12 February – It rained most of the night last night. It was quite a bit warmer today also. It was about 10C. Maybe we’re out of winter!

Back to work today. It went well. I was prepared for my classes and the lessons were good. We were also able to have a bit of fun discussing our holidays. I didn’t give any tests or quizzes today as a present to my students.

I talked to my FCE class and we’re going to have a practice FCE exam on 3 March. I will take one of the practice tests and administer it just as it will be when the take the exam (which should be in June..the exact date hasn’t been given yet).

Leftover homemade chicken soup for dinner this evening. It tastes better a day or two after it’s made as it’s had a chance to settle. It’s great.

13 February – It rained most of last night also. This morning it’s 3C, so this might be a sign that winter is gone. I’m hoping!

Today is a big day. My F group begins Upper Intermediate! Hooray for them! Next year they’ll do FCE.

"Railway Adventures Across Australia" was from New South Wales today. They went to Dorrigo, to one of the biggest train collections in the southern hemisphere. They also went to Woogoolga, Newcastle and, of course, Sydney. Newcastle seems to have very nice beaches. I’m glad the presenter is stopping at smaller places and not just going from major city to major city. Next week they are going to South Australia.

I called Campus travel in Poland (I don’t know exactly where the number is as it is a special phone number that is local from anywhere in the country) about changing the ticket I bought in the USA before I came back to Poland. It has a return to NYC on it on 11 June. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to use that date when I bought it, but that was as far as they could push the date out last August. I am not going back to the USA this summer, so maybe I can change the ticket to go to Barcelona instead. I thought that I was going to have a problem changing it as the closest office to me is in Gdansk, but it’s not open on Saturdays. The man told me that there is an office in Ilawa, which is actually much closer than Gdansk that is open on Saturdays and Sundays (the latter of which is unheard of in Poland). I will go after I get paid at the beginning of March.

14 February – The violence in the Middle East continues. CNN World interviewed a lady in Palestine and she said that her 10 year old boy will someday be a martyr for Palestine and strap explosives to himself and blow himself up, taking along 9 or 10 Israelis. How sick is that? She doesn’t care about her child; lord knows what she does care about. Also, the Israelis shooting people throwing rocks is also very warped.

It’s been determined that two civilians were sitting in the control chairs of the USA submarine that sunk a Japanese ship last week. CNN World makes it sound like the civilian was just sitting in the seat in front of the controls, not doing anything, and BBC World makes it sound like the civilian was operating all of the controls of the sub. Since it was an emergency surfacing they were practicing, I wonder why the civilians were in those seats.

11h – I just went to take a shower..no hot water! Damn it! It made my shower very quick. They must have it off to do some work, as this is very unusual.

16 February – English football fans are at it again, this time in Rome. There was a big game yesterday and the city of Rome banned clubs from serving alcohol to English fans. However, they still managed to light cars on fire and get stabbed by Rome fans. They said that the attacks on them were unprovoked. Yeah, like anyone believes that.

Ulyanovsk was, until now, the last city in Russia to keep communism. They now have a new governor who is promising to bring them into democracy. That means that the subsidies that the city provided will end and prices will rise drastically. I hope they are satisfied with their decision.

17 February – I guess that the USA and Britain bombed Baghdad (or the area) yesterday. It was something about more violations of the no fly zones. I can’t find out much about it. There are anti-USA/Israel/Britain protests going on in Baghdad. That’s nothing new. It’s probably similar to Cuba, where the government organizes and pays people to protest in return for publicity.

Also, it appears that some Kosovars bombed a Serbian bus shortly after it entered Kosovo. Kosovo-Serbs are appalled about it. I should be, as I don’t believe that violence solves anything, however I am not, as I remember what happened the Kosovars a few years ago. At that time, the Serbs who lived in Kosovo were telling the Serbian army where Albanian Kosovars lived so that the army could get rid of ("ethnically cleanse") them. I guess I have the "eye for an eye" mentality. After the terror that the Serbs caused in Kosovo, I don’t feel I need to apologize for that.

The Jay Leno show was from 9 February. The person voted off of Hollywood Survivor was Gary Coleman, after they had their "challenge" of the "Repulsive Food Relay Race," which included brussel sprouts, Spam, a poached fish eye and a live "super" worm.

I’ve been correcting the unit 1 – 5 Test that I gave my FCE class yesterday. They didn’t do well. I’m not very happy.

The movie "Arthur" was on tonight. It’s one of my all time favorites.

18 February – This is the first Sunday I have been up before the 7h30 church bell starts ringing!

The religious show was a repeat! It was the exact same show as last week!

I’ve decided that I going to make beef stew again today. I’ll start it around 9h and it will be done around 12h.

Back to winter. We’ve had high winds since yesterday evening and it rained for a lot of the night. Then, it changed to heavy snow at about 6h30 and now (7h28) the snow has stopped, but the wind continues and it’s –3C out. It gave us a beautiful white coating on everything. It looks great. I’m not going out today! It’s going to be an interesting weather day today. I’ll keep track of it for you:

8h30 – 8h45 – The sun was out.
9h45 – Heavy snow again. It’s snowing horizontally.
10h38 – Light snow
10h45 – The snow has stopped.
11h36 – It is partly sunny.
14h – It’s cloudy and very overcast, temperature is –1C.
14h42 – Heavy snow again (horizontally).
15h49 – The snow has stopped and the temperature is –3C

On BBC World’s show "Reporters," they said that BBC had uncovered that 22,000 black democratic voters were "accidentally" deleted from electoral rolls in Florida by Data Base Technology, the company that compiles the rolls.

Bill Clinton’s office in New York will be located in Harlem, a mainly African American area. That will be great publicity for that area. He’s always connected well with African Americans, I guess because of his poor upbringing. I’ve taken a bus through Harlem twice, once when I went to Laguardia Airport and once when I went to The Cloisters museum, and it seemed like an okay place. It was a bit run down, but any USA city has areas like that.

12h06 – I’ve just finished defrosting my freezer. What an exciting life I lead. I hate doing that, however, frost/ice was so thick that I couldn’t shut the door, so I had no choice.

12h20 – The movie "Ski School" is on. It’s a comedy from 1990. This is the first time I’ve seen it.

Top Gear/Waterworld visited the aircraft carrier the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. The presenter, Jeremy Clarkson, said, "Its job is to take American planes anywhere in the world so they can drop bombs on people." I never quite thought of it in that blunt of terms before. It’s nuclear powered and goes up to 30 knots, which means that it can get from Norfolk, Virginia (USA) to Libya in only four days. They launch the planes by the use of a "steam catapult," so in two seconds, they reach 155 mph, just fast enough to fly. The jets cost $35 million US each and the salary for pilots is £30,000 (about $46,000 US). I liked it as I’ve always been fascinated with aircraft carriers and submarines. I found it interesting how even though this is a BBC program, they visited an American aircraft carrier and not a British one. Also, it was mentioned that in March, they go back to testing cars. Good. I like the watercraft shows, but I like their car shows better.

Yesterday, a ship that was carrying 900 Iraqi Kurds ran aground on the coast of France. It was registered in Cambodia (where a ship is registered means nothing) and was coming from Turkey. The people on board paid $200 US to get from Iraq to Turkey and an additional $2000 US (at least) to get to Europe. The crew is missing and, by the positioning of the ship, it appears that they ran it aground on purpose. Now, CNN World is saying that it has sunk. I’m wondering how a ship that ran aground can sink. Also, BBC World has said that the crew was Greek and the ship started off in Greece and then went to Turkey to pick up the "refugees." If that really is the case, then France would want to give the "refugees" back to Greece, since it a member of the EU and Greece would have been where this originated.

There have been a couple of wonderful shows on the Travel Channel today about Cuba. One was about traveling to Cuba, and the other was about how Cuba was in the 1950’s, before the USA embargo. I’ve been fascinated by Cuba and would love to travel there, but US citizens are prohibited from spending money in Cuba. I guess I need to find out if the law stipulates money earned in the USA or money in general. If the former, then I am able to travel there as I don’t earn money in the USA. If the latter then I’ll have to wait until the embargo is lifted, whenever that may happen. According to page 3 of my USA passport, "Transactions related to travel in or to Cuba, Libya, or Iraq are generally prohibited." Although I think I’ve heard that travel restrictions to Libya have been lifted. Unfortunately, I have no desire to go to Libya.

Some day, I would love have dual citizenship (it takes six years of residency in Poland), which would give me my USA passport and a Polish one. However, that may create a problem, as if one has dual citizenship in Poland, they must enter and leave Poland on their Polish passport. The problem that that may lead to is that when they hire English teachers, they take passport information. If I’ve entered Poland on a Polish passport , then I might not be able to use my USA passport for that. Of course, this is all a supposition, as I don’t really know if the latter is true and I don’t know if I’d be eligible for a Polish passport and dual citizenship after 6 years as I don’t know the exact requirements. Also, I would only accept dual citizenship, I would never renounce my USA passport. Not out of loyalty to the USA, but because it’s easier to travel to the USA, Western Europe and other parts of the world on a USA passport.

I hope to get permanent residency in Poland in a few years. Here are the requirements as of April 2000 "The permission for Permanent residence may be granted to an alien who has stayed in Poland for at least 3 years as a temporary resident, can demonstrate the existence of permanent

family or economic ties with Poland and has got secured accommodation and support in the Republic of Poland."

16h55 – I’m watching a show from the USA (1997) called "Team Knight Rider." I lived in the USA in 1997 and don’t remember hearing of it. Perhaps it was one of those shows that didn’t "make it" in the USA and was sent to Europe. It was decent.

18h – Oh good, CNN’s Late Edition is on. It wasn’t on last week.

20h35 – The Jay Leno show was from 13 February. Interestingly enough, he was talking about former President Clinton getting an office in Harlem and said, "He’s found a place where Republicans won’t bother him." That is sooooo true!