QUICK UPDATE

-Took 5 Polish classes (6th and final is tonight, but they are playing games and I am not in the mood physically to drive to Ansonia heehee) and they were a neat way of working on Polish (pronunciation, alphabet, nouns/vocab, grammar, etc.)

-In terms of classes, I have gone to NYC twice (soon will be three times) for field trips through my Honors class. I love going there and the short train ride from school is great. Too bad we were hit with bad weather each time (luckily just near the end of the first trip but not so lucky with the second trip being full of snow in October). I am also working on a capstone/independent study (which will also merge into my Senior Honors Program Project) for my Russian & Eastern European Studies minor in which I am writing a paper on Poland and the European Union. My internship at an international institute for helping new Americans is a mix of learning experiences and chaos. It has some value, but also a lot of frustrating moments. I do gain some from it, especially when it comes to crazy stories to tell...

-Almost time to register for Spring courses. I will take mostly psych courses since I am basically done with all requirements except for having enough credits and classes (just a couple shy for each). I think I will take some classes to help with what I may do next (intro to management, organizational/industrial psych, another internship). I also spoke recently with a business professor and she is helping me look at my options, especially when it comes to schools in Poland that would be better to apply to in terms of recognition. She gave me the good thought to contact schools I am considering to ask of any American students who have gone through the same programs before.

One Week

"Bloom" by Pogo

Neat remix/mash-up of Disney songs into one neat mix.

http://www.pogomix.net/

Already just one week left until move-in day. Not much going on lately other than reading "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett (which means more Prior Philip, Tom Builder, and  - especially - Jack Jackson enjoyment, haha). I have begun some buying/packing/prepping for moving back to school next Wednesday (plus I'll be in a townhouse again, which is much easier than being in any dorm - own kitchen, own bathroom, own living/dining space) or dealing with "real life" rentals on the beach or elsewhere off-campus; apartments are not too different from townhouses I'd assume). I have my textbooks bought or rented for pick-up on campus; I did some clothes shopping and collecting of past semesters' dorm items, which leaves actual packing of said items into boxes and suitcase(s) before packing a car. Plus, GRE practice has sadly had to begin as I have just over one month until my test date. I will also begin Polish lessons (it is an adult enrichment class in a nearby town to my school, just under 30 minutes away; other world language classes were Spanish and Italian, but there might be others as well; other classes for adults ranged from fitness/health-related: Zumba and the like, to gardening, cooking, art, and business skills); classes will be weekly for six weeks on Monday evenings for two hours, beginning at the end of September and ending probably by late October/early November (depending on if there will be classes on Columbus Day and Halloween). I attempted to do some work in my Polish books that I have from classes while abroad, but it helped much more when I was not only immersed, but also doing more guided lessons in a class with a teacher; giving myself homework made it too tempting to just look at answers since the book does not give quite enough guidance or instruction - it is much easier to have someone to help explain the grammar. One more weekend is left to spend time with family, then off to CT (where I will have one more family weekend when visitors come for Labor Day weekend a couple of days later).

Kino II

After finishing Dekalog, I have now moved on to Big Animal and Warszawa, the final two full Polish movies  that seem to be available at my local library (a couple of others might have Polish characters or some brief Polish dialogue or they are documentaries with Polish speaking in them that I may consider watching later).

In terms of reading, I finished Snow White and Russian Red and Catching Fire (the second book in The Hunger Games series), which means I am now reading Mockingjay (the final book of The Hunger Games series).

Kino

It seems that some of my recent Polish education has come in different forms. I do a little work in the textbook and workbook I used in Poland, but I am also using literature and films. Not really a lot of Polish knowledge can be taken away from reading something translated into English, but, being in the middle of Dorota Maslowska's Snow White and Russian Red does give lessons through untranslated graphic comic strips interspersed throughout the novel. There is also cultural information in regards to the Polish characters and setting. Additionally, I have been renting Polish films from the local library. First, I watched The Promised Land (in Polish with English subtitles; I had already seen this in a Polish Literature class while abroad) and now I am in the middle of Dekalog - a film with ten separate one-hour parts, each one's subject related to one of the Ten Commandments (again in Polish with English subtitles) - after watching the first three parts (I had also watched one or two random later parts in Polish class while in Warsaw).

Other forms of Polish cultural education have come from trying Polish foods - usually different variations of surowki or salads or soups - and I will try to try out some recipes soon.

Greenpoint

Quick notes about weekend travels. Saw some of a Polish neighborhood of Brooklyn (Greenpoint area), which includes bookstores, delis, bakeries - even a ŻABKA (means "frog" and is a 7-Eleven-like store [http://www2.zabka.pl/]) - and Polish-speaking and signs, before going to a Yankees game. I hope to return to Brooklyn (especially the Polish areas with their well-supplied stores)/NYC-area soon to explore more (I know I will be back to visit the Polish consulate there in August). After a night near Scranton following the game and a drive to a hotel, my family stopped at a Polish deli in PA before coming back home.

On another note, I recently breezed through the first book of THE HUNGER GAMES trilogy, which I had checked out of the library a couple of days ago. (I had also checked out and watched for a second time "Ziemia Obiecana" (The Promised Land) about industrialism in Lodz, Poland around the turn of the Twentieth Century. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072446/]) Now I really feel anxious and want to keep going with the other two books of the trilogy. Lately, I have been reading a lot of books that will be released as films soon ("The Help," "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"), just before release instead of after (I also read a while ago - before made into film - "Water For Elephants," but will have to wait for DVD release to watch it). I really liked the Peeta Mellark character (and the protagonist Katniss Everdeen, of course).

Weekend Excursions

Updates...

The work-week tends to go by quickly and now most traveling takes place from Friday to Sunday, either for a few hours or sometimes overnight. Monday-Friday I just do daily activities (going online for various Internet surfing - email or blog reading or looking at articles, tweets, or Facebook - or reading whatever book I am on now - in this case, about to begin Snow White and Russian Red by Dorota Maslowska after enjoying The Help by Kathryn Stockett - or doing yoga and whatever else may come up), which sometimes includes working on lessons in Hurra!!! Po Polsku 2. In other Polish education news, I am also considering going to an adult enrichment world language class for Polish when I return to school for the fall (I assume it will be weekly on Monday evenings for a couple of hours over about six to eight weeks; I will have to drive away from campus to attend classes at a high school since this is community - not school - related). I feel that working on my Polish in these ways, plus doing work one-on-one with family or watching Polish programming online or on TV, will help me continue to work on the language now that I am not nearly as immersed as I once was only a few months ago.

Furthermore, connections to Poland are also tangible when my family does come upon a Polish good store somewhere here in the US, where we buy up and goodies we find. We've had some hours-long trips (Renaissance Fair, going to nearby lakes and flea markets, visiting nearby cities such as Rochester or Ithaca) that sometimes allow for bits of Polska: seeing a Polish food stand (or item) at a market or fair, stopping by a Polish deli for magazines, meat, and surowki.

This weekend, I went back to Albany for the first time in about a year or two. There was some seeing of familiar places (Wolf Road area, Crossgates Mall for the newest/final Harry Potter film in IMAX 3D, Colonie Center Mall, Central Ave, UAlbany area, etc.) and visiting Cooperstown (National Baseball Hall of Fame, some of town, a cider mill [http://flycreekcidermill.com/], and the Ommegang Brewery [http://www.ommegang.com/]) after stopping in Sharon Springs to see Beekman 1802 mansion/grounds and the Beekman Boys' mercantile in town (http://beekman1802.com/). Staying for more than a day meant eating out (seafood, diners, and Thai) and enjoying hotel amenities (fitness room and pool mostly since the Pay-Per-View had issues). There was a planned trip to stop at a Polish deli near Albany, but it was unfortunately closed for a few days when we had wanted to stop by (it was supposed to be open on Sundays and, for some reason, was not).

Coming up trips include seeing a Yankees game (maybe stopping by some Polish areas of NYC, such as Greenpoint in Brooklyn, or in the Poconos area at a Polish store [http://www.annapolishdeli.com/] before spending some time in the Scranton area), going to Vestal for a Spiedie Fest & Balloon Rally, maybe finally making it on the Tioga Central train [http://www.tiogacentral.com/], possibly going to New Jersey (Clifton and/or Atlantic City), and trying to make it to NYC for a few hours to see about begin the process of my dual citizenship with Poland at the consulate.

I'm Wishing

Snow White and Russian Red by Dorota Masłowska (translated from Wojna polsko-ruska pod flagą biało-czerwoną = Polish-Russian War Under White-Red Flag; UK edition = White and Red) (2002)

Synopsis:
A hit in 21-year-old Maslowska's native Poland and elsewhere in Europe, this punishing successor to first-person "lad" novels like Trainspotting serves up its nastiness spiked with pitch-black humor. Young, paranoid Polish speed fiend Andrzej "Nails" Robakoski presents himself, in hyperbolic stream-of-speech, as an ignoble chump morbidly obsessed with death whose trampy blonde girlfriend Magda has just dumped him. Living at home with a working but absent mother and felonious "bro," Nails adheres to a busy schedule of snorting lines, scarfing "Bird Milkies" (or chocolate-covered marshmallows), text-messaging and denouncing both American consumerism and Russian bootlegged goods. After Magda, Nails--mindlessly nationalist, misogynist, homophobic, racist and anti-Semitic--turns to anorexic virgin Angela, a Goth girl in black whom he feeds drugs and sexually assaults. Eventually, Nails is incarcerated for stealing a soda and walkie-talkie from a local McDonald's. In a hokey metafictional twist, he encounters "Dorota Maslowska," a teenage writer working as a typist at the jail, and then, after a collision with a prison wall, enters a hallucinatory state not much different from his waking life and from which the rest of the novel emerges. Paloff's translation is pitch-perfectly speedy, and with political ironies resounding throughout, it's clear that Maslowska is not exactly endorsing her blank generation, though the claustrophobic narrative presents few avenues of escape. 
http://www.amazon.com/Snow-White-Russian-Dorota-Maslowska/dp/0802170013/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1310221641&sr=8-1

I grew interested in reading more Polish literature recently and this is one of the books I was recommended. I wanted to read works by Polish authors since I had only read books set in Poland or mentioning Poland or about Poland, but usually by foreign authors and rarely translated from Polish (usually written in English only and not having been translated from Polish). I look forward to reading this more contemporary piece instead of running instantly to classics, along the lines of Pan Tadeusz and other Polish Romantic works.