I tried to check my email at school today, but unfortunately I only ended up wasting about forty-five minutes because, of all pages, onet.pl wouldn’t load. “Cannot find server.” Stupid. So I tried uploading my new pictures. I could probably write down all the binary code, walk to France, buy a rowboat, row to America, walk to wherever the damn server is held, and manually enter all the info before I’ll be able to upload it. It just keeps freezing up. Stupid piece of shit. I’m just going to post (if I can) a notice on my web page saying that I won’t be able to update as often as I’d like due to the simple fact that I haven’t really got an internet connection in the truest sense of the term.
As an experiment, I went to Yahoo games site to see if it would load (it did, but only halfway — I couldn’t get to any of the actual games), and the following page popped up:
I guess that’s probably one inevitable result of the attacks on America — an increase in patriotism. It’s strange that such an ad would appear at a games portal, but I guess it’s also not all that surprising: an effort to remind people even in their amusement that now is the time for great patriotism and all that.
On to other things. Israel has executed another “Hamas” leader. (I put that in quotes simply because I don’t know of any evidence that’s been produced to show his guilt, and it certainly hasn’t been presented in a court of law.) The method of execution shows once again that Israel, in certain respects, is just as much a terrorist state as any of the “radical Islamic” states such as Syria or Iran: it was death by car bombing. It wasn’t a suicide bombing, but it was still a car bombing. Just what Israel hates.
Wasting time waiting to check email was not the only bad thing today. Far from it. It seemed to be one disaster after another. The copier for the liceum is broken, so I had to go down to use the one in J’s office. Of course when I went down there, the door was closed and the secretary said, “Zajęty!” So because of some meeting I was unable to copy the necessary materials. I went back up to the teachers’ room to get the tape player only to discover that one of the other language teachers had taken it. Five language teachers (three German, two English) and we have one working tape player for the school. Outrageous. On the other hand, that’s better than it was — Mamo told me that there was a time in the 80s when there was a strike in Poland and the teachers didn’t have chalk. So I guess it could always be worse.
Classes themselves were fairly boring or even hellish until I got to 3a, quickly becoming my favorite class. I started out by saying, “Are you ready for your favorite lesson!?!” and they all cheered, “Yes!” and so I went a silly step farther and added, “With your favorite teacher?!” And once again they responded similarly. And with each group today I had a good lesson.
I ate lunch today with the German teacher — not Agata, but unfortunately I can’t remember her name. We had a nice chat, though. After lunch she said, “Dziękuję, za miła rozmowa,” and I thought, “It was quite nice.” Perhaps I’ll have another colleague whom I could consider a friend. Someone else who might talk to me in the teachers’ room, bringing the total up to about three or four.
And lastly, tonight I’m meeting T for a beer at Quattro. I went to the primary school during the long break at 10:35 and asked her if she’d be willing. She didn’t even really think about it, it seemed to me. She just accepted immediately. I really don’t know if I’m reading too much into this, but I can’t help but thing she might be interested (at most, just vaguely, surely) in me.
Before I forget — last night, Kinga J. and I went to a photography exhibit in, of all places, Lipnica Mała. It was an exhibit of Aneta Pi’s (Marcin P’s sister) work. It consisted of only about twenty-two eight-by-ten landscapes, but they were quite nice.
While there I talked to Marek A. He told me that if I got bored teaching in Lipnica that he could probably get me a job teaching in Kraków at a private language school. He said I could easily make 4,000 złotych a month. That is certainly a tempting thought, and I might just take him up on it. On the way home, though, Kinga told me that his wife (her name escapes me at the moment) told her they were thinking about going to America, so that might not work out after all. But still, for a few moments I was imagining what it would be like to live in Kraków, and I found it quite an intoxicating daydream.