Life is Grand!

One year ago, I was in Michigan and probably having a nervous breakdown about my future.  I only had one, over Christmas break.  Most of the time when someone asked what I was doing after graduation, I laughed and said..."Well, I could be in graduate school at six different universities, or, you know, I might move to Poland for a year."


As I reflect on this past year, I am amazed at the blessings that have been showered down on me. After almost four months in Poland, twelve months doesn't seem so long and it's incredible to see how much my life has changed in twelve short months.

The wait for university acceptance letters was complicated by my wait for a notification letter from Fulbright. By this time, I had no doubt that I would be accepting the Fulbright.  A far cry from when I first wrote my application.  The Fulbright was merely an "option" for my future, in my mind it was unlikely that I would receive such an award.  So I often talked about how I might skip the Fulbright even if I got it to go to a graduate school program.  Part of me didn't know how prestigious the scholarship is, and the other part of me was trying to guard my pride from disappointment.

Over the past year, I've seen countless friends get engaged, three friends have babies, all my close friends are employed after graduation.  I graduated, worked for a fantastic conservative organization over the summer, and now live in Poland.  Through all this, I have found people to pray and share my faith with and I've grown closer to God with every step.

This closeness with my Creator is new for me.  Three years ago, when I studied in Poland, I put my faith on the back burner because it was easier to not seek out Catholic friends.  Over the next two years, my friends at St. Mary's helped me see the importance of a Catholic community to life.  The details are important to me, but inappropriate for this public outlet.  Suffice to say, if you are struggling, reach out to your friends and family because they love you, accept you, and will forgive and help you.

The past year has been a spectacular ride.  Granted, there have been numerous bumps along the way (my mis-scheduled flight to DC and my first days in Gdansk come to mind), but all in all, the past year has been absolutely wonderful.

There's really no way that I can speculate as to what 2013 will bring.  I have lots of travel plans, and will continue to teach my students and make friends (especially my new Catholic ones!).  However, the big things...like will I really end up at Indiana University in August...well, that's something I can only trust one Person to answer, and He hasn't communicated it to me yet.

 At least three of my friends will be getting married and potentially one cousin (thus far, I'm going to miss all the wedding dates I've been given *sadface*).  Hopefully I'll continue meeting family members in Europe and get to see all the cousins I miss so very much in the U.S.  And I reeeeeeally hope that I'll spend Christmas next year in Michigan, with my family, at St. Hyacinth, where I belong on Christmas!!  But, only God knows which of these hopes will be reality.

Even with the few tears of sadness and frustration in 2012, the year has been the best yet.  And I'm looking forward to see what 2013 holds because, well, you never know what will happen in life.

However, as my mom always says...Life is Grand!

What's a Mom to Do?!

I’m sitting here, house decorated, tree up, baking and cooking almost done, gifts under the tree…Christmas is almost here.  I’ve spent hours at church, with my prayer group ladies, with my Bible…Christmas is almost here.  But one thing is not…my oldest.  Stephanie is out, wandering the world, having the time of her life.  Do I miss her?  Of course.  Am I happy for her?  Of course.

Today I started my day with a cup of tea and facebook.  Another blog from Steph, let’s see what’s up?  She found like minded young Catholics.  What a wonderful Christmas gift for her!  I know how much her faith means to her and it is hard to maintain your faith to that level when you don’t have people backing you up…they give you a sense of normalcy in this world where faith often doesn’t seem the normal thing to have.

I read happily to the point when she was so excited about getting all the hugs.  And yes, I lost it.  My baby girl isn’t coming home for Christmas.  I still remember my first Christmas away from my mom.  I spent it with my little brother and his wife at Grandma’s house.  It was the weirdest Christmas of my life.  Even after I started staying in Michigan for Christmas, it wasn’t as strange as the first one “alone”.  I was surrounded by people that I love, just wasn’t the same…Mom wasn’t there.  26 years later, I still can remember sitting on Grandma’s front porch swing, crying. 

My tears this morning weren’t really of sadness.  I do miss Stephanie, but I’m so overwhelmed with where she is in life.  She is so very happy and I’m so happy for her.  You can see God’s hand in her life always.  I missed the part in the parenting manual on how to let go.  The message that keeps coming to me is “Be still and know that I am God”.  I know He has all my children in the palm of His hand.  That He loves them with a greater love than I ever can.  That He has their eternal salvation always on His mind.  Me, I just want to give her a hug J 

So while I sit on this side of the ocean,  taking care of the little things.  I make sure her banking is done, mail is corresponded, and help make reservations for all these wonderful trips.  I do little things, because it’s all that I can do.  God has the big load, He doesn’t complain, He will keep her safe! 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Last Christmas: An Obsession of Poles

Christmas shopping this year was just like any other year...the Polish malls play American carols constantly.  However, their favorite Christmas song is Last Christmas by Wham.

I'm convinced it's either because these guys' have incredibly awesome hair dos or (more likely) they don't really understand the words.

Last Christmas, I was in Michigan...probably trying to help my mom make Wigilia (Christmas Eve) dinner.  This year, I'm on the other side of the world staying with the son and daughter of my grandpa's cousin.  Distant family is still family :)

There's no telling how many ways Christmas this year will differ from what I'm used to.  My Christmases have have the same progression, order, and traditions for 22 years.  And this year, I don't really know what exactly to expect.

So, stay tuned in January for some interesting stories about my Christmas AND New Year.  After Christmas here in Lithuania, I'm meeting a friend in Budapest for NYE!  It promises to be quite a memorable time. :)

My Christmas Miracle

Those that talk to me regularly, know I've had a little bit of a struggle this year meeting new friends in Gdansk, especially friends to fill the void left by leaving St. Mary's University Parish.  I love having friends of all faith and political backgrounds, but there is something very special in sharing a common faith and being able to come together and pray.

A few weeks ago, a friend gave me a phone number for a priest that speaks English.  I was a bit apprehensive about calling him, because a self-analysis or a friend's analysis of language proficiency isn't always accurate.  For example, my Polish friends tell me I speak very well (which isn't true at all!).  Anyway, I put off calling him for almost a month out of fear that he wouldn't speak English well enough to understand me.

Last week, I decided I was being ridiculous because I NEEDED to go to Confession!  So I called Fr. Filip, and he was amazing.  He made sure I had somewhere to spend Christmas because, "we're both Christians and it wouldn't be a very Christian thing to do."  And then he mentioned his friend Fr. Andzrej works with a student group.

I called up Fr. Andrzej and he welcomed me to the group's Wigilia celebration.  Prior to arriving to the church last night, I had no idea what I was walking into...dinner, a movie, snacks, a gift exchange, a small group, a huge group, students who spoke English, etc.  Walking up the the church's activity center, I said a quick prayer that at least one student would find it in their heart to be welcoming to me.

There was absolutely no need to be worried!

Fr. Andrzej introduced me to a few students and they took it from there.  As usual, everyone was surprised that I moved from the US to Poland.  They loved that I could speak some Polish and understand even more. After a while of chatting and meeting people (including a guy everyone calls marchewka aka carrot), we started the festivities.

If you don't know, this is oplatek.

There were a few koledy, Polish Christmas carols, and then a student read a passage from Luke.  And Fr. Andrzej blessed the oplatek and proceeded to pass it out.

Although I had met these students a half hour before, and some of them never, they took my hand and wished me the most joyful Christmas and a New Year filled with love, peace, and happiness.  Some of them, when they heard my name was Stephanie, spoke in English, but the rest said these well wishes in Polish.  And the vast majority of them gave me a huge hug.  I haven't had so many hugs since my last weekend at Central Michigan almost seven months ago.  God's graces truly amazed me. 

After the oplatek, we just hung out, ate borscht and all sorts of sweets, and sang koledy.  Many were surprised to see me singing along to Dzisiaj w Betlejem and Przybieżeli do Betlejem pasterze.  Actually, it surprised me too!  I forgot that I grew up with these songs at St. Hyacinth at Pasterka on Christmas Eve.

The evening was filled with laughter, some interesting translational attempts, and so much joy!  I talked with Marchewka about our favorite books in the Bible and found out that some of the students pray the breviary.  We found this out because I pulled my iTouch out to look up a Bible verse and they had no idea there are Catholic aps.

 After the New Year (which I was invited to their big NYE party too!), I will be spending much more time with this parish.  They have activities almost every evening for students, and I might even join the student choir.  In the spirit of not counting my chickens before they hatch, I won't say it's the answer to every prayer, but I think it's pretty darn close.  And I couldn't be happier for my little Christmas miracle!

The Babcia Stare

Unless you've spent time in Poland during the winter, you won't fully appreciate this blog post.

If you have been around during the colder months, you most definitely have encountered the Babcia Stare.  Maybe it was that day your forgot to grab your scarf on the way out the door...or your hair looked particularly nice so you didn't want to muss it up with a hat.

Regardless of when it happens to you, it starts around October.  The Babcia Stare is directed at people the Babcia deems to be inappropriately dressed.  Not inappropriate in the sense of slutty.  No, inappropriately dressed for the weather!

Now, I'm from Michigan, where the  weather is fairly similar to Poland.  My friends and I hold on to the last beams of the sunlight's warmth for as long as possible.  Thus, occasionally you'll see a college student in shorts while it's snowing out.

In October, the weather in Gdansk hovered for a while around 60ish degrees (Fahrenheit).  For some unknown reason, disregarding the warm weather, the babcia could be seen walking around in a winter coat and scarf, judging everyone that was not similarly bundled.  Maybe coat-wearing in Babcia land is a on a calendar cycle regardless of weather patterns.

The Babcia Stare gets even more hysterical as the weather gets colder.  It slowly transform from merely a disapproving stare to an actual chastisement.  Just last week, a babcia passed me on the street and barked, "czapka!"  (hat!).  Sorry, I don't like wearing hats...and it really wasn't THAT cold...even though there was snow on the ground.

However, perhaps my favorite encounter with the Babcia Stare was waiting for a tram a week or two before Thanksgiving.  Babcia looked at me and said, "You're head is cold."  It was not a question...she was straight up telling me the temperature of my head.  Unfortunately, the babcia didn't know that underneath my winter coat and choking scarf (which I wear to potentially ward off even MORE Babcia Stares)  I was sweating!

Even the American Ambassador isn't safe.  Last week. Ambassador Muller visited my university and told a story of one Babcia yelling at him to go back into his house and put a hat on before he went to the store.

And that folks, is the Babcia Stare.

Fulbright Adventures in Lublin

Last weekend, the Fulbright Commission organized a weekend trip to Lublin, located in southeast Poland.   For a refresher, I live in northern Poland, right on the Baltic Sea in Gdansk.

Trains in Poland are terrible and it would take about 14 hours or so to get from Gdansk to Lublin even though it's only a little over 300 miles.  AND Lublin doesn't have an airport, or an airport near by.

So I left Gdansk on Thursday evening and flew to Warsaw, then grabbed a three hour bus with the rest of the Fulbrighters on Friday morning.  This was after a mostly sleepless night because of the Swiety Mikolaj party going on across the street from where I slept.

My group outside of the Catholic University

When we got to Lublin, all the Fulbrighters were broken up into different groups.  Some visited high schools to talk about American universities, the Jewish scholars met with local experts on the Jewish community, some people visited local NGOs, and others (including yours truly) visited universities.

After the visits, we met back up in the hotel for some lunch.  Unfortunately for me, the snow that was rapidly exiting the sky was NOT on the weather forecast for the weekend.  Thus, the discovery that my boots were NOT waterproof led to a frantic dash to the mall to find something to keep my poor toes dry and cozy on Saturday during our walking tours.

While the snow melted quickly at first, it soon started to accumulate and led to a pretty good first impression of Lublin. 

Friday night allowed us the opportunity to meet Polish Fulbright alumni who lived in Lublin.  The professor at my table was from Lomza, the same city one of my great grandpa's immigrated from!  He offered to take me there in the spring and help me with some of the archives (which are in Polish) in the city hall and local church.

We also had a performance/lecture by Dr. Stan Breckenridge.  He's easily in the top 10 of most talented people I know.  Stan's a musician and expert on African-American music and its contribution to modern American music.  Parts of his performance are on YouTube.  We had some technical difficulties in the hotel's conference room, so some of us girls helped out with a live demonstration of The Temptations dancing. 

Saturday morning started out quite chilly, but close to Lublin with a visit to Majdanek.  Majdanek is a concentration camp situated almost in the Lublin city limits.  I already wrote a separate blog post about being in a death camp as well as a later visit to a theater commemorating the Jewish neighborhood of Lublin.

After Majdanek, we boarded the bus for a trip to Zamosc.  This Polish city was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1992 for its unique Renaissance architecture and city plan.  The main square, or rynek, is picturesque.  In Zamosc, we met with the vice-mayor and I subsequently fell down the stairs trying to leave the building!

The rest of the evening I spent traipsing around the city with fellow Fulbrighters Mark and William and a Fulbright alum. 

Sunday morning, I woke up very early to go to Mass at the Catholic University.  It was one of the strangest churches I've seen in Poland with modern art collages on the wall and interesting interpretations of Blessed JPII's portrait. 

After breakfast, we split into two separate groups.  I thought the tours were the same, except for one tour had an extra 15 minutes of walking to the old Jewish cemetery.   I decided to go in that group.  Unfortunately, I was incorrect in my understanding of the situation.  My tour was specifically about Jewish life in Lublin.  I was disappointed that I wasn't able to learn more about Lublin's history in general.  However, the tour was very informative and helped me understand the vast scope of the Holocaust.

In the end, it was a very fun weekend!  I was a bit skeptical about traveling so far from my host city for only a weekend, but I thoroughly enjoyed getting to hang out with my Fulbright friends in a more relaxed setting from our orientation week.  Back then we were all stressed about what our assignments would entail.  Now we were able to relax and enjoy ourselves, and it was a welcome break from life in Gdansk!

Who Needs Airplanes?

When you can have REAL shooting stars?

Apparently tonight and tomorrow are prime viewing nights in the Northern Hemisphere for the Geminid meteor shower.  I'm up late so I can get in a few minutes of viewing during prime hours between 1 and 3 am. 

Possibly my favorite memory of my dad growing up involves shooting stars.  I was probably 10 or 11, just getting into the stage where I wanted to be treated more as a big kid (aka adult).  The whole family was camping on Indian Lake in the U.P.

Our camp site was next to this wonderful couple, the older woman was named Carol and I believe her husband is John.  We still write each other postcards because Miss Carol was a great entertainer in the woods during this trip.   One of the nights we were there, she told my dad that there was a meteor shower that night. 

Of course, the best time to see meteors is well past a 10 year old's bed time.  Buuuuut, my dad chose to wake me up in the middle of the night and we snuck out past mom and my sister for a quick walk. We stopped in a clearing and observed some shooting stars flashing across the night sky.

Being the daddy's girl I am, I wiled my way into a walk down by the river. Standing on the banks, we were overcome by a meteor. Literally, overcome.

The entire sky was filled with a brilliant white light.  So close I thought if I reached up, I might actually touch the star falling from the heavens.  And in the blink of an eye, it was gone.

Tonight, I'll look up at the stars and know the exact same ones are shining down on my family on the other side of the world.  The same sun will rise to greet them in the morning, just a good six hours after it makes me roll out of bed.

There's something about the night sky, something about infinity, that makes me stop and realize that the earth isn't so big.  I miss my family, but we're on the same planet, in the same solar system, in the same galaxy.  In light of the vast unknowns of space, they're really not so far away.

Majdanek and Polish Jews

Majdanek

This weekend, I went to Lublin with the majority of other Polish Fulbrighters for a mid-year meeting.  Look for a post sometime tomorrow probably about the other adventures we had.  I really wanted to focus today on some of the feelings I had over the weekend about visiting concentration camps and the Holocaust in general.  Especially because I finally realized the extent of the hatred towards Jews.  It wasn't just about mass murder, there was a concerted effort to literally wipe any trace of the Jewish culture off the map.

On Saturday morning, we went to Majdanek.  This is a concentration camp located next to the city of Lublin.  It operated from 1941-1944 as both a location for execution and work camp, with a specialty in shoe repair.  In 1944, the Soviets liberated the concentration camp and because it happened quickly, surprising the occupying Nazis, the Majdanek is greatly preserved compared to other camps.

Mass showers upon arrival to the camp

In this camp, the Nazis were unable to wipe out the vast array of their crimes.  The barracks, gas chamber, crematorium, and ashes of murder victims are well preserved.  This adds to the surreal feeling as you walk through the places where Germans brutally starved, beat, literally enslaved an entire population.    Historians estimate about 80,000 Jews and various political prisoners lost their lives in this one camp.

In comparison to Auschwitz, which I've visited twice, Majdanek seemed more cruel and barren.  Perhaps because it is not as commercialized and touristy.  From the camp you could actually see Lublin.  On the walls of the gas chambers, you see the blue remnants of Zyklon B, originally a pesticide but used for mass murder in most concentration camps.And perhaps most chilling was the mausoleum containing ashes of thousands of victims that the Nazis didn't have time to use as fertilizer for their gardens. 

The hole where Zyklon B was dropped into the gas chamber

View of Lublin from Majdanek

It wasn't until Sunday during our tour of Lublin that things started to really sink in.  We visited a place called Theater NN, the NN standing for anonymous.  Originally, it was built as a normal theater until one day a woman came in and told a story of growing up in the apartment the theater inhabited.  Her story and the story of all the other Jews in Lublin had been wiped out out the city's history.

Theater NN now documents through extensive research and oral histories the Jewish legacy in Lublin.  Every building in the old Jewish neighborhood has a binder with information about former residents, pictures, stories people remember.  And another room houses similar information about people who lived in the Jewish neighborhood.  It's a truly incredible undertaking by the museum and very well presented.

The concentration camps represent only one aspect of the Holocaust, mass murder.  They remind us of the great tragedies that were inflicted on people.  What I hadn't really comprehended until this weekend is that the Holocaust wiped out an entire culture.  Millions of Polish Jews died, but the Nazis also destroyed any trace of their existence.

In Lublin, the former Jewish neighborhood is now occupied by a park and parking lot.  There's no reminder that it used to be the center of a different culture.  Before WWII, Jews accounted for 1/3 of Lublin's population.  Today, there aren't enough Jews in Lublin to have proper Jewish religious ceremonies.    

Lublin before WWII, the areas north and west of the castle was the Jewish neighborhood and doesn't exist anymore.

Tombstone in Hebrew

We also visited an old Jewish cemetery.  Again, the cemetery was decimated by the Nazis so there are few tomb stones still intact and the ones still standing are in bad condition. 

This is the legacy of the Holocaust.  It's important to remember the dead, but also to imagine how different Poland would look with the continued contribution of a subculture that was almost completely eliminated.

In the end, seeing these things first had just pisses me off.  The lack of compassion and humanity it takes to strip men, women and children and make them parade around regardless of weather.  The idea that a piece of bread made with sawdust and watery coffee is substance.  The expectation of continued work in inhumane conditions with the penalty of death if you fail.

And yet, all these atrocities were perpetuated by normal people.  At Majdanek, we saw a video with pictures of the SS officers that worked in the camp.  They didn't look any different from the pictures of the Jewish prisoners being admitted to the camp, aside from a uniform and light hair.

"Soccer" ---Blame it on the Brits!

After mentioning the Superbowl yesterday in class, a rapid fire inquisition followed about why we call gridiron football "football", and European football "soccer".

So, after a brief sojourn into the wonderful world of Google, I found out a rather interesting tidbit of information that will FOREVER come in handy while living abroad when some football fan sneers at my use of the word soccer.

It's not some weird, Americans are better than the rest of the world so we have a different name situation.

Soccer is actually a British term for the game.

One of the wonderful sources I found...

"In fact, in the early days of the sport among the upper echelons of British society, the proper term for the sport was “Soccer”.  Not only that, but the sport being referred to as “Soccer” preceded the first recorded instance of it being called by the singular word “Football” by about 18 years.  This happening when it became more popular with the middle and lower class. When that happened, the term “Football” gradually began dominating over “Soccer” and the then official name “Association Football”."

There's actually some rather long and boring explanations about how languages translate the words soccer and football and use them differently to categorize and identify different athletic events.  However, the most important thing you learn from this today is that soccer is a British term.

Here's a British man actually trying to reclaim the British-ness of the term.  If you didn't know before now, modern soccer originated in Great Britain and spread to other countries.