skip to main |
skip to sidebar
50 Awesome Things
- 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.
- The few precious days in April when Cieszyn’s magnolia trees are perfectly in bloom.
- 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.
- Drinking English Breakfast tea and watching Kate and Will’s wedding live with 50 of my 8th grade students.
- Eating cake first and dinner second when you visit a Polish home.
- Giving students a taste of their first cupcake or friends a taste of their first Mexican, Thai, English, American, or Indian meal.
- Greeting friends with 3 pecks on the cheek or a great big hug.
- Helping older people read tiny price tags at the grocery store.
- 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.
- 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...).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- How our school secretary keeps trying to find me a nice Polish boy to marry so I’ll stay another year.
- 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.”
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- How walking across the Czech-Polish border several times a week never fails to thrill.
- 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.
- How, every once in a while, a student will still say “Good morning!” to me at 3 p.m. and make me smile.
- Students who come to class early or stay late just to talk a few minutes more.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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").
- 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.
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- During both of my visits home (summer and Christmas), only having to wait about 24 hours before hearing someone speaking in Polish.
- 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!
- 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.”
- 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.
- Sitting and talking for hours with a Polish or Czech friend as if we’ve known each other our whole lives.
- 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.
- 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.
- The English bookstore in Krakow.
- The online webcam of Cieszyn’s market square. http://www.cieszyn.pl/_kamera/index.php
- 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.
- The Polish tradition of giving flowers to say thanks to important people in your life.
- 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.)
- Tiny regional European airports where you still walk out to the plane.
