Life continues on here in Poland. Everything is still going well.

On Sun, 21 Nov 1999, Amanda and I were invited over to Lucja’s house in the evening. I met her in front of the supermarket (Max Duet) and we walked over. It was on that walk that she told me she had talked to her parents on Saturday and found out that her mother had cancer and might only have a few months left to live. She said that she needed to return to the USA as soon as possible. She told Lucja that and Lucja agreed with Amanda that she needed to go, but at the same time, Lucja was sad. Now she had to find another teacher over a very short period of time. As of today, she is still looking. I told her that I have a friend from my TESL Class that would be moving to Poland soon and might be able to do it, but Lucja needed an experienced teacher, as two of the classes that Amanda teaches are preparation for the Cambridge English Exams (the European equivalent of the TOESL).

My second week of teaching went well. I feel less awkward now. I think that my Intermediate Class will be my biggest challenge. The class has 15 teenagers in it and they all have been studying English for about 4 or 5 years, so they speak it quite well. I am trying to find different things to keep their attention. One of the things that I started was a story. We were studying compound nouns and I decided that we would practice it by telling a story. I started it and everyone had to come up with a sentence using a compound noun to add to the story. It worked well, and I decided that we would continue on with the story when we study new tenses.

I received my passport back from Lucja on Thursday and officially have my residency permit now. That didn’t take too long (I’ve been told that Polish beauocracy takes forever to do anything).

We saw the sun a few times this week. It was out for about a few hours each day on Monday, Saturday, and today. We even went above freezing on Saturday, when it hit a whopping high of 1C, and today when it went up to 3C. These are the first times it has been above freezing since I have been here. The sun never really gets over head. It comes up in the east around 9am, skims across the horizon, and sets around 3pm. Of course, it is never really sunny all day here; we just get a bit of if through the clouds.

Thanksgiving was this week (for those that don’t know, it is an American holiday that celebrates the harvest feast that the European settlers had with the Native Americans after having a good crop year in "the New World"). Since I am not in the USA, it was just another workday for me. I spent a few minutes telling my classes about it. After work, Amanda and I went to her flat for dinner. We had pasta and meat sauce, then, we had chocolate covered wafers with marshmallow that I had brought for desert. Not quite a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but it was still fun. We talked for a few hours about life, the USA, travel, etc., then I went home. I stayed up late to watch the CBS Evening News (1:30 on Sky News). It showed clips from the many different parades in the USA for the holiday.

This was my second Thanksgiving in a row out of the USA (last year I was in Athens). I had planned on being in the USA this year, however, this job offer came up and I accepted it. My original plan was to go to New York City to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade then head up to Boston for the rest of the weekend. That’s okay, I’ll still be able to do those two things some year.

I think that I have decided to go to the Baltics (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) for Christmas break. I’ve been thinking a lot about that. I think I will spend New Year’s Eve most likely in Tallinn, Estonia. I am off Dec 24 – Jan 4, so I will probably leave the morning of Dec 24 and return around Jan 2 or 3.