Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Hello my Friends,

Over a  year passed since my last entry. Despite my silence I am alive and well, being  grumpy only when time permits and since I am busy like never before the outbursts of my ill character come sparingly but with great force. Sławek escapes to his parents for such times assuming he manages to predict them with enough time to get paid days off and a ticket to travel across country.

Since my last post I have notices some bright sides and some not so and here they come:

The bright sides:

1. We are under our own roof, we have settled down in Oborniki Slaskie (about 25 km from Wroclaw border).

2. I had a  teaching job as biology instructor at Forestry Vocational School in Milicz which I held for a year and a half.

3. We did survive Helena and Michał’s First Communion and family union caused by this.

4. Kids are past their first year at new school (it was Kasia 4th school and H & M 3rd) and they experience ‘back to school’ to the very same classroom. There is no shuffling kids at polish schools.

The “potholes of life” during that year:

1. The pain of moving out and in.

2. First experiences at work with new pupils and fellow faculty.

3. Getting to know the house

Anyway, I will start with my work – after searching for a job in a big city – Wrocław and failing I found a job in a small town – Milicz.  I was very happy and very stressed out at the same time. It was my first time going back to work since I was a TA, with only Kasia in tow. To make the long story short I have lost about 3 kg (roughly 7 lb) and learned to wake up at 5:30 am to make to my school at 8 o’clock.                                                                                                                                           I absolutely loved my sophomores and tolerated freshmen. I was teaching botany for freshmen and for some reasons they all claimed that botany is lame. I was teaching zoology for sophomores and they liked it. I mean the zoology as a biology discipline. As you know teaching is a two way road. I taught them something and they did the same to me. Freshmen did teach me a great deal of self-control as they blow up a firecracker in the classroom, behaved like a Michael Jackson/Elvis in the classroom, and had to skip the last session every Friday to “catch the bus home.” Freshmen were wild but it was partially my fault. Finally we did make arrangements and it sort of worked out. The Sophomores taught me ornithology. I always thought that I am no good with birds but after teaching them I started to believe in myself and now I am loads better with ornithology.

I have a different job now, I am starting it January 2012. I had to dump school because of the faculty there. You know the joke about Polish hell – you can leave it unattended because the tenants will make sure no one is escaping from boiling cauldron. So, it was the same in that school. I have heard that there is a conflict there but I was minding my own business and getting home as soon as I could without getting involved. Therefore the only place I saw attacks were staff meetings. There was that demented person who always had problems and because of that meetings were really ugly because problems were of personal matters  – basically she was attacking the principal and the way school was handled. This school year a few teachers left, including the demented one, and first two months were fine just fine. Then out of the blue the principal was fired and a new one assigned and the very moment the new one got power she attacked the old one, I mean a minute or two after getting her assignment. I could not stand it and luckily I was offered a new job so I left. My new job is at a science museum in Wroclaw (Humanitarium). It was open December 20th so it is brand new and I am excited about it. I am also worrying what my hours will look like and what will we do with kids when they have time off school. I am sure it will work out. I am just stressed out.

The joys of home ownership – I love it and I wish the house was already the way I/we want it. The house we bought was inhabited but people who lived here were not detail oriented, unfortunately I am, so now we need to fine tune it.

We started with remodeling one of the bathrooms, finishing up the lowest level (laundry room, storage and garage) and putting pavements from the gate to the house. Our garden is waiting for its turn and probably the heating system since the gas heater is going to be in a legal drinking age in two years. Last winter our heater was breaking up on us. At some point we had to live with just cold water for the benefit of working heating system (the temperatures were below freezing) for about 3 days. Not fun at all. Still, survived. Last year we had problem with “fire-proof wood” – in order to use wood in the fire place we had to dry it up by stacking at the heater for a few days. Wood started to burn at about March when winter was gone. I guess we live and learn. This year we bought new supply of wood for the following winter ahead of time.

As for the garden last summer we did have some crops – cherries and sour cherries (which I turned into cherry jam – yummy), raspberries and seven blueberry berries (I mean seven pieces of fruit from one of the bushes the eighth piece was stolen by some bird!).

Kids are doing fine – Helena is still getting her violin lessons and she is really good at it. Kasia started to take painting lessons and she has already painted her first oil paint picture. I am amazed at that it is perfect. Michał is an engineer – he adores Legos (he is doing now Lego technic series), he is also keeping up his tae-kwon-do practices. He is missing his American friends sometimes, so if you have time and remember him please drop him a line. I can give you his e-mail address off my blog.

I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

I will try to put next update before kids are of drinking age.

 

Love to you all.

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