried, but well, suppose that they’re big boys and they know what they’re doing.
Carmen (my uni tutor) said I looked happy. I guess I am happy, if you forget not having a life.
But I’ve squabbled with Vincenzo and stolen so many hugs that it almost makes me feel human again.
I had very ambitious plans as to how I would use the time freed by the fact that I had less lessons to plan – on top of today’s thing, tomorrow’s a course work moderation day and next Thursday the National Union of Teachers strike – but it’s pretty obvious by now that I will not do half of what I’ve planned. I think I’ll just pop a frozen pizza into the oven, take a shower and watch CSI, while wallowing in this feeling of human closeness and love.

Words and meanings

Yesterday afternoon at the university we had an event where Year 9 kids from different backgrounds were teaching us their languages. There was a girl teaching Norwegian, but to my great disappointment all she could provide were names of animals – I wanted ‘I love you. Marry me’. That was beyond her knowledge of the language. Oh well.
There were also three kids teaching Polish – all people who had stopped at their tables would come back to me and show off what they had learned. I particularly appreciated Lyndsey telling me that she had a cat – which in Polish could mean ‘I’m nuts’ and Paul declaring he had a horse – which could have been interpreted as him admitting to having a penis. Ah, you’d better be careful, you never know what you’re actually saying!
So I’ve learned some Norwegian, some Portuguese, some Lingala, some Cantonese and some sign language. The latter being the only one that I’ve not forgotten.But most of all, I learned some Satswana. It’s a language spoken in Botswana. And it’s amazing. Their currency is ‘Pula’. That word also means ‘rain’. In an African country. Wow. ‘Madi’ means both ‘money’ and ‘blood’. Wow again. But it gets better. ‘Monday’ is ‘mosupologo’, which means ‘get out of your shell and get going’. Hating Mondays must be something they don’t quite get. Or maybe they get it even better. The word for ‘Sunday’ means ‘bells are ringing’. But my very favourite is ‘maitsiboa’, which translates as ‘evening’, but means ‘you know it’s time to come back’. Isn’t that all that evenings should be about?

On hair and feudalism

No one here knows me enough to appreciate the importance of the fact, but hopefully some of you do: my hair has been growing for months now and I have not yet been caught whining about ‘this back bit’ annoying me, read: I have no desire to chop it off.
It is a known fact that cutting hair is a symbolic expression of the desire to liberate oneself from their past. Also, hair is a symbol of femininity, which is why many cultures hide it and see wearing long hair loose as a sign of exuberant sexuality. Finally, think Samson – hair is power. It makes me wonder what should I read into this unusual willingness to let mine grow…
Never mind.
A random fact that caught my attention today: until very recently, there was still a feudal state in Europe! A little island in the south-western English Channel, called Sark, has just abolished fiefdom this month. And all these years I was dealing with feudalism as something belonging to the past, ignoring the fact that there was a genuine feudal Seigneur living right under my nose! He even has a Seneschal! Check it out for yourselves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sark.
For my part, I want to go there!

Back in Brum

It was snowing as I woke up in London this morning and it made me feel peaceful. I must be a winter person, in spite of being prone to light-deficiency induced depression.
The winter scenery didn’t last though, and as I arrived to Brum, after almost three hours of blissful staring out of the window of a National Express coach while listening to the music, there was no snow left outside. But it is snowing again now. So there’s hope for another soothing winter view before the craziness and stress and hectic life start all over again tomorrow.

Nut day and my bits of Aix

I was having coffee with Hil this morning, and we were all happy and excited to be together again, and blabbering about what has happened, how life was and what was coming up when this elderly gentleman came up to our table and mainly told us off very vehemently for talking too loud when we had nothing to say. ‘All I can hear is your noise’ he said ‘and you have nothing to say’. My spontaneous reaction was to tell him that it wasn’t about the words coming out of our mouths but all the love behind them and that I was sorry he was to bitter to get that, but I bit my tongue. Why spoil his day? After all, being a Brit living in Frogland, he can’t have an opportunity to tell people off too often, so hey, cheers to you, hope it made you happy.
Then we wandered about the market and Hil bought a pear. The seller helper tried to put it in a bag for her, but the stall owner told her off for that cause you shouldn’t waste an expensive plastic bag for just one pear (she obviously thought we didn’t speak any French). That’s when we decided it was a nut day.
Anyway, off to buy some more bits of Provence and last drinks with friends.
Mantra changed to what Nick told me over a drink last Sat, when I was all whining about why the fuck did I leave and I want my life back: “Yes, you had a great life here, but it was going nowhere”.
Which doesn’t change the fact that I miss my life here.
And a final random thing: every time I walk into Cours Mirabeau heading for Rue Fabrot, I can’t help but turn my head and I can still see the Disappearing German waiting for me on the corner of Rue Thiers, and that smile, and the Dreamcatcher Hair, and Oh GOD. Beautiful memory it is indeed.

On cheese, rain and word limits

“Look at that” said Papi this morning as I emerged from my bedroom and reported to the kitchen for breakfast “she brought some English weather for us to try”.
Sure enough, it was pouring outside. And not the provencal kind of buckets of water on your head pouring, but the genuine English in between kind of thing. Which actually makes Papi happy, as he had been complaining about the dryness of last few months (he just wanted to tease me, cause I brought some English cheese for him to try and has a hard time getting over the fact that he really liked it). I was the one unimpressed, as it mainly destroyed my pastis on the balcony fantasy.
Oh well. I’ve decided that since the situation outside was very unappealing and that my local friends were not banging on the door desperate to see me, I would finish off the bloody assignment. And I did. And I’m, once again, around 500 words over the limit. And, yet again, I am fantasising about various painful kinds of torture I could inflict on the person who came up with such silly word limits in the first place. Which, I’m afraid, won’t make those excess 500 words just disappear.

Red shoes

I think I’ve discovered the secret of red shoes.
You wear them, and whatever was troubling you is necessarily forgotten because of the growing sensation of burning in your soles.
Although I don’t know how David Bowie could have possibly known that.

Aix en vacances

Travelling to places you used to belong to is a messy business. On one hand, you’re thrilled to see all the people and places you have been missing so much, but on the other hand you’re disheartened by the realisation that they are moving on without you, and, even worse, regardless of you.
I found my map of Aix unchanged and changed in the same time. I had a coffee on Cours Mirabeau in Belle Epoque with their rude waiters. I went to Papeterie Michel and felt the same urge to buy most of their stocks. I drove past my old boulangerie and the park where I used to jog. And I missed them not being mine anymore.
But what really got me was talking to my adoptive grandparents over home made dinner and explaining how I was subscribed to Iceland and the local Chinese, which made me think about cooking in my little kitchen corner at Roc Fleuri. It made me really want my life back.
I still think that leaving was the right thing to do. I have a constant mantra in my head, listing reasons why. But I had a great life here. Which makes me think, that what I really need to do, is get a proper life back in Brum.
But for now, I’ll put on my red shoes and dance the blues.

(not)working when I should be (not)working

Yesterday night I set my alarm clock as usual. It rang at 6.20 as usual. I turned it off and went back to sleep. That was a moment of sheer happiness.
It’s spring holiday, ladies and gentleman, no more early mornings for two weeks.
In three days I will be in France, on a cheese, bread and wine diet. Although I have to say that for some reason I am persuaded that in a few days I will start missing work. I know it’s not quite sane, but on the other hand, it is a solid proof that I am meant to be a teacher. But for now, idleness is bliss. Not that I’m capable of being idle. There’s always something that needs doing anyway. Thank God lunch with Naomi forces me to get out of the house, otherwise I just might spend the whole day… working.

'I'm so going to take it home and play with it'

I was all set for pretending I have a life last night. Plans were made, body was forced into a state of hyperactivity guaranteeing that it would not give in to an overwhelming tiredness and general desire of pillow and Dog. Shower was taken, face was put on, teaching gear was left home as was the teaching persona. I was determined to forget about being a teacher for one night and make the most of it.
Unfortunately, The One Up There (also known as TOUT, the ones among you speaking French will appreciate the implications of the acronym) had decided otherwise.
The Friday Rush Hour Blues has as much to do with jazz as I have with molecular biology. The guitarist looked as if he was in a carefully maintained state of suffering for his art, which could be explained – at least to some extent – by the fact that his guitar was something like two sizes too big for him. Must have been heavy, bless the poor little lad. Michael and Bill (Shakespeare, no, I’m not kidding), two nice gentleman befriended at the Symphony Hall over discussing the fairness of saving seats for others and promises to keep an eye on their walking sticks, retreated gracefully in the middle of a piece and half way through their pints claiming that they’d had ‘enough of that’.
Afterwards I was supposed to go for a curry with a Potentially Shaggable Friend of a Friend but the said PSFF cancelled on me because of stomach problems. So I went home, not so much disappointed as glad I could go to bed. At 8 pm. How sad is that.
Yet, once home, I was faced with Tone (my flatmate and landlord) and a visiting friend of his in a very advanced state of drunkenness – they were very cute in it, bless them, if you don’t count the visiting friend peeing all over the downstairs loo and insisting on sleeping in my bed (‘I will knock on your door when we come back’). He didn’t (from what I understood he met some bird when they were out and didn’t sleep here at all) so I did get a good night’s sleep but once again – how sad is that: there was a part of me that was sort of disappointed.
Then, to crown my sorry attempts on having a life this weekend, I overslept for ski jumping.
And now it’s time to start working again. Oh well.
But before I do – here’s the highlight of last night:
‘I’m so going to take it home and play with it’
said Naomi about her carefully assembled Kinder Surprise toy shark.