MGS RADAR

Friday, 19th of June

I thought I knew the enemy! I came on Wednesday, when there was of course nobody working in the Regional Administration for the Voivodeship of Mazowsze, I came too late on Thursday (because it is inhume to bother a civil servant after 3pm!) and now I stood in front of entrance F, keen to find the office that would be able to confirm that I am a Polish citizen. Why you may ask? I COULD own a Polish ID card, I never had one though. Now I am in Warsaw for quite a bit so why the heck not try to get one?

Friday was actually already level 2. The week before I had visited the downtown city hall to file for an ID card without registered place of living (everybody who wants to get an ID card, but is not announcing a place of living within Poland has to go there). A friendly clerk told me there at the information desk that I need

• A) written confirmation from the regional administration that I am a rightful Polish citizen as my Polish passport lost validity last year and
• B) I need to have my birth certificate translated from German into Polish and
• C) possibly – I am not sure anymore – that I need to get my civil status (single/married) confirmed.

I am not that far anyways, so I’ll ask them again at some point later. But the certificate is already translated, time to get that acknowledgement of citizenship! This is my sport now, having finished my last exams last week I now have the time and nerves for the tango with the public administration. Let’s see how long these nerves are going to last. The first test happened right after entering the administrative office via entrance F.

I have been told by the guy from city hall information that I need to take this entrance. This information was correct. However, the corresponding telephone and office number wasn’t. Everywhere where room 38 could have been were offices of the city’s infrastructure administration. Down to the porter, he sends me to entrance B. There I actually find a room 38. I knock, a fat lady sits alone at her desk and smokes heavily. The room’s air is so thick you could cut it with a knive. I explain my cause. She doesn’t understand. I explain yet another time, again she is not following. After the third time she says: “You need to go to another office! On Długa Street! Ask the doorwoman!” Which I do and then I march. After 15min I am there, it’s ten to 3’o clock, meaning the week-end will start soon for the clerks. The entrance is of course wrong, the doorman sends me to the next one. Room 38 proves to be well hidden and not directly pointed out by arrows in the hallway. I pass all the offices where mostly students and workers seem to wait to get some kind of permits for temporary residence. Finally arriving at room 38 I knock – no answer. Knock again – quite. So I just open the door just to see two women being on their respective phones and receiving a harsh: “Can you wait outside?!” So I do - for another five minutes, then finally get in. “Hello, I need to get validation of my status as a Polish citizen”. Upon which the previously harh lady answers: “You need to go to the office at Plac Bankowy, entrance F for that!” And I just wanna scream, but calmly I say that that is where I’ve just been. I learn that I ended up at the city’s administration, that I need to go to the respective office of the voivodeship, and that unfortunately everything has been reorganized. Seems like both offices used to have their seat here. At least I get the info that it’s not room 38 but 415… and actually some understanding, cheering up words.

So to sum it up: Achievements last Friday - None. Apart from the info “room 415”.

The journey to the unknown lands of entrane F continues tomorrow!

First time I hear the English translation of my childhood heroes

Sounds like an ill fit to say God bless to a godless ideology?

It works for me – of course from a strictly happy camper / sociologist point of view. The fact that the topic “Marxism and the role of family” has been the most popular essay topic among students on the final Sociology exam, in which I also participated as a guest student, bears some irony. Here I am attending a private business school - in some ways the epitome of capitalist cadre building – in post-socialist Poland, and discuss Marxist Conflict Theory and how traditional family structures reproduce society’s inequalities.

But it was fun to live out the Commi-side and today it was an even nicer surprise to get the grade report. Forgive me the self-cheering, but to quote my co-writer Stephan: It was BAM! Leading the class with a 6. I didn’t even know they actually still assign sixes on university. That’s how they grade in Poland in case you wonder.

Everyone needs to cheer for him- or herself every once in a while. The GoodCheerCompany knows that!

Another record low in EU elections. And I did my part for the low by not voting! To be fair: I am politically interested, and I actually even go to the local schmocal election to fulfil the good citizen’s duty. But just like five years ago (back then it would have actually been my first opportunity to contribute to a really relevant election) I ended up abroad. This time it’s not terribly far away, and being also a Polish passpord holder it’s not even a foreign country, BUT: I have fewer and fewer papers to prove this!

• My Polish passport with a cute 10, 11, 12 year’s old picture of me in it expired this year; The renewal project is on hold 
• I never had a Polish ID card; For the fun of simply having one I actually plan to get a local ID card, but so far life in general was always in the way. Exams, parties, party related/unrelated sickness, you name it… 
• My German ID card expires in about a week… at least I got a still shiny, valid passport.

That still didn’t help. Whether you vote as a German or Pole, it’s the same parliament right? Right! But I am still registered in beautiful Schwalmtal – where I am expected to vote. And I might be a good citizen that goes voting when it’s a 5min walk to the ballot, but I am not a super-citizen (yet) who would have applied for postal voting a couple of months in advance.

So it’s the Conservatives who won influence, ehh? Wouldn’t have happened if I would have voted – Bollocks!

What else happened recently? Food-poisoning and exams pretty much. The pattern was weird, though. Sick last week-end, okay for three days and right after a written and one computer-based exam sick again. I even didn’t make it home from a fare-well party (first ones already heading back home) before it got so bad that a public toilet was my last refuge. Throwing up on Dw. Centralny - an experience that one can confidently miss out on in life! For this week it’s going to be a final Social Psychology homework and two oral law exams. And that’s it!


The next general election in September I will be where I am registered!

Daniel

First lecture on a Saturday went actually quite smooth. To my surprise the campus was busy like a bee hive, thanks to the part time students as I got to know later on. The class itself started with the usual technical difficulties that to no surprise have also not been fixed by the IT guys. The lecturer’s love for Apple computers seemed to be to blame. I saw the same guy already coming and messing around with the IT systems during Law classes. However, this time is unique because for the first time since three semesters I saw the return of the overhead projector as a plan B. It had to be cleaned with a tissue that I offered (whether I get extra credit for that remains unclear ), so one can imagine that it has been a while since it saw some action. Similarly the use of a TV set, as a replacement for the projector, reminded me of the good ole school days. Overall the lecturer (the rock’n'roll type of 70s lecturer, emigrated from Socialist Poland to the US and teaches at a Minnesota College now… which is why we have weekend classes) seemed to be prepared for that as we went through an extended version of “getting to know each other” by means of presentation sheets, including pictures of his dog. Despite only being 13 out of 25 that were supposed to be present this phase lasted 70 minutes until we actually started to talk about “Public Relations”. Not that I dislike the informal approach, but that is a little bit out of the regular league.

Interestingly the first thing we discussed was the question of ethics as PR is popularly described as organised lying. Well, another explanation was the selective publication of truth. A good example was this one, given by the lecturer:

Who is this? Here are the characteristics: Vegetarian, a careing oncle, faible for art and contributed to the decrease of unemployment and economic development.

Somebody shouted: Wałęsa! On which the lecturer replies: Adolf Hitler!

I am curious about Sunday’s class!

Extension to captain’s log: On the way home, while crossing the Wisła river I see a pair of newlyweds being photographed and filmed. Just some 100m behind them a model does some posing for another photographer. There must be something hip about the train level of the “most Gdański“…

Before rumours start I better give a life sign!

Exams and module classes! Corporate and Business Law demand their tribute I was partly refusing to give. And now I pay the price… long days, the ever so popular short-term learning marathons and the confidence to not have missed out on too many social events - which are as it should be widely known the main mission of every student on exchange.

Thursday
It was Star Trek day… I gotta mention this because the movie made me finally proud again to be a Trek follower!

Friday
It was one of the last Juwenalia concerts, hosted by the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH). Originally invited by the cousin of my cousin (met them all last week after … err three years?!), I went with other friends who also happen to study there and, surprise surprise, encountered more familiar faces from my university there. The main act was also kind of a surprise – Wawa Muffin, one of - if not THE - first Polish Raeggy Combo and ironically the only band I ever heard of before from the entire week’s concert line-up. I remember hearing a song from these fellas on a “Popolski Show” special on EInsLive to which I was listening to via Internet stream while being in London. Hooray to the blessings of Internet! Lots of fun there, great atmosphere on this fairly big concert, with the occasional Mary Jane smell in the air (stereotype conformity!) – For me the student friendly beer prices counted more .

Saturday
…then a bit more sophisticated, with a free Chopin meets Jazz meets Rock concert in Łażienki Park. It rained all day, but the situation remained amazingly dry in the evening. The whole event could have been also named “How Chopin defeated Communism” due to the elevated patriotism level during performance. Being already on the way back I got a sudden “You comin?” call to a flat party. The timing was excellent, the instructions very confusing (These French ^^, but you could also blame the loud busses). A text made it all clearer and the journey continued to Praga Pólnoc – kind of the equivalent of the spooky area in London (Elephant & Castle) I used to live in. A definite highlight was the presence of an acoustic guitar and the performance of awesome volunteers who played some famous English, for me not so famous French and later on also Ukrainian and Russian songs! While the girls were sighing during the play of my fellow student Adrien, it was all guys when the girl took over (all very melancholic, especially the Red Army song about Afghanistan). Another cliché about impressing the other sex with music has been reaffirmed! PRAGA Pólnoc (please pronounce it street language like!) was easy to reach by tram and surprisingly easy to leave as well as this Saturday was the night of museums and the trams have been kept on the road. So the whole event continued in a club environment of inner city Warsaw, where I have to admit the DJ pulled out a couple of goodies (a “I am horney” remix… you remember that shit from the 90s ?!). It kind of helped to distract from the fact that the place was mostly filled with wanna-be bourgeoisie guys that were hitting amateurishly on the girls present within our bunch (One guy actually accidentally hurt his cheekbone when he threw himself into a group picture, not stopping and crashing with a girls shoulder… with his cheek… how stupid is that?!). For me it was enough to see that it was already bright at half past 4, so I retreated with a friend while some hit another bar. They made us feel old!

Sunday
Piano!

Monday
Herr Köhler has arrived, our man for Corporate and Business Law, as well as Intellectual Property Rights. This sets off the second week of intense legal teachings. Strangily I am once again hearing every once in a while about the German civil code, whilst being in a lecture room outside of Germany. I actually find it interesting, but even honest curiosity reaches its limits when you have law lectures over half of the day, starting in early morning. Nevertheless I mobilized my reserves to meet two fellow Fontys students on my way home. Both are also doing a semester abroad and came up from Nowy Sącz for a surprise visit to the capital. I had no success in explaining where Rotunda is (a distinct piece of socialist architecture), so we met by the Metro Station Swiętokrzyska, right in front of the first McDonalds that opened in Warsaw. It is actually not our first meeting, as we already met coincidently, by pure chance and with mutual great surprise in the Old Town of Kraków a couple of months ago - the best random meeting since the humble writers of this blog bumped into girls from our high school not too far away from Trafalgar Square in London. After some semi-confused walking we manage to get to the Old town (it’s somewhat separated from the city centre, a big minus of the city actually). We found a great place that serves pierogi and in brotherly agreement and adoration for this national dish we sat down in the terrace area, exchanged our impressions of the country and the life as a student here. The pierogi were delicious. I had the first time some with spinach, while Sebastian and Jakob went for an oven version. After watching a cat on a nearby tree, clearly exposing its rear as if getting ready for some rainmaking on other restaurant guests it actually really started to wee…errr rain. We wished each other farewell during the first - very rainy - summer-like storm, and I flew soaking wet to the Metro.

Tuesday
Once again it was studying til down to make up for slacking in the evening (or eating pierogi with friends on the day before). I finished up the last chapter on psychological motivation for helping or to put it into more technical terms about “human prosocial behaviour”. Armed with 60 pages of difficult to read handwriting notes I boarded the bus and learned on my way to the final exam in social psychology. Worries that I could have done more were luckily groundless as it turned out to be more of an US style pop quiz, consisting only of multiple choice and true false questions. Appears like the open questions have been deleted for us non-native speakers. 1 hour 45 minutes are much too long, 30 minutes would have done it actually too if necessary. Marvellously wrong answers on the true / false part are not count against us, which I am deeply thankful for. During my freshman year I managed somehow to collect negative points on a T/F part, beating the odds of “achieving” at least zero points.

Wednesday
During Corporate Finance I get the confirmation that I did poorly on the midterm. In fatalist laziness I had started only days before the exam, and when it was finally exam day I suffered a bad case of “never ending cold”. Ah, did I mention that my home school abolished Excel exams to return to plain pen & paper? At least I still remember from yesterday’s Psychology test that I rely on external attributions, blaming the outer environment for my failures and thus, achieve an improved self-image. Thank you Freud ! In general I decided to put the role model life aside and be a proper slacker by skipping Intellectual Property rights today. Come on! Four hours of lay-over and waiting on campus! And then ending up in a class with not even 10 people, rather half the amount, being fuckin’ tired after repetitive sleeping of less than four hours and commuting by bus, metro & tram from 7am on.. not even being able to hide behind my peers because half of them bluntly play games on their laptops, while the other half has to ensure the interactive lessons doesn’t remain a lecturer monologue. No thank you! I nearly fell asleep on the way home and actually took a nap while legal issues were discussed 10km away. This week is not typical as it is the third time within 7 days that I turn down a flat share party invitation from a bunch of guys that just returned from their trip to Southern Europe and Morocco and seem to enjoy themselves well since being back. Instead I study… despite the wanna-be-Erasmus student that I am!

Today
1410 words… if this article would only be my research paper on “Globalisation, Transformation & Development”. Then I would already have finished ¾ of it. Unfortunately I have too many words for this article and too few (replace by none if you please) for the paper. But there is still time til Wednesday right? Probably sometime between 10am on Friday, when I finish my last Law class and the Public Relations class that has been put on this Saturday and Sunday! Let the rush to the finish line begin!

Another piece of one of my favourite writers, Jeff Koyen about one of our greatest sex-archievements in our past (despite strange,filthy porn)

For the sake of completeness I wanna mention that I was in Kraków this month. Wonderful city, with an Old Town that easily beats Warsaw’s counterpart.

Being the cheapstake that I am I will only mention secondary sources. Reading is not compulsory, but might come in handy when we met and I demand a surprise multiple choice exam to be filled out!

The Erasmus Student Network (ESN) blog entry - FOLLOW ME

Some pics - FOLLOW ME