Life / Life as a African American man in Poland [8]

Cześć

The time is nearing for my first visit to Poland. As I stated in my initial post on the forum, I am an African American man planning on starting a new life in Warsaw after I graduate from my university in a year. In May of 2013, I will take my first trip there as something of a "preview of things to come," if you will. I will be flying out alone and finding housing on my own. I do, however, have a few Polish penpals who have said they want to hangout as soon as I arrive. After discussing this with a few of close friends from my childhood, they seemed to be a bit worried. There was the outlandish, stereotypical "What if those people are really psycho neo nazis who want to kill you" theory and quite a few others that I simply wrote off. I am not ignorant to the fact that everyone on the internet is not who they say they are but I doubt people I've had hour-long Skype cam conversations with for months are murderers. My uncle, who is an African American and Turkish man, said that he did not like the area of Poland he visited a year ago (Katowice) but assured me Warsaw would be fine. He said and I quote, "Katowice has a lot of racists but Warsaw shouldn't be too bad, it is the capital after all." I am not exactly sold on that being an acceptable example of how tolerable it is.

If there are any other African Americans who have can shed light on this, please chime in. I'd also be interested in hearing comments from Polish men and women on the matter. I am typically quiet and well-mannered so I doubt that I'd even be noticed but, on the other hand it would be hard not to notice a black man in a European country that receives so few immigrants. When I mentioned my meek demeanor to a friend, she claimed I was "too handsome not to notice."

Language / What has been the hardest language for you to learn? [81]

Cześć,

I just finished up some homework my tutor gave me. The assignment was short and primarily focused on how to say things you like to do. I have three exams tomorrow and one of them is in my Spanish class, which is the easiest language I've ever taken. For those wondering what other languages I've studied, they are as follows: German, French, Hebrew, Japanese, and now, Polish. A random thought passed my mind while going over verb tenses: What languages seem to be the easiest for Poles to master? The question stems from a comment my tutor made about two weeks ago. She said, "I admire your desire to learn Polish. It is one of the hardest languages for Americans to learn."

Classifieds / Polish Student Association Event [5]

Cześć,

Guess who was made head organizer of his university's first Polish-themed event of the school year? That's right, me! I am so excited and thankful to have been given the opportunity. I'm currently drafting up the plans for the event. I told a few people I would post a thread about it after I finished with my exams. My professors graded them surprisingly fast and I did much better than what I expected. For those wondering, the exams were in: Spanish, biology, and survey of western art and history.

Anyway, now that I have the time to tell you guys about the event, I will do just that. I want to do something that helps promote knowledge of Polish history. I'm thinking of doing a "ten significant moments" list where the other members of the Polish Student Association and I will speak about certain things that have occurred and give facts about them to educate those who attend on how they impacted Poland. We were going to set the event for November 11, 2012 but it falls on a Sunday and we doubt many people would be up for that. As of now, the date is not set in stone. I have a late class on Monday, too, so I'm trying to figure out how this will work. We'll probably have to decide on a time and day that fits everyone's schedule.

I think the event will be a success. PSA is small (there are only about twenty of us) but we're all from diverse backgrounds (its open to everyone who is interested in Polish culture) and hardworking so I have faith this event and the ones we'll do in the future will run smoothly. On Friday, we are learning how to write messages for gift cards in Polish and I have a few ideas that involve such a skill so I see a lot of good things to come.