Weeks 6 and 7

It's been a little while (I admit, I have been slacking!)

Weeks 6 and 7 have now passed, and the past few weeks have been quite eventful.
I have been contacted by around 5 different people interested in private English lessons, and I have conducted one conversation class which went quite successfully and pocketed me my first earnings. I was contacted today by another person interested in lessons and will conduct my second teaching this coming friday, quite excited!

Well, we've done a few things around the flat! A trip to ikea and a few bookshelves later, we've gave ourselves space for our .. ach em, reasonable movie game and music collection. with more space to store the books upon. Avast!

I finally bit the bullet and went to the doctors (which was a comical event in itself given the delicate nature of language. Suffice to say, an "errection of the throat' and a hasty "take off your shirt" made for an interestingand somewhat entertaining visit, for both me and my girlfriend)

Language is coming along slowly still, I've not found much time nor motivation (given illness among other things) to put a lot of thought into study. I've been working for the last few days on my assignment for university which, when finished, will give me free time until january (although I'm looking forward to my third assignment about the Arctic and a musem exhibit I must design which seems very interesting)

The weather has been changing alot. It's very depressing in the mornings when it's cold and miserable and dark. The temperatures dropping a lot now with most days bordering on freezing point. Fortunately I've got a nice new (elegant :P thankyou dear) winter jacket to keep myself warm.  Today is the first day of snow in the new season :) apparently it's a mixed blessing but time will see.

 Perhaps a few minor additions will be added later when i have a little more time ;) but until then, these are the most noteworthy of things to report :)

~Jay

1 month mark

So a month has passed now since I departed the UK to live in Poland with my love. It's been fun, it's been exciting, it's been a new experience but it's also been stressful, lonely, encapsulating and challenging.

Rather than write up more events and happenings (of which there are few) I'll make a list of everything positive and negative I have learned as a lesson since my short time here. I'll start off with the list of positives!

POSITIVES:

* Cost of living is significantly cheaper / routine expenses are smaller

* There are systems in place to handle most forms of inquery without the hassle of a thousand departments

* Public transport (though a mixed blessing; see later) is efficient and handled well

* Cuisine, while simple, is exciting as it shows new ways of doing things with the same goods we are used to

* People in the streets, while inquisitive, often don't care about what you are doing (see; smoking, photography, drinking, shouting) they keep themselves to themselves usually

* Architechturally and scenically, it's a beautiful city with history and lots of places to go / things to see(/do)


NEGATIVES:

* Polish - as a slavic language with a case-system and completely devoid of articles (a, the, an) with only 3 tenses and a context-based understanding - is not only difficult to learn and understand, but also to speak. For an english speaker to see a word like 'szczęśliwi' (happy) is disconcerting, to pronounce it is even more so ;)

* Lack of personal space; there is no such thing in poland. At traffic lights waiting to cross the road people will stand up your arse, on public transport rather than wait for the next tram, much like london underground, people just stuff themselves like sardines into it, even if it means you are being groped and frolicked in ways you didnt know were possible. Also, if people wish to get past you on the street, its completely normal to just touch your ribs, hips or arm and move you out the way. (In england, this would get you a broken nose)

* Queuing is a nightmare! People have very little respect for other peoples time and energy. Unless your genitalia are pushed up against the person in front of you, people will take every opportunity to squeeze in front of you in a 5mm gap without a care, apology or explanation,

* Change and money in stores is odd. for such a supposedly open culture where people have no taboo's about touching strangers' hips and ribs, or just cutting your queue, or rubbing themselves pervertedly up you in a packed tram... it's so forbidden for a cashier to give you change in your hand, instead they insist on putting it on some little silly tray and then you spend the next 5 minutes trying to scoop the coins up while the people behind you get increasingly impatient.

* Football hooligans here are even worse ;)



~~

And so concludes one month in passing since I arrived here, with new experiences, new knowledge, new stresses and new enemies. I look forward eagerly to what the next month and the month after and so forth brings for me.

 At Lake Malta ;) loves x