24 December, 2000
18 December – I think we finally may really be into winter now. It was 0C at midday and when I got home from work, it was –5C. This is the first hard freeze we’ve had in quite a while.
The movie Independence Day was on this evening. I love that film. I don’t know why, I just do.
I am totally looking forward to my Christmas Break in Germany. Hey, I like how that sounds, I think I’ll make it the title of the write–up I will do on it. I haven’t had a break in over three months of teaching (other than 1 November for All Souls Day), so this is much needed. I think I may be getting a bit grumpy.
More and more Christmas lights are being put up in town now that Christmas is so close. I’ve been told that Polish people put up and decorate their Christmas trees the day before Christmas.
I received a Christmas letter from my friends Peg & Jake in North Carolina today. Thanks for that. I didn’t have your new address so I couldn’t send you a card. One will be on the way tomorrow.
19 December – This evening I noticed that I now get Sky News, a BBC competitor that broadcasts local news directly out of London. It’s been just about a year since I lost BBC Prime (local news) and only received BBC World and CNN World. Sky is local so I will be able to be more informed about what is going on in England. That’s good, I guess.
I bought a book of Polish Christmas Carols today. Polish is a very beautiful language and sounds even better when singing carols. Silent Night, called Cicho Noc in Polish, sounds wonderful in this beautiful language. The book was expensive, 23zl, but I will have it for many years, so it is worth it.
I received an email from my friend, Brad (in Miami), today announcing that he is getting married. That really didn’t surprise me as he’s been dating Tracey for about a year now (they met shortly after I moved to Poland) and, from his emails, they seem to get on well. Congrads, Brad!
I stopped by the bank and picked up my ATM card today! I had received my PIN # in the mail yesterday. I haven’t used it yet, as the lady had to connect it through the computer and told me not to use it until tomorrow. I will try it then. It’s a combined ATM/Debit Card. I’ll most likely only use it as an ATM card.
20 December – 6h45 – I found Dan Rather and the CBS Evening News on the tellie again. I hadn’t seen it in over a year as it used to be on at 1h30 and then I stopped receiving the channel it was on. Now, it is broadcast on Sky News at 6h30, so I’ll probably get up to watch it a few times per week. I don’t normally get up this early, but I was very tired last night and went to bed at 22h30, so I am today.
Atlanta had 3 inches of snow! WOW. That is very rare. There’s been quite a bit of snow in the USA this winter (according to the news), but very little in Europe. What a strange winter.
I have a lot of work to do. Today I begin my Christmas lessons. For the last meeting of each class this week I want to do a lesson that somehow deals with Christmas. My classes have worked hard so far and this year and this is a way to reward them for that. I already have a good idea of what I will be doing and just need to work out the finer details. I have things such as Christmas vocabulary, a Christmas word search, a maze to help Santa find his sleigh, etc. I still need to make a "Mad Lib" out of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and I’m going to have some of my more advanced students translate Polish Christmas Carols into English. I need think of a few things for some of my older (16 & 17 years old) Pre– Intermediates (M group). I taught most of them last year so I don’t want to do the same things again. I’m pretty sure that they wouldn’t like the things that are geared towards my younger students, but that class isn’t advanced enough to do things like translating Christmas carols.
I’m also busy preparing for my week in Germany. I’ve done some laundry and have begun packing. I’ve decided that I won’t take my backpack, but my small suitcase. I normally would take the backpack, however, with having to take an overnight 19 hour bus ride home, and having to have my luggage underneath, an old beat up suitcase would less likely be stolen than a western backpack (eastern backpacks usually have outside frames). I will also take my daypack with things to do on the bus/train ride (including tests/essays to grade, portable CD player and camera) and put a "flight bag" inside the suitcase in case buy anything and need an extra bag. If not, it takes up very little room.
21h – When I came out of work, I noticed that it seemed colder this evening than usual. I arrived home and looked at the thermometer outside my kitchen window. It was –11C. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Good thing my flat is nice and warm, especially in the evening. It feels cooler in the morning. It hasn’t been consistently cold enough for the lakes to freeze over yet (last year they already had by the time I arrived in Nov), but some of the small irrigation canals are beginning to.
I didn’t make a Mad Lib for ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. I tried reading it to my advanced class and, due to the complicated language of it, it bombed. Oh well.
I tried my ATM (Bankomat) card on the way to work today. The good news is that the PIN works. The bad news is that is says I have –10zl in the account, which is totally wrong as I put 500zl in when I opened the account. I was going to put more in, but I figured that there would be complications of some kind. Luckily, I saved the receipt. Now, I have to go back to the bank yet again and attempt to explain this to them in Polish. I’ve figured out how to say it, but am not sure that I will understand the explanation. I’m too busy now, so I’ll take care of that when I return from Germany. The bank saga continues.
21 December – Two more teaching days before winter break! Yippee!
7h – In response to what I wrote this yesterday, I now am of the opinion that my M group will be easier to prepare a Christmas lesson for than I had previously thought. We talked a little about what they would like to do on Friday and it seems that some of the things I have for use with other classes will work with them. Also, they talked about it and they are all going to bring something to eat. It might turn out to be the best Christmas lesson yet!
I have two more Christmas lessons for today, I group and G group. I think they’ll go over well.
I had an idea yesterday morning that seems to be working well. The idea is a contest to see which class can make the best Christmas poster, and the class that makes the best wins a prize. I told Mary about the idea and she agrees that it is a good one and wants her classes to do it also. If that happens, we will pick an overall winner. If not, then I will decide amongst my classes. One advantage is that it makes the whole class work together as a team, instead of an individual or pair project. B group made a nice one with presents, a Christmas tree, Santa and a teddy bear on it. N group (my Maturity Exam group) made one with Santa being hung from the branch of a Christmas tree, including a small pool of blood under him, to protest the commercialization of Christmas. That wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but the whole class agreed on it, even some that don’t normally get on well, which, to me, is more important than the content of the poster. I told them that they probably wouldn’t win the prize, but they didn’t seem to care. Lucja and Zdzislaw weren’t very happy with it. I kidded Mary that if her Chatterbox class (7 – 10 year olds) saw this, they would be in therapy for years.
I am now thinking about taking my laptop with me to Germany. I hadn’t been before, but there is a Staples in Hamburg which might be able to repair my A drive (I bought the laptop at Staples in Philadelphia). Also, I’m not going to be doing a lot of moving around as far as hotels go, so it won’t be a big inconvenience.
I’ve been trying to find a measuring cup that has metric measures on it, but cant. I asked Lucja about it and she told me that they don’t have those in Poland. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem, however, I still don’t know the metric system all that well. I know the basics of it and how to tell how far something is, and also do math with it, but I still haven’t a clue exactly how much 100ml, 225ml, etc are for cooking. I’ll look for one in Germany.
9h43 – Light snow flurries have started. Hopefully it will get heavier and snow all day. It’s –5C out so it should stick.
11h30 – The snow has stopped.
21h – I had a great day at work today. To start off, I did Christmas lessons with my I and G classes. The I class lesson went well and the G class lesson went even better. At the end of the G class lesson, the class presented me with a basket of sweets, which included a big chocolate Santa in the middle. Thanks to Asia, Aneta, Tomek, Karolina, Zbyszek, Mateusz, Jarek, Bartek, Blazej and Adam for that. It was completely unexpected and totally made my day! I will dig into it when I return from Germany. Zbyszek said to me, "Think of us when you eat it," which I will. I will also think of them when I look at the picture I will take of it.
G class is a lot better this year than last year. The students who caused trouble, talked constantly and didn’t want to learn last year did not come back this year, so, the class now consists only of the students who want to learn, which is great. This year, other than one of my students (from last year’s M class) who knew a few students in G class and joined it, there were no new additions to the class. That’s great, as it means that we are all comfortable with eachother and know a lot about eachother. I feel that that adds a dynamic to the group that I don’t have in my other groups. Also, it’s a smaller class so we are able to help the students that need a bit more help. They’re not angels, but they’re good kids.
Then I had my FCE class (E group). We started off by going over the homework that some of them had done (all were supposed to). After that, Michal asked me if I knew what Mary’s class was doing this evening (he did and wanted to know if I did). Of course, I did. There was a Christmas carol concert going on that evening at the Evangelical Church in the center of town and Mary was planning on taking her class to see it. Iza then said to me, "Can we go?" I had already cleared that with Lucja, but told her that I would only take them if they asked. I told the class that we could go and they all looked shocked. So, we went.
What a great concert it was. The students were high school age and from the music school in town. They sang the following carols:
After singing Jingle Bells, they accepted their applause and then sang Jingle Bells again. It was great and I’m glad that we went.
Living in a small town means that I knew some of the students performing. Also, on the way out of the church I ran into my friend Tom. As we were walking home, I looked behind me and one of my students from M class (Chris) was following us, so he joined us. Ahhh…life in a small town. Sometime it’s annoying, sometimes it’s nice. I guess I could say the same thing about city life.
I’m really tired now and want to go to bed, however, I am doing laundry and it won’t be done for about an hour, so I’ll have to wait. I rarely do laundry during the week, but I am doing it tonight so it will dry overnight and I’ll be able to pack what I need in the morning. Also so I’ll have clean work clothes when I return. I hate having to do laundry when I get home from a trip.
22 December – 6h – Wow, it’s early! I got up very early today so that I will be sure that I will be tired this evening and sleep well. That is so I will be able to spend all night out Saturday night partying at a club in Berlin.
I’ve heard from an internet friend who lives in Berlin. He emailed me a list of clubs that are open all night and other information about that city (places to eat, U-Bahn (metro) information, etc) so I have a few ideas of where I want to go.
Today is the first day of Winter! That should mean snow and cold. Well, the cold part is right, but not the snow. It looks like it’s going to be a brown Christmas. Everyone here is saying that this is the first December in about 30 years with no snow. Most of my students have said that this will be their first Christmas ever without snow.
There was a fascinating show at 7h30 (on BBC World) about the smuggling of people into the EU. They followed someone from Sri Lanka. He paid a smuggler to get to London. The smuggler, whose voice and identity were disguised, said that the man would go from Colombo (Sri Lanka) to Singapore to Moscow to Bosnia to the EU and finally to England. Also, they showed Sarejevo airport in Bosnia where a lot of Iranians and Turks start their entry into the EU. That is because Iranians and Turks don’t need a visa for Bosnia, only a return ticket and to be able to show that they have enough money to support themselves for the length of their ticket (they said that most of the weekly flights from Turkey are full and most return to Turkey almost completely empty). From there, they are smuggled into Croatia and then eventually into the EU (both of which they need visas for), and they can go almost anywhere as the only place they will encounter border controls will be if they try to go to England. If they make it to Dover, the English port of entry, and are caught, they claim that they came to England in search of political asylum and are admitted to England. Many are given the requested asylum and are allowed to stay in England. If they don’t get caught, they are able to stay in England illegally for an indefinite period of time. The presenter said that some of the illegals spend up to four years earning enough money in England to pay off the smugglers.
23 December – It’s OVER! YEAHHHHHHH!!! Christmas Break has begun! WOOO HOOO!!!
In my E class, just after I had finished taking attendance, all of the students stood up at the same time. I looked at them and said, "Ut oh, is this a mutiny?" and was approached by Mario and Iza. The class had pooled their money and bought me a card (signed by all of them) and a present. Mario also gave me a very nice Christmas wish on behalf of the class.
I hadn’t planned on
opening their gift until after I returned from my trip, but
curiosity got the better of me, so I did. What a great present!
They gave me two CD’s. Also, they couldn’t have been
more spot on with the music they chose. They gave me Limp
Bizkit’s "Chocolate Starfish and The Hot Dog Flavored
Water" and "Razorblade Romance" by Him. Thanks
everyone.
