Post twelve, in which I amend post seven

In her corrections of the essay that contained the slurs against Ukrainians, Russians, Gypsies and Jews, my student added "Arabs" to the list of people discriminated against in Poland. Turns out Poles, on the whole, are strongly anti-Muslim.

Post eleven, a few impressionistic photos

The audience of performers, in Lublin

Post ten, in which I do a little trading

A lot of exciting things have happened since my last post.

Last Thursday, Nick and I went out with some of our students, and played pool in an underground dive. The students have a mysterious nickname for our boss that translates roughly as "male witch." It's quite fitting, as the man has really remarkably voluminous, white hair.

Friday, I drove up to Lublin (nearest big city) with Nick, Magda (one of the other instructors), and Magda's high school English class. They performed an amusingly bastardized version of Midsummer Night's Dream (complete with Nick as Puck, prancing around in green tights--very amusing), and afterward, we stopped at McDonalds as a special treat. Below is a photo of the presenter at the theater. I think Poles put a lot of effort into their hair.

Sunday, I figured out how to watch my TV! Quite an accomplishment--it required plugging in the satellite cable (easy) and navigating a number of confusing Polish menus (hard). I got 5 channels.

Monday, when I returned from the office, my apartment was dark--the overhead lights, apparently protesting my new affinity for the TV, refused to work. Oddly, all of the outlets still worked. So I still had the TV. And here is the trade: I had 150+ channels! Mostly they're in Arabic and Italian, but also some in German, French, Polish, Russian, Slovenian, and even two in English (BBC World, and....well, maybe I only have one in English).

Tuesday, a repair-man fixed the electrical problem, but when I got home, everything shorted out again, and I was left with only a few remaining outlets still functioning. And guess what? Now I get even more channels! I wonder how much more I have to give up in order to get HBO? Maybe my stove?

I'm thinking of going to Lublin this weekend, to visit one of our colleagues, and to do a little big-city shopping (proper swimsuit, in which to swim laps at the awesome local pool in) and sightseeing. Also, I think both colleague Nick and I are feeling a little claustrophobic here in Chelm.

Post Nine, an oddity

Has anyone ever noticed that Phillip Morris' motto is Veni Vidi Vici?
That's a little creepy, no?

Post Eight, in which I show you around

Here's a little peek into my life:

My Bienenstich: a success!

My Block of Flats

An Odd Church on the Way to School

Again

I guess Chelm is surrounded by forests!



The Basilica on the hill, dedicated to St. John of the Silver Tongue

Post seven, in which I rank danger

The Poles, mysteriously, are afraid of most things. Here, as far as I know, are the major fears they have, ranked 1 being scariest and 8 relatively least scary:

1. Ukrainians
2. Trains
3. Drunkards
4. Big cities
5. Getting sick
6. Pollution
7. Buses
8. Driving a car

(as one of my students hideously wrote in her essay about her hometown: "The people in my town are very friendly and helpful to foreigners (except Gypsies, Jewes, Ukrainians and Russians)). Yeah. Couldn't even spell it correctly.

Post six, in which I decide things might actually be ok

Things are looking up a little, since my last post.
Yesterday and the day before were shockingly mild--sun, no wind, and warm enough to wear just a jacket! Hurrah!
Unfortunately today is much colder again, and fine snow is sifting down again. I think it melts though, when it lands.

One of the other teachers introduced us to her old school, a jr/sr high school, where they happen to serve fantastically hearty and cheap lunches to anyone who can pay. This means that for the last couple of days I've been getting overwhelming portions of borscht, blini, carrot and horseradish salad, coleslaw, and chicken stew over potatoes for the sum of....about $1.35. Hurrah!

I think, after the first week of my baptism-by-fire teacher training, this week can't help but go better. I have far more tasks planned for each class, and I think I'm beginning to figure out what the students actually need help with, as opposed to the nonsensical nonsense that the other teachers have been telling me.

Would you believe there's no curriculum? These poor students end up being taught the same crap every year, just because the idiotic administration (based in Lublin, and deigning to come to Chelm once a week) doesn't want to bother. It makes me really mad.

We had a meeting with the aforementioned administration, in the form of the Director of Practical English Studies, to introduce me and Nick to the other teachers (only the teachers we already knew showed up though), and to discuss, among other things.....when the next meeting should be. Really; we spent over half an hour discussing this. Then it was resolved (and this, I think, was the goal of the administrator) that we would all meet individually, as it was too difficult to arrange a time. So she was absolved of any responsibility. What a gremlin.
So: 1 1/2 hours spent learning absolutely nothing.
I guess this is how my students feel!

At any rate...unaccountably, I feel better than last week. Maybe because my cold is finally disappearing, or because Nick taught me an awesome variation of Rummy called Rummy 500, with more aggressive scoring and discarding rules. And Saturday the previous English instructor, Caitlin, and her boyfriend came over to play Texas Hold 'em for matchsticks. Hurrah!

Post five, in which I'm a little disillusioned

Teaching is tough.

When you have no book,

when you have no one to tell you how to teach the vague material,

when you can only teach to a test you've never seen,

when there are twice as many students as you were expecting,

when you don't even really understand the title of the class, and none of the other teachers can explain it

("stylistics"), without using ridiculous words like "lexis". (I don't want to be rude, but the English instructors here could use a little conversation class as well as the students).

Nonetheless, I prevail to teach another day. Today I am actually teaching stylistics; I think I'm going to be cruel, and after the lame introductory exercizes, I'm just going to make my students write an essay for me. And then we'll talk about it, and my very high expectations of them, and then I'll make them stand in front of my camera so I can take video of them saying their names. If the videos are really winning, I'll post them to youtube.com, so you can enjoy/mock them as well.

I also took a few photos of really great big crows, and crow tracks in the snow, yesterday. Here they are.

You see what I really spend my time on, rather than class preparation...

Post four, in which I make myself at home

Since Monday I’ve been fed well, taken around town (memorably to a faux-western restaurant that gave the boy at the next table a fake rifle, and his mother a set of handcuffs, to better amuse themselves while waiting for their food), leapt through various bureaucratic hoops, met my fellow English instructor (Nick Lawton, from Pomona. See, small world), went grocery shopping (there’s even a Lidl down the block), and met the previous American instructor, Caitlyn—went over to the apartment she shares with her Polish boyfriend and drank vodka and cherry juice.

I’ll be teaching 7 classes a week, each 1 ½ hours long. Luckily, they’re concentrated on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, which means that I get a 4-day weekend every week. Those of you who are thinking of coming to visit, or want to meet up somewhere, here is the list of places I want to go:
1. Ukraine, as far east as Odessa and Yalta, ideally,
2. Lithuania, to the Baltic coast (this and the above should happen in the spring),
3. Zakopane, in the Tatra mountains in S. Poland,
4. Krakow, at least once,
5. Hungary!!!!!!
6. Slovenia, Czech republic, hell—even Belarus. There are tours to Chernobyl, if you’re into that kind of thing.

I get a longer break in April, and then I’m finished teaching June 6th, but will probably stay around Europe until mid July, at least. Might go down to Istanbul, or try to get to Spain again. If you have any ideas, or opportunities, let me know.

It’s snowing again, hard. I’m glad one of the Polish instructors, Dorota, convinced me to buy an umbrella. It’s aggressively drab; kind of Polish Prada. I’m off to school, to consult with someone who might know about my lesson plan (I don’t), then to use the glorious internet in my office, and finally lunch with Nick.

Should I survive my first week of classes, you’ll be the first to know.

I've been working on my long-awaited project of photographing everything I own; here are a few excerpts:

Post three, in which I finally reach Poland

Flew back to Berlin just long enough to pack my things, and hopped on an eastbound train for Poland.

Shared a compartment with a priest and an older woman who made a snuffly noise with her nose every time she breathed deeply. Odd. Turns out Poland is flat, like northern Germany, and just looks poorer. By the time I got to Warsaw, the train was running an hour late, so I missed my connecting train to Lublin. I had a horrible time trying to convince the relics behind the counter that I needed another ticket, but finally got one, and settled down with a cappuccino (choice of vanilla or chocolate flavoring….I don’t think we’re in Germany anymore, Toto) to wait.

In Lublin I had arranged to be met by my boss, Tomasz, but because I was three hours late, he didn’t seem to be meeting me after all. I didn’t have his number, and was a little worried, because the Lublin train station isn’t really where you’d hope to spend your first Polish night. Then—hurrah!—he showed up and drove me the hour to Chełm, where we were met at the department by some of my future colleagues (who had done a little shopping for me, so I’d have something to eat for breakfast!).

We left my things in my new apartment—huge, with three bedrooms, a large kitchen, living room, hot and cold running water, and fully functional heaters—and ate dinner in a curious underground restaurant, the terminus of Chełm’s famous chalk tunnels. Then: off to bed, with the promise of lunch and a tour the next day, alone for the first time in an unknown apartment………in as long as I can remember.

Man clearing the snow with an awesomely large shovel

Two views from my apartment

Post two, in which I travel a bit

The Acropolis, obviously

Flew from Berlin to Athens on Easyjet for a pittance. Spent a week there, coming down with a nasty cold, and enjoying the view of the Acropolis from my friend Tobias’ couch. Went to a number of archaeological museums, and saw amazing bits of art—jewelry, ceramics, incredible bronzes I’d read about (sleepily) in art history classes. Also: walked around a great deal, bought awesome knock-off sunglasses (all the better to imitate the Athenian girl, who wears hers all day/night long), and ate a great quantity of very good food. Eating at a tiny taverna, I recognized the story an American boy was telling (loudly, quel surprise) at the next table, as the mock-hate-crime that a Pomona professor self-perpetrated my junior year. Turns out the kid was from Pomona too. Ridiculous, almost tiresome, but also charming how we can insinuate ourselves all over the world.
Finished Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, which I found kind of disappointingly not-brilliant, after reading Hardboiled Wonderland. It seemed a little Bildungsroman-ish, and those of you who know my views know I don’t appreciate that.

Hm...in America we have "Smart Wool"...

At the National Archaeological Museum

Post one, in which I move to Poland

I’ve accepted a job as an English instructor at a very small teacher’s college in Chełm, Poland.

The “ch” is pronounced as the ch in Loch, “ł” pronounced as a w. So: “Cheowm”. The town is small—the highest estimated population (and the estimates varied wildly) is 60,000. The college itself is surprisingly large: 2,500 students spread over three or four disciplines. I expect to have around 15 students in each of my classes, but I’ll know more on Tuesday, when I teach my first class.

I took a circuitous route to reach Chełm, from Eugene, OR, that took a total of 18 days.

Snow in Oregon

I left Eugene in the middle of a freak snowstorm, a day early. Unfortunately, this meant missing Stephen Malkmus at the WOW hall, which would have been amazing. Flew from Portland to Frankfurt, Germany, and took the train to my aunt and uncle’s in Mannheim, just in time to batten down the hatches for an “Orkan,” (a delicate and less destructive European variation on the Hurricane). Visited my other aunt and two not-to-be-underestimated cousins at my grandparent’s house in Bubenorbis.

Two charmingly wily cousins, in Germany

Took a train up to Berlin, to visit Nick, my friend from high school, and his roommate Joanna, coincidentally a friend from Pomona (re: world being too small: I agree). Visited all my old haunts, helped Nick in his quest to drink good wine, and saw some great art at the Hamburger Bahnhof. Keine Frage, as soon as I’m finished in Poland, I’m moving to Berlin.

It's always good to know where the Existence-founding office is

Near the new Hauptbahnhof

The Hamburger Bahnhof, with a piece by Dan Flavin