A Random Collection of Thoughts

The open fields of the Polish countryside? No! Warsaw!

The run down, deserted fair rides at Powsin.

I found a temporary replacement for my dying camera.

The garden on the balcony is thriving in full vigor. The tomatoes are growing up and the cukes have turned into a small forest in a bowl. Soon, the morning glories will be climbing up the walls.

Some of the plants growing on the balcony.

I think I met a hooker at a bus stop. I wasn't able to confirm, but the way she was trying to catch my eye made me suspicious.

These days at the lab are sometimes rather slow. The campus is deserted now that all the students finished up with exams and all the professors are now taking vacations. Just today, the Professor who is kind of above me (above my supervisor even) awoke me from my nap. I quickly showed him some results I had on the boundary layer (I got it with a hot-wire CTA probe.) Good thing Excel was open on my screen.

Late afternoon in the lab.

There's a film festival going on in Warsaw right now, but I haven't been able to get on over there. I think tomorrow I'll catch a film or two. I highly recommend anyone able to, to go (the prices are only 5zl each per film.)

Cleaning the balcony during a rainstorm is the best time. No one has laundry underneath, and you only have to sweep the dirt and grime to the edge and let the water take care of the rest. The Christmas tree was out there for several months, and was only recently taken down. I was able to sweep away huge piles of brown needles with the assistance of some of the heaviest rain I've seen in a year.

One of my students, Roza (let's call him), wants to take me to a strip bar. He says that in Warsaw there's a club with 100 girls, and in Poland, you can touch the girls (a big no-no in the States.) He told me a story of a time when he was in San Diego, when he reached up and gave a girl a caress. The bouncer immediately yelled at him (but he wasn't thrown out.)

One more lesson and the week is over.

Work Day

There's this dziadek in the lab who is probably around eighty-years old. He's this wizened little fellow and hobbles along on crutches and almost always wears a bathrobe. The thing is, is that his desk isn't conveniently on the lab floor like some others, but up a flight of stairs on a platform overlooking the whole lab. He sits there, occasionally getting up to walk to his coat on the hanger, or to go someplace else. He's apparently designing some fire extinguisher that utilizes atomized water particles at high speeds. He's usually the last to leave. One time, he actually started to make conversation with me as I was leaving. As you should know, I'm not exactly the most proficient speaker of Polish, so I ashamedly said so. His English is rough, but at least he understood my small bits of Polish.

We finally got the laser to work somewhat. The instructions are all in English, so I'm usually the one reading and deciphering them. We still can't control it by the computer, only manually, but tomorrow a faculty member from the Physics Dept. should come and teach us how (he's the one who originally used it ten years ago, so he may be a bit rusty on the operating procedures.)

I'm getting more used to the formal 'Pan.' It brings back memories of my teaching Martyna, Martyna and Tosia (read here) where they all referred to me as such. There are periods where pan isn't used: K doesn't use it with me (when he does speak to me in Polish, he uses the informal 'ty', which is what I prefer.) There are no women here, so 'Pani' is completely off the table.

An interesting thing about Polish genders, is that usually they have two nouns (feminine and masculine) for one profession or occupation, i.e. student and studentka both mean student, just one is female. 'Profesor' is not one of these nouns, and referring to a female professor as "Pani Profesorka" would probably be an insult or diminutive. The correct form, according to my Polish professor (Whom I address as Szanowny Panie Profesorze) is simply "Pani Profesor."