Back online at last! Praise be and pass the ammunition

Finally, back online. In fact, I can hardly believe that I have access to the internet again. For about two months I’ve been consigned to listening to any one of Warsaw’s bibulous radio channels or one of the five stations we can barely receive through our zepsuty antennae.

Heavy lies the crown when you come home to yet another surly faced news reader talking about medical costs and rebellious doctors. It’s a long way from the cornucopia of excellent British TV.

On the plus side I’ve got a few things done in the last weeks that haven’t involved watching Syrian protesters being beaten up on liveleak.com (excellent resource for finding out what’s really going on in the world, by the way).

Moving flat has exposed me to the weakness of my vocabulary in the following areas:

• Describing how one antennae is slightly wider than the socket it’s intended for to a man with a moustache stinking of booze and in no mood to help.
• Asking for silicon sealant to mend a small leak in the sink and a replacement washer
• Asking a surly internet man not to damage the wall with his poorly aimed drill head
• Discussing the faults of a lock from 1958 with a locksmith
• My inability to barter in a market situation or find parmesan in 5 mile radius of my dom.
• Pleading with internet customer servicers for access

So a progress report: I’ve carried on with private Polish classes and I’ve definitely progressed quite significantly. I’m also fortunate that the vast majority of my colleagues speak in Polish throughout the day, and I spend many of my weekends travelling with Poles who don’t speak any English. It’s as near to total immersion as you can get, and it does pay off.

For anyone reading also studying Poland I urge thee to get to a Polish nunnery statim. Listen to podcasts in Poland, translate sexy articles from the Fakt page, read them aloud, be curious about slang, expose yourself to uncomfortable situations, keep a book of every word you learn and look for patterns of grammar in the world all around you. (I can now, finally, ask for that silicone sealant which will be a positive boon when the next time I come to mend a small leak – money can’t buy that hugely useful addition to your lexicon).

Be a language hunter with many spears and tools in your arsenal.

However, I could definitely be more focussed in classes, where I tend to launch off in long rambling monologues whenever the chance occurs.

Yesterday when presented with a few pictures and asked to imagine what the characters in them were doing, I embarked on a long story about a shark who wanted to become a man who met an evil female doctor who transformed him into one only on the condition that he eat her husband, who was then swimming with a large purse of gold in the Vistula.

The shark agrees and was so transformed, but cheats the woman by actually stealing the purse with his agile teeth. The man, purseless, leaves the water and sees the shark and his wife fin in hand on the way to the cinema. He returns home and leaves a Dear Jane letter for his wife before heading off to meet his on-the-side-girlfriend, who has become a giant rabbit.

Terrified, he wonders if he is has gone mad and races to a speak-easy for some medicinal, whereupon he meets a fortune telling gypsy who calms him only if he promises to mend his licentious ways. Having so done, he lives a quiet life in a different city for ten years before one day being served his meal by a giant rabbit. Having convinced himself that these animal characters were imaginary, he is killed by the shock of it all.

Yes I am, and was, aware this total nonsense, but believe me it was even worse for my teacher as I fumbled with various words along the way! That’s the slightly bizarre thing about private classes, although your teacher is nominally in control you are the one with the purse strings and no shark can take them away with you. I like to think I don’t abuse the privilege but od czasu do czasu I find myself being deliberately naughty, just because I can. My own worst enemy!

Am away in Częstochowa and then Wroćław this weekend but you can expect a reasonably regular service to re-commence rapidly. Enjoy!