polska | matching tracksuits

Tough Breaks

Saturday 26 February 2005 | 0 Comments

I never thought I'd complain about too many breaks, but I always find myself doing just that during the second semester of a Polish school year.

Basically, the beefy part of the Polish school calendar ends with Christmas break. Because the two-week Christmas break does not coincide with the completion of the semester, it marks the beginning of the on-again, off-again season of the school year.

This is how it's playing out this year:

After three weeks back at school after Christmas break, the semester ended and the students got a much deserved two week break.
At the end of the first week back, seniors got two days off to go to CzÄ™stochowa to spend all night praying for their exit exams. (I wish I was making that up, but I'm not. More later.)
This year, we get an entire week back at school for everyone after the senior prayer session before "rekolekcja" begins. After the first three lessons on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, students head to the church for something like a revival -- an effort to get everyone spiritually prepared for Easter
Which provides about another week off in late March.
Three weeks back and it's time for the matura -- exit exams.
After the matura, there are no seniors -- not exactly the same as a break, but my hours this year will be cut almost in half.

Put all that together and it's clear why the last day of school is 24 June.

Something to Gain

Wednesday 23 February 2005 | 1 Comment

Regarding the fact that more atheists tend to read Christian apology than vice versa, Nina commented,

There is no reward in keeping an open mind to atheism, whereas we atheists (I’m not including you here, I noted your rejection of that concept as well, though I don’t understand where that places you) are given plenty of incentives to open up to the possibility of a God. I would be curious whether you have talked about this with Poles? And if so, how have they reacted?

I'm not so sure that there isn't a "reward in keeping an open mind to atheism." I recall a sort of relief I felt when I finally admitted to myself that I didn't believe in much of anything, perhaps something like the peace Christian converts say they feel when the "accept the Lord."

Could it be that others might feel the same if they "let go" without the "and let God" addendum? Perhaps.

But I guess Nina is right -- if someone really believes something, what does she stand to gain in doubting it, especially when it's something beyond proof, like religious faith.

In rural southern Poland, the notion of being a non-believer seems to be virtually unimaginable. If the subject of religious belief comes up, I general start broad and wind my way down, from "I'm not a Catholic" eventually, if pressed, to "I don't have any positive belief about any diety." "I can't imagine my life without God," is a common reaction, and that is probably more ontologically true than the speaker imagines. It's like imagining life without, say, breathing.

Religion -- rather, Catholicism -- is so deeply infused in the Polish highlander's culture and worldview that it is as natural as a blue sky.

Sure -- you can imagine the sky's red, but what for?

Polish Jumping Bean

Tuesday 15 February 2005 | 0 Comments

My mother-in-law says that when he was young, Kamil, her brother's son, used to run everywhere and jump off of everything.

His jumping in particular paid off. Now he's on the first squad of the Polish national ski-jumping team, and he recently participated in his first World Cup event.

He finished in seventh place. That was two places higher than Polish hero Adam Małysz, three-time world cup winner.

Of the surprising win over Małysz, Kamil's father said,

In all this happiness, we mustn't forget that beating Małysz was an accident. Adam is a great competitor who had a little weaker day yesterday, and Kamil made the most of it.

According to his trainer, Kamil has the best technique of the entire squad. "A real pearl," summarized nation team trainer Heinz Kuttin (Source: Onet.pl).

At our August wedding, it was Kamil who casually reached down to grab my thrown tie.

Androgynous Mittens

Saturday 12 February 2005 | 3 Comments

The bumping, swaying motion of the bus was, as usual, rocking me to sleep. I was returning from Nowy Targ, the nearest Polish town, fighting sleep as I usually do on busses in Poland.

Ironically, a town in Slovakia is about fifteen kilometers closer, but not as accessible by bus.

In front of me sat a mother and her child, who looked to be two years old. About halfway home, I glanced down to notice one of the child’s mittens had fallen on the floor. I reached down to pick it up, then leaned a little over the seat and was going to address the child. “You lost something, didn’t you?” And then the mild panic struck: is this a boy or a girl? Wrapped up tight for winter, the child was androgynous, with only a face visible. So I said nothing, and simply gave the mitten back to the mother. Rather, she noticed I was holding it and literally jerked it out of my hand. Odd experience.

I didn’t say anything to the child because I didn’t know the child’s gender, and that is essential if you’re speaking to someone in Polish in the past tense. Polish verbs are curious because their past tense forms are gender specific. “I took” for a man (wziałem) is different than “I took” for a woman (wziałam). Not terribly different, but different nonetheless.

If I were to say to a little boy, “You lost something, didn’t you?” the “lost” would be “straciłeÅ›,” whereas for a little girl it would be “straciłaÅ›.”

The verb endings for males are:

-łem	-liśmy
-łeś	-liście
-ł	-l

For females, however, they are:

-łam	-łyśmy
-łaś	-łyście
-ła	-ły

My father-in-law always does this when he asked Kinga and I where we went, if we’d disappeared for a few hours one Sunday afternoon. “GdzieÅ›cie byli?” he’d ask, taking the “Å›cie” ending from the verb and throwing it on “gdzie,” or “where.”

Update:
Vivi asked "So, when you are talking about mixed company (ie a man and a woman), does it default to masculine, like French?" Short answer: yes.

Will the madness never end?!

Returning to the androgynous mittens’ story, my wife informs me that people make such mistakes all the time, with the mother usually correcting them. So I could have just chosen a gender and let fly.

NT Church

Thursday 03 February 2005 | 0 Comments

Winter Walk

Friday 28 January 2005 | 0 Comments

U Adama

Thursday 27 January 2005 | 0 Comments

Classification

Tuesday 25 January 2005 | 0 Comments

At the end of each semester, all teachers meet in order to "discuss" the students' results. Grades, in other words. After opening business, each homeroom teacher reads a summary of his/her students' results.

All students names are read last name first. I get the feeling I'm in the military.

A model, using English names, would look something like this:

Number of students: 24. Number of students classified: 22. Two students, Jones Samuel and Nab Susan were not classified in mathematics due to [somewhat in-depth explanation]. Three students have been excused from participation in P.E., for medical reasons.

There were twenty students with no failing marks. There were three students with one failing mark. There was one student failing two subjets, and no students with three or more failing marks.

The students with the best results were Baker Joshua, with an average of 4.87; Anderson Tabitha, with an average of 4.68; Jackson Samuel, with an average of 4.66; Cole Brenda and Jones David, both with 4.45.

Grades in Polish are from 5 points, not 4.

Students with failing marks and/or the lowest average: Woolsey Katherine, 2.21, failing Polish and mathematics; Smith John, 2.33, failing mathematics; Kline Gregory, 2.35, failing mathematics; and Williams Derek, 2.44, failing German.

The class average with all obligatory courses is 3.24, and without the optional courses, 3.31.

Behavior grades are as follows: Three students received a grade of "model beahvior": Baker Joshua, Anderson Tabitha, and Cole Brenda. There are five students with behavior graded "very good." Fifteen students received a grade of "good." One student received a mark of "correct," Williams Derek.

And there you have it. For each of the thirteen classes, all this information was rattled off. Of the thirteen classes, I teach seven of them, but I was required to sit and listen about the six that I don't teach. Nonsense.

Most amazing is the behavior grade. Each student gets a mark between "model" and "rebuked" (literal translation). All the other possibilities are mentioned above, with the exception of the next-to-worst grade, "inappropriate." This behavior grade is put on students transcripts, to what ends, who knows?