Hmmm. More snow has failed to fall in the night. And I failed to go to sleep again. Maybe it comes of listening to too much Goonery ( I have got to stop wandering round quoting it to unsuspecting random people, like my classes...) or maybe it's this innate desire to play card games at 1am, or maybe it's just the non-sleeping thing. I'm doing my best to eat in the morning, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm still starving at 9pm - last night, a mug of soup and a mug of hot chocolate and a couple of the divine things that are Apple-and-Cinnamon Jaffa Cakes. Ok, so I had more than a couple. But I think that was partly due to me being hungry. Hmm. So then I don't wake up till 10am and there's no time to read, and I don't feel like going into to town to gratutitously spend money - and it's pay day tomorrow, eek! I have got to stop this hoarding tendency. I want a pair of boots and I have nothing to wear for Christmas. Actually, I seem to have nothing to wear full stop. But that's because I really need to do laundry. I'm tempted to go and raid Jackpot and Cottonfield again. Or buy a few things online. I've got to get rid of this money! There's no point trying to save it!

Ok, back online to sort out Search things now, then I think I'll read, and do risotto for an early lunch, and then get in to sort out that bloody test still, and this lesson I'm covering. Carla has made a Jeopardy game for Intermediate level, so there's that to take a dekko at as well. It's all go!

* posted by nat 9:38 AM

Wednesday, November 28, 2001

IT'S STILL SNOWING!!! AND IT'S SETTLED!

Ahem. Ok. I should recap the weekend given it's Wednesday now and all of a sudden topsi-turviness has decided to make it's way into the staffroom - I am covering again tomorrow night. I don't begrudge the reason for a minute, in fact I think it's better that we all do cover, but it would be so nice to have just one evening in the week where I can finish before 9pm.... I must remember to ask about overtime pay, because I'm pretty sure that even teaching one lesson cover takes me over hours. I can't remember how it's calculated.

Anyhow! Brno - sandwiched inbetween two epic train journeys. It snowed nearly all the way there, until just south of Ceska Trebova. Three hours in Wroclaw was spent perusing the theatre lists, changing 47zl into 400kc (Ow!) and then making one cup of tea in a cafe divided between drunks and families waiting for their connections last 2 and a half hours... At the border the soldiers seemed less interested in checking under and in the train than in throwing snowballs at each other, and I was quite tempted to get out and join them! I was reunited with a Czech railway station coffee machine at Usti nad Orlici (hot chocolate from heaven) and just caught the delayed train to C.Trebova in time to make my connection there, after running into the station to buy my ticket and convince the lady that I really did want to travel on the EC and yes, I did need a supplement ticket.

Brno seemed the same as ever although the street outside the station seemed to be even more inclined than I remembered. I made a quick detour for banan v jogurtu and a few flowers and then rode black to Mendlak to be instantly fussed over by Danijela and Honza and to consume vodka, Baileys and gingerbread very quickly whilst being instantly sat down and shown all the wedding photos. Having never seen an Orthodox wedding before it was quite interesting, not to mention that as both of them have a horror of cameras the official photos were hilarious, with both of them staring at the camera with the exact same pissed-off expression on their faces.

Much alcohol was consumed (at least by me and Honza) and we made it down to the pub round the corner for about 3/4 of an hour before Danijela got exhausted. The rest of the evening was more chat and idle amusement. On Sunday we had strudel for breakfast (yum!) and then I went to poke round town to give Danijela a chance to relax and not try to rush around after me! Brno is pretty much the same but quite a lot of the main square has changed - Humanic has put up a rather modern facade (ugh) and the building next to it has been turned into a Literarna kavarna which is about to open and looks fantastic. Opposite, Dum pan z Lipe has been all spruced up and repainted and inside is rather a posh shopping centre, full of people trying to go up and down in the glass lifts. There's a winter garden taking shape on the roof and a fantastic view over to SS Peter & Paul and the castle, not to mention over the rooftops of the town. I had a quick poke around the rest of the place and then tried one of the cafes that had 'Horka Cokolada' written up outside, and was it ever a good choice! I haven't had hot chocolate like that since the cafe in Bratislava. This mug was much smaller, but it was so thick I had to eat it with a spoon, rather than drink it. It was divine. Can't remember the name of the brand, though, except that it began with an M and sounded Italian. Either way, it was at about that point I found myself wishing I still lived there!

There was then, back at Mendlak, much more discussion of babies (view the video of the ultrasound!) Red Dwarf (in Czech!) classic Czech films, the European basketball championships and The Man Situation. (which seems to have become a non-situation since my last email, as there hasn't been a response. Maybe it is still a situation. I don't know.

And then the train was at midnight, except it was an hour late, and people came through at regular intervals to wake me up - I must have the most stamped ticket ever - 11 times! And I was back in Torun, with snow, at 11am, and riding black on the bus as all I had was a 50zl note and it's impossible to use on of those at a stanek (or whatever they call the little booths here.) And I went straight into school for the PFCE meeting. And then planned. And then went home to bed.

PFCE4 today were gems, and a blessedly peaceful and quiet class after I3 who got rather out of control playing Liar! and then insisted on escaping out of the window when we found that the builders had locked us into the annexe - but they had a bus to catch, I couldn't blame them. I'd have done the same. Practised indirect questions with PFCE4, which rounded off the eveing nicely when Wojtek asked "Would you mind telling us if we could go home now?" So I set homework first. Evil. Me?

* posted by nat 10:59 PM

Tuesday, November 27, 2001

I went to the Czech Republic. I came back. I had a fabulous time... And I am still too tired to write about it.

I am also still laughing about Unit 2B in English File 2, but more on this all tomorrow, once I've done the mark scheme for the test and a bit of shopping, and I'm feeling more coherent than I do now - trying to write all these inspirations and make sense is proving a bit much!

* posted by nat 10:05 PM

Friday, November 23, 2001

IT'S SNOWING!!!

* posted by nat 10:15 AM

Thursday, November 22, 2001

In a fit of creativity, I finally finished all my reports. Vague strung together soundbites, that would be. Though it explains why I was so frankly BAD at RP last night - reports have addled my brain. PFCE1 were in particularly over-the-top form today, so I have written them all fairly sarcastic reports. Though I hope I don't get any more visitations like Marta's father turning up after the lesson today demanding to know exactly when she'd been absent and late and then making her apologise to me. (it was cringeworthy. Not to mention scary. I actually started feeling sorry for Marta... but not that sorry!)

I've also discovered that the tall, lanky, drattedly good-looking young man who turned up to Elementary2 last week and has now joined the class is the World Junior Windsurfing Champion. Gosh, I'm teaching a celebrity! I shall have to try even harder not to stare at him in future! Though I still think 18 is a bit young.

Anyway, I must turn my mind back to Inspirations now. Whyever did I volunteer? I think I was just having a fit of trying to be helpful. I should stop that kind of thing.

* posted by nat 11:26 PM

Wednesday, November 21, 2001

Ahhhh! It's Wednesday and I still haven't written any reports! Actually, that's not strictly true. I have written nearly all of them. I just haven't written any of them up in neat. And they have to be in on Friday! Eek! But there's only so many times you can write bland comments without boring yourself to death... I wrote a couple today in Elementary 2 while I was trying to persuade them all that Dusty Springfield was a goddess and they should all sing along to You don't have to say you love me. They took some convincing. Hmph. I sang along anyway! (And wrote reports - how's that for multi-tasking?)

I bought my ticket to Brno today - it took 40 minutes, almost! I've never seen anyone take so long to sell me a ticket. It was almost an art form! Anyhow, it cost 141zl (I gave her 151zl and she gave me 9zl change - oh dear...) So I am all set to go! Woo! I bought a gofry for lunch with icing sugar on the top that immediately blew off and landed all over me. Looked great. Yum! Then I went to the British Council and changed books. I got a cassette of the Goon Show as I am getting a little bored with replaying all my saved ISIHACs (I'm still recovering from the discovery that there's a live Radio 4 feed through the Internet and - yes - ISIHAC's on while I teach! I thought I was ok, but I forgot to allow for the time difference. Gah.) I also got The Amber Spyglass, mostly cos it was sitting there all brand new and sparkly and I can't resist new library books, but also because it was a good book and I rushed it when I was reading it before. I also got Dorothy Dunnett's King Hereafter to keep me happy on the train ride, and then for my ambitious book I got Ben Okri's The Famished Road. Hopefully I will do better with this ambitious book than I did with Flaubert's Parrot - I never even got past the start of that, I ended up giggling madly over Jeeves and Wooster instead. (Not that that was a bad thing at all!)

Meeting of the Wednesday Night Club - the First rule of the Wednesday Night Club is: Don't talk about the Wednesday Night Club. Second rule of the Wednesday Night Club is: Don't talk about the Wednesday Night Club!

So I won't.

* posted by nat 11:09 PM

Tuesday, November 20, 2001

This is all Keri's fault, via Rae, and whoever else is into all these flipping test things... hurrah!


Take the Affliction Test Today!

* posted by nat 10:35 PM

Argh! Report test trains general arghness PFCE1-evil-horrors argh!

Malcolm sacked me twice on Monday, and almost sacked me today (except it was during class when I finally let slip what I wasn't going to be around this weekend), so I think he is probably going to sack me tomorrow as well. This will be about 4 times in one week. Is this a record, I ask myself?!

Ok, I'm off to mess around on the Fort Weyr site and sort out Inspirations. Heck. It's all work everywhere at once, isn't it? Roll on Christmas! And there I was, starting to write again for the first time in about 4 years - started a story on Sunday in a fit of report-avoiding-overexcitement and it's on the back burner again already. Le sigh.

* posted by nat 10:03 PM

Sunday, November 18, 2001

Saturday means Roswell in 3 languages day - except I have now discovered that the French channel is only 2 episodes ahead of the German channel. Agh! Inbetween all that I went to town and bought a lot of things that I didn't need, and felt very good about doing so. I also managed to transport a few cockroaches out of the house in my backpack, who were summarily ejected just outside Rossman's. Good! More room for me to go into stockpile mode and buy 4 tins of chickpeas... now I just have to think of some more exciting things to do with them. I wish I could buy fresh spinach. I haven't noticed any around here, not even at the market.

Carla kept her promise to make hummus, so I took around Zubrowka and apple juice and we watched Sleepless in Seattle on the computer. Drat. Now I wish I'd bought a laptop with a DVD on. Oh well, in the meantime, despite strict rationing, I've finished Draco Sinister and am doing my best not to start reading any more, as she hasn't finished the next one yet and I'd only get upset.

Bedtime now. Next weeks project is to make sure Elementary 2 do not revert to pronouncing 'tights' as 'tits'. I was shamefully bad at keeping a straight face at that one. Mind you, so were they. (Although they were just laughing at themselves, not what they were saying...) Oh, and to write reports. Ugh.

* posted by nat 10:29 PM

Thursday, November 15, 2001

I am so shattered. I managed not to wake up till about 10:30am this morning (probably an upshot of staying in Art Cafe till gone 1am, walking home in the freezing cold and having nice red legs by the time I got in). Anyway. I made myself a nice cup of tea, crawled back into bed, curled up there happily for a bit and then remembered that there was a bloody teacher's meeting at 11. And at that point it was 10 past. Ooops. So I dragged myself up and got there for about 12 noon, hung around in the office with Justyna before Malcolm arrived downstairs for a moment, sacked me (of course!) and sent me up for the last few minutes. I then dozed on my desk for half of the day, then went off to teach looking lovely and tired, to the evilness of PFCE 1. Who, when I told them about my Tuesday night phone call from Mark-who-apparently-has-amnesia, were all immediately on his side (What?! Bloody teenagers, going Give Him Another Chance - yeah right.) Anyway. After that they actually settled down and did some work. Woohoo! Dozed through I2 - who dozed with me, I think, then got to cover for Steve's Advanced class. Which went quickly enough, if being hardly inspiring...

So home I come, burn an omlette - though it still tasted perfectly nice! thank God it's going to be Friday tomorrow, I really need the weekend (Going away? Well, I could, but I think I need to stay in bed and concentrate on not getting ill... will I ever get out of Torun again? Tune in for the next instalment!)

* posted by nat 8:54 PM

Tuesday, November 13, 2001

Petty gripe time: what is it with the people of Central Europe and their inability to make bed linen the right size or shape? I mean, my sheets hardly stretch the length of the bed (my white sheet is almost a foot short though my blue sheet just about makes it) - yet my pillow covers are twice the size of the pillows. Which I sort of understand because the pillows out here are usually huge. But how difficult is it to get a set of bed linen that fits the bedclothes? Argh!

I need Lemsip. Lemsip is imperative. I spent too long talking to Knut today about Lemsip, and now I can think of nothing else. (Drat him!) Never mind they can't get Lemsip in Norway either. He has it. Howl! (Anyone who wants to sent me packages c/o IH Torun, go right ahead!)

Today however, I spent money. I went right up to Geant and bought the cheapest CD player they had. This was mainly as a diversion to stop me from buying vast amounts of chocolate up there, but whatever, it worked. So CD player now. And radio. Hurrah! I must remember to canvas class opinion on what the best radio station to listen to is.

* posted by nat 9:10 PM

Sunday, November 11, 2001

I have seen hell, and it is Geant on a Saturday early afternoon.

Not only was the world, his wife, their children and all their friends and relations there, but strategically positioned every five metres or so was some poor person who, when you walked past them, switched themselves on and started giving you some little spiel about the "promocje" that they had. I successfully ignored the Rama butter, steam iron (though I did notice the sandwich toaster - not promoted but still rather tempting), bath foam, shaving gel, crisps, tea, etc, etc, etc - though I did give in and try rather a lot of chocolate. And then bought it because they were looking at me expectantly and I felt guilty. Oh well. It was /good/ chocolate. (It did not last the journey home.)

I was also caught at the toothpaste section by a woman trying to stick a sticker on me and given my automatic response of "Ne, diekuje" - which, alternated with "Diekuje, ne", I'd been perfecting all the rest of the way round the store - she looked slightly affronted. So I blinked at her several times, at which point she switched into English and explained if I was wearing the sticker then at the checkout some tiny proportion of what I spent would be given to charity. Oops. I took the sticker, but I don't know if anyone saw it. Oh well.

And all I originally went to get was goat's cheese! 100 zloty later - though about 30zl of that was on cheese - and I did get a loofah and a new toothbrush. And bananas. And chocolate...

I walked back past the cemetery, where there were a group of people standing around a new grave, piled up with flowers. At first I thought this might be some little prayer session, but as I got closer I could see they were all standing there smoking away. I /do/ hope the person in that grave was a die-hard smoker, though by the law of averages in Poland, they would have been.

And the reason for no posts all this week is? Well, one, Dan's now written a chatserver so I have yet more people to chat with, two, I've been very behind on my emailing, and three, I've finally got myself round to reading Cassie Clare's Draco Dormiens which I've been meaning to do for ages, as it's super cool. This is probably partly to console myself for the fact that I keep seeing adverts for ER, on Pro7 at 20:15 when yes, I'm teaching. Grrr! Cable isn't enough! We need a video recorder!

Apart from that I love my elementary 1 class, who woke up on Friday night:
Me: What's another word for thief?
All:Ummm....
Me (knowing they know it): Rrrrrrr.....
Mateusz (in a flash of brilliance): Rubbish!
Me (trying hard not to roll on the floor laughing, pointing at the waste paper basket.) Not quite...
All (howls of hysterical laughter for a couple of minutes.)

* posted by nat 8:46 PM

Friday, November 02, 2001

Hurrah for online tests! I feel so much better now. And now I really am going to bed!

I AM 40% GEEK.

I probably work in computers, or a history
department at a college. I never really
fit in with the "normal" crowd. But I have
friends, and this is a good thing.

Take the GEEK Test at Fuali.com!

It works as long as you disregard the first sentence...

* posted by nat 10:03 PM

Me, half-past-six, shattered, slobbing in front of the TV - watching Sabrina dubbed into German or somesuch crap - when the doorbell goes so I just press it, and then the bell to the flat goes, and I open it to find my field of vision entirely taken up by a very tall, very uniformed, and very official looking policeman.

Gulp.

Who wants to speak to Kristy, who wants to know when she'll be back, who wants to know who we rent the flat from, what we're doing in Torun, where we work, how much she earns, how long she'll be here, if she speaks any Polish, if we know anyone around here who speaks Polish... I resorted to my fantastic Polish phrasing of nie wiem interdispersed with nie rozumiem, and blinked a lot, but it didn't seem to work, he just rephrased the questions in ever more complicated language until I came up with something that sounded more satisfactory. And eventually he went away, after several abortive attempts of me spelling my name.

Kristy and Michal came back about 15 minutes later (after I'd gone into shock) - and Michal suggested that it might be someone dealing with residency, and Kristy phoned Robert, as I'd been on the verge of doing in the face of relentless questioning, who suggested the same thing. Or that he was checking up on Americans. Not that we get any post sent here, of course.

Mark phoned last night. It was oddly nice. He seems to have finally remembered the correct date of my birthday. Hm. Apart frm that, the way he's been acting, I would have thought he was suffering from amnesia. Anyway, I am suffering from insomnia so now I am going to bed.

* posted by nat 9:40 PM

Thursday, November 01, 2001

All Saints' Day - National Holiday

About 4:30, I decided it was dark enough - more dusk than twilight - to take a walk and try and find the cemetery. Esther had mentioned the direction before, so I just followed my nose to the approximate spot, and after that just followed the crowds.

It was breathtaking, and exactly the right time to turn up; through the gaps in the fence, I could see all the little lights, thousands of them, stretching far away into the distance. And then it was past a few dark groups of people selling candles and flowers out of big hold-alls, looking highly suspicious - or maybe it was just the lack of street lighting - and round the corner into the busiest cemetery I've ever seen. The only lights there were there came from all the candles on the graves, and there were plenty there to see by, all in their little tacky coloured glasses, shining red and orange and yellow and purple and green and blue in little clumps as far as I could see in either direction. Every so often you'd get a little group of family muttering prayers round on particular grave, and then some spruced-up middle-class family bustling past muttering "Left? Right? No, no, I'm sure we go right here... no, left, left, left, oh, drat..."

I had to walk for about 15 minutes before I found a grave that didn't have even a single candle on it. He'd died in 1958, and the stone looked terribly bare and lonely, and it seemed such a shame that out of the thousands of graves, there was only one man who'd been forgotten, who had no-one to come and remember him. I thought about appropriating a candle from one of the full-up graves nearby, but decided that just wasn't right either, (besides there were too many people about to risk being spotted) and by the time I'd twisted and turned my way around a few more places and fallen over another little man selling candles, I realised I'd never find my way back to it. Anyway, maybe someone came and found him later. I hope so.

The whole scene reminded me bizarrely of Christmas - little dancing coloured lights and warmly wrapped-up people bustling about. The whole place seemed so inviting, welcoming and alive. I hope I get to be buried somewhere as beautiful as that, and have little lights burning on my grave, even if it is only once a year.

* posted by nat 10:31 PM