Fabulous colours,
fresh mornings and steamy windscreen, when taking kids to school and kindergarten,
my husband's bike tours before winter comes (and mine, too),
still lives of vegetables at the greengrocer's,
the smell of new (note)books,
the murmur of the printer,
the warmth of rosary beads,
the sensation of starting things anew.
Thursday, 29 September 2011
Thursday, 7 July 2011
teacher on holiday
I like many things about teaching but today I want to mention holidays. I've never had to alter my notion of July and August as holidays (ok, maybe except for the times of my youth when I worked in summer). Students go on holiday, and so do I.
That does not mean I am as free as the wind and idle. Towards the end of June I simply change into an itinerant mother with two kids, bags, backpacks, baskets and the like. In the beginning I have to kick myself out of the office, because I delude myself I love the perfect predictability of daily routines and don't want to jump into the chaos of searching for my belongings arranged in new places, "no schedule" or a makeshift schedule of you-never-know-what-the-weather-will-be-like.
But after several days of being a professional holiday maker, I don't know how I was able to stick to the office for the whole year, to do my chores and not much more than this.
Right now I'm in the countryside, it's been a two-week stay already. There's the hammock, black and red currant, birds chirping, and nearly no traffic apart from incidental bikes or tractors. Husband and children, all of us together from dawn to dusk, like in some "Little House on the Prairie" series.
So sad it can't last forever. But maybe then it wouldn't be this precious. Besides, it's only the beginning of July. Soon I'll pack the bags again and move elsewhere.
And for all those who envy;) I'd like to remind that the only hindrance of a two-month holiday (when you have your own business, like me) is that it is totally... unpaid. Isn't but freedom priceless?
That does not mean I am as free as the wind and idle. Towards the end of June I simply change into an itinerant mother with two kids, bags, backpacks, baskets and the like. In the beginning I have to kick myself out of the office, because I delude myself I love the perfect predictability of daily routines and don't want to jump into the chaos of searching for my belongings arranged in new places, "no schedule" or a makeshift schedule of you-never-know-what-the-weather-will-be-like.
But after several days of being a professional holiday maker, I don't know how I was able to stick to the office for the whole year, to do my chores and not much more than this.
Right now I'm in the countryside, it's been a two-week stay already. There's the hammock, black and red currant, birds chirping, and nearly no traffic apart from incidental bikes or tractors. Husband and children, all of us together from dawn to dusk, like in some "Little House on the Prairie" series.
So sad it can't last forever. But maybe then it wouldn't be this precious. Besides, it's only the beginning of July. Soon I'll pack the bags again and move elsewhere.
And for all those who envy;) I'd like to remind that the only hindrance of a two-month holiday (when you have your own business, like me) is that it is totally... unpaid. Isn't but freedom priceless?
Saturday, 28 May 2011
mother's day
With our sonny's play in the kindergarten yet to come (this Monday), the celebrations of the Mother's Day resulted in the following bunch of lovely gifts (the card from my 7-year-old daughter):
There were also two paper flowers made with a drinking straw, and singing songs, including Happy Birthday to You (in English, I'm proud to say! The success, however, is to be attributed to the kindergarten teacher, not me...)
And a song, a song! J.J. Barrie 1976.
Music Downloads | Free Music at EZ-Tracks.com
There were also two paper flowers made with a drinking straw, and singing songs, including Happy Birthday to You (in English, I'm proud to say! The success, however, is to be attributed to the kindergarten teacher, not me...)
And a song, a song! J.J. Barrie 1976.
Music Downloads | Free Music at EZ-Tracks.com
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
save me, san francisco
What a great day, what an unexpected surprise! I have just received mail (it sounds like I'm describing vintage postal delivery most of the time here;) from the Polish Radio "Trójka". Radio Station Three, as a more-or-less accurate translation would have it, is the legendary, non-commercial radio, which has developed over the decades its own unique, intelligent and witty style - in fact, anything that is the reverse of the word "cliché".
So this is the envelope, and this is the gift - actually a prize in a competition: "Save Me, San Francisco" album by the band Train. But it's so unusual for another reason, too - it's from a very special person. It's my and my husband's favourite - since we were about 14 years old, I suppose - radio broadcaster, Marek Niedźwiecki.
The word "broadcaster" does not seem to be "capacious" enough to contain all that he has meant for the radio-listeners' subculture of people who don't watch tv, but choose listening. Marek Niedźwiecki knows all about music but never to show off; he tells stories. He picks up the pieces of the ordinary and the unusual, with no pathos but with charming simplicity, and turns his programmes into poetry, into the ambience of one-to-one meeting of friends.
There's a postcard with a few lines attached to the CD as well. I'll put it into my treasure box forever! Marek Niedźdwiecki's Top 30 has grown into a part of our biography, me and my husband as children started school each Monday morning from sharing with each other the news from the chart (as there were no private phones available then to share on Friday or Saturday evening!). Still, whenever possible to get close to the radio, I listen to Markomania, to the music selected from the albums the existence of which would often remain unknown to me, and the music is one generous gift in itself.
Btw. our friend Joseph from in India listens to "Trójka", too; on-line, to learn Polish!
So this is the envelope, and this is the gift - actually a prize in a competition: "Save Me, San Francisco" album by the band Train. But it's so unusual for another reason, too - it's from a very special person. It's my and my husband's favourite - since we were about 14 years old, I suppose - radio broadcaster, Marek Niedźwiecki.
The word "broadcaster" does not seem to be "capacious" enough to contain all that he has meant for the radio-listeners' subculture of people who don't watch tv, but choose listening. Marek Niedźwiecki knows all about music but never to show off; he tells stories. He picks up the pieces of the ordinary and the unusual, with no pathos but with charming simplicity, and turns his programmes into poetry, into the ambience of one-to-one meeting of friends.
There's a postcard with a few lines attached to the CD as well. I'll put it into my treasure box forever! Marek Niedźdwiecki's Top 30 has grown into a part of our biography, me and my husband as children started school each Monday morning from sharing with each other the news from the chart (as there were no private phones available then to share on Friday or Saturday evening!). Still, whenever possible to get close to the radio, I listen to Markomania, to the music selected from the albums the existence of which would often remain unknown to me, and the music is one generous gift in itself.
frank again
I've been reading Frank McCourt's Teacher Man for a couple of days now. I've read his Pulitzer Prize Winner, Angela's Ashes, and 'Tis. A Memoir. I got hold of the former in a second hand clothes shop that used to be packed full with books every Wednesday (not any more, what a pity!), and I used to think: how can people treat books in such a mean way - so as to throw them away, often new, untouched, straight from the bookshop shelf? And on the other hand: what a great benevolence, to give away excellent fiction, thank you very much!
As for Angela's Ashes: a memoir par excellence. McCourt is that kind of writer who immediately establishes a link between himself and the reader. So I felt I was a confidant of the story of his miserable childhood right from the first page. His recollection of the Irish slum (the Limerick "lane", which doomed children to have no prospects for social advance) was, although dramatic, never hopeless. I simply loved his sense of humour, the vividness of the storytelling, the honesty and the acute sense of observation. He died last year on my birthday, which I found a mysterious coincidence - and look forward to meeting him in person when my story, too, comes to an end.
And now: the Teacher Man - his memories of work in American high schools. In twenty pages it has made me laugh several times already.
As for Angela's Ashes: a memoir par excellence. McCourt is that kind of writer who immediately establishes a link between himself and the reader. So I felt I was a confidant of the story of his miserable childhood right from the first page. His recollection of the Irish slum (the Limerick "lane", which doomed children to have no prospects for social advance) was, although dramatic, never hopeless. I simply loved his sense of humour, the vividness of the storytelling, the honesty and the acute sense of observation. He died last year on my birthday, which I found a mysterious coincidence - and look forward to meeting him in person when my story, too, comes to an end.
And now: the Teacher Man - his memories of work in American high schools. In twenty pages it has made me laugh several times already.
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