Public Service announcement: I am off back to London tomorrow *waves madly at all Pikeable people* and sharing myself round several people. Because I am nice and friendly like that, and I wouldn't want to wear all your floors out.

Also, given timetabling and other general over-booked-ness, it looks like my one and only Prom chance of the year is going to be on Saturday (definitely the earlier one, though I think I'd like to try and stay for the later one as well, while I can!) So I'm going - I've caught a couple on BBC4, but it simply isn't the same; watching things on TV - whatever they might be - never are.

* posted by nat @ 10:48 PM

I don't understand hair. More specifically, I don't understand mine. I think that on one level I am grudgingly in awe of its escapist tendencies; on another slightly freaked out.

Take yesterday. Yesterday the boiling hot weather turned into rather muggy weather; it wasn't too uncomfortable, given I wasn't really doing anything, but it did make sense just to plait my hair and pin it up, because it's fairly thick and is best kept out the way in hot weather. It lasted fairly well all day, it got a bit out of shape but that didn't really matter. Anyway, I left it like that when I went to sleep, as it was still rather hot, yet when I woke up this morning, there was really no evidence it had ever been in plaits at all.

Now, I don't really think I'd been moving around much during the night, as it's only a single bed - and 2'6" at that - and I share it with two large cushions, a red Thai elephant, and well over a dozen cuddly toys, most of which are frogs, a duvet and a throw or two. Now they all managed to stay in the bed, so there wasn't really much chance for me to move about, yet my hair has come entirely unraveled!

Evidently my hair is a seperate entity, clinging parasitically to my skull. I wonder if its drilling into my brain? That could explain a lot.

* posted by nat @ 12:49 PM

Monday, July 29, 2002

31.25 %

My weblog owns 31.25 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

Oooh. But is it the same 31.25%?

* posted by nat @ 4:34 AM

Sunday, July 28, 2002

which mr. men/little miss are you?
take the quiz & find out! :)

* posted by nat @ 6:19 PM

Note to self: spend more lazy days drooling over Kaj Jackson. Drool.

* posted by nat @ 5:54 PM

El turned up at 2pm. "I didn't know what the plans were!" I pointed out that we had had the plans conversation at ten minute intervals the previous night. She looked surprised. "Did we?"

Anyway, we went and played squash for an hour (That is, we were in a squash court. The rest is debatable.) then went and ate blueberries outside St. Thomas', before getting home and playing Rummikub with Helen, had fish and chips for dinner then went up to the Foley Arms and met Heather and a few of her friends. Which was... wierd. (I've only seen Heather about half a dozen times since I was 13.) They went on to the Picture House but we declined (we're too cool for the Picture House*) but we did hitch a lift down to the top of the road with them - six of us so El squashed into the legroom space in the front seat and grabbed onto my knees. Good job we weren't going far. In terms of car journeys, it still doesn't beat my eight people in a Trabant in Pribram, but 6 people in a Peugot 106 is getting there...

* We came home and watched the final episode of ER again!

Spot update: thing has congealed into large scab, which makes me look I've been the victim of a one-fanged vampire. Super.

* posted by nat @ 12:19 AM

Saturday, July 27, 2002

Went downstairs. Viewed state of post-curry kitchen. Retreated.

Now gearing up for second attack. I must get through to the fridge!

* posted by nat @ 12:15 PM

All you need is El, a few bottle of alcopops and - instant entertainment!

Watching the final moments of Big Brother - something that has become a bit of a tradition that I do with El, we've realised - was entirely secondary when faced with El trying to go flying (as in, emulating small child zooming around with arms outstretched) straight in front of a car on the Hagley Road, spilling radioactive raita all over the lounge carpet (though I think that was Neil), treating the neighbourhood to very loud Vanessa Carlton, doing bridges on the floor, screaming loudly at every possible eviction moment and getting some unrepeatable comments from the Mastermind chair. And did I mention the rolling around on the floor giggling like idiots?

Classic evening in.

* posted by nat @ 1:26 AM

Thursday, July 25, 2002

Lost Kenyan cyclists on their way down the motorway? The Commonwealth Games have arrived!

(Though I had to say the Opening Ceremony had me slightly worried - the first bit up was this whole mish-mash of dance and music styles from all over the place, and then in marched The British Grenadiers tow-row-rowing, and cleared everything else off. Hmmm. But we got the fireworks eventually!)

* posted by nat @ 11:58 PM

Oooh, injunction to stop the Ahmads being kicked out. Let's keep all fingers crossed.

I have been in a major snit about this all day. First I feel very uncomfortable that anyone would even break and enter into any place of worship - and I have a nagging suspicion that had they been inside an Anglican church, the police would never have been allowed to even try it. (Or maybe never even considered it.)

And second, I feel worse as it's right on my doorstep. Not that I was about to go anywhere near Lye though, it's been prettytense all day. Sigh.

* posted by nat @ 8:46 PM

I have spent most of the day in pursuit of chocolate; it has therefore been a good idea not to venture beyond the confines of the garden, lest I do something silly, like spend lots of money on chocolate I don't want, and definitely don't need. Instead I'm just gnawing on my fingernails, and doing a good bit of reading. Even some Turkish. (Though once I get out of all the grammar tracts and start learning a bit of functional language, I'll feel even better!)

Currently though, I'm grockling. It's good for you!

The small blue stars are a product of me messing round with the code and trying to add permalinks in, just in case you were worried!

Spot report: It's still there. It's still very large. It's still very annoying.

* posted by nat @ 8:07 PM

Don't ask why I am up at 3am, rather ask, why have I got a huge huge huge spot on the side of my neck? Am I growing a new head? That would really be rather inconvenient. So let's hope not.

* posted by nat @ 3:15 AM

Tuesday, July 23, 2002

Is this achieving something useful? I drew a frog.

Ok, so it took all of ten minutes, but I spent most of that trying to work out how PhotoDraw or whatever it's called actually works...

15 minutes later.. Ok, so I drew another one. I think maybe I should stop while I'm ahead!

* posted by nat @ 3:12 PM

Monday, July 22, 2002

I have a parent back in the house. This immediately necessitates mass shopping expedition to Waitrose, to buy vast quantities of chocolate soya milk. And wine. We even got dishwasher powder. The hot water has also made a return, but I'm still trying to gas myself whenever I turn the oven on.

ER in the middle of the day is bad for me. It means I don't get anything done in the mornings, then I eat lunch in front to the TV, and by the time it gets into the afternoon it's too ate to do anything else. But on the other hand, I'm catching up with ER, so it's not all bad.

Father was subjugated to his first sighting of Big Brother today. He lasted all right for about 15 seconds, until he saw Jade. Comment: "What is THAT?!" Then I TimTammed, which precipitated almost the same comment.

I also talked to mother on the phone, and we have named the new basil plant Gloriana. I tend not to name plants, as they tend to die whenever I'm around, but I felt this one needed a name. And I have watered the hanging baskets today! I just want to make that clear.

* posted by nat @ 11:29 PM

Sunday, July 21, 2002

I spent most of today searching through my cupboards - I think I have somewhere upwards of a hundred CDs, and they seem to be stuffed in all kinds of corners - for my Tarkan CD, because there's only so much longer I can stand listening to that annoying cover of Simarik. (About ten minutes, and it's the 'kiss kiss' song - I expect it's been out for ages, but I just haven't been around to hear it). The original is far superior! So now I have found it, I have opened all the windows and am educating the neighbourhood.

The Turkish lyrics translate into English something like this - or there's a rather muddled translation here, next to the Turkish lyrics.

Now I am off to see how the heck I can spell Simarik properly - The 'S' needs a cedilla and the 'i's all need to be the undotted-doesn't-sound-quite-like-a-schwa-but-close-enough. It might be an idea to work this kind of thing out soon, as I suppose I'll be needing those Turkish characters in a month or so.

* posted by nat @ 7:21 PM

*celebrates return of blog with quiz* - how else can one do it? WHEE!

* posted by nat @ 12:11 AM

Mmm. Hyde Park is fun in the summer. I people-watched, I bird-watched, several people tried to sell me cannabis (I am, alas, too poor, but better, distrustful), and there were so many places that sold ice-cream that something had to give. That would be my resolve, and it gave in far too easily.

But I still don't understand why I got funny looks for doing headstands up against a tree for a while. Maybe it's just the place was so full of stoned people I was confusing them. I also managed to successfully confuse a few Americans.

WOMAN: (looking at family of coots) Excuse me, do you know what kind of bird that is?
ME: (knowing full well it's a coot) Er, I think it's a coot.
WOMAN: A /coot/?
ME: Er, yeah. I think.
WOMAN: They are so adorable! Look at their feet!
ME: The great crested Grebes are better. Every time they dive the chicks keep coming up right under one of their siblings, who then jumps one foot in the air and starts a fight.
WOMAN: Er, right. ::backs away::

I spent far too long in Oxford, too, the first half of the afternoon was spent talking TEFL, "classroom management" and literacy (with Grace) and the second half comparative linguistics (with Richard). And a few others. Very lazy, very gentle, and all the usual Oxford surreality. The Phoenix in Jericho is showing Musime si pomahat (Divided We Fall) - it's only taken two and a half years to make it to the UK, I see. I plugged it in the pub.

* posted by nat @ 12:09 AM

Monday, July 15, 2002

I keep thinking there's no point making an entry unless I can get this working again, but I'm being as inept as ever unfortunately, and today of all days, there ought to be an entry.

So here goes - I'm home, I catapulted around relatives and friends, flerdle came, we catapulted around the country (Just over 1000 miles in five days: 1) wandered round Derbyshire, climbed Mam Tor, saw Chatsworth Gardens 2) North Wales - Snowdonia, Caernarfon, Vale of Ffestinog 3) Warwick Castle, Kenilworth Castle, Stratford 4) The Brecon Beacons - Mellte Waterfalls, Hay-on-Wye 5) Bath, Wells, Cheddar Gorge, Glastonbury. All tremendous fun but now I'm suffering from two slow days and have finally collapsed!

And then I got vast quantities of Giotto! Wow!

Discussing upcoming Celebrity Big Brothers, by far the best combination mooted was Angus Deayton and 5 hookers. The cocaine would have to be stashed in the toilet though, as the only part of the house that isn't filmed...

(Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Bloooo-oooooog! Happy Birthday to you! *solemnly blows out one candle, stuck in a potato*)

* posted by nat @ 11:35 PM

Saturday, June 29, 2002

It wasn’t a lot of fun, but then this kind of journeying never is.

I was up at six to shower, finish off the packing, throw many, many things way and eat breakfast. Robert turned up after nine - “You know, when you said you had heavy luggage, I was expecting something heavier” – and dropped me at the station before leaving to go off to a meeting with his accountant.

Getting on the train was fine; there was plenty of room in the first compartment and a helpful young man to shove both my suitcase and my rucksack up top. And then he got off at Tczew, which led me to panic for a few minutes until he was replaced by an even taller young man who helped me get everything off at Gdansk. So I hauled my stuff around the bus station, opted for the exit with the escalators, and ended up in the bus station with not a taxi in sight. Panic! I found one lurking round the back exit though, and he spotted me and came over to help with my luggage. “You going far?” “Back to England.” “Aaah.”

Two minutes later. “I’m impressed you speak such good English.” “Well, I’m an English teacher, I learnt Polish from the kids.” “Aaah.”

A short tour of out of town Gdansk follows, and a reasonable tip ensures that he carries all my luggage into the terminal, as well. So far so good. Though there’s no-one around in the terminal except a few other confused looking tourists. I sat on the beautifully polish floor, took my shoes off, and cooled my annoyingly itchy heels – covered in bites – on the tiles. No officials around, so it hardly mattered.

I got in the wrong queue at check-in, though. “You have 39kg.” I nod. “You are only allowed 23kg.” I point out that there are a lot of businessmen not checking in luggage. “But you are connecting to Birmingham.” Drat. So I have to cart everything off to the ticket office, where tears, lying and downright pleading leads her to knock $40 off the price I have to pay. Fortunately the machine accepts Cirrus.

I go up to the departure lounge and sit upside-down on a bench with my legs up in the air to try and get some blood back to my head, and gain the attentions of a very large Alsatian sniffing at my face. A man is attached to him, but I don’t exactly feel safe. After that, I discover an awful lot of businessmen seem to be sitting near me. I thought they’d be put off by my upside-downness, but exposing my navel to the world perhaps has the opposite effect.

I get on to the plane and discover my seat is occupied by a one year old child. This is a case of LOT strikes again, according to his mother, who I spend ten minutes sitting next to while her son and I play pat-a-cake, while the cabin steward shuffles people around the plane, as I’m not allowed to sit next to the Emergency Exit, so someone else has to do that. Eventually I’m shunted off down the plane to sit next to a lady who has even more hand luggage than I do, so we squash in together and bond very quickly, as the pilot seemed to have been trained on a pogo stick, and we went bouncing up and down all the away to Frankfurt. On the landing we gave up clutching onto the armrests, and just hung onto each other.

At Frankfurt I decide I am feeling hungry, so after taking the monorail – my kind of rollercoaster – to the dreaded Terminal 2, I consider food. The only problem is, the Food Court is before passport control, and I’m in transit. The next thing I remember is that I have lots of loose change in Euros, which I shoved into my rucksack pockets and is now currently probably en route to Alabama. I storm off to the Caviar House and mope around for a bit, pick up some Mozartkugeln and then hunt for something else to spend my last Euro on. Then I spot a tube of Giotto and immediately forgive Frankfurt for everything else bad that has ever happened to me there, which is a long, long list. I’d forgotten Giotto existed, until recently, since they’ve been heavily advertised on German TV. They used to come with coffees at a certain coffee shop in Marburg and I used to float them in said coffee – or pretend to, anyway, once the coffee had been drunk enough. So I draped myself sideways on the departure lounge chairs this time and dropped little pieces of hazelnut absolutely everywhere. Which is kind of the point.

I didn’t quite have to resort to joining in with businessmen’s phonecalls; the flight was called quite early and once bussed out we then sat there for a while, so I wandered down to the back, availed myself of half of the medicine cabinet, and drank the better part of a carton of fruit juice before collecting copies of all the papers and wandering back to my seat to discover I’ve forgotten how to do a cryptic crossword. I discovered long ago that BA stewardesses seem to love waifs and strays – it ensures they come and check up on me extra regularly, which means I can order extra drinks without having to press the button and look like a nuisance.

It took ten minutes to get off the plane at Birmingham, apparently the ground crew couldn’t remember how to get the corridor to the plane door, but that meant I did get to see my luggage coming off the plane, and it was on the luggage belt by the time I made it into the terminal building. Ten minutes after getting off the plane, I was through customs and out the door – all to no avail, as mother’s plane was delayed and then had to wait twenty-five minutes for a bus to the terminal, resulting in pacing-muttering-stressed father, stroppy-stressed mother, and manic-not-quite-sober-stressed me.

We went home and ate fish and chips.

* posted by nat @ 6:29 PM

Wednesday, June 26, 2002

It feels like such an anti-climax, for everyone to drift off in ones and twos, and to wander round town doing odd jobs, and to sit out in the square in the evenings having a quiet drink, being eaten by komary.

I cleared my desk today, started to pack, did a little shopping. Tomorrow will be one large food marathon as I try to eat up everything in the fridge – ha, ha.

I also had a great conversation at the hairdressers’.

- Hi, is there a free appointment for me tomorrow?
- For a haircut? Hmm. Today?
- Today? It’s possible?
- No, not today. But tomorrow it is.
- Ok, tomorrow then.

I really wanted to bang my head against the wall and wail...

* posted by nat @ 10:32 PM

Saturday, June 22, 2002

I got red roses, orangey-yellow roses (my favourites), blue roses (I3 Piotr and Michal from Ciechocinek, need you ask?) and Paul R. let me have his carnations, so I've got a nice big flower arrangement going on again.

Last night I was at Justyna's and we drank a bottle of champagne. Well, cheap shampagne, more just very fizzy wine, but that at least meant it was palatable. Proper champagne is one of those drinks I can't stand - it tastes like overly fizzy gone-sour grape juice.

* posted by nat @ 1:21 PM

Thursday, June 20, 2002

Justyna and I went to town after a stressful day. After a quick drink and discussion of future lives, I dragged her over to the flower stall and bought her a rose, as on Wednesday she passed her Viva and got her Master's Degree. So I had to buy her a rose, and damn if it wasn't the biggest rose in the shop - a huge red flower with getting on for a metre of stem. She loved it! She went from stressed-Justysza to hyper-Justysza in half a second flat. It was well worth it!

Then we got a taxi home and I nearly took the door off when trying to bail out on the road side. Luckily I didn't push the door open straight away and so just missed the taxi cruising past.

And tomorrow I shall have to get up for Brazil-England. If I can find a channel that's carrying it live...

* posted by nat @ 10:56 PM

Tuesday, June 18, 2002

* posted by nat @ 11:11 PM

Monday, June 17, 2002

It's official!

Next school year I will be working in Istanbul. On the Asian side. Here.

* posted by nat @ 4:37 PM

Saturday, June 15, 2002

I went to see Jaromir Nohavica play tonight.

For me, it was a big, big thing. He is one of my favourite singers, and to have the opportunity to see him live in a small concert just had to be taken. This time, at least, he was in Torun on a Saturday. So I went down, bought my ticket, nosed around the fine staircase - wood panelled, huge mirrors, painted ceilings - it was in Arthur's Court, it had to be grand - and then settled down with a couple of hundred other Poles.

Which was very strange for me, because of course Jaromir Nohavica is Czech. The Polish bumf described him as 'The legendary Czech bard' and I can't currently think of a better way to put it. Just him, his guitar and his accordion and it was a wonderful evening, with the evening sun spilling in through the stained glass windows, and right from the word go, when he walked on and started with Dokud se zpívá - I joined in with the last line of the very first verse by force of habit and was one of just a smattering who did so, though by verse 4 a few more were doing it - however he picked up instantly on those first few of us who started singing along and gave a lot of focus to us for the rest of the hour and a half.

He managed to ramble along cheerfully enough in Polish - simple enough for me to understand, but complex enough for him to be able to crack some wonderful jokes that had us all in stitches. He was obviously pleased enough with the reaction to launch into some anecdotes about his reception in other countries, make lots of jokes about the differences between the Czechs and the Poles, and then halfway through the concert launched into Metro pro Krtky and followed it up with Tri Cunici which got everyone joining in. I loved those especially - Metro pro Krtky (Metro for Moles) is the first song I managed to transcribe and learn in Czech all on my own, and is good for practicing my 'r's, still.

He did plenty of his more haunting, introspective songs as well - Sarajevo and Kometa (crowd favourites also), and did two encores (including Pijte vodu - a hilarious song about all kinds of alcohol sung to the tune of Shortnin' Bread) before telling us all to go home, much as we wanted him to stay all night he wasn't going to!

And I decided I had to acquire Tri Cunici on CD - my tape is at home and I needed it now! Oh, it was a wonderful evening...

* posted by nat @ 9:54 PM

Wednesday, June 12, 2002

An entry for Rae:

My I3s came up with, when asked to make a sentence with "I'm going to wear this dress, mum, and you can't stop me!" and the word 'insist', came up with:

*He* insisted on wearing the dress.

Have just come back from the pub with PFCE4. I should have done this earlier... they talk so much more after a beer... lots of fun! (And beer...)

* posted by nat @ 11:18 PM

Monday, June 10, 2002

Gloom and doom as Poland are knocked out of the World Cup. The poor teenage boys were all listless, so I threw them in the Computer Room with a list of links to World Cup sites. Evilteacher? Me?

And then I came home and totally overdid it with the garlic in the garlic mushrooms. It was very tasty, but the flat stinks!

* posted by nat @ 10:06 PM

Sunday, June 09, 2002

From time to time I remember why I keep my lives neatly seperated, segregated; it works better. It's been difficult having people invade my Polish life - it's strange, it jars. It's a weird thing suddenly having people turn up in a different setting. It throws me off my stride, it gets me confused, it plants points of reference of last year, last life, into this life, and I find that difficult to come to terms with. I change from my Polish persona slightly, and have to remember the London way of thinking, or whatever way of thinking exists in the place that they've invaded from. I get protective of myself.

Don't ask me which is the real me; that's not the point. It's all me, really me, different facets and different bits on the surface, that's all. It's just a bit tricky to have everything pointing outwards at once, there isn't that much room, I'm trapped mid-metamorphosis. This is my version of culture shock, I suppose. It's the sort of thing that I never have been able to prepare for, wonderful as it is to have visitors, it is still so very disorientating.

* posted by nat @ 7:46 PM

Saturday, June 08, 2002

So despite the fact it rained all day... there was hot chocolate, there was cakes, there was the Copernicus House - stars and rocks, what more could I want? - there was Pod Aniolem, and there was lounging around in the living room expressively singing along to the soundtrack of West Side Story. What better a day could there be?

* posted by nat @ 11:03 PM

Friday, June 07, 2002

Last weekend the family was here, and it rained. Today Tim and Ray turned up... and it's raining again. No-one else is allowed to visit!

They came and had fun in my classes - EL2 really enjoyed chatting to them, I3 were a little more shellshocked, having had no warning, but managed to quiz them quite well. Then I had a nightmare lesson with EL1 who were simply being stupid - oh well, 15 and 16 year olds at 8pm on a Friday night with the summer holidays in sight, what more do you expect?

And then we went to see Attack of the Clones. Yes, the acting was pretty wooden, the lines dreadful (a lot of them somehow seem to have been lifted straight from other Star Wars scripts. Hmm.), the number of clichés so huge that any drinking game based on this film could well end in hospitalisisation for partaking parties, but I still enjoyed it immensely, so there. And I still want a lightsabre. And I have suddenly realised something: when a droid's head gets stuck on C3PO's body when they're all going out to battle in the Colisseum-Gladiator-inspired-type-thingy, the droid blurts out:

My arms aren't moving. I must need maintenance.

I'm a droid. It's the only explanation.

* posted by nat @ 11:31 PM

Friday, May 31, 2002

So I put the couscous on and promply forgot about it. It only took ten minutes but that was quite enough time to completely kill the saucepan. Oh dear. Coupled to last night when I spent five minutes trying to turn the key in the lock of my front door before ringing the doorbell only to have Kristy open it and point out it wasn't even locked in the first place...

My brain has vanished.

* posted by nat @ 10:32 PM

Tuesday, May 28, 2002

Oh, exhaustion – getting through classes today felt like a never ending torment, even though all the students seemed happy to have me back (and in some cases, surprised: ‘Oh, you’re not dead! Good!’) Of course not content with being generally under the weather, my period turned up today so it’s all death by disembowellment, chocolate cravings – and then we got to the Elementary book and the topic for teaching the present passive? CHOCOLATE. The result: the whole class have been taught and drilled in the phrase: I get cravings for chocolate, and I stopped off at the shop on the way home and tried to distract myself by buying four eggs (I love going to the little corner shop, you ask for eggs and they ask how many you want and give them to you in a little brown bag. It’s terribly exciting!) but then gave in and bought marzipan chocolate. And now I’m stuffing myself. So there.

Speaking of EL1, apparently they didn’t have a class on Friday as only two of them turned up and they decided to go. When I walked in today there were only two of them there. It took me five minutes to think of looking out the window – they were all hiding outside. ‘We didn’t want a cover teacher! And we got to the quarter finals of the football tournament, and we lost to the champions so it was all right.’

The last exercise drooped a bit. ‘We can’t think of any more!’ So I employed the age-old teacher tactic of: ‘You can go when you’ve given me three more examples.’
‘OOOOOH I’VE GOT ONE!’
‘ME TOO!’

It’s good to be back.

Depressing though; the PFCE-silly-girly-teenagers give man another 200 years max. before he blows himself up and all my Intermediates without exception would like to be able to carry a gun to protect themselves.

And today’s Sluggy is very argh, too.

* posted by nat @ 10:08 PM

Monday, May 27, 2002

I am so clever. I've just had to charge up my mobile, as I couldn't remember my number. And the only place it's stored is on the phone. But the plus side to this is I can now use all that charged up battery to play Snake! Hurrah! I love my Nokia, even if it is old (well, it was cheap!), and the little icon that says 'Nat's Phone' which Sam made and sent to me all the way from Australia won't come up because there's no signal. But it still lives in its Bagpuss case, and thus is very cool and nifty.

* posted by nat @ 10:50 PM

Sunday, May 26, 2002

Take the World of Darkness Quiz
by David J Rust

* posted by nat @ 9:30 PM

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

I did ‘Cheating Story’ last week with the Intermediate 2s (when I had to sit down because I was feeling so stiff and ill I could hardly move), and this is what one group came up with which had us all in hysterics. So death wishes to Monika, Arek, Emilia and Anna (especially Anna, who I suspect had a large hand with coming up with the ‘Pilon’ reference – Pilon is the pub where the local skinhead populace go to drink.)

Once upon a time there was a small girl and really nice teacher whose name was Natalie. Naturally she was sitting at home and enjoing her free time. Suddenly the telephone rang. It was her boss. He told her that she had lost her job. He told her too, that she had to come to take her things. She was very upset, and she decided to go to The Pilon Pub and get drunk. Surprisingly, when she was drinking, tall skinhead came to her. She was very frightened but interested of him. He was very nice, and they were drinking and talking the whole night. Sadly in the morning she went to her boss to pack all her things. When the boss saw her he started to laugh and he said that it was a joke. Everything is great because now she has a job and a new boyfriend.

I worry about what some of my students think about me, I really do…
(*beams and goes into teacherly mode though – looooooook, they did all the reported speech beautifully! And using plenty of different connectors – not entirely naturally, but they had only learnt them in that lesson. And they only had 15 minutes to write it. Wheee!*)

* posted by nat @ 10:08 PM

Monday, May 20, 2002

The Phantom Menace is on TV *again*! Ok, so last time it was in German, and this time it's on Polsat in Polish, but it hardly makes any difference to me, it still feels strange.

The doctor has put me on antibiotics and sent me home to rest. Sigh.

* posted by nat @ 10:45 PM

Sunday, May 19, 2002

There's nothing worse than being ill, particularly when you wake up in the morning and you're aware of what's wrong before you're really aware you're awake - and that colours your perceptions of the whole day. I've been dragging myself out of bed to sit in the sun on the balcony each morning and trying to read, but it never lasts. I try to eat, and everything tastes of ash. I take my tablets, and nothing happens. It's the frustration and the worry that are getting to me, and of course, they don't help, either.

* posted by nat @ 9:10 PM

Friday, May 17, 2002

And this is my third day off work. Yuk!

* posted by nat @ 9:19 PM

Wednesday, May 15, 2002

I'm off work today - my first day off work ever - due in part to hay fever, in part to a virus infection (says the doctor) and in part to feeling all stiff and horrible. Not that resting up is making me feel better, woolly headed, but I'm not really fit for much right now.I'm off work. I feel like such a fraud.

Here is something more fun though: What I did on my May holiday.

And! Heffalumps!
"Also, in case you're sad enough, here's some HTML you can cut and paste into your own webpage to prove you had nothing better to do than take this test:"

Cliquey Evil Lurker Heffalump Soundtrack to your life: J.S.Bach - Toccata and Fugue in D minor Favourite website: http://www.google.com/ Quote: Don't worry about it - it's kind of an in-joke Certified heffalumps.org Personality Test result.

"Please note that any semblance of accuracy and/or similarity to your actual personality is purely coincidental."

* posted by nat @ 7:05 PM

Monday, May 13, 2002

I couldn't resist listing some of the things I have been Googled for this week:

bitten nails fetish

smelly socks student

warszawa traffic accident may 2002

cheap party hats

seamus heaney funeral rites

voda co ma drzi nad vodou [yay!]

yagudin one banana [this last is definitely my favourite!]

* posted by nat @ 10:29 PM

Sunday, May 12, 2002

Yesterday Justyna phoned me in the morning, which gave me quite a shock, as I’d thought it was Saturday. So while I’m standing there thinking 'Passport? Cover? Mr Geezer? Eh?' Justyna is babbling happily, “Natulek! Are you going to Juwenalia? Do you want to go for a drink? Is five o’clock all right?”

I consider saying I am feeling perfectly miserable and no, thank you very much, but I say yes, as its the easy option. I sit in the flat and cough and sneeze for a while, and then decide if I’m going to be like this I may as well be outside, so I go to town.

In the main square several students are standing around in swimming trunks, desperate for you to pay 1zl and throw an egg at them. The statue of Copernicus has been dressed up to look like Adam Malysz, ridiculous with a helmet, goggles, and a pair of skis. Everybody is in town. I go shopping: a dress from Jackpot, coffee-coloured, not quite the shade I want but it’s practical! And it looks nice on. And it’s reduced from 339 to 119, which clinches it. Then I go to mrówka, where I was originally headed, and buy one of their t-shirts, as I feel like the only girl in Torun who hasn’t, yet. I get a red and blue one, with a little picture of a peacock.

Substantially cheered by my shopping excursion, I sneeze all the way home and lie down for a bit, then pootle back into town to meet Justyna and Agnieszka, we have a beer and then Agnieszka has to go. It starts to drizzle, so Justyna and I do A Very Bad Thing: we go to Molus. This is not a bad thing in itself, however ordering cake and an iced-chocolate which is full of ice-cream and topped off with lots of whipped cream is. But still, it’s yummy.

We wander down to the Bulwarch and along to the park, full of packs of teenagers and students and not much happening. ‘I feel oooooold,’ Justyna moans. ‘Let’s go back to my flat and have wine.’ So we do. And we chat until late, until I can feel that headache coming on and I have to go home.

And today I’ve been sleeping that migraine away, and Kristy took it into her head to disinfect the flat from top to bottom. So now I have read eyes from the chlorine, too. Oh my.

* posted by nat @ 4:00 PM

Saturday, May 11, 2002

I've just found the best online test ever!

Commonly found throughout Puerto Rico, the coquí name comes from the song that the male of the species is often heard singing in the forest. What it seems to say is: "cokeé, cokeé. The coquíes begin to sing when the sun goes down at dusk. Their melody serenades islanders to sleep. Coquíes sing all night long until dawn when they stop singing and head for the nest.

What kind of Frog are you?

(I'm up in the middle of the night because some dratted neighbours somewhere outside are having aloud techno party and the rest of the neighbourhood is yelling at them... plus I have so much gunk up my nose I keep choking... lovely.)

* posted by nat @ 1:34 AM

Telgar Weyr> K'ran says, "How's everybody?"
Telgar Weyr> Lenka waves in, and grockles.
Telgar Weyr> Yashira says, "Grockles? I like it."
You paged Yashira with 'You've never grockled before? Shame on you!'.
From afar, Yashira experiments.
From afar, Yashira grackles.
Long distance to Yashira: Lenka Hmms. You're getting the idea. Need to flatten your vowels though!
From afar, Yashira hmmmns. Gruckles. No, wait.
You paged Yashira with 'Any minute now you'll be truckling.... be careful!'.
Yashira pages: I'd /never/ want to truckle!
Yashira pages: Grickles. Grockles. Grockle!
You paged Yashira with 'Quite right too!'.
From afar, Yashira grockles, pleased.
You paged Yashira with 'Hoorah! There you are. Easy really!'.
From afar, Yashira high-fives. Hee.
Long distance to Yashira: Lenka high-sixes.
Yashira pages: My name is Inigo Montoya you killed my father prepare to DIE!
--
I feel cheered. I am spreading grockling to the world. Everyone should grockle!

Have you grockled today?

* posted by nat @ 12:58 AM

Wednesday, May 08, 2002

*blink*

* posted by nat @ 11:25 PM

Tuesday, May 07, 2002

I took the What Mythological Creature Are You? test by !

Hurrah! Shall burn down Lycos unless it gets its FTP act together!

* posted by nat @ 12:04 PM

Sunday, May 05, 2002

I'm baaaack! And this time, I've got.... blisters. Ew.

Prague was boiling hot, and I went on a castlefest. More later. (I suppose all you diary fans will be wanting another type-up, too?)

* posted by nat @ 6:56 PM

Tuesday, April 30, 2002

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