The Most-Present Persons

"The most-present persons"--Crazy Ethics Lady's final classifacation of Nina and I. Of course, our mere presense was not enough to earn us the highest marks in the class. ApparentlyGalen, was mentally present, though for many class sessions he was physically not in the room (Philosophy majors have the ability to talk their way out of anything...basically, no one knows what they are talking about, so it's automatically assumed that they must be right.)

Anyway, I now have all of my marks, and am officially done with classes at the University of Wrocław! (There is no electronic grading system here. Each student has to literally hunt down all of his or her teachers and have them write the final grade in their INDEKS. It's fun...) Here's a final overview of each course:

History of Silesian Art and Culture: Overall, this was a good course. I learned some interesting facts about the city. Through this course, we were able to visit the two chaples in the back of St. John the Babptist's Cathedral on Ostrow Tumski. These chaples are the only part of the Cathedral that is completely original, and very few people actually get to see them. You see, they're gaurded by nuns who are very picky about who they let in. Our teacher had to persuade the woman to unlock the gate, and then, we each had to pay a złoty. Seeing those chaples made the class worhwhile...even if I did nod off once or twice during the lectures.

History of Poland Since 1945: I liked this class, and the teacher. Poland's contemporary history is very complex, but she did a nice job of breaking it down so that we (as non-Poles) could at least grasp the main idea of what was happening. The main thing I learned in this course: almost everything of great significance happened in or near Gdansk.

Polish Literature: One would assume that a literature class would involve text, and reading, and intellectual thought--well, not this one. This class was the bane of my existance. The only thing I attained from this class was the will power to resist gauging my eye out with a pen. I did, however, write a descent essay for this class regarding Ryszard Kapuściński's memoir The Shadow of the Sun. The professor didn't read it...but I still got an "A". Bleh...

Polish Language Class: Nie mówię dobze po polsku. My vocabulary is limited to pleasantries, curse words, and vegetables. For our final class, we went to Spiż and had a piwo with our teacher--best class ever.

Anthropology of Theatre and Performance: Crazy Theatre Guy will always have a special place in my heart. Though he also failed to read my essya. But I will cut him a break...because he is crazy, and absent-minded, and overly excited about every video he showed our class.

Polish Society in Transistion: This was my second favorite class. The professor was knowledgeable and interested in our opinions and observations of the Polish culture. This course helped put many day-to-day occurances into perspective. Plus, I like statistics--they're fun.

Ethics in Polish Theatre, Film, and Poetry: Hands down, my favorite class. Crazy Ethics Lady read my essay (she was actually really hard on it) and we discussed my idea. Her idea for our final class: "Let's gather on Monday and watch Pornography, purely for enjoyment." Pornography is a film, but we all still laughed really hard when she walked out of the room.

Now that we have much more free time, Nina and I made a trip to IKEA and Tesco on the outside of Wrocław. More or less, these are more modern shopping centers, basically Target and Wal-Mart equivalents. We found "Chocolate Street."

And the Harley dealership. While I was taking this photo a Polish guy asked me where I was from. I told him United States, he laughed, pointed to the dealership, and said, "United States Embassy." I thought he was funny.
The latest sunset on Ostrow Tumski. I especially like the fisherman--he reminds me of Grandpa.