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LW Return

Saturday 01 September 2001 | 0 Comments

I’ve spent the whole day in Kamil’s old room. But there’s more. Before it sounds too ridiculously reclusive, I should also point out that I’ve spent the whole day in bed. I can’t understand why, and in some ways I can’t believe I actually did, but such is the case. I woke up around five this morning; finally, unable to sleep, I got out of bed at six, read old journal entries for a hour, then went back to bed. At some point, Karol woke me up to give me the key to the house, but I just fell right back asleep. When I finally woke up again and checked my watch, it was one in the afternoon. I felt a little stupid for having slept that long, and for a moment, I still considered trying to go to Nowy Targ this afternoon, but I realized that it just wasn’t going to happen. I got up and read for a little while (Gulliver’s Travels, which I bought in Warszawa yesterday just before I left), then, feeling cold, went back to bed. I finally dragged my ass out of bed sometime around four twenty. Insane. I’m not sure why I wasn’t able to get out of bed. I was just so freaking exhausted; the thought of stirring at all made me just want to curl up into a tighter ball and go back to sleep.

So, for my arrival: I thought I’d never make it from the train to the van with all my shit. It was so heavy, especially that stupid duffle bag. Still, I made it, only to find that Janusz had come with Bronek (from the gmina) and was in fact looking for me. So I struggled for nothing — I could have easily had a bit of help.

The trip back was uneventful, and a little strange. I felt like I’d never left as soon as we were driving along. Janusz and I chatted a little, but not much. It was a little difficult because I was sitting in the front and he was sitting in the back. I knew that once we got to Quattro that we’d chat up a storm, so I didn’t worry about it, though I did feel a little stupid: he came all that way and I really didn’t talk that much. I just wanted to absorb it all, I guess.

Arrival in Poland for Four Years

Friday 31 August 2001 | 0 Comments

I’m supposedly about an hour from Kraków, but we spent a few minutes sitting for some reason. No one came on the radio to explain it, so I’ve really no idea how long we sat there.

So I made it through both flights without losing anything but my copy of Walden. I’d started reading the introduction on the flight to Zürich but I’d only made it through about ten pages. My main concerns were for naught — I didn’t have to check any of my carry-on items, and both my checked pieces made it fine. Of course I haven’t opened up the guitar case yet, so that might have to be refined a bit.

The flight from Zürich was perfect, though. There was hardly anyone on the plane (unlike that damned flight from DC) and I had a window seat on a beautiful, clear day. It was even sunny in Warszawa when we landed, much to my surprise. But back to the flight.

I knew immediately when we’d crossed over the border. The fields looked different. The random shapes of the other countries (I can’t remember which ones we flew over) were replaced with the long, narrow fields of Poland. Some of them can’t be any wider than ten feet, but that same ten-foot field might be five hundred feet long. Most seem to be about thirty to fifty feet wide, and maybe two hundred feet long. Robert explained it that this was because of the division of the land into cooperatives after the war, but it doesn’t explain their peculiar shape. When I looked out the window and saw those fields, I thought of Jason’s comment five years ago as we were flying from Frankfurt. I wonder if it’s what most people first notice about the land.

Gruby picked me up at the airport and drove me back to his apartment. He’d borrowed his dad’s car, so while he returned it and rode his own bike back, I showered and took a nap. Of course I hadn’t slept at all on the plane and I was utterly exhausted. When he got back, I eventually woke up and grudgingly played some chess with him. In the end, he informed me, we were three games each. I honestly wasn’t keeping track, but I was rather pleased with my last two games (both of which I won).

After a great dinner (roasted chicken with cabbage salad and potatoes), we went to a “students’ club” near the Pałac Kultur i Nauki. A “students’ club” to me brings to mind different things than what I encountered, which was basically a nightclub filled with university-age people. I chatted with a few of Gruby’s friends, drank some beer, and smoked a few cigarettes. We took a taxi home, and I collapsed.

Thus was my first day in Poland. As I lay in bed, around three this morning, I thought, “It’s midnight back in the States. My folks must be home by now.” Then it suddenly struck me — that was yesterday. Because I hadn’t really slept in plane, and because we lost six hours in the flight, two days were compacted into what seemed like one endless day. If I hadn’t stayed in Warszawa and instead took the Małopolska down to Kraków yesterday, it would have been an even more hellish journey. Counting the trip from Christiansburg to DC, it would have been about a twenty-four hour journey. I guess it still will be, but it was broken up with a short stay with Gruby.

So in about two and a half hours, I’ll be back in Lipnica. That means in about two and a half hours, I’ll be home. At least “home” for the next year. I’m still wondering whether or not this was such a brilliant idea. I keep thinking that it’ll be as good as I make it, though.

At the same time, I’m fairly sure that it will be much harder work than I’m letting myself believe. The last time I taught was in May, when I visited a few classes. It’s one thing to teach a couple of lessons in a couple of days; it’s something altogether different to teach lesson after lesson, day after day. Of course I’ve done it before, so I know I’m capable of it.

Enough for now.

To Return?

Sunday 04 February 2001 | 0 Comments

I’ve reached a critical point in this whole nonsense about going back to Lipnica. I told Jasiu that I’d write back to him with dodatkowy informacje przed konicu styczyn. All I meant was that I’d share with him my thoughts — how I’d want things to be, basically. (Teaching class IV, a guarantee of a certain number of hours, as well as explaining that I wouldn’t have to have Fridays off and so on.) It’s now well past konicu styczyn and I still haven’t even written him a note to say, “Sorry, I still haven’t decided.”

The troubling thing is that I really haven’t decided and I’m starting to wonder how the hell I could decide. [...]

One question nags, though — do I really want to go back? At times, when I think about it and imagine myself back in Lipnica, I say to myself, “God, that would be awful.” I think of the problems I had there, especially with communication, and I want never to go back. But I know that in the end, most of those problems are surmountable. I simply have to work my tail off and actually learn Polish. I think the motivation might be greater this time around because I would know I was going back there to see if that’s where I wanted to live. The first time around I knew I wouldn’t be living there permanently and so I just learned enough Polish to get by. This time, though, it might be different.

The question is whether I would be happier there than I would be anywhere else. And I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way to figure that out is to go back for an extended stay. I just am nervous (poor choice of words) about what would happen if I got there and realized that I wouldn’t be happier there than anywhere else.

End of Month Thoughts

Sunday 28 January 2001 | 0 Comments

LW Thoughts

Tuesday 02 January 2001 | 0 Comments

I did begin a new mini-project. I still haven’t finished transcribing my journal from 1996 (October through December) to Word format. I typed in the entry for 1 November today — over 2,300 words. It was my first All Saints’ Day and I waxed eloquent about it. I wrote some pretty lame things, truth be told. I think I was writing with a future audience in mind — my great Peace Corps journal, I guess.

It made me want to return, of course. I was thinking that if I went back now, there would be one grave that I would want to visit on All Saints’ Day: Marcela’s. I realized that such a thing would make me more at home than I’d been four years ago. And I further realized that as more and more time passed (if I lived there the rest of my life, in other words), eventually, that day would take on more and more significance. I’d have graves to visit, more candles to light. And who knows — by that time I might know Polish well enough that I could mumble along with the prayers. And I might have lived in a Catholic community (plausibility structures and all) for long enough that I’d want to mutter those prayers.

Work, Return, and More

Friday 08 December 2000 | 0 Comments

Conversation

Monday 27 November 2000 | 0 Comments

White Star Discussion

Thursday 16 November 2000 | 0 Comments

Speech

Wednesday 15 November 2000 | 0 Comments

Last night I went to hear Elie Wiesel’s third and final lecture in the 2000 BU lecture series, and as seems to be the tradition, he spoke about contemporary times. I arrived late (I waited for about 25 minutes for a B train — about five D trains, three or four E trains, and a couple of C trains went by in the meantime.) and had to sit in the back section. Two rows ahead of me and to my right sat a black couple — I would say “African American” in some stupid effort to be PC, but I don’t know that they were Americans. They could have been “African French” or even simply “African” — for what any of those labels are worth. Anyway, an interesting thing happened during the lecture, and it happened not once but twice. When Wiesel began talking about the troubles in the Middle East, he said essentially that these events showed the world what kind of man Arafat truly is, namely as someone who can’t be trusted. “When you see the generosity of Barak’s offered concessions . . . “ he began, and the black woman in front of me began shaking her head in disagreement, her brow wrinkled to show her disapproval. She sat slightly to the right of me and was watching Wiesel on the monitor to the left of me, so I could also see her eyes, which she rolled several times as if she couldn’t believe what Wiesel was saying, as if he were saying something as ridiculous as, “All the world’s troubles are due to Arafat.”

This reaction really didn’t shock me. “Perhaps she’s just a person with extreme leftist views, one of those who really feel that Israel as no right to exist as a state,” I thought. I didn’t really think any more of it for a few moments.

Wiesel continued by condemning the violence in the Middle Ease, and then violence in general. “Where words leave off, violence begins,” he said, continuing by essentially saying, “There is never an excuse for violence.” — surely, I would have thought everyone in the room would have agreed with that. Yet I glanced at the black woman and once again she was shaking her head, as if to say, “What a fucking idiot — of course there’s a time for violence. Sometimes that’s the only course left for someone to take.”

I was tempted — though I did not act on this temptation — to catch up to her and the individual she was with and ask them what they found so offensive in what Wiesel was saying, particularly about violence. Maybe they were Muslims who support the Intafada. Who knows. Who cares, in the end.

Monday I met Chhavi downtown to watch a film (You Can Count on Me — I give it a 7 or 7.5 out of 10, with its realism being its greatest strength.) and so I rode the Orange Line down to Back Bay and Mary accompanied me. For some reason she mentioned that she heard we were getting raises — everyone. She even said that Kali herself had said something about it. The figure she’d heard? A huge one percent pay increase. Wow. That’s a whole $350 a year. Shit — I don’t know what I’d do with that kind of money. Surely she must have heard wrong, for that amounts to less than $30 a month. Anyway, I mentioned to her that Chhavi had been encouraging me to ask for a raise, and then she said it — the bombshell — “Yeah, you should. I mean if Michael Lacoy asks for a raise every week, why shouldn’t you?” Now if what she said earlier was true, specifically, that the new editors are getting offered $40,000 to attract “more qualified” individuals, then he’s already making something like twelve percent more than I make. And he’s only been working there for a few weeks — less than three months, I think. That’s fairly ridiculous. If it’s true, of course, and I can’t assume it is.

I can “assume” (to continue with parallel grammatical structure) that I haven’t gotten a raise since I started working there, and that I’ve been working there for almost a year now. Marlon told me he got a $5,000 raise at one point, and that everyone in the tech team has gotten a raise. But the other side of production? I guess we’re just a cliché dime-a-dozen. Or perhaps $480,000 a dozen.

On to another topic — Edyta. I haven’t written to her since I left Poland, and that was almost six months ago. At first I purposely didn’t write to her because I didn’t know what to say. Now I want to write to her, but I’ve no idea what to say. What I need to say is, “Sorry. That shouldn’t have happened, and I’m afraid that the fact that it did has ruined our relationship.” I guess in the end, it’s just not that important to me. I hesitate to write to her because I don’t want all the work that would be required to try to get things back to normal between us.

Other news — I got a message from Kamil Sunday (though I didn’t actually read it or even know about it until I got to work Monday morning) and he told me that Jasiu has agreed to re-employ him. His plans are to finish out the school year, then look for a job in Kraków. Barring that, he wants to try to come to the States for a while. So it’s now conceivable that I could go back to Lipnica (provided Jasiu gives me a job) and neither Kamil nor Janusz would be there — just as Chhavi predicted. And of course Kinga would be off at university most of the time, leaving me fairly alone. Does that disturb me? A little, to be honest. But more than anything it makes me think, “I need to get cracking so that I can tell everyone of my intentions.”