TIME AFTER TIME

I'll be fine once I get there but I think it's the initial first class that's giving me the freak-out right now. I got my schedule and read through it-it looks fine besides all those classes I have to teach. Ah well, I guess I have to do something while I'm over there. I'm going to try and dig up some teaching books and see if I can't brush up on my grammar. Thing is, I told them that I prefer adults and higher level classes and so that's all I pretty much got. Which is fine, aside from the proficiency class. The proficiency class at ILS scared the hell out of me. Nobody wanted to have it. Annwen had it for a while (and she's amazing) and they ate her alive. She hated it. Seems all the proficiency people in that class thought they already knew English and that there was nothing you could teach them. Well, my vocabulary is satisfactory but it's not at a proficiency level by any means - so you'll be able to smell my fear when you walk in that room. Well, best thing I can do is just give it my best shot and let my personality take hold; that's the only reason I made it through last year.

LIFE GOES ON IN DIFFERENT TIME ZONES

I am entirely bored at work right now and decided to see if I couldn't find a website for my old school in Kluczbork. Now, I LOVE Kluczbork and the people it inhabits (seriously, they're just friendlier) but on my looking for pictures of Kluczbork, I couldn't help but look up Opole (really I was just having fun attempting to read things in Polish again). So I stumbled on the Opole webcam that felt just weird, but fun, to watch.

First of all, it's totally dark there - which I recognize that there's a time difference but just forgot until I saw it.

Then, I see some guy rifling through something (a garbage can?) and just sat, staring at him - trying to remember what it is that is in that little pocket of the sidewalk and feeling so (weird? awesome?) that I have the ability to try and figure out something that's going on halfway around the world. Then I just sat there and looked at the lights (are they new?), remembered how many times I walked through that area (either past Volcano pizza where I shared pies and beers with friends, the cinema where I reveled in being able to understand what was on the screen, or the gallery where a co-worker had her big opening), thought about the shops there (and the speed I would be in and out of them for fear that someone might ask me a question I couldn't understand), and how above all, my life was still somehow oddly normal in that city.

FRIENDS IN LOW (AND EAST, AND WEST) PLACES

Dublin (which is my first choice - I think I'll want the break from speaking "proper" English), Budapest, Istanbul, Madrid...ahhh, the choices. With extremely welcoming (albeit new) friends living all over, it's fairly easy to pick and choose.

So even though this is going to be a little different trip from last time, I'm hoping that the one compensation I'll get is being able to travel more than I did last year. I'm a bit more of a veteran to the teaching gig (not too much though) and hope that I'll really get the salary that I was told I would be receiving. With both those factors, I'm hoping that I can get out of Debica during the holidays. I'll be wanting to spend the Christmas season with my great aunt but have checked out flights to Dublin for New Year's. For a mere 416 zl ($153), I can head out and visit my (according to facebook - so far non-visited) girl Nika. She absolutely loves it out there and I'm thinking I could deal with ringing in the new year there. Other than that, I'm itching to get to Istanbul and see the place. I had such an awesome time with all the students from Turkey that were in the international program here this summer that I can't imagine possibly having a bad time there. And there's a ton of people I could visit there.

Of course, if I don't get my work certificate in the mail soon, I'm not going anywhere.

REAL JOB YET? I THINK NOT.

Not even three months since my last entry. A lot can happen in not even three months. I came home, worked a great job, hung out with family and friends, thought that I wanted to stay home, thought that I wanted to go back, interviewed for a job in the states, interviewed for a job in Polska, and then ultimately put my mom in a bad mood this morning when I told her I bought my ticket last night and that it's final - I'm going back. (She wants me to get a real job, in Rochester.) I'm not as excited as I was before (is it possible that 7 months could feel longer than the 9 months I was there last time?) but know (kinda) that (I think) this is what I (think I) need to do.

So this is a picture I found on google of Debica, the new Polish residency I will inhabit for the next 7 months, beginning on September 26 (I fly out the 25th). I am accepting prayers for my sanity. It's going to be interesting but luckily, the director at this joint sounds much more sane than my last and I'll be an hour train ride from a great aunt that I'm very excited to meet. I have a lot to do before I leave (I forgot how much there is to get in order before you leave your life for nearly a year) - I'm hoping my family comes around in the next three weeks or this trip might end up feeling even longer than I was anticipating.


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