My Creative Space

"Monday is my Sunday, I don't have a thing to do except try and get up while it's still light" - the Whitlams

NaNoWriMo finished last month.  I wrote my book and now I am struggling to find things to fill my time with.  Today I have been very good.  I have cleaned my desk, tidied the living room, done some ironing and organised all my receipts.  Busy day.

I was even going to update my profile picture for Facebook, but I'm not feeling very photogenic today.  Instead I took some photo's of my 'creative space.'

The first image we have is my 'at hand' bookshelf.  At the moment it is quite empty.  I haven't finished reading my Charter's yet, but I will soon, promise.  You can also see theTruth and an expectant bookmark, waiting for my next read.  Which looks like a book called 'What the Dog Saw' by Malcolm Gladwell.

This second image shows my 1.5Tb backup disk drive (very important, and also useful for keeping my laptop disk clutter free), laser printer for making 'screaming outs' for my children, a semi-decent set of headphones and an assortment of stationery.  In the background you can see our Scottish flag cum curtain (the Australian flag is at the other end of the window).

This, the third picture shows my modem (recently upgraded to 8Mb/s - wow), a mess of cables (all entirely necessary, but tangled all the same).  That's my MacBook off the picture; it's quite boring so I didn't include it in the picture.  In the foreground you can see my Tesco clubcard letter.  They've given me 9zl worth of vouchers, but I always forget to take it with me when I go to the shops.  Under that is my 'CV' that I have written in order to apply for Polish citizenship.  Jola has very kindly translated it for me.  All I have to do now is type it up, in Polish.

I hear about a lot of my friends who have too much work and not enough hours.  My heart goes out to you, really!  Maybe I'm just thinking that, because it's Monday and I have my day off.  I was going to go shopping, but it has been snowing all day and I can't see my car (again).

In January I plan to start editing my NaNo book.  Apparently there is a possibility I could get it published, which would be great.  But for now I am going to make myself another cup of tea...

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.)

the Rage Against God

I've just finished reading The Rage Against God by Peter Hitchens.

Of course I am not the only one who has read it.  You can read a better review over here.

I did enjoy reading the book.  It provides a very calm and clear explanation of how the current attack on the Christian church in the west has been developing over the past fifty or so years.

I guess the most disappointing part of the book is that it didn't really answer the question so boldly emblazoned on the cover: "how atheism led me to faith."  The book contains almost zero references to faith.  In fact you could be forgiven for thinking that the author simply wanted society to adopt religion as opposed to each individual developing a personal, intimate relationship with God.

But the most value I got from the book was the way that the author clearly and succinctly provided a link between the effects of attaining an atheistic society and the resultant moral and societal decay of that country.

Which brings me to an article that I read today about a school in Krakow.  Krakow bishops outraged after school takes down crosses

On one hand any religion that feels threatened because a private school removes religious symbols from it's classrooms is extremely insecure (there are no crosses in the school that I teach in).  But on the other hand it possibly represents the thin edge of the wedge of an attack against religion.
In Poland the line between the church and state is often quite blurred.  Unfortunately this has probably caused greater damage to the church than it has to the state (especially when you consider the shenanigans of the former PM).

I guess the comments I really want to make is that in some respects I am grateful for the current 'Rage Against God.'  It is forcing people to carefully consider their faith.  People will either decide that their religion is a sham and stop giving lip-service to the church; or they will decide to give their lives fully to their God and change their lives accordingly.

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)

Happy Birthday Jola!

Last Saturday was my beautiful wife's birthday.
I can't remember how old she turned because I am not very good at remembering dates, especially birthdays.

One of the problems of living in Poland is that it is virtually impossible to buy meat pies.  And so, for Jola's birthday we made a meat pie with a smiley face.

(I forgot to put a glaze on the top, so it got a bit burnt, but it was still delicious!)


But of course it wouldn't be a real party without cake.  Cake is fantastic stuff, and my kids love helping out in the kitchen.

 Here they are licking the mixers clean.

Here they are applying the finishing touches.  Apparently pink icing tastes the best.

And here is Jola enjoying the finished product.

Happy Birthday Jolu!

How Polish are you?

This is a little thing that I have stolen and modified from another Blog.  You can find it here.

I was going to use this simply as a conversation starter for my English lesson today, but apparently October is Blogtoberfest month (as heard by little birdies here and here).  I'm probably not going to join in officially, but as I am planning to do NaNoWriMo again this year, I might lift up the frequency of my blogs just so I get back into the habit of writing daily again.

So, here is the Quiz.  Tell me how you go.

How Polish are you? 

1.   do you have relatives who aren't really your relatives

a) yes

b) maybe, I'm not sure

c) no

2.    you love watching football, but can't play it very well

a) yes, unfortunately

b) I CAN play football

c) what's football?

3.    Pope John Paul II was Polish and his first name was…

a) Karol

b) Carol

c) John

4.    When do you take down your Christmas Tree?

a) February

b) January

c) 31^st December

5.    you open your Christmas presents on…

a) 24^th December

b) 25^th December

c) 26^th December

6.    The plural of PIEROGI is:

a) Pierogi

b) Pierogis

c) The plural of what?

7.    you see a girl/guy and the first thing you look at are his/her…

a) eyes

b) buttocks/chest

c) bank balance

8.    your parents make you listen to…

a) Polish disco

b) 90's pop

c) Classic Rock

9.    when you're at a stranger's house, you expect their garbage can to be…

a) under the sink

b) somewhere in the kitchen

c) in the laundry

10.   you take off your shoes as soon as you step into someone else's house…

a) every time

b) when you are asked

c) only when you have muddy boots

11.  weddings should last…


a) two or three days

b) 24 hours

c) three or four hours

12.  Marie Curie was born in…

a) Poland

b) France

c) Belgium

13.  your grandma understands you better than you understand yourself


 a) true

b) maybe, I'm not sure

c) no

14.  have you ever eaten meat on Good Friday?

a) never!

b) a couple of times

c) Friday is steak day!

15.   you dash your sevens and hat your ones

a) is there another way?

b) when I remember

c) no, what for?

16.  What do your parents do on a computer?

a) Play solitaire

b) look at photo's

c) surf the net

17.  your grandmother has a framed picture of Pope John Paul II…

a) beside your family photo

b) in the living room

c) in the attic

18.   your family considers mushroom/berry picking as 'having a good time"

a) yes

b) sometimes

c) what? Don't be ridiculous

19.  your grandma insists you wear slippers because the floor is chilly and you'll get a cold.


a) yes, even in summer

b) only in winter

c) my grandma doesn't tell me what to wear

20.  your grandma can tell if you like a girl/guy just by looking at you


a) yes

b) maybe, I'm not sure

c) no, my grandma stays out of my business

Answer Key:

Mostly A's: Yep, you are Polish.  "If you're not a Pole, you're not whole!"

Mostly B's: You wish you were Polish, but you still have a bit more work to do.

Mostly C's: You're not Polish.  Even if you think you are.

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!

The Politeness of Polish Supermarkets

Over the last couple of years I have spent a considerable amount of time in Polish supermarkets.  Not by choice, but because I have to eat occasionally - and Polish supermarkets don’t usually deliver.

One problem with Polish supermarkets is that each supermarket keeps slightly different produce, which means that doing the weekly shopping requires visiting about three or four different shops.  This is compounded by the fact that bread only lasts for about 48 hours before it starts to mutate into something that requires something stronger than teeth to devour.

A good thing about supermarkets however is that they are a good place to try out my Polish and to interact with average Polish people.  Unfortunately however it is not always a positive experience, because Poles (like most people) can sometimes be rude.  In fact about six months ago, after making very careful observations (and some sideways glances) I prepared this table.

You will note that there seems to be a very strong link between politeness and carbon dioxide.  This was a big surprise to me!  Of course my research is very localised, and before I can make any scientific statements I will need to apply for a million dollar research grant to prove my point.

Poland and Australia in the Winter Olympics

I love Poland.  I think that Poland is a fantastic country full of wonderful people.

But then I am Australian and I think similar things about Australians.  Poland and Australia have surprisingly many things in common.  One thing that Poland and Australia have in common at the moment is that they are together on the Vancouver Winter Olympics medal tally (even though it is only day three).

Poland’s medal has come thanks to the efforts of Adam Małysz, who is a bit of a local hero; whereas Australia’s medal came from Dale Begg-Smith, someone I have never heard of before, even though he has won a few medals in the past.  It is amazing how much this small snippet of information can tell us about the two countries.

Poland loves it’s heroes, but they are always the same heroes.  Małysz has been the hero for years; but what about Kamil Stoch, why isn’t he also a hero?  Chopin, Mickewicz, Marie Curie, Pope John Paul 2 are all big heroes in Poland.  But, where are the number two’s?  Where are the people that have been trained up to be heroes?  People in Poland become heroes when they fight AGAINST something and still win despite the difficulties.  And I accept that in the past it was necessary to struggle/strive/contend in order to achieve something great.  But why is it still the case?

In Australia heroes do not make themselves anymore; they are nurtured, coached and encouraged.  People are encouraged to ‘have a go,’ ‘try something new,’ ‘be all you can be.’  Businesses encourage their staff to maintain their work/life balance.  This does not mean that people don’t need to persevere, but they do know that if they work hard then they will be rewarded for their efforts.

Of course I’m not saying that Poles are never trained up.  What I’m saying is that there seems to be a culture where Poles are not encouraged to be better than their teachers.  Nor are Poles encouraged to try new things (unless it is a new product or new medicine).  If you want an example, then take a look at Polish architecture - it is colourful and boring (I mean the new buildings, not the old ones).

One more interesting snippet of information is that Dale Begg-Smith was actually born in Vancouver, Canada; but now that he has won a silver medal for Australia, his ancestry is irrelevant.  I can’t imagine that happening in Poland any time soon…

Half a Million!

It's seems to be the catch phrase today.  Here are two articles that caught my eye:


Half a million Poles disappear!

'Un-Australian bums' taking long weekends

Both articles mention that reports have found that around 500,000 people are not working where they said they would be.  Of course this is either 'Un-Australian' (whatever that means) or something akin to magic!

Happy New Year

Welcome to 2010


2010 comes with all sorts of promises.  Unfortunately one of those promises is not reliable news coverage.


Examples that have caught my eye recently:


Thirty two percent live in poverty in Poland  Apparently "One-in-three live in absolute poverty in Poland. One-in-five can’t afford to adequately heat their homes, finds a new report launching a fight against economic and social exclusion throughout the European Union."


This is a classic case of either misread statistics or absurd statements.  How can one-in-three live in absolute poverty while only one in five can't afford to adequately heat their own homes?  Maybe my definition of 'absolute' is different to that of the journalist who wrote this article?
A closer look at the actual report will show that the actual poverty rate in Poland is is closer to 17%.  The 32% figure quoted as 'absolute poverty' is heavily skewed by people who cannot afford an annual one week holiday.  This is still a significant problem.  But certainly not as bad as the newspaper article seems to suggest.


But 2010 is promising to be a good year for Poland financially.  Let's just hope that the result is higher wages for the average Pole and not higher rent.

Toilet 2012: 'public loos are improving'

Here's an interesting news story:

Toilet 2012: 'public loos are improving'

It's interesting to note that most of the public toilets included in the survey are actually private (hotels, restaurants, airports). I am of the opinion that Poles have very strong bowels, because it is rather difficult to find public toilets outside of these places. Maybe they are there, but are just well hidden. Perhaps there is a secret Polish word for 'where the toilets are' that they don't share with foreigners. I suspect it rhymes with 'drzewo.'

That is unless you call mysterious blue boxes found on the side of the street 'available for the public.'

My two favourite girls waiting for 'the doctor'...

Monthly Journal Oct 2009

“Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active”

- Edith Hamilton

Hello fellow compatriots!

I bought a new dictionary the other day. It has 72,000 words in it, and I think I know all of the English ones already. It’s the 30,000 Polish words in it that I don’t know.

The weather is starting to get cold now (last night it dropped down to 2 degrees), which should make you Aussies less jealous. One of the disadvantages of having central heating throughout the entire block of flats is that we don’t decide when to turn it on. Maybe they are waiting for the first snow. Who knows?

We are all back at school now. This week I have 25 hours of teaching (that’s 25 hours of standing up and talking), and Jola has started working five days a week (she only has to talk for about 11 hours, but because she is teaching little kids she has to talk twice as loud). I think Ela would make a good teacher because she talks for about 10 hours a day with little or no encouragement – sometimes we turn on the TV just so that she will stop talking for half an hour.

I think most of the regular people at the playground know our names now – thanks mostly to Ela. And they all think that we speak German…

Talking about speaking, Captain Rhubarb is learning a lot of words very quickly now. I think he has taken so long to talk because he got his teeth late. Or maybe it’s because he can never get a word in edgeways because Ela does so much talking. Before he goes to bed at night he says: pa pa Mama, pa pa Daddy, pa pa Lella, pa pa Becky. (I have taken special care to teach him the English 'Daddy' instead of the Polish 'Tata'.)

I had a couple of comments from the last monthly journal that I had lost some weight. Well, it's true. We bought some bathroom scales and I discovered that I had lost about 10 kilo's since leaving Australia. I'm not sure if it's because of the food, because we don't have a car, or because of my job. But in any event, it's nice to have more energy and to be able to play with my kids at the playground (yes, on the swings!).

I have also had a few comments (based on what people read in these monthly journals) suggesting that I start writing professionally. I think I would like that, but I don't really have the imagination to write novels and there are very few English speaking newspapers that need a correspondent in south-west Poland (although it is a world centre for Boleslawiec pottery and tissue-paper making machines).

Last weekend was Jola's birthday. We had streamers and balloons and THREE cakes! As a family, we really like cakes. We did a test on Facebook to decide what Jola's real age is, and so we have just celebrated her 21st birthday again.

Unfortunately Jola couldn't celebrate too much because she has started writing her thesis for her Masters. It's a bit boring.

Jola: Hey! My thesis is not boring at all! It’s still rather short but as it gets longer I'm sure it will get more and more interesting?? That's what I say to myself anyway…

Congratulations to everyone who has got married or got pregnant (or both) in the last couple of months! (We know who you are, even if nobody else is supposed to know yet).

So long!

Malcolm, Jola, Ela & Chris

PS. As I am sending this it has started snowing...

Polish Customer Service. Fact or Fiction?

I really don't like to complain. Most Poles are very helpful and courteous – that is until they are given a position of authority. Every now and then I come across exceptionally poor customer service. It saddens me to think how much more efficient everything would be if people actually did what they say they are going to do…

On Thursday night our modem stopped working, so on Friday I went to the local office of our internet company and told them that our modem was broken, and asked if I could buy a replacement. They had a look on their computer and said that it probably wasn't my modem, but the signal. So I was told to wait for a call for the service people sometime before 5 and they would fix everything. I thought 'fine' and went home waiting for a call.

At five to five we still hadn't received a call, so my dutiful wife called them up and was told that the service people were probably busy, and so we would get a call sometime the next morning (how hard would it have been for the office people to say within the next 24 hours instead of by 5?).

The next morning we received the call. My wife explained the problem and the service people said that it was obviously a modem problem and that we should take the modem back to the office for a replacement. At this point I wasn't very happy, because I had done this the previous day.

So we took the modem back to the office where we were told that before we could get a replacement we had to supply not only the modem, but also all of the cables with the original box and CD! I did well not to lose my temper. Why couldn't we have been told this the before?

(If you are reading this, it means that we have somehow sorted the problem out and have internet again)

Today I bought some bread from our local store. The bread has always cost 2.19, it even says so on the shelf. But when I got to the checkout the lady said it was 2.30. My response was: no, it's 2.19 (I said it a few times in Polish). However she must have realised that I'm not Polish and simply smiled and pointed to the price on the checkout. Because I wanted the bread and didn't want to waste any more time over 11 groszy (5 cents Australian, or 2pence), I paid her and left. Obviously someone changed the price in the computers, but couldn't be bothered changing the price on the shelf. This is not only bad customer service, but in Australia it is illegal.

I think the problem is that Poles don't complain to the right people. They love complaining/gossiping amongst themselves and their friends, but they very rarely make official complaints. Maybe they are embarrassed, or they think that nothing will change, or they don't to cause any problems. This is most likely due to the years of repressive government that they endured. However the time has come to move on. Poland has been a free country for quite a few years now. It's time to take the next step and for the people to start demanding that other people/organisations/government do what they say they will do. The days of accepting the mediocre and inefficient is over.

Polish in Conversation

I was told yesterday that I should learn more Polish so that I can join in with conversations. I guess I'm not much of a conversationist, so I need a bit of encouragement at the best of times.

Can someone give me a bit of help with the following statements that I could include in most Polish conversations (These may or may not be my personal views, but it should be enough to start an argument between the other members of the conversation so that I can slip quietly away and have a coffee and biscuit). If you can give me some further suggestions, I would be very happy:

POLITICS:

Mr Kaczynski is incompetent and Mr Tusk isn't doing anything.

RELIGION:

Catholicism is a good religion, but I have trouble accepting the catholic traditions that are not Biblically based, especially as Jesus said in Matthew 15 that tradition nullifies the Word of God.

BUREAUCRACY:

The main problem is that Poles don't trust other Poles. And most Bureaucrats are more worried about pieces of paper than actually getting something done.

ON FOOTBALL:

Polish footballers are good, but they can't play as a team. Is this the fault of the coach? Maybe...

Only four seasons?

I came across this article the other day. Apparently (in reality) Australia has six seasons, and the four season approach is based purely on the European model

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8215570.stm

But, is that true? Because here is another interesting blog/article talking about the six Polish seasons...

http://sylwiaofwarsaw.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/polish-six-seasons-a-guide/

Maybe the thought of six seasons is in fact a global phenomenon?

August Monthly Journal

AUGUST 2009

“That’s what you get for waking up in Vegas!”

- Kate Perry

Hello friends,

We’ve had an interesting month, full of ups and downs and sides to sides. As you may have read from the last journal, it is summer holidays at the moment, which means that we haven’t been teaching. I’m sure that most of you would jump at the chance to have a two month summer holiday in the centre of Europe. It sounded great to us too, until we realised that we didn’t have enough money to do anything exciting.

So we have been spending a lot of time with our kids. Jola’s parents have been to visit us a few times, we visited all the local playgrounds many times. You get the idea.

About two weeks into our ‘holiday’ I found a job on the net. A local firm was looking for someone to do work in an office that could speak English. So I asked a few questions, but because I didn’t get a response I assumed that they didn’t want to talk to me.

One of our friends found a job and needed a babysitter for her kids, so all of a sudden we had four extra kids in the house. It was great! Our neighbours thought that we had started a pre-school. So we spent a lot of time outside in the sun with the six kids (ranging in age from 2 to 12). I think it was good for our children to spend time with other children, but it was very tiring for them.

Out of the blue on a Tuesday afternoon, we received a call from the people that wanted the English-speaking office worker. Jola and I went for an interview the next day. It was the oddest job interview I have ever been to, and apparently they didn’t even read the questions I sent in my email. I should have realised then that would be some problems working there, but because I needed the money I accepted the job. On the Thursday I started work with an importer/exporter of dental and gynaecological supplies.

So, all of a sudden we were very busy. It was nice. I must admit that it took a bit for me to get used to working for eight hours again, and Jola enjoyed spending large amounts of time outside in the sun with six kids (not to mention cooking lots of food).

This month we bought Chris his first single bed (mostly because we were sick of him trying to get out of his cot). For the first two weeks it was very difficult to put him to bed. He kept getting out and going to where his cot used to be, or going into the lounge to watch TV with Mummy & Daddy. So we have stopped watching TV when the kids are going to sleep (the joys of a Hard Disk recorder – not that there’s anything on) and Chris helped us dismantle and pack away his old cot. Now Chris and Ela share the same bedroom so they can both learn to get on better with each other (plus our house is too small for us to do anything else).

My job was fun, but I had some problems. My boss seemed to care more about the Feng Shui of the office (including fish tanks) than the computer network (my computer took 20 minutes to load up each morning). There was no OH&S. We had to spend a great deal of time on the phone, but there weren’t enough phones to go around. There was no job description, no price-lists in English (funny because I was supposed to be selling stuff to the UK), no clear organisation. As an accountant and business consultant, you can understand how difficult this was for me; especially because the boss wouldn’t listen to what I had to say. And so after 3 weeks I was fired for ‘not working fast enough.’ And to add insult to injury, the boss wasn’t even brave enough to tell me himself, he had one of my colleagues tell me. However I’m grateful for the experience. It has taught me that you don’t have to be that good to run a business in Poland, and it has given me a few ideas for making some money on my own.

School holidays end in two weeks, so we are making the most of the sun and time with our kids. It’s a pity we don’t have a car for day trips, it just means that we spend more time walking and watching Ela ride her bike.

And that’s the end of the story!

Malcolm, Jola, Ela & Chris

Polish drivers

This is an article in my local newspaper

http://www.nj24.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3936&Itemid=138

Apparently a new 'No Entry' sign was put up in the middle of my city and all of the drivers are ignoring it. This says two things:

1. Polish drivers do what they want to do/what they are used to and take little notice of road signs. I suspect that this is because there are far too many signs and not enough good roads and far too many imminent dangers (eg pedestrians stepping into the street in odd places, Polish drivers driving like Poles etc ...

2. Polish City Councils do not understand the first thing about communication. They think they can put up a heap of random signs and expect people to obey them immediately. In Australia whenever something changes there is always at least 3 big yellow warning signs saying 'changed traffic conditions ahead' or something similar. Or maybe someone in the office is paid on a sign commission. The more street signs he/she puts up, the more he/she gets paid...

Janice from Poland or Lower Silesia?

I found this blog yesterday about Janice

Janice Powell's Teeth Whitening Story

I thought it was interesting because in her 'About Me' she said she was from Walbrzych, Lower Silesia. I was a little surprised to see this because I live in Jelenia Gora, about 50km's from Walbrzych. I had no idea that US companies would send 'free samples' all the way here...

But then I got suspicious, because Janice is hardly what I would call a Polish name. So I made a comment at the bottom of the post, and am still waiting for a reply

Then I had another look at the Blog today, and Janice has suddenly moved to Santa Clara, CA! Maybe I offended her?

(Actually, this blog is a pure advertising sham. I guess Americans prefer to be told what to buy from some Mom in Walbrzych, than a big corporate company. I really don't know what that says about American culture)

Cheers!

Polish Doctors

We had to take Ela to the doctor this morning...

Every now and then our beautiful daughter gets something like croup, meaning that her throat swells a bit and she coughs a lot in the mornings and evenings. It's not uncommon. It's easy to fix in the short term - in Australia.

But, this is Poland. Somehow we ended up spending about 60 zloty on medication (a bit less than $30AUD). Including Vitamin C, Calcium, Pro-Biotics, nasal spray, and (of course) antibiotics. And of course the doctor says that she needs to take all of them!

This is ludicrous. I swear that Polish doctors work on commission for the drug companies. Unfortunately I am not a doctor or a pharmacist, so I can not tell which of these are necessary or unnecessary, meaning that we have no choice but to give her everything.

That's my rant for today.

Malcolm