The outlaws are here at the moment, tidying up the flat and throwing out the lodger. After a few days away back in the motherland to muster reinforcements (well an operations on the ganglions in his wrist - there is a joke there about too many 'heil Hitlers'....but I'm above that, oh yes.) he returned to take water and eggs again. Fortunately he has managed to take his finger from his arse and he's found a flat that he moves in to in a few weeks. In between that time, he is moving to his sister's flat. So, good news all round and we'll finally have the place to ourselves.
As I suspected, Friday evening was DIY night. The builders finished putting in new radiators but neglected to fill in the holes in the wall - and there was me thinking Polish builders were diligent. Anyway, Grzegosz, started hammering the concrete away and then smooting it down sparks flying a little too close to the gas cooker for my liking. Well it's different to an evening in the pub.
So this saturday morning I have been relegated to the bedroom/study with the laptop whilst K and Ewa tackle the living room - packing up Patrycia's belongings etc. So i get a get-out-cleaning pass for the whole day! Not so much to celebrate though - I'm going to be tied to the laptop with work related stuff!
Two students were expelled from school this week but it happened in quite an interesting way. They were guilty of beating up two younger children, one in school and one outside during the weekend. The vice-director of the school came in to the staff-room and explained the story and put a motion forward for expelling the two students permenantly. Every teacher had a chance to comment and put views forward and then we took a vote on it.
The teaching at Bell is going fine, but I'm finding that most of my days are spent doing lesson plans. Hopefully it will change when we decide on the course books at Program Bell. It just means that i've got to trawel through 000s of books and make loads of photocopies. Another problem is that a few of my classes are very small so group work kind of goes out of the window. There is also, shock horror, a reluctance to do homework tasks. As with all organisations, the person who is paid the least is often one of the most important and at Bell it's no different: Magda the administrator is the one that makes it all work - the little bits that allow it all to function: photocopy codes, keys, e-mailing class details.
I have some lessons at the music school as well these are the ones I enjoy the most. Lessons at the technical high school are a bit of a testosterone fest where 90% of my students are
teenage boys interested in football, smoking, drinking, computers and girls. So the relative calm of an all-female class is a lovely antidote; really friendly and hard working too, all with a good sense of humour.
Saturday, 11 October 2008
Sunday, 28 September 2008
Missing Eggs and my first day at school
The leaves are turning here, and autumn is descending upon us rapidly. After a fortnight of dreary cold and grey we've had a week of lovely unbroken sun and the trees around our area are an amazing shade of yellow as if someone has just sucked all the chlorophyll out of them. I'm off out later with my camera to the local lake.
As the season changes, not wanting to get too Dawsons Creek-esque or faux-poetic, but I do feel as though my luck or life is changing a bit too. As if i'm finally on to a good thing. After too many false dawns over the last two years though, I am not counting not counting my chickens, but the signs are good.
The turd-polishing of our building has nearly finshed. Say what you will about communist regimes, but one thing that they knew about was town planning. Each locale has a pre-school, local maket, local shops, senior school, playground etc. It does make for absolute uniformity across Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia etc but it kind of works. The problem is that in places the last time these buildings were re-decorated was roughly 1956. Each block of flats (30 apartments on 5 floors) was previously coloured a nice shade of dirt. But one-by-one money is being spent on sprucing them up. These guys are quick though, they painted on side of the block in a day (about 300sqm). Our's is now in three tones of yellow, peach and orange. It looks marginally better than it sounds but still reminds of a hospital block. We might even get a functioning front door, but then again...
The ciy in general is at once cleaner and dirtier than the UK. Cleaner in the sense that there is less litter but dirtier because of, well, dirt: Grit, soil, sand, leaves. The residential area are all just a little less polished. If it was all tidied up and given a sand-blast or lick of paint it would probably look like a Scandanavian town or Germany. I'm just not sure if that's a good thing.
I don't mean that in sarky way I just really don't know if it would be any nicer.
Our egg-stealing German/Polish lodger is still searching for his own lebensraum. By my estimates, all we need is a Russian in the kitchen and we'll have a historal re-enactment of the 1939 Non-Agression Pact. Its not like he is really busting his ass to find anywhere either. I mean I've been here three weeks now and he's not been to view one flat. And the man shaves his armpits. It's not right I tell you.
My classes started last Monday at a Secondary School in Winogrady to the North-East of the city. Having had a number of first days at work under my belt now I am convinced that, a) You need the confidence to be able to bullshit your way through a lot of things and that b) Never, ever, expect to get full training. The early starts will likely kill me. I seriously have no idea the last time had to see 6:15am. It's almost alright at the moment because it is just light and I like the watching the stall-holders set up at the market whilst I wait for the bendy-bus to hurtle down the pot-holed road. 0ld Mercs will stop up outside and the owners will unpack a stuffed boot full of clothes that only need to see a safety match to catch fire. The Fruit and Veg stall-holders will spend 15minutes lining up and balancing hundreds of tomatoes.
Classes are fine, I have six different classes aged between 13 and 18 and most of them are really good fun. It is a technical high school and most of the students are boys. Although their language proficiency is not wonderful, they are cheeky and confident enough to use what they have. As an ice-breaker I asked them what they would save from their houses if it was on fire. Most picked their computer over parents and, in another exercise exploring differences and similarities between the UK and Poland, nearly all agreed that Polish girls were prettier. I couldn't possible comment....
Friday, 12 September 2008
Mam na imie Sam, jestem z Anglii, jestem nauczicielem
A little forewarning for those of you who blush at the sight of swear words. Grandparents, and the like. I hate to break this to you but I swear. Like a trooper. So please don't think any less of me!
Europop, the scurge of well, Europe. A song came on the radio at lunch time and it consisted of the words 'you've got the sweetest arse in the world' repeated for about 3.5minutes. Well it's hardly Dylan. But then I don't get Dylan, the whining little bugger. I've got plans on where to put that harmonica.
So, where to start? I've arrived and been a 'dirty migrant' for three days and i've already taken one of their jobs. But more on that later.
I've spent the last few hours playing with a large 1.5kg ball of fluff that is Kizhia, a 3month old kitten. She is the cutest little thing in the world and her daily schedule looks like this: wake up, pee, run around for two hours like a headless chicken, eat, sleep, fall in to bath, run around again playing with anything that dangles, shines, makes a noise and/or moves, change of activity to bumping in to walls and walling off beds in a heart meltingly cute way, lick Sam's forehead, eat/drink/pee, sleep, suckle a rug that she thinks is her mummy, puncture Sam's ankles, nearly knock over 85yr old, blind grandmother, bedtime. Watching her is a great way to pass time.
I'm in Bydgoszcz at the moment, house-sitting Karolina's Grandmother and the cat. It's a funny town. So ugly in parts like a slightly run-down, communist inspired Milton Keynes (A lovely vista I think you will agree) - a collection of huge roundabouts and trams, and ugly tower blocks. and then you get in to the old town which really pretty - all brightly coloured 19th Century buildings and cobbled streets lined with huge umbrellas advertising beer brands I managed to get lost on one huge subway underneath one of these roundabouts. Four times I walked up different flights of stairs and four times I was on the right street. There are 12 exits!!!!! Felt like the Prisoner. Every time I tried to retrace my steps I was confronted by the same stall owner selling fetching lime-coloured tiger-print bras and jelly shoes.
Coming from Poznan on the train to Bydgoszcz is not particularly scenic. The odd hill and that's about it. The stations keep getting smaller smaller until you realise that platform one has become a potato field. It is nearly totally farmland. and basically empty. But its scarey to imagine that 65yrs ago this was a picture of total distruction. No wonder the war in this part was so bloody. It is just a flat expanse, no vantage points or anything. Imagine the German forces one side and the Russians on the other. Carnage. Lord knows how many bodies are buried in mass graves along those tracks.
My first two days in Poznan were a mixed bag. I had forgotten that K's sister's boyfriend was storing his stuff in the flat. All of it. So it is a little cramped currently and we're not sure when he is leaving. It's not too much of a problem but he's the type of person who eats all your food and forgets to replenish it. and he's half German. Ho hum.
I managed to get myself locked out the first morning. Aparrantly to have to pull her door to you, and simultaneously slowly put the key in the lock, turn it to the left and pull the key to the right. I tried for 15minutes and nearly had a panic attack (interview in 45minutes).
So the job, yeah. Well I managed to wangle an interview with an organisation called Program Bell; a US based english language school. I turned up and she offered me a job on the spot after some negotiations with colleagues and another school. I'll be teaching in a local school for 10hrs per week and in the private school in the city centre for 20hrs. What is more fun though is that I'm also going to be teaching cookery!!!!!!!!!! Move over Jamie Oliver you fat-tongued mockney twat. It's only going to be once a month but it should be a laugh!
Europop, the scurge of well, Europe. A song came on the radio at lunch time and it consisted of the words 'you've got the sweetest arse in the world' repeated for about 3.5minutes. Well it's hardly Dylan. But then I don't get Dylan, the whining little bugger. I've got plans on where to put that harmonica.
So, where to start? I've arrived and been a 'dirty migrant' for three days and i've already taken one of their jobs. But more on that later.
I've spent the last few hours playing with a large 1.5kg ball of fluff that is Kizhia, a 3month old kitten. She is the cutest little thing in the world and her daily schedule looks like this: wake up, pee, run around for two hours like a headless chicken, eat, sleep, fall in to bath, run around again playing with anything that dangles, shines, makes a noise and/or moves, change of activity to bumping in to walls and walling off beds in a heart meltingly cute way, lick Sam's forehead, eat/drink/pee, sleep, suckle a rug that she thinks is her mummy, puncture Sam's ankles, nearly knock over 85yr old, blind grandmother, bedtime. Watching her is a great way to pass time.
I'm in Bydgoszcz at the moment, house-sitting Karolina's Grandmother and the cat. It's a funny town. So ugly in parts like a slightly run-down, communist inspired Milton Keynes (A lovely vista I think you will agree) - a collection of huge roundabouts and trams, and ugly tower blocks. and then you get in to the old town which really pretty - all brightly coloured 19th Century buildings and cobbled streets lined with huge umbrellas advertising beer brands I managed to get lost on one huge subway underneath one of these roundabouts. Four times I walked up different flights of stairs and four times I was on the right street. There are 12 exits!!!!! Felt like the Prisoner. Every time I tried to retrace my steps I was confronted by the same stall owner selling fetching lime-coloured tiger-print bras and jelly shoes.
Coming from Poznan on the train to Bydgoszcz is not particularly scenic. The odd hill and that's about it. The stations keep getting smaller smaller until you realise that platform one has become a potato field. It is nearly totally farmland. and basically empty. But its scarey to imagine that 65yrs ago this was a picture of total distruction. No wonder the war in this part was so bloody. It is just a flat expanse, no vantage points or anything. Imagine the German forces one side and the Russians on the other. Carnage. Lord knows how many bodies are buried in mass graves along those tracks.
My first two days in Poznan were a mixed bag. I had forgotten that K's sister's boyfriend was storing his stuff in the flat. All of it. So it is a little cramped currently and we're not sure when he is leaving. It's not too much of a problem but he's the type of person who eats all your food and forgets to replenish it. and he's half German. Ho hum.
I managed to get myself locked out the first morning. Aparrantly to have to pull her door to you, and simultaneously slowly put the key in the lock, turn it to the left and pull the key to the right. I tried for 15minutes and nearly had a panic attack (interview in 45minutes).
So the job, yeah. Well I managed to wangle an interview with an organisation called Program Bell; a US based english language school. I turned up and she offered me a job on the spot after some negotiations with colleagues and another school. I'll be teaching in a local school for 10hrs per week and in the private school in the city centre for 20hrs. What is more fun though is that I'm also going to be teaching cookery!!!!!!!!!! Move over Jamie Oliver you fat-tongued mockney twat. It's only going to be once a month but it should be a laugh!
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