Bjorn read yesterday's blog entry, and when I asked him if he thought it was an accurate account of the last few days, he hesitated. Well, he said, you're sort of leaving out some of the, um, low points. Ahh, yes. The low points!
I have cried every day this week. I cried Monday morning when I said goodbye to Bjorn. Not a big, heaving, let it all out, kind of cry, just a few minutes of boo hooing. It was to be expected. I knew it would happen before it happened. I collected myself - I had to - and moved on to the school for an enlightening day of medical testing and safety lectures. That evening, I went to go see an apartment (the expensive one I told you yesterday I had taken) and got completely lost coming home. Warsaw, as it turns out, is nothing like New York City. The streets do not have numbers for names, and if you don't have a map, forget it. I returned to the hotel exhausted, angry, and starving, so I went across the street to the MarcPol supermarket and bought a package of cookies and a large beer for dinner.
Tuesday. I had a short meeting at school with all teachers present. It was totally disorganized, and the teachers were unbelievably rudely talking over Ms. Mira during the whole meeting. Pieces of information were just getting thrown out at random. This is how we do this, this is how we do that. But are we going to put this all in writing for you? No. After the meeting, my new friend, Monica, (Polish and has just come from living in the states for six years - AND went to Nashville and loved it!) asked me if I wanted to come into the city center with her. She thought we could perhaps buy the classified newspaper, and she could help me look for an apartment, since everything is in Polish. What a nice gesture! So we did this, made many phone calls, and got nothing back. Places were already rented, or no one answered the phone. Nothing. I returned to the hotel, again around dinner time, again exhausted and frustrated and starving, but determined to have a REAL dinner. So I went to a sushi place in the neighborhood and spent too much money on sushi. It was delicious, but I felt guilty, as I really don't have any spare money these days. I was supposed to have a phone call with my father later that evening, which I had been looking forward to all day, but the Skype connection was terrible, and I could hardly hear him speaking. All I wanted was a few minutes of father comforting, and I ended up having to hang up without really saying goodbye. I cried - this time a big, fat cry - and went to bed. Oh, and, in an emotionally driven act of desperation, I agreed to take the expensive apartment through the end of December. I was supposed to be out of the hotel the following day, and I just didn't know what else to do.
Wednesday. Oh boy. This was a great day. Woke up immediately regretting my decision to take the expensive apartment. Monica and I had seen some MUCH cheaper apartments in the classifieds, and it was just really irritating to pay twice as much as I could. I showed up at school for yet another round of meetings, worse than the day before. We discussed school policies on discipline - what kinds of infractions are worthy of detention, etc. Excuse me, my friend Kathy said. Kathy is a 60ish year old British woman - and the only other non-Polish speaker at the school who is brand new. Is there a behavior policy written down somewhere? Mira scrambled, people started talking over her, and the question was never really answered. I later attended the Middle Years meeting and was totally overwhelmed with the masses of information being shoved upon me. I was expected to go ahead and make an order for the books and notebooks I wanted my stduents to have. Um, I'm sorry. You just showed me the program YESTERDAY. Do you think I am ready to order books?
Meanwhile, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had made a big mistake with my apartment. I finally went to a computer at the school and shot off an email to the owner, saying I had changed my mind and I was very sorry. (Of course, I started re-thinking THAT decision within about 10 minutes.) I left school in a huff, and went home to eat lunch sitting in my hotel room - cookies and a cup of yogurt I had stolen from the breakfast buffet that morning. I got on the phone with Bjorn and just exploded. I'm sick of eating COOKIES for meals! I am sick of not being able to buy things at the grocery store that I can refrigerate or cook! I'm sick of the school being so freaking disorganized! I'm sick of wondering where I'm going to sleep the next night! I'm sick of being stressed about money! This was the biggest cry, up to that moment. I had to get toilet paper from the bathroom. Mascara was running down my puffy, red face. Snot was pouring out of my nose.
I finally collected myself, and determined that I really needed to get back to the school and try to talk to some people. I needed perhaps to explain to Mira that I was extremely stressed out about my living situation. I needed to ask her if the school would pay for a few more nights at the hotel. I needed to find Kathy or Monica and talk to them about their apartment searching progress. But when I got back to the school, things had quieted down, and the school secretary, Anna, told me everyone had left. We chatted for a few minutes, but she started asking me questions like, Are you scared? and, Have you found a place to live? I had to bite my lip to keep from crying in front of her. I quickly left the school, put my sunglasses on, and wept, as I returned, defeated, to the Hotel Dipservice. On my way, I tried to stop at a kiosk and buy some extra credit for my cell phone, but the woman didn't speak any English, and that started another round of tears. Safe inside my hotel room, I just let it go. I cried and cried and cried.
But! The wonderfully strange thing about being human is that amidst such conditions (which I know are perhaps very petty compared to some, but they are mine), you can find a way to talk yourself out of it. You gather yourself. You try to start over. You recognize that there's nothing you can do to solve anything at 5 PM, so you might as well do something productive. So you read one of the books you're expected to teach and try to start planning for your classes. You realize that fresh air might help things, so you get out for a walk. You try again to get the extra credit for your phone and feel victorious at succeeding this time. You eat dinner at McDonald's, and though it's McDonald's, and it's gross, those french fries sure do put you in better frame of mind AND you don't have to feel guilty about spending too much money. And, when you finally return to the hotel, you find your friend Kathy sitting in the lobby, and you spend the rest of the evening talking, commiserating, and delighting in just having someone to talk to in person. Someone who can tell you it's okay that you're feeling like such a wreck.
So, yes, there have been some low points this week. And I'm still looking for an apartment. I'm still in the damned Hotel Dipservice. I'm still feeling extremely lost and overwhelmed with my job. But I'm determined to stick this out. And I'm determined to not cry today.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
I Don't Speak Polish (or, Hi, Do You Speak Any English?)
I'm sitting in my teeny single room at the Hotel Dipservice (and I hope "dipservice" means something of significance in Polish). It is Wednesday morning, and I've now been in Warsaw, Poland, for a whole week! It has been an eventful week, and I'll try to tell you about the highlights, but I do intend to start keeping the blog more regularly now, so stay tuned. Officially back from summer vacation!
I arrived in Warsaw last Wednesday, after a week in Sweden. Bjorn came with me, and we were greeted at the airport by Ania, a teacher at the school, who was holding a sign with my name on it!
After introductions, the first thing Ania said was, Good news! You're not going to be with the little kids anymore! They found someone else who was very keen to work with the little ones, so they've moved you up to middle school - teaching English literature and language! Well, I think this was good news, at least. I've spent the last three weeks getting excited about the idea of second grade, and now, with just ten days before the students arrive, I have to change gears!
Ania led us to the cute, little school van, with the IES logo on it, where a driver was waiting to whisk us away to the hotel, where we were to have our first of many laughts at its name. Ania is a petite thirty-something woman, and though I can't quite pinpoint what it is, there's something very Eastern European about her. She teaches middle and high school chemistry at the school and has been there for 5 years, and as far as she knows, she knows everything about everything.
The van took us through some fairly unremarkable scenery into Wilanow (and the w is pronounced as a v here), a residential neighborhood about 8 km south of the city center. Wilanow is apparently where all the wealthy folks live, and it feels very suburban. Tree-lined streets are filled with large homes with expensive cars parked outside. But don't think Golf Club Lane. The houses are smaller, and they sit on small pieces of land, each enclosed by a gate.
There's something about Warsaw that continually reminds me of some of the big cities of South America. Things feel vaguely European, but without the polish and shine of "Europe". Patches of grass next to sidewalks grow wild, untrimmed, making things look a mess to someone who grew up in the land of manicured lawns. But things aren't a mess; people just don't prioritize grass cutting. Instead there are trash cans on every corner, which people do put their trash into, and special boxes for doggie poo. So things are certainly not dirty, by any means, just pehaps a bit - je ne sais pas.
I threw my things down in the hotel room, and then, with Ania leading, made the short walk over to the school. IES is a pre-K through 12 school, and the school is spread out into three separate buildings within a 2 block radius. These buildings are really more like residentail houses, and they are all very attractive from the outside, done in a Californian white with orange tiled roof.
The main administrative offices of the school are in the primary school building, and when we walked in, things were very much in disarray. Men drilling things, huge boxes of books sitting everywhere - a work in progress, I suppose. And after touring around the building a bit, I saw that none of the rooms were decorated yet, which was actually rather comforting. One of my largest anxieties prior to arriving was that I would be behind everyone. I'd walk around the school peering in everyone else's perfect rooms and then come to mine, barren and empty. And then, of course, all of the other teachers would sneer and laugh at me for being so completely inexperience and unprepared, and I'd probably run away crying. But everyone was unprepared! How wonderful!
At the center of all this mess was Ms. Mira, the headmistress of the school and my main contact at the school thus far. Ms. Mira is an attractive woman in her late forties, I'd guess. She has short, wavy, dyed blonde hair, and a curvaceous figure, which she accentuates with her dress, more than you might expect a headmistress to. Not in a tacky way, though. Just not Harpeth Hall. Mira is Polish, but she lived in the States for 11 years (which, maybe oddly, always makes me feel closer to someone). Nothing of her manner suggests a person of authority, really. She's incredibly friendly, and sort of endearingly discombobulated. Whenever she says hi to you, it's as if she's just walked out of a gruelling four hour meeting, and she has 800 things to do before 5:00. But with a smile and a laugh! Mira and I had a short chat, and we made plans to go out to lunch the following day, which I appreciated.
Aside from that lunch, the next several days were pretty much mine and Bjorn's. The school had given me a list of apartments in the neighborhood that an agent was offering, and the hope was that Bjorn and I would spend the weekend getting me settled in - finding an apartment, dealing with cell phone business, getting acquainted with the city.
The apartment search has unfortunately not been a walk in the park, and I can't say the school has been all that helpful. Well, the school has been somewhat helpful, but they are really only able to put me in touch with agents, whose apartments are the most expensive in the city, and they charge a fat agent fee on top of it all. We went to see two very depressing apartments on Friday morning - even further out of the city than Wilanow, in a sterile and isolated neighborhood, in a sterile and isolated apartment building that smelled like cigarettes and felt like a hotel. I don't want to be picky, but I do feel like the upcoming year has the potential to be a scary and lonely one, and I think a depressing apartment will only make things worse if I've had a bad day. I also feel strongly that if I'm going to live in Warsaw for a year, I'd like to live in Warsaw. I'd like to walk out of my apartment and get a little...local flavor!
After hitting a total dead-end with the apartment searching (any classifieds out there are all in Polish!), we decided to spend some time being tourists. And let me just say, Warsaw is a fabulous city. I was shocked, actually. It seems unfair to me that WWII could make everyone feel like Poland is a scary place and not...Germany. Tourists flock to Germany! But not Poland. Well, it will be our little secret, then, because Warsaw is charming, beautiful, and full of life. And when you walk around the streets and realize that 60 years or so ago, the entire city was in complete ruins, it's even more impressive.
Of course, there is a kind of darkness that hangs over the city. Walking down a street, you might notice a spot on a building where flowers and candles have been left, and you remember that this was a place where someone was executed during the war.
But then you walk into the main market square of Old Town, and music is playing, outdoor restaurants are serving drinks, people are wandering around eating ice creams and taking photos - all against the backdrop of these exquisite, colorful townhouses. We sat out here and had a beer one afternoon, and I mean, I could have sat there all afternoon. I'm not sure if I can think of a more pleasant place. And I've seen a few pleasant places!
We walked the hell out of this city over the weekend, and I now feel like I have a fairly good grip on the layout of the place. What I do not even have a slippery grip of is the language. Mira encouraged me to not be afraid to just ask people if they speak English because, especially if you ask a young person, your chances are pretty good of finding someone who does. But still, it's embarrassing to have to start every single conversation with, Do you speak English? And every time someone speaks to you first in Polish, you have to say, I don't speak Polish. It's a crazy language. Nothing is pronounced the way you think it is, and the street names are seriously complicated. And while this was all sort of amusing when Bjorn was still here, and we could feel ridiculous together, now that I'm on my own, it's just plain irritating.
But I am reminded of my first week or two in Buenos Aires, when I pretty much refused to go anywhere that would require me attemping to talk to anyone. And that DID get better. After two months, I could communicate! I get the sense that Polish is much, much harder than Spanish, but perhaps I will be able to learn at least enough to ask for a bus ticket or order a meal without feeling like a 2 year old. We shall see.
Bjorn left on Monday morning, at which time I started a week of meetings and school related activities. I am still in the Hotel Dipservice, and my week of free stay here ends today. I have tentatively agreed to move into a super nice apartment tomorrrow morning (and I do LOVE the apartment, but I do not love the price) through the end of December. However, if someone else comes along today, I am going to jump on it. I haven't signed a contract yet, and no money has been exchanged.
At any rate, week one is over, and though tears of frustration have already been shed, I feel very positive about what I am getting into. It is going to be an incredibly challenging year, but I am ready for it. I'm very ready to work again (and not as a waitress), and I couldn't be happier with the city I've landed in.
I have a few new photos up if you are interested - http://picasaweb.google.com/ellen.bucy . More soon. Much love to you ALL!
And PS - I'm sort of thinking I may have to lock this blog up. Seems dangerous to leave it open to the public...if I want to really tell you EVERYTHING! But we'll see.
I arrived in Warsaw last Wednesday, after a week in Sweden. Bjorn came with me, and we were greeted at the airport by Ania, a teacher at the school, who was holding a sign with my name on it!
After introductions, the first thing Ania said was, Good news! You're not going to be with the little kids anymore! They found someone else who was very keen to work with the little ones, so they've moved you up to middle school - teaching English literature and language! Well, I think this was good news, at least. I've spent the last three weeks getting excited about the idea of second grade, and now, with just ten days before the students arrive, I have to change gears!
Ania led us to the cute, little school van, with the IES logo on it, where a driver was waiting to whisk us away to the hotel, where we were to have our first of many laughts at its name. Ania is a petite thirty-something woman, and though I can't quite pinpoint what it is, there's something very Eastern European about her. She teaches middle and high school chemistry at the school and has been there for 5 years, and as far as she knows, she knows everything about everything.
The van took us through some fairly unremarkable scenery into Wilanow (and the w is pronounced as a v here), a residential neighborhood about 8 km south of the city center. Wilanow is apparently where all the wealthy folks live, and it feels very suburban. Tree-lined streets are filled with large homes with expensive cars parked outside. But don't think Golf Club Lane. The houses are smaller, and they sit on small pieces of land, each enclosed by a gate.
There's something about Warsaw that continually reminds me of some of the big cities of South America. Things feel vaguely European, but without the polish and shine of "Europe". Patches of grass next to sidewalks grow wild, untrimmed, making things look a mess to someone who grew up in the land of manicured lawns. But things aren't a mess; people just don't prioritize grass cutting. Instead there are trash cans on every corner, which people do put their trash into, and special boxes for doggie poo. So things are certainly not dirty, by any means, just pehaps a bit - je ne sais pas.
I threw my things down in the hotel room, and then, with Ania leading, made the short walk over to the school. IES is a pre-K through 12 school, and the school is spread out into three separate buildings within a 2 block radius. These buildings are really more like residentail houses, and they are all very attractive from the outside, done in a Californian white with orange tiled roof.
The main administrative offices of the school are in the primary school building, and when we walked in, things were very much in disarray. Men drilling things, huge boxes of books sitting everywhere - a work in progress, I suppose. And after touring around the building a bit, I saw that none of the rooms were decorated yet, which was actually rather comforting. One of my largest anxieties prior to arriving was that I would be behind everyone. I'd walk around the school peering in everyone else's perfect rooms and then come to mine, barren and empty. And then, of course, all of the other teachers would sneer and laugh at me for being so completely inexperience and unprepared, and I'd probably run away crying. But everyone was unprepared! How wonderful!
At the center of all this mess was Ms. Mira, the headmistress of the school and my main contact at the school thus far. Ms. Mira is an attractive woman in her late forties, I'd guess. She has short, wavy, dyed blonde hair, and a curvaceous figure, which she accentuates with her dress, more than you might expect a headmistress to. Not in a tacky way, though. Just not Harpeth Hall. Mira is Polish, but she lived in the States for 11 years (which, maybe oddly, always makes me feel closer to someone). Nothing of her manner suggests a person of authority, really. She's incredibly friendly, and sort of endearingly discombobulated. Whenever she says hi to you, it's as if she's just walked out of a gruelling four hour meeting, and she has 800 things to do before 5:00. But with a smile and a laugh! Mira and I had a short chat, and we made plans to go out to lunch the following day, which I appreciated.
Aside from that lunch, the next several days were pretty much mine and Bjorn's. The school had given me a list of apartments in the neighborhood that an agent was offering, and the hope was that Bjorn and I would spend the weekend getting me settled in - finding an apartment, dealing with cell phone business, getting acquainted with the city.
The apartment search has unfortunately not been a walk in the park, and I can't say the school has been all that helpful. Well, the school has been somewhat helpful, but they are really only able to put me in touch with agents, whose apartments are the most expensive in the city, and they charge a fat agent fee on top of it all. We went to see two very depressing apartments on Friday morning - even further out of the city than Wilanow, in a sterile and isolated neighborhood, in a sterile and isolated apartment building that smelled like cigarettes and felt like a hotel. I don't want to be picky, but I do feel like the upcoming year has the potential to be a scary and lonely one, and I think a depressing apartment will only make things worse if I've had a bad day. I also feel strongly that if I'm going to live in Warsaw for a year, I'd like to live in Warsaw. I'd like to walk out of my apartment and get a little...local flavor!
After hitting a total dead-end with the apartment searching (any classifieds out there are all in Polish!), we decided to spend some time being tourists. And let me just say, Warsaw is a fabulous city. I was shocked, actually. It seems unfair to me that WWII could make everyone feel like Poland is a scary place and not...Germany. Tourists flock to Germany! But not Poland. Well, it will be our little secret, then, because Warsaw is charming, beautiful, and full of life. And when you walk around the streets and realize that 60 years or so ago, the entire city was in complete ruins, it's even more impressive.
Of course, there is a kind of darkness that hangs over the city. Walking down a street, you might notice a spot on a building where flowers and candles have been left, and you remember that this was a place where someone was executed during the war.
But then you walk into the main market square of Old Town, and music is playing, outdoor restaurants are serving drinks, people are wandering around eating ice creams and taking photos - all against the backdrop of these exquisite, colorful townhouses. We sat out here and had a beer one afternoon, and I mean, I could have sat there all afternoon. I'm not sure if I can think of a more pleasant place. And I've seen a few pleasant places!
We walked the hell out of this city over the weekend, and I now feel like I have a fairly good grip on the layout of the place. What I do not even have a slippery grip of is the language. Mira encouraged me to not be afraid to just ask people if they speak English because, especially if you ask a young person, your chances are pretty good of finding someone who does. But still, it's embarrassing to have to start every single conversation with, Do you speak English? And every time someone speaks to you first in Polish, you have to say, I don't speak Polish. It's a crazy language. Nothing is pronounced the way you think it is, and the street names are seriously complicated. And while this was all sort of amusing when Bjorn was still here, and we could feel ridiculous together, now that I'm on my own, it's just plain irritating.
But I am reminded of my first week or two in Buenos Aires, when I pretty much refused to go anywhere that would require me attemping to talk to anyone. And that DID get better. After two months, I could communicate! I get the sense that Polish is much, much harder than Spanish, but perhaps I will be able to learn at least enough to ask for a bus ticket or order a meal without feeling like a 2 year old. We shall see.
Bjorn left on Monday morning, at which time I started a week of meetings and school related activities. I am still in the Hotel Dipservice, and my week of free stay here ends today. I have tentatively agreed to move into a super nice apartment tomorrrow morning (and I do LOVE the apartment, but I do not love the price) through the end of December. However, if someone else comes along today, I am going to jump on it. I haven't signed a contract yet, and no money has been exchanged.
At any rate, week one is over, and though tears of frustration have already been shed, I feel very positive about what I am getting into. It is going to be an incredibly challenging year, but I am ready for it. I'm very ready to work again (and not as a waitress), and I couldn't be happier with the city I've landed in.
I have a few new photos up if you are interested - http://picasaweb.google.com/ellen.bucy . More soon. Much love to you ALL!
And PS - I'm sort of thinking I may have to lock this blog up. Seems dangerous to leave it open to the public...if I want to really tell you EVERYTHING! But we'll see.
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