Teraz, Tylko Jeden Tygien

I'm approaching my fifth week of intensive Polish classes. They keep me busy but man, my Polish has gotten a lot better. It's really exciting to be approaching a point of competence in a foreign language. I'm still a stuttering mess when I try to say anything complicated, but I have a few friends here who don't speak English, so we communicate completely in Polish. I'm proud of that! This, by the way, is a picture of the courtyard at the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL). It's hard to see properly, but in the middle is a statue of Pope John Paul II that always has fresh flowers and a lit candle at the base. When the weather is nice I study out here during my afternoon break and usually I can hear someone practicing the organ (did I mention that I've met 2 famous organists here?)

For anyone who is looking to study Polish (I'm sure there are a ton of you out there. Slavic languages are so in right now, and I mean that with all sincerity) this course is by far the best one I've found or heard of. The teachers are amazing, and for the first time in my studies the cases (almost!) make clear sense. The teachers work really hard-we rotate teachers for our individual lessons each week and every teacher has been so enthusiastic about preparing lessons for me that focus specifically on women's history and solidarity vocab. I don't see any other way trying to do archival research would have been possible. Here's a picture of my class. The denim clad lady sitting in front is Bozena, my great teacher. My roommate, the history grad student who frequently calms me down when I have an "honors thesis? what honors thesis?" sort of brekadown, is standing next to me in green, and seated in the right hand corner is Siostra Maria-my favorite nun EVER.

It seems as though my language limitations might not be a problem for archival research, after all. A bigger problem is finding a place that has relevant information and is open. I didn't realize this before, but August is "Cucumber Season" here and mostly everyone goes on vacation. I found one archive thats open, and the director may have some contacts I can interview, which would be sweet. But it's all very up in the air at this point.

I have just 3 weeks left until I return to America and I'm really happy about that. Poland has been great-I'm loving every experience and I know I'm so lucky to be here, but I've been gone for almost 7 months. I need some fish tacos, black bean burritos, mounted shower heads, iced soft drinks and clothes driers back in my life. Not to mention the people who are kind enough to occasionally read this blog.