My first run-in with ass&^#(s who drive gas-guzzlers and harass cyclists yesterday:
I was by the Metrodome and every intersection was packed with pedestrians going to the Vikings game. This passenger in a big-ass SUV was behind me at the light, and kept yelling, "get out of the f%$^*ing road!" I thought he meant the pedestrians, because the traffic was REALLY slow as the cops were stopping everyone to let them cross.
But then, "roads aren't for 10-speeds, get out of the f&$%ing road!" Classy, huh? I was in the BIKE LANE on 11th, preventing him from using it to pull up tight and jackrabbit around the right side of the queue at the green (in order to zoom up to the next red light).
When the light turned green I left him in the dust, three signals behind me, to be precise. I wanted to say something, but 1) couldn't think of anything that didn't involve profanity; and 2) cyclists really shouldn't argue with foul-mouthed idiots behind the wheels of mega-ton killer vehicles. I wanted to say, "we'll see who owns the road when gas is $7 a gallon, asshole." But I pedaled on in silence.
Tomorrow is Friday already! Where did this week go? I've finished my syllabus, worked a little on my research project, worked a little more on my dissertation project, had dinner with a colleague and with my hunny for our anniversary, and have gone to a couple of meetings.
I am reading "All the Kings Men," which I bought at the English-language bookstore in Krakow. It's terrific! - why has no one raved about it before? It reminds me of my old work life and therefore of the outline for a novel that I once wrote (the outline, not the novel). THAT life would seem very far in the distant past, except that I had dinner with a former colleague on Tuesday, and another colleague is coming this weekend, so it's a little trip down memory lane.
At some point I have to show up at the place where I teach, and get some keys and a clue about how to operate the AV in the classroom to which I'm assigned. Maybe early next week....
It's great to be home! I have no commitments this weekend, so I can surf and read mail without any regard whatsoever to the number of minutes that have passed.
(One subsidiary insight from learning Polish in Krakow was how much time I spend on the Internet every day. When you have to vie with 160 others for the use of 12 computers, and time costs about $1 an hour, you really learn how quickly an hour goes, and how to prioritize your surfing.)
Anyways. Our house looks beautiful after 3.5 days of sustained cleaning. If only there were tenants! - but I'm not going to worry about that just yet. It's wearying to think of having to do the same thing all over again in a year, but for the first time in awhile, I'm really juiced about moving back there. I suppose that seeing the house totally empty and clean (for the first time since I left it) is a help. It was hard to think of it as "our house" when it was full of other people's stuff.
It looks like a beautiful day - for a trip to the farmers' market, possibly a bike ride (do I still know how? I haven't even driven in a month!) and oh yes, some work to finish my syllabus and get back in the swing of finishing my summer research assignment.
Well, the language school experience is winding down. Yesterday was our written final (a complete train wreck) and today is the oral final. I expect even more of a train wreck.
The basic problem is that unless I study for about 10 hours every day, I can't retain the volumes of vocabulary and idioms that we "learn" in class. It takes me hours and hours to learn new words, and I just haven't been willing to spend that amount of time. Sadly, I'll remember that we were "taught" the word, and sometimes I can even generate a first letter or sound, but that's about it.
I hope that's not evidence of my aging brain and its diminution of cognitive ability.
After my exam this morning, I plan to either walk around our neighborhood gathering my notes and information about the built form of the communist ideology. Or, if the weather is really nice, I'll go to the Old Town and stroll about, possibly have a drink in a cafe. It's been a very dry three weeks.
Then tomorrow is our river ride and then I think the farewell party (the faculty and staff are oddly ceremonial and sentimental about such things, even though they must do this several times every summer, year after year). Then Sunday is for souvenirs and packing, and I leave for Paris (!) before the crack of dawn on Monday.
Alas, with only a three-hour layover, there won't be time for sightseeing there.
Summing up: it was good overall that I came to this program. I showed myself that I could manage alone in a foreign country. I was way beyond my comfort zone, and handled it. I feel I have made some major potential breakthroughs in exploring dissertation topics and focusing on the kinds of questions that can be asked. I enjoyed the economics course (even though economics in my view is an extremely limited epistemology that claims far more than it delivers) and have lots of resources to investigate this fall.
But I have to say honestly that I didn't get a huge amount out of the language course itself. The grammar was entirely review, and thus pretty boring, whereas I had huge difficulties understanding the spoken language, and a lot of difficulty responding even when I could understand.
If I hadn't come, I would have regretted it and wondered what it would have been like.
I really have to think about how to manage the language work this coming academic year, what is realistic, and how that all squares with dissertation work.
Ok, I have about 5 minutes to write before I am off to my "Economy of Poland" class. It's terrific, really, and the professor is actually interested in my dissertation research. Usually what we talk about in class is for practice only and no one really cares about the substance of it, so this was a pleasant surprise.
Otherwise, there is little to report. I have class every day from 8:30 to 1:30 and then from 3 to 4:30. In between there are meals, a couple of minutes on the internet and the various errands of daily life: buying postcards, washing clothes, cashing up.
Speaking of postcards: I went into the little post office here in the dormitory and the guy asked "fast or slow?" Apparently we didn't communicate the "right" answer in March in Warsaw, and our postcards from there went by, I dunno, the Turtle Post.
I am planning to hit some sights this weekend and also we have the organized trip to the salt mine. Full report later.
I will probably get cut off while writing this. 30 minutes costs about 60 cents, and boy does it disappear in the blink of an eye. Still - what a miracle of technology that I can sit in a hot room in the middle of Europe and add to my blog in the middle of MN.
We saw a film called Czesc Tereska tonight (2002). The director's name escapes me this minute, but the commentator called him a part of the "cinema of moral anxiety." Along with Kieslowski.
This film was about Gen X'ers in Warsaw (oops, the one minute warning) and their lives of progressive crime and degradation. More later.