Law / How long it will take to apply for polish residency status [9]

Now Poland's in the EU I have no real idea about full residency requirements (I'm a UK citizen).
Off the top of my head ... it's going to take you years! I never got it.

Hah, I remember applying for temporary residence a few years ago - 37 attachments, hours lost, long delays and loads of money down the drain.

Now, it's 30-odd zlots, lasts 5 years and is prepared with extreme efficiency. What a transformation!

As for fitting in, well - you're not white, so that works against you with a minority of lunatics. I'm only an obvious foreigner when I open my mouth, thank goodness. Just be prepared to be polite an dmost people will be nice back.

Law / I want to go to poland but worried about the army [38]

I think there is no obligation to do national service if you have a second citizenship.
Ask your local Polish consulate, although I must admit they cannot be relied on to know their backside from their elbow, so to speak.

UK, Ireland / UK Poles eligible to work - do they need additional permit? [9]

The problem is for those Poles who worked in the UK before Jan 1st this year, as they are liable for double taxation on UK earnings before Jan 1st 2007.

Hence, some Poles are very cautious about going back to Poland as they are scared of being pursued by the Polish tax authorities for non-payment of Polish income tax on earnings which have already been taxed in the UK.

There is also a wholly-worthless voluntary registration scheme in the UK.

UK, Ireland / The un-acceptable side of new entrant countries coming to the UK [56]

Nah! Tendencies are simply that, nothing more.
Lee fits the rule this time, though.

Life / Polish mothers! Advice to Mothers-to-be and new Mothers (resources) [25]

The coldness argument seems to be a winner, that is until you start talking to people from cold parts of North America.

UK, Ireland / The un-acceptable side of new entrant countries coming to the UK [56]

sociology.org.uk/tece1ed.htm

Here's an intelligent quick insight into working-class under-achievement in UK education.

It's actually an enormous subject and, of course, highly political. Recently, universities have started to introduce a points system (very much like the Communists had in Poland) based on your social background, so that middle-class applicants could be discriminated against.

UK, Ireland / The un-acceptable side of new entrant countries coming to the UK [56]

Give me a little bit of time and I could dig out loads of educational research into this. It is the biggest educational problem in the UK.

UK, Ireland / The un-acceptable side of new entrant countries coming to the UK [56]

The problem is the name - "Lee".

Britain, being the class-ridden country it is, has a number of class-based habits. One of these is the tendency of low-class people to choose certain names.

Worse still, there is a very strong correlation between low-class English people especially and educational under-achievement.

Hence, when I see the name "Lee" I know what I'm in for ...

rogerdarlington.co.uk/useofnames.html#FIN


[He should have included "Lee" too.]

Life / Polish mothers! Advice to Mothers-to-be and new Mothers (resources) [25]

Polish mothers overdress their children - that's why many Poles (especially men) catch chills so easily.

UK, Ireland / The un-acceptable side of new entrant countries coming to the UK [56]

What bizarre ideas Lee has.

England uber alles - surely not! Chyba ze mnie kpisz.

It's a wind-up ... that is unless he has some strange notions about international capitalism being an "Anglo-Saxon" plot. Sure, the US rules supreme economically (unless you view it as literally bankrupt) and they have business links worldwide linked by the profit motive ... but so what?

I need clarification,
Confused, of Tunbridge Wells.

News / Man from Zakopane who cut off his own genitals [53]

I had a Welsh friend who regularly cut off testicles.
She was a sheep farmer.
Not joking either.
Made me nervous.

Genealogy / Has anyone taken Genealogy DNA tests? [87]

But don't you think it's more worthwhile to concentrate on your known family than to run around wasting time trying to contact people you ar eat best distantly related to?

I find it hard enough, and very time-consuming, with my own family.

Life / Polish positive attitude [24]

I've found Poles to be very energetic in following their business ideas.

The ways of speaking just sound very modest though. What really gets me is they say things like "chyba" which translates as "perhaps" but actually means "probably". Hence they often sound uncertain to speakers of other languages.

UK, Ireland / Polish living in Doncaster UK where they go for night out etc etc [14]

Ah
A person of culture!

Life / Poverty in Poland [50]

As for cigarettes - advertising is banned in Poland.

Life / Poverty in Poland [50]

I think transition benefits:
(1) the lucky ones who just happen to be in the right place at the right time
(2) those who could abuse privileges just prior to transition
(3) those who predict real estate trends correctly
(4) the adaptable and the educated.

It's especially tough on those children whose parents reject open-mindedness and education on their behalf.

It's also tough on those parents who want to retain control over their children in a popular climate which cries out in favour of cynical short-termist consumerist hedonism.

The Polish catholic church is facing an undeclared crisis after a period of massive gains in popularity and influence. The fascist start-up pleb organisation of Rydzik shows just how far the cult of consumerism has infected the church. He functions in terms of money and his short-termist message is aimed at the poverty-struck old. Not a good business model. Anecdotal evidence, I'm sure, but the people leaving small town Poland for the cities do not go to church. 50% of children in my parish failed to take first communion, and of those that did most are not seen again.

Education reformers identified serious failings in the system and came up with ways of making them worse! This is a mistake of vital importance in the formation of an underclass of people who should have had the intelligence to succeed in education but - and this affects boys in particular - were not engaged and drawn into schooling through a misguided attempt to educate them through semi-entertainment style learning (edutainment). The gymnasium/liceum division worsens the control schools can exert over potentially wayward boys.

Prostitution - well, that's simply too depressing for words. Skilled manipulators exploiting a poverty of expectation.

Alcohol - well, it's cheaper than ever. I'd get sloshed more often if it weren't for the health implications.

Health service - in the past you expected worse, now you can, if you're lucky, get better. It's a very difficult area because it demands so much money input. And of course you only hear the complainers, my healthcare experiences here have been satisfactory, only failing at times through human error.

Genealogy / Has anyone taken Genealogy DNA tests? [87]

I've often dropped the last "s" from assess ...

News / Man from Zakopane who cut off his own genitals [53]

The Welshman had a history of mental illness apparently

UK, Ireland / Polish living in Doncaster UK where they go for night out etc etc [14]

The North Riding is much more attractive than the People's Republic of South Yorkshire

Genealogy / Has anyone taken Genealogy DNA tests? [87]

North Pole - I've never listened to a hart, a stag or any other jelen!

No-one knows much about their ancestors of 15 000 years ago. At that remove you find Poles related to Syrians.
30 000 years back and you find Poles related to Native Americans.
Y chromosome history ties you into your last couple of thousand years' history, which is probably easier for people to comprehend.
I wonder if it matters - it probably does. But does it matter to the extent of EUR 250 or whatever it costs?
Hmm, I'll listen to my koziolek.

Study / Comparing Educational Standards in Poland vs other countries [88]

I'm a proofreader!
But I'm not going to do it for free on the internet and have to double-check my own work for mistakes as well - just to avoid cheap quips at my expense.

Education, hmm.
I received a very good education at a private school in England, went to university and ended up as a French teacher in a state school.

It was a disaster zone created by the system and everybody either had to accept it or get out - teachers and students alike. However, statistically the place is a success thanks to the counting of courses called GNVQs - but I'm not going into that (too boring). I just wanted to start off by saying that educational statistics can be meaningless.

A very straightforward example of how the French verb content of the public exams at 16 has changed:

pre-1984 post-1984
present tense of a wide variety of verbs pres. tense, selected verbs
future, wide variety future, 2 or 3 verbs
imperfect, wide variety imperfect, 2 or 3 vbs
perfect tense, wide variety perfect, selected verbs
pluperfect, wide variety (simple after perfect tense) no pluperfect
conditional, wide variety conditional, 2 or 3 vbs
present subjunctive, 3 or 4 verbs no subjunctive

The result of this lack of knowledge is that children aged 16 are totally lacking the skills required to operate in French.
Now, this is not a defence of the old system - it did have serious faults - but the new system is 10 times worse and children end up utterly disillusioned.

Fortunately for my children, the new generation growing up with them at school in Poland is being taught with useless British methods and my kids will always have jobs correcting Poles with their English!

On the whole, the recent Polish education reforms are a massive step backwards and most people on this forum are probably unaware of them unless they have children of school age.

The pre-1984 and post-1984 comparison was swallowed up by the forum software - read it with imagination and you'll understand!

Try again

pre-1984 // post-1984
present tense of a wide variety of verbs //pres. tense, selected verbs
future, wide variety //future, 2 or 3 verbs
imperfect, wide variety // imperfect, 2 or 3 vbs
perfect tense, wide variety // perfect, selected verbs
pluperfect, wide variety (simple after perfect tense) // no pluperfect
conditional, wide variety // conditional, 2 or 3 vbs
present subjunctive, 3 or 4 verbs // no subjunctive

UK, Ireland / Polish living in Doncaster UK where they go for night out etc etc [14]

Doncaster Rovers sums up all that is good about the place ...

Donny is grim

I wouldn't let my dog live there
Or my dogs fleas
However, I met let him visit for one or two reasons I won't go into ...

News / Man from Zakopane who cut off his own genitals [53]

Deafening silence

I heard of something similar in Wales, but that was because Wales won a rugby match and the fan did it as an expression of joy

Study / Comparing Educational Standards in Poland vs other countries [88]

... and I make money from correcting people!
Good line of business.

UK, Ireland / Polish living in Doncaster UK where they go for night out etc etc [14]

Oh dear, you travel right across Europe and end up Donny of all places!

Life / Polish Catholic Wedding Vows [15]

Another one bites the dust ...

Work / Need help with teaching English in Poland [5]

Regular schools pay peanuts and may not even be able to employ people without Polish teaching qualifications.
Private language schools favour Brits because they don't have any visa problems, unlike other English-speakers.
Teaching is fairly easy as the kids are motivated (they pay!). Schools will have various demands as regards teacher qualifications, but I think that as long as you have some sort of certificate you should get somewhere. I'm out of the game now, and in any case had a PGCE (full UK teaching certificate), which is highly unusual in TEFL circles.

Genealogy / Anyone Else 1/2 Polish??? [58]

My kids (12 and 11) feel much happier when they are around other bilinguals/bi-culturals.
It's a shame you didn't learn Polish from your mom - I've got a Polish doctor friend in England who's not speaking Polish with her kids, and they're lost when they come to Poland. Her parents had to learn English (because they were desperate).

It's a tough language, but not impossible to learn.
French and Spanish (and English, for that matter) are easy to start with, then get very difficult later on; Polish is the opposite :(

Life / Poland is wearing me down. :( Polish excuses... [30]

Polish teachers are not supposed to be friendly towards students.
Looking at the way you sat next to the 2 young blondes in the bowling alley, I can understand why some would think of you as an old lecher. Sorry, people are unfair on things like this.

Are you teaching in a private language school or a regular school? What's the age range of the students?
And finally, if it is a regular school, have you ever taught in a regular school in Canada? There is a world of difference between regular schools and private language schools - I was a regular teacher in the UK (with my fair share of stupid colleagues - I had a lot to learn about nasty people) and a private school language teacher in Poland. The dynamics are totally different.

News / Where in the US/UK live most Poles? [46]

Doncaster must be improving with this influx of decent people to counteract the poor-quality locals!
On the subject of Donny - is it really true you have the most corrupt socialist council in the whole of the UK?