silly silly

[elizaveta]

Lately my life is starting to resemble Poland. My jackets all have holes, and besides, today I ate absolutely nothing until six, save for a piece of Polish fruitcake, and I also had to sing (and endure) a Polish song about some girl and guy doing something or other. 1.5 of these things have to do with my Polish class more than anything, but still!

Comments

[hocus]

i'm envious of your Polish textbook dialogues; the ones in my Japanese book are never quite so entertaining.

[elizaveta]

Mine are almost too entertaining. Occasionally instead of dialogues, there are short paragraphs, all of which concern people who work in a travel agency. There are three of them: Mr. Kowalczyk, a rigorous disciplinarian who is obsessed with the idea that he is growing fat and bald; Ms. Szymborska, who has an attractive body and a strange face, and wants to be a film star; and Mr. Orlowski (my favorite!) who is "an ordinary clerk, but not an ordinary man. He is a man with imagination, in other words a dreamer" and who wants to design melancholy brochures, but is shot down by Mr. Kowalczyk, the boss.

The book is almost over. I'm hoping that Mr. O and S. will hook up and boot Mr. K out of the office, which is called "Zephyr." For some reason that always makes me think of you.

[elizaveta]

yeah, the equivalent in ours would be

A: Does this sweater suit me?
B: No, you are getting rather fat.
A: How could you say that?
B: How could you eat so much?

I don't think that dialogue really exists, but it would be a lot milder than the rest of the text.

[elizaveta]

Well, the book was written circa 1980, so I think they're pissed off about living in a highly repressive state. If you don't have any stuff, then I guess all you can rely on is your ability to be completely antisocial. It was martial law toward the end, there-- maybe Polish people got their rage against the government out in non-risky ways by insulting each other. There are also some dialogues where people ask each other personal questions and get really paranoid. The line, "Why do you ask so many questions?" is uttered at least once.

On the other hand, most Poles I know are really awkwardly blunt, so maybe it's just them.