Half way through NaNoWriMo

Today is the fifteenth of November.
At the end of today I should have written 25,000 words.  A monumental achievement if ever I have seen it (but I'm not there yet).

My characters are woody, the subplot is still very 'sub' and my motivation is waning.  But not to worry!  Today is a new day and who knows what will happen in the life of Daphne and Zbigniew?  (That's what I get for using a random name generator to pick my lead character's names)

Considering converting a subplot into something worth writing about

But today the kids are back at Pre-School after a four day weekend.  We spent yesterday morning at Elim in Lwowek, which was lovely.

Also in the last few weeks we have finished watching the fifth series of Doctor Who - we love Doctor Who - even though he looks like Matt Smith.  (for you Doctor Who fans, I can also recommend this version starring Rowan Atkinson)

I should stop procrastinating now, I had planned to start typing an hour ago.  Only 2,724 words to go today!

(I would also like to make mention of the terrible carnage that occurred in the last four days on Polish roads.  My heart goes out to everyone who has been affected.)

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

Apologies to Phil Collins for borrowing his song title for my blog post.

We have had a pretty tough week.  I guess these things happen every now and then.

We had planned to travel 150kms to Wrocław to a conference yesterday.  In fact we had been planning to go for two weeks.  But somehow everything seemed to go wrong.  The first ominous sign was that all the maps on my GPS became corrupted.  The kids were ridiculously disobedient as we were getting ready (partly explicable by the fact that they had had bad colds for all last week and haven't been sleeping properly).  It was so bad that as I was walking to the car (only 45 minutes later than planned) I was praying to God "God, if you don't want us to go, then give us a sign!"  Then the sign came: the car wouldn't start; the battery was dead.  My wonderful wife (who was strangely annoyed) tried to get the help of one of the other drivers in the car-park, but no-one was willing to help.
And so we didn't get to go to Wrocław.

The view from my balcony this morning.  Yes, the bird is plastic.

The Bible says that 'all things work together for the good of those who love Him' (Romans 8:28).  But sometimes it doesn't make sense.

So instead of going to Wrocław we stayed at home; the kids played (mostly nicely); Jola dragged me to the shops to buy some winter shoes; I got to read some more of my book and think about NaNoWriMo.

Sorry that this is not a very positive post.  I guess we all come under clouds from time to time.  But every cloud has a silver lining; so here's hoping for a very silvery next week (a bit like the blue skies that I can see outside my window at the moment)

Back from Holidays

Hi folks!

About a week ago we came back from a week long vacation/conference in Mazury, not far from Olsztynek  .

We had a fabulous time and the weather was mostly kind to us.

But one of the problems of holidays is that when you come back home, you have a lot more work to do.
For us, this statement was an understatement!
In the last week the following has happened to us:

• We were given notice to leave our flat
• We had to insure our car
• Our tenants in Australia stopped renting our house (without notice)
• We had to apply for a visa to stay in Poland (which involved driving about 300 kms)
• Jola had to go to daily training for her new job at pre-school
• Jola discovered that she was getting 20% less salary than we expected
• I (Malcolm) have read Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde by RLS
• The kids have both had fevers (which fortunately only lasted two days each)
• And a few other annoying things that I can't really explain in dot points

So, you'll have to forgive us if we have been a bit slack writing our latest Monthly Journal.  I know it might seem that we are complaining and completely stressed, but it's not true.  We are strangely calm and happy.

PS. as I have been typing up this Blog, I have received an SMS saying that we have been offered a place to rent.  So sometime in the next few weeks we will be moving.  Hooray!

Monthly Journal Jan 2010

Malcolm and Jola’s Monthly Journal

January 2010

“I lost myself in the summer rain…”

- U2

Sorry it’s taken a while, but welcome to our latest Monthly Journal.  I’m tempted to change the name of our regular newsletter to ‘Malcolm, Jola, Ela and Chris’s randomly ridiculous ramblings…’  I would like to say that the reason that we haven’t written a Journal for such a long time is that we have been too busy.  But that is simply not true;  instead I have just been too slack.  But having said that, so many interesting things have happened to us in the last three months that it will be difficult to list everything here.

At the time that we wrote our last Monthly Journal (back in October) we had both just started work again after the summer holidays.  Not much has changed on that front.  Jola is still teaching English in Pre-Schools during the week, going to Uni and working on her thesis over the weekends and teaching Sunday School once or twice a month.  I’m also still teaching English.  I have almost learnt all of my students names; and I know all of the English text books inside-out.  It’s not as interesting as it used to be, but now I am getting better at my job.  Soon I think I should ask for a pay-rise (funny joke).

Our kids are continuing to grow up.  We have been very fortunate that our kids have not suffered from colds and flu’s like they did at the same time last year (in-spite of the flu epidemic that swept through Poland in late October, early November.  Chris continues to improve his vocabulary, both in English and Polish, I think he is starting to understand both languages quite well now.  Ela likes to think that she is teaching all of the people that come to our house English.  Sometimes I am tempted to take her with me to school and get her to teach my students with me; but I think that I would have to pay her then…  They have been stuck inside for the past few weeks due to the weather and they are slowly learning how to play nicely together.  Chris likes to play by himself and Ela always wants to play with someone else, but not Chris.  But they are learning.

In November, thanks to a few comments made by our Monthly Journal readers, I entered a ‘Novel Writing Event.’  It was very interesting and I managed to type out a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  It was the first time that I had ever written something that long.  It was an action/adventure novel about some guy called Bob, aptly entitled ‘Bob’s Big Day.’  Unfortunately after writing it I haven’t had the motivation to edit it (or even read it again), and so I don’t really know how readable it is.  But if any of you want to have a read, then send me an email and I’ll see what I can do to get a copy sent to you (by email, don’t expect it to be published) for your reading pleasure (or horror as the case may be).

We had a fantastic Christmas and New Year.  The kids loved getting presents from all over the world, and we loved eating Christmassy food.  We spent about a week with Jola’s parents.  It was great fun because Jola’s brother came with his partner and her son (who is 3) and so the kids spent most of the time playing together (I’d like to say nicely, but that would be a lie).

Now that Ela is almost five we have to start looking for a pre-school for her to join later in the year.  Fortunately for us, Jola knows the directors of all the local pre-schools so hopefully we will be able to find a place for our little ones later in the year.  She has also been asked to work in a new English language pre-school that my boss is starting up later in the year.  It’s all very interesting because we are slowly learning that Jelenia Góra is a lot like Tassie, in that everyone seems to know everyone else.  For example the director of the pre-school that Jola wants to send our kids to, knows that she has been offered a job by my boss.  Another example of this was the other week when some people from the local water authority came to inspect our pipes turned out to be students that I taught last year.

I understand that the weather in Europe has been in the news in Australia lately.  Well, just to put everyone’s mind at rest, our winter (so far) has been quite mild.  There is snow and ice and the river is frozen over in places, but not too much.  The temperature hasn’t dropped below minus 20 yet; certainly not bad enough to write home about.  Today when I went to the shops it was only minus 12.  We didn’t have a white christmas, which is something I am very grateful for.

In the next few months Jola is going to finish off her thesis and we will need to decide what to do next.  It will not be difficult for her to find a job in a pre-school, but we need to decide if that’s what we want to do.  I will need to start filling in forms for my permanent Polish visa and possibly apply for Polish citizenship.  We also need to find out about whether or not Jola can apply for Australian citizenship from Poland or whether we will have to go back to Australia.  And I will need to decide if I want to turn English teaching into a long term career, or whether I should try and find a job as an accountant in a local firm…

That’s probably enough for now.  In addition to the pictures we have here, you can also look at the pictures that we post on Facebook.

Cheerio!

Malcolm, Jola, Ela and Christopher Guy

The end of NaNoWriMo

That's it.  It is finished.


I have successfully typed up a 50,000 word novel in less than 30 days.  It wasn't easy at times; and at times it was quite difficult.  But now that I have done it, I know that I can do it again.


I really cannot explain just how happy I am that I have finished this little project.  If my goal in life was just to be happy, then I would attempt seemingly impossible tasks more often. :()


I do not currently have any thoughts at the moment about publishing my novel, partly because it is poorly researched, the characters are a bit flat and the plot has far too many loose ends.  I like to think of it as Japanese Art.  And as in art, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, therefore my novel is beautiful.


I just spent the last two hours running my novel through the MS Word Grammar Checker and have discovered that Microsoft and I have different opinions on certain things...


If any of you, my dear readers, wish to have a quick read, then please send me a comment or a message or an email.  Once my novel reaches a level of quality that I am willing to share, then I will do what I can to let you have a read.

Am I Happy?

I often get asked by people whether or not I am happy living here in Poland, especially when compared to living in Australia. The short answer is: Yes. The long answer follows:

Don't get me wrong though. I love living in Australia. In my opinion, Australia is the best place in the world to live. Everything is well organised, there is a good social security system, it is relatively easy for well educated people to find work, bureacracy and government departments are relatively efficient. Oh, and the weather is quite good also.

But the question is: Am I Happy here?

Although I have a small apartment, it is quite cheap to rent. I don't have a well paying job, but I work for less than 20 hours a week. Plus it is often a joy teaching your own language especially when your students want to learn (which is normally the case at a private school). Plus there is very little stress involved in teaching English, especially when compared to accounting.

My ability to speak Polish is rather poor, but I know enough to get by. My Polish is poor enough for people to be happy that I am trying to communicate with them, and it is not good enough yet for people to think that they can correct my grammar (thank goodness).

In the morning I get to spend time with my kids whilst Jola is working. Sometimes we go to the playground, we often go to the shops to buy bread (I don't know why Polish bread has to go stale in less than two days - I'm not going to even comment on the "fresh milk," except to say that I don't buy it).

Here in Poland I exercise regularly (mainly because we don't have a car), and have lost enough weight to notice the difference. It feels good.

However socialising is a bit difficult because we have two children and I usually work in the afternoons/evenings when other people are free. But I have internet, so I can still keep in touch with my friends from all over the world.

In conclusion: If my goal in life was to be happy, then I have attained it. Of course there are so many things in Poland I would love to change to make life easier, more comfortable and to make more sense. But I am happy to live here, and for the time being, raise my children here.