Matching Tracksuits

poland xii

Model UN

Tuesday 15 March 2022

Every now and then, a friend from my first three years in Poland sends me a picture that I’d forgotten all about. This was with a friend C, who lived in Nowy Targ, the nearest town to my little village. We were returning from a trip to Gorzów Wielkopolski, where some of our students had participated in a Model UN session.

I can’t remember what the concerns were at that Model UN meeting, but any that are going on right now have only one concern: what to do about Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine.

PKO Rotunda

Wednesday 29 September 2021

I was looking at the photographs of British/Polish photographer Chris Niedenthal when I saw an image of PKO Rotunda in Warsaw. Suddenly, I was back in Poland in 1996, experiencing the country for the first time, with a vivid memory of the first time I saw the building.

Warsaw 1970s Poland

A friend took several of us to see Warsaw for the first time, and as we walked out of Warszawa Centralna and long Jerusalem Avenue, the impressively Stalinist Palace of Culture and Science on our left, we approached a most peculiar building.

“That’s where we’re headed,” said A as we descended the stairs to pass under Marszałkowska. We weren’t headed to the round bank building itself, though. In fact, I’m fairly certain that I never even entered the building.

It was, in fact, the building just behind the PKO Rotunda that interested us: “There’s a Taco Bell there,” our guide explained. “It’s okay if you like cabbage on your tacos instead of lettuce.”

It was one of the signs of the growing Westernization of Poland that, in 1996, was still relatively new. We were all interested in the Taco Bell for that reason: not because we were necessarily craving substandard “Mexican” fast food but because we wanted to see what Polish Taco Bell looked like, tasted like — to get the local spin on one of the restaurants that provided us with cheap eats during college. With everything so new and unknown, it was fascinating to see things I’d always known in that setting.

Recently, developers demolished the original building and replaced it with a nearly-identical building.

The same spirit, but a different building.

So many of those old, communist-era buildings have been demolished or so completely remodeled as to be unrecognizable in the last twenty years. It’s understandable, I guess: only from a sentimental point of view are those buildings of any aesthetic value at all, and for many, there’s no question of sentimentality about the oppressive past they represent. For me, the sentimentality arises strictly from the novelty of such buildings when I first lived in Poland twenty-five years ago.

Twenty Years Ago Today

Thursday 5 January 2017

The dinner was infinite. Every two hours or so they brought out another course. And there were snacks on the tables at all times. We had cutlet for the main course followed later by meat and rice; the egg-roll-type things were served with barszcz; cold cuts stayed on the table all evening, too. And of course there was vodka. The seventy some odd bottles R made certainly did not go to waste.

There was a most interesting traditional dance. E began waltzing with R, then someone would approach them, clap, and cut in. Whenever someone was done dancing with E, he/she/they (often couples danced with E, making a strange circle) headed over to where R was. After dropping money into a hat held by some lady, the shook R’s hand and took a shot which R had poured.

During the dance the band would often stop playing and whoever was dancing with E would make up a verse, often belting it out while another sang the slightly out of tune harmony so common to this area. One lady must have taken six or more verses.

After this was completed, the crowd grabbed E and R and tossed them up and down. R had quite a frightful expression the entire time. It looked like a blast to me, but R solemnly informed me, “It’s dangerous! I could have smashed my head on the floor or the ceiling!”

Joe and I went out for a walk this morning to take some pictures. He did a lot this weekend to help me with my new camera. I feel much more confident in my picture-taking ability now.

Journal entry from my first Polish wedding

 

20 Years

Friday 3 June 2016

When we arrived, we were all exhausted. It was not just the journey itself, a trip that included a five-plus hour wait on the tarmac at Dulles while we waited for some part or other to be flown from Atlanta and installed on the plane, replacing the broken whatever that was keeping us grounded. It was not the nauseating bus ride from Warsaw to Radom, where our training was to be held, a ride that included much swaying as memory serves as well as a lot of heat and an already-upset stomach for me. Framing all of this was the simple adventure the group of Americans (were there sixty-some of us, or was it eighty-something?) were embarking upon. A new country with a new language and new culture (new to us, anyway), a new job, a new everything.

We arrived at the training center to find a crowd of Poles — our host families, with whom we would be spending the next twelve weeks — milling about the crumbling parking area, walking around the building, just generally waiting. Kids from the surrounding apartment blocks were circling the main training building on roller blades, something that somehow surprised me and stuck with me as the most memorable element of our arrival. Somehow or other we were portioned off to the various families, and I set off in a Polish Fiat 126p — a Maluch, meaning “a small little thing” — with a mustachioed man and what I thought was his son. I never saw the man again, never figured out who he was. The young man I thought was his son was Piotr, the son of the woman who was putting me up for twelve weeks during training. My host brother and host mother — host family — though the relationship between my “brother” and me at times was so strained that even outsiders noticed the tension.

training

Of all things about that arrival, though, I most clearly remember those children on roller blades, circling the building, screaming and laughing in a language that was then unintelligible to me but now is an every day reality. Twenty years ago, though, it was gibberish. Poland, a mystery. The future, an adventure.

We were all so naive then. Well, I was so naive then. Naive about my motives. Naive about the impact I would have. Naive about my own ability. Naive about the future. No, not naive, perhaps. Just unable to guess at the turn of events that, twenty years later, would lead me to go on a walk with my Polish (now Polish-American) wife up the street with my son, who just learned to ride a bike really well (“Daddy, I’m really getting the hang of this!”) and my daughter on her new roller skates. Not roller blades, but roller skates — the variety I used myself as a kid, the type I would have expected to find kids wearing in Poland in 1996 instead of roller blades.

6-DSCF9457

Twenty years ago. June 3, 1996 — the day I arrived in Poland for the first time. The day it arrived in my heart and soul, never to leave.

Long Day

Tuesday 17 November 1998

It has been an exhausting day. I had practice maturas from eight to nine, then I came home to do some planning. I taught class IIIA and then had an hour break, so I took the opportunity to run take some pictures in the cemetery while the snow was falling and everything was relatively untouched. I also took a picture off the Mastelas’ bridge – another attempt. Then I rushed back to school to wolf down some lunch and then head off to teach IA and IC, then tried yet another experiment with IVA. I had Anna B. and Monika K. conduct class for a while. It meant that we didn’t cover nearly as much as we should have, but I think it might actually work out if I give them enough time to prepare for their teaching engagement. We’ll see. I want to give them as many opportunities to speak somewhat authentic English as possible. After that Chhavi and I taught dancing for almost an hour. We came home and I had enough time to realize I was really tired before heading off for an hour of basketball. Afterwards I returned home and cooked dinner. So basically I’ve been going for fourteen hours straight without many real breaks.

November Projects

Wednesday 19 November 1997

My anal-ity about writing in this every night has certainly disappeared. I really have nothing on my mind to write about tonight, but I thought I’d jot down a few things before going to bed.

I finally sent Jarek the stuff from my presentation next week. It’s good to be done with all of that, but I’m still plagued by those thoughts of, “Do I have enough material to last me forty-five minutes?” It’s just like the worries I have every night as I prepare my lessons, but here it’s a little different: I cannot just fake it without everyone knowing it. I’ll spend some time Sunday (probably more than I anticipate) preparing a little something extra. I’ve been thinking about having an open discussion about lesson planning in general, but to what ends? I can’t really think of where I’d want to lead the discussion, so what’s the point? I’ll do some more thinking on that as well.

Today we had the presentations in IB and they went rather well, I thought. Their projects aren’t quite as elaborate as IA’s or IC’s but they’re good all the same. Their presentations were much more effective because we had each person teach the class two or three new words from their projects and then had a bit of a review after every group had gone.

I think on a whole the projects were very successful. I think the students enjoyed doing them and probably thought it was an original assignment, coming from English teachers. The other teachers have all commented on the projects. (We’re keeping them in the teachers’ room while we grade them.) Everyone says they look nice and that it’s a good idea which should promote learning. I’m really pleased with how everything went. It gave me a nice feeling this afternoon looking at all those projects and think, “Hey – that was my idea.” I came up with a highly effective and educational learning project. Certainly it’s not original, but I thought of it myself with no outside help. I’m quite proud of myself. Ha.

This week has gone by so quickly. The time is just flying. November seems like it just began and it’s almost two-thirds over. Next week will go by rather quickly because I only have two days (because of the IST). Then we have three weeks until Christmas break begins. And then we’ll have just a few weeks before winter break. It’s really going to go by quickly now. And in some ways it can’t go by quickly enough. I have trouble going to sleep sometimes because I keep thinking about my homecoming, and that is happening more and more frequently. Two years stretched before me endlessly – now I’m down to a little over seven months. It’s almost three-fourths over . . .

Plums

Monday 15 September 1997

It’s amazing how quickly plums can roll. You would think that since they’re not really round but more oblong—more like a small American football than a soccer ball—that they wouldn’t roll as much as they would wobble, doing a strange dance which could look like a drunken lame man hobbling down the street. But they did scoot through the bus with amazing speed.

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

When the bag full of plums sitting in the aisle tipped over, I didn’t imagine the comedy of the ensuing scene. Its owner, a drunken Polish man in dire need of a belt, was completely obvious to the fact that his plums were making their way throughout the bus, rolling down the aisle and under people’s feet. Finally, whether by intuition or chance, he realized what was happening and with a groggy grunt he turned around, bent over and began picking up the plums. First, he had to put the bag back up, and this resulted in an immediate and new deluge of plums.

Containing my own amusement—for it’s not a good idea to laugh at a drunk man who’s losing all his plums—I helped him put the bag back up and then grabbed a few of the plums and plunked them back into his bag.

After he replaced the fruit in his immediate reach, he began moving people’s legs aside with a gruff “Przepraszam” as he lurched for the plums which had rolled under passengers’ chairs. Pleased with the unexpected entertainment, we sober riders which him, glancing up occasionally to smile at each other as if to say, “If only this poor guy knew how stupid he looks.”

Finally he retrieved all the fruit that was within a few feet of him, but then he revealed just how tenacious he could be. Swaying with the bus which, combined with the high level of alcohol coursing through his veins, seemed to make him look a shade of nauseous green which is not healthy even for folks with the strongest stomachs, he stood up and stumbled toward the front of the bus, grasping the chairs for balance.

His destination: a small trove of plums which had rolled all the way to the front of the bus.

He brought back three or four, dropped them in his bag which he carefully rearranged to prevent the catastrophe from happening again, then slumped down into the floor—there were no empty seats—and leaned over in a drunken stupor. A lone plum, which had somehow eluded the man, sat balanced in the middle of the isle. Though the bus was swaying back and forth fiercely and though his comrades had set an amusing president, the plum did not roll at all but sat still, content to be alone and free.

And that was what kept me amused for the rest of the bus ride from Kraków.

Journals

Thursday 11 September 1997

I got journals from IIB and IIIA today. I’ve already graded the journals from IIIA but I really dread starting on the big stack from IIB. It takes such a long time to grade those things because I always want to be fair. I don’t know if it’s possible in such a subjective thing as journals, but I try nonetheless. In some ways I wonder if they’re more trouble than they’re worth. That’s really a stupid thing to think because it does a great deal of good for the students—it provides an opportunity for them to write without worrying about mistakes or the eventual grade (for correctness, that is). The question is not whether or not to continue the assignment, but how to grade it more quickly and effectively.

I just noticed a drawback to the new grading system I’m using this year. I can’t get any kind of grade whatsoever until I have at least one grade in each area (test, journal, projects, etc). That will mean that we have to give a lot of assignments to each class. That won’t be too difficult, but it will be terribly time consuming to grade all those things and then put the grades in the computer.

One thing is certain: I am not doing all the grading like I did last year. I did it because I had so much more free time than Danuta did, but this year I’m going to get her to grade a few things. Of course that wasn’t the only reason: I was also worried that she would grade them too harshly. I always thought of those tests she gave IIB last year—some students received no credit whatsoever. I could never convince her that giving no credit for a test item is a bad idea. Perhaps this year I can talk her into it—but she is so stubborn at times.

Light

Wednesday 10 September 1997

I survived the first of many Wednesdays, all of which will certainly be hellish. Eight lessons without a break is tough. But I will admit that it wasn’t as tough as I was expecting. I rather enjoyed each class, most of which are with the first class (group A, B, or C). I have IIIA to begin with, and then I have only first year students. And just as I did last year, I’m finding that I really like the first class. They’re all great, and even though I thought I had a good start with the first classes last year, I think I’m doing much better this year. I’m really connecting with them more effectively than I did last year.

I’m trying to learn students’ names of course, and there are already a few who stand out. In IA there’s a girl named Alina who has really marvelous English and seems eager and willing to use it. (I was surprised by the willingness of the whole class to use English, to be honest.) Rafał in IB reminds me of someone with his good-hearted mischievousness, but I cannot remember who. (Dominik during practicum in Radom?) In IC there’s Ba ka who reminds me of Żaneta from IIA. They even look similar.

I find now that the despression of Sunday night seems so very far away. I’ve no idea how I could have felt so bad. I look around and I think of how I’ll miss this place, even during next summer while I’m back in America. I’ll miss speaking Polish and teaching English. And I’ll even miss the smallness of this place, that which can cause such boredom if I’m not careful.

Today I got both class IB and IC to speak a little English. It was so simple, but it sounded so wonderful. They were only saying things like, “This is Bob,” or “What’s his name?” But to hear that from someone who has never before put together that many words in English was almost magical. I had forgotten how good I felt last year when IIB was beginning to say a little bit in English. It is that which makes me prefer first year classes in some way. To begin with, their easier to prepare for. But more importantly, I get a much greater sense of accomplishment from working with them.

New Classes

Tuesday 9 September 1997

We had the opportunity to meet two of the three first classes today—IA and IC. It turns out that there are not as many students from class VIII that I taught last year as I thought there would. I recognized a few faces, but not many. Strangely enough there are almost as many boys as there are girls in that class. That’s a shock for Lipnica, especially when one considers both second classes and third class. I began talking to them in English and then Danuta gave a few rules and regulations in Polish. I think it will be a good class, but Danuta said it would be a difficult class. “Why?” I asked. “Because they responded much like IIIB always does,” she answered. I pointed out that it’s impossible to judge them from only one short class which had almost no interaction at all.

Class IC is a different story altogether. There are twenty-eight students in that class, and not a single boy. I walked in and said, “Hello girls and girls!” I talked to them in Polish at first to show them that my Polish is not perfect but it is understandable. I made the point that I don’t really worry about my mistakes because if I did, I would never be able to say anything. I said also that they will speak English much like I was speaking Polish. “We’ll speak like children and make a lot of mistakes, but it’s not a bad thing. We [Danuta and I] will never say you’re a bad student because you make mistakes.” I tried to encourage them and show them that making stupid mistakes—even funny mistakes—is to be expected. They were fairly quiet, but I think it was simply from nerves and not really from anything else. I now have the experience of IB last year to remind me that classes that begin with such difficulty often turn out to be the most rewarding.

I had IIIA play “Taboo” today and they were really speaking a lot. I heard more English in those forty-five minutes than I’ve heard in a very long time. I was thrilled, and it seemed that they were actually enjoying it. I really don’t know what I’ll do tomorrow, but I’m not as worried about it now. I realize that they are willing to speak English if they have such tasks that allow them to make their own constructions as they need to.

Planning and Lonliness

Sunday 7 September 1997

Part of the problem is loneliness. I haven’t seen anyone today and I don’t know that I will. I’m thinking about going across the street, but what prevents me from doing that is the simple understanding that I still haven’t finished planning for tomorrow. I could say to myself, “You don’t have class until 9:50 tomorrow morning. You can wait and throw something together then.” But that’s exactly what I did last year and where did it get me? What did I accomplish? What did the students learn? How as my sanity? So I want to try to finish writing a lesson plan for tomorrow. But I know (or rather, “I expect”) that when I go back and sit down with a fresh outlook (as fresh as I can manage at this point), I’ll run into the same brick wall. “What the hell am I going to do tomorrow?”

That was a nightly battle last year and I assume that it’s going to be the same way this year. Every evening I struggled to come up with a lesson, forty-five minutes of business and productivity. When I finally came up with something and finished all the planning, I thought, “Whew—did it again. But I’ve no idea where I’ll get another activity from.” Yet somehow, I always managed to come up with something. It’s just that toward the end of the year, my “somethings” were turning out to be rather boring and ineffective. The students didn’t respond well at all and I was left wondering what the hell I could do differently. Part of my trouble now is that the same thing is happening at the beginning of the year. I think, “Well, I survived about four or five weeks of that last year, but I can’t do nine or ten months of it this year.”

I just don’t know what the problem is. Is it that I’m not doing enough planning? Am I leaving to much up to chance? Am I too often saying, “Okay, that’s a good idea but I’ll improvise the finer details tomorrow during the lesson”? Am I planning with the wrong objective? What is my objective? I guess if I’m honest, I’m still running on last year’s fourth-quarter improvisational objective: “Let’s fill these forty-five minutes.” I need to shift my priorities and not worry so much about filling the time as teaching them English and giving them opportunities to use the language authentically. […]

Part of the problem I have is with providing structure within the lesson. I come up with fairly good ideas for activities, but I then expect (today’s magic word) the students do come up with too much stuff on their own. I provide only the barest frame and then expect them to go out and buy the paint and canvas, think of a proper subject, and finish the piece of art. Take my last lesson with IIIA for example. I told them that since we weren’t going to be using books this year, we must decide on what we want to study and how. Now that was entirely too broad of a topic. They really don’t know what the possibilities are (both in subject matter and methodology) and so to expect them to discuss that (even with the gimick of “alter egoes”) was asking entirely too much.

I also don’t have enough of a long-term plan. I told IIIA that I hope to give them a syllabus at some point which gives them at least a rough idea of what we will be doing in the coming weeks. I need also to establish a routine, a weekly schedule so that I have some idea of where I need to go with the lesson before I even start planning it. And yet I’m really not sure how to go about doing that.

Once again, I know what I need (more structure; more long-term planning; more control over the class; more enthusiasm from my students), but I’ve no idea how to go about achieving these things. It’s the seemingly unbridgeable gap between theory and praxis. Even with a year’s experience, I don’t know how to overcome these problems.

I’ve no idea.

I’ve no ideas.

I’ve no ideal.

Early Termination

Tuesday 2 September 1997

I rode to Jabłonka this afternoon to meet the new volunteer. I went yesterday but no one was home. I thought I’d seen him Friday night when I was going to Nowy Targ and when I knocked on his door—his name, for the sake of simplicity, is Evan—I was surprised to see an older man and behind him a tall, young man.

I asked, “Are you the new volunteer?”

And for a moment I thought I’d just made a fool of myself, for he looked at me with the strangest expression on his face. My mind switched immediately to Polish so that I could explain what happened, but he responded in time. I can’t remember exactly what I said—something like, “I just thought I’d drop by and introduce myself.”

He responded haltingly, “Well, you’ve kind of come at a strange time.” My first thought was that he was going to go out with the older gentleman—his counterpart, I assumed. But he continued, “Because I’m ET-ing.”

“Perhaps there’s been a family emergency or something,” I thought.

However, I was wrong. He just didn’t like teaching—didn’t feel at all prepared, he said. I stayed and we talked for a few minutes, but that was about all I got out of him. I wasn’t really prying, for it is certainly none of my business. He’s going back to go to grad school.

In some ways the judgmental part of me screams, “What a wimp! He didn’t even last a week!” Yet I’ve no idea what was going on in his head and what kind of person he was. I just thought that it could have been one of those ET placements, like with that older lady in our group (whose name I can’t remember). Another part of me feels genuine sympathy for the kids in Jabłonka and the remaining teacher. When he was telling me why he was going, saying things like, “I just asked myself, ‘Where are you going to be happier in two years? In a year? In a month?’” I will admit that I was thinking, “Well, you might be happier, but what about the kids here? What will be best for them?”

Has a PCV made a commitment when he has gone to site? I think so, at least an implied commitment. I don’t think the PC administration tells potential schools during the initial interviews, “This is just a potential English teacher. S/he will come here and take a look around, and maybe s/he’ll stay, maybe not.” Of course I could be completely wrong. They could tell the schools something very similar to that—don’t get your hopes up, I guess.

All the same, I compare this to my own experience and mindset and I feel like he’s giving up entirely too soon. Of course it’s tough at first, but how can you judge an experience after only three days? If he had such serious doubts, wouldn’t they have shown themselves earlier? During training? Yet how can I judge such a thing? I’m only projecting—nothing constructive at all. One fact that I really haven’t considered that much is Evan’s counterpart, who was a little strange. I guess I might have had an entirely different experience if Danuta was a freak.

Cultural Adventures

Wednesday 19 February 1997

I went to Jabłonka this morning to the targ. I wanted to buy a zoom lens. I had talked to the camera guy there a few weeks ago, and he said that he’d have one for me. Well, he couldn’t find one. So I started back to the bus stop empty handed. It was a little before nine. I was thinking there was a bus at nine — no, the next one wasn’t until ten. I was irritated because like an ass I had forgotten to bring anything to read. (Rule of thumb when traveling in Poland: Always have something to read, for you’ll do a lot of waiting.) I was so irritated at the prospect of losing a whole hour that I paid 12 z to take a taxi back home. That’s exactly ten times what it would have cost by bus. Well, ten times, and an hour less. I’m coming to realize that time is much more valuable than money. The fool who said “Time is money,” got it backwards.

I had him stop just before getting to my apartment because I didn’t want anyone to see me getting out of a taxi. Someone in the gmina saw me with my computer and made a comment, “Jesteś bogaty,” (“You’re rich!” of course), so I didn’t want anyone seeing me pay ten times what I could have paid if I’d simply waiting for the bus. I guess it’s a bit silly to go around worrying what other people think, but I don’t want them to resent me for waltzing into the village and making more money than the average person here (which I do, though not by much).

4:36 p.m.

I finished checking the journals today. There are still a few who have not turned them in, though. I was both relieved and disturbed to find that Iwona also copied some stuff out of a book for journal entries. It relieves me because now I don’t have to face Tom alone. He can be belligerent and I was expecting to take hell from him for “reading” the journal. Now I can address the whole class about the problem (without mentioning names, of course). The down side of this is that I would not have expected Iwona, of all people, to have done such a thing. I’m sure she only did it because she felt she couldn’t write that much on her own; I don’t think it was pure laziness as much as a lack of self-confidence. The funny thing is, Iwona copied her stuff straight out of the book (including the bit about Paul Newman).

What will I do about it? I will talk to the class and present my idea (although it will not be up for vote, like that made it sound): I hereby reserve the right to read any suspicious looking journal entry to determine whether or not the student in question actually wrote the entry him/herself. I will not read the journals for pleasure, but I feel that it is necessary to make this small adjustment. I think I might say that if I determine that anything has been copied from a book without proper acknowledgement (in other words, plagarized), that person will get a zero for that particular journal grade. It’s harsh, and it’s demanding, but I don’t want any slacking on this. Plagiarism is a serious issue, even in a seemingly minor case like this.

More Thoughts about Students

Tuesday 18 February 1997

Classes went acceptably well, but IIB wasn’t as good as I would like. I guess it could have been worse, but they were a little more disruptive than in the past, despite the fact that I went with my hard-line disciplinarian method. I guess I can’t always have them quiet. I began “going to” with them, and I think it caused them some trouble initially. I had to explain that sometimes it’s present continuous (I’m going to the store.) but sometimes it is simply the future tense. “The key,” I told them, “Is whether there is a verb following ‘to.’” I guess we’ll see soon enough whether they get it or not. IB had a little bit of difficulty with today’s lesson. It was admittedly hard, for I plunged headlong into irregular simple past tense forms and I think it was a bit much. I knew it was a tough topic and so I followed the book exactly, for sometimes I change things (or don’t even refer to the book until the end) and it occasionally makes things more difficult. However, the book did a sufficient job of confusing them anyway. The activity was a listening activity with a guy speaking in first person about the 80’s and they had to fill in a little blurb written in third person. While the forms for the simple past are the same for all persons, it was still a bit tricky for them. In IA we reviewed for the test which is coming up Monday. It was a boring lesson, but I found out (fortunately) that they are still having trouble with when to use a/an, the, or nothing. Danuta’s going to go over it tomorrow.

I just saw Bożena from IB walking along with Bogusia and someone else (I didn’t see who, but I think it was Kaszka). I waved with a big smile; she waved back, smiling too. I think most of the kids like me. I am glad, for it makes my job easier. I believe they think I’m a little crazy. Today, for instance, as I was explaining the irregular simple past to IB, I was walking around picking up stuff and dropping it, saying, “What is this?” (I was of course wanting them to say, “drop.” I’m not sure they’d had that verb before, though.) I walked up to Ela (little Ela in group B) and “kissed” her: I made a smooching sound in her direction. I didn’t need to ask, “What’s that?” for everyone answered immediately, “Kiss!”

It’s strange to be able to sit here and watch all my students leave school. The miracle of familiarity always makes me smile. Before I knew their names or anything about their personalities, I would only watch with a fleeting interest. But now I sit and think, “Oh, there’s Grzegorz. He is rather outgoing now. That’s strange because he’s often so quiet in class.” They’re not just faces. I guess it’s simply that they are a part of my life now, and it is more that than “the miracle of familiarity.”

Teaching Thoughts

Monday 17 February 1997

I checked IIA’s journals tonight. I told them I wouldn’t read them, and I didn’t. But as I counted entries, I did make sure that every entry had at least a little something in English. And that’s when the trouble hit. As I was reading through Tom’s I noticed a word that didn’t seem like something that would be in his vocabulary: constitute. I skimmed some more. I noticed more words that seem out of his vocabulary. So finally I broke down and just read a passage. It seems that he copied this out of something, though I’m not quite sure what. It is simply not his writing. So I must decide what to do. If I say something, he will say, “You read it and you said you wouldn’t! You lied!” And no matter how I explain things, I will lose trust with some people. But I certainly cannot let him get by with it. I’ll talk to him tomorrow and see what he has to say about it.

I’ve been thinking about the whole journal issue. Following Mr. Watson’s example, I read the journals I had my seniors keep while student teaching. I told them that if there was something they didn’t want me to read, just note it in the margin and I said I wouldn’t read it. But knowing that someone else is going to be reading what you write will drastically change what you write. Immediately you have an audience, whereas before you’re writing only for yourself. What are the advantages of reading them? I’ll get to know my students better, and it often leads to a more personal relationship with the students. Many of the kids in Mr. DePriest’s class wrote things in their journals (without asking me not to read) that they would not say to me in person.

I decided to look at my journal and see what I wrote about the journals while I was student teaching. I didn’t find anything, but ended up reading the most of the entries for October, November, and December. […] I was also surprised that at that time I was still considering myself a Christian. Or at least I was thinking that I wanted to be a Christian. I was still trying to work out some of the difficulties which have now grown.

Anyway, back to the journal topic: I don’t know what to do about Tom. But I must admit that the little I caught as I counted the entries whetted my appetite and I would really like to read some of their entries. It is not even a temptation, though. I am trying so hard to earn their trust and I will not do anything which could risk that. Which is why I am so worried about what to do about Tom. I’ll just have to talk to him, I guess.

I am in a strangely peaceful mood. I read about all the anguish I was going through trying to figure out what happened between Hannah and me, and I didn’t fall into depression. I smoked my pipe and read on, surprised at some of the things I had written, but not longing to return. I had a great dinner. I improvised a chicken curry which was a little too sweet, but wonderful. I feel much better about my teaching. I will admit that I noticed in one student’s journal (I think Agnieszka A’s) that English is one of her favorite subjects. She does seem rather interested during class. I appreciate that — it makes my life so much easier.

All these things combine, and I am so happy to be here. I feel complete, as if I am doing something useful. I have grown so much in the past year, and it is paying its dividends now. I am at peace with the past. I am happy with my present. I am optimistic about my future. The thread of my life seems to be a wonderfully curved line that makes a beautiful pattern. It’s not straight, by any stretch of the imagination, but I no longer feel that I must take both ends (the past and the future) and try to straighten it out so that my present seems a little more comfortable.

Bar Adventures

Saturday 15 February 1997

Last night I was in Nowy Targ (w Nowym Targu) for a blues concert at Dudek, the club that Charles always goes to. The music was outstanding — a guitar, bass, and drums, and they all knew what they were doing. It was great. I danced like a maniac. I didn’t realize how much of a catharsis dancing until you’re drenched in sweat could be. The feeling and emotion in the music was contagious: They were having a blast playing and it made it impossible for me not to have a blast dancing. Things got rather intense at the end, and we were almost moshing. I think it could have gotten “out of control” in that sense if things continued.

I sat in on a couple of numbers and played harmonica, but I don’t think I played well at all. I’m a little ashamed of it, in fact. I couldn’t hear myself at all, and I was just playing by feel. Such is life, I guess. We all have to make asses of ourselves on occasion.

The highlight of the evening came when the bouncer came up to me and said, “Don’t look on [sic] my girl again or I’ll kick your ass. Do you understand?” I had noticed “his” girl from the moment she walked in the room — she was really attractive with a lovely body and something about her that reminded me of Krissy Cooper (I’ve always thought she was elegantly beautiful.). I don’t know if she noticed me glancing up at her every now and then and told “her” boy to say something or whether he was just completely insecure about his relationship and felt the need to threaten everything that in his eyes threatens his relationship. Whatever the case, it was a little surprising and disturbing. I was tempted to correct his English: “Okay, well first of all, it’s ‘Don’t look at,’ not ‘Don’t look on.’ You can never use ‘look on’ as a transitive verb.” I didn’t think it was wise to antagonize the Neanderthal.

It’s moments like that that I always wish I was the master of some martial art. Visions of glory dance in my head as I see myself refusing to back down: “Look, I just happened to notice that she’s a very attractive woman. I’m not going to make a move on her. But don’t tell me to do this or not to do that.” He loses control and makes a move — tries to hit me. I swat his fist away like it’s an insect. “Come on now, just let it alone. I don’t want any trouble.” He, being the asshole he is, makes another move, though, and before he realizes it, I’ve got him in some incredibly painful and completely disabling position . . . We wimps have such vivid daydreams.

Ultimate Concerns

Friday 14 February 1997

I also got a letter from C. B had showed her an early draft (the second draft) of “To Be Anointed” and she asked, “[Do] you still feel that way? Very thought provoking. I do like the way you think, the way you write. Very very much.” I reread it and I had forgotten about the final stanza. I like it, but I’m not sure about the rest of the poem. It reflects my previous flirtations with theism, and so now I think the only thing “Tugging / and pushing” was myself. I wonder how much of that was written out of an attempt to believe, an attempt to hear the things I wanted to hear myself say. We’re so often saying what we think others want to hear; how often do we do that with ourselves?

Do I still feel that way? I don’t think so. I think what I just wrote pretty much answers that question. I think theism is a dead end. I wonder what she meant by “thought provoking?” How exactly is it thought provoking? It assumes a certain theistic stance which I no longer hold, and I think if I read it not knowing who wrote it, I would find it a bit silly.

She wrote about a question on a test for her world religion class: “What aspect of your religion would you go-to-the-mat for, die for, stand up for? Why?” After defining religion, she said that she answered, “the respect Hinduism accords to believe. I told him I was brought up in a Hindu country and it teaches its adherents to live and let live. It’s a lesson I’m still learning and I hope some day to perfect. This [is] in response to your writing about evangelism.” I can’t say that there’s much of anything I would die for. I would give my life for certain people, I think, but I’m not sure there’s anything I believe so strongly that I would die for it. But what if someone held a gun to my head and say, “Profess a belief in Christ or I’ll kill you?” That’s such a silly hypothesis that I won’t even deal with it.

She talked of two theologian’s definition of religion. The first was Paul Tillich’s (I just read one of his essays a couple of weeks ago). He defined religion as ultimate concern. My text on the philosophy of religion says,

Religious faith, for Tillich, grows out of those experiences with which we invest ultimate value and to which we give our ultimate allegiance. Behind Tillich’s assertion that religious faith is ultimate concern lie two assumptions. The first assumption is that ultimate concern is common to all religions. . . . The second assumption is that no one is without some kind of faith in the sense of an ultimate concern.’

I am rather uneasy with that definition of religion. At the same time, it does encompass things like materialism which takes on a certain religious fanaticism with some people. I guess I’m uneasy with it because it implies that, despite my claims to the contrary, I am a religious person. It opens a dangerous door, for that means that all people are religious. It reminds me of D’s claim that all people have to believe in something. Am I falling into the other ditch? Some people are so theistic that it’s sickening; am I growing so anti-theistic that it’s sickening?

In that case, my ultimate concern – my religion, so to speak – must be people. I would be defined as a “secular humanist” in that my primary concern has to do with people’s lives on earth, right now. It shows its fruit in the joy I have in teaching, for I believe in some way I am indeed making a difference. Tillich holds that “faith provides unity and focus to the human personality” (Stewart 152) and this is a good description of how I feel about teaching. It gives me a focus, and it provides some hope for me. “An ecstatic experience is one that leads beyond the immediacy of the moment or, to use a parallel term, an experience that transcends the selfish tendencies of our nature” (Stewart 153). I know that sometimes while teaching I’ve had moments that seem to transcend the moment. Usually it has come at those moments when someone finally catches hold of the principle I’m trying to teach him/her and it sets their whole face aglow.

I look forward to teaching back in the States. I really enjoy what I’m doing here, but I’m working with these kids on such an elementary level that it can be a little empty at times. Of course there’s not much which is deeper than language, but I’m just teaching the very basics of English. I want to encourage students to think, to analyze and question, and teaching English to liceum kids doesn’t provide this. Of course I keep trying to convince myself that I’m not here for myself, but for the kids. Maybe I’m only fooling myself.

Long Trip Home

Sunday 9 February 1997

It has been a very long journey to this moment: I am finally home, and I finally have my computer. I am no longer cut off from the technology that I became so dependent on in the past. Perhaps it was a good thing that I was without it for so long, but I am certainly not going to give it up just to make this good thing better.

The trip from Sopot to Lipnica was hellish. Saturday morning I left with Julie N. and Grace on an 8:50 train to Warszawa to pick up my computer. I got to Warszawa around one and decided it would be best to get a little more money, so I headed to the poczta in Centralna and waited in line for half an hour for my money. Then I went to pick up a ticket to Kraków, waiting in line for another half hour. “Prosze jeden bilet do Kraków, druga klasa, na ‘Express’ pociag,” I said. “Nie ma druga klasa,” said the lady behind the glass. “Pierwrza bedzie dobra,” I said. After a moment, she said it: “Nie ma.”

“Crap!” I yelled so loud that I’m sure the whole station heard me. I stormed out of the station and the tension continued to build. I asked a taxi driver how much it would cost to get to Bukowinska. The answer: about thirty zloty. I knew that Julie was supposed to be at the Marriot for a while, so I headed over there and we chatted, allowing me time to calm down. She loaned me 50 zl as a precaution and off I went. I bought a tram ticket, road out to Bukowinska and picked up my computer. Then I went back to Centralna to try to decide what to do. I decided to go to Zabrze and stay with Mike D. I knew it would take a little bit more money, but not as much as getting a hotel room in Warszawa. First I went to Katowice. The train was thirty minutes late, leaving at 8:10, so I ended up waiting about two hours for that train. The actual trip took three hours, then I hopped another train for the final half-hour to Zabrze. I found Druker’s place; I knocked on the door; no one answered. I finally got a hotel room for 23 zl and just crashed. Then today I took the 10:53 to Kraków and from there the 1:00 bus to Chyzne. Mike M. was on it, so we chatted for most of the way. Just outside of Spytkowice we ran into traffic problems – an auto accident due to all the heavy vacation traffic. We spent an hour there, then I had about a forty-minute wait in Jabłonka for the bus to Lipnica. All told, it took me ten and a half hours to get to Sopot and thirty-two and a half to get back. That’s forty-three hours of traveling.