Tuesday 5 June 2012

Yin Yang of the mind



I want to fill my friends in on my life in Poland, but be warned the philosopher that lurks within will sum up with a chilling note.
About a month ago I was employed by Queen’s school of English, a reputable language school that I adore. Before this I was working for a fiend and so I escaped relatively unhurt but well and truly unpaid, the thought of those 5am wake ups that I could have spent in my warm bed annoys me but alas, one lives and one learns. I teach just under 20 hours and as the summer approaches I will be working less but as September roles around I am pretty sure that my hours will increase and that summer will be a glorious blur for which I will wish to return.
I am busy, extremely, I feel very out of my depth and to avoid drowning I am spending my days, between classes, planning and prepping and trying to avoid any pitfalls of grammar and vocabulary. 
We study Polish twice a week and it is safe to say if I was my own student there would be blood spilt. Homework is rarely done and progress is slow from lack of self-study, too busy, too tired and too unmotivated!
Our cats are amazing we rescued Pierogi (Piggy) from a shelter. She was actually in a pet store and when Colin saw her his eyes turned to mush, I had to become the tough one *sigh*
My first thought was why was she in a pet store? I don’t believe in buying from a pet store when abused, neglected, abandoned animals need us more. We enquired, it was a way of advertising the shelter, getting a home for the cat (they put a different cat in the pet store every fortnight or so) and the pet store sells the food at the time of adoption everyone is a winner, especially Colin, I had no excuse, we wanted a cat she needed humans. We could always provide for her, even if things got too tough. So we packed her up and she moved in. It took a few days but she was definitely our cat and she definitely felt at home. Numerous occasions we had to put the sofa and bedding in the washing machine!! And as Pierogi started her 3am play sessions we knew it was time to adopt a second. I desperately wanted another, I feared that I wanted another because the excitement of Pierogi had warn off, like a kid with their Christmas toys 3 days later, but I now know that is rubbish! I also wanted another cat for Pierogi. She was an indoor cat and her excitement and energy was completely reliant on 2 humans who came home, drank a beer, and sleepwalked into bed every night. I felt guilty every day and needed a feline to take my burden!
James, aka Jimmy. It took weeks before we got him and we longed for him all that time. We asked for a black female and we got a white, with some black, male. We couldn’t be happier, he is our baby and our family is complete.He came from a sad background that can be summed up in a picture that was taken of him as a kitten all together with bloody nose and a dirty body. Pierogi found things hard at first, a stranger moving in but now that she can play and chase and fight for hours then she is content.
Also, so far, she hasn’t pee’d where she shouldn’t. We, of course, take lots of precautions but it still could be a sign that all she needed was her friend.
Wroclaw is a really great city, there are always things to see and do but sadly we don’t really have the time or energy to always see and do these things, but at least we know they exist and when wonderful people come to visit over the summer we will partake. We will meet each others parents and we will sit in the Rynek (market square) drinking a beer and loving things, even if money is tight. Money is a necessity, sadly, but will never make me as happy as my life right now does.
I do not dread my job every time the alarm rings, like I did in Korea, but I long for the evenings and weekends so I can spend them with my ‘family’. 
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 Things are going really swimmingly in my life right now but as I write my face book status’ I always feel a huge pang of guilt. I am being melodramatic of course but why on earth should I be this lucky? and why on earth should I be proud of it?
It is maybe politically incorrect for me to say this next statement but, as always, I will. I am lucky first and foremost for being born white and secondly I speak English as my first language. It is a sad world that we live in when these happen to be partial reasons for my wide set grin.
Of course I have had heartbreak and financial panic, I have had times of deep set depression that covered me like a thick blanket and chocked me. I have had tears and blood, sweat, and nerves.
I have had, what seems to be the new coined term, first world problems. Maybe I should boast that I am lucky because it fills me with appreciation for what I have and what I never had to have. I am still a million miles away from knowing or understanding the inevitable results of poverty. I can watch t.v or read newspapers, I could even volunteer and help, but I will still be wearing clothes, eating, and even if I decide to ‘camp’ to try and open my eyes to the life of others I know that this isn’t ‘it’ for me. 
‘The American dream’ is; knowing every day you can afford to hope. What if you went to sleep every night and knew that life will never get better, would you bother to dream ?
I am not sure when society became a twisted checkers match but humans abused humans and my beaming smile that appears when I wake up next to Colin, hear my cats purr, or await an impending trip just adds to the inequality of the game. 
I do not need to prove my luck or happiness because I was born into it.
My ex boyfriend was a rat bag, but to be honest these words are not even said with venom, I still have everything I went into the relationship with. I still had the opportunity to ‘have’ that relationship. Everything I do must be appreciated rather than taken for granted.
I will never wish my hand was dealt differently but I know there are thousands upon thousands of people who would give anything and everything, an ironic statement in itself, for a day in my shoes. Isn’t that tragic and yet guiltily fulfilling all at the same time?
I am lucky and I am happy and I will cease to declare it, there is little necessity for obvious passionate vents.