Anglik w Poznaniu: Week 8: Two months from home

Week 8 has begun, and so marks the two-month point I left ground in my homeland to come to this strange and seemingly distant [albeit relatively close] place. I would like to say it's all rosepetals and rainbows, and while I am happy here, and proud of the things I've done, that I followed my dreams and my heart to get to where I am, I can't deny the extreme hardships and costs (not just monetarily!) that come with living a dream.

So what is positive thus far? What inspires me to keep going, to work at it?:

* I've currently conducted 5 private lessons and will be doing another tonight (and so earned 155 pln.. which in the grand scheme things isn't alot but who wouldn't object to an extra 30 quid a month?)

* I have someone I love, close with me, someone I can confide in, share feelings and thoughts with, and live dreams with

* I'm acquiring new skills - my 3rd language, teaching styles / methodologies

* I'm becoming more mature, responsible, individual. While a monetary dependent still until permanent work setles, I'm responsible for keeping house relatively tidy, for keeping cat fed and watered, keeping myself, our home, our cat, and my love safe.

* I'm seeing things that I've not seen before, and experiencing things I've not experienced before.

What's not so great?:

* It's indescribably lonely. There are English expatriate groups here, and ocassional meetings but finding time or morivation to go to them is difficult. When I am not teaching a student, and my love is working 10 or 12 hours and getting home at 10pm, and the cat still hates me that I can't cuddle her or pick her up. And the only times I speak are to myself, it gets very, very, incredibly lonely and moody.

* I've had 3 different students: First one never contacted me back after our first lesson, the second came to first lesson and showed enthusiasm to continue but then wrote saying they'd have to suspend it for now but might continue. But thankfully my third is a regular with sometimes 2 lessons per week, but this does not change the fact it's not enough money to help cover bills, only minor expenses.

* Time: I have a great deal of it, but with the loneliness and lack of progress with work making me quite moody, it's hard to find motivation to prioritise and organise my time. I should be making plans, sticking to it and being productive since I have so many things I must do: Study for uni, study polish language, study English grammar so I can explain it to students more easily (and correctly), prepare lesson plans, spend time with my love, clean flat, take care of cat, and time for myself... but instead of doing this, I spend most of my days withering away in self-pity that I never have the motivation to get much done even with all the time in the world resting in my hands.

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Enough of that, so how am I dealing with other things?

Well, we had a little bit of a november coldsnap, with temperatures averaging a daytime high of -9c and evenings getting to between -12c and -16c. Oddly, I was ok with these temperatures, I seem to be colder when the temperatures are averaging -3c / -5c.

I've slipped countless times on the ice, two were very close to actually falling, but thankfully I've never gone the whole way down. (The two very close ones were spectacular saves.. one involved running across the road as the light was changing and jumping over a mound of snow, landing on ice and making a marvelous comeback to not slip... the second, was the result of moisture being turned to ice by outside airconditioning at McDonalds, my love was conviniently there for me to grab to prevent faceplant)

The snow makes bouts of being very low and slushy, to quite deep and white/fluffy. I havn't seen it snow for about 3-4 days (though it snowed last night) alas the snow isn't going down. Here are a few photos of the winter thus far: