to move - przyprowadzac

it took me three days to finally change my apartments. Now I am living on Wodna street in a very nice shared apartment, my room is blue and we have a nice big kitchen....
On Wednesday Elena form Spain visited me in Lodz, she came all the way from Rodowo and we had a very ncie time. Actually we wanted to go out on Thursday night but then we fell asleep and when we woke up, we were so tired and "matsche" as I would say in German, that we decided to go to sleep again...well this plan wasn't exactly carried out because we talked for three hours about God and the world.
I am very excited casue my sister will com on tuesday (-;

Celebration, or why are you guys here in Lodz?

Well well well, yesterday was my 21th birthday and I am officially an adult now (what does not give me any advantages, at least not in Germany , maybe it'll be easier now to rent a car but I will definitely be punished now by 'adult' criminal law now). Last sundayI had baked two cakes, one for the children at the shelter and one for my 'coffee and cake' inviation for yesterday. So I went to the shelter and we just painted some pictures and ate cake and then I went to see Camilla and Lisa, we just hang out for a while and then went home to have my little celebration with Julie and ELiza. Jummy jummy "torty' from Lisa and Camilla and some presents (nothing from home has reached me yet...I'll get my presents when I am back in Germany, this way I don't ahve that much luggage).
Since Marian, the Dutch volunteer also had her birthday yesterday, we met later all together at Manufaktura, where there were several bandds playing klezmer during the 'jewish festiwal' . There was also a group called 'Di Grine Kuzine' form Berlin, and I relaly really liked them (--> got their CD) and my sister from berlin knows them as well (-;
Tomorrow night I'll move to another apartment and also Elena from Spain will visit m and help me with moving...

getting sad and finnaly a good book

Hmm, there's not much time left here in Lodz. I am slowly getting sad. To leave this town, the other volunteers and the children from the shelter. Well, I don't have a choice but it's always like that: You stay in a place, first it's new and exciting, you have no idea where you can find what, then you start getting your routine, getting to know places, you finally ahve favorite places and in the end the town has become yours.
When I went to the shelter yesterday, there was a paedagogic student who is starting her half-a year long internship there. No one told me before that she would be there and we ended up not making cake as I had planned it (I had bought the ingredience, and had taken them with me) but we did her activity,the children made some figures from plaster. I can really see, how I got jealous of her, because I felt like she was somehow taking away "my" children. She wants to go with them to the movies etc, all things that cost money (which she gets from the shelter) but which I don't find to be that paedagogical "correct". Ok there's nothing wrong with going to the movie theater, but most of these kids haven't ever been to the zoo. Now wouldn't that be somehting more appropriate? There is a TV at the shelter, the kids can always watch a movie if they want to, but the zoo, that would be somehting new. But well....next monday at least, I'll have the afternoon for myself and since it's my birstday then, I'll bring some cake and we will paint.
In one hour, our last Polish lesson will take place, we'll watch a movie (yes but I've already been to the zoo (-; ) and I am sad that this is basically it, as far as Polish is concerned.

As to good book: Lisa borrowed me a very good one : EVIL by Jan Guillou . I can only reccomend it! ( i read it within 1,5 days)

Rain -->INUNDATION

So, global warming has indeed it's impact on our weather here. It is crazy! Each day it's hot (like in the morning at 9 am 25 C) and then in the afternoon it rains cats and dogs. Since infrastructure here is not so good, canalisation can't handle the masses of rain which some down daily and the drains are somehow plugged with old leaves. What happens then, is that certain parts of some streets are inundated and also the houses there are flood. Too bad that also the women's shelter is located at such a place on Franciszkanska, which is regularly inundated. The water stood at the entrance (fence) as high as 60 cm. I had gone to the shelter because it had been my day to work with the children. Fortunatly I was wearing a skirt which I could more or less lift up (ok, I was not there in underware) but the water reached to the middle of my tighs. The entire front yard was flood, the water stood probably about 20 cm high were the front door was, I really son't know how they managed inside ( I was send home again because the room that we usually stay in was under water. I offered to help with the water, but I suppose they had already enough women there).

Cars wanting to take this road couldn't do so (only landrover did, one drove pretty fast causing big waves which 'hit"me, not so funny). Although there were cars, the ones parked and half covered by water. I don't know if they were that well isolated that you can still use them afterwards.

University: first of all I am very contend, glad and happy about my two teachers at the Łódź university, who both wrote me excellent recommendation letters for attending their lectures as a guest listener. Very nice, they put the head of the university on the paper that I had sent them to sign and added things and all in all it looks very professional and official ( i hope I'll have a chance to use it later, it'd be a pitty if not, for all the effort they put in it).

Secondly I sent all my (ok four) applications for the universities to Germany and am now sitting, waiting, hoping, wishing.....

My birthday is coming up very soon, yet another year gone by so fast. I'll make a very small cake and coffee invitation for Juli, Eliza, Camilla and Lisa (although I'll have to bake the cake at Lisa and Camilla's place because our oven does not work). The big party for my birthday/going away will be on teh 6th of July, when my twin sister will be here in Lodz.
By the way, I don't know if I mentioned, but I am moving for July to another appartment. Since 'll be traveling a lot then I won't really 'live' there though.

THIS IS TO THE UNKNOWN PIOTR:
I REALLY HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU ARE, THERE IS NO POINT IN KEEPING ME WRITING SMS, I NEVER MET YOU, SO SAVE YOUR TIME FOR SOME OTHER GIRL, IT'D BE DEFINITLEY MORE SUCCESSFUL.

Częstochowa

We went there on saturday night, had a nice party with looots of other volunteers (also Polish many Ex-volunteers) including a song contest (everyone was basically forced to participate) and signs to respond to, like in a talk-show, e.g. "laugh", "girls sream", "buhhh" ,"I want to have a baby from you" and many others in for eample macedonian or latvian, but I don't remember them. Oh, we also ate pizza which we had actually ordered by phone from the other volunteers when we were still in Łódź (at 7 pm). OK, so they ordered it then but it did not arrive untill 11pm...bad service. The sunday we went on 'jasna góra' the famous monastry/convent where the black madonna is. It is THE wholy painting in Poland which is supposed to help you in any situation. All the walls in the chappel where the painting is displayed are covered by donations from the poeple who were healed or helped. So there are many rosaries, silver hearts, and most remarkable many pairs of crutches from healed invalid.
Apart from the monastry there is nothing else interesting in Czestochowa. And although the city is rather large, I am very glad to be ina project in Łódź because we can simply do a lot more here ( I apllied for a project in Czestochowa as well, but didn't get it).
On monday was a meeting with Joanna and the other volunteers from FERSO, as a thank you for Media Travel we were invited to pizza and a drink. It was nice, we were also 'awarded' a 'diploma' for organizing and participating in Media Travel.

Due to the fact that I was not allowed to make waffles inside of Manufaktura (but I had aleady bought all the ingredients), we had a waffle party on thursday with the plan in mind, to finish all thgroceries. Unfortunatly Joanna's waffle iron didn't really work, cause the dough stuck to it and only in the end we could make more or less normal waffles. Moreover it was simply too much for us. So we distributed the leftover ingredients and left (after heavy rain....the Ferso office was also slighlty wet, cause one window' leaked' and the rain fell so heavily that it basically 'pressed' itself inside).

Now I am looking for people on couchsurfing.com to host me and my sister in July during our trip through Poland. I already found someone in Bialystok and Rzerzów...someone in Kraków is yet to be found. If anyone here reads this and knows someone in kraków who could host us, leave a comment (-;

Media travel / European youth week

The whole project hasn't turned out as stresfull and timeconsuming as I thought. So now I also know, that we're somhow a small part from the Media Travel fetsival, but we're sponsored by the city.
The whole thing works like this: Each volunteer has half a table in manufaktura to present her or his country. Since there is also OPUS participating (another NGO from Lodz) there is also one stand from Moldova and one from Georgia. The Georgian guy wrote my name in Georgian, it's ooo cool, they have beautyfull letters, nohting like romanian or kuryllic abc, and there are many many for me unpronouncable sounds. Imagine, he knows his alphabet, how to write ours and kuryllic..ah I only know one...)-;
At Manufakture we have many small tables and chairs for the children to sit on, come and coulour, do puzle or (what I like the best) play memory! I really enjoy playing it and am more and more developping ambitions to win! Some small children are really really good though, but still, against mot I can win (-; Of course I have to sometimes "forget" were certain pictures were, otherwise it wouldn't be fun for the kids....

Actually, I wanted to do waffles, but we're inside of Manufakture now (it was first said tahtw e were supposed to eb outside) and I am nopt allowed to do it there. Hmmm BUT I already bought ingredients for 70 Zlt (that means 4 KgButter, 8 Kg flower, 12 baking powder, 36 eggs etc) and they're al in my fridge, taking up the space of my flatmates...uuups sorry...Joanna, the coordinator from ferso (which is the main organizer) decided that we'll have a waffle party soon. I am looking forward to that.

My sisters' birthdays are coming up soon ( on the 19th, 23rd and my twin sister and I on the 25th) which means that I have to find nice presents...for my oldest sister I bought jewelery and a nice tarditional wooden box (since I ahve the ambition to make it at least a little bit Polish). The other one will egt Polish music, still need to go to Empik to check how much the CD's are there. And my twin will get a surprise (-;

SO, now I have tandem wiht my beloved Malgosia and then I am meeting with a nice guy to do somehting active (he's into sports, but I have no idea what he;s planned for today). Later on is party at Jazzga, but I am not sure yet if I'll go.
Tomorrow I am in Manufaktura again and at night, Camilla, Lisa and I wan tot go to Czestochowa till sunday night, to visit SImone and Tobias there. So I am busy!

Fotofestiwal

I totally forgot to write about Fotofestiwal. During the first weekend I spent 15 hours in Manufaktura to "sell" tickets and exhibion catalogs...the only problem was, that there were not so any people who wanted to buy stuff. So I basically read a lot (-; in French (-: (-: what I am very proud of, so I need to bragg a little here . You'll forgive me hopefully. I was a little cionfused then though, having to talk in Polish, thinking in German , reading French but usually just communicating in English.
During the following week, I did some shifts in "Art Factury" watching people not stealing anyhting. The exhibiton with the main program from Spain, was great. Very interesting, good pictures. I liked the ebst one photo sereies called "Guys from Poland" , one about Spanish weddings during the last three decades and one about Russia form a young brittish Fotographer.
On Sunday evening, I planned to finishe my shift there at 7, but since it was the last day, they were deconstructing already teh exhibitions, putting down picturea and I stayed to help packing etc. Since I was already in this "Lodz Art Center Fever" I came back on monday to help more. Unfortunately they were laking a person to coordinate the volunteers at the time I came, so I helped painting a hallway (-;. Then I went straight on to the children and from there to the music academy, to listen to a free concert for piano and viola.

Climat changes

It's is really crazy here! Two days ago I'm almost melting away in the heat, hating to take the tram because of all the hot, sweating people around, and today I've got to take my umbrella and coat, and I'm still cold outside. First of all, the hot weather during the last weeks was not normal at all for MAY, just May, you know, not July. Now it's back to normal, at least raining= good for the soil and the crops. Climat changes are our fault, thus:
People:
recycle, don't use so much energy, sell your car and become a member of Grrenpeace!
I finished my report about abortion, you will soon be able to download it from www.kobiety.lodz.pl, althought he website is in POlish, on the left side in the bar under "Mlodziez" (means youth) you'll find a lot of the stuff I wrote in English.
My twin sent me a text for me to translate to English, to contact people on "Couchsurfing.com" for finding places to sleep at for our trip in July. Hopefully we'll make it, finding enough locals to host and show us the cities we want to visit. As for now we plan to go from Lodz to Krakow, Wedlina, Lublin, Bialystok, somewhere in Mazury, Gdansk, Torun and Warsaw...yes big trip, I know. Maybe we'll cancel some cities, we'll see.
Yesterday I went to the shelter again, taking pics witht Lisa's digital camera, the kids really ahd fun. I don't know if I should put them online, I'll see. Anyway, right now, I don'y have the cable to do it. After the shelter I went to cook dinner with Lisa and we watched an Ausrtian movie with German subtitles (what was indeed very helpful, cause I am not that good at understanding viennanian/viennan? accent).
Oh, and I managed to send all my applications for a summer job to Germany...hope I'll find sth.
Tomorrow is the last time university, as far as I know, what is a pitty cause I realy liked the course despite my objections in the beginning.
All in all, there's so little time left, Iam leaving in 9 weeks to go home! Ahhh, but on the other hand, I am looking forward to be with my family and freinds againa nd to finally undertsand everyhting that people say to me! (Morover understand everything that people not say o me but amongst each other, which is none of my business but interests me anyway)

So I simply forogt to blogg last time, I was in the office...last thursday, I put many of my old articles on our new website, that's why I was busy with other things.
Normally, I should be here almost the whole day and just leave before 4 pm to go to POlish lessons. Today however, I'm only staying fo a very short time because at 2.15 pm, I have to be in the shelter. The mothers got invited to see a theatr play and thus they need someone to take care of the children, who is me (-; . UsusallyI stay witht eh chidlren for 2 hours, but this afternoon will be at least 3, so I am a little bit afraid, I won't have enough activities, to occupy them. On the other hand, most of the kids are too young to concentrate on an activity for 3 hours anyway, so I won't be able to do a 3-hour program anyway.
The weather is very very nice, Lodz looks fantastic now, all the green leaves hide the ugliness (-:. This weekend is "Juwelania", a free festival for university students. It takes place all over POland in basically each city which has a univeristy. In Lodz will be mainly punk/rock and HipHop, headliner are "Naughty by nature" from USA. It's funny, cause there is a German band called "Fettes Brot" and they have a song called "Nordish by nature" and T-shirts with a copyed design of "Naughy by nature" and I only knew the copy and just got to know, that there is indeed an original...well, you never stop learning.
Generally i am very happy, my insurance will pay all my health bills (I wasn't sure about some) and I won't ahve to pay for anything by myslef.
Three days ago, I got a package from Germany, but I didn't know in which post office I had to pick it up. At the fourth post office, I finally got it. But before I received it, I got a "report" about the tranportation. There had unfortunately been an "accident", my package which weighted 10 Kg before, only weighted 9 Kilo afterwards, if I could please sign the report....fortuneately it was nothing personal, I had received a big bunch of brochures from Belrin for Media Travel. Still, I think it's strange to just let me know that, ooops, we lost some of the content of your package...
Well, as far as Media Travel is concerned (this "festival of Travelers and foreign places) , we still don't know if it is going to take place in Manufaktura, the shopping mall, or somewhere else. We will see.
At least CAmilla, Lisa and I plan tp visit Czestochowa in June. THis will probably be the last journey before my big travel with my twin sister in July.
Gotta go now, and buy some batteries for my photo camera.
The weekend I'll either be at Lodz Art Ceter for Fotofestiwal, sleeping or at Juwelania.

Funny game

Ok, in order to understand this, you must read Maria's blogg. Anyway it works liek this, you tell six funny facts about yourself and pass it on to others. And here are mine:

1. When I was about six or seven, my oldest sister took me and my twin to the swimming pool. Out of a mood but only joking she asked me if I wanted to jump fromt he 3 meter tower. AND I DID. Now, about 12 years later, I don't dare to do it anymore. (by the way, my mom didn't believe me, when I otld her what I 'd done)

2. I'm a real hypocryt: When I was in high school, I'd always cross the street (to go to ALDI) with the green light, when younger students were watching (I mean not only elemantary but also people from the grade below mine) and ALWAYS yell at them when they crossed wihtout paying attention to red lights. Well well, as soon as no younger students were in sight, I went with the right light as well......

3. I eat most junk food, when I am trying to not eat it ("oh, I got so fat again...") and then I justify it by saying that I don't let myself be oppressed by social norms/expectations

4. Whoever is gonna mary me or raise children with me, will have problems getting his ideas about our children's names through. I constantly date my list of my favorite names up. Currently it's: Paula/Paulina, Marisza, Agnieszka for girls and Jonathan/Johannes,Max/imilian for boys

5. More about names: When I was in kindergarten I always wanted to be called "Claudia" when playing "mother/father/child" cause my sister Dorothee had a friend whose name was Claudia and who I liked.

6. During my first months in Poland, I wanted to by chewing gum. So I asked for "jedna guma", one gum. The sales person took a package, opened it (I was like "what the heck is he doing wiht my gum???") and sold me ONE SINGLE STRIPE for 40 gr (about 10 euro cent)

my fist time...

....acompanying a child to the toilet, happened on monday. Jendrek (2 years) can't go alone yet and usually his mother takes him to the rest room. But the little one really likes me, and so he decided to take me instead of his mother to do "siu siu"(to pee). Well I survived, I was probably in a slight (positive) shock that he trusts me so much (I think we've met 5 times). Unfortunately the weather is getting worse, so I can't play with the children outside. Yesterday we made (again but this time with different children) a dictionary= coloring different symbols,like a tree, house, girl or boy, star, boat etc and then writing the english name underneath it.
As far as my survey about abortion is concerned, I've asked 186 people so far (to be 200) and the theoretic part is almost finished. On the weekend,I might go to the Art center again ( I haven't been for a while) to help out there. Later today I'll have double lessons of Polish.
By the way: I forgot my recharger for my cell in Chemnitz, thus I'm kind of mute right now.

East Germany, how about that

well, do I relaly want to studiy in Chemnitz? To find out, I went there during the last week (since it is free in Poland, most people were traveling anyway and I would've been alone....) so I went there by train (14 hours...but I had a three hour stop in Wroclaw/Bresslau which I was happy to visit). There's this very nice initiative by some "European Studies" students, who offeres me to show me around and I could as well sleep at my host's place! So I had a good look at the university (about 10 000 students) and I also tryed the "mensa" food- very jummy. During the day I went to different lectures and seminars (about the history of European Integration, Mikroeconomy, the social state, energy policy, leading and management...) almost evertything was quiet interesting, sp I think that this is a good study for me (ok here once again officially and forever: European studies with specialisation economic studies and minor social studies). The weekend I also did something for work, I researched articles about abortion in Poland for my theoretic introduction.
Since the weather was pretty pleasant Rene (German Erasmus student) Camilla (EVS), Julie my flatmate and her boyfriend Carlos and I went to play beach volleyball. The only problem was, that the field we wanted to play at was already taken. But Rene was condemned to ask those people playing ifn we could later use the field as well and he found out that there was a different field not far away belonging to a school. Finally we found it but the problem was that it was fenced and closed. But we said " we're in Poland here, there has to be a whole somewhere" and trule, we found a small space to crawl underneath the fence and had a good time playing.
Today I managed to ask 42 people for my survey but it is still difficult to find young people without second or higher education. It is very easy to go to different faculties and ask the students there because they're usually pretty cooperative. But going to the Greenmarkets requieres more guts because you're interrupting them during work in comparison to the students who just take their breaks. Moreover asking on the markets is not as efficient cause you only get one answer at a time (and most sales people there are too old for my survey anyway: thus the choice of people to ask there is a lot smaller than at university).
Later this afternoon I'll bake apple pie with the children (they really love making cake and cookies, since the weather is so wamr they either want to be outside or prepare some kind of food, somehow handycraftin is not popular anymore). Soon I'll hopefully meet wiht Bogna, the president of kobiety.lodz.pl to receive food money (-;

Just a short comment

the weather is nice (I know I'm talking a lot about weathjer, like a granny, but it is really important, especially when I want to do my survey casue people are in a far better mood and thus more liekly to fill out my quetsionaire, when the weather is nice). It got reallyw arm today and I wen to a neabry park int he morning to do my Polish homework. SInce my sister visited me and we went to restaurants for dinner, I gained some weight that is supposed to be gone soon...well, I 'll have to work on that (-; hmm university is geting ebtter, the lecture is very complicated but interesting although it sometimes is just too much for me (thinking all the time so abstractly and out of the "framework" and basically anything I think is in the "framework" so i first have to get out of the "framework" and so on...well reading Freud, and many philosophers in English is not that easy cause I only have my little pocket dictionary for English here, and all the difficult words I need to transalte are not contained in it).
Teaching Germna is fun, my student went to Frankfurt last week for work and there he met Michael Ammer becasue his boss is a friend of Ammer and they all went together to one of the "Ammer-Partys", I saw pics, well well. Daniel Lopez, the 2nd placed of the last (I think it was the last) episode of DSDS (Deutschland sucht den Superstar = Germany's Idol verison) was at this party and sang and well, I am just amused that you he met Ammer.

no curtains

the weather got worse,it wasactually pretty cold. Well, the last two days I was woken up by our construction workers, who started busy as they are (at least in the morning, later they take really long breaks) to renovate our block. So yesterday I woke up from theur laughs about me (sleeping innocantly). Today I planned to resta little longer, but they were working on the outer wall right next to my bed so I didn't have a chance to sleep longer. I went to university with a first rather boring lecture (cause it was too abstract and unstructured) but it got very interetsing later on...Psychoanalyzis/Freud , Hegel. Shoot, I really don't know anything about philosophy and the little I studied at school for one year is almost all forgotten. Well well, librabies might help me there. Unfortunately our Polish teacher became ill, so today's lesson was cancelled, szkoda. Later us volunteers will meet with two other European Volunteers who allegedly stay in lodz as wel, but whom we haven't met so far. And then...night life is calling so Lisa and I will go to Bagdad Cafe.

birds are singing, sun is burning

So, what I’ve done during those sunny days? I at least tried to be as much outside as possible! The result of it? I have a sunburned nose (but I just have to assure myself: It’ll be tanned in a couple of days) Children are nice (some difficult but very lovely and cute ones left last week) and I’ll probably cook again this week with them. Last time we made apple cakes. Today one mother of a slightly overweight boy asked me if we couldn’t prepare some healthy food like veggies and fruit instead of cake next time, and five minutes later she fed her son with some sugary orange pudding stuff. I have to use those days to ask young people about abortion, for my new “ankieta”. I’m still a bit inhibited walking straight up to people and just “wanting “ something from them without returning anything. But I personally don’t mind taking part in surveys and thus shouldn’t be too afraid of just asking people about their opinion.
The town looks A LOT better now in the sunshine, trees blooming and green leafs everywhere. Tired tired, I am going to bed now. (that was yesterday, just now I couls actually blogg, cause I'm in our office, taking a break from asking people on teh markets about abortion) puhh it's so hot again. CAn you belief that Rossman doesn't have sun lotion? Come on, it's almost 30 degrees and you can't buy sun blocker...

Wegorzewo, so calm

ok, I should write a very veryv ery long srticle now, but I won't. So don't stop reading, It'll be short.
First of all, I needed vacation! Because my friend Fabian and my suster (including her husband +two kids of 3 and 6 years) came to visit me in Lodz before Easter. So I was tourist guide for about 1, 5 weeks. I really liked it and I am glad that finally someone from germany came to see Poland and my Polish life here.
So waht I did , was that "dropped" my sister at the airport in Warsaw on Thursday afternnon and tokk a buis to mazury (the lake area in the north east of POland) where I stayed in Wegorzewo. Wegorzewo has 12'000 inhabitants, three pubs, some supermarkets, three schools and one club...club yeah (id you can call it a club). It is of cause close to a big lake and I spent some nice hours walking around there. Now you wonder where i stayed there? Well, there are two volunteers and I contacted them prior by email and so I had a free place to sleep in a pottery house that belonges to the museum where the volunteers work. This are a up there (only about 60 km from Kaliningrad) is very quiet and beautiful. As youc an see form the pictures, the weather was (at least in the beginning) very nice.
on my trip to Wegorzewo I met a very nice POlish guy who offered to show me the area. Since ther is really not soo much to see (without a car) I was glad and happy when Jendrzej showed me by car the surrouding area (forner German "palaces", bunkers and the failed attempt to connect mazury to the baltiv see: many dams). On the firts picture youc an see me on a view sight constructed on a bunker.
Well, surprise surprise, during the night form saturday to sunday, it snowed. Unfortunately I had put out my clothes on the roof to air them out (we had been ina smoky pub before) and when I went to get them in the morning, they were covered by snow.
The lack of entertainment (this is not meant in a neagtive way, I totally enjoyed it there and wasn't bored) made me and some other volunteers who arrived a day after me, to visit church. So I was a good girl and went to church on SAturday evening amd sunday morning. Though I didn't understand anything (ok, yes, Jesus, holy Mary etc and some of the cermon) and the catholic mass is not too familiar to me, I enjoyed it more or less.
Jendrsejs family invited me for Easter breakfirst on monday, so I had the chance to a eat "real" Polish Easter meal. Since Wegorzewo is sucha small place, it's hard to get away from there. The only means by which you can leave (except for cars) is the bus to Warsaw that only goes twice a day- at 5.20 am and 7.50 am. So I left on tuesday morning at 5.20...after 9 hours and comperably little 400 km I reached Lodz.

oh, it seems Lodz is not as ugly as it's said to be

After recovering over the weekend (and watching two shallow but very entertaining movies with Camilla and Lisa on SAturday afternoon), I went out for the first time since some weeks. On sunday a group of Belarussian/Russian/Ukranian students arrived here in lodz. They're taking a study tour and FERSO and kobiety.lodz.pl are organizing it. So we had some introduction meeting on sunday afternoon and we went out for a beer at night. The next day my friend Fabian from Germany arrived for a three day stay in our appartment. We "celebrated" his arrival with Lisa, CAmilla and MArian (representing the other volunteers) and Julie and Eliza (representing my falt) (-: in Kaliska.
Oh, we did a lot of running and walking around on Tuesday, the whole "Lodz-tourist-program" within one day: Jewish cemetary, Radegast Station, Manufaktura, (lunch in Green way) and oczywiscie Piotrkowska street. We were very very tired when we came home. After a small dispute with my boyfriend, Fabian and I went to watch a movie at Silver Screen. The choice wasn't wide so we ended up seeing "Rocky...4(?)" and it was actually not as bad as I had expected it to be. Silvester Stalone NEVER appears to have a functioning brain during that movie, but well.
Wednesday Polish lesson andthe children at the sheler, were I took Fabian as well and we all built (or rather tried to build) houses from cookies and a "glue" made of "kasza manna" (Griess, I don't know the English word), suggra and milk.
Fortunately my two Austrian girls threw a spontanious party that night, so we meet not only all the east european students again, but also Hannes, Christof (and his girlfriend) who are Germans doing civil service here in Lodz. Eliza and Julie came as well, so when the party was over we all walked home together. On our way though, we were stopped by the police.
They were driving along the street and slowed down when we came in sight. Then they turned around and stopped next to us, asking why we were on the street (come on , it was likie 00.45) then they wanted to know if anyone spoke POlish (we denied the facat that Eliza did) and they questionned us further where we were from and where we were going to... the two young police men were starting to pull away when Julie asked them why we had been stopped...we did not get a n honets answer though...some mufflin' between them and then they said we "looked young". Yeah right, good explenation.
The pics are a couple of weeks old, Eliza, Julie and I had a good movie night on Eliza's couch and we ate jammy pizza and drank some beer (the second picturs is posed though...we only ahd three beer for allof us,no way taht Eliza would end up like that then (-;
Today I visited the TV Toya staion with the group of U-R-B students. It was fun, we could try to use the cameras in the studio.
Ok, right now I've to do my Polish homework, so i gotta go

Potsdam and ill

My seminar was fine, it was a pitty that I didn't learn many new things cause I already had a good preparation from working with my exchange organization AFS for the last two years. There I did all kinds of camps for the future exchange students (we call them "hopees") preparing them through interkulturel learning games etc. During our training in Potsdam, which was organized by the Germna-Polish-Youth foundation...(I am not sure if the translation is correct) we were also thaught about "animation to speak" , (how the make people, specially Germnas not knowing Polish) talk dutin youth exchanges and international meetings. It was fun, we played all the games which we are supposed to lead later on by oursleves, first.
Unfortunately the German Polish workshop turned out to be rather a Polish one, cause only two of 15 participants were German. STill, it was no problem that everyone spoke Polish, cause most of the people knew German very well AND WE HAD TWO TRANSLATORS, who would translate everyhting said.

I also met half of my family in Berlin, my brother in hopsital and my sister with her kids and husband (not in hospital). For some unknown reason to me, I became ill AGAIN, so I spent Tuesday in the hostel bed (being care for by my sweet Polish women) and then I went , still sick, home on Wednesday. At least the journey wasn't too bad. Lisa even picked me up from the train station and we ate and drank juice together at our appartment later on. ..yes indeed juice, alcohol at this (health) stage is not good (-;
Well, right now I am at work, but my boss is sending me home to spent some time in bed before I'll meet with my coordinator and have Polish lessons in the afternoon.

Pa pa I'll talk to you when i get better

Hmm I'll be traveling around a bit more

Guess what, I am going to Germany this week. I got lucky again, I’ll participate in a Polish-German communication Workshop in Potsdam (close to Berlin) AND I don’t have to pay for it! Good, he? Last Friday I received a mail, asking if anyone was interested in going to Potsdam because the German-Polish Youth Organization still had two free places to give away. Fortunately it was no problem to get off from work and of course I must have been one of the first or only people interested cause I received my confirmation to go yesterday. The good part is that my sister and my brother both life in Berlin, so I’ll get a chance to see them. Actually my brother is in hospital right now (he’s already a lot better) but totally bored. Ta ta, there will be me to surprise him (-: . Oh I’m really looking forward to see them all, especially my nephews, they’re so cute and grow so fast that they look different each time I meet them. Yes, I know that I sound like a grandma, but it’s true!

You won’t believe it, the weather now is soooo nice! Over the weekend it had been nice in the morning but in the afternoon clouds would come up, turning everything grey. T hat’s why I walked to Manufaktura ( a former manufacturing complex which is now a shopping mal) and went to the nearby Poznanski Palace (formerly belonging to the owner of the factory) where the museum of the history of Lodz is now located. The building itself is so big and fancy, it basically smells of money. Everything in there is so big and expensive, he must have really had a fortune. The museum consists of different exhibitions about famous people born in Lodz (Arthur Rubinstein for example) more composers and translators whose names I don’t remember now. It was interesting even though most signs were in Polish only so I didn’t have a chance to understand too much. Just looking was ok though.

Right now some dogs are trying to kill each other outside, our “half-wild” cats, who get fed by a neighbor some houses further down, lay in sun and I can pet them *happy*, people and especially I are in a good mood, this sunshine is like heaven.

Well, i just came from a very nice meeting with Kasia, a friend from university (or at least I think she's becoming one) . We had coffee (or rather fruit shake) in Boston CAfe on Piotrkowska, nice nice, it was good.

Oh, very important

Indeed,yesterday I forgot to report on a very important matter. It was WOMEN'S DAY and I did not even mention that. Here in poland it is actually known to the public when women's day is (in Germany no one really cares). But here at least you can't miss it, because on every corner people sell tulips. Those are the flowers given to women on this special day (-: (though I didn't egt any) . Nothing really sepcial happened, I went to a raley but not many people were there.But there were some rather nationalistic people with posters and anti-abortion acivists ("every women loves her child and pictures of fetuses...") . So, I am off to see my boyfriend now and relax from a , let's say, rather unsuccessful workshop in Gymnasium today. It was justa ll too difficult waht I ahd prepared, so for tomorrow I have to make up new things and that sucks! Good night

Spring, and new challenges

Yesterday spring startet. I don't know what happened exactly, or how, but it was sunny, warm and just sooo nice and lovely. Everybody was in a good mood, you could see people waiting at the tram stops, closing their eyes to enjoy the sunshine...nice!
Unfortunately today it's not that good, there are clouds that hide the sun that I need so badly (winter really has lasted long enough) but well.
Hmm, what a pitty, my Creative COnverstaion Club is dying! Due to lack of participants. Even though i prepared so nice topics (yeah, lats one was about drugs, I spent quiet some time informing myself about withdrawal effects of heroine, side effects of crack, intoxication of cannabis and so on...there is only Lisa and Marian left, two other volunteers and they don't fulfill the purpose of doing something for the local community. So tomorrow I'll "excibit" at a "hobby" fare for "gymnasium" (middle school in Poland, 5-8th grade if I remember right). The only problem there is, that I can't do a conversation club as I used to, because their level of English is not sufficient for discussions. So I'll have to approach this whole thing from a different angle and rather prepare small, easy "lessons". This will be of course more difficult becasue I need more material, moreover the generall communication will have to be rather in polish than in English (or German, as I might try to do it in German as well). So I am becoming a little teacher now (-: .
By the way: Yesterday's meeting with the children was great. I had prepared a "dictionary" for them, lots of pictures to color and space for the meanings below. They really liked it, were pretty quite cause buzy with coloring and it was easy to watch them. Now I just have to think about something for next week.
Most importantly for today, I ahve to prepare myself for this fare thing tomorrow. Ahh have to go to work now

Hah I can write! ok, I'll update the "everything about Katowice" soon, there's a long text waiting to be put online, but I am facing some majortechnical problmes. Since"Blogger" forced me to switched to it's new version, I can't blogg form my home compyter anymore because it is tooo slow. Hmmm sucks, but now I am in the office and well, I hope I'll manage to update this all a little.
The reason you haven't heard from me for so long is that i was once again ill. So I sepnt last week at home, reading three books that Lisa gave to me (she saved me otherwise I'd have died of boredom). Now I am also a master in playing "Arcade" on my new cell phone..yes I made it up to level 24 withinthe first morning of discovering this stupid game. Well, I ahve a TV, but being sick i get headaches watching it, besides I undertsand only 1/5 of the programms (who are hten in either English or French). So much for that, I am back to normal strength now but my boyfried is starting to get sick now....)-: (I just remember the discussion "no I shouldn't kiss you, you'll catch my cold" he "I never get sick" well well well).
My flatmate Julie is also back from her trip to Zakopane. now her friend from France is visiting and university starts for me tomorrow. We'll see how I like the "Introduction to Gender studies", if I remember the title correctly. Today, I 'll have another Polish lesson, unfortunately missed two while staying at home, but well.
So far so good, life goes on (except for that my brother is in hospital...hmm no his life won't end but I hope he'll get better soon) pa pa

Everything about Katowice

So , here’s the part about Katowice. Lisa and I went to visit Ricarda (who’s a volunteer from Salzburg, Austria) in Katowice. Yes, me under the domination of Austrians…it was very nice, they made want to visit Austria and I am definitely going to do so when I am back in Germany. Since Ricarda had been sick the week before we came, she was not up to the top of her strength yet so after arriving and getting home (she lies in so called “Manhattan” because of the skyline of the high apartment buildings) we just ate, chatted and watched a movie. Ok, I was tired and fell asleep watching it, but that’s a different story. In Ricarda’s apartment there’s a big living room with two couches and Lisa and I had enough space to sleep. Saturday morning we woke and ate late and went per bus to the city center. Actually Katowice is not as ugly as it is said to be. Though I have to admit that the black houses (from coal dust and all the pollution from mining) are not soo nice and really look like they need some clean up. We had lunch in a very nice vegetarian bar which’s walls were painted nicely and the food was very yummy. Since I was looking for some cheap children’s instrument and we still had lots of time, we went to a nearby mall (huge). There we discovered “Bravo”, a stupid German teenager magazine that we were not allowed to read when we were 12 or 14 years old. Of course we had to buy it, most importantly to read the “Foto love story” on the last pages. You can imagine us at night, sitting on the couch equipped with hot tea, chocolate and gummy bears, having a blast cause we the articles are so stupid. Well in the mall we discovered as well, that “US5”, some as well stupid German-American casting boy band was going to come to Katowice for promotion of their next album. Unfortunately it was not on the weekend when Lisa and I were there, so we did not get a chance to see them )-: what was also sad, was the fact that on my way home I lost one pair of socks I had bought there. Anyway after having “read” or rather looked at the articles from Bravo (I know now why Bill,17 yrs, androgen lead singer of “Tokio Hotel” has not kissed any girl for two years and why “Richy” from “US5” was forced by his parents to take a break from being a “rock star”) we watched two Austrian crime stories. Believe me, I am big fan now and I definitely need to visit Salzburg (for the beauty and Ricarda) and Innsbruck (for snowboarding and Lisa and Camilla) . On Sunday morning Lisa and I went to Krakow because it is only 1,5 hours by train and since we were already in the area, we wanted to make as much use of it as possible. In Krakow we met Maria, a very friendly and funny volunteer from Norway and she showed us the city. It was soooo sold though that we did not feel like staying outside the whole time so we drank hot chocolate in “Alchimist” in the former Jewish quarter and bought on the market there kitchen towels…later Lisa and I went to the castle “Wawel” which was unfortunately already closing so we could not visit the exhibitions inside. Then we spent some time in a milk bar eating “Pierrogi“ and mushroom/noodle soup. On our journey back to Lodz we almost froze cause the train compartments were not heated properly (that often happens with PKP trains, they’re either totally hot or cold or the lights go on and off but it’s not too bad for the low price you pay).

sorry for being so late

and for what I'll do now, namely not report on the events in a chronological order. But this has a reason...I should first tell you about my trip to Katowice/Krakow last weekend but the pictures for that part are on my computer at home and not here in the office where I am wiritng from right now. So this will be about the last week. AFter having returned pretty tired from my trip over the weekend, I had to prepare the meeting with the children and my CCC for monday afternoon. Then all went well although the kids were rather...let's say...louder than usually.

(by the way, this is me on Halloween)

On Tuesday night Camilla and Lisa invietd me over to their nice appartment and we watched "Ice princes", the heartbreaking story of a physiks crack who becomes a professional figure skater (Disney movie...). Yepp very entertaining. We also had Polish lessons and I gave my first (paid) german lesson. It was fun and easy cause my student (Kamil, if I remember right 23 years old) is nice and polite (he kisse dmy ahnd when he came in, that's the third time this has happened to me in Poland).Additionaly he gave me nice cholaltes.Well, polish gentleman.

The next day it was the BIG day. I rose and shone at 6.30, made stamps out of potatoes for printing little hearts and "love" and flowers on VALENTINES CARDS . Yes THEday of LOVE. Well, since i had to take care of the children, I palnned to make those cards with them, for their moms. At 11 I ahd tandem wiht Malgosia nd then I wen tot Tesco to buy paint and brushes and not to forget cookies (wihtout chocolate for the kids). When I got finally home, it was 2.15 pl and my POlish lessons started at 2.30...uups I had to hurry and make some sandwiches to go and then ran to the tram and actuallly caught one...POlsih lessons till 4 pm then per tram to our office to pick up some paper for the cards and then per tram to the northern part of Lodz again, to see the kids. You can imagine how dirty they were after having printed and painted. Then I got home and more or less cleaned my room and tried meanwhile to check emails and studivz. Studivz is a german opperated homepage for all the universities in Gemrna speaking countires and even if you're not enrolle dyet, you can sign up for an account and search people and freinds of your friends and you finally egt addicetd to it! But the problem was that our internet is sooo slow, there's something wrong with it so I couldn't open allthe pages and it really bugged me.Later my boyfriend came over and we finished almost all my food suplies..hmm so I went grocery shoppin this morning before goign to work. ANd now I am here... Julie, my dear French flatmate and Camilla

Kids, stress and happiness

What I did: So, I spent a busy week since last thursday when I put loaded up al the pics.(I hope you like them).I've been three times now to the women's shelter and it was always fun but very tireing. Yetserday we made salt dough do model things with and fortunalty I ahd help from a POlish sociology student who could of course do all the necessraz communication with teh kids. Since they were not allowed to leave the room (their moms had a meeting) I couldn't have managed without her help.As for now I am going there twice a week. Uhh and it takes me soo long to prepare the workshops..
Soemthing to recommend: A very good movie which I saw on sunday was *the lives of others* (Das Leben der Anderen) which is curretnly in the movie theaters here in Poland and now nominated for the Oscar. I wrote a review about it but ti was too short to put it online so I'll do some changes and then it might get published on the 'professional journalist' part of my host oranization's homepage.Somehting else you should try: Melt choclate and pour it over split bananas, drink cacao and watch Basic instinct with your flatmates. Then decide to not go out and rather watch the goodfather drinking beer and eating two huge pizza that you ordered for 12 Euro. The you'll surely be happy.
Who I met: Yesterday I met with my tandem partner who also writes for a 'local adminitsration news paper' and she is doing an article on EVS now, so she took some pictures of all of us during POlish lessons. On Tuesday we had a meeting for a new projekt in our organiyation called 'europejka' (European woman, Europaeerin) that I am supposed to manage the homepage for. Right now ther's nothing to publish yet though.I aslo met my boyfriend...
Where to go to: To Katowice cause it is said to be even uglier than Łodz and I will see if it true when I go there tomorrow. Over the weekend Lisa and I will visit Ricarda there,a very very nice Austrian girl and on Sundaywe plan to see something of Krakow. Well well, those are the plans. My plan for right now is to undertand my new blogg account that I was forced to upgrade against my will. ANd I want to finaly finaly finish my report about the Future job. So good luck to me then (-:

Here're some more pics from last weekend: Eating Pizza in Chelmno. From left to right:
Camilla (Austrian EVS in Lodz) Inga (German, EVS in Krakow) me, Joachim (Austrian,EVS in Bydgoszcz)and Kati (Hungarian EVS in Gdansk)
The next picture shows one of the approximately 6 churches in little Chelmno



A bright winter day in Chelmno. View from the town wall out of the city

ahhh children

I am a little scared and excited because tomorrow I'll go to a women's shelter to offer them my help wherever they need me.Since I am lacking some kind of practical and efficient task in my project, my coordinator Malgosia suggested going to to a women;s shelter of which Bogna our organization's president, knows the director. The most probabale work that I'll do there is taking care of children to relief the mothers a little bit.This would be an activity taht makes sense, and lays within my ability.ON one hand I want to helpt he mothers and on the other hand I want to create a nice warm atmosphere for the children and give them an opportunity to relax and think about thomething else then their difficult situation.Still I am very excited because I haven't "worked" with children so far especially not alone and with a language barrier.I hope that the shelter will accept my offer and that some children show up tomorrow. For the "workshop" I prepared some Mandalas (see above, when I was younger I loved colouring them) and English children's songs (Itsy bitsy spider;when you're happy and you know it...)I loved looking them up online because in my school I had English lessons form first grade and of course we sang a lot of those songs that I am now trying to remember. It's very nice. Now I ahve to buy some coloured pens for tomorrow. Lter we have a meeting to prepare our next Multi Cultural Evening . The topic this time is "Music" so I chose some Germna songs which I very much like (Freundeskreis, Blumentopf, CLueso, Patrice, Jan Delay and Joy Denalane).

Please

I don't know what i do wrong, I don't remember taking any magic drinks but boys seem to like me. Well that itself is nothing to complain about, but I do have a boy friend and I don't need nor want a second one. Moreover guys keep talking to me of which I don't even know who they are!So please, there are so many other women in the world who have beautyful daughters, leave me alone.I hate to turn people down, sp spare me this.
So much for the dramatic part. Today I'll have POlish lessons again (clothing hmm don't really remember anything except for szlafrok (bathrobe), because it derives from German (Schlafrock)). Then we have a meeting with all the (new) people from kobiety.lodz.pl and at night I'll sleep over at my mentor's own new appartment.

Bydgoszcz, I don't love you, but Chelmno is sooo cute

So the last weekend was spent in Bydgoszcz (Bromberg in German), visiting Judith and Joachim (two Austrian Volunteers).We were six people because Camilla and Inga (German from Krakow) and Kati (Hungarian from Gdansk) were also there. But thy had aleady arrived the day before I came. When I came to Bydgoszcz at Friday night (after a long rather disturbing train journey because the light in our waggon often went out and I could not keept reading even though my book was very gripping...)they picked me up from the train station and we all went to eat nalezniki (pan cakes). Hmmm I had some filled with banana and chocolate. Very Jammy (and cheap, about 1,50 Euro) Somehow our plans to go out that night vanished because everyone was very tired. Judith and Joachim live in a students dorm which is situated quiet far away from the city center in the middle of nowhere. The positiv part is that you are rtight next to nature but if you want to buy some fresh bread for example, you have to take a bus or walk pretty long.
Almost whole saturday was spent in Chelmno.This little town (23.000) is located north east of Bydgoszcz and it took us about an hour to get there by bus. Now, this is not as far as it may sound liek becasue we are here in Poalnd thus the buses don't drive faster than 40 kmh because the streets are pretty bad, and narrow, and it had snowed...It was sooo nice driving through snowy landscape sometimes you see a couple of houses, then the bus stops somewhere and people get off and you wonder where the heck they live...nothing around....
Chelmno itself does not offer any sensation attractions except for the fact that there are many nice small coloured houses,at least 4 churches a very beautiful town hall that hosts a museum now and two pizzerias, a milk bar that closes too early and a beautyful view over the Wisla (Weichsel) because the town is located on a hill and you have nice views from every side you take a look into the landscape.
Sunday we spent eating tons of noodle salad and Inga had to leave to get her train to Krakow (8 hours..)then we went to see Bydgoszcz what is actually not as ugly as they said before. It is even nicer than Lodz (-: in a way that they ahve a canal and small bridges and nice houses (painted) etc.But I still like Lodz better.


It was very nice seing the others again, I know them all from our first camp in September in WArszawa. We talked about our projects and made of course new plans to visit each other. Now I also have a spoon and coffee from Joachim and Judith for Inga and Ricarda, they forgot it (respectively Ricarrda gave the spoon to Joachim on CHristmas) and since I plan to go to Katowice/Krakow in two weeks,I'll hand out those items (-:
Camilla fortunately took her USB stick with her, so now she has plenty of pictures and new music and you will also proffit from that since I'll put many pictures on this site as son as I copyed them

and it doesn't stop

it snows and snows and snows and doesn't stop. And it gets colder and colder and freezinglt cold (like -13 C at night) puhh last tinght was the first time that I left my heater switched on during the whole day and night. Finally the City of Lodz managged to clean up some of the streets so traffic now is a lot better than yesterday when I had to wait for more than half an hour (might not seem that long but it was cold) for one of the possible 2 busses or 3 trams that I can take. Today everything is better (-: (at least I hope so, I', still at the office and haven't started my way home yet). I learned a little bit about how one creates a homepage today. Konrad showed me and soon I'll have the responsibility for a new part of our organisation's homepage which has still to be created or lets say "filled" by me (-:

Torun, I love you

ok, you might think I overreact but Torun is a wonderful city.It is not only beautyful and cozy and has many nice pubs but I experienced a very very very nice Mid-Term-Meeting there. We were only 9 volunteers of whom I had already known three from the arrival training in Warsaw. We stayed in "Hotelik w centum", a small hotel close to the city center with very friendly staff and good food.The only negative thing about it is the decoartion of the cafeteria with sparyed wallpaintings from "Grease", pretty much kitsch! Since I couldn't find it after having arrived, I asked two Police guards who escorted me then to the hotel. So again a nice experience with Polish officials (-: The seminar itself consisted of many "Psyche games" as I call them but this is not to be understood in neagtive terms.It helped me a lot to get things straight baout my project and I got the new mo9tivation I needed to continue with a better feeling. During the five days we were also told a story about "finding our "cheese""(in the story a couple of mice and little human beeings search for Chees stations etc in their own peculiar ways...it's from a manager book, something like, "how to become a good manager in 30 minutes" but the story is great!), and we made many jokes about this term. EAch night we went out and surprisingly Torun is not more expensive than Lodz (as I had assumednecasue it really is a tourist city). We even found a pub called NRD (DDR for the Germans and ..hmm...let me get my dictionary:GDR in English) which was decorated wiht old German stuff from the 60s.
Since Torun is the capital of Pierniki (ginger bread) in Poland, there are many shops that only sell many many different kinds of ginger bread.With some volunteers I schedueld meetings during the next week, e.g. I'll be in Bydgoszcz next weekend and later in Katowice.
On monday night I came back and got picked up by my boy friend,I ahd to go grocery shopping because my fridge was pretty much empty (except for butter and pickles)but since I am in Poland this was no problem because my grocery stores are opened till 9 pm.Yesterday it started getting colder and today it snows! It is very small, light snow that is blown around a lot before touching the ground because it is so windy. And since my windows are stil so clean from cleaing them before i left for Torun, I can see all teh snow storm even better (-; and I feel very cozy cause I ahve hot tea here next to my computer. This morning I read a lot about Asian-, Arab-, Latin- and Native Americans on US TV but I haven't showered yet so I'll go and get myself ready because I still need to buy some diary products and noodles. Later on in the afternoon I'll have finals for my university course and then a "promotion" meeting for EVS. By the way: a postcard of Torun is plaeced on my window sill in front of me, so I am and will be reminded of the good times I had there (-:

Partia kobiet and CCC

Yesterday (sunday) I went to this meeting of Manuela Gretkowska who is founding the first women's party (partia kobiet) in Poland. Unexpectatly there were so many women and men that half of the people had to stand becasue there weren't enough seats for everyone. Well, let's say I undertsood 20% of what she said, but it was still interesting. And I had comprehension assistance from my Coodiantor Malgosia who translated from time to time. Well, if youw ant to know more, you can visit their website www.partiakobiet.org but I have to say that I didn't manage to enter it because my computer here is too slow.

In the afternoon I went to Manufaktura (that is the biggest shopping mal in Eastern Europe). Yesterday was a national charity day and all the bigger towns in Poland organize benefit concerts. Meanwhile youths go around with collecting boxes to get donations from the people. After donating you receive a heart sticker that you should stick somewhere visibly so they will recognize you as a donator and not as k you for money again.So I watched some concerts from different local bands and then we (Julie, Eliza and her brother) went home to eat sth because it was pretty cold and windy yesterday. Later Julie left to go to France for one week and I prepared some things for the CCC that will take place today. So now I should be going to copy a songtext from Vitamin C (Graduation song),our topic today will be "Education" and I also have to get a member card from a video rental place because I want to show parts of the movie "Dead poet's society" which I still don't have yet. In two days I'll be off to Torun till then there's still enough work left to do. p://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/4523/3772/320/298783/wielka%20orjiestra.jpg" border="0" alt="" />

After some days of pessimism I feel better now.I am still working on the report about my survey and it took me quiet some time to finally find certain options for the computer program SPSS that I am using for evaluation. Although I am still looking for one thing (dichotomy labels...) to get certain figures calculated almost all the crosstables I needed are done. Today the weather is somewhat more promising than the days before there's sunshine in my room and the only thing that buggs me is the feeling that I get sick again. Seriously I can't stand being ill anymore I've had enough and I don't understand why I am here in Poland all the time like a weak flower...ah yesterday I got news from my Coordinator that I'll be going to Torun for the Midterm meeting already in about one week, from the 17th/22nd of January. So surprisingly I'll be gone then normaly the midterm meetings take place in the end of February or March.On the hompage of the Polish national agency of EVS I looked up the names of our "tutors" there and I know one guy who did the arrival training with me in Warszawa in September.Ahh I am scared though becausee it will be in Polish and I fear the other Volunteers who'll undertsand and speak better POlish than me )-: hopefully I'll get along there.....
After having finished cleaning our appartment and having done my homework I am now off to Polish lessons.

undefined This is a picture from Wigilia before I left for Germany. Our three Swiety Mikolaj before distributing the presents