congrats, Brother!

My younger brother is at the moment better educated than me...He's just passed his bachelor's degree exam. I didn't have to, so I didn't;-) Sooo he's about to have nice diploma and I'm not, not within a year time at least;-) Congratulations Brother!!!!!

home alone

I always thought that exams session makes me blog more, as I look for excuses not to study but now I see that being home alone is even a bigger stimulus:-P

The second reason is that Regula also gave sign of life, so I don't want to be worse;-)

I finished my exams and probably finished my studies (still master thesis to be written). I started internship in ING Bank, which for the time being I'm really satisfied with:-) I'm learning something new all the time, which is maybe not that surprising bearing in mind that it's my third week;-), but still... it's sooo much better than last time.

At the moment I'm really afraid of becoming a boring person, so I'm trying hard not to fall into job-sleep rythm and still parties, meetings, whatever else in the week are much welcome... I don't want my life to consist only of my work... Still last time we went for the Night in Cinema on Friday I fell asleep at the third movie ... Anyways, keep your fingers crossed for me:-) Due to all imaginable reasons...

sporty weekend

Last weekend was full of ... watching sport. Didn't make much effort to improve my bad shape then. So now a short report about the results of Polish sportsmen. Just in case you didn't follow them breath-taken;-)
Here they go:
- ski jumping - Malysz won the World Cup :-)
- swimming - Otylia Jedrzejczak was second at the World Championships :-)
- football - Poland - Azerbaijan 5:0 :-)
- handball Vive Kielce - Głogów 24:23 (the only event I watched personally in the sports hall in my hometown Kielce) :-)
I'm quite lucky spectator, don't you think? Very happy each time "our" player/team wins. Those who don't watch sports at all, don't go emotional about it, though quite rational, miss something definitely.
As for me, apart from the habitual once-a-week aerobics session, I don't do much. This weekend won't be different - last PEACE project parties and on Monday I have a test in evaluating derivatives... And just right now I remembered that I really should update the blog. You can draw conclusions about my effectiveness on your own...

rat race at Warsaw School of Economics

As in 1,5 year I'm planning to graduate, I had to sign in to the group of the lecturer that is supposed to be responsible for my master's thesis.
I was waiting patiently for my turn to write my name on the list circulating in the classroom, when people started to fight to put their names earlier than others, really pulling the list out of each other. I stood flabbergasted. Ok, everyone counts on being accepted by the more popular lecturers, but it shouldn't be the reason to behave like that!
Is that where the real life begins?

Cinders

I was at the theatre. Luckily, it was Radzio who chose the play this time, so we could eventually enjoy seeing it(I chose 2 previous ones and both were cancelled, bad luck?). Now, after the play, I couldn't be more grateful to him. It turned out to be really moving.
It was "Cinders" by Janusz Glowacki, a story about girls from reform school, who are to perform "Cinderella" fairy tale. A documentary director arrives to film it, willing to include or rather make girls personal stories the key issue of his movie, so the media here are quite blatantly accused of abusing people's dramas just to make headlines.
After the play we were quarrelling whether the main character, so-called Cinderella was pure or egoist. Makes quite a difference. If you have a chance to read or see it, do it!

update

A lot of things happening, not much writing in the last days result in the dull title and informative but not very inspiring content.

Still reading after this intro? I like you:-)

I finished my exams - results are quite good, or at least better than ever before. I studied much more than ever before too. Therefore I hope I'm at least a little bit cleverer now:-)

PEACE project started for the 6th time, which means I'm officially a grandma already:-) Grandchildren did a good job and it's so nice to see that the idea is still being passed over to next generations. (see PEACE)
I wasn't that much involved this time - trying to withdraw slowly... I took part in parties mostly and definitely liked the people I met. I didn't get to know all of the trainees though - a major difference in comparison to 3 previous editions. This year Yifan and Amy, superenergetic girls I met in Beijing, are participating. The world is small but happiness when you see somebody from the other part of the world is enormous.

The opening week finished today with Sunday full of warmth thanks to Radzio :-*

Tomorrow my aunt is coming to visit Warsaw, so next 2 days I'll pretend to be a tour guide. Let's see what happens.

learn from errors

I thought I'm able to do it. However, there are situations, when I doubt it...
Let's take studying for exams for example. I'm always repeating myself: next semester, I'll start it earlier, so not to be forced to be awake and voraciously absorb knowledge at the last possible moments before the final test. How is it in reality? I'm losing my mind again these days....

Wishing perseverance to all lost in books now, good luck with learning from errors.

worthwhile

“I wish you sunshine on your path and storms to season your journey. I wish you peace in the world in which you live... More I cannot wish you except perhaps love to make all the rest worthwhile.”

Bullshit or...maybe not?

That's apparently me:










I think it's bullshit, but maybe I'm cheating myself. What do you think?

Check yourself!

friendship?

Nice discussions...
Nice party....
BIG quarrel in the morning...
No need to say "sorry"...
And everything OK again....
I guess that's ... friendship?

Super New Year's Eve!

This year some supercool people came to Kielce, my hometown, to spend New Year's Eve together. They came 2 days earlier and we spent those days really actively. We managed to grab the moment of snow and went skiing:-) You don't want to meet us on the slope:-)































We ticked off some of the must-see places in the town. We tried clubbing;-)

Finally the New Year’s Eve party came. Its theme was “Socialist Poland”. The walls were decorated with propaganda posters and we started with tasty piece of meat served by rude "waiteress" from a metal bowl. Everyone dressed up and looked crazy and kitsch at the same time. Just have a look:-)

PS. I meant to look like a female tractor driver. Just to make it clear - that has never been party outfit - even in socialist Poland;-)

opinions

Will I ever learn how to shut up at certain moments????!!!!
It’s not always important to tell what you think… or is it?

Maybe:
“It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.”

”Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.”

Or maybe:
“Patterning your life around other's opinions is nothing more than slavery.”

“The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.”

The truth is probably halfway. Why the halfway is the most difficult to reach?

no more working!

I finished my internship. I'm a carefree student again! I can walk in the street at 2 pm on Friday and not feel guilty!
After thorough analysis, long and tiring thinking process, I have the plan for the next few months. I'm going to benefit from student life:
- study and possibly pass the exams;-)
- have coffee and nice talks in the breaks between classes
- read newspapers not only headlines (columns included;-)
- know what's on in the theatres
- attend interesting meetings somwhere in the city

Some new job can wait!

Basia came last week from Sweden for a coupl days. Big surprise. We missed her, she missed us(see pictures)












Harsh conditins for her - including sleeping on a mate on thr floor, but great fun too!

internship

Let me explain what I'm doing during my internship.

Just to remind, I'm working in the Corporate Centre of Bank BPH - third biggest Polish bank, recently bought by Unicredit group. The centre provides banking services to big companies. I went there because I wanted to see how the corporate banking looks like. It seemed to be a good opportunity.

I'm slightly dissapointed though. Mainly because nobody cares about my learning (and I'm skipping classes to be there). Only by making effort myself I managed to learn a little bit about the practical aspects of granting loans with different collaterals, providing bid bonds, performance bonds. However, most of the time I'm doing plenty of administrative work acting temporarily, (as I was told 3 weeks ago... but somehow it keeps being prolonged) as the director's assistant. Additionaly, around 2 or 3 times a week I'm doing industry analysis to be attached to credit applications (which means nothing more than writing some kind of a short report about the market size, trends and key success factors, the report based on the info I find in the Internet). Plus, on daily basis, I'm filling in the templates of contracts.

Ok, I've never done something like this before, so still there's some learning and I shouldn't have expected much more... It's just that.... if you squeezed all that, I would be able to learn the new things in 3 days and I'm staying there 2 months:-/ What a waste of time. One month left.

The good thing is that the bank is in the process of merging with the second big in Poland, so I'm able to see a little bit of the process from inside. The other good thing is that people are nice:-) and as somebody recently pointed it out they have good coffee there;-)

My mixed feelings probably come from the fact that in AIESEC I used to try really hard to have the best effect possible(the others did the same) and learning was there all the time. In this job it's different, therefore I know I need to check some other options before I decide on my future career path.

shoemaker phenomenon

For more than a week now, I'm wearing winter boots to work. No, it's not soooo cold in Poland yet. It's just that I lost part of the heel of my autumn shoes and I need to go to the shoemaker to have them repaired. The shoemaker's shop is open when I'm at work. That's just a minor thing but there are so many others that I'm not able to do because of the same reason. How do people working from 9 to 6 exist? Do they waste the whole of Saturday running those errands???? It sucks.

autumn weekend

I had really good time this weekend. On Saturday we had the assessment centre as part of the recruitment for new members. Big scale event: 80 people, 30 assessors, 15 facis. Well done "kids":-) I was one of the assessors. My comment: you tend to be much less strict when assessing the first group than when assessing the last one. So take the advice: whenever you have the possibility to choose between hours, the earlier you take part in the assessment, the better. Assessors wouldn't take revenage on you for being tired:-)

Today I went with Radek to Lazienki Park. It was so beautiful: yellow and red leaves on the trees, squirelles, peacocks. I enjoyed my time so much that haven't even noticed crowds of people everywhere;-) Relaxed, I had a nice talk with Bassion to end the day...So good...Why does it have to be Monday tomorrow????





PS. I was offically confirmed as the so-called "Reception Commander" for my LC, really need start doing something right now:-)

Back to Warsaw

I know I should have written something earlier, I'm sorry:-)

First of all thank you all the Beijing people for the series of farewall parties. They were super cool. Have you noticed that last night there were only us on the dancefloor. I didn't realize it until the next day...so you really rocked :-D

I'm back to Warsaw now. As some remeber straight after coming back home I started my internship. To be honest it's a bit dissapointing - I'm repeating the same tasks most of the time, was supposed to do sthg else but still waiting for the access to all the systems - banks and their standards, procedures and superexcessive paperwork:-/It's gradually getting better though, but very slowly. At least the people are nice there and being very very very proactive I learn sthg new from time to time;-) . But anyway it's definately not as special as Beijing adventure... I work there from 9 to 5 almost every day, attending only 3 classes a week and not really feeling like the student.

I need to go for the assesors training right now... I promise to write more regularly from now on:-)

busy busy busy

Ostatnio dużo się dzieje. W poniedziałek odbył się Wieczor Europejski.Wcześniej promocja- nawet się nie przyznajcie, że nie wiecie, że to strój biskupiński (co prawda ja nie wiedziałam do niedawna;-)

Duzo ludzi przyszło, za duzo, nie bylo gdzie zatanczyc poloneza, na 8m2 nie wyszedl specjalnie imponujaco. W miedzynarodowym sklepie udalo mi sie kupic polski chleb, nie bardzo mialam pomysl na to jak go podawac, wiec tradycyjnym jedzeniem z Polski byl polski chleb z dżemem wyglądającym na polski:-) Przyznam sie, ze temat tozsamosci europejskiej studentow chinskich nie porwal...

Tańczyli ze mna studenci Katedry Jezyka Polskiego, którym prowadziłam w piątek konwersacje, dość wymiatają..

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A lot have been happenning recently. First of all, on Mon there was the European night, promotion of course before it (on the picture - I had no clue how the traditional costume from Biskupin region looked like until last Wednesday;-)

A lot of people came, too many, we didn't have space to dance polonez, so it wasn't spectacular at all. I manged to buy Polish bread and served it with jam, pretending that is sthg traditionally Polish (I wasn't laying that much, they don't eat jam here and we do!) I need to say that the theme of European identity didn't seem very interesting for the Chinese..

I danced polonez with polish langage studnets, they're already quite good...

AIESEC

Dawno nie updateowałam, co się tu dzieje aiesecowo, a dzieje sie duzo. Wczoraj bylo spotkanie calego komitetu - dostalam medal za zasługi:












A dzisiaj odbyło się seminarium poświęcone oszczędzaniu energii w ramach tutejszego projektu (dla wtajemniczonych PBOXa;-) o energii o nazwie Superpower.














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I haven't written anything about AIESEC activities for a long time and a lot is happenning now. Yesterday, we had the awards gala - got a medal for the best CEEDEr ever - they haven't had that many of them;-) but still it was really nice...
Today we had the Energy Seminar in the project (for some PBOX) about energy. Success!

Majiang

Graliśmy wczoraj w majiang - taka chińska gra, z mnóstwem klocków, które trzeba poustawiać w odpowiedznie zestawy. Gralismy w wersję mocno okrojoną, która i tka była dośc skomplikowana. Tutaj trochę więcej na jej temat: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong
Zdaje się, że wy nie macie problemów z dostępem do Wikipedii...
Oczywiście przegrałam;-)

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We played majiang yesterday - a Chinese game with a lot of bricks that you need to gather in specific sets - we played just with the basic rules but still it was pretty complicated. A little bit more about the rules and symbols (that I didn't know about) here: http://kjmjm.tky.fi/english/majiang/symbolism.html
Of course I lost...