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First Return

Thursday 18 May 2000 | 0 Comments

7:30 p.m. EDT JFK NYC

The first leg of my return to Poland was painless enough. In fact, I left Logan about an hour earlier than expected. But here we sit, aboard a LOT 767 waiting for “meterological conditions” to ease so we can leave. I hope it won’t be a repeat of my first trip to Poland — five hours on the tarmack at Dulles.

It’s the strangest thing to hear Polish all around me again. It takes only a moment for old habits to return: I’m able to sink into that strange linguistic isolation to which I’d become so accustomed in Poland. Yet beside me sits a very pleasant woman — probably in her 50’s or 60’s — and I’m trying (or have been, from time to time) to have something of a conversation with her. Still, it’ll be a long time before i’m vaguely comfortable speaking Polish — it probably won’t happen during this trip.

Of course it’s different to believe the day of my departure is here — the exact moment seems somewhat vague, but nonetheless, Thursday 18 May has arrived. And I sit, stranded in a storm, dreaming of a small village in Poland.

I’ve come to realize I have a few habits when it comes to international trips: I pack to the accompaniment of Taproot; I buy a new journal; I end up writing in it while stranded somewhere. And, when Poland is involved in anyway whatsoever, I always find myself in the company of a drunkard — or several.

There are other things connected to Poland as well. Always a bit of chaos; always some kind of delay.

And so I’ve slipped into yet another habit: criticizing Poland. I must not do that — I must “hold on to these moments as they pass.” Yet some moments are more conducive to holding on to than others — for example, waiting to leave, waiting to initiate the last major portion of a long-awaited return to Polska. And of course I brought nothing to read . . . even for Danuta. What a dork.

8:40 p.m. EDT

Still waiting. We might be lucky enough to take off three hours late. I wouldn’t count on it, though.

I received a letter from Kaśka (Ia, last year) in which she shared her opinion of Adam. He is so boring, she said, beginning each lesson the same way: “Please open your books to page . . .” “I hope Adam won’t learn (sic) us yest year,” she wrote — saying a lot about this loser — whom I will meet shortly. I really don’t know how I feel about this — meeting someone for whom I already have no respect whatsoever. I’ll really have to bite my tongue, I think. Maybe he won’t show his face too much.

I’m wondering if Iwona will be there. She might have moved back to LW for a while, though I really doubt it. I don’t think it would upset me too much if she weren’t there at all — we haven’t exactly kept in touch with each other. I think I’ve received three letters from her, maybe only two. I’ve certainly not written more than that — we’re even, I guess. But if she is there — will cliche sparks fly? I doubt it.

I seem to have this notion — unspoken and even unacknowledged — that nothing has really changed since I left almost a year ago. As soon as I arrive in centrum, though, I’ll see the stupidity of such thoughts: a new school, a new bar, maybe even something else new. People of course will have changed as much as — no, more than — the physical surroundings. I hope I’m not setting myself up for something that is no longer really there. I’m not even sure what I’m expecting, except a warm welcome. But whether it is legitimate to think of this as a sort of homecoming or not — that is another issue altogether.

I just had a chance for a Zywiec — yet I passed it up. I’m waiting to be in the company of friends.

If we ever depart, that is. We’re already two and a half hours behind schedule. I’ve no idea how this will affect my arrival time in NT or LW.

Almost Returning

Monday 15 May 2000 | 0 Comments

An awful start to a month that will turn out to be one of the most eventful of my life. Though I had no idea at the beginning of the month — or even the last journal entry — I’ll be leaving for Poland in three days! It’s difficult to believe, but I’m leaving for Poland this Thursday.

This evening I read some of my journal entries from my last days in Lipnica. There are so many people that I want to see, to talk to — will I be able is another story. At any rate, the thought of going back and being among some of the people who were so very important to me during the most formative period of my life — it’s difficult to describe how I feel about it, but I feel equally at peace and anxious about it, often experiencing both at the same moment.

Because of that, I won’t be writing much more than ten pages this month, if I’m lucky. I’m not planning on keeping much more than a rough outline of my days there. Every night (or morning) I hope to jot down a few lines about what happened since the last time I wrote something and then flesh it out when I get back. I’ve bought a new, small notebook for that purpose. Zobaczymy.

“I try to tell myself to hold to these moments as they pass.” Those words have haunted me since I’ve returned, and I’m determined that for the time I’m in Poland I will make the most of every single moment. I don’t know how much I’ll sleep — I”m hoping not much; I don’t know how much time I’ll spend sitting around doing nothing — I’m noping, not much. I want every moment to be something to cherish; and I want to be aggressive enough in initiating visits that that’s the case. I want to hunt down Józia and talk to her; I want to go see Anna P. if she’s not at the disco; I want to drop in on people without worries. I’m going to do it if I can. I’m going to walk across the street to Agnieszka Kubacka’s house and find out where she is and whether I can get a phone number to contact her, and the same for Maggy. I’m not going to have a single moment of regret while I’m there; no wasted time whatsoever. It’s completely unacceptable.

Excitement at Return

Sunday 07 May 2000 | 0 Comments

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but in two weeks I will be in Lipnica. Two weeks. I’ll actually be arriving in much less than two weeks. Still — last night I was thinking, “Two weeks and I’ll be back at Zurek.” A very comforting thought.

“I try to tell myself to hold on to these moments while they last.” As Adam says about chess, I’ve got to be “balls-to-the-wall” with this. I’ve got to be aggressive in seeing people — not wait for someone to invite me over for a visit, in other words. I’ve got to savor each and every moment — even the time taking the train from Warszawa to Kraków. In fact, I’m sort of looking forward to that more than anything else — my initial adjustment period, so to speak. Every time I’m on the orange line going to work, I look out and think, “This could just as easily be a train somewhere in Poland.” And I get a little tug of nostalgia. So now in the coming days I’ll get something similar, but a sort of nostalgia-in-advance.

I hope that my trip to Poland will help me adjust to being back in America. I don’t know if I’m being blindly, naively optimistic about this or not, but I really think that going back to Poland for just a little while will give me the necessary perspective to appreciate being back here. What I miss most about my life in Lipnica are the friendships. It’s not the apartment (though of course it would be nice to have such a place here); it’s not really the teaching (it’s more the interaction with students, not the act of teaching them when to use “a,” “an,” and “the”); it’s not the cold winters; it’s not even the thrill (which quickly wore away) of living in another country. It was the friendship — knowing that I had something to do on Saturday nights and, more importantly, someone to do it with; sitting at talking around an ognisko; smoking and drinking with Janusz while listening to our mutually small blues collection;' having an unplanned lunch with Mastelas on a Sunday afternoon.

So now I’m listening to Trzycie (sp?) Simfonia Góreckiego. It’s music that demands to be listened to — commands one’s attention — and it’s probably not the best music to be listening to while trying to type in my journal. Still, I’m in the mood to listening to something Polish, and this is the best I’ve got (without a doubt).

At some point I’ve got to start really planning what I want to do while I’m there. I don’t want to go and just let things happen. I’m afraid if I do that then I won’t get to do certain things I really want to do. Among them — a day in Kraków, perhaps with Kinga J. or Edyta; a day in Zakopane, definitely with Charles; a day of riding a bike around Lipnica, hopefully with Kinga M. when she gets back. I want to have some sort of idea of what my time there will be like.

Other than this exciting bit of news — and the accompanying news that I’m flying for less than $700, thanks to Michelle — nothing much has happened this week.

Oh, part of the motivation for going so soon: Kamil was drafted into the army! He leaves 4 July for a six-month stint. That means if I were to go for Charles’ wedding in September, I wouldn’t get to see Danuta or Kamil. I found out about this Monday, hence the suddenness of the trip.

I had to talk Kali into letting me get time off. At first she wasn’t keen on the idea, but I had a strong argument: we have two course developers starting — one tomorrow, one the next Monday. The first thing they’ll have t do is read all the chapters and start making some changes. I’ll have enough time for them to read the chapters and discuss them with me before I leave for about a week. During that week, hopefully, they’ll have time to make some changes, re-write stuff and so on, so that when I get back, there’ll be a pile of work for me to do — which certainly hasn’t been the case of late.

Another interesting development in the workplace: I had my evaluation this week and Kali feels I’m not making the most of my skills. What exactly did she mean? Well, she’d like to see me more involved in the tech side of things as something of a liason between the tech staff and the editors. An editor who knows a lot about the ins and outs of the software we’re using and things like that. She also wants me to design and implement some workshops for editors to help them make the most of Word. Several of them — including Kali — would like to learn how to make macros (as if it’s terribly difficult), and so I’ll be teaching again. And I won’t have to worry about not being prepared and such — I’ll be able to prepare this stuff while I’m at work. Part of my job will be to prepare for these workshops! What a novel concept!

April Thoughts

Sunday 02 April 2000 | 0 Comments

Thoughts on a First Return

Sunday 20 February 2000 | 0 Comments

While making dinner tonight I listened (or rather, we listened) to Shawn Colvin’s A Few Small Repairs. Naturally, I thought of Lipnica. Specifically the “party” I had with then-class-IIIA (now college freshmen). I put that on at some point, I recall. I was completely smitten with that album. I just remembered that they were asking me to play guitar. I don’t really know why I didn’t. Seems a little silly now — I never play for anyone anymore.

Anyway, for some reason, I began thinking about Agnieszka Kubacka, regretting that she never wrote me back. I guess I could write her another letter, but what’s the use? She didn’t write back; Tom didn’t. Iwona . Anna P. Damian. Agnieszka Adamczyk. Fairly ridiculous, but something I have, in large measure, learned to accept.

I keep having these grandiose visions of what my visit to Lipnica will be like, and yet I wonder if I won’t be as disappointed in some ways with that as I have been with my students’ lack of response. What if I get there and don’t get to see much of anyone I want to see? I know I’ll get to see the most important people--Janusz, Charles, Kinga, Edyta, Kinga, and Halina. The rest, I suppose — who knows. I’ll send a letter to school fairly soon telling everyone roughly when I’ll be there. I’ll set a date for a big group visit at urek maybe, and then try to visit everyone I really want to talk to beforehand (people like Dominika and Agnieszka).

I’d really like to see Grzegorz Kalemba. I wonder if he’d come to Żurek if I “announced” it. That would be really nice. He was a sweet kid who, in many ways, was a dream student. Always tried, never really disruptive. Bolek would be another I’d like to see. Marek as well. He was a tough one — he liked to be challenged, I think. And I’d like to see Krzysztof as well.

I’d love to see everyone; I’d love to have a Saturday night like “old times” — Janusz comes over for beer and music, then we head off to the disco. I guess that won’t happen because of the simple fact of where I’ll be staying.

I added another to my list of “those I’ve written to” — Beata Płotek. I remember how we had a few (very few) wonderful conversations — especially when I walked her home from Żurek and she told me, “You’re the best teach in the school.” I regret not having made more of an effort with her. Who knows what more I could have done. I’ve a feeling that no matter what I did, I would always feel I should have done more. (That’s not something Adam will ever feel regarding his time in Lipnica; he’s not even aware of how little he’s doing, and regret takes awareness of one’s actual situation and an ideal. He doesn’t seem to have either.) Anyway, I really do doubt that she’ll write me back, but it only cost me 60¢, so I’ve lost nothing I guess. I also wrote to Ewa and Kasia from Augustów.

Thoughts about the New Guy

Saturday 19 February 2000 | 0 Comments

An utterly boring evening I fear. The same old shit — watch movies, cook dinner. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I played cribbage online with Charles today. He beat me the first two games (including a second-game skunk), but I came back and took three in a row to win the match. It was a lot of fun to chat with him.

At some point I said something about winter break and he said that they’d been back in school for a week. And that practice matura is coming up soon. I mentioned that Danuta’s probably thrilled about that. “Adam doesn’t do anything and this will just add to her already-frantic workload.” There was some short exchange, and somehow I indicated that he’s fairly lazy or something. Anyway, he said something about him probably sitting in the teachers’ room drinking until ten minutes after the bell rings. I said that I didn’t really know from first-hand experience (obviously) but that Danuta had told me that he usually waits until all the teachers leave the teachers room before he leaves. Charles then asked me for his phone number.

“It’s the same as mine, I guess.”

“But I can’t remember it,” he responded.

I gave it to him, then asked, “Why do you want it, if I might be so nosy?”

“I’m going to call him and ‘gently’ encourage him to fulfill his responsibilities and stop making Americans look bad.”

“Well,” I replied, “He’s certainly not making Americans look bad in the other teachers’ eyes. According to Danuta they all like him much more than they liked me. Of course they didn’t like me at all, so that’s not saying much.”

He really didn’t say anything more to that. It’s not like Charles to talk about people, but I would honestly love to rant to him — he takes his job seriously and I think he’d understand my frustration with Adam.

Last night we watched Doc Hollywood — I’d forgotten the premise: New guy in small town spends a lot of time there; feels he’s making a difference; many people there like him and want him to stay; when it’s time to leave, he does so with a heavy heart; once back in his “home,” he can’t seem to get the little hamlet (deliberately cheesy word choice) out of his mind. Sound familiar? It fortuantely didn’t get me too stupidly sentimental about Lipnica.

Various Thoughts

Wednesday 16 February 2000 | 0 Comments

Still nothing really to write about. I could complain about the nonsense going on at DLG because of the upcoming move — I don’t have access to my Outlook mail (at least not without Dale being privy to it as well) and I certainly don’t have access to Outlook as a planning tool.

(I just realized: it should be, “On nie zna waszego imi,” not “wie.” I always got those two mixed up when I was learning Polish — wiedzieć and znać. Oh well — Krystyna will understand me, proving my point about mistakes being fairly insignificant, and Danuta will get a laugh out of it.)

Back to DLG: It’s really rather unprofessional that I have to send out business email from my Excite account. Of course, who am I really sending email to? People I know personally, and 99% of it is indeed personal email, so what’s the problem? Just something to complain about, I suppose.

Today I have a presentation about the linking tool cum database that we’re working on. In some ways it will be like I’m teaching again — standing in front of a group of people, explaining something. Not quite the same, of course. I don’t care about these people as if they were my younger siblings — such was the case with many of my students. And the analogy breaks down further — no test on the material. That’s good, though. I was always thinking, in the back of my mind, that there must be some way to be a good teacher without ever having to resort to “tests” in the normal sense. (I still feel that way, but in Poland it seems to be a little different--not quite so “cut and dried,” as Mrs. Sams liked to say.)

Yesterday I stayed at home to work and I actually accomplished quite a bit. I was really somewhat surprised. Of course it helped that Whit recently sent in two more chapters, so I have plenty of fresh editing meat to work with. On an annoying note, I can’t get the stupid color-coding toolbar I created at DLG to work here. I had Kali send it to me as an attachment, but it doesn’t work because our version of Word doesn’t have that many text color possibilities. It went berserk (biting its shield and all!) when I tried to turn text “bright green” — no such thing exists in its world. So I made a comment for each and every entry, and today I’ll go through it (big stupid waste of time) and convert it all to green text. Excuse me, to bright green text.

Last night, as I lay in bed (and I suppose as I was getting ready for bed), I was thinking about the fact that I’m supposed to go to Poland in July — late June, actually. As I thought about it, I realized that it’s really not that far away. It’s now mid-February. I could be leaving in four months and a couple of weeks! The point is this: I haven’t been obsessing over it. In fact, I hadn’t even come to realize how close it is, relatively speaking. I’ve been gone for about twice that time, I think. Now that I have a job that I like and a semi-regular schedule, things just seem to be zipping by, so to speak. It reminds me of being in Poland, slipping into bed and realizing that yet another month has gone by.

A few words on my class: I’m finding that I get really excited about the things we talk about often, but not overwhelmingly so. Durkheim is interesting to talk about, but actually to read his stuff — it can be a little tedious. Not nearly as bad as Parsons (based on the one selection I’ve read, that is), but not terribly engaging in a way. I guess in class we just get a distillation of many books in a few moments of lecture. But it has made me wonder whether I do indeed want to change to sociology of religion.

One of the things that I love about sociology, though, is how it provides clear, functional definitions/explications of normal, “everyday” life. Prestige, for example, comes from holding a job that society holds somewhat sacred. The most prestigious job in America (according to many, even most) is Supreme Court justice. It is certainly not the best paid job — Dr. Seligman pointed out that a partner in a law firm can earn many times more than a Supreme Court justice. Yet we see them as something like secular high priests, gate-keepers of democracy and so on. (Of course the fringes of society — particularly on the right side of the political spectrum — view the Supreme Court as something of a farce.) That’s what I want to study about knowledge — how do we get it? How do we keep it? What makes it possible for some people, regarding God, to stop saying, “I believe” and start saying, “I know?”

Yesterday — a great moment — I spent the morning working on a list of terms that Rob is going to submit to Pat (the permissions editor) who in turn will submit it (along with lists from other project managers) to an image clearinghouse to see which images we can buy, simplifying the whole process to some degree. Anyway, as I worked (a somewhat mindless job, compared with editing that is), I listened to NPR, specifically “All Things Considered.” It’s really been years since I listened to it, and it brought back lots of memories: driving to work at Holiday Inn; driving to school for an 8:00 or 9:00 class and sitting in the parking lot, listening to a story. (It was always good when I had Dr. Mr. Woolsey, because he was understanding if I was a few minutes late. Being an NPR fan himself, he let it slide to a degree.) Or, another memory — going to the Richmans’ for work and listening to NPR while working on poetry. (I should write to them as well.)

The New Guy

Tuesday 15 February 2000 | 0 Comments

I received another surprise Friday: a letter from Krystyna Jasiura of IIA (last year’s IA, of course). It was all in Polish — her first letter wasn’t. Regarding this, she wrote, “Czy mogłabym pisa do Pana po polsku, bo wiem, że jak piszę po angielsku to robię dużo będów i Pan się może denerwuje czytając list z takimi bądami.” I guess I feel the same way when I write in Polish. Still, it’s not like I won’t understand; nor will I think any less of anyone for writing me a letter full of mistakes.

However, that wasn’t really the interesting thing. Earlier in the letter she wrote, “Naprawada jestem Panu ogromnie wdzięczna za to, że mi Pan odpisał, bo przyznam, że w to wątpiłam. Myślałam, że Pan już o mnie zapomniał.” It got me to thinking about Adam — I think it could very well happen with him, since he doesn’t even know their names now. Yet with me, it seems completely absurd to think that I could possibly forget about these kids.

All the same, the most interesting — and something I’m not sure how I’ll respond to: “W klasie Pana wspomniajłi chcieliby, żeby Pan wróci do Lipnicy i znów nas uczyę. Zna Pan może osobiście naszego nowego pana od j. angielskiego? Jeżli to co pan o nim myśli?”

First of all, it makes me feel wonderful that “W klasie Pana wspomniajłi chcieliby, żeby Pan wróci do Lipnicy i znów nas uczyę.” They want me to come back! Of course that’s impossible, but what a feeling it gives me! (Of course with such an idiot as Adam as their teacher, that seems inevitable.)

Second, she wants to know what I think of A. How do I answer that? “Nie znam go osobiście, ale mogę powiedzieć to: nie słyszałem niczego dobrego o nim.” That’s about the most straightforward answer I can give, but I don’t know if I want to say such a thing. I could say more, of course. “Słyszałem, że on jeście nie wie waszego imion.” Or better still, “Słyszałem, że on jest głupy dupek kto myśli tylko o siebie.” Of course the key phrase in all that is, “Słyszałem, że . . .” I don’t want to go around spreading rumors, but I would simply love to pass judgment. That’s only human, I guess. I’m pissed with the asshole for taking advantage of everyone there (the kids, Danuta, Korpus Pokoju), and I want to strike back I guess.

Of course I could say, rightly so, “Ktoś mi powiedział, że on już nie wie waszego imi.” That’s a little better, I guess. It’s still problematic, though. I’m still basically gossiping.