Quotes of the Week

Dla mnie to nie są trudne rozmowy. W zeszłym roku mieliśmy serię śmierci i właściwie codziennie o tym rozmawialiśmy. Powiedziałam mu, że po śmierci są robaki – ciało rozkłada się w ziemi i tyle. I że nie żyjesz potem jako anioł czy duch, tylko jako wspomnienie w czyjejś pamięci. Oczywiście zawsze mu mówię, że nie mam monopolu na prawdę i że to ja tak uważam, a inni mogą uważać inaczej. A jak jest naprawdę, nie wiadomo. To nie jest pocieszające, ale dlaczego ma być. Nie możesz z najistotnieszych kwestii robić powiastki Disneya.

Mama Antka from the article Piekło, Niebo, Piekło, Niebo by Berenika Steinberg Gazeta Wyborcza Duży Format 16 Maja 2013 talking about her and her son’s approach to religion.

-Polska dla mnie wielki niewypał. A to mówienie na pani? Nie lubię tego, na pani trzeba mieć…

-wygląd i pieniądze, wiem.

-Właśnie. A w Polsce wiele osób nawet pieniędzy nie ma. Zarabiasz cztery razy mniej, a czekoladki w Lidlu droższe niż w Antwerpii. To coś jest chyba nie tak.

Gabriel who has been living and working in Antwerp for the last 12 years from the article Zostań, kto nam tak posprząta by Kamil Bałuk Gazeta Wyborcza Duży Format 16 Maja 2013


From the same article…

Ponad 20 proc. Polek w Antwerpii jest w związku z cudzoziemcem. Przeciwniczek Marokańczyków czy Portugalczyków jest jednak równie dużo. Jedną z nich spotkałem u Renaty.
Tłumaczyła: – Może i jestem rasistką, ale jak mam w mordę dostać, to wolałabym od Polaka. Jakoś mniejszy wstyd.

A nice weekend to all :)

Newsy: Angelina’s Breasts

Angelina's breasts are in the news or rather her removal of her breasts is the real story. And you know what? It’s everybody’s business.

My breasts have never inspired such attention for any reason, good or bad. I’m glad. The most hubbub ever made about my breasts was made by me at the brafitter’s across the street. They don’t carry “such small sizes”. Well that hardly seems in keeping with the whole brafitting philosophy, but whatever. I’m not complaining, definitely not, especially when I have witnessed my sister, whose bra size falls at the other end of the alphabet, struggle all her life with breasts.

Our maternal grandmother had a double-mastectomy after being diagnosed with cancer. She survived. I have observed a close relative’s mother whose own mother, grandmother and great-grandmother all passed away in their 50’s from breast cancer, die at a young age also of cancer. I have seen that daughter get tested over and over again, her first fear that she’d pass on the “cancer gene” to her children. Her fear was real as her brother also suffered from cancer at a young age. Now I observe her fear that despite not being a cancer gene carrier, she will die young of cancer and leave her children motherless. In her early 30’s she is tested every 6 months, by doctor’s recommendation.

I will not judge someone whose threat of cancer is so real it is almost tangible for doing anything they can to escape that disease. I also won’t judge someone for doing what they need to escape the fear and protect their own sanity.

And if I wanted to collect opinions about the topic, I would ask some cancer survivors, families of cancer patients, doctors, women who also had mastectomies in the name of prevention. Whose the last person I’d want to hear from? A priest and Terlikowski. Ja pierdole.

I shouldn't say anything

I shouldn't. Really. I should just not write or say anything.

But I have to.

It just gives me such a warm feeling in my heart, deep down in my heart when a person who will not allow me or my children in their home is perfectly ok with accepting money from us.

It's like a big hug.

Uwaga: Rambling post about nothing

I should probably say that mam wszystko w nosie or even mam wszystko gdzieś but the truth is mam wszystko w dupie. Głęboko w dupie

I’m sorry to write it. Sorry that you have to read it. Even sorrier about the hits KS is going to get with those key words, except the person doing that search is just a dirty bugger. Me? I’m just having a bad day.

Oh to be Lewandowski* for a day.

I talked to my father yesterday evening. Maybe that’s why I’m in a funk. I always get homesick after talking to my parents. My father is still unaware that we live on different planets as he complained of his tax bill. In addition to what he already paid in, he had to pay an amount of money above that, which is more than I take in in a whole year. Beh. But I’m glad that he has it and I’m glad that he’s spending it. My parents earned every last penny of that money. We may not have spent a lot of time together when I was a kid but I know that what worried them most (besides the safety of me and my sister) was their security in their older years.

I have to give up my pet peeve – littering. Not that my anti-littering campaign has eradicated littering. It’s just for my own sanity bo szlag mnie trafi every time I go, well, just about anywhere. I’ve decided to just look the other way because otherwise I’m gonna lose it. Just like I look the other way when I see my next-door neighbor. Either she has real problems at work or is incredibly susceptible to stress. At least once a month, she has a real freak-out which usually ends with her locking herself in the bathroom and bawling. Loudly. That’s the only wall we share so we can hear everything, even if we’re not trying. And yes, I admit to trying the first 2 times it happened. I wanted to know if she needed help or something. Mam wszystko w dupie, but I’m not so apathetic to not worry if my neighbor is ok. Through our eavesdropping, we ascertained that her boyfriend was not beating her and in fact has the patience of a saint. I mean how many times can you say, “Kotku, wcale nie musisz tam pracować”?

I’m still not running and the person who designed my new running shoes hates people. Well, hates people who intend to run in those shoes outside in the real world. Those shoes are great for controlled indoor activities such as shopping, but are not made for running on forest trails or sandy, stony paths. The shoes have a kind of waffled bottom which picks up and carries everything from the running surface. You could do CSI on what’s in my shoes and tell me exactly where I’ve been lately. Seriously.

I finally watched the Hunger Games. I haven’t read the books. I had the opportunity to watch it on the airplane last year, but chose instead to watch Adele’s concert twice and some movie with Robert Pattinson in it. I don’t remember the name, but he’s not a vampire. That should narrow it down considerably. Misiu watched HG’s in the seat in front of me so I caught a few of the scenes. The whole premise seemed so disturbing that I put off watching it until now. And I was disturbed as I watched it and for awhile after too. But as I thought about it, worse things happen in the world every day. In many places in the world, kids have worse odds than the those forced to play in the Hunger Games. Beh.

Finally, there has been a kind of compromise on the Ratuj maluchy front. The age for starting 1st grade will still be 6. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is the situation for the kids born in 2007 and 2008 – the last transition kids. Kids born in 2008 are required to go to school at 6, while kids from 2007 could go next year at 6 or wait until the year after that and go to 1st grade at 7 with the kids from 2008. Considering that about 70% of parents have not opted to send their 6-year-olds, that could mean a “double class” of all the left-over 7-year-olds plus the mandatory 6-year-olds. To release some of the pressure, the government has divided the class of 2008 into 2 groups, allowing kids from the second half of the year to start school later. What do the Ratuj maluchy parents have to say to the new proposal? Karolina Elbanowska, leader of the Ratuj maluchy campaign who was quoted in Wyborcza “Nie chcemy sześciolatków w szkołach nigdy: ani za rok, ani za try lata”. I guess ona też ma wszystko w dupie.

Ok Chris, pull up your socks. You have a lot to get done before Majówka.

*Robert Lewandowski is a Polish soccer player who plays for the German team Borussia Dortmund. In a recent match he alone scored 4 goals in the 4-1 win against Real Madrid. Amazing!Lewandowki, however, is criticized for not scoring as many goals while playing on the Polish national team. I didn’t watch the game as I cannot tolerate large groups of German people shouting in unison. It makes me think strange thoughts.

Genius of Evil

All the middle-schoolers from the “senior year” of middle school are knee deep in exams right now. With these exam results they will apply to high schools and keep their fingers crossed that they get into their first choice.

What? I remember going through the same thing except it was the SATs and I was worried about college.

I asked one of my students, a teenaged boy, what high schools were on his dream list. He included “the math high school”, “the humanistic high school” and the local Catholic high school. The choices didn’t seem to jive with any specific career choice so I asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up.

Stroking his pet terrier sitting in his lap he replied, “A genius of evil, mwah- ha-ha.”




I can’t make this stuff up.

Polish Cuisine, American-Style…

…or something like that.

American people like their ethnic food. Even in my small hometown we have a pizzeria owned by a family who emigrated from Sicily years ago. There’s a Chinese restaurant owned and operated by a family from China as well. Another local restaurant has “sushi night” and you can even find “Thai Chicken” on the truck stop’s menu.

Besides all the funny questions my friends asked me about Poland, another common question was, “Can you make pierogies?” When I answered that in fact, I can, I got almost as many accolades as when I told them that I gave birth without anesthetics, twice.

The cuisine of my family was heavily influenced by my maternal grandmother who was not Polish, but worked her whole life in the food service industry. She liked to cook for us, but she didn’t like to eat. That’s why we had to buy her clothes in the children’s department.

My paternal grandmother, on the other hand, had some Polish roots. She was a Mihalik and her family some generations back  hailed from the Nowy Targ area. I guess that makes me a goralka. Now, wait a minute. If you think I’ve been hiding my Polish roots all this time, you’re wrong. Cooking “halupki” (gołąbki) and using the word “dupa” does not a Polish Babcia make. This grandma cooked a lot. I don’t know if she liked to cook, but she had to being the mother of 8 children. She was a specialist in making the food go far and she enjoyed her meals with us, that’s for sure.

Some of my extended family have compiled and printed some family recipes. I have to say that most of them are really bastardized versions of Polish dishes and some are unrecognizable. That doesn’t matter, however. It’s a nice and humorous look at part of my family’s culinary  history. Smacznego and enjoy.

And these two recipes below are my favorite. Nothing really Polish about them, but I love that the Never Fail Cake is placed opposite the Better Than Sex Cake.

 

………………….

Ratuj maluchy

I’ve changed my mind about this “Ratuj maluchy” campaign. This is the campaign of parents against the latest education reform in which children will start 1st grade at 6 instead of 7 (among other things). Oh, it’s not what you think. I still think it’s a good idea for kids to start 1st grade at 6. That hasn’t changed.

What I have changed my mind about is the parents who support a campaign called “Save the children”. I would better understand a campaign that was fighting to give parents more leeway in choosing when to start school something like “Give us a say”  but “Save the children”? Save the children from what? School as the enemy? What an odd name for the campaign.  I will stop trying to persuade those parents that 1st grade is cool, that kids can learn to read and write at 6 and that 6 is a great age to start, that 1st grade is not stealing their childhood, that 1st graders can do math, that the stairs are not too steep and that the 2nd and 3rd graders are not beating the 1st graders up in the halls and that the kids get to play inside and outside every single day.

Here’s my proposition to the “Ratuj maluchy” parents:

Save your children. Don’t send them to school at 6. Maybe not even at 7 if you don’t want to. I’m sending my kids and they will thrive with or without your children.

Lizzie is an awesome 1st grader. She can write cursive already which even surprised me, the education optimist. She can add and subtract double digit numbers. She still has a bit of a problem telling time but who can blame her, the bell just rings and she’s knows if she is on time or late. She’s started to learn multiplication not in 1st grade, but at świetlica (the day room) where they have a chart on the wall that interested her. It called the tabliczka mnożenia. For fun I call it the tabliczka mrożenia (frozen table). I think I am very clever, the kids not so much.

PS If you want a reason not to send your children to school, here’s one. Kids like puzzles, right? History and geography made fun.

A quote from the article:

Układanka przeznaczona jest dla dzieci od szóstego roku życia, ma 58 elementów. Na jednym z nich znajdują się Smoleńsk i Katyń, a pod nimi adnotacja: "Mord polskich oficerów w 1940 r. Śmierć Prezydenta Lecha Kaczyńskiego w prawdopodobnym zamachu 2010 r."

 

This 58-piece puzzle is for children from age 6. On one of them there is Smoleńsk and Katyń with the captions: “Massacre of Polish officers 1940. Death of President Lech Kaczyński in an alleged assassination in 2010.”

Cool.