Monday, May 30, 2011

With Great Joy

The past few months, I’ve often wondered how I’d feel on my last day in Poland. I always knew I’d feel a deep sadness. I was very worried I’d spend my last days in denial – trying to protect myself from the grief of leaving.

What I didn’t expect was that I’d feel a wonderfully profound sense of gratitude and a magnificently overwhelming sense of joy. Gratitude for the people in my life around the world, gratitude for the experiences I have had, gratitude for the transformation I’ve experienced thanks to this journey. Joy in the experience of accompaniment and community, joy in teaching, joy in learning, joy in loving, joy in laughter, joy in giving, joy in receiving.

I never thought that if someone asked me to describe my last week in Poland that – although I’ve also cried every day and felt very sad – the words that most resonate with me are “love,” “joy,” “gratitude,” and “celebration.”

I’ve discovered that although goodbyes are sad because of the knowledge of parting, goodbyes are also a celebration of the fact that you had the opportunity to say “hello.” When saying goodbye, friends, students, colleagues, and I have shed many tears, but we also can't help but talk about our joy – joy that we had the opportunity to meet, to become a part of each other's lives. And in the goodbye we celebrate and rejoice in the love, respect, and affection we share. It’s a wonderful gift to be given the opportunity to stop and acknowledge how people in your life have changed you, helped you grow, supported you, challenged you, loved you. Maybe we should say goodbyes more often. It is at the time of goodbye that we speak the words in our hearts – we tell people we love them, how grateful we are for them, what they mean to us, how they hold us up. We hold them a little tighter, savor the togetherness a little longer. And in every goodbye is the beautiful hope of one day meeting again.

I return to Chicago not only with my (potentionally overweight) suitcases, but with a full heart. I keep thinking of Luke 2:19: “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” I think of all the words, the embraces, laughter, hugs, the smiles I have treasured up these past two years. I travel with a heart filled with affirming, loving words from students, friends, family, and colleagues. I know I will always remember them, ponder them. And they are joyful things to forever carry in my heart.

I end this journey with a joyous heart, a hopeful heart. I know that the upcoming months will have times of great joy and happiness and times of great sadness and difficulty. At the end of this journey it’s amazing to feel this intense sense of gratitude, this intense sense of joy, this intense feeling of love, this intense feeling of peace, this intense feeling of hope, this intense feeling of anticipation. Thanks be to God for the gift of feeling alive! To know that there is so much love and joy to be found in this world, to be given in the world, to be received in this world, to be shared in this world!

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13

Thanks be to God, for the gift of these two years, for this journey, for the hidden gifts of joy and gratitude found even in difficult goodbyes, for peace, for the multitude of blessings in my life, for the promise of hope and joy in new beginnings.

You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound. Psalm 4:7.

Today, with great joy and gratitude for all that has been, and with great hope and excitement for all that will be, I sign off this blog.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Philippians 4:4.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

You're All My Favorites

It’s a running joke in our family that my sisters love to ask my mom who is her favorite daughter (or, they skip asking Mom and outright declare to the family that “I’m Mom’s favorite”). My mom’s answers to the question "I'm your favorite, right?" are always wonderfully playful like, “You’re my favorite (and also only) 18-year-old daughter” or “You’re my favorite (and also only) daughter currently living in Wisconsin” or “You’re my favorite (and also only) left-handed daughter.” The joke is fun because we know that, of course, we’re all her favorites.

Somehow - although they don't know that it's a running joke in my family too - it has also turned into a running joke with my students, especially my middle school and high school students, who are always saying, “But we’re your favorite class, right? You love us the most, right?” to which I always reply with a twinkle in my eye, “But of course!” I was truly touched when a grandmother of one of my students said her grandson told her that, “We love Sarah and we know she loves each one of us.”

My wonderful students, you are all my favorites and I love you all. Thanks for two amazing years.



A few of my favorite yes!-let's-have-a-barbecue-for-our-last-lesson-but-promise-Miss Sarah-you'll-remember-that-despite-popular-belief-Americans-do-not-eat-hamburgers-5-times-a-week 8th and 11th grade students.

My favorite one-day-she-will-save-the-world-with-her-amazing-mad-math-skills 5th grade student.

My favorite we-didn't-realize-until-we-took-this-photograph-that-we-are-all-the-same-height class of 8th grade girls.

Two of my favorite we-wear-awesome-sunglasses-all-the-time-even-when-it's-cloudy 8th grade boys.

A few of my favorite let's-just-say-we're-older-than-18 students.

My favorite if-you-eat-all-of-the-raw-cupcake-batter-we-won't-have-anything-to-bake! 8th grade girls.

My favorite we-signed-our-names-on-this-shirt-so-you'll-always-remember-us class of 8th grade girls.

My favorite what-do-you-mean-that-isn't-a-base-oh-she's-just-an-outfielder-not-the-2nd baseman-so-I-am-not-standing-on-a-base-right-now-whoops class of 8th grade girls.

One of my favorite I-have-never-eaten-a-cupcake-before-so-how-was-I-supposed-to-know-you don't-eat-the-paper-wrapping (thereby proving that teenage boys will eat anything) 8th grade boys.

Two of my favorite they-give-the-best-hugs-at-the-beginning-and-end-of-every-lesson 3 year olds.

My favorite we're-way-too-cool-for-these-photographs 9th graders.

Two of my favorite we're-addicted-to-America's-Next-Top-Model-what-do-you-mean-you-don't-watch-it-aren't-you-American 8th graders.

My favorite we're-eating-tacos-for-the-first-time! 8th grade girls.
My favorite high school seniors who performed magnificently on their end of the year English speaking exam (not that I was surprised) and who were amazing people to talk with and get to know. I can't wait to hear about all their future adventures!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Teaching English in a Globalized World

What's fascinating about teaching English as a foreign language is that you're asked to carefully examine your native language every day. You think you know your native language until people ask you to explain it. Like, why is it correct to say, "I live in a beautiful little old white house" but a native speaker would never say - although the words are identical in both sentences - "I live in a white beautiful old little house?" It’s because in English grammar there are rules about adjective order. It's grammatically correct to first list quality/opinion (“beautiful”), then size (“little”), then age (“old”), then color (“white”). Native speakers adopt and apply this rule intuitively; if you're learning English as a foreign language, you’ll need an explicit explanation.

One of my roles as an English teacher is to serve as a "walking English dictionary." Students, friends, and other teachers frequently ask me to define words (“What does X mean?”) or differentiate between two words (“What’s the difference between X and Y?”). They’ll also frequently give me the definition and ask me for the corresponding word (“What’s a word that means...?”) Teaching English as a foreign language is like a never-ending game of 20 Questions, Taboo, or Catch Phrase.

If I say a word that my students don’t know, I have quite a few ways to try to help them understand the word’s meaning. If the word is an object that’s physically present at the time of the conversation, I’ll point to it. Sometimes it’s a game of Charades and I’ll act out the meaning of the word. In select circumstances, I’ll draw it (although 98% of the time my terrible drawings lead to confusion and laughter, not understanding – this is not a method I resort to unless I’m very, very confident in my ability to draw a decent picture of the word). With very abstract or very advanced vocabulary, it’s often necessary to consult a Polish-English dictionary.

90% of the time, I try to explain the unknown word with other words I think the students know. Sometimes it’s surprisingly challenging to convey the meaning of a new word to students. But what’s amazing is that when two or more people are committed to having a conversation, both parties will work very hard to communicate and will happily work through any difficulties or language roadblocks.

Over the past two years, I've developed into quite a good "walking English dictionary." But there are days when I'm waiting for someone to jump out from behind a tree and snatch away my “native speaker” status because I'm having a difficult time describing a word to my students. Yesterday was one of those days.

It’s my last week teaching and I’m having lots of parties with my classes. Every class voted on the activity/theme of their party. My 8th grade girls voted for a Mexican cooking party and everyone offered to contribute one ingredient we’d need to make tacos, guacamole, pico de gallo, and Shirley Temples. (Yes, I know Shirley Temples are not a Mexican drink, but I’ve always ordered them at Mexican restaurants and I love them.) I said I’d buy the ground beef for the tacos and the grenadine and maraschino cherries for the Shirley Temples. We’d also need lemon-lime soda for the Shirley Temples and I decided to ask one of the students to buy a couple liters. And here’s where the game of 20 Questions / Taboo started.

Me: "Can someone bring lemon-lime soda?"

(No volunteers.)

Me: "You know, like lemon-lime soda pop?" (I know "soda" and "pop" are American-English terms and I'm trying to remember what the British-English term for "soda pop" is and I'm drawing a blank...)

A brave student: "Like lemon juice?"

Me: "No, not lemon juice. Like Cola-Cola but lemon-lime."

A very honest student: "We don't understand."

(I decide to resort to a little Polish because I didn't know how to proceed without translating a little bit. I always prefer to try to describe the word in English even if I know the Polish equivalent, but I'm having a difficult time thinking of alternate explanations for "lemon-lime soda." It's still tricky because I don't know the Polish word for "soda pop." Although I've lived here for two years, I've never actually bought soda pop at a store.)

Me: "Okay, you know "lemon" - in Polish "cytryna" and you know "lime" - in Polish "wapno" or "limonka."

Students: "Yes."

Me: "And this is a sweet drink, like Coca-Cola, but it is lemon and lime flavored. And it's with gas – ‘gazowane.’"

An enlightened student: "Ah-ha! Lemon water with gas!"

A (more) enlightened student: "No, like lemon seltzer water!"

Me: "No, it's not water. It's like Coca-Cola but it's not brown, it's clear like water, it’s the same color as water. And it's lemon-lime."

A tentative student: "Are you talking about Sprite?"

Me: "Yes, Sprite!"

Oh, right. They have Sprite here. Yes, Sprite. That’s what I meant all along. Bring that.

It's one globalized world out there and sometimes this “walking human dictionary” forgets it.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Sweet Home Chicago

In this post, I’d like to return to a topic I’ve discussed here before – the definition of “home.”

How would you define the word “home?” Type “quotations about home” into an Internet search engine and you’ll get lists and lists of quotations from philosophers and poets and actors and politicians, all trying to define their unique concept of “home.”

Perhaps it’s easiest to start with what I think “home” isn’t (or isn’t always). “Home” is not always synonymous with “where you currently live.” Although I lived and worked in Pittsburgh for 2 months and loved the city and met great people, I never called it “home.” “Home” is not always synonymous with “birthplace.” If you were born in Indiana but your family moved to Kentucky when you were 6 months old, you probably wouldn’t call Indiana your “home.” What's interesting about the concept of "home" is that we're not only talking about a physical location - like the city where we currently live - but also an emotional state (feeling "at home"). There's great truth to the saying that home is people you love and who love you.

When I reflect back on my arrival in Cieszyn two years ago, I realize now that I felt so overwhelmed and stressed and lonely at the beginning because I felt utterly homeless. I'd just left two wonderful American homes: my Chicago home and, as a recent college graduate, my university home. And a new town doesn't automatically become your "home" just because it's your current physical location. On Facebook you can change the "current city" listed on your profile in 3 seconds, but you can't change where you feel at home so easily.

I think we spend our entire lives searching for homes. We enter new jobs, new schools, move to new cities, meet new people, and in the process we find homes, lose homes, search for new homes. I think that we have an innate need to find "homes" wherever we are, that we can't help but desire that sense of belonging, safety, security, and familiarity we get from having somewhere to call "home." My first semester here I had to work very hard to discover a home in Cieszyn - and it definitely didn't happen automatically or overnight. But I had an innate need to discover my purpose, find my place, connect with people I could feel "at home" with. And then one night I went to bed in Cieszyn and woke up at home. And I know for sure that I couldn't have stayed in Cieszyn for a second year if it hadn't become a true home during my first year.

Especially in my last few weeks here, everyone’s asking me “Are you excited to be going home?” “How does it feel to be going home?” The answers to those questions are, without hesitation, “yes, yes, yes!” and “wonderful!” Except – wait. I’m also home now. Here. Am I excited to go home? I am home (Cieszyn) but yes! I am very excited to go home (Chicago). I am also terribly sad that to go home (Chicago) I need to leave home (Cieszyn). (Don't worry, I don't actually get into a philosophical discussion with people about the definition of "home" when they ask these very kind questions. I just blog about it :)

Because I know that when I get home in June I’m going to experience the dreaded “RE-ENTRY CULTURE SHOCK” (I always picture this phrase written in scary capital letters). I had a bite-sized taste of “re-entry culture shock” this past summer when I returned to Chicago for a couple weeks after 11 consecutive months outside of the United States. What I found fascinating about re-entry culture shock was that it illustrates how quickly we adapt to the culture and requirements of a new – and once very strange and foreign – environment. I had spent 23 years living in the United States before moving to Poland. Yet after only 11 months in Poland, I returned to my “home country” to discover that I sometimes found it just as surprising and confusing as I had found Poland at the beginning.

For example, on a morning stroll this summer in Chicago, my sister said hello to someone we walked by, and I didn’t know if she said hello because she knew the person or because it’s culturally polite to greet anyone you happen to meet on the street, stranger or friend. And it shocked me that I didn’t know how to interpret her “hello.” I’d lived here for 23 years! What had happened?

What had happened was that in August 2009 I kind of stopped “acting American” about the people I greeted and didn’t greet on the streets because instead I had adopted “Polish greeting culture.” I also learned the "proper Polish way" to greet people. I learned pretty quickly that only crazy American teachers wave at their Polish students from across the street. A tiny restrained smile (it's important that it's tiny - gigantic smiles scream SHE'S AMERICAN or at least NOT FROM POLAND) and subtle head nod is a more appropriate – and less embarrassing – sign of recognition and acknowledgement. So when I returned to Chicago last summer, I’d spent the past 11 months living and breathing on Polish streets and interacting the “Polish way.” I hadn’t had any opportunity to practice how we interact on American streets. And I had to re-learn what I’d known for 23 years but had forgotten in only 11 brief but yet profound months away from the States.

It’s not that the two systems of greeting – the “Polish way” and the “American way” – are necessarily mutually exclusive. Except the truth is that waving isn’t popular in Poland and that greeting with three pecks on the cheek isn’t popular in Chicago. Perhaps this example of “culturally specific greeting patterns” sounds silly or insignificant, but it truly threw me for a loop last summer because I didn’t intuitively know how to act or how to respond "like an American" and that surprised and sometimes bothered me. It wasn’t like I had experienced a different culture and now felt that I had choices – like there were two switches and I could choose to turn on either the “act American” switch or the “act Polish/European” switch. Sometimes I couldn’t find the “act American” switch at all.

Okay, back to the concept of “home.” (And, yes, that was a terrible “cop-out” transition sentence.) In his book about the re-entry process called The Art of Coming Home, Craig Storti provides a great definition of “home” that talks about how it’s the little, everyday interactions, sights, sounds, and experiences that create a feeling of “home.” He also says that it’s the sudden absence of these “home markers” when we return from living abroad that results in re-entry culture shock. We expect our “home country” to feel like “home” but we miss the little markers and experiences that made our “foreign home” feel like home. The reality is that because we’ve spent a significant amount of time away from our “home country,” in many ways it doesn’t quite feel like “home” when we first arrive back.

Storti says there are three elements that help make a place feel like “home” and they are:

1. Familiar places

2. Familiar people

3. Routines and predictable patterns of interaction

I’m going to try to illustrate how I’ve experienced Storti’s definition of “home” by contrasting a time I bought ground beef for a taco dinner with friends in Cieszyn with a time I bought ground beef for a taco dinner with friends in Chicago.

1. Home is familiar places.

Cieszyn, December 2010 (before Christmas vacation): I go to buy my ground beef at a tiny butcher store where, for the past two years, I’ve gone to buy meat approximately two times a month. When I enter the store, I see that nothing is new or different from my last visit. I’d bought meat here just two weeks ago for my Thanksgiving celebrations.

Chicago, December 2010 (during Christmas vacation): I go to buy my ground beef at a tiny neighborhood store where I shopped for many years while growing up in Chicago, but it’s not somewhere I’ve shopped recently because, well, the store is in the States and I’m currently living and teaching in Poland. When I enter the store, I notice that they’ve re-arranged things a bit. I can’t remember the last time I bought meat here.

2. Home is familiar people.

Cieszyn, December 2010 (before Christmas vacation): I recognize the two people behind the counter and they recognize me because I’m a loyal customer and because I’m probably one of the only (if not the only) foreigners to buy meat here. They don’t know my name; I don’t know their names, but no doubt they remember my first visits almost two years ago when I relied almost exclusively on finger pointing. They’ve very patient and kind when I order and smile when I can say what I’d like in fairly fluent Polish. Sometimes I see the store’s employees out and about in Cieszyn.

Chicago, December 2010 (during Christmas vacation): I don’t recognize any of the people behind the counter at the butcher store and they don’t recognize me. I don’t know their names; they don't know my name. And why would they? I haven’t bought meat from this butcher in at least 2 years.

3. Home is routines and predictable patterns of interaction.

Cieszyn, December 2010 (before Christmas vacation): I hate visiting the butcher in Cieszyn because it requires me to act “aggressively assertive” and I don’t like it. I have to stand less than 1 inch behind the person in front of me or someone will dart in from behind and physically cut in front of me. I have to loudly shout out my order the second the person in front of me finishes paying or someone behind me will shout out his or her order and verbally cut in front of me. I feel a little anxious (like I always do at the butcher) but I’m here on a mission so I confidently order in Polish the number of grams I need to feed the 3 people I’ve invited over for dinner. It’s stressful for me but I know what to expect and I know how I need to behave (“aggressively assertive”) in order to get the meat I need.

Chicago, December 2010 (during Christmas vacation): I’m excited to go to a butcher in Chicago. I’m anticipating standing in a wonderfully “civilized” and orderly line. I’m looking forward to speaking in docile tones and not having the person behind me breathing down my neck or cutting ahead of me should I show 2 seconds of weakness or hesitation. I’m feeling very relaxed standing in line and then suddenly a woman tries to cut in front of me! Hey! Cutting isn’t supposed to happen in Chicago! I always tell people that Americans have great respect for "the line!" I've envisioned (and yes, romanticized) this Chicago butcher visit for months and yet here I am feeling very overwhelmed and helpless. I order in English but I’m still a little baffled and shaken up after that woman tried to cut in front of me. And suddenly I can’t remember the conversion from kilograms to pounds so I don’t quite know how many pounds I need to feed the 3 people I’ve invited over for dinner. It’s stressful for me because I thought I knew what to expect but I discover I don’t feel like I know how I need to behave ("polite" and "patient" didn't quite work out how I'd expected them to) in order to get the meat I need.


It just so happens that at this specific time in my life, I'm more "at home" buying meat in Poland than in Chicago. And that's pretty amazing when I think back to my first month here when there were days I didn't think I would ever come to call Cieszyn "home." And right now Cieszyn is my “here” and Chicago is my “there." Now I’m in Cieszyn and I say, “I’ve taught here (here = Cieszyn) for two years” but on June 1, I’ll fly to Chicago and then I’ll say, “I taught there (there = Cieszyn) for two years.” In a few weeks Chicago will become my "here" again and I'll quickly re-learn exactly how to go about ordering meat at a Chicago butcher.

I know I’m going to miss home (Cieszyn) when I go home (Chicago) and that I'm going to miss all the big things (people I love) and the little things (the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes) that made Cieszyn my home for the past two years. But this summer when I find myself feeling a little discouraged or a little displaced I'm going to remember that I felt exactly the same way when I first arrived in Cieszyn. And I'm going to put on my "explorer cap" and go out in Chicago and find the "home" that's waiting for me there. I’m going to seek out new experiences, new adventures, new challenges, new delights, new people, new favorite spots, new cultural activities, and new educational opportunities. And I'm also going to rejoice that I'm returning to all my Chicago "favorites" - family! friends! the library! theatre! lectures! yoga! Pad Thai!

In Jesting Pilate Aldous Huxley wrote: “Fishes do not marvel at water; they are too busy swimming in it.” I’m excited that with this sad-yet-exciting, wonderful-yet-a-little-scary re-entry I’m getting the chance to marvel at the “water” (i.e., Chicago) I'm going to swim in again. I can’t wait to reconnect with my old-yet-new, familiar-yet-unfamiliar home – my sweet home Chicago.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

A Letter to My Flat

Moje kochanie mieszkanie (my darling flat),

Soon you and I will part ways, after two wonderful years together. I will fly to Chicago, and you will have to wait (impatiently) until August when a new inhabitant will arrive, re-arrange your furniture, and put photographs of his or her family and friends on your walls.

Do you remember when we first met, that fateful August day? I immediately loved your incredibly high European ceilings and your gorgeous bedroom windows, but I also quickly discovered that you were a fixer-upper, to say the least. Lukewarm (not hot) water, no Internet capabilities, no working stove or oven in the kitchen, no telephone wires, no mirror, no blinds, no garbage cans, no towels. I tried to respect your 100-year-old history but was a little worried that our drastically different lifestyles (for mine is quite modern) would mean that we would have difficulty co-existing. I must say you were a significant source of stress during my first months here, but you know (for walls have eyes and ears) that when I first arrived I was stressed about everything.

But slowly we learned how to live together. It required both parties to adjust. I accepted – and grew to love or at least find the humor in – a few of your quirks – especially your insoluble electrical and hot water problems. A few of your more unpleasant secrets, however, I could not laugh off, like your significant mold and mildew problem. Luckily the arrival of a foreign visitor (a dehumidifier produced by a French company) soon put that problem to rest and this brief squabble in our relationship was resolved amicably. Your paper-thin walls often drove me crazy, especially when neighbors woke me up in a fright with their violent arguing at 1 or 2 a.m.

I know; it is unkind of me to remind you of our early difficulties. But then how quickly my attitude towards you changed! Remember when Dad and Claire visited in December? And Dad, with his visual-spatial brilliance, knew how to re-arrange your furniture and transform you into a home – my home. And when I returned from Christmas vacation, you weren’t temporary housing anymore, you were “moje kochanie mieszkanie” (my darling flat) and newly hung photographs and posters were not merely decorations but signs of my joyful decision to teach and live here for a second year.

And over the past two years you alone have been witness to many of my challenges and joys, little and great. In the early months, you were sometimes the only witness to my tears of frustration, exhaustion, stress, and loneliness during my struggle to adjust to life and work in a new country. But soon you saw me skipping with happiness after meeting someone new or whistling to myself after a successful day at school. You heard me laugh with friends, with students, with loved ones over Skype. You listened as I practiced my Polish (please excuse my poor pronunciation, I know your past inhabitants have been native speakers) and watched me write (and re-write, and re-write) lesson plans. You were here the day I turned 23 and the day I turned 24. You met many of my friends (American, Polish, and Czech) and family members, who stopped by for tea or dinner or to sleep on your sofa or floor.

And although your kitchen has often been the source of numerous problems (an incorrectly installed stove, electricity issues, broken pipes, holes drilled through the walls by neighbors), it also holds a special place in my heart. Your kitchen became a source of great joy as I found cooking was a way for me to reach out to new people in Poland and the Czech Republic. In your kitchen, I fell in love with the simple yet beautiful European tradition of always offering tea to guests, whether they stopped by for 5 minutes or 5 hours. I have loved inviting friends over for meals because our conversations are the best food for my soul. Cooking in your kitchen also helped me get to know my students as we chatted while making American foods like funny face pancakes, chocolate chip cookies, and Thanksgiving specialties. Over tacos and curries and pizzas and pierogi, I connected with people who helped make this place feel like a true home.

Between these walls I’ve experienced beautiful times of community and also beautiful times of solitude. Sometimes there’s nothing more peaceful than sitting with a book (or just sitting and thinking) and a cup of tea and gazing out your windows at our tree, the keeper of time and marker of seasons with its leaves or barren branches. Sometimes there’s nothing more ghastly than looking out your windows and seeing thick, dark puffs of smoke from neighbors’ chimneys drift by. Your quiet and calm are the best refuge after a long day and provide the perfect opportunity for contemplation and reflection. You are the place where I come to rest after one adventure so that I can feel rejuvenated and excited to take on the next.

I know I’ll miss you next year, moje kochanie. Even now when I’m away from you for a day or a week I miss hearing the “whoosh” of flames in your bathroom when I turn on the water or the way the sun peeps into your upper windows to wake me gently in the morning. Whenever I return to you, there’s a wonderful feeling of comfort and familiarity that sweeps over me as I unlock your door.

You were a marvelous home. I know you’ll have many new inhabitants in the upcoming years, but don’t forget me, okay?

Love,

Sarah

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

50 Awesome Things

  1. A post inspired by Neil Pasricha’s “1000 Awesome Things” - http://1000awesomethings.com/ - a website that celebrates the little joys in life.

  1. All of the 4 złotych stores (and the über competitive 2.99 złotych stores) in town. People around the world can't resist a $1 bargain.
  2. The few precious days in April when Cieszyn’s magnolia trees are perfectly in bloom.
  3. Wonderfully chaotic and laughter-filled family Skype calls with my parents and sisters that make me feel like we're all sitting together at our dining room table.
  4. Drinking English Breakfast tea and watching Kate and Will’s wedding live with 50 of my 8th grade students.
  5. Eating cake first and dinner second when you visit a Polish home.
  6. Giving students a taste of their first cupcake or friends a taste of their first Mexican, Thai, English, American, or Indian meal.
  7. Greeting friends with 3 pecks on the cheek or a great big hug.
  8. Helping older people read tiny price tags at the grocery store.
  9. How anytime I come across a word I've never seen or heard before – in any language – English, Polish, Italian, German, etc. – I find myself automatically trying to sound it out using the Polish sound system, which, of course, only works if the word is actually a Polish one.
  10. How embarrasing photographs from my past are sometimes the best way to start an English Conversation class, like this Halloween photograph where I dressed up as the night sky (oh dear...).
  11. How thanks to Skype and the Internet I’ve gotten to be a part of so many important events that have happened to my sisters this spring (they're off to undergraduate and graduate school next fall). I got to talk to Claire the moment she found out she was accepted to graduate school and the moment Kate got her first (of many!) college acceptance letter.
  12. How my friend Kasia and I sometimes act like we have to think about whether or not to order a slice of cheesecake at our favorite cafe, as if we would ever seriously consider skipping our weekly slice of the most heavenly cake on earth.
  13. How my students still tell me that the best thing we could ever do in English conversation is go to the park across the street from the school.
  14. How our school secretary keeps trying to find me a nice Polish boy to marry so I’ll stay another year.
  15. How people, when I tell them there’s an “H” in my name, will put it anywhere except at the end (“Sahra” or “Sarha”) because Polish female names always end in “A.”
  16. How loving physical touch is so much a part of the culture here. Personal space is almost non-existent (which was startling at first but now I love it) and people are wonderfully affectionate with their friends and family.
  17. How it turns out that studying in London during college was unbelievably helpful because I was familiar with British English which is what my students are learning. Perhaps not so awesome is that now I find myself automatically typing "favourite" and "colour" and how I sometimes find myself saying ridiculous things like “do we need a trolley for our shopping” and “please form a queue” and then I wonder what type of strange alternate universe I’m living in.
  18. How in my teaching I've done things I never thought I would ever do - like sing and dance in front of a group of teenagers and teach people how to play baseball.
  19. How the greeting “cześć” (kind of like “Hi” in American English except it really is only spoken to people you know well) sounds so friendly and loving and you really feel like you’re embracing the person in a hug when you say it.
  20. How walking across the Czech-Polish border several times a week never fails to thrill.
  21. How when I was riding my bike in Chicago this summer, I couldn't stop myself from whipping my head around every time I heard someone speaking in English.
  22. How, every once in a while, a student will still say “Good morning!” to me at 3 p.m. and make me smile.
  23. Students who come to class early or stay late just to talk a few minutes more.
  24. Kids’ drawings in my preschool and kindergarten classes, like this drawing of a zoo that included the zoo animals we’d learned that day (parrot, monkey, lion, etc.) but also 3 dinosaurs.
  25. Knowing Poland’s "bathroom secret” - that the circle is the symbol on the women’s bathroom and the triangle is the symbol for the men’s - and getting to help people not "in the know" go into the right one. Although it's also hilarious when you find yourself face to face with a member of the opposite sex who ended up in the wrong bathroom and is just as shocked to find you there.
  26. Knowing that whenever anyone – even very fluent English speakers - is talking about a day of the week and they pause, it’s because they want to say “Thursday” but they can’t remember the word (similar to how, especially if I’m very tired, I still mix up the numbers 9 "dziewięć "and 10 "dziesięć").
  27. Long chats with friends over Skype where I finally have to hang up not because we’re done talking but because it’s way past my bedtime.
  28. My freezable lunch box that I bring with me everywhere and fill with little snacks and drinks that stay cold for hours (and it's a great way to save a little money when traveling).
  29. My freshman boys who, after I enforced a strict "for every minute you are late to class that's how many minutes you stay after the bell rings at the end of the lesson," now all arrive incredibly early to our lessons and with big grins on their faces ask if their early arrival means that they can leave 2 or 3 minutes before the bell rings.
  30. My Monday seniors who, when I ask them how they are at the beginning of our lesson, always reply in very melancholy tones that, “well, it’s Monday,” to which I reply that it is always Monday when I ask them this question because I only teach them on Mondays, and how this little ritual never fails to make us smile and I think makes early Monday mornings a little less painful.
  31. My students’ amazement (and sometimes applause) when they can’t remember a word in English and I’m able to translate it from Polish without consulting a dictionary.
  32. During both of my visits home (summer and Christmas), only having to wait about 24 hours before hearing someone speaking in Polish.
  33. People who post comments on my blog, send me e-mails after reading a post, or mention something I wrote on my blog in a conversation. Thanks for confirming that, yes, someone does actually read this blog. You are awesome!
  34. Polish diminutives - the form of a word that typically signifies either physical smallness, or, especially with Polish nicknames, affection. For example, a cat is “kot,” a kitten is a “kotek” (the suffix “ek” creates the diminutive form meaning "a tiny cat") and a tiny kitten is a “koteczek” (the double suffix signifies a “doubly tiny” cat). “Koteczek” is way cuter than saying “a tiny kitten.”
  35. The Polish food aisle I discovered in Park Ridge’s Jewel this summer that reassures me that there’s a little bit of Poland waiting for me in Chicago when I head back this June.
  36. Sitting and talking for hours with a Polish or Czech friend as if we’ve known each other our whole lives.
  37. Snail mail letters, especially from my grandma, my most loyal pen pal, and packages from friends and family with small surprises like Milky Ways, Peeps, and the fantastically trashy People magazine.
  38. Awesomely brave students who, when I ask for a volunteer in class, raise their hands and then, after I have picked them say, “What I am supposed to do?” because they actually have no idea what they volunteered to do.
  39. The English bookstore in Krakow.
  40. The online webcam of Cieszyn’s market square. http://www.cieszyn.pl/_kamera/index.php
  41. The Polish and Czech tradition of making lamb cakes for Easter, and this year getting to celebrate this tradition with Dominika, the 5th grader I’ve tutored for 2 years.
  42. The Polish tradition of giving flowers to say thanks to important people in your life.
  43. The smell of mulled wine and and spiced tea/spirits at Polish Christmas markets. (Although I wouldn’t recommend actually drinking any of these - I have yet to find someone who can stomach a full glass, but it does smell amazing.)
  44. Tiny regional European airports where you still walk out to the plane.

  45. Trail markers throughout Cieszyn for walk routes that include hilariously detailed (although, ironically, often terribly unhelpful) instructions like “continue walking uphill until you reach the house painted white and beige and then walk diagonally across the field in the southernly direction for about 600 meters.”
  46. When my buzzer rings and it’s a friend waiting to come up.
  47. When my buzzer rings and it’s someone from the post office “poczta” – or someone just saying they’re from the post office because that’s all you have to say to get free access to pretty much any building in Cieszyn.
  48. When students show up for tutoring and instead of pulling out a writing assignment or their English textbook they say, “Can we just talk today?” and I have an amazing opportunity to just talk with them and get to know them better.
  49. When students specifically say something (usually hilarious) in English, not Polish or Czech (and typically at a louder volume than normal) because they want me to hear and understand every single word.
  50. When a "walk" signal at a crosswalk in Cieszyn changes from red to green at the exact moment I reach it.