One long blog

Life since Tuesday! Man, seems like a long time ago!

Wednesday I had P.E. -nothing too exciting. I stopped by the immigration office to find out some info about student visa but the office was closed. I was a little upset about going all that way for nothing, but didn't get too emotional about it (for once!).

Had an emotional and horrible confrontation with my supervisor. I should write out the dialogue for you because I said some pretty intense things. I told him that he and the rektor are power-hungry communists who don't care about the teachers and continually try to supress us, and it's true. This whole concept where they can change locks on us to rooms where we keep our personal materials and usurp computer usage, etc is bogus. Kris, my supervisor justifies things but saying that while the secretary and receptionist are present, they can let us into rooms, print out our papers, and let us into the computer lab. He just doesn't get the concept that we are teachers 24 hours a day, not only when the secretary and receptionist are present. If I am responsible enough to be entrusted with the minds of students for 90 minutes a period, I think I can handle a key and a password, no? So I also said that after observing the way they treat teachers now and have treated other teachers (one they just fired and my good friend who they fired) that I don't think the administrative act like Christains. This must have really hit a nerve because Kris was like "and what about your behavior right now? Is this very Christain? Don't you have any regrets?" and I said, "my only regret is that I can't say all of this to you in Polish." Boarder-line hostile? Pewnie.

Thursday was a really full day. Started with an early trip back to the immigration office to pick up the fifty million forms I have to fill out, after which I ran to my first Russian phonetics class. The Russian alphabet scares the pooh out of me, but I think I might just survive. Only thing is that even though a lot of Polish words are similar to Russian, the accent is so soft, and so strange to me, I don't know if I will ever pick it up.

I had characterization class at 11:30 for 2 minutes only to establish from now on I will have it at 9 a.m. Thursdays and I have to bring my own towel, make-up remover, and an old shirt. This class is going to be a blast- a glorified dress-up! I mean, what are they going to do to me for a final? See how well I can put on fake eyelashes? Really!

Then I had my voice lesson for 15 minutes where Mommy gave me 13 new songs. 5 Tchaikowsky pieces and 8 Moniuszko, two of which I already am familiar with. I am hoping to committ them to memory this weekend and impress Mommy so much that she will ask me to sing in the Korean-Polish composers concert we are having on the 18th.

From my voice lesson I went to dance class. We had to walk around the room expressing a variety of emotions ie. fear while running away from a man trying to look up your skirt. This class might be one of the most challenging because I really don't understand what our teacher wants us to do half the time. I also have to wear black ballet shoes, black tights, black shirt, and a "brilliant white skirt" that goes down to mid-calf. I don't foresee this ensemble being particularly flattering to my figure.

5 stops away from warsaw on my way home Mike called me and invited me over for pancakes. My private lesson had just called and cancelled, so I got off the train, hopped the next one within 30 minutes I was eating yummy blueberry pancakes with Mike.

Today I was in Warsaw about 12 hours. I had a meeting with my accompanist, then with the office for foreign students to talk about the letter I need for my visa. The lady said she would gladly write my letter, but I needed to pay my tuition first. I explained how I didn't really want to pay tuition until I got the visa because I didn't want to get screwed, but she assured me that everything will be okay with my visa. So I went to a bank that has western union, picked up my SIX THOUSAND USD and then, looking very normal and not suspicious, walked to the BRE bank to deposit the money into the school's bank account. I waited over an hour before I could get to a cashier only to find out I had to go to a different desk all together. So I went, filled out my little paper, put my cash on the table (do widzenia pana Franklin! tak krutko znalam cie) and thought everything would be okay. WRONG. The lady comes back and is like, "okay, here is the last form for you, oh, and you need to pay 1% for the transaction." I was like, "Przepraszam?" Choak up another 60 bucks or 240 PLN? Not even possible, seriously. Like this wasn't enough Money to begin with, I had to pay in order to pay???? And don't think this was some fee to transfer my USD into PLN. The school requires that I pay in USD. And never before have I had to pay such a fee at this bank. To make matters worse, when I explained that this wouldn't be possible today, but perhaps Monday she said that if I couldn't do it today I wouldn't be allowed to do it at all, but suggested I have some money transfered from my bank account in the States. I'm curious what bank account she was talking about, because the green stack of Ben's lying on the table in front of her was all the money to my name, my beautiful car Sabrina Henry who I was prostituing, and then some more I didn't have. I was so incredibly angry, and on top of it all, I was late for class.

Once again, I thought of Mike's very simple attitude towards these problems which is "God's cool, He'll take care of it." So I said out loud "Satan, you may win these little battles, but my God has already won the war. Just try and do your worst." 20 minutes of pavement pounding later, I was back in the foreign students office at the academy and explained my situation. The lady said "give me the money" and within 1 minute the problem was solved. The school will simply deposit my cash on Monday themselves, I will be credited, and everything will be fine. Why didn't this chic tell me to bring the money to her in the first place? I don't know, but I am not complaining. I am just grateful I didn't have to find someone interested in buying my kidneys this weekend.

Made it to class where for the next two hours I got to lay on the ground and have the professor press all on my stomach during our weird breathing exercises. Next week I have to bring a piece of fruit and a candle to class for some kind of imagination exercise. Good news is when I explained the Sabbath conflict with this class which will later occur when the time changes, the teacher said he respects my beliefs and will not cause me any trouble. Praise God.

So after class I met up with Kris, got a nice bowl of mushroom soup, and walked around Warsaw in the rain for a bit. We coincidentally met up with another one of my students who wanted to grab a beer and was totally shocked to learn that neither I nor Kris drink, and I not even on my birthday. So we got some juice instead and all headed back to Podkowa together. Very pleasant end to a crazy day.

Tomorrow evening, Kris and I are going to the opera to hear and see "Salome" by Strauss. I was able to get the tickets for free because of being a student at the Academy and just found out that they were giving them away today. Should be great!