Oooh! Someone visited my page via a Google Search for Bramborak recipes! And.... they were from New Zealand! Curiouser and curiouser...

So once Lycos deigns to publish this blog again, I promise I will put one up. I'm off to research them in Prague, actually...

* posted by nat 11:06 AM

Which Sluggy Freelance Character Are You?

* posted by nat 11:03 AM

Monday, April 22, 2002

you have an ominosity quotient of six. you are really ominous. find out your ominosity quotient.

(So I succumbed. So what?)

* posted by nat 3:15 PM

Er. Make that a weekend's worth of guacamole. I was feeling quite ill by Sunday evening, as all I'd eaten all weekend was vast amounts of the stuff, and had a fairly beery night out with a load of Polish girls all intent on making me speak Polish whilst pouring as much beer down me as possible. So I made myself feel better by watching Star Wars 1 and having two helpings of ice-cream with chocolate sauce. I am a sinner!

I have sent off my transfer application for Istanbul, and shall now sit around and panic, basically. It's not really worth panicking, though, as it's such a gorgeous day. There's just one thing, and I'm still trying to decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing, and that is the parcel from Mark. Now, I don't have any objection to being sent presents, even if they are for no reason whatsoever. However I don't think this one is for no reason whatsoever. It happens to be a rather large volume of Oscar Wilde's works. I would have to go into far more backstory than I want to to describe exactly why I am simultaneously delighted and extremely upset, suffice it to say that I am, but never mind, I'm reading the thing anyway. I think I might just photocopy De Profundis and send that back to him!

* posted by nat 2:17 PM

Saturday, April 20, 2002

So, after many a thrilling meeting about annoying students on Friday - I was overjoyed, really, what a wonderful waste of my time - followed by slightly more useful conversations about Where To Go Next Year, I'm surprised I actually managed to plan any lessons; but I played a Choose Your Own Adventure type game with the Intermediates which went down rather well, by which I mean they were all talking English, all the time, without having to be constantly reminded as is the usual Friday case. Hurrah!

I took the crawl-home-and-vegetate option as I'm going out tonight, so I ended up in front of the telly eating ice-cream and cloudberry jam and found myself watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is one of the last things I thought I'd ever see on Polish TV! And I've forgotten all the words - eek! What's really annoying is that, while the songs are subtitled, they still have the stupid bored voice-over man for the rest of it; you have to wonder what the point is. The advert breaks were rather surreal as well, as they mostly consisted of adverts for sex phone lines - well, it was one in the morning by this point.

And now I am off to make a week's worth of Guacamole, as I think the avocados are finally squidgy enough.

* posted by nat 1:11 PM

Friday, April 19, 2002

Dragon> Ymedath bespoke Robinth with << Are you listening. My rider is speaking about yours. >>

Robinth> Ymedath senses that Robinth is very very quiet, all but a whisper of >>Oh, I am listening. I think she will be wonderful. Your rider has very good ideas. Or was it your idea?<< And, conspiratorially >>Shall I tell her now?<<

Dragon> Ymedath bespoke Robinth with << Yes, please do. >>

Dragon> Lenka senses that Robinth sprinkles snow-flakes into her brain that quickly become iron, insidious, controlled. >>It's you. You and me. Say yes. We will be wonderful.<<

Zaidra sits quietly, after what is apparently a lengthy conversation with Ymedath. "Yme says that he's bespoken her dragon." She's still playing the 'game' of seeking advice. "Wonder what she'll say?"

"Yes, of course we'll do it," Lenka whispers in a very far away voice, before a flicker in her eyes gives away the moment of actual comprehension and she gasps, hands flying up to her mouth as if they'd stuff those words back in, if they could. "I mean - I mean -" She stares at Zaidra. "You don't mean?"

Zaidra smiles, but now it's a smug smile. Trapped! "I do. Very much so. In fact," and she holds a much fancier knot up, after tugging it from a fur-lined pocket, "I mean it /this/ much. You did say yes, didn't you?"

--
So Lenka is now Wingsecond of Skyfire. Heaven help Skyfire! It's all Zai's fault! The whole thing is here.

* posted by nat 8:51 PM

Thursday, April 18, 2002

Thank you Rafal for utterly ruining my day.

He went missing for over four weeks and finally he turned up today, had to be forced into writing the test after claiming that he hadn't prepared for it (I told him exactly what I thought of that excuse) and then was his normal annoying self in class. The girls in PFCE1 are fine until he turns up and then they start acting all silly. Goodness only knows why, he's hardly a wonderful specimen of a man. but he's older - 21 and at Uni, so I expect that's exciting if you're a silly teenager whose parents keep you on far too tight a rope.

At about twenty past seven Justyna comes rocketing into the staffroom looking very unhappy. "Mother of Rafal is in the office and wants to know about him." Argh. Not only is his mother there, but so is Rafal, and neither of them look very happy, in fact his mother has almost visible steam coming out of her ears and is too cross to actually have a reasonable conversation with anyone. The upshot: I got shouted at, Justyna got shouted at, Rafal got verbally abused and threatened right in the middle of the office in front of everyone. The reason? He hadn't paid his course fees, so Gosia had tried to call his parents in Zamosc, got a bad number so wrote a letter instead. his mother recieved this letter - had no idea what he'd done with the 900zl she'd given him to pay - and got straight on the train and come to Torun, which is a good seven hours journey during which she worked herself into a complete state, got hold of her son and marched him straight over, to be told by me that her son hasn't been to class for a month and is in danger of failing the year. The one good thing I can say about Rafal is that he did have the decency to apologise for his mother (she did actually suggest I should hit him in class if he was being lazy) and try and calm her down. Then again, I really have no sympathy for the boy. 900zl gone awol! Ouch! That's well over half the average monthly salary.

On the other hand, now I've seen his mother, I can appreciate a bit more why Rafal is like he is. In the end I managed to escape and hide round the corner of Robert's office but Justyna had to cope with another full fifteen minutes of this woman's tirades about how useless her son was and how he wasn't fit to be out in the world alone and that she should take him back to Zamosc where she could keep an eye on him etc etc etc. Then I had to calm Justyna down, as apparently his mother has declared her intention of calling us after every lesson to check her son has attended. Great. And I was going to fill out my Transfer App. tonight, but I think instead I am going to go home and drink alcohol. Ugh.

11pm Update: I made myself overly-buttery (well, margariny, but it's the same thing) scrambled egg, which is the ultimate comfort food, and have calmed down somewhat by playing countless games of Spider. No change there, then!

* posted by nat 7:45 PM

Ah, social evening at Damroki last night. Monika and Asia came down and we bitched about the boys in PFCE4, it was fun. Far more fun was watching the byplay between Macolm and a lot of his students. After one particularly silly joke involving cigarette smoke and looking for ash Wojtek turned to him and said, to the table at large. "You know, I'm impressed. I'm going to have to go from not liking you to definitely hating you." Everyone laughed. Several teachers choked on their drinks. "He's good," said Rachael, impressed, and then played Flower of Scotland as the ringtone on her mobile which is her latest Scottish-and-Proud gesture.

Monika discovered that Wojtek is single. Much hmming. Robert bought everyone drinks, and they just kept coming so I kept drinking them. Kristy and I continued our get-drunk-and-remove-things from Damroki trend - Kristy found a nice little pot, Carla started off slow by gatting a Zywiec glass, and I took a fancy to a large candlestick. It even has two candles in, bonus! We wandered off with a few of Rachael's students who insisted on speaking Polish to me, and ended up back at Beata's flat where there was more beer, food, Acid Jazz and Piotr trying to get me to speak Czech which by that time was completely impossible. Ewa and I got into a very deep, rather drunken pseudo-psychological discussion and eventually, about 4am, I wandered off home. The candlestick is settling in fine.

* posted by nat 12:46 PM

Wednesday, April 17, 2002

I'm marking EL1 writings.

My grandfather don't have a bird. (but he has a moustache.)

My father is a surgery.

At home he always wears buggy clothes.

First time I saw my wife was on bus station for fourteen years. (Which really is my current favourite)

* posted by nat 10:59 AM

Tuesday, April 16, 2002

I recovered from the shock of no more ER-in-German on Tuesday by finding Imperium Kontratakuje on Polsat. It's obviously Star Wars Week. I'm not complaining, even if having the voice-over man droning on and on completely ruined the effect of any and all revelatory moments. He has no sense of timing!

* posted by nat 11:10 PM

I decided there wasn't a high enough frog count on these pages. To improve this state of affairs I've been looking through my photos:

* posted by nat 1:02 PM

Monday, April 15, 2002

I got a parcel - yay! So Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair is now on the pile on my bedside table, and despite giggling at the dodo on the scooter on the front cover, I shall only start it once I finish Beowulf. Beowulf is rather slow going because I've discovered it has to be read out loud, which is highly frustrating to be doing when the only audience is oneself. It confines me to my room, amongst other things, and I don't have enough epic music to use as accompaniment, although Scheherezade fits the bill, as ever. I'm comforting myself with the knowledge that it must be very improving for the cockroaches. Just call me Jennyanydots.

* posted by nat 10:08 PM

Job seeking update: I rather like the look of this place. Hmmm. Thoughts? Hummus!

* posted by nat 5:47 PM

I had fun TV watching last night: one of Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts from 1959 - dubbed over in French - followed by Die Rueckkehr der Jedi-Ritter. And all I can say to that is Han Solo speaking German is just so very wrong! Next Weekend is Episode 1, which means I'll have seen it more times in German than I have in English. I don't know what that could signify. Oh well. I am off to claim my expenses for Poznan.

I've just scanned in a load of photos. Now all I have to do is work out how to convert them into JPEGs, but I'm on the way with that. So hopefully there will be a major photo update in the next few days!

(edit) Eeeek! The list is out! *rushes off to seek employment*

* posted by nat 1:49 PM

Sunday, April 14, 2002

Here is what happened in Poznan. It got a bit long, and I'm not sure I've managed to convey just how bizarre the whole day was. Judge for yourself. I'm just vegetating with chocolate soya mousse.

* posted by nat 3:35 PM

Saturday, April 13, 2002

I Am
Fachea
Celtic Goddess of Poetry.
I'm a freaky writer type that doesn't like to leave the house. I'm probably a lot smarter than you.
What Celtic Goddess are You?
Quiz by Aoibhell

* posted by nat 8:47 PM

I've had a severely bizarre day in Poznan. I've just spent half an hour typing up what happened, and then my laptop crashed and has refused to recover the document, so now I'm alternately sulking and swearing, and I don't have the heart to start all over again now. Besides, I am sinking into migraine country, and I've just had to swallow a lot of pills to cope with a sick and aching arm.

l shall do my best at explaining it all tomorrow. The men on stilts, the fire engine, the shot-drinking men on horseback, the nasty shades of pink, and the curtain rail, and...

* posted by nat 8:29 PM

Thursday, April 11, 2002

I seem to have no recollection of Tuesday. Should I be worried? (Actually, I think I decided that the apple juice needed finishing up, ergo, Zubrowka was needed to go with it, hence the memory loss.) But in more exciting news, flerdle is coming to the UK in June/July! And she's coming to stay with meee! Wheee! Party at my place! Of course, I have no idea exactly when I'll get back to England, but probably around the first of July. Still, who needs specifics?

The Intermediates have been electioneering - manifestos, lovely practice of the second conditional. Much fun was had yesterday with The Big Feet Party, The Smelly Socks Party, The Leader Price Party and The Cheap Wine Party (the last, with the slogan 'Fill the Vistula Full of Cheap Wine' was rather popular...) Today we had The Shy Girls Party (Down with brave people!) The What's the Time Party (sponsored by Rolex, apparently) and The Teletubbies Party (Eh-Oh!) - the latter's policies were mainly concerned with doing away with tax on sweets, forcing all young children to drink Teletubby lemonade and banning Winnie the Pooh and hunny (The rest of the class quickly formed a protect-Piglet action group and are now demanding to be taught The Tigger Song. And yes, most of them are older than I am.)

* posted by nat 10:17 PM

what's your battle cry? |
mewing.net | merchandise!

* posted by nat 1:26 PM

Me: write down two places you've been to recently.
Jacek: the pub, seasick.

I think Jacek is in severe danger of turning into EL2's Hyman Kaplan.

Had a fun seminar this morning on listening. To give you some idea of how it went, here's the start of the handout:

Intro: The Thirteenth Warrior extract to emphasise the importance of listening in learning a second language. Using Crashen's sitting around campfires in the rain travelling with twelve enormous Vikings method.

I, oh-so-ex-psycholinguistics student that I am, said 'Oi! You've spelt Krashen wrong!'
'Not that Krashen,' says Rob. 'The other one, of course.'

The best bit was when one of said enormous Vikings came out with some burbling that sounded very much like 'Inowroclaw, Inowroclaw' (a town near here where we have a satellite school...) which caused so much hilarity we missed most of the rest of it.

* posted by nat 12:30 PM

Tuesday, April 09, 2002

Hoorah! Am feeling fat and horrid and in the mood for a rant. There are lots and lots of things that I have rants building up on, but given that I spent my lunchtime with the TV volume turned up and singing along to all the choir parts at the Queen Mum's funeral, I shall have a little rant on one of my particular hatreds, which would be funerals.

I'm all for burial, burial rites and a bit of a service at the point of interment or whatever, but I never have quite understood the point of a funeral. The person who you're having the party for isn't there! So it turns into a Who's Who of family, friends, almost-friends, people who just fancy crashing a funeral as they have a black dress that needs airing... eugh. And then everyone points and looks at family and close friends and anyone who feels up to making a scene. And then someone stands up (or someones) and says very nice things. Which is nice, I suppose, but frankly dull, and more often than not vapid. All in all, funeral services are mindless posturings. 'Oh, I think he/she would have liked it.' Well then, something needs to be worked out so they get it while they're still alive to enjoy it. We ought to have gatherings to tell people we love that they're top far more often.

That said, having a bit of Brahm's Requiem sung is always nice. How lovely are thy dwellings fair was actually the first anthem I ever sang. Funny how some things stick in the memory, as well as the fact that now, over ten years later (gulp!) - though actually, I think I sang it about six years ago too - I have no problem remembering the whole thing. If anyone ever feels the need to have a funeral for me, I think I'd better stipulate it's to be nothing but lots of lovely choral music and no-one's to be allowed to say a single word. People almost always get something out of music. Maybe I should make a compilation tape and make it really easy!

Speaking of which, if there's time tomorrow, as I've got a reading in the book which strands PFCE4 on a desert island, I think Desert Island Discs might be on the cards.

* posted by nat 9:52 PM

Monday, April 08, 2002

Having spent the last hour and a half going "You had dinner at nine, you don't need chocolate." I am now telling myself "Sod need, I'm going for 'want'" and am currently demolishing chocolate mousse. Sinful. Delicious. Hurrah!

I've also filled out my pre-PDI questionnaire and am getting the interview part over and done with tomorrow, hopefully. And the vacancy lists should be out in a week or two. Gosh! Must sort out CV. Must write a CV, actually. I don't seem to have one.

* posted by nat 10:17 PM

Sunday, April 07, 2002

Mark just phoned.

I shall go away and be monumentally confused now.

* posted by nat 9:02 PM

Saturday, April 06, 2002

And just when you thought I might have got out of the quiz habit... well, I've taken loads, I'm just trying to be good about not posting them.




which children's storybook character are you?

this quiz was made by colleen

* posted by nat 8:20 PM

I went down town, dropped off my photos and scored an all time high of three seperate student sightings in under five minutes. Points duly awarded, I was mooching my way through the snowflakes considering expensive chocolates when I got distracted by the hordes pouring into the cathedral, so as ever I played sheep. It's not often you get a fully packed out church at Saturday lunchtime, not even in Poland, and St. John's is fairly huge, as churches go. Mass was under way featuring full choir and orchestra performing greatest church hits - Locus Iste (Bruckner's), Panis Angelicus, the Hallelujah chorus (Polish version) - throughout the service, and even with being stuck in the crowds right at the back under the wheezy, creaky organ I insisted on singing along - I'm sure I annoyed lots of people but I didn't care!

It's a mark of how many services I've been to now that I can do almost all the responses, not to mention a few hyms, including the perennial favourite Wiiii-taaaaaj Jee-eeee-suuuuu, syyyyyyy-nuuuuuu Maaaaaa-ryjjjjjjj-iiiiiii which is either dreadfully popular, or part of the liturgy, I never have quite worked it out. The Mass was marking the 10th aniversary of something, I think something to do with the cathedral, but it's difficult enough trying to hear from the back, never mind trying to understand. There were getting on for a thousand people in there, maybe more - it's difficult to tell with all the pillars and side aisles. Communion took almost half an hour (entertainment via orchestra) and the place was crawling with clergy who filled up the entire main aisle when processing out - several tens of priests and canons in black and purple and the silly hats with the pompom on top, a dozen or so bishops, and an archbishop who had to be hustled down the aisle by the rest of them as he seemed intent on trying to bless the entire congregation individually. I think the rest of them wanted to get home for lunch. Or maybe, like me, they'd lost all sensation in their toes.

I got home to thaw out and arrived just in time, as Kristy had managed to get her hair entangled in the hairdryer. After a bit of pulling we gave up and I cut her free. While I was on cutting I had a good go at my toenails, though I got over-enthusiastic and chopped bits of my toes off as well - blood-framed toenails are so fetching, and contrast so very nicely with the heavy snow flurries we've been having outside.

* posted by nat 7:49 PM

Friday, April 05, 2002

I couldn't publish last night about how Justyna and I shared pizza and I did my best to throw tea everywhere - not to mention the tomatoes, or how observing my lesson seems to have put Esther in incredible pain (surely it wasn't that bad, even with Asia being her usual annoying self), or how my new hair clip (a frog prince, I couldn't resist!) sent I2 into stitches every time I turned round to write on the board, which made me quite paranoid for a little bit, so I'm publishing it now.

Oh, and also that Snitch! is fantastic and why the heck have I never read it before now? I can't find the link now, grumble - somewhere on FA.

I have a nasty feeling I'm about to get hay fever; I'm all sniffly. Either that or I'm catching a cold from sitting here in my pyjamas by the wide open window. Maybe I should get dressed...

* posted by nat 9:24 AM

Thursday, April 04, 2002

Just another day in the chatroom...

flerdle: gnnnzzzzzzzz
N�a: [nat] *whispers* ..... .. ..... .. ... .. ......?
nat: [nea] Oooh! *shushes* ... ... ............ ?!?
N�a: *nods at nat*
N�a: [nat] ... .... ..!!
nat: [nea] ....? ........ ___ - - ._.. .. ..._ -.-.-!
flerdle: aorrzzzzzzzzzzz
N�a: [nat] ....... : "...... .. ..., ..!" *.....* ........ . . .
nat: [nea]....^.^.^---.oOo........
N�a: [nat] ....=----- .... �.�.~.�.�
nat: [nea] :+ - (.... ... .oOo. .- -.. ... .- -- --.- *^* $$$$$$$$$$$$$$!)
N�a: *wonders where on earth she's going to get zebra feathers and bison tusks from*
flerdle: harzzzzznnnnnn
flerdle: zzzzzzzzzzzzz
N�a: *uses a mouse tooth instead*

* posted by nat 1:23 PM

Wednesday, April 03, 2002

I tried to persude PFCE4 that they wanted to colonise other planets, but they weren't really having it. Most of them wanted to sleep. Mind you, so did I! Esther's coming to see PFCE1 tomorrow, so I suspect alterations just might be in order. But I'll do it to-mor-row. Zzzz.

* posted by nat 9:14 PM

Tuesday, April 02, 2002

The train was only half an hour late in, and the no. 27 was standing there waiting, so all in all I got home about quarter past six, and I had the compartment to myself most of the way, which was nice. I've been asleep most of the day, but I did make an expeditition up to Géant for coucous and avacado and other goodies, not to mention chocolate. I can have chocolate again! Hurrah for me!

Anyhow, here is what I did on my Easter holiday. For the majority of you who haven't ever encountered one of my offline diaries, it isn't always so neatly organised; it just worked out this time that there were lots of little snippets. I've typed it up in chronological order rather than the order it was written in - some entries are written as they're happening, others as much as two days later. And yes, I've excised some bits, but probably nothing like enough.

* posted by nat 10:57 PM

Monday, April 01, 2002

Oh, and HappyApril Fool's Day. I almost forgot.

* posted by nat 9:01 PM

Well that was clever.

Here I am, sitting in Kraków, because foolishly I thought (or rather, I didn't think) I could just turn up and buy a ticket on the Easter Monday express train to Warsaw half an hour before it left. Which I could, if I wanted to go first class and pay 100zl just to get to Warsaw. Er, no. So I'm waiting till 11pm now, and getting the direct train to Torun instead (40zl). Unfortunately this is the one that comes from Zakopane, so I expect I'll be sleeping in the corridors. Add to that I got up at 5am this morning, and I really am whacked.

Nevertheless, I've had a rather wonderful break, more to follow once I get home and have recovered. I might type up the offline diary, I shall see how I feel about it.

I'm just catching up with all the news I've missed. Oh, and I've broken my camera. Or rather, my mother's camera. *angelic grin here*

* posted by nat 8:30 PM