Clockwork Orange

Glitch in the Matrix

2011-12-29T14:07:00.002Z

I knew there would come a day when I wish I'd be one of those bloggers who don't have some kind of internal blocking mechanism, which doesn't allow me to write the whole truth, the whole story. I wish I was an online extravert with ease to type the words down and let it all out. To draw a picture, describe the feelings, vent the anger, maybe come to some kind of a conclusion.

I cannot do that. Even if I tried I wouldn't have a clue how to put it down in words, even in my mother tongue. Or maybe especially in my mother tongue. For a person that has a flare for writing at occasions like this I'm completely lost for words. Despite the fact, that I now yearn for a word in return, for a sparkle of understanding, solidarity, a good thought or a simple - it's going to be fine.

So maybe I will have to just say it to myself and make an effort to believe it. Cause when you believe strong enough, things happen.
A friend once told me that superwomen do not have problems. Their problems are just a glitch in the matrix. I know I've seen the black cat so many times that I couldn't lie to myself anymore, but, please, let it just be another glitch in the matrix, a tiny change that will straighten the wrinkles, correct the mistakes, make this place a better one. Right now it's really dark and scary.

Challenges

2011-11-15T16:17:00.001Z

I'm so terribly, awfully sorry. I really am. I do feel so, so guilty. And I promise I won't ever leave this place again for so long (but don't quote me on that).

I think I have written it before - if I'm not here it usually means I'm busy. Terribly busy. I am, I promise!

First of all, there's work. It's kind of like starting a new project and that's a lot going on and there's a lot to be taken care of. There's a new boss, and new co-workers and new office. So it feels a bit like a new job altogether. Despite the fact that I'm really doing the same thing, just more of it. So, really no more boring lunch breaks to be spent writing. Nope. No lunch breaks in fact, most of the time.

Then, as you already know me, there's a lot of projects outside of work. The writing group's blooming and I've not only been busy writing but also networking for future projects. It takes a lot of time, it does. But then it makes me burst with pride when I get to collate a brochure containing our best pieces of writing. It's exciting, even though a lot of stuff is not of an overwhelmingly great value. But hey, we are not professionals. Though we work hard and we even are organising ourselves some workshops. No joke.

Then there are side-projects when I'm giving other people a hand. Like this one. (scroll down to read the English version). And this project inspired me to write today's post (with a very long introduction and much shorter explication).

I used to be almost clinically shy (if there is a concept of shyness as a disease). Not many people could say, cause I probably seemed quite bubbly - but I was shy, extremely shy. So shy that I would avoid doing certain things if they involved: public speaking, ice-breaking, small talk, meeting too many new people, doing anything that required me to go anywhere on my own. I'm not joking here. I was even terrified of the mere idea of going to the university in a different city. I used to write scripts for high school plays but gladly avoided playing any of the parts, save for the ones who had no more than one line to say. I was a bit of a nerd. And sociopath in some ways. And then, I surprised even myself by choosing to study a subject that required me to gain people's skills - and as quickly as possible. That's when my programme of challenging myself dates back to.

I can't say that I've possessed all those skills by now, but at least I've learnt very well how to give the impression that I have, which is almost as good. Nobody knows when I'm nervous (which simply makes me less nervous), nobody knows I have no interest in small talk (well you do - cause I told you), nobody knows I feel a bit embarrassed if I'm the only person who doesn't know anybody (until I say that, which is a very good way to actually stop felling that). But there's still skills I haven't mastered and probably even avoided mastering. Public speaking is one of them. Or should I actually say - public reading. Especially in English. I can speak in public well enough. I've hosted meetings and did quite all right, if I was well-prepared (and I was, cause I'm a bloody perfectionist). But reading is a completely different thing, and if there's a microphone included, it scares the hell out of me.

So when I've been asked to give a talk (a short one, mind you) about the poet who inspired the spectacle I've mentioned above, it was a challenge. Preparing the talk was not. The fact that most likely I'd have to read it was (cause with my poor memory I could never learn two pages by heart - and anyway if I tried to then say them from memory it might end up in a disaster). And man, wasn't that terrifying. Friends say it went well, but you know, I'm a perfectionist. Sounding like a breathless squeaky-voiced teen is not well at all. I probably need classes if I'm going to do it more often, I have absolutely no clue how to breathe when I'm reading. And my accent gets so awful that I can't even listen to myself. Shoot me now.

But well. I did it. Twice in Polish and twice in English.The fourth time it sounded much better than the first time, even though my mouth was dry not only because I was so bloody nervous, but because I've had one gin and tonic too many on Saturday night. I did it, I challenged myself and I'm proud. I might consider doing it again, but public speaking classes might need to be attended. Or at least I might ask some of my performing arts friends to teach me how to breathe.

Cause, you know, that might be the trick. And I just need to learn a new one.

If I could change the way I live my life today I wouldn’t change a single thing

2011-10-12T21:07:00.000+01:00

I've read Miss Smidge's latest post and thought - hang on, I wrote something similar once, haven't I?

And I have a year ago. It was supposed to be a guest post, but due to a technical glitch it never saw a light of day. So I decided to re-write a bit and post here. Enjoy!

If you're new to this blog or haven't yet read the unfinished whole story, you might not know that I come from Poland and moved to the UK from Warsaw 6 and a half years ago, first to the flat East Anglia and a year later to the land of bagpipes, haggis, haar and whiskey.

Over these years I’ve learnt a lot. I know my weight in stones and pounds (9 stone sounds far slimmer than 57 kilos). I’ve learnt that it’s not a good idea to call someone from Glasgow a bawbag. And I’ve learnt that long distance relationships are not made to last. Cause, you see, when I was leaving Warsaw I left my fiance behind. Yes, someone who actually bent his knee and asked me to marry him. In front of a dozen of our friends in a pub after beating me in darts and offering me a cheap stone, but still. 9 months after moving to the UK I gave the ring back and decided to move to Edinburgh with someone else (and yes, we’re still together).

I never looked back.

Not until a year ago, when my sister sent me a parcel full of memories. Some of my favourite books, pictures from uni (when I graduated digital cameras were not trendy yet and mobile phones didn’t even have LCD screens - no, not because Poland was so undeveloped and yes I’m that old), some of my teenage poetry and the diaries I wrote between high school and a third year of uni.

It was a bizarre meeting: thirty-something me meeting the teenage to very early twenties me. Like tearing up the envelope and reading the letter that I wrote to myself ages ago. I’ve realised how different my life is to what I thought it would be. First comes cohabitating rather than being properly married in a Roman Catholic ceremony. Living abroad was neither on my list back then, even though I was relatively fluent in English. I was supposed to pursue a career in journalism, PR or advertising in Warsaw, marry a nice boy, possibly from my hometown (my step-mum had a few preferred candidates), so that we could spent Christmas with my and his parents; and earn enough to afford 2 bedroom flat in Warsaw (instead of a studio I was living in) and a nanny for our future kids. None of it happened, but it does not disappoint me the slightest. My life now is much more interesting than it would be if I stayed in Warsaw and even managed to have a career I dreamed of. My best friend from uni told me a couple of years ago: are you kiddin’ me? You actually work at the university in a foreign country - none of us has managed that!

Cause, you see, when I was in my early twenties I was insecure and had no self-confidence. I moved to Warsaw from a small town in south-east Poland and thought most of my new friends were so much cleverer than me and the girls were so much prettier. I must have suffered from BDD cause when I look at the old pictures now I don’t seem uglier then other girls. Actually on some photos I look much better.

Yes, this suicide blonde is me at the uni

And with regards to not being clever enough - I still managed to graduate with very good standards which speaks for itself. I guess over the years I’ve turned from an insecure and wild girl into a self-confident and determined woman. I don’t know exactly how it happened. It took time and distance. Moving abroad and starting life anew might be hard, but if you succeed, it gives you a gigantic boost of confidence.

So if I was to ask myself if, looking back, I had any regrets, the answer would be, without a shadow of a doubt: no. No regrets whatsoever. I’m exactly where I should be.
And as I commented on Miss Smidge's blog: my list of priorities has changed. Getting married and having kids is not there anymore. Buying a house has moved down the list and writing a book has moved to the top, ex aequo with – being happy with who you’re with and what you’ve got.

Getting a cat is there somewhere too, but can’t decide whether it should go up.

Not funny

2011-10-10T12:31:00.000+01:00

I must be a miserable cow, no joke.

I've had a bad weekend. You know. BAD. I had a friend who used to say: I have an existential blues - and that explained it all. Well, in my case it wasn't that BAD, it was more of a physical thing, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, it got me stuck to the sofa, cause after I managed to drag two huuuge bags of old clothes to the local charity shop (and bring back four books) I could not move any of my limbs anymore. Or I just preferred not to.
So I ended up napping, and lying and napping some more. I've tried reading, but it made me sleepy, so I started watching films instead. And to keep the blues away, some of my choices, were, obviously, comedies. And romantic comedies.

I've watched three of them and they did make me smile (and even chuckle) at times. But did they make me burst out with uncontrollable laughter? Laugh out loud? Roll on the floor laughing? Piss myself? Luckily in the last case - no. But they should have. They were comedies after all.

So either they were not funny or I'm a miserable cow with no sense of humour. I'd like to think that the first sentence is true. I mean they perhaps are funny to a different audiences. Maybe I'm too European. Maybe too continental. Maybe I'm too subtle (oh, yes, I bet). Whatever's the case, American comedies do not make me laugh. OK, that perhaps is too general a statement. American comedies haven't made me laugh RECENTLY.

Oh, bring my Monty Python back.

PS. And, why, oh why, has this song now stuck in my head?

PPS: Yes, I promise September Sundries will be published soon. Not much happened, I had a flue most of September.

The world before and the world after

2011-09-11T23:07:00.000+01:00

I have opened my diary and read the chaotic note I wrote in the evening of September 11th 2001. When we were still not sure of what really happened and what the implications would be.

I remember that day well. I was spending last days of my holidays before coming back to uni in my home town, running errands with my sister. We came back home and her husband told us.

Then there were minutes, hours in front of TV, watching as the events unfolded. There phone calls, and text messages and anxiety - a friend of mine was in NY at that time. There were news websites: Reuters, CNN in plain text.

A few days later I noted in my diary that according to the papers, from then on there would be the world before 9/11 and after.

Francis Fukuyama says (here) that on that day the world has not changed as much as we thought back then. From historical point of view it possibly hasn't. But from the individual point of view of those who lived through that day, whether on a ferry to Staten Island or in front of their TVs, the world has been torn down and collapsed just as the two towers did.

The day before I was writing an e-mail to a friend. It was all about a young woman's doubts cause she met this man and she was wondering if he was the one (he wasn't). On the evening of 11th September those doubts didn't matter anymore. There was more after 9/11, closer to home: Madrid, London, Glasgow. The world has changed not only because of the tighter security measures at the airports. A few days after the attacks I was on the bus in Warsaw reading the instructions of what to do in case of terrorists attack.
After Glasgow I wrote a post that my compassion gene has been removed. And I'm still not sure I got it back.

Dryburgh Abbey

2011-09-09T11:32:00.000+01:00

This week my work took me to Dryburgh Abbey Hotel in the Scottish Borders, adjacent to the ruins of the Abbey itself. It was raining most of the time, but I managed to steal a moment of sunshine and walk to the Abbey.

Rain drops on my window

The ruins of the Abbey

Sir Walter Scott's resting place

River Tweed

August sundries

2011-09-05T13:33:00.000+01:00

Now, that's a challenge. August is always so freaking busy that it'll probably take me quite a long time to remember what the hell I've been doing all month.

1. I wrote a hypertext short story. And I'll need to do it again, cause it is such a cool idea.

2. I got myself a smartphone - finally - and got addicted to Foursquare. Which is just so lame.

3. I got id'ed when I was buying superglue. No joke. a) superglue? really? b) id'ed? how old do you think I am?

4. I've been to two b-day parties - mine (which was a double one, and you can read about it below) and friend's few weeks later. Fun was had both times.

5. I missed my ex-assistant more than ever this month. But the advert's out, I might be getting a new one really soon!

6. I met Mich and Miss P! And had a drink with them and then guided them to their Fringe venue.

7. I had additional b-day drinks, cause I'm vain. It turned out to be girls evening and it was really lovely.

8. I was late to a meeting with a person who might get a Nobel prize one day, but I still managed to ask my question (read one of his best known poems here).

9. I went to see Lynch and General Nil. I didn't like the first one, liked the second one, but unless you're an expert on the twentieth century history of Poland, don't watch it.

10. I saw three shows at the Fringe: The Inquisitor (very good, indeed, but I'm biased, since I know one of the performers), Turandot (mind-blowing, but I might be biased, since I was invited to see the show by people who told me they had liked a meeting I hosted) and I, The Dictator (quite fantastic, but I might be biased again, cause it turns out I had had a drink with actor who performed it).

11. I said bye to two of my favourite Polish actors in Scotland, who left for new adventures in Wrocław and that made me really sad. Who is going to read our works now?

12. I also said bye to my friend's tearoom? Where are we going to read our works and organise our meetings now?

13. I got proud and angry at the same event - a meeting with this man. Not the one at the BookFest (which was quite hilarious and I really enjoyed it), but a meeting organised by us for the Polish community two days before. I co-hosted it with a friend and (modesty aside) I think it was really good. I also ended up listening to the interview he gave to a new friend.

14. Had a cuppa with a friend and mentor and her friends after watching I, The Dictator - that was pretty special.

15. Got upset, angry and then better. Getting better involved eating too many chocolate bars and now I'm looking like a muffin.

And that's about it, I think.

Proud to be a blogger

2011-08-31T16:40:00.000+01:00

It's International Blog Day today. Did you know?

It's tough not to reflect on the last seven years -- cause it's just over seven years since I started my very first blog. I can't imagine not having one anymore (not to mention numerous blogs). Just like I couldn't imagine not having a thick notebook back when I was a teenager, that I would fill with notes in the evenings.

But blog is not just an internet diary and my web space. It's also a place where I meet people. And it's something that literally change my life. If not for my blogs, I would never meet Polish Blog of the Year 2010 winner and then end up co-hosting an event with him, during which we were both firing questions at this man.

But it's not just about showing off with other bloggers. It's also about meeting true friends. Thanks to blogging I've met people just like. My blog's not just a virtual space anymore, it moves to my real life, too, more and more often. And in the real life it turns out that we, bloggers, know each other from between our lines better than we'd expect.

I have learnt a lot reading other people's blogs and writing mine. Our world nowadays is so busy, blogs have been a place to stop, take a breath and reflect. I didn't expect at all what wonderful journey was ahead of me, when I was picking my first blog template in the summer of 2004.

Seven years and many blogs later I'm proud to be calling myself a blogger.

Sisters are doin' it for themselves

2011-08-24T10:45:00.000+01:00

When people ask you what you hate most in the world - what do you say? Long winter nights? Solitude? Being misunderstood? Other people being disrespectful?

I've just realised what I hate most. I've been angry, hurt and shocked twice recently and both times for the very same reason. Because someone was being sexist.
I loathe people who disrespect me because I'm a woman. I hate them with all my heart and I am not afraid to admit it. Go on now, tell me it's my feminine emotions!

I want to make things clear. If being a feminist means that I'm for respecting people for who they are and what they do irrespectively of their gender, than I'm a feminist. I do believe we differ, there are men and women and lots of people who consider themselves between those two genders. And probably a lot of people who identify with none. I couldn't care less. Gender does not matter all that much. If you're a good person, talented, skilled, hard-working, deserving my respect - you have it. If you're a bitch, you don't, no female solidarity here. I don't believe we are equal (although we probably are born equal), but I strongly believe we should be treated equally. If you're fantastic you get a praise, if you screw up, be ready for criticism.

The world is unfair, but there's no point making it worse. If there's nothing else we can offer each other, let's at least be fair to one another. Disregard can be a form of disrespect, too. I'm not a child, I don't need prizes. But if I work hard, do my best and achieve success, what I need is some form of acknowledgement. And what I get is at best complete and utter silence. Harsh critique if I'm unlucky. Because I'm a woman and I don't know what I'm doing. I'm out of line and I should go back to the kitchen.

Well, you know what? Screw you, if you think that. It's your petty assumptions that are out of line. I feel sorry for you.

Edinburgh Festival Rental Scam

2011-08-12T18:21:00.002+01:00

The post below has been written by Miss-Smidge and posted on her blog. I'm re-posting it here as a warning, cause I know I get quite a lot of hits from people looking for information about Edinburgh Festivals. Beware, beware.

Here we go:

We’ve all seen the holiday horror show where a family have saved up thousands of pounds to go on a dream holiday only for their apartment / villa / chalet in the Alps not to exist? For the website to suddenly go off line? For the contact to stop?

We all think its not going to happen to us right? Well, it does and it can – more regularly than you might think. Especially somewhere like Edinburgh, especially during the festival when thousands of tourists are looking for a good deal on a flat for a week.

You might think you are using reputable sites, that the listing on a festival website is genuine. It might not be – It’s easy to register a web site domain, to set yourself up as a landlord, advertise flats on various sites, have the money transferred over and then poof! disappear.

The stream of people banging down my front door right now looking for the person who has scammed them out of hundreds of pounds doing just that attests to just how easy it is.

I’m sad that I can’t do anything to help the people who have already been scammed, I’m not sure exactly how many there are in this case. The ones who are turning up at my door are the ones savvy enough to have found out who owns the web address they booked through.

If you have found this post because you have been scammed out of money for your Edinburgh flat rental during the Edinburgh festival, please report the scam to Lothian and Borders Police, the scammer doesn’t live where the addresses are registered i’m afraid – strangely for someone living in a capital city I actually know all my neighbours!

As for me, this has served as a warning, i’m an avid independent traveller who has booked apartments in Palma, Dubrovnik, Paris, the South of France, Australia, Tokyo and many other places and luckily i’ve never been scammed.

I guess this is a warning to all of us, sadly it shows just how easy it is to get ripped off in this world.

Miss S

10 things I learnt this weekend

2011-08-08T12:13:00.000+01:00

So, apparently I do 10 things posts once a year, after my birthday party. It's actually quite a good idea. It means I learn something every time I mark the milestone.

1. Double birthdays are indeed a great idea. You meet new people, get gifts from strangers and get twice as big birthday cake (hip hip hooray to Ola, the cakemaker).

2. Planking is addictive.

3. The cheesiest songs on the playlist make everyone get up and dance (Nah Neh Nah by Vaya Con Dios and Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley. As well as Moondance in Michael Buble's version. And let's not forget Holding Out For A Hero by Bonnie Tyler).

4. I can't get drunk anymore. Neither I want to. I sip G&T all night long and get back home nothing but tired.

5. I need exercise! A couple of hours on the dancefloor and I can't move my legs in the morning. Don't even start me up on my feet.

6. Some people will come running to your party despite the weather or any other obstacles. And then will take 200 pictures, some of which are never to be presented to the public.

7. Best gift of the night? A voucher that entitles me to get a cat. Seriously.

8. Party poster is a terribly great idea.

9. I love my new smartphone. Despite (or because) the fact that it's now stuck to my hand permanently.

10. And the best thing is that my birthday is actually next Sunday, which means I may have some more celebrations if I want to :)

July sundries

2011-08-02T20:42:00.001+01:00

Wow, can you believe it? It's 2nd August and I'm writing the sundries post. I can't believe it myself. Before I start I must admit, that my memory's not so awesome, but thanks to my addiction to Facebook, I'm usually able to recall some of the most important recent events. Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg.

1. I had a busy start of the month at work and missed the best assistant in the world a lot. I desperately need a new one. If you're looking for a job, that doesn't pay extremely well, is only temporary and includes working for a crazy Polish girl, send me your CV.

2. The summer finally arrived in Scotland, I got sunburned, I got to wear flip-flops and sandals and actually care to shave my legs. And paint my toe nails. And btw I bought myself a lovely lime nail varnish.

3. I became one of the authors of Homeland by Choice, a blog written by expats happy in their new homelands.

4. I wrote two chapters of a novel, that I thought I wouldn't write anymore.

5. I had my first tequila shot in 10 years. The last one was really memorable as well as having pretty embarassing effects.

6. On the same night I had lots of mojitos and lots of fun till 3 a.m. in the morning.

7. I discovered putting together a playlist is not as easy as it seems, specially if you want to include both Prodigy and Steve Wonder. And let's not forget a fair amount of rickrolling.

8. I have also discovered that organising a party may make you want to give up. Oh, well.

9. All our services have been disconnected by mistake by Virgin Media. Epic fail.

10. I realised I will need someone to break my legs, so that I can stay at home and read all the books I want to. They will have to kill Lorenzo too, so that I can't check Facebook all the time or watch The Mentalist.

11. I got lost in the building I used to work in. Whoever designed it was evil. Or a physicist.

12. I did a photo session and am quite pleased with the results. A photo of the aardvark was not part of the session.

13. I have seen the Queen leaving Zara Phillips' wedding. No, I actually only saw the helicopter taking off. But I was near by, on the grass in Holyrood Park.

14. I discovered that when I was 19 my ideas about the sense of life were flawed and I'm ashamed of them. Luckily I've grown up.

15. I have decided to never ever write a chick lit again. Never. Ever.

And that's what you've missed.

PS: Random playlist is a curse. How come I have Garou & Celine Dion's song? Linking Park? Geez.

She walks away the sun goes down

2011-07-23T18:06:00.003+01:00

BBC News

Grief share

2011-07-22T11:34:00.002+01:00

Another working day was over. I couldn't say I spent it overworking. Even if I wanted to - this time of year is just too quiet. Still I'd always find myself something to do, so was looking forward to having my tea and assuming my spot on the sofa.

I took a different bus than usually and so got off on a different bus stop. I was walking down the hill on this chilly and a bit gloomy Scottish early evening, immersed totally in my own thoughts, that were sombre to say the least. I know that when I'm in the mood like that my face gives it all away, even if the deep line on my forehead has been covered with fringe for some time. My other half says that the fringe gives me a bitchy look and he's probably right, specially when I feel like bitching. Or am indeed bitching silently in my mind. I'd bet that when I move in my years I'll get that bitter, downward lines around my lips, nowadays they only appear when I'm sad. Or disappointed.
And that was exactly how I felt. Very disappointed. Somebody said something that left me feeling like that.

And then I saw this girl, coming from the opposite directions. She was probably around my age, dark-haired, slim and wearing smart outfit indicating that she possibly was on her way from work, too.
It was just a glance she gave me - and just a glance I returned, but suddenly I felt struck. By the look in her eyes, the lines on her face - I could easily tell that she was feeling exactly like I was feeling. It was like catching a glimpse of my reflection in a shop window. Like I was looking into my own eyes.

In some ways it was spooky, but it felt reassuring all the same. On a day when you feel like the whole world's plotting to make you upset it helps if you know you're not the only one. I felt for her, but was glad half of the world's attempts were against her, not me. She probably felt the same, hence the slight flicker of relief in her eyes.

I didn't turn around and look back at her. The encounter slipped my mind as soon as I passed her and in an attempt to brighten my evening thought of the sesame bar I had in my handbag. Sometimes all you need are those little things.

I'm free

2011-07-18T13:25:00.000+01:00

I've been browsing through my enormous collection of mp3 on Saturday and dug out some songs that I'm quite ashamed to have on my drives, but can't face deleting them. Obviously, because despite being cheesy or just wrong, they bring memories. And me, being the person who likes cherishing memories, I need those songs to remind me of the moments past.

Being a 10 years younger sister I have a soft spot for plenty of 80s hits that I got to listen to when my sister played them on her tape recorder. They used to be a synonym for being adult, cause when I was 7, my 17-year old sister seemed all mature to me. So this is really where my embarrassing love for the 80s comes from.

Some 10 years ago I've been colating a mixtape (or rather an mp3 mix CD) of her favourite 80s songs for my sister. She sent me a list and I dug through the web (yes that was around Napster times) in search of them. Some were not really available in any form anymore, some were easy to find. I kept the copy of the CD for myself, too.
Around that time I have graduated from uni and faced the challenges that await every graduate in a real world, namely that it's not easy to find a job and that no one gives a crap about your degree if you have no experience. I was also in an on and off relationship with my ex, at certain point that I want to write about - we were definitely off. Or at least he told me so. My flatmate moved out to begin a new life with her soon-to-become husband and I had a few weeks of feeling entirely lonely. Even my TV broke, so my old computer was my only company - that was when I managed to score highest results ever in tetris.

Anyway, I was listening to the CD I'd made for my sister a lot, cause it reminded me of times when I was a child and I considered being an adult all exciting. And there was this one song that I quite liked back when I was 7, and even more after I'd seen Footloose as a teenager (Kevin Bacon dancing in a tank top in the warehouse still makes me all dreamy, despite his jeans). At some point I've been listening to it on repeat, and then realised what it was about (despite the lyrics not being the masterpiece of poetry). I'm free! Heaven helps the man who fights his fears - Kenny Loggins was singing.

It turned out that the simple lyrics of a cheesy pop-hit from the 80s were exactly what I needed back then. Most people fear the unknown - my life out of the uni, without my boyfriend, living on my own - were all unknowns that I was afraid of. But then they were also exciting. I was free! No more tests and exams. No more fights with my ex. And the whole (tiny) flat to me!

Little did I know that getting out of the uni doesn't mean you're not going to be tried and tested ever again. And that fights with my ex would go on for another 4 years. And that a flat ended up being to small for me anyway. But since then every time I need to remind myself that I'm free to make my own choices and fight my own demons, I play this song (and yes, I do dance to it sometimes too, but don't tell anyone).

Punctuality

2011-07-14T13:02:00.001+01:00

I used to be more than punctual. Punctual like a soldier. Always on time, never late. I was punctual to the point when I would arrive to meetings half an hour earlier. Just in case.
In case I got lost. Or the bus/train/cab got broken. Or anything else went wrong. I am not kidding you, I would even arrive to school a lot earlier and sit in front of my class reading a book. Or studying (well, that's a different story).
I would wake up at the break of dawn and get up straight away. I actually so got used to having a lot of time for myself in the morning that I cannot possibly function without a cup of tea or coffee and at least a quarter of reading the news online (called pointless clicking by my OH).

I have no idea what happened to my strict internal clock, but my punctuality disappeared without a trace. I'm not always late now, but definitely don't arrive half an hour before the meeting ever anymore. On time, or fashionably late. It doesn't help that I have flexible working hours which means I usually start work around 10 a.m. (I don't think I've ever been later for work then quarter past, unless I had an appointment in the morning). I don't take lunch breaks, so can still leave at 5 (most of the time), but sometimes would actually like to manage to come to work at 9 and leave at 4. Which just doesn't happen anymore.

Yesterday I was slightly late to a training in the morning, cause flippantly I thought I had time to pop in to my office and open the post. And then I got lost on my own campus. Which is just purely embarrassing. The only consolation is the fact that I wasn't the last person to arrive, but since I'm not a huge diva, I hate entering the room and feeling everyone's looking at me. I'm not a rock star for frak's sake.

Anyone has any tips of getting the internal punctuality right? Or is it unfixable?

June sundries

2011-07-13T20:54:00.003+01:00

I guess it's become a tradition - to summarise a month 2 weeks after it finished... Well, sometimes it's me being busy and sometimes it's me just being lazy.

Sooo. This is the latter this time, I'm afraid. Plus end of June was busy. Beginning of July was not.

1. The book was published and I got to celebrate with Edinburgh friends. It was an amazing night. There I was in a pink feather boa sipping G&T and refusing to give a speech. Who would have thought.

2. I watched bits of French Open at work. Shsh, don't tell anyone.

3. I got to celebrate miss-smidge's birthday and meet lovely cock knobs. Have I told you how much fun it is meeting Internet pals (and not-so-much-pals-but-still-amazing-Internet-ppl)?

4. I got a new staff card at work. Can't believe I've worked there for 5 years! They used my old pic, so I still look like a filthy nurse with black lips.

5. I went to Bon Jovi gig and you can read about it below.

6. I've seen a play based on my piece called Spina. Here's the short version made for Five Minutes Theatre (yes, the text in the background has been written by me in Polish and then translated by Agnieszka from Gappad, but I must admit, I like her translation a lot).

7. I spent one entire weekend stalking Kings of Leon. I went to see Talahina Sky at the EIFF (and got to see the boys from up close - kind of) and then to their gig on Murrayfield (scroll down for the reviews).

8. I had busy time at work with a few events that apparently went very well, but I almost collapsed when I saw all the bills.

9. I watched bits of Wimbledon at work (Shsh, you know the drill).

10. I got a new temp assistant. And I still want the best assistant in the world back!

11. I got sunburned at the Polish Day on St Andrew Square. Yes, baby, sunburned. In Scotland. Like a lobster. Arms only.

12. I got a few days off and spent them in bed with migraine. Thank you, thunderstorms.

13. In the meantime though I've written two chapters of something.

14. And I got into organising something that is not going to work out, but there's always plan B.

Hopefully July sundries will be published sooner then mid August. I'll try my best. Promise.

Homeland by choice

2011-07-05T12:30:00.002+01:00

All right, my readers, if I'm not here, I may very well be here, playing along with a bunch of lovely ex-pats from all over the world from Ireland to USA, from Norway to Japan!

Pop in! The blog has only existed for a few weeks, but you can stop by and meet the contributors.

But, worry not, I'll be messing on Clockwork Orange with you shortly. Promised.

Consumed with what's to transpire

2011-06-27T11:49:00.002+01:00

Ok, I think I have to admit that I turn out to be closer [sic] to being a die hard fan than I thought.

I got annoyed cause somebody standing next to me was constantly shouting out the wrong lyrics. So was half of the stadium. And then a quarter left after Sex on Fire, not even waiting for the encores. And than another quarter left after Use Somebody (which as Nathan jokingly pointed out on Saturday, was originally called Booze Somebody), despite the fact that KoL always sing Black Thumbnail as a closing number. Even I know that and I've never been to their gig before. Well, who cares, that left me jumping alone, cause everybody else in my row left. Screw you and your bowels, more space for my final war dance.

Milk

But still - I've had lots of fun, and even I have to admit that 50 thousand people jumping and singing Sex on Fire (with wrong lyrics, of course) on the top of their lungs is kind of breath-taking. Despite the fact that you start wondering if for some it's the only KoL song they know. Or at least the only one they've been waiting for. Don't missunderstand me, I didn't sit down for a moment, from Taper Jean Girl (second song) on, and neither did anybody around me. And everybody would go shouting or clapping their hands for every single tune. I was glad to get my favs live: Closer, Birthday, Pyro, Charmer, On Call and Revelry.

I got lots of positive energy from the gig, despite the awkward request for me to change seats (really, what was that all about?), walking to Princes Street in high heeled cloggs (probably should have worn different shoes but I love those), people on the way singing choruses of the biggest hits out of tune and with wrong lyrics and even a bunch of people singing Wonderwall by Oasis (WTF?!).

Now last week's gone it feels anti-climatic and I'd like it to happen all over again. If there was another KoL gig tonight at Murrayfield I'd gladly go, really. Didn't feel this way after Bon Jovi. And I even envy Marcin the July Iron Maiden gig! Despite not being an Iron Maiden fan for even a tiny bit. Bring it on!
Or maybe it's time to have a quiet evening with Lorenzo on my lap, watching DVDs?

I'll be gettin' out as soon as I can fly

2011-06-26T00:24:00.002+01:00

OK, people, so I've just come back and this post might end up being incomprehensive. I'll edit it tomorrow, cause I'm too knackered today, but might forget what I wanted to say.

Where do I start? I don't think I'm a die-hard fan of anybody. Any band, actor, writer, celebrity... I might have been when I was 17, but can't imagine I would queue in line for 3 days to buy a ticket to a gig or get my wrist tatooed with someone's autograph (like a woman in this article). I enjoy certain songs, sometimes whole records, or movies, or books. And that's about it.
When I was 17 I dreamed of meeting my favourite band or at least see them live. That dream came true when I was closer to my '30s and I even had a drink with some of the band members, but felt so out of place at the after party that I sneaked out as soon as I could.

So when I went to see Talihina Sky followed by Q&A session with the band tonight I wasn't one of those screaming, crying, jumping, over-excited teenagers that were there too. Apologies if because of me buying the ticket one of you didn't get in. I'm truly sorry.
I went there to see the film, cause I was curious. I went there with all the respect I have for Kings of Leon's musical achievements, cause they happen to be one of those bands whose music I thoroughly enjoy. All of it, not just old stuff, like die-hard, cool fans, and not from Only By The Night on, like some of the screaming, crying... you know what I'm talking about.

Thanks to some cosmic coincidence I arrived at the Festival Theatre literary in the very same moment they did (who's stalking who, eh?). Suddenly I saw Jared Followill getting out of the car right next to me (as I was walking) and then heard some squeaky noises that turned out to be made by the fans already gathered there. I didn't mind being pushed to the side by desperate ones, cause why would I even bother to take my phone out to take a pic of some dudes' backs? Even though they all have quite handsome backs.

So I proceeded to the theatre and even acidentally ended up climbing the stairs exactly when they did, although on the other side (who's stalking who - let me ask again).

My original plan was to go out with my girls later on (which I ended up not doing) so I was indeed all dressed up, but I wasn't the only one. My dear God, the dress code ranged from scruffy grunge to bridesmaids. I was somewhere in between, I suppose.

What can I say - I loved the film. It's far from being just another rock band documentary. I even doubt if the Kings are the main characters. Uncle Cleo (in whose memory the film has been made) is definitely the most colourful character and no doubt I'll make use of the subtitles when the DVD comes out, cause I'd love to get more of his chatter. Then there's Nathan, Caleb and Jared's parents. And all set of family characters who made the boys who they are now. There's their childhood in deep American south in a pentecostal family (including archive family footage - some of it histerically funny). It's cleverly made, juxtaposing their strict upbringing with their later life on tour. There are a few feel good scenes (horseshoe throwing competition as an example) and a few very powerful ones (I felt like a lurker watching that quarell scene, but man didn't it make an impact).
I genuinely feel it's not just a film for people who are KoL fans - or even people who know who they are. It's just a good film about American south, about upbringing and how it can influence you, about family ties, and about good and evil. But above all it's about kids leaving the nest. But still longing for the place they grew up in.
So if you have a chance to see it, I recommend you do.

The Q&A session that followed was good fun and I got cramps in my cheeks from laughing. I think some people shouldn't be let out in public. I mean the question lady from the back of the stalls, the crying girl in the first row (changed my mind after reading her tweets though - bring her back!) and the man, who shouted: man, move their chairs back, I can't bloody see them. I also think Nathan Followill would make a hell of a Q&A session host. The boy knows his Twitter (and BTW Happy Birthday to him!).
And yes, I'm going to see them in Murrayfield RUGBY Stadium tomorrow.

We've got somethin' they can't take away

2011-06-23T14:05:00.002+01:00

So, according to some reviews of yesterday's gig I must have a very bad musical taste indeed for going to see Bon Jovi live. Perhaps. Or perhaps, I had a very bad musical taste when I was 12 and now all I have left are the cheesy memories of the times, when rockers sporting shaggy hair dos were top of my list. But that was before Nirvana, and before I discovered the Pixies. And even before I at the age of 14 made a conscious, mature decision that INXS were to become my favourite band ever.

If you seat far enough from the stage you won't see Jon's wrinkles, friend told me. And I'll be able to imagine I'm 12 again, he's got long hair and I have a crush on him, I replied. So, the main reason I went to see them playing their cheesy tunes (for I do agree they are cheesy) last night was because I owed it to my teenage self.

Can you see the wrinkles?

And man, did I have fun! Despite the fact that, as it turns out, I can only remember complete lyrics to 3 of their songs (Wanted Dead or Alive, Livin' on a Prayer and In These Arms - don't ask me why those 3, and don't tell anyone but I probably also know Bed of Roses and Always by heart, but they didn't play them last night). It didn't stop me from jumping and swinging to most of the old tunes (Bed Medicine, You Give Love a Bad Name and Born To Be My Baby) and rocking in my seat to the newer ones (that are not that good, to be honest, but hey, who am I to say that? I did indeed go there to listen to the old ones).

And I also felt quite touched when Jon announced he wanted to move to Scotland now, despite joking about beautiful Scottish summer earlier. All thanks to the ecstatic audience. I have to admit, I was bloody cold when I arrived at Murrayfield, but at the end of the show got much warmer from - well, dancing, atmosphere and wine I suppose. I wasn't even that much bothered by the fact that I had to go on foot all the way to West End to catch a bus.

So, I think what I want to say is - I don't regret going and I would be a fool if I sold the ticket as I wanted to (I probably wouldn't anyway, since Groupon had them half price). If you ever have a chance to see them live - don't hesitate. Get your leather jacket and your cowboy boots out of the closet and go. They still got it.

May Sundries

2011-06-15T20:39:00.001+01:00

Don't you think it's too late for May sundries since it's mid-June already? I kinda do, but since I haven't been blogging for a while I thought a sundries post was required. It'll be more of May/June sundries I suppose.

1. Holidays in Poland seem like ages ago. I've had lots of fun, went through some old stuff cramped in the attic of my sister's house, got rid of some old papers hidden in the drawers of my old desk in my dad's flat and in my Warsaw flat. The big clean, baby.

2. I've realised two things I miss in Scotland are summer thunderstorms and pastry shops. Not cafes. Proper pastry shops, with cakes and pies and yummy deserts.

3. Not to mention the weather, but only after coming back to Edinburgh and realising this is going to be a very cold summer. And Poland was so hot, that I ended up going to a shoe shop in Kraków, trying on really cool red flip flops and anouncing to the shop assistant: I'm not taking them off!

4. I've been to my OH's sister's wedding and it actually was very nice. My lovely dress looked great, but obviously the bride looked far more stunning. Still I'm glad I bought the fascinator. It looked fantastic and I'm definitely going to use it again if anyone invites me to a wedding in the near future.

5. I brought over 5 kg of books.

6. It wasn't nice coming back to the empty office at all. On a good note I might be getting some temporary, part-time help. For a moment I thought I might be getting a Tag if you know what I mean. But nope. And I'm moving to a new, nicer, though smaller office. Or so it seems, you never know in my neck of the woods.

7. The book's out. I haven't seen it yet! But I've read a first good review.

8. I'm writing again and it makes my brain overheat.

9. Next week is probably going to be the busiest week this year so far at work and after hours, I'm going to be in Glasgow, on Murrayfield TWICE and do some stalking of Kings of Leon.

10. Long Scottish summer days make me lose sleep.

Cucumber attack!

2011-05-31T16:43:00.000+01:00

I probably shouldn't do it, but I can't stop myself. If you're following me on Twitter or are my friend of Facebook you have already seen it and maybe even liked it.

I had a serious laughter attack while reading news today, despite being quite anxious, for I really love cucumbers (eating them I mean). Some of you might even say that I'm also cool as a cucumber when I need to be.

Anyway, whoever is writing the titles for BBC News web (the original article actually has a different title) - Golden Font for you, man! You made my day.
Cucumber victims 'will increase' is the amusing title of the story.
It made me think of people abused or mugged or simply beaten to death with a huge cucumber. Or even a huge anthropomorphic cucumber, Godzilla-type, killing whole cities of people with its deadly stomp.

Image borrowed from this amazing blog: live the life to love

Second chances

2011-05-25T14:07:00.001+01:00

I was planning to write a recap of my adventures in Poland, but instead decided to write about something else (inspired by some events in Poland).

I'm a rather difficult person when it comes to meeting new people. I suck at ice breaking, I don't trust people and give them no credit (it doesn't apply to fellow bloggers that I meet for the first time - I assume they are not new friends since I've known them through their blogs). It doesn't help that I'm quite harsh to my own self too and always assume people won't like me. Cause I'm difficult. Stuck up. With enormous ego. And know-it-all.

So sometimes when I meet people for the very first time it all goes wrong. They see me exactly how I see myself and don't fancy meeting me again. And it's usually people I want to impress, and I'm trying too hard, and it just goes belly up. I sometimes get a chance to sort things out, to meet again, make a better impression. I'd lie if I said a drink or two don't help. They do, they help me to relax and be myself.

And sometimes I meet people who I don't fancy meeting again. And sometimes they also get another chance. And it's quite amazing when I discover that I might have been wrong, that they are interesting, worth knowing and nothing I thought they were. I guess they might feel the same about me. Sometimes we need some rules of engagement like topics we shouldn't discuss (cause it's obvious we'd disagree).

And then, on the other hand, I also meet people speaking to whom seems so natural. People I might not see for years and then I just have a coffee with and a conversation is as natural as between people who've known each other all their lives. No need for explanations, rules, forbidden topics.

I've met people of both kinds when I was in Poland (at the same table in the pub). It made me realise that you have to give people a second chance, and maybe even third and fourth. Cause sometimes you just have to work things out between yourselves. And I have also realised that meeting people who are your kind of people is a great pleasure. It gives you a sense of togetherness, solidarity, belonging that just can't be compared to anything else.

I really like people sometimes...

April Sundries

2011-05-10T11:25:00.002+01:00

Aaaaa! It's almost mid-May! I definitely need the time-bending machine, something's clearly wrong here, I seem to be missing whole weeks of my life. Help!

Still, it seems like a lot's happening, which might be an explanation for my lapses of memory.

1. The ambiguous article I told you about here (no 3) has been accepted for publishing and is going to be in a book. Real book, with my name (among others) on the cover. How cool is that? Not only have I got a boost of confidence, but also my inspiration levels went through the roof - for writing fiction that is, despite the article being a non-fiction story, a reportage in fact. So my next big goal is to get my fiction published. There's no such word as impossible.

2. I bought myself another pair of red shoes. I think I'm addicted, but man, they are so cool.

3. I fell in love with Roslin Glen and need to go back there more often.

4. Thanks to the effects of no 1 I started studying numbers. All sorts of numbers. Including values of physical constants. Like speed of light. I have added Hawking (yet again) and Bryson to my reading list.

5. I got another parcel from home, this time with some poetry that gave me this creepy feeling. Writing suicidal poems? What was I thinking? But then there was the complete Dune series (only the original books), too along with Amis and Kosinski (my sister's rationale for choosing books is the size - mostly).

6. I have written first two poems in 9 years. One at 3 a.m. in the morning on a sleepless night (that hasn't happened for some 15 years), another one on the train back from Glasgow (even longer). Thanks to no 1, I guess, as well as the surreal atmosphere of the Glaswegian adventures.

7. I slept with a cat and a polar teddy bear at friend's in Glasgow.

8. Another of my works has won my writing group readers vote. Oh, well.

9. I had a photo session (for the book's cover) and had to write my bio (I'm not using this one).

10. I had a week off after Easter that I spent doing absolutely nothing and then watched the Royal Wedding and got inspired to buy myself a fascinator.

11. I said bye to my office mate (very very sad) after finding out that my contract here will be extended. Despite knowing for some time I only got to celebrate last Friday and discovered that contrary to what my boss told me champagne doesn't cure a common cold. If anything it makes it worse.

12. I went to see some old time cars in Leith that travelled all the way from Poland to Edinburgh. They were so cool!

13. I also went to see the Polish School of Medicine exhibition and ended up with sore feet.

14 My post Blending In has been on Expatica.

15. I'm on holiday in Poland from next Monday for a week. God help me.

Me in a holiday state of mind

2011-04-26T21:46:00.000+01:00

I'm on holiday. It started on Good Friday and thanks to Wills and Kate includes an extra day off this Friday. Fantastic! I'll celebrate by going to cinema to see Essential Killing and having a drink.

So, since Friday I've been really good at doing nothing. Well, with the exception of the big clean on Saturday. I think it's something that I must have inherited in my genes. Chris knows the story.
When the flat was more or less clean we both ended up being totally lazy on Sunday. With the exception of stuffing ourselves with food. Which ended up in me regretting it dearly on Monday. Today it turns out I should have had no regrets cause I somehow managed to shed two pounds.

Today, between watching some old TV series and some reading I went shopping and came back home with a dress that made me fall into such a narcissistic mood, that I'd bet it's been her again not me, swirling in front of the mirror trying to figure out if the red Monsoon heels go with the dress (they do), if the scarf will do to cover my arms in case of a chilly weather (it will) and if the bag looks better as a shoulder bag or a clutch (a clutch). Oh, well, at the end of the day considering I have only spent £34.99 on it, it is a hell of a bargain and the dress is indeed very flattering to my figure. It made Marcin smile widely (and unequivocally), so I guess I had the right to be pleased with myself. And by the way, it's a figure hugging, black and white coctail dress. I'm thinking a red flower clip or a fascinator in my hair. (Well, probably not I am thinking, she is thinking - she's better at this).

No plans for tomorrow, although I hope to stop watching the crap on my computer and get on with some writing. Well, I've made a start writing this blog post (and a couple of book reviews somewhere else). I do have plans for Thursday and Friday evenings and then will have the whole weekend to recuperate before I come back to work to start in a completely new and slightly terrifying role - of a completely independant employee, with my office mate gone and starting a new job. I may end up blogging more with whole days at work on my own and (almost) no one to talk to most of the time.

Knickers girl forever

2011-04-19T10:01:00.000+01:00

So... it turns out my post about Knickers for a quid was hugely popular on Expatica and now it's nominated for best blog post of the year. Click here for more info. If you think I deserve a vote, please vote for me. If you think it's lame to vote for a post about pants, feel free to vote for someone else :)

Bio

2011-04-18T12:55:00.004+01:00

She was born, cause somebody had to do it. Ever since she can remember she has been a girl, despite moving too quickly from plastic newborns to Lego. She then moved on to plastic bimbos with synthetic hair and their castrated boyfriends anyway. At school she quickly understood the power of PR and built herself a reputation of a good student that let her get good marks without much studying. She used similar method at the university, along with cheat sheets hidden in the hankies for the written exams and low cut cleavages for the oral ones. Surprisingly, her dissertation on the Psychological analysis and sociological impact of tie-dye she typed herself, not overusing the Ctrl + C Ctrl + V key combination. She got an A at her viva, perspiring profusely. After graduating she started the usual post-graduation career of looking for a job. Over the years she would be doing any job coming, believing that no job is a disgrace. She has worked as a waitress, kindergarten teacher, cable car operator, assistant to second Red Ruthenian constituency MP, very important things and coffee making expert, press officer to East Border Corp, railway semaphore, self-employed adviser-consultant, floor board fitter and painter/decorator. She left the country on an emigration wave in the middle of the noughties.
Her début book of poems, titled The poems from wellies and umbrellas, published by Kitchen Porter Publishers from London was translated to 27 languages including urdu and hindi. Her first novel - know-how One thousand and two statistical brain bending games on your way to work was published before she turned thirty. She was awarded with Polish independent literary award, Kosciejski Award and nominated to Puma, another Polish literary award.
Currently she is studying the mentality of the stick insects at the University of Outer Hebrides on the isle of Lewis. She also writes for Polish community magazines (Polonia Pulse, Polish Woman in South Africa, The Maniac Times - the magazine for the Polish community on the Isle of Man) and co-ordinates a writing group Skafander (Anorak). She's working on her second novel The Dream: From Pot Washes To Heroes.

Translated from original.

The surreal life of mine

2011-04-17T22:11:00.001+01:00

I was partying in Glasgow last night and ended up with cramps in my cheeks. From laughing. I didn't know you could get them until last night. Maybe I'm just too miserable. I went to sleep at 4 a.m. and shared a bed with a teddy bear and a cat. Then I bought caramel macchiato at the station along with a bloody expensive stationery set and ended up writing all the way back to Edinburgh.

I think I currently love my life.

PS Pictures were taken at the party. We've had some local celebrities joining the fun as you can see: two Jesuses, two Virgin Mary's (one in a sparkly dress), Laughing Buddha and a whole lot of ducks.

The Anthem

2011-04-14T10:25:00.002+01:00

It turns out most Polish people don't know the lyrics of their national anthem. Embarrassed to say, that includes me.

I don't mean we don't know them at all, but oddly we don't know the first line correctly, as it turned out this week during the secondary school exams as one of the questions was about the anthem and thousands of kids got it wrong.

So what's the fuss about? Well, it actually is about only one tiny word when which we commonly replace with until. That does make a difference, since the first line of our anthem goes: Poland Is Not Yet Lost (and that's the title of the anthem - well, one of three titles) - then it gets complicated, cause the official English translation is: so long as we live, whereas literally it says: when we live. But most of us sing: until we live. There is some logic in the second version and apparently it's been used in the 19th century when Poland was not existing as a state (more here), so what people meant was - it doesn't matter there's no country - as long as Polish people are alive Poland is not yet lost.

I was actually quite astonished to discover that I didn't know the correct version. When I was a kid I had this book about the history and origins of the Polish national anthem and the complete lyrics (original and corrected) were included. No clue why I couldn't remember it correctly.

I think the lesson here is: before you start condemning gaffes like Christina Aguilera's at the Super Bowl earlier this year, you better check if you know your anthem's lines correctly.

I love

2011-04-12T10:55:00.000+01:00

I've been tagged by Susy and might as well use this filler as I've done it on my Polish blog a few months ago. So easy-peasy, just a bit of translating.

1. I love to read. I quite frankly am addicted to reading and if I don't have a book at hand I'm miserable. I'd love to have more time to read.
2. I love to write, not only blogs, but also fiction and non-fiction. Unfortunately (for you, readers) I primary write in my mother tongue.
3. I love to cook. I absolutely adore home made meals and rarely order take-aways. I rarely dine out, too.
4. I love chocolate. It improves my mood immensely. Dark chocolate with ginger. Yummy!
5. I love to shop online, specially for books. I'm completely addicted to Amazon.
6. I love watching TV series on DVD or online - meaning when I want to, not when it's on. I'm a sci-fi geek but I also watch Glee, House and How I Met Your Mother.
7. I love cats. I'll have a cat one day :)
8. I love to listen to music on my way to work and when I write. Thank God for my iPod.
9. I like getting up early, but I love to wake up and realise it's Saturday and I don't have to get up just yet.
10. I love road trips.

Any of my readers want to do this - go ahead :)

Statistical brain bending games on your way to work

2011-04-08T10:01:00.001+01:00

Whether you walk to work or take a bus, you usually have some time on your hands and nothing to do (except for walking or seating). Certainly, you can listen to your favourite tunes on your player, and even sing under your breath (which is also brain bending if you want to make sure you don't forget the lyrics), but then you do look like you were talking to yourself. Which I suppose is not as bad as singing at the top of your lungs and clapping your hands just like this woman on a bench on the bust stop on St Patrick Square. I've seen her twice already - anybody knows if she's one of the Edinburgh celebrities along with the Beaverman and Elaine the most pierced lady in the world?

If you're on the bus you can read of course, but what if you've forgotten to take your book and still need a bit of stimulation to start your brain up before work?
Well you can always play a statistical game of adding up and averaging in your head.

If you're walking you can for example come up with a virtual pie chart to show how many people you passed:
a) had something to drink with them
b) had what looked like coffee
c) where drinking Starbucks stuff
d) and how many preferred Costa

If you're on the bus then check:
a) how many people are reading Metro
b) how many prefer to buy their own paper
c) how many are reading a book
d) how many of those you spotted were reading chick-lit

If you're driving I'm sure you can come up with your own game. Or maybe you shouldn't. I wouldn't like you to run me over while you're counting pigeons, seagulls or people wearing trainers.

If you spot me while playing any of the games, just a few tips to make it easier to label me:
1. If I'm on the bus I'm most likely reading a book. Currently it's Money by Martin Amis. It's highly unlikely you'll ever see me reading chick-lit.
2. If I'm walking it's quite likely I'm drinking something and if I do, it's most likely tall caramel macchiato from Starbucks. Unless I'm in the mood and it's grande caramel macchiato...

March Sundries

2011-04-05T14:36:00.000+01:00

Yes, March, and beginning of April, too.

So, I've had a plan to blog more. Yes. Well. I've been busy thinking. Yep.

Here's what happened since the full moon:

1. I've written a short story for a literary competition. It's about expat's experience (surprised?) and is in Polish (I think I've already explained that I write fiction in Polish only). I've been inspired by some of the comments, you, dear readers, left here. Whether I win anything or not, it actually is quite a nice story. So, thanks for the inspiration.

2. Our Monday workshops have finished. We've had fab time. It was great to meet at the Traverse for the celebration and to see Somersaults (really liked the play) and then to watch the movie made at the workshops. Man, I sound funny reading in English (and Scots).

3. I've written an article, that I can't tell you much about yet, but writing it was quite emotional and exhausting.

4. I've read three books and started two more. Three in Polish, two in English. One of them I got from Amazon Marketplace for £0.01 plus shipping and it turns out to be signed by the author. A friend has a theory that it belonged to the author, but I doubt it.

5. I've written a story about April Fool's Day and it is probably the quickest written story of mine. It was conceived somewhere between Starbucks on Nicolson Street in the morning and no 7 bus back home, while listening to the Pixies. I wish I could tell you more. There's god in the story. Yep. And he's a seven. Kind of.

6. I've found out that I'll be losing an office mate and am very sad.

7. A friend came from Aberdeen over the weekend and I must say it's quite extraordinary how much we have to talk about despite meeting only twice before (but being in touch over the Internet).

8. I got myself new earrings from folksy and they probably deserve a separate blog post. I couldn't resist - they are tiny brass honeybees. Now, see, I wrote a story some time ago, in which the main character was called honeybee by her boyfriend. She happens to be one of the favourite characters I've created (she leaves the boyfriend in the story, but befriends a stray dog).

9. I've been playing online scrabble far too much. I think I'm addicted. Anyone knows how to shake it off?

10. Last but not least: I think spring's here for good. Hight time to go on a road trip. If only I had time to do it...

And that's what you missed.

Memory box

2011-03-24T15:23:00.001Z

Inspired by Smidge's post.

So as everybody knows, last weekend, due to the enormous full moon I've had a very foul mood. Not on Saturday, which happened to be my baby's B-day and so we headed to a pub to spend some quality time with a bunch of beloved friends. But on Sunday I woke up close to tears and then spent lots of time just curled up in my bed, Lorenzo by my side. I ended up deactivating my FB account, then reactivating it, but with a few less friends and a half-private profile. In the meantime my blog in Polish has been sealed. And a few people have been told off (apparently some got offended).

So then I brought my memory box and had a dig through it. It's not THE memory box, it's one I've re-invented with bits and pieces I brought or was sent from Poland and some stuff I kept over the years in the UK. Tickets, postcards, leaflets - everything's there. Also - my old diaries and my old note books with notes, song lyrics, drafts of poems and stories. So I started reading some of the stuff and it made me even more teary.

Cause all of a sudden I felt like I moved back in time all those years, I moved back to being my old shy and lacking self-confidence self. And I didn't like it for a bit. It was a very odd feeling, it never happened to me before. My memory box used to be nothing but a collection of mostly really good memories of events that were worth remembering. OK, it was supposed to remind me that I've moved on since collecting all that crap, but it was never ever supposed to make me feel that deep down inside I might still be the same.

Few days have passed and my mood has improved (except for a bout of migraine) and I don't feel that way anymore. I actually feel I'm not even the same person that came here six years ago (give or take 4 days...) let alone the blonde at the uni. She seems a bit strange to me frankly. One thing I envy her is she definitely had a better handwriting. But I have better typing skills.

Anyway my point here is - thank God for the passing of time! We may think it's a curse sometimes with us getting older, things finishing and the fact that we can't change the past, but I say - let the past be the past. It's gone, done and dusted. We've learned and moved on. And there's still future ahead. Let's see what it brings.

Goodnight, moon!

2011-03-20T20:58:00.002Z

I don't know about you, but this enormous full moon made me cry. Literally cry, curled up in my bed. I hate feeling like that. So, no wonder I want the big blue bastard gone. Quoting Shivarees' lyrics - goodnight, moon, I want the sun!

Lessons learned

2011-03-14T14:22:00.001Z

I think I'm getting old. Too old for partying, anyway. I mean too old for extensive partying.

I've been out both Friday and Saturday. Friday was just drinks out in a pub with some friends. I was back home by 2 a.m., but didn't go to bed till 3 a.m., since a friend was staying at my place and we ended up chatting for an hour. Which was lovely, far from a drunken rant - we both didn't have that much anyway, but I woke up far too early on Saturday and ended up terribly sleepy. The reason I woke up was that that weekend we were taking care of our friends' dogs and they needed to be walked. It was Marcin's turn to do it and he did, but I woke up anyway.

Then on Saturday I went to a proper house party, and by proper I mean with crowds of people, loud music, and literally anything you wanted to drink, smoke, or, well, use. As it was my turn to walk the dogs on Sunday morning I decided to be responsible and stay away from anything that would make it impossible to get up in the morning. I had two glasses of Bacardi Breezer (also known as sweat and tears of Cuban workers) and a few cookies. And everything was fine. But then, my funky other half ended up completely out of his face when he smoked something he shouldn't have. And so we sneaked out early.

And I must say I wasn't even that angry that I had to leave (I could have stayed longer and sent him home), because I was getting increasingly annoyed by:
a) broken toilet door and the fact that there was only one for all those people
b) all the drunk or stoned people around who I was trying to have a conversation with while being stone cold sober (people who I love to bits under normal circumstances - I mean either we are all sober, or all drunk).

And the most annoying thing was that I still felt bloody tired in the morning and struggled to get out of bed. So what happened to the girl who would go out to party till early break of dawn and then go to the lectures?

Well, there's a few things we've learned for certain. I'll refrain from telling you what my other halves lessons were (quite obvious, anyway), but I've learned that apparently at this age I can't do spontaneous parties anymore. All needs to be well planned ahead. Ideally the weekend should be free of other events and allow me to stay in bed as long as required. If however there are events clashing - well, then I have to be prepared for a different kind of fun (cause, after all, watching others getting knackered can be fun, too).

I dinnae ken aboot that

2011-03-11T15:53:00.001Z

If you're reading this blog because you've never been to Scotland and want to learn something about this beautiful country - keep on reading, this might come handy.
If you're Scottish... Skip to the last paragraph.

I can still remember going to the cinema 15 years ago to see Trainspotting. By that time I wasn't bothered to read subtitles anymore, cause I could perfectly understand the dialogues in American movies. To my complete and utter surprise I struggled to understand most of what was said in Trainspotting, and nothing of what was said by Spud. Little did I know that I'll end up living so close to where the characters from the movie lived (I even had a neighbour called Renton). And I'll end up learning to understand (well, sometimes...) the Scottish accent.

I was quite lucky that when I first moved to the UK, I ended up located in East Anglia. Suffolkian was not much like the English I've learned at school, but it wasn't that much different, once you got used to the missing consonants at the end of some words. Not that it wouldn't make me laugh when my friend started dating this guy, whose nickname was Stinky Pete and told me she was out with Stinky Pee. No joke.

So, no, there wasn't that much struggle, I could more or less get what people were saying, unless they were using too much slang.

The only time I had real trouble understanding people was when I had to phone the Department of Works and Pensions, based in... Glasgow. And it wasn't only me. My English work colleagues sometimes phoned them up and asked over and over again: pardon? could you repeat?

And then I decided to move up there myself. Well, not to Glasgow, luckily. On my first day in Edinburgh I thought everybody was speaking Swedish. A few days later I was registering with a temp agency and the recruiter asked me how I coped understanding Scottish accent. It wasn't that bad. Let's face it - Edinburghian is a piece of cake. I did chuckle a bit when told at the tilt that whatever I was buying was sex pounds fifty, but that was it. I soon learned all the dinnae kens, nae bothers and wee ones. And then I went to Glasgow and ended up almost in tears when I couldn't understand the taxi driver. I wouldn't even dare asking for directions in Glasgow. They might as well just speak Chinese.

It's a bit better now - most of the time, but since I work with people from all over the place and not that many Glaswegians I still struggle sometimes. My other half has much more to do with local people on a daily basis and he understands more. But it doesn't mean he won't sweat sometimes trying to understand somebody with a broad Scottish accent on the phone.

Even if I don't understand a single word, I just love the sound of Scottish accents. I truly do. Even swear words. My family thinks I've been brainwashed in Scotland, cause when I'm on holiday in Poland and there's someone on TV speaking Scottish I tell everyone to shut up. Same goes for bagpipes playing Scotland the Brave (which however annoy me utterly when played on Waverley Bridge).

So if you're not Scottish and you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about here's a few examples for you.

Happy Women's Day!

2011-03-08T10:35:00.001Z

Unless you still haven't rolled out of bed you're probably aware that it's 100th anniversary of International Women's Day today. If you come from any country east of Oder you need now reminders.

It was originally called International Working Women's Day and was a socialist political event - soon adopted by Soviet Russia and then the whole Soviet block. Anyone born before middle-eighties probably remembers how it was celebrated.

First of all it was celebrated publicly - there would be some kind of event in every work place. Usually a talk about how important it was that women in socialist countries had a right to work and contribute to development of their land and more of newspeak such crap. Then they would be given flowers (carnations were the most popular, along with gerberas, tulips or daffodils). And in times of crisis (almost permanent in Poland between 1945 and 1989) they would be given gifts of products that were difficult to purchase, such as: stockings, soap or coffee.

Despite its completely political character the holiday was actually quite popular in Poland, and celebrated at homes, too, with husbands and boyfriends never failing to turn up with a tulip.

Later on, as it was viewed as a remnant of the old times, it has become hated by many. There's still plenty of people who celebrate it, though. Each year it's used by feminist movements to publicise the role of women and challenges modern women face. Most of my male friends would remember to wish me Happy Women's Day and I would definitely be over the moon if Marcin turned up with a bunch of carnations or daffodils and a pair of nice stockings as a gift. I won't moan if he doesn't, cause you know already I don't care for gifts that much. He's still getting home made yummy pancakes for tea tonight.

* The poster above is the original Women's Day poster from Communist era. It says: Greetings to women working for peace and development of their fatherland.

Rebellion

2011-03-04T22:29:00.002Z

Rebellion is Rachel Cotterill’s debut novel. I’ve come to know Rachel through her blog that I first discovered some two years ago. I’ve read bits of Rebellion when they were published online, but I’m glad I’d decided to wait till it was completed. It’s quite a read and it definitely is unputdownable. You just need to keep reading!
It’s set in a medieval-type fantasy empire of Charanthe, and the main heroine, Eleanor, is a young girl trying to find her place in a men’s world. Her adventures take unexpected turns before she ends up in a place she most desired to be in - a school for professional assassins.

I believe it’s a book aimed at young adults and therefore it’s not a very challenging piece of writing, but very satisfying if you’ve got taste for adventure and action. It’s literally packed with action and lots of details when it comes to weaponry, puzzles and all the crafts that Eleanor excels at. And it makes you want more - I can’t wait to read the second part of the story and I'm really glad that there’s also a third volume in the pipeline.

A few things the novel was lacking in my humble opinion (and I’m only writing this cause as a writer myself I know it counts more than the above): first of all historical and political background. Charanthe Empire seems to be a very complex and interesting world, yet current affairs are only mentioned a few times by the characters. I hope there’ll be more in the novels to come. And second thing would be a bit more insight into character’s psyche. Eleanor’s a great heroine, a tough, independent woman, who knows what she wants. Not a girly girl. Still I believe being the only woman in all-boys school must be far more difficult and I’d appreciate if the reader was also aware of her anxieties. It would make her more humane and less imaginary. Some events are resolved too quickly considering building up the tension and it leaves the reader somewhat disappointed - we want to see Eleanor facing the most unimaginable challenges.

But there’s still more to come and knowing Rachel’s passion for writing and her meticulous approach we’re in for a treat. Let’s see what Revolution brings!

PS: I didn't receive a free copy, but the money have been well spent - not only have I just read an amazing book, but I also have a signed copy that I'm sure will be worth a lot one day!

English, please!

2011-03-03T13:43:00.002Z

I was reading people's tweets the other day and noticed that one of the girls I follow decided to take a basic course in Polish. Good for you, girl! I thought. Polish is a bloody difficult language and whoever makes an effort to learn even just some basic expressions is my hero.

But... there's always a but, right? So in this case it turns out that H's company employs 150 Poles and she ended up in a meeting that was completely in Polish.

Now, that sucks, for many reasons. I don't want to be misunderstood - I'd be the first person to organise a riot if anyone was forbidden to speak their mother tongue. I was working in a company where it was forbidden and it made me go mental.
But I cannot possibly understand how on Earth it happened that in a British company there are staff meetings carried out in a different language? I used to work in a company with most staff from Poland and they had me at hand at all times to translate to those poor souls who struggled to get a grip of any language, including their native Polish. But never ever there would be a meeting with English-speaking staff attending in Polish only. I understand that people want to make things easier for those who can't speak English, but frankly, I go crazy when I see leaflets at the GP's translated into Polish. It does not help to learn the local language at all. No, it actually discourages you from doing so. Why try harder?

I'm probably also angry, because I have made an effort and l have learnt English. My other half has as well, and most of my friends. Some speak better, some struggle a bit, but all try. And all want to. And they don't want anyone to make it easier for them. What is it, some kind of guilty conscience? You know, after Brits go everywhere in the world and expect everybody else to speak English? Well, so do I. If I could learn so can everyone else.

Being forced to speak English was one of the main reasons I came here. I knew the only way to learn it properly is to have no choice but to use it everyday. I don't, of course, use it all the time, I speak Polish at home and I speak Polish to a huge number of Polish friends in Edinburgh - unless we are among English-speaking people, but that's about it. I speak English only at work (cause I don't work with any Polish-speaking people). I watch TV in English (which is not so obvious as you may get a satellite dish and watch whatever you want and far too many Polish people end up watching Polish TV only). In any other situations like shopping, customer services, doctors, etc. I don't expect anyone to speak Polish. My hairdresser happens to be Polish, but that's accidental.

So my point is, as much as I admire anyone who gives a go at learning my mother tongue - I beg you, don't. Make us learn English and help us to do it, if we need help.

For those who insist on learning Polish, though - the Polish word to learn today is pączek (doughnut).

Dunfermline Abbey

2011-02-28T22:59:00.002Z

It was another Sunday morning... We were eating breakfast, I was checking my e-mails and Marcin was watching Neil Oliver on Discovery. Neil was in front of Dunfermline Abbey talking about the fate of King Robert the Bruce. We decided instantly.
And we can always pop to Primark, too - we thought.

Robert's private parking spot

We did pop in to Primark, but as usual left empty handed after 5 minutes (Marcin), 15 minutes (me). It's not even so much the clothes as the queues. Well yes, the clothes, too.

Blending in

2011-02-23T12:47:00.032Z

This is a subject that I probably shouldn't even touch on. But it kind of bursts out of my fingertips and I can't help it. I've been trying to put it down in words for the past few days and still I'm not sure if I managed to do it right. I might regret I posted it, but, hey, I'm living in the land of the brave.

Before I start let me just say that this account is mine and mine only. Anyone identifying with statements below - fine, but it definitely does not serve as a statement of the whole group or community. These are my observations and my feelings.

Integration. It's such a big word. I'm not really sure what it means to me. I've been asked recently and I said something along the lines of: knowing I'm different without feeling different. Being part of, but being respected for being from elsewhere.

When I came here almost six years ago I was perceived as a bit of an oddity. People would walk around me in circles, unsure if I could be touched or fed. I was of interest. Like a new toy.
But not anymore. I'm nothing new, I'm part of the scenery. Is it good or bad? I don't know. I guess it means I've been accepted, I've blended in.

Or have I really? It feels like that when I'm chatted to by random people on the bus or in the shop. Then I say something and my accent gives me away. You would have to ask all those people what they considered me - one of them or a stranger?
It definitely feels like that when I'm around local people I made friends with. We have so much in common. Like experiences. Work. Relationships. Families. Or interests. Favourite movies, favourite books, favourite music, favourite TV shows, favourite holiday destinations. Or just common problems. Mortgages. Boyfriends. Families. Health. Weather. Common opinions. Politics. Budget cuts. Kids.
But then we also differ. My friends come from different places in Scotland and down south. They speak with different accents. That's what I like about them and my Polishness is probably one of the reasons they like me. Cause it makes me me. So, yes, I'm different. But I belong here. If you asked me where my home is I wouldn't hesitate for a second and answer straight away, that it's here in Edinburgh.

There's an old Polish word obczyzna, that literary means a strange land and it fits well with wygnanie - exile. Both were used a lot by 19th century emigrants, who left Poland (or what used to be Poland) for political reasons. There's another word in Polish - ojczyzna - fatherland. It's different from obczyzna by one letter only. It's not a coincidence.
I don't feel I'm in a strange land, on the contrary, it feels less and less strange the longer I've been here. Neither do I feel in exile - after all nobody made me leave. It was my own decision.

But then there's the Polish pride that runs in my veins.

I'll never stop telling people Frederic Chopin and Joseph Conrad were Polish. That Polish Cipher Bureau deciphered Enigma. That No. 303 Polish Fighter Squadron fought in the Battle of Britain. That Bonnie Prince Charlie was a great grandson of the Polish King Jan III Sobieski. Cause it doesn't matter how long I've been here, even if I decide to apply for a British citizenship - it won't ever make me less Polish.
Polish will always be my first language, my mother tongue. Even if I end up speaking English more. Reading a book in Polish will always be a bigger pleasure than reading in English. And traditional Polish food will always taste better than curries, kormas, pastas, pizzas, cullen skinks and cranachans.
That's in my genes. I cannot change that, even if I liked to.

I cannot change the fact that I grew up behind the iron curtain, under a martial law and that those childhood experiences formed me as a person. I cannot change what cartoons I watched on TV, what music I listened to as a teenager and that the first boy I kissed was Polish, too (actually all the boys I've ever kissed were Polish). And I'll always have a need to have some Polish people around, specially if they're just like me: between cultures, between languages. People of all nationalities feel the need to have their countrymen around from time to time. So do people from North Yorkshire or Devon, I suppose.

Integration is not easy because it requires both parties - the locals and the newcomers - to make an effort and to try and understand each other. I can go on about how better my country is - but it's just me being proud of the land I come from, just like you are proud of all the Scottish inventors in history, of bagpipes and kilts, of Flower of Scotland and the Western Isles. If you ever moved abroad, would you blend in? Would you suddenly loose your broad Scottish accent and stop wearing a kilt? I love the fact that you wouldn't. It's one of the reasons I fell in love with this country and made it my home.
I wish I could speak with a Scottish accent. It sounds like home. I'm happy to notice I know more and more about this country. Sometimes it feels I know more about Scottish and British current affairs than I do about Polish. I even prefer to gossip about Jordan than about Doda.

I'm blending in.
But I will never have blended in.
And I'm proud to be different.

The King's Speech - review

2011-02-20T12:58:00.001Z

If you haven't yet seen The King's Speech, rush to your nearest cinema. It's such a good movie!

The story has been slighlty changed for dramatic effect, but the fact remains: George VI did stutter and was helped by Lionel Logue's unorthodox methods. It's one of those movies that make you realise that those born with a silver spoon in their mouth might not be as lucky as we think. Royal public duties were the king's curse. And as it's stated in the movie itself, he could not just change jobs. You're born into this family and there you are, in the spotlight, always. Whether you like it or not, whether you're fit for it or not.
It's also a movie about overcoming weaknesses. For the king it was his sense of duty that motivated him. He had support, fair enough, but first of all, that was his own pride, his own persistence that made him succeed.
Last but not least it's a story about friendship. Cause sometimes you meet kind people when you least expect to.

The movie is light-hearted, witty and uplifting. The acting is masterclass. You're going to love it!

PS: Every time I watch British cast movie I can't escape the feeling of subliminal messages about, erm... Harry Potter.

Write a book in six weeks

2011-02-17T11:49:00.000Z

I was going past the post office today and there was an ad for writing course stuck to the window. Write a book in six weeks it said. I smirked and walked on.

I met one of the girls from my writing group on Sunday and one of the first things she asked was: are you writing a book? Of course I am. I'm writing a lot, I'm writing things that might end up being a book at some point. But I also have this 40-odd-pages document saved on my drive, plus lots of scraps, plans, characters descriptions, (abridged) dictionary of the language I invented, maps of fantasy lands and family trees. I hope one day they will become a book.

I'm afraid I'm not one of those people who can just sit down and write. I need peace of mind. No tea to make, no washing to hang. No work. So I mostly write when I'm off. I get things done in the morning and then I sit down to write and can write through the day to the early morning hours. But that doesn't happen too often, unfortunately. When I don't have time I write short forms, stories mostly. Every now and then I'd take a few days off to work on what's supposed to be a novel one day.

Now, the ad made me think - if I had six weeks to write would I finish it?

I doubt it actually. I can't imagine writing it non-stop. I need breaks from my imaginary world, so even if I was writing for six weeks, I probably wouldn't be writing the same thing all the time.
If I had six months though - now we're talking. In six months I might finish it and even start a sequel. That's assuming I wouldn't have my writing group to take care off, you know, and all the houseworks that seem to be taking all the time in the world, once you're off work.

I need six months of paid holidays. Sigh.

Show me love

2011-02-15T11:43:00.001Z

Let's face it: V Day is a pain in the back side. First of all you're so bombarded by the whole plush hearts marketing, that you have to take the stand. Either you're pro or anti. It's uncool to be pro, but than why would I be anti? I just don't care.

When I was single, I probably cared more. As I wrote last year, I wasn't exactly anti, I just tried to make it work for me, to prove that it can be single people's holiday, too. Since I've been in relationships though, it's been annoying me much more, being one more occasion to figure out the gifts. Therefore I'm quite happy over the agreement me and Marcin have with regards to Valentines. We don't mind it, but we're not dying to get anything organised for the day. I'd tease him asking if we do anything this year, but at the end of the day I don't expect anything and I will gladly make my own plans for the day. Like this year. I went to friend's birthday party on Saturday (Marcin was ill and stayed at home), than had two meetings on Sunday and workshops yesterday. So no time together. So I was surprised and touched when he turned up yesterday with bunch of sunflowers and chocolates. No changes, I'm still not a fan of the V Day, but a huge fan of Marcin. Cause the thing is - I don't care about anniversaries and holidays. But I like being spoilt (who doesn't?). I like receiving gifts (who doesn't?). I don't care when I don't get anything for Valentines, birthdays, Christmas, etc. But I'm over the moon if I do out of the blue. Lowering your expectations is the clue. After all being together is not about celebrating holidays. It's about celebrating every day of your relationship. Valentines and anniversaries are merely reminders, that despite the monotony of everyday life, it's still important to show your other half that you care.

Not very original, but so true: when you're in love, Valentines are every day. Oh, ok, with the exception of the silent treatment days.

Saturday night (and Sunday morning) in 8 easy steps

2011-02-13T11:58:00.001Z

1. Give yourself enough time to get ready. That means starting getting ready around 3 p.m. if the party starts at 8 p.m. Don't be surprised if you fall asleep on the sofa while drying your nails and wake up 40 minutes later in panic.
2. The longer you straighten your hair, the more likely it's going to rain. Specially if you don't have an umbrella.
3. Always carry a corkscrew and a bottle opener in your handbag. Otherwise learn how to open a bottle of beer with a cigarette lighter, a key or a chair.
4. Strongly consider taking an extra pair of comfy shoes with you. High heels look pretty, are good for dancing, specially if you have a flare for flamenco, but walking home in them after a night on the dancefloor is a nightmare. Even queuing for a taxi comes at a cost.
5. Someone else gets a six seater when you need it.
6. Always have a bottle of water and pain killers on your night stand.
7. Scrambled eggs and ice cream for breakfast are tops.
8. Teach your partner (neighbour) to give you foot massage.

Days when the rain and the sun are gone

2011-02-11T10:43:00.000Z

I hate people sometimes. I can't stand them, can't stand being around them. And that includes really close people. On days like that it's all me, me, me. I don't care about your problems, leave me alone. I want time for myself, to analyse myself, or pamper myself, or read, or watch movies on my own, or do none of those things and just lie down, music on, chocolate bar at hand. Quite possibly lost somewhere in the land of my imagination, where nobody else has the right to enter.

I need those days. Days of complete and utter selfishness. Days when I can't deal with my own demons, let alone someone else's. I need those days to gain my strength, my energy, my good vibrations, so that I can come back with my ears ready to listen, my shoulder ready to cry on and my head full of ideas how to cheer my friends up, inspire them, help them or just spend time with them. Sometimes I need a lot of time on my own. Years sometimes. If you think that makes me selfish and uncompassionate, well, I guess you have a right to think that. But be aware that it's a self-preservation. I wear out sometimes. Cause sometimes people need more attention that I can give them. And it takes a lot of effort not to hurt them. Dealing with people actually takes a lot of effort. I'm short-fused, I say what I think. Some people get it, some people don't. Some understand and some get offended. If I care and don't want to lose their friendship I need to hold my tongue and use all the diplomacy I have. If you think it doesn't come at a cost, you're wrong.

To me it's all part of working on yourself, investing in yourself as a person. Some people have a natural vibe to always be cheerful, lovely and compassionate. I don't. But I'm doing my best. So bear with me and let me have my time off the radar. If you're going to hate me afterwards for not keeping in touch - frankly, screw you. If you text me asking if I'm fine, I'll give you a hug. I care, even when I'm not around, even when I'm not saying it out loud, even if I seem preoccupied with my own demons. Do you?

Inspired by a FB message from a friend - you know who you are :) Keep them coming! And check this out: video and lyrics.

Productivity

2011-02-10T10:47:00.002Z

Couldn't be happier not to work with Prod 3000 anymore!

How do you do?

2011-02-08T12:45:00.002Z

When you start learning English, one of the very first expressions they teach you is how do you do. They tell you it's a greeting to which you reply: how do you do. In time you learn that people more commonly say: how are you or, erm, how you doin'. What takes a bit longer to grasp, though, is that it's actually not a question. I'd make an educated guess and say that quite possibly all the languages have a similar expression, but in many it actually is a question, rather than merely a greeting, to which you don't expect a reply other then, well, yes, how do you do. In English you say how are you, someone replies fine, and you and that's it. And sometimes you don't get a reply at all. Because you're not asking. You're just saying that in passing like you'd say hiya. And you never reply saying anything negative. So-so is probably the most negative reply to how are you you'll ever get.

Not from me. Cause in my mother tongue, the closest commonly used equivalent to how are you is co słychać (how is it going or how are things or even what's up) and it is indeed an invitation to be sincere. You would never say that to someone you barely know, save someone you've just met. Unless you wanted them to reply something among the lines of: none of your business. However if you know somebody well, you're usually prepared to hear a catalogue of their mishaps, diseases, family tragedies and usual moaning about the weather, politics, global crisis, climate change and their neighbourhood. Cause, we Poles, are a nation of moaners. And mourners, too. We excel in being unhappy.

So if you ask me how I am, despite having lived in the UK for almost 6 years, if I know you well, I'm more than likely to reply that I have a terrible migraine, haven't slept well last night, I hate my job or that I'm upset cause suddenly food's more expensive than it was last week. And the biggest sin of all, I might forget to ask how you were. It's another example of politeness relativity. Perhaps if there were different rules as to using greetings in Polish language we would be less moany. Or maybe if we were less self-centred and miserable, we would actually say: jak leci -- w porzo (ok) and that would be it.

Wanna learn some Polish? click

This post has been inspired by yesterday's workshops - In Other Words

Girl with a chair earring

2011-02-06T10:11:00.001Z

OK, so I've decided it's a good idea to open my vaults and share some of my bling-bling with all those of you, readers, who are into style, fashion and such.

Since I've had my ears pierced I have been known as a collector of odd, interesting, cute, funky, classy, original earrings. I own tones of them. I left some behind in Poland and still miss them. When I was back in high school we used to have jewellery fair twice a year in my town. My high school friends used to say: how do you know there was a jewellery fair at the weekend? - Kasia's got new earrings! I would always bring new earings from my travels (not neccessery from abroad). And I would get lots of them as gifts. And I still do.

And so, because I own hundreds of earrings, this will make a good reccuring topic. If I get my other half to take pictures of my ears, that is. I mean, my earrings in my ears, of course.

The ones below are a gift from my sister and I got them when I was at the uni. They are hand made, sterling silver.

Another dreich day in Scotland

2011-02-04T07:25:00.019Z

I'm sure there have been volumes written about the Scottish weather. And I'm sure I've written more than one post about the subject, cause when you're living in Scotland the weather is the topic people talk about most. Or should I say, moan about most. Not surprisingly.

I've been told a few times that I should refrain from moaning, cause where I come from it must be colder. Yes, it is. In winter. And hotter in the summer (cause Poland gets more than one day of summer), but... Let's face it, heavy snowfalls and -20 degrees is really nothing when you compare it to Edinburgh's famous horizontal rain (I used to wind up my family in Poland by telling them that weather forecasts on BBC Scotland included the angle of the rainfall). And high winds. Those two combined mean that:
a) there's no point using the umbrella (nor a comb, not too mention blow-dryer or hair-straightener)
b) you're going to get painstakingly cold whatever the temperature.
And such weather is not typical to any season. You can get horizontal rain any time of year.

When you come to Scotland first thing they tell you is: if you don't like the weather wait 20 minutes. It will change. Most definitely. From wonderful sunshine to sleet. Or hail. In June.

A Polish couple I know in Edinburgh thought their thermometer was broken cause it showed 10 degrees all the time. From early November to late April (that was a few years ago, this year and last we've had colder winters here).
But that's one of the points - Scottish weather tends to be almost exactly the same all year round. It's distinctive in being indistinctive.

Maybe it's only an urban legend that there's many names for different types of snow in Inuit languages. Well, in Scotland there is quite a lot of Scots words that describe the weather here (sometimes because the conditions are only specific to this place under the sun).

Edinburgh on a normal day (left) and in haar (right)

The first word I've learned was dreich. We were on the banks of Loch Ness, in a B&B on a sheep farm and our land lady told us the the day was going to be dreich. Damp and misty, she explained. Then there was dribble which is the same as drizzle. Haar (my favourite word), which is not just mist or fog. It's a very thick fog that makes it impossible to see Arthur's Seat from Calton Hill and the Castle from the North Bridge, and that doesn't disappear for days and makes it a bit more difficult to breathe. It's quite creepy and makes me think of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Smirr - is a very light rain, so light that you don't take your brolly out, but you end up looking like a poodle anyway. And so on. If you're interested there's a very useful dictionary here.

Recently the weather was pretty much crap. But on a Wednesday night I thought I was having nightmares when I heard the thunder. Apparently there was lightning, too. On a cold February night. I woke up to a horizontal sleet, but by the time I was leaving for work the sun was shining. When I was coming back home... let's just say that standing under the bus shelter does not mean you're covered from the rain. Not if it's in Edinburgh and specially not if it's one of the stops next to John Lewis.
Someone commented on Twitter that there's no bad weather, just bad clothing choices. Very funny. But hey, I always have a brolly and my sunglasses in my handbag. And it's here in Scotland where I've mastered the art of layered clothing.

Time management

2011-02-02T07:36:00.030Z

Every time I fill in a job application I don't hesitate for a second to write that I'm absolutely amazing at managing my time. Cause I'm not bad at all. When it comes to work. I figure out very quickly how long things take me and I plan ahead. I never leave anything till the last possible moment, I'm never late and I always keep the deadlines. In fact I self-impose deadlines, that are some time ahead of the real ones. I always have more than one to-do list and I always account for a) bad days, b) headaches, c) useless people, d) ad hoc duties.

I might be fabulous at managing my time at work, but not so much when it comes to managing my leisure. I always end up just doing nothing in my free time. And by nothing I mean watching just one more X Files episode (while I could actually read a book), facebooking (if there's no such word there should definitely be), chatting (while I should be doing some house works). This time of year makes me extremely bad, cause by the time I'm home from work it's dark and it seems I'll be going to bed soon. Straight after I had my tea. And watched a new episode of V. And replied to a few e-mails. And posted something on one of my blogs. And phoned my Dad. And Skyped friends. And did the washing. And...

There are days when I come back from work and tell myself: right, I need to cook tea, hoover, hang the washing to dry, pay my bills, post this and that, reply to this e-mail and then I can do whatever I feel like doing. But most of the time I slip to the sofa before I even manage to take my shoes off, sigh over the idea of cooking anything, switch Lorenzo on and turn the music up. And before I know I'm lying on the sofa wrapped in my Snuggie watching another episode of a favourite TV series. And then it's suddenly 11 p.m. and I haven't done anything for the entire evening. And let's face it - I don't spend evenings at home every day. Apparently it comes with age - once you're over 30 you get worse at organising your time and it seems to you you don't have as much of it as you'd like to any more. It stops around the time you retire (great).

So, that's it, I need to do something about it. Like a to-do list. Before I leave work or on the bus back home. And then stick to it. It has to include at least an hour of reading. And I guess it has to account for emergencies. Like last minute invites. Or sudden decisions to go to the cinema (something I haven't done for a very long time). Ok, so tonight, I need to, erm, I need to... Can I watch something first?

Insomnia

2011-01-31T22:41:00.000Z

Just in case not enough beauty clinics started following me on Twitter after my last post I've decided to write about under eye bags. Well, kind of.

I don't suffer from proper, clinical insomnia. Now, that would be easy, I could go and see someone about it. Perhaps get some funky meds. Or even go on a sick leave due to exhaustion.

But no, I suffer from the lack of sleep only from time to time. Around full moon. Or if it gets too windy. If I'm busy - I guess my brain is trying to tell me - don't waste your time sleeping, kiddo, you've got plenty to do! And I also get sleepless for no apparent reason. Just because.

It's not always the same. I'm rather an early bird than a night owl, so I can go to bed really early and then wake up at two and listen to my other half snoring till 5. But sometimes I just don't get sleepy at all. I end up chatting online to friends who are night owls or simply work late. And then I can read or watch movies for hours. On both occasions I'd tell myself that I need to sleep or otherwise I'll be unconcious in the morning. I might even fall asleep on my desk at works. And definitely on the bus on my way back home (yes, both happen to me at times). It doesn't help. Nothing helps really. I hate warm milk and most herbal teas. I've always sucked at maths so counting sheep just stresses me out. Watching TV wakes me up (anyway what can you watch at 2 am?). I guess I could talk to other insomniacs on Twitter but that would hardly tire me. So, if I'm awake, I'm awake. I usually bind my time thinking about next writing task for my group or our next event if we plan one or about a story, my novel or anything other than work, my bank account balance or the fact that mice didn't make appearance for at least a year now.

I can sleep 4 hours a night for weeks, even though it makes me feel like a zombie and getting up in the morning gets more and more difficult. And then suddenly I'll start sleeping properly. For no apparent reason.

I had some problems sleeping a few weeks ago and since nothing worked for me to get proper 7-hour sleep I gave up and bought myself eye bags concealer. I have been sleeping like a baby ever since.

Alternative ageism

2011-01-28T13:07:00.000Z

One of the New Year's resolutions that I didn't make was to write more. Cause topics are all around, as I was told when I had a go at becoming a journalist many years ago.This one is straight from my own humble abode.

My other half asked me a few nights ago how old I was. He's a bit crazy, you know, I'm lucky he remembers my name (although it's not so sure, cause he's calling me Monkey, Minx and even Little Evil - although somehow in Polish they don't sound that bad). So I started laughing and said: I'm going to be 34 this summer, honey. He was quite shocked, but it turns out he was shocked to discover that it makes him 32 (oh, my sweet toy boy). And then he gave it a thought and said: You know, old woman, you don't look your age at all.

I was just a bit upset to be called an old woman, because of the rest of the sentence - well, who doesn't like being told that? With no lipo, no botox, no expensive foundations, no expensive clothes and no personal trainer (in fact without being to the gym, like, ever). I know I don't look my age, despite wrinkles here and there, some greyish hair, a few extra pounds and my boobs NOT defying gravity. It runs in the family cause I don't think my grandma looks 90, nor does my dad looks 68. My sister doesn't look her age either. And it doesn't help that neither her nor me actually dress our age - whatever it means. Let's say I'm not exactly ready to shop in mature section, if you know what I mean. And yes I got myself cherry red Doc Martens' and love them. On the other hand - what does dress your age mean? I wear what I like and feel comfortable in. God forbid suits and pencil skirts. Most of the time.

But there are downsides to looking younger. I'm not talking about being IDd (happens to me from time to time) when buying booze, which is funny rather than annoying. I'm talking about people not treating you your age. Not respecting your opinions, cause you're still so young. Not respecting you in your work place, cause you can't possibly be experienced enough, after all you can't be older than - what? 25? Nooo? Really? 34? No way.

I've been treated like that before - but that was when I was indeed young and inexperienced (not that it was fair back then). But now it's driving me nuts.
Me and my forgetful other half have been to a pub with some friends some time ago and one of the guys (himself in his early twenties) was trying to be funny and called Marcin a grandpa. Marcin got really cross and said: watch your mouth, kiddo, you're going where I am and whatever you think right now, it doesn't take long. And then I added: you've managed to offend me, too, cause I'm older. If he's a grandpa, what does it make me?
The guy tried to defend himself by saying: but you don't look your age, and that was when he made things even worse. It makes no difference what age I look, I'm still older than my other half. My looks don't make me younger. The guy couldn't understand what we were so furious about, but he will when he's in his thirties.

I guess what's really bad about ageism (and it doesn't really matter if you're mistreated cause you're old, or young, or look older/younger) is the expectations. People expect you to dress certain way, have a certain hair-do, drive a certain car - and all of that by a certain age. If you don't fit their expectations - there clearly must be something wrong with you.

Well, the hell with everybody's expectations. I'm not going to apologise for looking good. For being young at heart. For not really fitting with steady job-family life formula. For being a bit crazy at times, for being creative and being silly enough to do things that I love for free. Just because y'all age too quickly out there, doesn't mean I have to, too.

Karma

2011-01-26T21:25:00.004Z

Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. And you know you have to.
Like helping out with a fund-raiser and then throwing a few quid in a tin so that somebody can get healthy.
Like deciding to go and pay a visit to a blogger who's grieving over a lost love even though you've never met before.
Like going to a memorial service and giving a warm hug to a grieving widow.

I've done all those things in a space of five days and I know why.
It's a karma.
And it makes you appreciate what you have.

Over the Rainbow - Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole OFFICIAL VIDEO from Mountain Apple Company on Vimeo.

January sundries

2011-01-25T15:22:00.000Z

Still a few days (including pay day) to go this month, but so far January seems to have been full of events.

2011 has started and it wasn't a bad start. A little bit too much Martini maybe, but then I spent the New Year's Day watching movies and some of them made me cry. No New Year's resolutions policy has been decided to be maintained. It doesn't really mean I have none - I just don't verbalise them. It works better. Coming back to work was tough - I can't remember when was the last time I felt so lazy (possibly before Christmas). I had had some energy for about two days and then it was gone, completely. Effective, not efficient. It didn't help that the job application I submitted a few days into New Year was to no reply. I probably have my notice terms to blame for that. Oh, well, they'll be other jobs, hopefully. I desperately need a change!

But then there was our winter writing task and as always it was really amusing to read what ideas others came up with. I so wish I was able to post a link here for all of you to read, but that will have to wait for someone to develop a universal translator.

And then there was the meeting two weeks ago, unfortunately followed by a blue week. I tend to blame my winter blues on, well, the fact that it's winter!.
On a much more positive note I was featured on the Edinburgh Reporter website, which resulted in being followed by the creator of Edinburgh Spotlight, one of my fav websites about Edinburgh. I guess it was a bit of coming out, since my blog has always been quite niche, with not too many views. I'm reconsidering posting the last episode of the story of how I ended up in Scotland, cause you know, it's a bit embarrassing. I'll have to be very careful with HOW I write it, I suppose.

Last Saturday I was at the Granary and had absolutely amazing time. If you want to read about how it went, click here and scroll down to read the English version. I'm strongly considering taking up boxing classes now.

Yes, that is indeed me trying on the gloves that were sold during the auction (I didn't buy them, preferred a pair of gorgeous ear rings). Anyway it was definitely a night to remember.

I have also been asked to review three books, that includes Rachel's novel, which I can't wait to start reading (I have got a signed copy!). I have three books to read before that (as a self-given homework before our next writing tasks) and and article (in preparation to a project that I'm starting in February). As you can see I've been quite busy these days, not to mention my most recent addiction to online scrabble - Polish version, I'm not good enough to play in English and am not prepared to lose all the time.

Oh, and well, yes, our car (known as Rufio) has broken down and Marcin had to spend too much money for it to be fixed. But apparently it is to be collected today. Well. No comment. Glad it's working again. I need a road trip (as soon as I find time to go for one)!

Charity Action

2011-01-21T11:21:00.001Z

If you're in Edinburgh and have no plans for Saturday night why not join us for the night of fun and charity?

We are raising money to pay for Antek's heart operation. He's three years old and he's quite a character! If you want to help come along - there'll be music, (belly) dance, amazing food, singing and auctions.

Saturday, 22 Janury 7p.m - 1a.m

The Granary
32-34 Shore
Edinburgh

Entry by donation £3

More info

Gotta have some hot stuff

2011-01-19T14:44:00.001Z

I officially work in a place that's really, really lacking hot guys. It's lacking hot guys to a point where I would turn and stare at a not-so-hot guy that I randomly bumped into at the campus shop. Pathetic, I know. Well, what can you do, we are really starving for good looking guys here. We have geeks and nerds and all kinds of weirdos. We have stuck-in-the-seventies/eighties/nineties guys. We have who-cares-how-I-look-as-long-as-I-have-the-brain guys. We have shy guys. We have students who are far below the age limit (I'm not that desperate to become a paedophile... yet). Anyway, you get the picture.

I'm well aware that I have no reason to complain, since I'm not on a hunt for a hottie. I have my hottie at home and he keeps me happy. But what's wrong with having someone good looking around to please your eyes from time to time? I mean we've got lots of pretty girls here and the geeks don't tend to look away.
It does not help that there's no dress code. I bet some of those guys would be eye-pleasing if you gave them a make-over.
Don't misunderstand me. There are some ok-looking guys. But it's rare to see someone who would make you sigh.

For some reason or other in the previous department I worked for we had at least one real hottie and I do miss random chats about the weather. As a matter of fact I found the science in the previous department far sexier than the research they do here, too (neutrinos are sexier than parasites, right?).

And just in case someone I work with realises it's me who wrote this and storms into my office claiming they are hot: please do not. I can't lie for the life of me.

Till I drop

2011-01-17T21:39:00.000Z

When it comes to booze, I can think of many people who drink much more than I do. I can go sober for months. And I mean completely sober, no wine to my suppers, no after-work drinks, no pint and crisps on Friday evening, no nightcaps, nothing.

But then there would be this one odd night out every now and then. Sometimes I'll be fine and I'll be good. I'll be the mother hen and I'll rather take care of everyone else than drink till I drop. But then sometimes, in the right companion... I'll drop. Or at least spend an absolutely lovely night doing those kinds of things I wouldn't normally do. Drink far too much white wine. Spill wine over people when pouring it (and then apparently advising that they can just lick it off). Smoke (smoke!). Dance in a goth club (they were playing The Cure, I just couldn't stay off the dancefloor). Talk about first times, first orgasms, having sex in public, people I wouldn't kick out of bed (some of them are dead), slashing wrists, lily of the valley's toxic properties, teenage poetry, writing and Kings of Leon. And many more topics I don't even remember and I'm not sure I want to.

When 11 months ago I entered a blogging competition, little did I know that it will result in meeting the most amazing bunch of people, getting together to form a writing group, having uttermost fun writing things together and going out for such a fun night out. And most of all having this absolutely incredible feeling of knowing them all my life and having so much in common. And to think that none of this would ever happen without blogosphere...

I had a dream

2011-01-14T11:23:00.002Z

I had a dream last night that I was a smoker. I haven't had a cigarette for five years (excluding the water pipe in Turkey).
Well, anyway, I can't remember anything else about the dream, which is probably good, considering that I tend to have really strange dreams.

Not as strange as my uni flatmate, though. I remember two of hers. One was about her and her bunch of friends coming back from a party in two cars. One of them was in an accident and when the party from the second car got to hospital they were met by the doctor who said: There was nothing we could do. And then showed them a huge pot of broth.

The second one was about a rash she suddenly got on her neck. She went to see her doctor only to be told that it's a rare condition called neck gonorrhoea and it can only be transmitted by one person in the entire universe - and it's our history of political thought tutor (who we hated, so hopefully this kind of gonorrhoea wasn't a STD).

Not even as strange as Marcin's dream in which I had four legs.
- And what did you do? - I asked him dreading he cut two extra ones in his dream.
- I bought you two pairs of hold ups. - he replied.
Isn't that sweet of him?

As to my dreams... Some two years ago I had this very disturbing dream in which I found out that Marcin had cheated on me at a party. All our friends knew and finally someone let it slip. I was furious even when I woke up and had a go at him. You should have seen his face. Priceless.
A few months later I was dreaming about being in a pub with my friend Karon and her asking me if I had an affair with (a name of a person from work) and me blushing and replying that in fact, yes I did (BTW it's still a mystery to me why on Earth my twisted brain even came up with the idea).
When I told Marcin in the morning, the only thing he had to say, was: we're even.

I guess we are.

Bloggers meet-up 2011

2011-01-10T19:24:00.000Z

If you're a blogger, based in the UK and willing to meet other bloggers in May 2011 in Edinburgh, wait no more and go to lovely Miss Smidge's blog for more info! I will be there so if you're one of my followers dying to meet me - you know what to do (Mich, I'm really talking about you - one and only chance to make me play drinking games and teach you some dirty Polish words - in return for the Scottish ones, of course).

:)

Mr and Mrs Stranded

2011-01-04T18:26:00.000Z

I'm alive and well and this is my festive season recap:

1. finding out KLM re-booked our flight to Lufthansa flight via Frankfurt on the day of the flight (early in the morning though) - checked
2. flying out of Edinburgh late due to weather conditions - checked
3. missing our connection in Frankfurt - checked
4. managing to re-book to a new connection to Berlin - checked
5. getting four bars of Milka chocolate from a lovely stewardess on the plane to Berlin (I was so hungry by that time that I ate two and a half of them) - checked
6. landing in Berlin and finding out that our luggage is missing - checked
7. spending an hour and a half in the queue to report our missing luggage - checked
8. waiting at the airport for the departure of our bus till midnight - checked
9. 4-hour bus ride to Poznan (that included meeting lovely people) - checked
10. getting to Poland in time for Christmas Eve (which is the main Christmas celebration in Poland) but without our luggage and therefore Christmas gifts - checked
11. meeting Marcin's family in hopes of impressing them (no idea if I managed, btw) - checked
12. stuffing ourselves with lovely food - checked
13. loosing in Monopoly and winning in Scrabble twice in a row followed by a serious row over Polish grammar (of course I was right) - checked
14. playing with dogs - checked
15. receiving a call from Lufthansa on Monday, 27th that our luggage had been found and would be sent to Edinburgh - checked
16. 4 hour bus ride from Poznan to Berlin (more nice people) - checked
17. a cup of Caramel Macchiato in Starbucks at the Tegel Airport - checked
18. over an hour on the plane waiting for the luggage to be loaded (not our luggage, of course) and then for the plane to be de-iced - checked
19. being lucky to be on the last plane to depart from Berlin that evening before the runway was closed - checked
20. getting to Amsterdam late and missing the connection to Edinburgh - checked
21. spending the night in the 4-star airport hotel courtesy of KLM - checked
22. free midnight meal of fish and chips with salad and remoulade (yummy) at the hotel bar - checked
23. catching early morning flight to Edinburgh and finally getting home - checked
24. getting our luggage safe and sound a day after we arrived - checked
25. 3 days of being lazy: reading, watching movies and sleeping - checked
26. crazy New Year's Eve night with some old and new friends - checked
27. dancing on the New Year's Eve (both of us!) - checked
28. more days of laziness, playing online Scrabble (Polish version) and trying to update my CV - checked

And that's it, folks. As you can see I've been busy and the, erm, not so busy, but very lazy. All the best to all of you, thanks for all the messages and wishes on Facebook and Twitter and by mail. Hope to meet some of you in the New Year!

Christmas is in the air

2010-12-20T12:13:00.000Z

Very funny, weather, very funny. The only thing I know right now is that I don't know anything. We might get lucky and somehow make it to Poland for Christmas or we might be not so lucky and get stuck at Schiphol. Or on the way from Berlin to Poznan. We thought we were so clever with the city-hopping plan...

So, yes, well, the plan currently is 3 days with Marcin's family in Poland. Or Christmas Eve at our friends' in Edinburgh and then days of watching DVDs. Or being stuck at the airport somewhere in Europe, running like headless chicken trying to charge my Kindle. Anything sounds like fun, though, right?

I've been to a pre-Christmas meeting on Saturday, got to eat lots of yummy food (most of it traditional Polish) and got a DVD from Secret Santa (cause I've been a good girl). I put our Christmas tree up only to discover that only half of the lights are working. Well, tough luck, I'll buy new ones after Christmas when they're on sale. I posted all the Christmas gifts last week, only have those for Marcin to pack, but I'm not letting him open them till morning of the 23rd. Oh, maybe I'll let him open one.

Festive season at work started last week with putting up the ugliest Christmas tree ever - but, hey, the tree and decorations were no more than 10 pounds which makes it a bargain. So it's up with its golden branches and plastic red icicles. I brought some cake today and tomorrow we have our work Christmas lunch, which if I am to judge by last year's event is going to end in a headache on Weds morning. Oh, well, I might start packing today, just in case.

So in case I do get stuck somewhere in Europe with no Internet access - may you all have a very lovely Christmas, with or without snow.

December sundries

2010-12-13T19:22:00.004Z

I'm alive and not snowed under. Not anymore, anyway. Most of the snow has melted by now and only ice remains in places, and I can't stop myself from thinking why the money I've been paying each year in council tax have been spent on unused tram rails on Princes Street rather than on clearing the snow from the streets and pavements, before it froze and made it impossible to walk in some places, unless you were prepare to skate. I was reading FB updates from my friends in Poland, moaning about the weather and felt like telling them - you have no idea what you're talking about.

Most countries in Central and Northern Europe have heavy snow falls each year and they manage to survive without abandoning cars on M8, without weeks of schools closure and without people in West Lothian not being able to even go to the corner shop. Just a few tips: winter tyres, snow ploughs out before the rush hour, proper-soled boots. Do I have to mention: clear the snow of the roof of your car? I do, apparently. And if you're a home owner: after you have cleared the snow off your driveway, do not leave a heap on the pavement for the pedestrians to jump over it. Thanks.

Anyway, I have survived two weeks of heavy snow in Edinburgh, with no broken bones and actually smile on my face most of the time, cause Edinburgh in snow looks absolutely magical. The second week I luckily didn't have to leave the flat (but I did) cause I was on holiday (as always I had too many days left so decided to use them now). I was reading a lot (read two Millennium novels and some 150 pages of the third one), writing quite a lot and ended up being amazed by how my novel started taking shape on paper rather than just in my head - still a long way to go, specially cause I can only properly concentrate on it when I have a few days off (those of you who would like to see the excerpts: unfortunately I haven't yet managed to master the art of writing fiction in English - neither have I in Polish to be honest, but I'm definitely doing better in my mother tongue). I did some shopping (please, credit card, forgive me). And I picked up my Christmas gift and had lots of fun with it. I've decided to buy myself what's been on my I want this list for a long time and got myself a Kindle. I downloaded a tone of books to it straight away. It's definitely going to be my favourite gadget.

On Saturday for the very first time in my life I've been partying on Skype. I was in front of Lorenzo and a bunch of friends was in Paris. That was one of the coolest parties I've been to. I was on Skype till 2 a.m. and please do not ask me how many drinks I've had. A lot. Still, we plan to meet in Paris next year, no Skype this time.

I did not watch the X Factor final (although I read Guardian live blog and had twitter on, so knew what was going on). I have downloaded the original version of Many of Horror from iTunes in the morning, though. Twice. Because I like Biffy's version more. Much more. Still am happy for them to receive a handsome pay out in royalties for Matt's version.

And then I came to work today and got some news. Good (potentially) and bad. Still trying to get my head round it, so I'd rather keep them to myself for the timebeing.

What's in a name?

2010-11-26T15:35:00.000Z

I was planning to write this post yesterday, but didn't make it. Suddenly I'm so busy I almost missed Misfits yesterday. And then almost fell asleep half way through it. Wake me up nearer Christmas, will you?

Poland is one of a few European countries (and there's a few more in Latin America) where people celebrate their name day. Is it like birthday? - my Scottish friends usually ask. Pretty much like birthday, with gifts and parties, but there's no candles on the cake. Apparently it gets less and less popular, but it's far from disappearing. Well, of course, why have only one day of celebration a year if you can have two? And more importantly (for some) why give up a day which is pretty much a birthday but you don't have to admit your age?

So what is it you're really celebrating on your name day? I hear you asking. Well, it comes from the Christian tradition of celebrating feasts of saints on certain days of the year. Like St Andrew's day on 30th November. Or St George's Day on 23rd April. There's cohorts of saints and their feasts are celebrated on different days throughout a year.
Since the pagan times, one of the ideas behind naming a child has been to protect it. Christians (and specifically in Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches) believe that the patron saint will take care of the baby. Obviously nowadays not every child gets a Christian name, but in countries like Poland calendars have been updated with some modern names, too. Every day in the Calendar has a few names assigned to it and that's why my name day box on iGoogle looks like that:

It says: Friday, 26th November 2010 and then the names for the day are listed, most of them sounding very Slavic and not being too common. There can be a few dates assigned to one name, if there was more than one saint with that name. For example there was St Catherine of Alexandria whose feast falls on 25th November and St Catherine of Siena whose feast falls on 29th April. The first one happens to be my patron saint, hopefully not because my parents wanted me to use her as a role model (she was a martyr - she was beheaded when she was 18). That makes yesterday my name day.
I used to celebrate name day rather than birthday mostly because my B-Day is in the middle of the summer and when I was at school all my friends were on holidays, or I was. My name day party at the uni became a bit of a tradition hence my friends from uni always remember and never fail to send me name day wishes. When I was a child we used to celebrate birthdays with family and close friends and name days at work or at school. On the day I would be given a bag of candy to take to school and share with my friends. Adults hosted name day parties at work. It's easier to remember people's name day cause you have a calendar to help your memory and every day they say who's name day it is on the radio and TV and print it in papers.

So I got lots of wishes from friends yesterday, name day card from my aunt, e-card from my Dad and a parcel full of goodies from my sister. I even got a lovely cheesecake from my office mate, who's Scottish (see, that's a result of me talking about Poland a lot).
Marcin promised to buy me my favourite ginger cakes, but he had to stay at work longer so I bought them myself. He was told exactly where he's taking me on Saturday to buy me what I had in mind for months.

Anyone keen on starting celebrating their name day?

... and come alive again

2010-11-22T21:24:00.001Z

My usual, biannual tribute. One day I'll dig up my notes and write about that day. Hard to believe it's been 13 years...

BTW it's not bad at all for a home made video, although can you imagine what the original one would be like has it ever been made? It's such a great song, and so frightening, considering...

Blogging friends

2010-11-18T13:11:00.001Z

It's been six and a half years since I started writing my first ever blog. All those years and a number of blogs later I have quite a number of friends I've met thanks to blogging. With some of them I have recently set a writing group - something that wouldn't cross my mind, when I was writing my first blog post in the summer of 2004. I also wouldn't think I could ever get a prize in a blogging competition, but that's a different story.

I also have a number of blogging friends I've never met in real life (and due to our location - it's unlikely we'll ever meet), but who I've got to know so well through their blogs (and they've got to know me) that I couldn't possibly miss them out when sending Christmas e-mails. There are blogging friends who I haven't yet met, but I will. Meeting people you've known through their blogs is nothing like meeting new people. It's like meeting old friends. Last week I've met a fellow blogger for the first time (well, technically second, but first time face to face to have a proper chat over coffee) and it was fab. It was: oh yes, I read about it on your blog. She knows my OH's name. I know her cat's. There are things we don't have to explain anymore. And obviously there are things we have in common, that made us read our blogs in the first place (like: we used to live in the same city, so when I say a name of the pub, she goes: oh, yes).

There are bloggers whose blogs I'm regularly reading, but because I rarely comment, we've never got into this special kind of close blogging relationship. I'm observing, we're not talking. Still I feel part of their life (the bits of it they are willing to share) and if they stop posting, I get worried. Are they ok? And I miss them.
People who've never been into blogging will never understand how close you can become with other bloggers. How it makes you sad, when something sad happens to them. And how you need to help when they're reaching out for it. I could become really miserable when a number of my blogging friends post something sad. It makes you regret that all you can do is write a comment. When in fact you want to give them a hug. Or buy them a mug of hot chocolate and offer your ears to listen.

I rarely share very personal thoughts on my blogs (in fact I rarely share them at all - I love talking about myself, but hate to be perceived as hopeless, insecure or anxious, even though I often am, obviously). Still having this small group of readers who pop in here makes me feel I actually have more friends than just those whose numbers I have on my mobile (and that I struggle to meet anyway - it seems so much easier to keep in touch with blogging friends sometimes!).

My life would not be the same without my blogging friends. I even cannot start imagining not having this - and a couple more - virtual places. Some people say Internet is a lonely place and the virtual relationships will always remain just that - virtual. I say: crap. Bullshit. They're so much more.

The other side of me

2010-11-09T13:56:00.005Z

Clark Kent had an alter ego, Bruce Wayne had an alter ego. David Bowie had more than one and Andy Kaufman had numerous. Even Beyoncé has her Sasha Fierce.

So do I. I've had one for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid it was just an older version of me. Then I created this writer other self, but I subsequently killed her off, when I decided to make her a main character in my teenage chick lit book and gave her a happy ending. My alter ego cannot have an ending. She needs to be happening along with me, she needs challenges and dark moments, when they happen to me. And anyway I think there was too much of me in the writer. My alter ego has to be different, that's the point.

So, yes, there is this person, my own Mr Hyde, deep inside of me. She has a name and a surname (no middle name, just like me), birth date (she's a bit older - it helps, when I need to consult her on issues requiring maturity, she's an alternative big sister, when my own sister seems too far away), a family (which overlaps with mine) and a career (a career I could never ever possibly have nor would I want to, so she finds it difficult to deal with sometimes). See, I'm quite thorough when it comes to my imagination and every time I work on a piece of fiction I need to have a full background check on my characters. Yes, I have files. Notes. Yes, I'm one of those freaks. Same applies to my alter ego. She's got a full dossier, part of it on paper, bits on my computer and a lot in my head. I hope you'll understand why I'm not giving any info out here. She's a bit sensitive about her privacy, you see. I have to protect her.

I let her out sometimes, cause there are things in which she has more expertise than I do. Or so it seems. She's more into fashion than I am, and man, she's got style (and money to spend on Louboutins and Manolos - well, I couldn't resist, I had to let her do it). She's also much more self-confident than me and she says and does things I would never say or do. She flirts like crazy when she's in the mood. She's also a mother, which is probably going to be useful at some point. Is she the person I'm dreaming of being? I don't think so. She's more of an idea, of 'what if I was like her' or 'how do you solve a problem like her?'.

But sometimes it's difficult to keep her in the closet. There are things that let her run unleashed without me even noticing. Those odd moments when I need all my self-confidence - if I end up being more confident than you knew I could be, it's probably her, not me. If I get an unusual praise for my appearance, the inner me goes Duh! -- I usually mutter thanks in disbelief. Without being too modest: I mean unusual. Like yesterday's: I want your skirt, she wants your cardigan and the one over there really wants your shoes (uhm, well, that's New Look, H&M and Peacock's, I'm hardly setting new trends here). When someone treats me like a local celebrity: oh, yes, of course, we know who you are. We've read your blog (and Internet celebrity it turns out).You're the one who organised this all and created the writing group. (Hardly, call me co-ordinator, but the work was done by other people, I'm just really good at controlling. Well, let's just say, being a control freak sometimes comes really handy).

To cut a long story short, I've co-organised and hosted a literary event last night and she was running unleashed most of the time. In her budget attire and spiders in her hair. She's a character sometimes, you see, and her alter ego must be a Goth.
Needless to say - I liked her running wild yesterday. She helped me overcome insecurities. She helped me be me and allowed me to be more. Before she threw her cape over her shoulder last night and disappeared, she left a little bit of herself with me.

Why I'm quitting the X Factor

2010-10-19T16:22:00.000+01:00

For a couple of years the X Factor has been my guilty Saturday night pleasure. I know exactly how I ended up watching it (despite not being a fan of pop music). Well, first of all I did watch the first edition of the Polish version of the Pop Idol, which was nothing like any talent show in Britain. You think Simon or Louis can be terse? Or maybe even rude? You've seen nothing. Compared with some of the Polish judges they are two cute puppies. It probably has something to do with politeness relativity, but that's how it is. Kuba, Robert - I miss you.

I ended up in the UK in 2005 with a TV that only received 4 channels (nope, no Five). So I kind of had no choice - if I wanted to watch TV I was left with Big Brother and then the X Factor. It bored me to tears, so next year I decided I had better things to do than watching it. But then I had to face a long, cold and gloomy Scottish winter. And I re-discovered it. But only along with Guardian X Factor live blog. Oh my, oh my, it has completely changed my perspective. Cause, you see, I've never watched this programme for its artistic merit, since it has none. For me it never was anything other than a reality show, where by the end of the episode someone gets kicked out. For whatever reason, lack of talent being the last of reasons. So reading online someone putting down in words exactly what I was thinking was reassuring to say the least. It was also lots of fun. I've simultaneously watched the X Factor on TV and read the online blog for the past three seasons of the show, but now I'm officially bored. Not by the blog, I might still keep reading it, but I'm considering quitting the part that requires switching the TV on. After all, I do have better things to do on Saturday nights. No one's loosing out here - I've never voted, never bought any of the singles or records, so no-one's going to miss me.

I do not mind the contestants. They've always been same talentless, uncharismatic, cliché bunch of artists (see, I'm not totally criticising them - I actually called them artists). No offence, guys, I still respect you for trying, you need guts to even audition, not to mention singing in front of the nation (even more than one nation in fact) and risk being called names by the judges.

What I'm bored with (and I'm actually amazed it took me 3 years to get bored with it) are the same songs over and over again. Same songs in same "current" arrangements. Really, how many times can you do Feeling Good? Since the only worthwhile versions are Nina Simone's and Muse's? There's no point covering any U2 song, I'm telling you, nobody but Bono can sing them. Even Prince has had enough of Purple Rain by now. And please do not offend me by showing a guy in space suit singing Mad World (sorry, Aidan, love ya). Anything by: Chicago, Starship or any other cheesy '80s* band in any arrangement is nothing but a Saturday night karaoke. The only difference being it's in tune. If we're lucky. Hopefully no-one's going to sing Journey this year, but I'd bet some song ideas will be stolen from Glee again.
I'd love to see someone doing Enter Sandman. Or Wave of Mutilation. In a disco version. Or reggae. That would really be something. Since Placebo did Daddy Cool there's no point doing it the other way round (i.e. alternative rock or indie version of a disco or reggae classic), and anyways, I think we've exhausted the number of Boney M songs this year. Well, Diva Fever did and it didn't make them popular.

I've also had enough of the judges newspeak. I completely disagree/I actually agree with Cheryl/Dannii/Louis says Simon every single week. Having said that...
You smashed it/nailed it. You're current. You gave me goosebumps (that's Cheryl - hun, be careful, too much goosebumps can give you cellulite. I'm not being mean, I think you're a cutie and would hate to think you have on your bum what I have on mine). It wasn't your strongest performance. Or it was - one of those every single week. Or if the contestant's lucky: this was the best performance of the night by a clear mile. Whatever it means. You wowed me or you didn't wow me. You need to take it to the next level. Cause the world is just a computer game. Or at least this show is.

As I'm only watching TV to polish my English, I've decided there's no more useful phrases I can learn from the X Factor. Sorry guys. I prefer to watch re-runs of Have I Got News For You on Dave all weekend long. Even those episodes I've already seen. Twice. And I can always read a book - Olga's latest book is a fantastic read (I'll probably have finished it by Saturday, though).

Well, ok, as I've been known for lying in the past... I might watch an odd episode before Christmas, I'm sure there's going to be an evening when I'm stuck on a sofa with a hangover/PMS/period pains/midwinter depression and therefore craving for a brain-numbing experience. I might even invite my girl friends over again. But only if Wagner is still on. He rocks. Oops, sorry. He bangs.

*I guess we can agree that Starship had nothing to do with Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship, right?

Scenes inside the gold mine

2010-10-14T11:10:00.002+01:00

Yesterday time was measured by the number of the Chilean miners rescued. Today the main topic for the over-the-coffee chats is the fact that they are all out, safe and sound. And how unbelievable it is that they have survived 69 days 700 metres under ground.
Chilean president, Sebastian Pinera, called the foreman of the miners 'inspiring'. I couldn't agree more. The organisational skill, the discipline, the sense of mission, the belief - everything is inspiring in those men.

What I find inspiring, too is the fact that thanks to modern technology, not only did we have a chance to learn about their trial, but also to be informed on a regular basis about the progress of the rescue efforts (with president Pinera tweeting about it for 22 hours yesterday). It truly is a real representation of Marshall McLuhan's Global Village theory (popularised in the '60s, before the Internet). The world is so small now, that you can learn from the current experiences of people on the other side of the globe here and now.

I also found a mention on Guardian's website about a Greek mining company that offered to bring Chilean miners for holidays to Greece. Quite an unexpected gesture of solidarity, but doesn't it make you go aaaw?

And that's it, despite the media coverage being very one-sided, all about the courage, the solidarity and nothing about the real conditions in copper and gold mines, I found this story heart-warming and in some ways making me proud to be human. If humanity is about the belief and not giving up and global solidarity with the suffering then I'm it.

The whole story part 5

2010-09-18T09:00:00.025+01:00

I used to have a very strict point of view on commitments. I thought that if you've commited to something, that's it, you're obliged. If you've commited to a certain task you have to finish it. And if you've commited to a person, it means you need to care for them and you're never to leave. Why would you leave anyway? I thought commitment was a state of heart. Not to mention that as a teenager I completely lacked self confidence and considered myself unattractive to the opposite sex (and my sex too in this regard). And so I thought that if I ever was to commit to somebody they would be the one (back then I though he would be the one, but let's not be so politically incorrect, after all, what did I know?).

So when I ended up in an on and off relationship with my ex, I would get really upset for him not being completely commited. Completely in my understanding anyway. I guess I wasn't really giving him air to breathe, but I believed that we were one. When we were together that is, cause most of the time we were apart and it didn't make matters any easier. As I think I mentioned before we were not living together and we were not even living in the same city. I do believe long distance or weekend relationships can work out, but are not easy and require a lot of trust and, well, yes, commitment. I believed it back then and thought that our previous experiences in a long distance relationship simply proved we would survive the separation after I moved to the UK, too. No doubt about it.

Even if I was worried a bit about him making use of my absence and his freedom, I knew in the end we would be together. I was naive, cause the one thing I never quwstioned was my own sense of commitment. It turned out to be weaker than I thought. Let's face it: my ex had never been a perfect match for me. For, oh, so many reasons. He was a good guy (I'm not going to risk stating that he still is, cause I haven't seen him or heard from him since we broke up), just completely immature, immune to feeling responsible, and, well, just lazy. Hence the inability to graduate in time (or ever) and find himself a proper job. Or even to fulfil promises - like the one that he'd joined me in the UK once he takes all his exams. He failed to even sit them all and with the next possibility to do it sometime in autumn, the chances of him getting to the UK before the end of my contract were minimal.
Have I felt betrayed? In a way I have. But by then things got complicated and when he told me he wasn't going to come I think I used it as an excuse.

There's one thing that's really tough about separation, at least it was for me. Having a boyfriend was a proof of my own attractiveness. Having him miles away not so much. You look hot doesn't work that well on the phone. Even if it's about the pictures I've sent him by e-mail. Oh, well, you understand. You need a man around, not on the phone. I had struggled with this before, but now we wouldn't even see each other at the weekends. So my sense of commitment was tested for the first time. I started thinking that there's no harm in other men admiring me. Cause, there isn't. Just be careful how far you take their admiration.

So, yes, I had admirers, and they were nothing but mates who thought I was hot and who would take me to the movies or for a drink from time to time. You meet a lot of new people in new places, but you do get lonely. So what's wrong with teaming up with other lonely people?
Was I naughty? some of my readers will have an urge to ask. Well, no, not really. Well, ok. Once. I got quite drunk, though, if it's any excuse for snogging.

So, now, dear readers, you have to add up lack of my ex around, to him supposedly betraying me by not fulfilling his promise of coming to the UK and me having admirers. And one in particular that I kind of snogged on one occasion.

And no, that wasn't the same guy who broke the door knob in the previous episode.

Life of an expat

2010-09-17T07:50:00.005+01:00

If it's Friday I'm... on Expatica. If you're an expat like me, you might want to pop in for tips on living abroad. If you're a follower of this blog you can still pop in for lots of useful info and to read my post Lingua again.

Bookworm

2010-09-09T14:34:00.005+01:00

Yes I am one. Yet... I wish I was reading more.

When I was at the uni, I was told it was the best time to read as much as I could, cause I'd never have that much time again. Couldn't agree more.
After all I'm spending 7 hours a day at work and then there's housework, too and the priority time I'm spending with my other half. I do read everyday. On the way to work and on the way back and before going to sleep. Sometimes I manage to read after coming back from work, between making tea, eating it and whatever else I need to do in the evening. I ansolutely love to read when I'm on holiday, specially when I have no Internet access. And more importantly, nothing to worry about, no shopping, washing, cooking, getting up in the morning.

I read in two languages. I also started reading English translations of some of the Polish books and enjoy them greatly.

I have noticed that I don't like to waste my reading time on books that are rubbish, out of my interest range, simply badly written. I used to (shame on me), but I don't anymore.

I discovered I have given up reading most of the popular books (God forbid Twilight or Danielle Steel and such). Instead my last reads were: Hemingway, Winterson, Tokarczuk, Waltari and Dictionary of the Khazars. And one other book in Polish that was as far from popular as possible.
Ok, and Archer's short stories (I said most of the popular books).
Allende, Kundera, Jones, Czerwinski and Pamuk are waiting on my book shelf. And some thirty other books, but I'm really never planning ahead what to read. I might come across something more interesting in the meantime, anyway.

There are books that I know I have to read one day and books I'll never manage to read (unless I'm on a deserted island). I tell myself I don't need to read EVERYTHING cause reading should be pleasure. So if I don't like a book, no matter what classic/bestselling must-read it is I'm not going to read it. And yes I like reading books I've read before. Many times, sometimes.

And sometimes I'm lazy and I prefer to lay down with Lorenzo on my lap and watch Dexter. Or to read something easy but forgettable. But sooner or later I'll miss reading something that'll bug me for days. I believe in reading for pleasure but I also believe reading requires discipline and that (as I've just heard someone put it) intelectual effort stimulates your brain. So I never shy away from reading challenging books.

I'm regressing

2010-09-03T11:39:00.000+01:00

I'm going to a baby shower tomorrow. I have volunteered to buy a gift (we've agreed to buy something more expensive together, and then each of us can buy some bits and pieces from herself). So after much deliberations over e-mail, texts and phone we've agreed we'd get a playing mat (which I bought and then carried along Princes Street).
I popped in to GAP on my way and as usual couldn't resist to buy some baby clothes. I absolutely adore GAP stuff for kids and I've realised yesterday it has nothing to do with my maternal instincts suddenly waking up.

In psychology it's called regression. I'm moving back to being a little girl again, playing with dolls. Yep. I think it might have something to do with the fact that I moved from baby dolls to plastic bimbos too quickly (with a long stop for Lego addiction). Anyway that's it: if Marcin's allowed to play with tools and a car, I'm allowed to go crazy for baby clothes in GAP from time to time. As one of my friends pointed out if I ever have a kid on my own, I probably won't have time to raid GAP anyway.

And my favourite song is...

2010-09-01T14:12:00.004+01:00

When I was in the primary school everybody (well, mostly girls) used to have these scrapbooks, that we called notebooks of truth. They had a list of questions on the front page, starting with: what's your name and then moving on to all sorts of stuff such as what's your favourite subject at school and who's your favourite teacher, certainly something along the lines of who would you like to date or what would be the name of your daughter if you had one, not to mention what's your favourite band and what's your favourite song. The idea was to hand it to all your friends and ask them to answer the questions.

The notebooks were on for a few years and I moved from religiously putting down Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan as my favourite singers, to Pet Shop Boys and then Depeche Mode. I think I had a moment when I jokingly put something like: you know this tune from this movie that was playing in the 24th minute of it, when the main character was on the bus... as my favourite song, mostly because I was unable to choose.

I'm still not. I used to be more into music than I am now, but I still cannot imagine my way to work without my iPod on. Or even working without something playing in the background. But over the years there's been so many songs that stuck on me; some were recorded before I was born or before I even heard of the band who sang them.
I love all the songs by INXS who are my favourite band ever (with the exception of just a few who I love... less), I could listen to most of their records on repeat. Quite clearly there are a few numbers I like more and Disappear is on the top of my list.

But... if I was to choose my favourite album ever it wouldn't be INXS'. It would be Fleetwood Mac's Rumours (although Stereophonics' Language Sex Violence Other and Kate Bush's Hounds of Love are close second). I don't know why I'm so attached to the record that is a few months older than me, but I just love it. The original version or the remastered.

But then again if I was to pick a song that is most likely to be playing on repeat on my iPod it would be this song:

I also like other songs by The Goo Goo Dolls and want their new album. They also happened to cover both INXS and Fleetwood Mac songs (which just proves that there's nothing original in my musical choices).

However... The number of times I played Iris on my iPod is just a little higher that the number of times I played Sweet Child O'Mine or Pour Some Sugar On Me. Which is just lame.

PS And yes, Don't Stop Believing is high on the list, too. By Journey, not by Glee cast.

Lock, stock and parcel full of memories

2010-08-26T13:01:00.001+01:00

Ok, so I've done it again. I wrote a birthday post and then went off the radar. No, it's not because I had such a horrible hangover. Nope. Despite all the wine, I actually didn't.

Well, first of all, I got involved in organising a meeting with Olga Tokarczuk, one of the Polish authors invited to the Edinburgh Book Festival. It was a separate event, completely in Polish. We wanted to take the opportunity and talk to her about the books, that have not been translated to English. If you've been reading this blog for quite some time, you might recall this post. Since then Olga wrote another book, and one more, Primeval and Other Times has been translated to English. I've read the English version of the book and become a fan of the translator, Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Of course I do recommend this book, it's one of my favourites, after all I've been born very close to Primeval (cause the place is based on an existing village in south-east Poland). However, I'm not sure if it's as enjoyable to read if Polish history, culture, folk beliefs and language (in terms of names, mostly) is completely exotic to you. Having said that, Olga claims that when she was promoting Primeval in China one of her Chinese readers told her, that it was a very Buddhist book. So there you go, if you fancy reading a Polish Buddhist book, read Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk. The author doesn't like when it's being compared to Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, but in many ways Primeval is a Polish version of Macondo, it's just impossible not to see some similarities. Primeval and Other Times is an example of magic realism (although, again, Olga does not like for her books to be labelled this way, anyway her other books are not). It does have a fair dose of fantastical elements. It does have a fair dose of Roman Catholicism influenced miracles. And it does have characters for whom all the magic is a common everyday life.

I must admit that since I've been just a co-organiser of the meeting, I never thought it would stress me out. It did. It shouldn't though, cause it went very well and a lot of people told me later they had enjoyed it. Fab. I was so tired I spent the next day playing Heroes of Might and Magic cause I needed to do something that does not really involve using brain too much. It took me two days and friend's help to write an article about the event.

But before the meeting even happened I had had my annual appraisal (now called Professional Development Review) and it was the first one ever that seemed quite fruitful. Which means a few new projects at work, that I've been trying to work on since. It does not exactly mean I'm too busy at work, it just means I have a lot to think of and plan.

Today I got a parcel from my sister with some stuff she dug out in my basement in Warsaw and since it got flooded in the beginning of the summer I've asked her to send to me. There are a few favourite books (Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion, Dune and Edward Stachura's poetry) as well as two volumes of my own high school poems (hilarious stuff), one fantasy novel that I wrote when I was 16 (total facepalm), my old diaries (some made me blush) and lots of old pictures (there's one of me aged two months on my mum's shoulder and one from uni of me dressed as a pissed off Easter bunny). It actually is quite amazing how all those things preserve memories. I've been digging through the parcel since it got here and can't concentrate on work. I'm going to have a great evening tonight, methinks.

Photo by Jarucha taken from edinburgh.com.pl.

10 things I learnt this weekend

2010-08-16T13:18:00.002+01:00

Ok, so I nicked the idea for this post from Brazen, but I'm a huge fan of her 'learnt this weekend' posts, so here you go.

1. I might have mentioned that I suck at small talk, but when I'm drunk I mingle as hell. But it could only have happened at my b-day party that attracted some guests (friends of friends) I haven't met before or only met online.
2. I absolutely adore to be in the centre of attention. And yes, I am shy.
3. I should have never let Karon take care of my empty glass. If I had to fill it on my own I'd drink less.
4. White wine is a killer. Oh yes.
5. I should have never let whoever did it help me gather my birthday gifts from all over the place if I didn't want the surprising gifts of a candle and a pepper grinder from the pub.
6. My other half deserves hugs for getting people into taxis, feeding and putting to sleep those who were staying at our place.
7. Shutter Island is a great movie, but don't watch it with a hangover. I fell asleep half way through and missed the point.
8. My friends are spot on when it comes to buying me gifts. Still, the best one I got is a cookery book, printed in August '39, with handwritten receipts in it.
9. I want a military jacket.
10. Getting older can be so much fun!

I was born to be wild

2010-08-14T07:00:00.001+01:00

I was born in the same year that Star Wars, Saturday Night Fever and Close Encounters of a Third Kind opened in cinemas.

The same year Fleetwood Mac's Rumours (one of my favourite albums ever), The Clash's debut album and Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols were released.

The same year Stephen King's The Shining and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion were published.

Orlando Bloom, Shakira, Chris Martin, Mariusz Pudzianowski, Zachary Quinto and Adam Malysz were born (and a number of porn stars, I'm sure, Mich can correct me if I'm wrong).
Vladimir Nabokov, Anais Nin and Marc Bolan died.

The same year Commodore PC was presented to the world, first democratic elections after 41 years of Franco regime took place in Spain and Steve Biko was killed.

It was also a year of New York City blackout.

I was born two days before Elvis Presley died and my favourite band INXS (as The Farriss Brothers) played their first gig.

It's my birthday today and as you surely calculated, I'm only eighteen. At heart, anyway.

Politeness relativity

2010-08-10T13:10:00.006+01:00

A few weeks ago a fellow Scot (who's a huge fan of Poland) told me that he finds Polish people very to the point.
"They'll tell you you're old, not to offend you, but because it's a fact. There'll be nothing disrespectful in their tone, but they won't use sophisticated vocabulary." he said.

You might probably think that it's because if they speak English they might not know the sophisticated vocabulary, but that's not the case and I would go as far as claiming that this is not just Poles - most Eastern Europeans are that frank (just to be clear - if I'm using the term Eastern Europeans here, it's purely historical term, people I'm writing about live in Central Europe).

I remember one of my first native-speaking-English teachers told us that when you describe somebody in English you're unlikely to use direct words. Instead of she's fat, you say she's not exactly a model. And you do, don't you? Well, in Eastern Europe people don't. If she's fat, she's fat, if she's dumb, she's dumb. And also: it's quite enough to apologise once. Slavic languages are more professionally to the point than uberpolite.

When we arrived in our hotel in Bulgaria and were waiting at the reception desk we witnessed a Scottish couple with three kids being told that their room was not ready yet. And that's what the girl said: unfortunately your room is not ready yet. It will be ready in an hour. You can leave your luggage in the luggage room and sit at the bar or by the pool. End of story. No more I'm sorry's. In fact the word wasn't even used. And she didn't even smile apologetically.

When I started working in the UK it came as a bit of a shock to me when I was told I should be more polite. In my own view I was - tersely and profesionally polite. But my first boss told me: you need to use more please's and sorry's. And as he himself was not originally British, he added: "British do say please and sorry A LOT, you know". Well, it's a fact. And I guess I came from a place where what matters more is professionalism than politeness and politeness is not measured by the words you're using, but rather by the tone of your voice.

If you prefer you can look at it as just another cultural difference. Accept it and bear it in mind when going abroad: if people are official to you it may mean in their country it's considered as being polite. I found it useful to be able to switch between those two approaches and it works very well.

But I feel tempted to dig a little bit further. There's a theory in linguistics called linguistic relativity or Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, claiming that the way you speak influences the way you think.Or more accuarately: the language you speak influences the way you think. So, I'm wondering, if the polite forms worked differently in some languages, would people behave in a different way? Would they consider not smiling, or not adding please at the end of the request rude? Or is it the language that's rather influenced by what certain nations find courteous and what they find rude?

Zdrasti!

2010-08-02T17:05:00.005+01:00

If you were wondering why I have disappeared after posting a rather distressed post on privacy it was not because I decided to never blog again. It was because I was on holiday in Bulgaria and Turkey and if you want to read more about it click here or go to Travelling tab.

Enjoy!

Nesebar - 19th Century "New" Church

Church of St Ioan Aliturgetos in Nesebar

Wooden houses in Nesebar

Church of St Theodore, Nesebar

Black Sea

Museum in Sozopol

Remnants of the ancient Town Walls in Sozopol

The Statue of Friendship in Burgas (Alyosha)

Varna Cathedral

Wladyslaw Warnenczyk Mausoleum

Aladzha Monastery

Blue Mosque

Hagia Sophia

Topkapi Palace

Bosphorus Bridge

Privacy

2010-07-14T15:27:00.001+01:00

Talking about privacy when you're a blogger is probably a bit daft. You shouldn't really expect people to respect your privacy if you're out there, online, writing about your life. But then... the reason I put my e-mail address (and this particular one is mostly used for blogging related communication) is that people can contact me if they have something to say about my blog. Not about other people, who happen to be very close to me.

Netiquette is not just a difficult to spell, odd word. It's not rocket science either. Would you look up my phone number and phone to say some nasty stuff about somebody else? Or would you just come to me on the street to say that? Since you don't really even know me?

Blogging means putting a lot of trust in people. Sometimes we blog about personal things but it doesn't mean we want our readers to go and shout about it. Sometimes we don't really protect our own identity - but it again doesn't mean that you can use us as a point of contact for other people. If you know me, say hello. If you prefer to stay anonymous, please do. And don't e-mail me.

I was close to restricting access to my blog (it doesn't help that since both my blogs are on the same account by restricitng one, I would be restricitng both), cause someone's done just this: used my e-mail address to send me something quite nasty about somebody else. I was on the edge of sending a nasty reply, but then just deleted the email and decided to put it in writing here. I'm pretty sure this person doesn't read the English version of the blog anyway.

And just to be clear: I'm not really mad cause someone's violated my privacy - after all the e-mail address is there, anybody can use it and a number of spam offers I'm receiving every day is enormous. No, my point here is: whatever means of communication, politeness doesn't harm.

The whole story part 4

2010-07-05T21:33:00.003+01:00

Most people would expect that a decision to move abroad cuts off your roots in some ways. It also cuts you off from your friends, family, culture and language. I have already told you about friends. As to the rest - it's not easy to be cut away from your roots, it's not easy to change identity, you are who you are and it's permanent. I've never even tried to pretend I wasn't Polish, although I've discovered I have difficulty in aswering when asked where I come from. Does it matter anymore? I came from Poland some time ago, but now I'm living here. I consider Scotland my place under the sun, but the true fact is, there's more than one such place for me. I'm European. I'm a citizen of the world. But deep in my heart I'm Polish and it will never change.

When you're a Polish immigrant, of the 2004 wave (Poland joined EU in 2004 and hence we could come to certain EU countries and live and work there, UK included), there's no way you get cut off from your language. First of all you get all the possible leaflets and guidelines in Polish (that's it for learning English for some). And of course you get all these Polish people who came here too. Thousands of them (Tories seem to think millions, but don't overestimate us, after all there's less then 40 million Polish people back in Poland).
They come in all shape and sizes, with all sorts of backgrounds, education and hobbies. Some of them seem to think that if you speak the same language, you have to bond. I've already said that I'm not one of those people.

But what if you're put in the same building with other Polish people? Cause you happen to work for the same company? And you happen to be one of the only two Polish people in the company who can decently speak English?

Well, that's a different story. You have no choice. You are the interpreter by default. And if you think you're one occasionally, you're mistaken. People will come to you with every single little form to be filled in, with every single scrap of paper with instructions that need to be translated, not to mention asking you to join them anytime they need to go to their kids' schools, GPs, councils, etc. If you politely explain that you work 9-5, they get offended. I'm not joking. Happened to me.

You're there and they need you. But it doesn't stop them from hating you, cause you're better. You're stuck up, they say, snotty admin girl.
Like it was my fault I could speak English. And like being an admin was the best job in the world.

I guess you understand why I was avoiding this part of my story - it's not comfortable to complain about your countrymen, but that's how I felt. A complete outsider. Because I was foreign and because I wasn't a care assistant with poor English skills. I think it can get you down even if you have a self esteem above averege. I never did. I felt like crap and I hated it. So, no wonder I bonded very quickly with a few other people who were different.

First of all my flatmate, who was working as a finance girl and was considered different, too, but since she was working in a closed office upstairs and was rarely disturbed by other Polish people, nobody was really sure what she was doing. Then my English office mate who was one of the sweetest and friendliest people I've met here and was an incredibly good listener. Yet she had her trials and tribulations, too. Sinhalese IT Director, who was my age, but as a senior member of staff, not allowed to bond with junior staff by the Managing Director (yep, no kidding). And finally this Polish bloke who came to work as a carpenter and broke the main door knob on his first day. The girls in the finance office told me he was gorgeous when he arrived. His line manager told him that there was this blonde girl working at the reception desk, who looked like Kylie Minogue. So he came in looking for Kylie look-a-like and I looked at him slighlty puzzled, cause fair enough he was cute, but far from being gorgeous.

He said his name was Marcin.

to be continued

I've been recommended

2010-06-30T22:56:00.001+01:00

I'm on holiday and my sister's in Edinburgh, so I'm acting as a tour guide. She had some very special wishes such as seeing the Gutenberg's Bible in the National Library of Scotland (proved to be impossible). But we've climbed Walter Scott Monument, visited the Castle and National Scottish Museum. We've been to Rosslyn Chapel and bought knickers for a pound! We're off to Stirling tomorrow.

But in the meantime... My blog has been highly recommened by Tripbase. Visit their website if you're looking for travel info.

I couldn't resist, but to quote their review of my blog: Kasia is a Polish immigrant living in Edinburgh, blogging with writing skills which surpass 90% of the English-speaking community. Her observations about the world around her as well as her stories of adapting to the expat lifestyle are so enjoyable, they're addictive.

Thanks, guys. I'm really touched. I promise I'll get to write the next installment of my story as soon as my sister leaves.

On friendship

2010-06-21T11:23:00.002+01:00

You might think being an expat means you make a lot of new friends. Not exactly true. You meat a lot of new people, make a lot of new mates - but making friends is not that easy at all.

Think of your best friend - it's probably somebody you've known for ages, maybe since you were little kids. Maybe it's your mate from high school or uni. Maybe it's your sibling. When you move abroad you most likely leave all those people behind. It doesn't mean you loose touch - it's all up to you, really, I haven't lost touch with my best friends in Poland, but let's face it: even if I can phone them up anytime I want, there's still a lot of things we can't do together anymore.

I think I make new acquaintances easily (after all I'm such a chatterbox), but making friends is a different story. I think it takes me quite some time to make sure I can really trust people and am not ashamed to emotionally strip in front of them. Someone told me yesterday that my Scottish friends will never know me good enough to be my real friends - cause they see me the way my language skills allow them to see me. And since I'll always be limited by English not being my first language, they will know nothing of the subtly witty, (Polish) culture refrencing me. I agree but only to some point. Those few English and Scottish people I would call my friends see through this. I strongly disagree that language is the only thing that defines me - there's so much more and it's not difficult to see.

I agree though that sometimes it's more difficult to make friends among British people simply because they don't share my expat experience. It seems it's easier to connect with almost every Polish person I meet here cause straight away we have two things in common: the language and being an expat. Don't be misled - those things are not enough to become friends either. You can have a chat. Once. About the challenges of moving. And that's all. If you are to make friends you need new topics.

I have recently met with a bunch of my girl friends, who are all lovely and I wish we could meet more, but I suddenly discovered that there's a limit to what I can talk to them about. There was a very long conversation about mothers-in-law - I don't even know Marcin's mum, so have nothing to say about that. Pregnancies - nope, thank you. Then there was literature, which I would gladly discuss, but stopped listening after finding out that the first book talked about was Stephenie Meyer's new novel. You can blast me as much as you like now, but I DESPISE TWILIGHT. I rarely read chick lit. My current reads are Hemingway and one book I'm scared to admit I'm reading.

So my point here is I'm really glad I've been recently meeting a lot of people who were Polish, expats and creative. There's a chance I'll make friends with some of them, specially if we're working on the same project. I think it's good to feel you're different and unique, but sometimes you need to know there are people like you, and meeting them is quite uplifting. It doesn't mean I'm going to sink into my Polish community - there's just too many things I'm learning from my British friends and getting an insight into their point of view is too beneficial for me to lose it.

Earworm

2010-06-11T11:28:00.002+01:00

I admit I'm avoiding writing part 4 of my expat memoirs simply because it's not going to be an easy episode to write. Nor is it going to be cheerful and funny. So bear with me and while I'm working on getting myself into the right mindset, here's an earworm for you.

I was watching The Big Bang Theory last night (I love it, you know, I used to work with those guys, not to mention that being a geek in my own right I own a copy of Klingon-English dictionary!). If you watch it too you probably know that one of the characters, Penny, is all the way from Nebraska. The Nebraska part reminded me of a song that I used to love when it was out. I had all the versions of the video recorded on VHS from MTV (man, it does sound old school), knew the lyrics by heart* and like many other viewers (and listeners) kept wondering: Who killed Mary?

I have to admit that I've never even been a huge fan of Richard Marx, but this song is so haunting - I can listen to it on repeat for hours.

*as this song was recorded some 18 years ago, back then my English was not good enough to allow me to catch every single word he was singing, but thanks to Popcorn Music Magazine (a Polish version of the German magazine) which used to reprint song lyrics I had a nice card with lyrics printed on it and Richard's picture.

Knickers girl strikes back

2010-06-04T07:50:00.000+01:00

My post Knickers for a quid (as opposed to pictured above lovely Stella McCartney ones that are much more expensive, but sooo cute) has been featured on ExpaticaUK today. If you're an expat in the UK, check out Expatica for news, tips and to meet other expats!

That actually reminded me that I need to visit La Senza to see if they have more of the Saltire ones. They only have English flag ones on their web and it's just not the same.

And the prize goes to...

2010-05-31T13:00:00.001+01:00

As some of you probably remember some time ago I have entered blogging competition and two weeks ago I've found out that I have won one of the prizes! I must state that I haven't enetered it for the prizes, but for the chance to write my heart out and maybe make a difference. But, I have to admit, the prize was worthwhile, since it's an iPod touch - I've been a proud owner of (RED) iPod nano for over three years (and am still going to use it), but iPod touch is just sooooo cool :)

Anyway since the competition was organised by the Polish Consulate General in Edinburgh I've been invited to pick up my prize from the consul. It also meant a little meet up with other bloggers who took part in the competition and then some drinks. It looks like not only have I made some new friends, but also might be getting into co-organising and becoming a member of a writing group - which is awesome. It's one of those things that just prove moving to Scotland was a life-changing decision, that helped me to find myself and realise what it was I really wanted and enjoyed doing.

I can only hope that one day I'll be able to present some of my works to you. That is if only I ever feel I'm capable of translating the stuff.

All the good things...

2010-05-25T11:30:00.009+01:00

*SPOILER ALERT - IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED LOST FINALE YET AND DON'T WANT IT SPOILED DON'T READ THIS POST*

Some of my readers probably know that I'm a Lost fan. Not a huge fan, not a die-hard fan. I haven't watched it from the very beginning - no, I watched first 4 seasons on DVD last year and then season 5 when it was available and the last season on TV. When it got hugely successful back in 2004 I was quite suspicious about it as shows that wow huge audiences do not usually wow me - I have preference for niche stuff. However then somebody suggested that being the geek and sci-fi fan I am, I would actually like it. So I gave it a try and loved it - even later in the series when the amount of supernatural, sci-fi and plain odd mysteries exceeded average. The more of it, the better, to be honest.

So I got up at 5 a.m. on Monday morning to watch the higly anticipated series finale.

I wouldn't be as blunt as to say I'm disappointed, underwhelmed and so on. Although, I admit, I have imagined the series finale to be less sentimental, and not so much metaphysical, I can't say I didn't like the episode. It was a good episode, it had twists and turns and drama and all else you'd expect. I was really excited to find out Frank and Richard were alive after all and to see the old characters - and even to see the redemption of Ben, who has always been one of my favourite characters.

It took me some time to realise what I didn't like about it. The show had some fundamental juxtapositions throughout - mainly: science vs faith, free will vs fate, and to some point good vs evil. Whereas it showed some relative balance between good and evil (shades of grey, for example in Jacob and MiB's origins story) - at least up to a point when MiB was killed, free will and fate (in the last episode: Jack got to choose, Hurley - not so much), it came down on the side of faith - not science. What I personally expected was it would show a balance in this juxtaposition, too - after all that's what I loved about first seasons so much - the constant fight between man of science and man of faith, even to a point when Dharma science became a religion and was juxtaposed with reason (pushing the button and questioning it).

Having said that I think I might accept the fact that faith triumphed on the show - if it was indeed faith and NOT religion - and a particular one. Don't be fooled by the pan-religious symbols in the church. It was all about one, two-thousand-year old religion, presumably started by this carpenter called Jesus. One might argue that the flashsideways world was Jack's world, therefore influenced by his own beliefs - but still, that should never be the point of the show -- THIS show.

I feel like I started reading The Brief History of Time and somebody swapped the last few pages with the final chapter of The Last Battle.

If you are a Lost freak and still can't get your head round the finale (and the show as a whole) you might want to read this and some interesting comments underneath. Whether it's genuine or fake, I think it does sum up the show nicely.

As for me - after having written the above, I can finally move on with my life. I'm remaining a Lostie, and will be anticipating season 6 on DVD and if you want to please me, you can buy me a Dharma mug. I still think it's a great show - but if you haven't watched the finale yet, if I were you, I would skip the church scene. I think it works so much better to always wonder - what the hell was the flashsideways world?

Or you might try alternative endings:

The Flood

2010-05-22T09:13:00.004+01:00

My normal cycle of blogging resumed: posting every day and then three weeks of break... And a random post with promises I'll get back and write something. I will at some point, no jokes. But not today: weather's absolutely fab, so we're off to some place nice with sandy beaches. This must be the one day of summer Scotland gets annually!

My friends in Poland are not that lucky - there are floods in Poland now with two biggest rivers, Oder and Vistula, bursting their banks: BBC News.

Phot. Robert Kowalewski / Agencja Gazeta

UK Elections live in the pub

2010-05-12T12:18:00.004+01:00

So the waiting's over - UK's got a new prime minister. A friend of mine was broadcasting live on Facebook yesterday: Gordon has been evicted folks, or more accurately, he evicted himself and got back to the prettiest part of the British Isles.

The new bloke, with his kids and pregnant wife moved in.

Apparently (or at least that's what people on Twitter claim) he also brought his mate (17th cousin, according to some sources), who is going to live under the stairs...

... erm, is going to be his deputy.

Having studied for 5 years in the department of political sciences, I still find the idea of a coalition between Conservatives and Liberals a bit difficult to comprehend, but hey, I guess I have no better choice but to wait and see. After all I have encouraged everybody to vote Lib Dems - and here you go, guys, you got yourself a deputy PM and a few ministers - not bad, is it?
Also I can imagine how funny Have I Got News For You is going to be from now on.

Last night was memorable not only because it brought Britian the new PM. To me it was quite memorable, cause I was in a pub with a bunch of friends, 3 of whom, also known as the 3 mouseketeers, are complete geeks (I know some of you are reading this, guys - you know it means I like you). So just when we were having casual conversation over the wine, suddenly they got out their iPhones and started commenting live. And that's the memorable part - not only was it quite incredible to be sitting in a pub and knowing (in the Big Brother spirit) what was going on minute by minute (David Cameron's on his way to Buckingham Palace, oh, he's stuck in the traffic, he's in, he's the PM) it was also absolutely hilarious. Some comments on Twitter were just too funny (Queen's been activated or that Nick Clegg will live under the stairs of 10 Downing Street). Our live commentary was good, too. Like the idea of the public figures having GPS chips on so that they can be traced online: blue dot denoting David Cameron in a car, blue dot walking down the corridors of the Buckingham Palace, blue dot meeting the golden crowned dot... Then also the problem of what colours you're supposed to wear now. I was wearing red and felt like a loser. And then some other random comments on politicians, their wives, PR and all the parties immigration policies. Not sure if it was agreed, but seemed like a good idea to have a similar meet up when there's a new PM next time. That's called planning, baby, we're busy people.

Platethrowing

2010-05-11T14:56:00.001+01:00

To explain the neologism in the title (or is it?) - it's how I'd describe my mood yesterday. Like you know, when you feel like throwing plates. Or glasses. Or anything that would break. Angry, furious, frustrated, all in one. Sometimes I feel like that for a reason - that's easy and I can kind of accept it then, specially if there's nothing I can do about it. Sometimes I feel like that for no reason or should I say, for many reasons, which is a bit more difficult, cause it means I had to either figure out what the reason is or deal with at least some of them. Sometimes just shouting out helps. I did some shouting yesterday and man, does it help! It's like rebooting your system. I'm in so much better mood today and I have a feeling it will be even better, cause I'm out for drinks with some people from my last job. Should be fun, always is. Well I guess just catching up is good enough.

Anyhoo, last night this definitely helped me balance my emotions after the shouting and (virtual) platethrowing:

Thanks, Glee!

If you're in the UK, or anywhere else watching the news, you know that there's no news on new UK PM front, except for Gordon Brown deciding to step down as Labour leader last night. It caused a bit of a stirr yesterday (and also the news of LibDems/Labour secret negotiations), but then talks resumed and we're back to waiting. As soon as possible got new meaning these days.

And the winner is...

2010-05-07T10:57:00.005+01:00

Not only haven't I voted yesterday (cause I can't), but I didn't even stay up late to watch the results coming through. I had nice dinner and a bottle of red Merlot with a friend, who didn't vote, though she could (bad her) and then just went to sleep, assuming that me staying up late won't change anything.

Woke up today to the suspected news of hung parliament. No worries, Britain, there are countries where every single parliament is hung and they somehow manage. A bit more of political fights and twists, perhaps, but it's going to be fine. After a week or so of fighting with slogans. You know, like: Clearly voters didn't want a complete shift in power and clearly, voters don't want the government of the defeated. Oh, well, same old, same old. Voters vote and then politicians explain what voters meant. At least it's not as bad as politicians publicly expressing they have been offended by voters not voting them as happens where I come from sometimes.

Scotland however has shown its middle finger to Mr Cameron, as Tories were only able to secure one seat here. Cheers, Scots! Mr Cameron should start minding his tongue. I'm not the only Eastern European considering taking the Life in the UK test next year. Which of course means next time him (and all the other political leaders, except for Nick Griffin I guess) will have to think twice before they say Poles in even slightly negative context. Wouldn't it be David Cameron's nightmare if he was to form minority government that would fail and would end up with early elections next year - with a number of new citizens of overseas origin voting? I'm just theorising, you know, a few thousands votes wouldn't make a difference anyway. Or hang on, doesn't he think there's millions of us here?

In the meantime a friend of mine suggested Nick Clegg should make a movie as Colin Firth look-a-like. LOL to that, but I guess, no matter what, he still has his say. It's actually going to get very interesting now - well, once they get over claiming who's the winner. All can't be losers, can they?

Bank holidays

2010-05-03T11:02:00.003+01:00

I hate when...
... everybody else has a bank holiday and I'm stuck in the office, on my own, having nothing to do* and when I turn Radio 2 on they're saying it's a bank holiday all the time!

Perhaps I should explain that the bank holidays in the UK are a bit of a complicated thing (when you're living in Scotland, and probably Northern Ireland, too, not sure about Wales). See, some of the bank holidays are off in England but not in Scotland, unless you work for a company that has them off (for example: a Scottish branch of an English company and all the banks). There are some local bank holidays in exchange, but that may be different days depending on where in Scotland you live - they can be different for Glasgow than for Edinburgh, not to mention anywhere else.

Now, some employers have decided not to offer any set in stone public holidays at all (except for Christmas) and instead allow more days of holidays - university is one of those employers. It's not such a bad idea, cause it allows people to take days off whenever they want - not when everybody else has them and also to take them when their other halves or kids have them. For me it doesn't work quite so well, cause I'm very bad at planning my holidays and I end up not using my holidays at all. Last year I had so many days left, that I took all the Fridays off in November and December. If you're a reader from a country where people only get 10 days of holidays, maybe you should now close your eyes. I have 36 days of annual leave, plus 3 this year (rolled over unused from last year). I've taken 7 so far, and yes, I am considering being off for most of the summer.

Well anyway, this is one of those days, that actually is a bank holiday here, so all the banks and most offices are closed, buses are running on Saturday schedule and the city looks somewhat deserted. My office mate took a day off and I'm here, listening to music of my choice, blogging, reading news and e-books. And, oh yes, working a bit. To make things worse, I can't even chat to my mates in Poland on Facebook, cause they have a public holiday, too! It's a Constitution Day in Poland (BTW: Constitution of May, 3 is considered first constitution in Europe and second in the world; if you're interested in more Polish history, read this).

* I could actually find myself things to do - and I will have to do some bits and pieces, but as a lot of people are off, and when I send e-mails I get out of office messages, there's really not much I could work on today. Well, hey, I'm not really complaining. Binding time can be good. I think it's only the fact that I had to wake up early and come here that bothers me.

New Look

2010-04-30T10:12:00.002+01:00

If you've been my regular reader, you probably noticed that I've changed the template and also used Beta Blogger to customize it a bit. That includes adding some tabs. Still working on them, but check them out in the meantime - some bits and pieces are already there.

If you feel like commenting you can comment here or send me a message. Any info you think I should add - let me know.

Mr Brown, what have you done?

2010-04-29T11:22:00.002+01:00

Am I the only person to think that yesterday's #bigotgate was actually hilarious? And quite ridiculous, too?

I must say I'm the emphatic type and I do feel for PM everytime he makes a gaffe. It kind of makes him human, doesn't it? Specially when it's something I would have easily done myself, since I'm known for saying things like that about people behind their backs. Yes, baby, I'm mean and double-faced. Usually it doesn't mean anything, just that I'm annoyed (usually by myself, not by them, too, but hey - why would I take the blame?). I can even like these people.

Well, anyway, do any of you really believe that politicians never say things like that about their voters? Specially Gillian Duffy type of voters? Come on! PM was just unlucky to be caught on tape.

On a serious note, one of the commenters on Guardian website wrote:
It's a sad day for this country when the media seemingly without exception affirms that this woman was making a "valid" point. First off, if you listen to the conversation she clearly has not given the subject any depth of thought. She's like a spammer, repeating one or two meaningless sentences and expects to be respected for it.
It's sad indictment on society that these simplistic, nonsensical views are reaffirmed by the media and makes the prospect of greater tolerance and understanding of immigrants more remote.

Not surprisingly, I strongly agree with that comment. Personally I have never been disrespected or discriminated for where I come from, but quite obviously, comments like Mrs Duffy's do hurt. After all, I am Polish, although I may not exactly view myself as a part of the "flock" (just because I don't have an underpaid, rubbish job, that I've "stolen" from some housing estate inhabitant who deserved it more, I'm not on any type of benefits, I haven't brought my under-age kids, who can't speak English here, I don't send money to my relatives in Poland and I also pay quite a substantial amount of taxes each year; oh, and I forgot, I donate money to charities, too - does it count for giving back to this country?).

Last but not least - hope you vote Lib Dems, guys? I would if I could - but I can't due to being one of these flocking in Eastern Europeans, God knows where they're coming from.

Well, if you don't I'm not going to hate you. I respect your right to be Conservative :)

The fall out

2010-04-27T00:01:00.001+01:00

24 years ago (give or take a few days) I was at school when the news broke. It started as whispering on the school's corridors and then it was announced to all of us that we cannot leave the school till later in the evening, even those pupils who were living just across the road.

I didn't understand what they were talking about. When you're 8 years old, you don't really know what radioactive cloud or fall out means. You ask stupid questions like - can you see this cloud? What is it that falls from the sky - is the fall out something like snow? We were kept at school till the Lugol's iodine was brought and given to all of us. I still remember how bitter it tasted. They think now that in fact we were not in danger and had we not been given it, we still wouldn't get any more at risk of radiation poisoning and getting thyroid cancer as a result. But it doesn't matter - I'm quite happy someone, fearing the worst, made this potentially life-saving decision, based on the complete information lockdown by the Soviet government.

On 26th April 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Plant Disaster took place. My hometown is only 475 miles from Chernobyl.

The view of abandoned Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in 2008 (Wikipedia)

The Power of Madonna

2010-04-26T12:38:00.002+01:00

If you are in the UK and watch Glee you probably know that tonight's episode is Madonna's tribute episode.

I would exaggerate if I said that I was Madonna's biggest fan - but the truth is I have been adoring her since I got her True Blue album (in a black record form) when I was 11. My room was wallcovered with posters of her and I even had a scrap book with her photos and articles about her. I was over the moon when I discovered her birthday falls two days after mine. Her image and persona must have had huge impact on a teenage me, since I had the guts to stand up to my grandma to let me watch Like a Prayer video after all the controversy.

Not sure if her music has influenced my musical taste - although I do have all of her albums and every now and then I do have Madonna mood and listen to her music all the time. And I do consider her inspiring on so many levels. She's one of those strong women, who are the proof that sisters can do it - they can have a successful career and a family life. She also is the best example that it's not your talent that defines your career - it's what you do with it. If you want to achieve success (and it doesn't apply to showbiz only) you need to have It, X Factor, whatever you call it. This thing that makes people relate to you, admire you and look up to you.
These can be different things for different people: for me it's not only the birthday, it's the fact that I also lost my mother when I was a child and how it influenced the relationship with my dad. And I have been raised Catholic, too, therefore all the religious symbols that she's using and how she brings them down really appeal to me.

What I absolutely admire about Madonna is that she's never been afraid to say and do controversial things, whatever people might say and that she is the queen of re-invention and she always comes back with new, different, better image, yet it's still her.

If I was to pick my favourite Madonna's song I couldn't do it. I like many. Some of my favourites are those with meaningful lyrics: Papa Don't Preach, Live To Tell, Express Yourself, Human Nature, What It Feels Like For A Girl, 4 Minutes. If you asked me what my favourite video was, it's this one:

PS If for any reason you wanted to bribe me - please buy me the Louboutin boots she's wearing in the Celebration video. UK size 4. Thanks.

The whole story part 3

2010-04-19T22:10:00.004+01:00

So my first month in the UK came as a bit of a shock. Not only had I ended up cramped in a tiny flat with no TV, no washing machine and even no shower (after having lived in quite a comfy flat in Warsaw on my own for several years), but also I had to face the fact that my English wasn't as good as I thought.

Luckily I soon discovered that using English every day made me improve it quite quickly - or simply just made me more comfortable and confident using it. And as to the flat... We soon got to change it as well. The company planned for each of us to live in a separate one bedroom flat, in the same building, but since after few weeks living together we figured out it could work for both of us, we decided to share a flat - mostly cause it was cheaper and we were both paid peanuts. So we moved to the second flat which had been being refurbished when we arrived and therefore was much better than the first one.

And so we moved from this place:

To this place:

Apologies for the quality of the photographs - after all it was 5 years ago, phone cameras were not that good back then. Believe me, the second place was much better - slightly bigger, with proper kitchen area, shower and an electric heater in the leaving room. We also ended up getting an old TV - thanks to our maintanance manager's wife, who was kind enough to let us use her washing machine and had a go at her husband when she found out we didn't have a TV. He brought us one a few days later. We obviously had no cable or anything, so could just watch 4 channels (for some reason we didn't have Five), so we started watching Big Brother that was on all the time, the X Factor and Hollyoaks. For a short time.

But before we moved I discovered first disadvantage of being abroad. The Pope died and even though I'm not a very religious person, I have always considered him a great Pole. I wanted to be in Poland to mourn (you might have noticed recently that Poles excel in mourning). I didn't even have a TV and although they reported it on Radio 2, it wasn't the same. Me and my flatmate ended up having a long walk on the promenade that night and going to the nearest Roman Catholic church next day (it was one of the two times I've been to a religious service in the UK - the other one being a Polish service in Edinburgh that I took my dad to years later).

Since then I've changed my approach to mourning and last week I was actually quite glad I wasn't in Poland. I don't think I could bear this public, overwhelming expression of grief anymore. Back then I felt a bit lost and the fact that my new British colleagues didn't understand how I felt just made me feel more of an outsider. But I have to give them credit for being really nice about it and even our boss (who later turned out to be a bully) let us watch bits of the funeral online while at work. We were also allowed (at least in the beginning) to use Skype at work (we didn't have a computer at home for starters; we did later, but with no Internet access) and so I could keep in touch with my family and my... erm... boyfriend. Who, in the meantime was supposed to study.

You'll find out how he was getting on with it in the next installment.

Overshadowed

2010-04-18T09:56:00.004+01:00

Last week was overshadowed firstly by the events of last Saturday: I have been browsing Polish news websites more than ever before - probably even more than 5 years ago when I learned that Pope John Paul II had died. I think it's mostly due to so called New Media becoming so much more important source of news. Not only latest news, but interviews, movies, simulations and graphics are there before anywhere else. Though any movies were difficult to view due to high demand, anything else was there hours before it was shown on BBC News.
What I've learnt this week was to restrain from commenting. It's difficult in times like this to keep quiet, but in my humble opinion, out of respect for the victims, any comments, harsh or not, are just out of question. I have always been of the opinion that the language is the source of misunderstanding. If you don't know what to say, say nothing. Silence is golden.

The rest of the week was overshadowed by the volcanic ash and airspace chaos. A friend was due to come to Edinburgh this weekend and had to cancel. Some news broadcasts say the ashes may be here for a long time with more travel discruptions - thank God I'm not going anywhere soon, but if it means we have to cancel the meticulously planned and organised event at work, I'm not going to be happy. And for the first time in years I'm starting to have this feeling of being stranded on an island, hours of travel by sea from the continent. It's a bit claustrophobic. If you live in the continental Europe you can get to many places by car, coach or train - pretty much anywhere in Europe and I had been used to it before I had moved here. Of course you can get out of the British Isles by a ferry, but it seems a whole lot of hassle if you can just jump on the plane and get somehere in 3 hours. Now you suddenly have to consider travelling by land, like John Cleese who made all the way from Oslo to Brussels by taxi and than hopped onto Eurostar. One of my favourite stories on news today is that of a couple stranded in Dubai getting married online - with a ceremony in a Dubai hotel being Skyped to their family waiting for them in London. Despite their original plans being ruined, this is definitely going to be a wedding to remember. And, hey, they got married in Dubai! How cool is that?

Anyway I hope the ashes clear out soon. The idea of some dust hanging in the air above doesn't make me comfortable. Not sure if it has anything to do with the weather suddenly turning really rubbish; in any case it looks like I'm stuck at home today, so might end up eventually posting the next installment of my story. Watch this space!

Two minutes of silence

2010-04-10T19:35:00.007+01:00

There are times when you feel like talking, but there's no words to describe how you feel.

The head of my country has died in a plane crash along with his wife and over 90 other politicians, military leaders and public figures. I might not have been president Kaczynski's supporter, I might have criticised him and I might have felt annoyed by his policy. But this tragedy has left me shocked and saddened. It's a great loss on so many levels other than political.

These are my two minutes of silence.