Stuff from home and stuff

I've been musing today about how some expatriates will always prefer products from their home country to the local ones, even if the local ones are essentially the same except for the label and the lower price. I've known people who had their relatives back home send them everything, even things like salt and pepper. I can understand missing what you can't get - I was myself a victim of cruel cravings for Polish sausage, bigos, pierogi etc., but beer was beer and yes, I missed my favourite Zywiec, but would have never bought it (had it been available) if the local similar product was cheaper. And now that it is available, I don't - also because I have discovered that there are many local ales that I actually like much better. But then again I gave myself the opportunity of discovering that by trying things - and so many people just won't. Wonder why.

The 'Spring Weakness'

The weather is nice, you have a loving boyfriend, a good even if difficult job, you’re learning new things, making plans and putting them into motion, you just made a new friend you get to see on a regular basis and are finally feeling less lonely, you name it, life is great and the future looks bright and sunny too. Yet, for some reason, you don’t enjoy it, worse, your eyes tear up constantly without any warning and without any apparent reason.
You think it must be cause you’re exhausted. After all the job is difficult and your chest is still rather painful as you have not yet fully recovered from your accident and recovering itself is a process needing more energy then you have given that you’re working.
Yes, sure, but it doesn’t explain it.
Ok, then it’s because, due to the said accident and the said chest, you haven’t been to the gym in a month – hence, instead of sweating the frustration out, you’re crying it out.
Yes, sure, but it still doesn’t really explain it.
Oh bollocks, you think, maybe you’re actually not that happy, maybe there’s something really wrong but you don’t see it yet if not subconsciously hence crying without apparent reason?
Oh boy. What is it then? What is it? Have you chosen a wrong career? Is the relationship not as good as you think? No? Maybe? What is it? You think about it, you talk about it, you make tiny inconveniences into huge problems, you start crying even more, vicious circle really.

And then your mother calls you. ‘Dear’ she says ‘I’m calling to check on you cause you must be in full spring weakness. Are you eating properly?’.

Right.
Apparently, according to Mother (but I’m sure she’s learnt from some serious and reliable source), in winter many vitamins and minerals get washed out of your body because they need sunlight to be absorbed properly. It gets worse if you’re not eating properly (and Mother being Mother knows that when I’m overworked I don’t eat properly). Some of these vitamins and minerals (can’t remember which ones, but I can ask Mother if you care to know) are apparently really important for mental and emotional processes in your system.

So I went and bought loads of veg and fruit and juices, vitamins and high-protein foods for an extra kick. And made a point of exposing self to sunlight.

And guess what – I’m happy. Yes, I’m still in pain, I’m still frustrated by the whole work situation, still in a desperate need of physical exercise, but happy.

To think I was worried I was getting clinically depressed!

It’s all in the fruit people. Take my word for it.

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).

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?

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.

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.

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.

On cheese and cats

Everyone should have a Caz. Caz makes me talk and feeds me good stuff. There’s no one like Caz to make the world look like a much better place than it seemed before. And Didier was a very silly frog – he hid so that he wouldn’t go to London with me. I actually thought I had lost him but Will the Cat found him for me. Will the Cat slept over last night (Nicole’s room is being painted and he has no other bed than mine) and so this morning it was head bonks for me which made getting up much less horrid, especially while he timed it perfectly – 5 minutes before the alarm. A much better way of waking up, that goes without saying.
So I'm starting the week revived and positive. We shall see how long it will last.

Pancakes

This is Paul. Paul is doing a very important thing – he is skilfully flipping a pancake, the destiny of which is to end up in my happy stomach, hence the importance of the act.
Paul has the most amazing lips I have ever seen and gives hugs that make you feel safe and warm indeed. On top of making really good pancakes.

But before you start having wrong ideas, here’s Paul again, this time with Vincenzo, the host of the pancake evening. Vincenzo and Paul are an item. Sort of. Long story. Vincenzo is a very kind person, when he’s not bullying me, that is, and he seems to enjoy bullying me quite a lot. Paul usually joins in, if he doesn’t start it. But then Vincenzo calls me “snowflake” and I forgive him. Paul, as I’ve already mentioned, makes pancakes, which also inspires forgiveness.

Finally, this is Bernie trying to flip a pancake. She succeeded, but I failed to catch it. Sorry. Bernie makes me happy. She calls herself a tramp disguised as a teacher and when she dances, the world is a much happier place (although she thinks that I’m making fun of her when I say it, I’m not. I really think that).So here are some of the people that I’ve met here in Brum. I shall introduce more at a later date. All this, I suppose, to avoid talking about my new school since I haven’t yet decided what I think about it really.