The Angriest I Have Ever Been At My Mother

That's the card I received for American Mother's Day. Please notice that the card is in English. Oh, and that's me in the pink and purple stripes.

No one can make you angry like your mother can. It usually doesn't take much, an innocent comment, sometimes just a look, that goes straight to your heart and immediately infuriates you. I remember plenty of slammed doors as a teenager and the occasional "you're ruining my life". I even remember an argument years ago which ended with me storming out of the house in tears.

Don't get me wrong. I love my mother. We are very different people and very different mothers. Even so, she had her hand in who I am today, tears and all. My mother knows I love her because I tell her so. We're the rare breed of mother and daugher who actually say the words "I love you". I must admit that I was the one who started it. I don't recall any "I love you's" from my childhood, not a one.* As an adult I was very resentful of this fact. Some years ago I decided to be an adult about it and change it. What was the worst that could happen? My parents wouldn't say it back? Of course they would, and they did. Thus, a new family tradition was born. That means that "I love you" was the last thing I said to my father and the last thing I heard from him. You never know when it's the last one. 

Moms have a big influence on their kids. I know that some day, my girls will grow up and sit around the table talking about how I infuriated them over the years. Just the thought of that warmed my heart. I'd like to hope that now I am an adult, I could return the favor to my mother....and infuriate her like she has infuriated me.... and have some influence on her...positive influence, I hope.

The town where I grew up is teeny tiny, and located in a rural area.There is a university though, so we felt all worldly about that when we were kids. Any new people in our town were usually professors, doctors, or other professionals. It wasn't a place where people moved to but rather away from. I mean there wasn't any reason to move there if it wasn't for a job. We didn't get many or any foreigners back then.

Flash forward to today...my hometown is still teeny tiny. The area is still rural, but maybe a little less than before. There's still a university - it's even bigger than when I was a kid. The newbies in our town come from all kinds, not just professors or professionals. We even have some foreigners.

My aunt happened to be our Spanish teacher in school. We couldn't figure out why we had foreign language lessons back then. We didn't see the need. Plus we did everything to sabotage my aunt's lesson plans, thus leaving us after all those years with little to no Spanish in our heads. My aunt is retired now, but she substitutes in the district schools and works as an aid when a Spanish-speaking kid needs language support. My mother was telling me about my aunt's latest position as an aid in one of the kindergartens. There was a kid who couldn't speak English almost at all. My mother's commentary on that (break out the mom voice), "Well, apparently his parents can't speak a lick of English. I don't know what the problem is, if they're just too lazy or too stupid to learn."

And that's where my head exploded. Pure fury. Skype hath no fury like a daughter for her mother. I don't even get that mad when my mom Skypes me in the middle of the night and asks why I'm not asleep. 

My question to my mother, "Do you think I'm too lazy or too stupid to learn Polish?"

My mother, in her totally mom voice, "No, of course not honey. Polish is a very hard language! And you are a very busy lady. You have your work and the girls."

"So Mom, maybe those parents just came to the US. Maybe they work long hours. Maybe they haven't had an opportunity to learn. There are a million reasons why somebody wouldn't know English and stupid and lazy are not at the top of the list."

The conversation went downhill from there, you can be sure about that. I was angry and disappointed that my mother would not have more sympathy for an immigrant parent when I myself am an immigrant parent. Me, her child.

I still love her though. She's my mom.

Happy Polish Mother's Day!

*I just remembered one "I love you" from my childhood. My father dropped me off at my high school and just as I reached the main doors where my friends were waiting, he got out of the car and shouted, "Chri-is! I loooooove you!"

Refresh my memory

I had the opportunity to go to my 20th high school class reunion. That’s right. I’ve been out of high school twenty years and thank goodness for that.
Quite a few of my friends in Poland wanted to know if the reunion was like in American movies. I have to say yes and no. I wasn’t nervous or anything like in the movies. There wasn’t anyone I was dying to see or anyone I wanted to prove something to like in the movies. I was most worried that I wouldn’t remember somebody’s name (it happened) or somebody at all (it happened too – I was an exceptionally unobservant teenager).
Misiu was happy to go with me. He was also happy about the $2.50 bottled beer. His one comment looking around the room was, “Jeezus. That’s what 38 can look like”. In the case of some of my classmates, 38 can look pretty darn good and in the case of some others….well, better not mention it.
We circulated around the room and basically had the same conversation with 75 different people (and they had the same with us).
Quite a few of my classmates already knew  that I live in Poland (thanks Facebook) so the next obvious question was “What’s it like there?” which is exactly what I would have asked in the same situation.
One of my former classmates, not wanting to admit he had no idea where Poland was asked, “Refresh my memory. Where is Poland again?” I really do not mind this kind of question. I don’t get all in an uproar that somebody doesn’t know where Poland is…but in this case I was surprised because the question-asker is in the military, in the air force I think he said, and is trying to get transferred to the base in Germany. Don’t they have classes in military history? I told him that if he gets transferred to Germany Poland will be his closest neighbor to the East.
The stereotype says that Americans are uninformed and/or uninterested in the world around them. I found that many people were uninformed but given the opportunity to ask, were very interested in Poland. It was I who had difficulty in answering the question. What is it like in Poland? Well, I had 75 tries to fine-tune my reply.
I started with some lame comment like - “The old things are really old and the new things are brand new. And uhh, we have Mcdonald’s.” How did I win awards for public speaking? Seriously.
I basically said that Poland is a normal country. We drive on the right. We have 4 seasons. The people are nice, etc. and then I mentioned that we have socialized health care.
Please join me at my HS Class of 1992 20th Reunion.
Chris (totally cool girl from high school who for some reason lives in Poland and is married to some hot Polish guy who thinks Heineken for 2 bucks 50 cents per bottle is cheap)
Classmates (from various walks of life, all cool, most educated, ok one missing 4 front teeth on the top and 2 on the bottom but the rest pretty normal American folks)

Chris: Yeah, Poland is pretty normal. We have socialized health care.

The room goes silent.

Classmate: So how’s that work?

Chris (enjoying all eyes on her):Well, you pay a tax and you can go to the doctor and you don’t pay out of pocket.

Jaws drop. Then a wave of questions. Chris answers them all easily because they are all just different versions of the same question…starting with…

Amazed classmate: Soooo, you or your kid gets sick, what do you do?

Chris: You go to the family doctor.

Another amazed classmate who had earlier admitted to not visiting the dentist in over 20 years: And do you have to pay?

Chris: No.

Classmate: What about after hours?

Chris: You go to the after hours doctor.

Classmate: Do you have to pay?

Chris: No.

Classmate: What about at night or on holidays?

Chris: You go to the ER.

Classmate: What about when you have a baby?

Chris: There’s no additional charge.

Classmate: What about a hip replacement or something like that?

Chris: It’s not a perfect system. You have to wait but it is theoretically possible to get it under NFZ.

Classmate: What if you lose your job?

Chris: You and your children keep your coverage (and around we go…)

Classmate: Wow. That must be nice not to have to worry about your kids going to the doctor.

Chris: It is.

Classmate: But it comes at a cost.

Chris: Yeah, in taxes.

Classmate: No, you have to live under the socialist regime.

Chris: Yes, yes, the socialist regime.

So greetings to you, my red comrades out there and enjoy your life under the socialist regime.

If you can read this, then…What would you do?

Here’s the thing. We bought our house 9 years ago. Before we bought it, no one had lived in it for 7 years. The man who had lived there before us was an alcoholic. He died there from drinking (he was relatively young) and was discovered by my nosey next-door neighbors, dead on the basement stairs.
When we came to view the house with the real estate agent, she had to get the keys from the nosey next door neighbors, Mr and Mrs S. These neighbors are in their 70’s and have children in their 50’s. They accompanied us uninvited on the tour of the house and land. They seemed genuinely pleased when we bought our house and said they were glad to have some life back in the place. They seemed a bit up in our business (accompanying all work crews uninvited), but we figured nosey neighbors were better than indifferent ones.
Mr and Mrs S. had been using our land and had been keeping their chickens in our chicken coop for years before we bought the place and were none too pleased to have to evacuate their chickens. I understood them because chickens stink and they didn’t want to mess up their lovely yard. But what’s mine is mine so…the chickens remained(???). I even joked that chickens in my yard were in danger of finding their way into my Sunday rosół. The chickens still remained. Eventually we had to tear down the chicken coop to facilitate the chickens’ exit. Mrs S. was happy to take all the wood from the tear-down, so no hard feelings, I guess.
Mrs S. and I have nothing in common, let’s face it, but we used to have nice chats over the fence. She’s very opinionated as older village ladies (of any nationality) can be, but my power to ignore her comments (pretending I didn’t understand) was always strong. C’mon we have to find a way to get along with our closest neighbors despite our differences. It just takes a bit of goodwill on both sides (or a lot of goodwill on one side). There was so much goodwill between us that we even have a door in the fence between our properties. We don’t use it. Ok we used it once, invited, and the neighbor’s dog promptly bit Misiu on the leg.
9 years ago, before we had done any work on our house and before the house was livable (in my opinion livable, somebody had lived there without water or electricity) Mrs S. asked if she could collect stinging nettle from our neglected garden for her chickens. We agreed then. Our house and garden are now maintained. There’s no stinging nettle, hence no need to enter our garden. Oh, except for the pears. The pears which hang over into our garden with the rotten pears I have to clean up each year. The good pears mysteriously disappear from the overhanging branches each and every year. Once we even met our neighbor and their children in our garden removing the pears. They gave us a tepid dzien dobry, did not speak to us, treated us as intruders, did not high tail it out of our garden and did not even offer us a pear.
So after a recent hubbub on our street in which we were told by the neighbor that we should go back to where ever it is we are from and that we have no right to an opinion because we have only owned our house for a year (we’ve owned it for 9 years and lived in it for the last 5), we were prepared for a pear fight this season. There’ll be no pear fight, of course, as the pears have been cleaned out in our absence.
So here’s the thing. I don’t care about the pears. But since then I have been made aware that this neighbor enters my garden on a regular basis. I have photos. The suspicious fartuch is clearly visible. I even have photos of Mrs S. standing in my yard, leaning on my fence, talking to another neighbor. The pictures are from many different days we know not only from the date but from the rotation of fartuchy. The person who took the pictures says that my neighbor does no harm and they cannot in fact figure out why she enters our garden in the first place. It is not to check that everything is ok. We have not spoken for months since we were so rudely treated by her and her children. (The rude incident while not initially involving us took place on our land and involved the police)
And now I am wondering how to address this issue. It would be difficult for me to lock all entrances to my garden. And the real issue is, I don’t just want to say, “Hey, I know you come to my garden when I am not here. Please stop.” because honestly, where is the fun in that? I thought about writing a sign and leaving in the yard that says, “Mrs, S, if you or your son or daughter can read this, then spier…” but I think that’s too aggressive especially considering her age. What should I do?

Awkward moments

Here is just the first installment of awkward moments I have had with my students. There will be more to come.

Who are my students? Mostly, they are business people who would like to learn English for work. If they are lucky enough, they have lessons at the office, during work hours, paid by their company. Most often they already know some English but from time to time I get a student who is just starting out. I teach factory workers, accountants, doctors, company presidents, politicians, lawyers, other teachers, university students and even some children. Some of my students take lessons just for fun, some focus on business English and others are preparing for exams such as CAE. I also have a small group of students who have lessons because their friends have lessons with me and they want to have bragging rights too. For whatever reasons my students have lessons, I am happy to teach them awkward moments and all.

**Please note that the ranking does not represent level of actual awkwardness. It represents nothing other than what popped into my head first.**

Awkward moment #1 When I go to a company for a first lesson, it is easy to place my student in the hierarchy of the company. I see the position on the door, the size of the office, the number of hot secretaries, the obligatory leather furniture, the framed picture with Bill Gates (Did somebody say, “Next, please”?) and any other office status symbols. When I meet on neutral ground for a first lesson, I often get some information like this from my boss Misiu, Przezes Zarządu (CEO) of our language school: “You gotta meet with Jurek from the bank. 9 am Saturday. Don’t be late.” And so I met with Jurek from the bank on a Saturday morning 9:00 sharp. I was wearing jeans and a blouse. Jurek was also wearing jeans and a t-shirt that had seen better days. Think the t-shirt you paint your house in after you’ve painted your house.

With coffee, notebooks and pens ready, the first-lesson tango begins.

“Where are you from?” he asks. “From Pennsylvania,” I answer.

“Why do you want to learn English?” I ask. “For work,” he answers.

“Why did you decide to come Poland?” he asks. “Long story,” I say.

“How long have you been learning English?” I enquire. “For 15 years, on and off,” he states.

“Mówisz po polsku (Do you speak Polish)?” he jokes. “Trochę (a little),” I laugh.

“What do you do at the bank?” I ask.

The music stops and our tango screeches to a halt.

“Hmm, umm, well I, ah, I work there,” he says.

“Ok, but you have a job title, I suppose. What is it? Knowing what you do will help me prepare our lessons,” I explain.

“Well, I do so many things that my job title is unimportant,” he defends.

“I understand that, but it must say something on your business card,” I pry.

“Well, it does but it doesn’t really matter because it is my brother’s bank. I basically help my brother,” he explains.

Reverting to Valley Girl, I ask, “ So like what, like your brother, like owns the bank?”

“Yes,” he replies.

Thank goodness I had not led out with my Exercise on the 2nd Conditional entitled, What would you do if you had a million dollars?

Awkward moment #2

After many lessons with questions such as the million dollar one from above, I can predict what my students are going to say and what mistakes they are going to make. That’s my job. However, you should not ask a question assuming you know the answer and you should never ask a question you do not really want the answer to. I learned that lesson well when I was starting out teaching. (BTW, top answer by Polish people to the million dollar question is to travel around the world.)

I had what I thought was a brilliant worksheet practicing the difference between “Have you ever done this?” and “Would you ever do that?” Most of the questions were pretty tame like “Have you ever eaten sushi?” or “ Would you ever jump out of an airplane?” For one particular student I decided to spice up the questions a bit. With the mildly spicy question “Have you ever driven drunk?” I got to know that my definition of drunk driving (drinking alcohol and then driving) is different than my student’s definition (drinking alcohol, driving, getting caught by the police). The question “Have you ever stolen anything?” required a Bill Clinton definition of what exactly “ to steal” means. In the eyes of my student, poorly-secured items could not be classified under “stolen” and if you acquired them while abroad, whether the items were secured or not ceased to be an issue. While strange, those moments were not awkward. Here comes the awkward.

First, I must explain that this student had a peculiar habit of closing his eyes for extended periods of time while speaking. He would begin to speak and take a 20-second or longer blink. It was very unnerving when we started our lessons together. Later, I learned to take advantage of my 20 seconds of invisibility to yawn, glance at the clock or scratch my nose. After learning that my student had in fact eaten sushi, been bungee-jumping and climbed Kilimanjaro, I asked the next question on the list, “Have you ever been to a prostitute?” ha, ha, ha. A very awkward yet honest answer ensued. My student had started his career as a sailor and as a sailor often frequented prostitutes in ports all around the world. Thank goodness his eyes were closed and he couldn’t see that my face was red as a beet.

Awkward moment #3

Awkward moment #3 also involves a 2nd Conditional Exercise. Who knew that grammar could be so dangerous? The student in this case was a very nice, soft-spoken middle manager. He was so nice in fact that he made up a wife to talk about in order to make the lessons more interesting. It almost backfired on him when he invited the secretary on a date and I told her that he was married!

Question: Would you donate a kidney to a stranger?

Answer: No. (That’s not the shocking part.)

Question: Would you donate a kidney to a family member?

Answer: No. (Still not shocking)

Question: Would you donate a kidney to your child?

Answer: No. (There’s the shock for ya.)

Chris: No?! Not even your own child!?

Selfish, middle manager: No.

Chris: But, but why not?

Selfish, middle manager: I have only one kidney.

Totally embarrassed English teacher: Oh, sorry about that.

One-kidneyed, middle manager (There’s one-legged so I guess that is how to write one-kidneyed): That’s ok, you didn’t know. Maybe my wife could donate her kidney…

Misiu has reminded me that I have also had awkward moments while teaching in the US-maybe next time.

What about your awkward moments?