It's Hot Up Here

Throughout my 24 years, I've honestly made a career of causing accidents. It's almost miraculous that I've lasted as long as I have. Casualties have included family heirlooms, numerous pieces of china, and, more realistically, my person. I've fallen on my ass in public more than Laurel and Hardy. So, I realized that it would only be a matter of time before I brought my talents across the ocean. Gertrude Stein and Earnest Hemmingway had their writing, Josephine Baker and Isadora Duncan had dancing, and F. Scott and  Zelda Fitzgerald had alcohol, torrid love affairs and mediocre writing. What shall the history books pin my name to? Falling in public.

My class has been moved from the Collegium Chemicum back to Collegium Novum. This is really not of particular interest, but it does play into the story. I was rushing up the stairs to my class which I believed started in five minutes (it actually didn't start until 3pm). In the process, I miscalculated a step and bang, boom, yelling timber. I'm down for the count and I can already feel bruising in my shin and blood pooling in my shoe from where I once had part of a toenail. A collection of Polish students stopped, staring at me with an interest probably not unlike those Joseph Merrick probably received walking through the streets of London. It's impolite too stare, but who the hell would look away?

I hurry to my feet and rush to the classroom to discover that I actually have an hour and forty five minutes at my disposal. However, walking back down the stairs to get the key to my office would mean possible exposure to the legion of students who had just seen me fall. So, I did what any red-blooded American would do: hid in the bathroom for 10 minutes for the next class to start and the halls to clear. 

It's at this point in the story that I need to stop and inform you all of how normal I am.

I decided after emerging that the stairs were not to be trusted and the only safe option was to take the elevator. I push the button and wait a few moments for the elevator to come down from floor 6 to floor 2. However, the elevator was moving at a positively glacial pace. So, to pass the time, I read about Cambridge summer programs via a poster on the department bulletin board. The elevator arrives, and as I'm walking in, the door promptly shuts with me not quite in the car. I'm pinned for a moment, thinking about the rabbit posters on the Paris Metro that I'd only just finished mocking. I feel another bruise forming on my arm from the surprising force of closing door.

In short, by the end of the class, my shin, my shoulder and my toe were damaged, bruised and in moderate pain.

But then again, pain is beauty? Maybe? 

I ended up drowning these sorrows in a bar called "The Proletariate." It's decor is made up entirely of Soviet novelties. These include: a wicker bear, several Soviet Realism paintings, photographs of Lenin and Marx, a giant bust of Lenin's head, and a hog's head wearing a commander's cap (all animals are equal...). All in all, it looked like the place George Orwell and Leon Trotsky would go to hook up. There was something irreverent and fun about it at the same time and it was truly the perfect environment for sipping beer.

In potentially more interesting news, I've experienced a proverbial culinary cabaret the past few days.  I'll break this up into three parts so that you may get a better sense of exactly what I'm talking about.

Cooking with a Hotplate
I learned one of Poland's harshest lessons early. If you are a vegetarian, nothing can be trusted. Pierogies can easily house meat inside their deceptive, delicious shells. Bacon is used as a garnish with alarming frequency. I once ordered pumpkin soup from a small cafe and spent the better part of a minute asking a series of questions to the poor waitress to be sure that the soup was 100% vegetarian. 

What I ask normally: Is this vegetarian? 

What I now realize I have to specify: I consider fish a meat. Is the base chicken or beef stock? Is there some zany Polish surprise where the soup is actually served in a bowl fashioned out of veal cutlets or something?

The end result is me doing a lot of my own cooking. 

So far, I've mastered the following on the hotplate:

Sauteed chickpeas with cherry tomatoes, garlic, onions and a shot of gin.

Chardonnay cream sauce and noodles 

Eggs poached in tomato juice and a hint of vodka.

SIDENOTE: Who knew that "cooking with alcohol" meant you were supposed to put it in the food? 

I'm trying new things without an oven. It's awkward and has a generally confusing vibe (which I normally dig). We'll see where this goes and what else I can come up with. 

Pierogies and Art

It was really only a matter of time before pierogies found their way into my system. Stupid, fattening, delicious pierogies.  I've spent some time actively avoiding them because it would be just like one to have meat in it. At the grocery store, I managed to pick up a couple of packages of pierogies (sauerkraut and mushroom and cheese) and fry them in some olive oil on the old hotplate. However, as I recently discovered, nothing quite compares to stuffing and cooking them yourself. 

Blogs always tend to make the process of cooking traditional foods in foreign countries totally romantic. 

"I lost my wedding ring in a loaf of pan de muerto once because I was so interested in my host's story about her time as a Marxist revolutionary."
"I named the chicken Hilda without realizing her head was about to be cut off."

"People came from all over, contributing vegetables and spices for the sweet potato stew of love."

 They make it sound so easy. 

Don't get me wrong. I had a blast making pierogies (see the delightful pictures Corinne posted on my Facebook) and it truly was a fantastic way to bond. 

That being said, I don't see "pierogie chef" in my future.

The process involves rolling and cutting the dough, stuffing the pierogies and then sealing them so that they won't fall open while being boiled. 

Except they just don't want to %#^ing seal sometimes. It was an act of God that none of them fell apart in the pot of boiling water. Some especially stubborn ones required a subtly made water and flour adhesive. 

In the end, the pierogies were as delightful as the evening. My stomach rumbles now just thinking about them (that cranberry and cheese crepe suddenly seems like it was ages ago). We had a fabulous conversation and the comforts of cooking (despite the difficulty) and speaking in your mother tongue are a wonderful substitute for the things you actually miss (my kingdom for a Texas margarita).

Food and Drink. But mostly drink.

I'm finally getting the point where I don't accidentally order sparking water. By finally getting to the point, it means it has been 24 hours since the last time I ordered sparkling water by mistake. However, I won't waste anyone's time talking about sparkling water when we're really all here to discuss liquor and beer. 

Some of the more interesting things I've tasted so far include:

Bison grass vodka and apple juice. 

Polish beer. Oh, Polish beer. 

Czech beer. It's somehow different from Polish beer. 

Shots of vodka. 

I've found a new appreciation for both vodka and black coffee the past few weeks.

This week will include a visit to Krakow, a workshop on teaching environmental responsibility, and a much-needed reunion with some of my fellow Fulbrighters.

More posts to follow. 

All my love,
Kyle.

PS. I wasn't kidding about the margarita. 

Down the Block There's a Riot

The signs around me still caused some ping of internal alarm (though I knew the chances of actual danger were remote). Airports, simply put, are not the kind of place you like to see placards telling you where to go in the event of an air raid. 

Then again, such things aren’t terribly uncommon when a nation is at war. 

I sat in the large atrium of David Ben Gurion Airport, happily arrived, checked, and thoroughly grilled by El Al security (what did you do in Jordan last year? how did you teach a class if you don’t know Hebrew?), I sat looking at the flight board. I double checked to make sure my flight back to JFK was still happening (of course it was) and to see if the the travel plans of any of my remaining TALMA brethren would be interrupted by any last minute cancelations. However, as the calm that only comes from realizing your travel plans are going exactly as you had planned settled over me, I began thinking about what my mother (I’m sure you’re reading this, Ma, taking a break from all the wedding excitement) always seems to say to me in such situations:

“You are never far from disaster.”

It’s a barb in good humor. My southern family is inclined to worry. Anxiety runs in our bloodlines with the same frequency as brown hair, freckles, or acidic sarcasm and it manifests just as potently. We work in fretting the way an artist might work in marble or pastels. 

In a way, however, my mother has a point. 

Sample comments over the history of my life include:

“He threw WHAT at another kid in Mission Friends?” (a toy car and the son of a bitch had it coming)

“Well, Randy. You’ll never guess what our son did today. He made a dumb waiter out of an Easter basket and all the shoe laces he could get his hands on.” 

“I have no idea why he thought dryer fresh, just folded wash cloths looked enough like Easter eggs for him to feel he should hide them all over the back yard.” (My cousin Megan should also remember this, so should Jennifer since she’s the one who tattled). 

“I tried to warn you before the wedding. Making him the ring bearer was a dreadful choice.” 

“I’m so glad I paid a plastic surgeon to fix the scarring over your eye from your accident so that you could turn around and get your eyebrow pierced.” 

“I told you the chemistry set was an awful idea. Maybe if we move the desk, no one will notice the stain.” 

Rambunctiousness, really. 

My best hypothesis is that my early childhood chicanery stemmed from an underutilized imagination. After I started school, most of these issues went away. I channelled my penchant for mischief into more constructive endeavors (like writing, painting, theatre, cooking, and developing a love of chardonnay and frozen margaritas) and metamorphosed into the well-bred, composed, highly functioning adult you see today. 

I say all this to say that it was only natural that before I left for Poland, I would get a healthy dose of reminding that the crisis in Ukraine, like Ebola, could spread rapidly and without warning. 

I honestly have no clue what they were talking about. In their minds, I’m some patrician sitting in a tree near the frontline, a sniper in a make-shift militia, shivering while fighting off the advancing Red Army. It seemed almost laughable. 

And, especially in retrospect, I can appreciate the humor of the situation. 

So why am I writing this? You’re probably asking it. I do find a good narrative sets up a commentary on global affairs in a more comforting way.

While I was at a bookstore today (side note: I found the English section and came away with enough Truman Capote and J.D. Salinger to last me the next couple of weeks), I waited in line to pay and, like any red-blooded consumer, scanned the shelves of magazines and confectionary used to squeeze pennies out of shoppers with poor impulse control and access to disposable income.

I begin to notice something quite common on all of the magazine covers. They all feature Putin and they all either mention or also depict Stalin. I don’t speak Polish, but the message is clear. 

I immediately assume sensationalism. Magazines are digging into a nations not-so-distant past to drum up sales. It is at that moment, things seem to come full circle.

I think back to the good-natured plug at Fulbright orientation, reminding us to eat apples (boycotted by Russia currently) with the same gentle guidance of “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” I couldn’t fathom something as simple as eating apples to be a political statement. However, after a few glasses of apple juice and munching a macintosh on the train from Warsaw to Poznan and running across a magazine shelf drawing uncomfortable parallels to a time just before Warsaw saw the Palace of Culture and Sciences rise from the ground like that volcano in Mexico which sprouted from a field in a matter of weeks, I have to do some serious thought into the political climate I walked into.

I think back to what my mother said, silently agreeing that I am (by coincidence) never too far from trouble. 

I pause here to remind everyone of two things: 

Primarily, I don’t know jack about the inner machinations of former Soviet-bloc politics. I have literally no answers and thus cannot reach any conclusion beyond the vocal acknowledgement of my observations. 

Secondly, I am not an alarmist. The point of this is more of a reflection of what I’ve seen rather than a verification of Cold War paranoia. 

Also, I’d kill right now for a hot apple brandy. Can you imagine? In a clear glass mug with a cinnamon stick, steam hovering just slightly above the rim? Is it the alcohol or the smell of apples and cinnamon that is more warming, more filling? It just sounds too divine. 

I don’t recall a day that I’ve been here that I don’t come across some reminder of recent history. There are statues all over the place commemorating the catastrophic loss of life that occurred in Poland at the hands of both invading Germans and Soviets. Entire cities were reduced to rubble (only a thousand people were in Warsaw by the end of the war in Europe). These monuments are solemn, grim, and in many ways are exactly what I would imagine them to be.

I’m not entirely sure what to say. I embark on my research knowing that many of the conversations will be …academically unpleasant. I say this to indicate that I cannot possibly relate to or even understand the process of healing and relapse in chaos which have marked the 20th century here. It’s a process of stitching and hemorrhaging that can’t be comprehended by those of us who were raised on the narratives of the United States in war time. 

When I think of this, I think of Simonova’s sand art. Granted, she was Ukrainian, but there are certainly parallels in narrative. I showed this clip in virtually every class I taught. It was haunting and it was beautiful. There are thousands of possible comments and questions that can arise from a video that is less than 10 minutes long. However, the same one always came up (it’s frankly what I thought the first time I saw it), “Why is everyone crying?” 

There’s the obvious answer. It’s an artistic statement about the history of a people who in a very short amount of time became experts on loss. 

By the time the video ends, we are left with an image of a child (newborn when the war began, now a toddler)  making some faint, bittersweet contact with the ghost of someone whose love he is unable to remember, a love he will spend his entire life only understanding in hearsay and family anecdotes. 

This concept of national loss and national healing is still quite elusive to me. I’m not totally sure what to make of it. However, I feel as though the early stages of this blog would be entirely artificial and incomplete without some reflection on my part over the current state and its relationship to the past century. 

This place was home to the first truly democratic elections in the former Soviet bloc. It houses a history and culture of perseverance, beauty, art, science (Chopin, Copernicus, Sklowdowska-Curie, Wajda, Szymborska, Warlikowski…to name a few). Yet in a modern context, it is also associated with atrocities that are measured in bullets, bomb shells, and unfathomable destruction. 

It’s odd to consider and I realize that my point is not something easily graspable (largely because I’m not sure that I have one and I may just be verbalizing everything that swarms around the hornet’s nest that is my mind right now). Imagine granite blocks etched with the bronze faces of the men and women who were taken by something terrible sitting in a park in front of an immaculate, plush opera house with immaculate tracings in gold leaf.

The Spartan and Athenian existing simultaneously. 

It’s a dreadful metaphor, I recognize this. 

I also recognize that I am yet again pouring sentiment like thick gravy over something that I never intended to be an exercise in emotional outpouring. 

However, I doubt that I could explain the impact that seeing those magazines had on me without some elaboration. 

In honesty, I’m not certain why that image disturbed me as much as it did. 

I didn’t have the guts to take a photograph. Seriously. How would you respond to someone who took a picture of the checkout line? 

However, imagine if you will a picture of Stalin and Putin, both blood-red with the communist banner hanging in the background, surrounded by candy on all sides. Stalin looks ample, healthy and is covered with waving, though tamed hair. Putin, by contrast, looks thin, hairless, and thoroughly untrustworthy. It’s as though you walked into to Willy Wonka’s chocolate room (the Gene Wilder version because obviously) and saw the two of them playing chess. It’s like something out of Orwell. The adjustment from fear to temporary indulgence is so immediate that I guess some pause isn’t out of the question. 

Around this time, however, a woman tapped on my shoulder and pointed the open cashier who had just been calling me for the last few seconds. 

I chuckled to myself as I walked over, wondering if maybe slowing down a line to gaze at a magazine stand was the kind of disaster from which my mother feels I’m never far . 

In Search of Apple Brandy, 

Kyle 

100 Easy Ways to Lose a Man

Or, One Really Complicated Way to Lose an (unwanted) Man 

Written: September 28, 2014, 8:36 pm.

Posted: September 29, 11:30 pm. 

Today’s adventure in Poznan was based almost exclusively in my desire to wander around without a set goal and see as much as I possibly could. This totaled out to be an 8 mile hike through the town, searching for certain things (the old town) and stumbling unexpectedly on others (a bakery with gigantic loaves of bread with seeds and nuts baked right in. I was terrified that the bakery might have a “you selfie with it, you buy it” policy and if I took a picture, I’d be saddled with an 80 dollar loaf of bread the size of a modest wedding cake. However, the smell poured out into the streets with an almost cartoonish presence. I’d just eaten breakfast and my mouth immediately watered. There are certain smells that I never really grew accustomed to growing up. One such scent is baked bread. After I spent perhaps an inappropriate amount of time yesterday writing about burning leaves, I’ll spare the senses from another rant on a smell that virtually everyone likes. Just trust me that this smell was everything wonderful in the world.

This brings me to the Old City. Pardon my French, but holy schweet hell. I’ve spent my entire life dreaming about being in Europe. Specifically, the grand medieval towns that somehow survived the terrible war and remained intact. United States history, being relatively brief, robs modern Americans of the astounding architectural intricacies of Renaissance and medieval central European style. The Poznan old town did not disappoint. 

I’ll pause in our narrative to insert pictures and captions. 

1. Statue with a yellow church behind it with an almost chemical blue sky. 

The inside of the church doesn’t allow photography and mass was actually going on when I walked inside (thankfully, I was quiet and didn’t draw much attention to myself which is in itself a miracle worthy of some sort of religious significance). I’d never seen a church that looked like this since I was in Israel staring at the garish decor of those ancient churches where crusaders slashed their names into stones and where the alleged miracles absolutely happened according to pre-colonialist European fanatics who based the destruction of entire cities and cultures on hearsay. There was a priest in white, a bunch of people sitting in the pews, and walls with no blank space. If it could contain a painting, an alter, or a marble statue, it had one. My response was not what I expected. I usually find religious iconography to be…almost tacky? I have trouble distinguishing between intricate, ancient churches from Carrie White’s house. There’s something vaguely violent about it to me and it makes me feel nervous. However, there was still some kind of beauty here that flashed quickly enough for me to appreciate it for what it was. It was undeniable impressive and maybe it’s just for the best that you cannot take photographs inside. 

2. Pictures of the Old City. My words won’t do it justice. I was privately freaking out but am really working on not being socially incompetent on every continent I find myself on (I failed spectacularly at this later, as you’ll soon discover). 

Here is where our narrative picks back up.

“How I interacted with my first panhandler in Poznan.”

So after these adventures, I make my way the Adam Mickiewicz University campus and sat waiting for the next streetcar when a man holding a sign comes and stands in front of me.

Cold panic immediately sat in. I can say a few words. I can order coffee and buy a streetcar ticket. These are covered in early chapters in my Polish instruction book. 

“Tactfully but firmly refusing to give money to panhandlers while still recognizing the economic injustices of capitalism” isn’t coming for a while.

Honestly, if I had a few zlotys, they would have been all his. However, I just spent my last three on the tram ticket. I tried to quickly explain that I didn’t speak Polish. He then began demanding dollars (the only word in English throughout the conversation) , Euro, and Zloty. I use the word “demanding” to mean “using the word over and over, increasing in volume every time I said ‘no.’” This went on for roughly 30 seconds. He then asked how I bought a ticket with no money (I assume, anyway. I only recognized “ticket” and “no money” out of what he said). I decided enough was enough and opened up my book and continued reading so he’d get the hint. 

He apparently took this as an invitation to sit down next to me and start feeling my pockets for loose change. 

I’m not the kind of person who loses his temper easily with total strangers. To do so would be un-Southern. However, I’m also not the kind of person who likes being touched without permission ever and this instinct trumps manners. 

I bolt up and am scrambling for something to say besides “No.”

My Polish failed me. English would’ve been ineffective. I relied on the only other profanity I knew. With a loud,  "Verpiss dich! Arschloch!" (some of my minimal German)  I bolted up and walked away as quickly as possible. 

I keep walking, embarrassed for making a scene in public, feeling totally violated at the thought of being frisked for pocket change at a tram station, and processing everything that had just happened.

I write now and wonder if I overreacted. Was there a better way out of that situation?
The burden of proof was not on me to show him my empty wallet (with the exception of the 10 rand note that has been in there for four years).  He was in no way entitled to my or anyone else's money. Yet I keep thinking back to this moment as one that I could have avoided without making a splashy, unbecoming display on the third day I’m here. 

I’m now enjoying the last few hours of the evening sipping some more tea (I think it’s pear-flavored), rereading Fun Home, and taking some temporary refuge in the solace of a familiar and beloved book. It’s an absurd and dull cliche, but when we start something new, I suppose we all have to rely on the cliches, the banalities we may privately despise for the sake of juxtaposition. The weaving conflict of newness and a dull but persistent hunger for the familiar results in a mental scramble. At least it does for me. I’m working on sorting that out, so you’ll be so kind as to bear with me. 

Perfectly Marvelous

“Perfectly Marvelous”

Written: September 27, 6:54 pm
Posted: September 29, 11:15 am 

A brief update of every detail of my life since I last wrote.

A Kyle Shook Production

September has historically been my least favorite month. The heat of summer still hovers around and it makes dressing a hell, alright? A living hell. It’s also historically been a period of transition. Although school began in August for me growing up, September was the settling month where the novelty of a new setting wears off and the wolves finally stop sniffing and decide whether to let you hunt caribou with the pack or go for the throat.

I remember distinctly when I was in 10th grade buying a jacket in August that was on sale. It was grey, enormously comfortable and looked like some vintage letterman jacket from the 1950s.

This was also the summer where it was in the 80s until mid-October. However, I insisted it wasn’t too hot to wear and so I showed up to school in it in late September. I spent the entire day with a red face and mopped sweat off of my face, insisting that I wasn’t too warm. I still have a picture of me wearing it that day (it was my younger sister’s birthday) and I looked uncomfortable, unfashionable, and nothing so much as the kind of guy that the guys wearing letterman jackets in the 1950s would shove into a locker. 

This September probably takes the cake for most transitions in a single month. A week ago, I was at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, waiting in an ungodly line for tickets, feeling myself sunburning, and wondering where I would be a week later. Two countries, three cities, two train rides, four cabs and one confession with a priest explaining the dark things I had to do to get tram tickets in Poznan later, I’m sitting in my first Polish apartment (dorm room? I’ll explain later) with the window open. The wind is colder than any September that I have ever known and smells like burning leaves. I swear to God, if I could bottle this smell and wear it always, I would.

Brief pause to talk about the smell of burning leaves. Isn’t it delicious? I don’t think I can imagine the kind of person who doesn’t enjoy the smell of burning leaves. My darling Granny H used to tell me that smelling burning leaves caused cancer and out of everything I believed I was now barred from smelling (birthday candles, incense on Easter, over-cooked burgers), leaves was the most traumatic.

A few months later, however, she informed me that eating ice shavings out of the open freezers at the supermarket also caused cancer and I realized quickly that maybe she didn’t always know what she was talking about.

It’s probably a little too cold to have the window open. I’m sipping hot tea and am increasingly relying on it for warmth. As soon as I finish typing this, I’ll probably have to close it and wrap up in the old-fashioned floral blanket the school provided and settle in to finish Girl, Interrupted. But for the moment, all I can think about is that jacket from my 10th grade year and how I wish I had it now. 

I will take this opportunity to transition into more concrete ramblings for those of you who have survived the onslaught of schmaltz I’ve just exposed you to.

Warsaw.

Oh, Warsaw. 

There are few cities I’ve ever encountered and been totally in love with. Jerusalem falls into this category and that’s about it. Before I came, I was told that Warsaw wasn’t worth visiting. Krakow was better, I’d been told. It was prettier, happier, and Warsaw just looked depressing. This person could not have been more wrong. My initial thoughts while driving from the airport to my hotel were focused on rainclouds and concrete and overwhelming grey. This was probably what the Soviets planned. Big, elaborate houses with tiny allies are opulent and wasteful. Practicality usually trumps beauty. I hate to say that I find validity to this. You might not have grasped this by my previous posts which have probably overdone it to some degree. Yet, there is a lot to be said for inexpensive and functional. However, splashes of color began to pop up. It’s like those posters we all had in our college dorms where there’s a field of tulips in black and white with only one red one standing out. The people on the streets had found a way to manage looking both practical and beautiful. The outfits were meticulous, tailored, neat, colorful, fashionable, etc. I looked at my frumpy flannel shirt, grey sweater, and oversized jeans and felt horrendously out of place. At the same time, I was immediately fascinated.

I’m still fascinated. 

My side-research and Fulbright commitments (Holocaust education in post-communist Poland) will undoubtedly take me back to Warsaw so I will lay off much more explanation and switch the focus to Poznan after a short picture break. 

Random pictures from Warsaw. 

The Old Town is mostly reconstructed. For those who don’t know much about Polish history, almost the entire city was destroyed by the German army prior to the Soviet invasion in response to the failed and catastrophic Warsaw Uprising. 

One of the first things a visitor in Warsaw notices is the Palace of Culture and Science. “Noticed” is an absurd understatement. It’s like going to Washington and “noticing” the white limestone phallic symbol sprouting from the center of town. It’s no secret that most Poles spent years hating this building because it represented the hated Soviet occupation. On a bus tour, my fellow Fulbrighters and myself heard a story about a woman in an apartment near the Palace who wrote to complain that the antennae on the building were exposing her to radiation that caused her to have frequent and enormous orgasms. We all thought it and our tour guide said it. What the hell was she complaining about? 

This was the previous Communist Party headquarters and today it is a stock exchange and the ground floor houses a Ferrari dealership. This contrast is what is most striking to me. The concept of a building designed to display the ideals of the socialist movement, a freedom from materialism, a statement for the cooperation and equality of all (which was not the reality of communist Poland and I am in no way endorsing the communist governments of the former Eastern Bloc) now houses easy symbols of wealth and status. The contrast is too damn screwy not to make note of. 

NOTE: I didn’t take any pictures of the former Warsaw ghetto. Driving through it, you wouldn’t know you were there. There are a few notable monuments but nothing that I was able to photograph.

I think back to the sensation of sitting in the middle of Washington Square Park two years ago. It was a warm day and I was re-reading Fun Home for the thousandth time and I suddenly remembered what Washington Square park used to serve as for the early citizens of New York. I looked around and saw people jogging. Some students were tossing around a frisbee. A man was playing a cello near by. The life, the electricity of living in the city struck me as such a bizarre contrast when I considered that Washington Square Park, as well as Bryant Park and a few other notable public spaces were cemeteries. If I’d cracked through the pavement with a shovel and tossed enough dirt around, I would have shortly hit bones. Not just a few. Not like the movies where someone digs in a garden and comes across a skull. It would be a forest of bones. And yet, it wouldn’t matter. The necessities of progress mandated that the potter’s field be plowed and paved over. It next mandated a fountain, statues, a marble arch, NYU students, the Asch building a few blocks away (formerly known as the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory).

The Warsaw Ghetto was the total opposite. The ground is saturated with the bodies of those murdered by the Third Reicht whose religion mandated burial within 24 hours of death and forbids the disruption of dead bodies. There are apartments, shops, tattoo parlors. A sense of historical distance may be present for non-tourists but all I could focus on was the fact that this is the location of the atrocities which shaped the history of the world. The pictures of the Warsaw ghetto flashed in my mind at every turn. I had no way to locate these images geographically. Even if someone put pictures of places in the Warsaw ghetto to the current locations, I would simply have to trust that person’s honesty. I would have no possible method of verifying whether or not they were telling the truth.

Poznan. Or, Where We Are Now.

My dormitory is located a ways out of Poznan’s fabulous city centre (roughly 20 minutes by tram, not including a 10 minute walk to the tram station). However, that did not deter me from scouting out the down-town area today and exploring. Granted, I was on a mission to get at least a basic supply of groceries (which came to include a loaf of bread, oat milk, tea, Nutella, pasta, goulda cheese, strawberry yogurt, and some apples) and a couple of towels. Also, I am now the proud owner of a Polish cellphone which makes me feel slightly more settled. I visited two malls (one by the train station and a much cooler one in a building that used to be a brewery. I also instantly realized that being in Warsaw spoiled me in terms of English speakers. In Warsaw, I only encountered one person who didn’t speak English. Today, I have used English, broken Polish, broken Czech, broken German, broken Hebrew and Google Translate to communicate with people (mostly ineffectively). 

Below you will find a sample conversation from the melodrama that was me trying to get from my dormitory to the city centre. 

Me: (in Polish) Hello. Tickets for tram where buy?
Woman with wicked cool haircut: (in Polish) lwetrbiuf bdifvweyvf @%@#1dgubdb.
Me: *Tina groan*
Me:(in Polish) Do you speak English?
Woman: (in Polish) No.
Me: (in Polish) German? 

Woman: No.

Me: Other?
Woman: Czech.
Me: ....
Woman: ...
*tram comes. Everyone leaves*

Me: That's okay. I'll wait for the next one. Surely someone on it will speak English.
*dies alone* 

I’m honestly amazed that my limited social skills have served me as well as they have in the US. It was only bound to get worse when I spilled the banks of English. 

In short, the past week has flown by yet seemed as though it has taken years. It’s an odd combination of everything going quickly at yet seeming stagnant at the same time.

We’ll see what the next week has in store. 

Always,
Kyle

The Wheels of a Dream

Let me start this post straight away by owning the fact that I hate the cliche of "dreaming." Also, don't get me started on walking in the park on crisp Autumn days or whiskers on kittens.

I'll own that I was an abnormally cynical child. I remember vaguely having a class assignment asking me to write about my dream. I was tempted to write, "I had a dream once. It was dreadful." I'm going to toss up the title (which I would never use normally because I hate referring to my goals as "dreams") to my love of Ragtime and the fact that I'm listening to the soundtrack as I type this.

Pause to elaborate:
The word dream always seem...I don't know...quixotic somehow? It's like Fantine lying in her bed singing about some MAN.
No, ma'am. You dry those tears, close that can of whipped cream, and you go lift something.
I don't want to chase something that exists only in fantasy. I simply don't. The word is ungrounded an has lost its meaning to tragic overuse.

However, in this instance, I honestly felt a year ago that this was entirely unobtainable. I remember being a junior at Mercer and sitting in the basement of Knight Hall getting the skinny on a the Fulbright application. It was rainy outside. I had just walked from art history without an umbrella and I was NOT having it.

I plotted out an application with what I thought was the spirit of Dwight Eisenhower when he threw down in Normandy. I wanted to examine theatre in its many forms and its relation to social change in post-Apartheid South Africa. It would be perfect. I'd been to the county. I knew the people. And, to pardon my French, I fucking wanted to go back.

I'll spare the details. This was a goal destined for the bone yard. I'm almost surprised to admit it to myself, but this was absolutely the best thing that could've happened to me that year.

Fast forward to now. I've spent two years teaching the wackiest but most lovable bunch of young adults I could hope for. I've made such fabulous friends you wouldn't believe: my NYC TFA chums, my Reality Israel amigos, and my TALMA luvvies.

I'll hate this cliche in 10 years. Hell, in 10 months, the sweetness of what I'm about to type will probably hurt my teeth. But if this whole blog is meant to convey honesty, then I have to say it. This is the first time in my life that I feel I am in the right place in the right time, willing to accept failures from the stone age, the fuss of lost friendships, the turbulence of the past few years as all part of a formula that ended up with where I am right now: sitting in an armchair, covered with blue paint, and ready to get this freaking show on the road.

If you've made it this far, go get a snack. I'm just getting started.

BUT KYLE, you may ask, WHY POLAND?!

I've heard this a lot and I always struggle to articulate exactly what I love about this fabulous place. I could just copy/past my Fulbright application. However, let's make this a bit more short and sweet, shall we?

Education reform, the political landscape of post-Communist Europe, the insight that can be gained about my  heritage and my new-found interest in learning more about my Jewish heritage, the concept of Centrism in the European continent, the BREAD?! The list goes on.

I'm specifically interested in studying education reform in the post-communist period. Poland was home to the first truly democratic elections after the Cold War. In a relatively short time, it has emerged as a leading force of education reform.

Read more about it here:

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/ECAEXT/0,,contentMDK:22767787~pagePK:146736~piPK:146830~theSitePK:258599,00.html

Simply put, I see my future in education and I plan on using my time while I'm there to make sure I learn as much about successful reform as possible.

Next: What I plan to do while I'm there.

I want to focus on the multiple genres of language acquisition in the classroom, including legitimate and meaningful instruction in multimodal literacy, including a variety of styles of writing and methods of communication. Utilizing technology, my vision is to start a non-profit that connects international classrooms using technology and allows for meaningful international dialogue between young artists, thinkers, politicians, scientists, writers, etc. The best chance we have for an open global community lies in communication about a variety of topics. This is a long way from completion, but the seeds are planted. I'm an Aaron. The skeleton of a goal will flesh itself out as I go along.

Where I am now:

Waiting. I'm ready to go. Think Tony in West Side Story. It's like that only less angsty/ awful.

We're about to see where this road leads as I take the first steps.

All my love to you, poppets.
Kyle

Where Do I Go?

"Pack everything you could possibly need in the next nine months into a suitcase and expect the unexpected."

Translation: We KNOW you have that lovely collection of scarves and winter accessories but maybe pick your favorites.

That's great. Just ask me to pick a favorite family member while you're at it.

I've put off not feeling prepared enough to create a Fulbright blog for long enough. With a little over two weeks until I take a leave of absence from America, I'm frankly living in an almost constant state of panic. This is probably the part where I should talk about meditation, counting sheep, pausing and reflecting, or any number of much more mature and dignified responses than blind terror about living in Poland until next July. But as we said before, expect the unexpected.

For those of you who don't know, I can organize this summer into two major chapters. Chapter one is teaching English in Israel for a month and chapter two is spending a month essentially as a parasite in my parents' house in Atlanta, drinking chardonnay, watching Netflix, and ranking Meryl Streep's Oscar nominated roles by preference. Chapter three is this transition and I'm afraid it's already off to a start not unlike the plot to some Bette Davis movie. I can feel myself turning cranky as opposed to the usual beacon of sunshine I am *coughs cigarette smoke*. Don't read into this reaction as some sort of lack of enthusiasm. I could not be more excited about the opportunity I have been presented with. I cannot wait to be settled in Poland and learning more about this fabulous nation. I look forward to spending Rosh Hashana in Warsaw during Fulbright Orientation. I can't wait to pick a sensible duvet for my bed in Poznan. But for the love of God, let me get packed first before asking me if I'm excited.

All that being said, I have narrowed my years of retail therapy down to the core wardrobe I will be toting with me across the ocean. This was a grueling and painful process. I hope everyone appreciates my sacrifice. So many cardigans left at home.... I digress.

A more thoughtful post will come within the next few days where I talk about the more grounded schtuff (why Poland, personal goals, etc.)

Until then....