Key fail

So it's 8:05 am as I'm starting this post. My first class of the day is supposed to start at 8:15. It's one of the classes in which I teach judges and prosecutors--pretty cool, actually. I wake up at 6:45, get ready, etc. etc.....I go to the door to leave at 7:45 so I have enough time to walk to my class and get there on time, only to find that there are no keys in the lock. You see, the doors here are such that the only way you can LOCK the door to prevent thieves and kidnappers from coming in is to lock it with a key. At night, my flatmate and I put one of our sets of keys in the door in case there's an emergency and we have to escape....otherwise we'd have to sit around while we found our keys, found the right one for the lock, etc.

You can imagine my surprise when my keys, which I put in the lock yesterday, are not there. I check the chair near the door. No keys. I had just cleaned the hallway on Saturday...could they be lying around somewhere unusual? Nope. No fucking keys anywhere.

Now, my flatmate is notorious for being, shall we say, absent-minded. He's already lost the keys a classroom once or twice. I can see the situation now: he gets up this morning and goes to work about 30 minutes before I get up. My keys are in the door....he grabs them, puts them IN HIS POCKET, and leaves....with his keys as well...then afterwards locking me IN my apartment and preventing me from leaving for class.

Nothing malicious on his part at all; total pre-7-am absentmindedness. All the same, FML.

To add insult to injury, Polish phones have this whole pay-as-you-go or pay monthly thing going on. My brilliant network decides to block your phone after a certain amount of time if you add minimal amounts at a time. For instance, I add only 10 zloty at a time because I rarely use my phone. As a result, after a week or two, my phone is blocked from making and sending calls and text messages (can only receive) until I add more money. I've been putting off adding more money because I figured, hey if I really need to make a call, I can always just add money when I'm out. Never thought that I'd be trapped IN my apartment and unable to call for help. Again, FML.

To make matters even worse, I came up with the brilliant idea of calling on Skype. I have a couple dollars Skype credit left, so I'll just look at the teacher's register for the numbers of the teacher who co-teaches this court class with me....she'll be there and can tell my class. I call the first number listed...."invalid". I call the second number...it's her fucking MOM. Her MOM. Who doesn't speak English. Somehow I manage to get the teacher's number, in Polish (and numbers are like THE hardest thing in Polish....arrrrgh!!) and call, but there IS NO ANSWER.

Luckily, one other teacher has a class there this morning, so I called her and go through.

But I feel like a total idiot. I'm locked IN my apartment. Seriously, how does that even happen?! I just hope my students don't hate me, or don't think I flaked out on them or something. Ugh. So embarrassing.

***

In other news, things are going relatively well haha. I'm working a lot, but I'm starting to get into the swing of things. Last week was my busiest week yet because last Saturday I had to proctor a mock Cambridge English exam, which took over 4 hours to proctor (not including grading time....multiple choice for 3 sections and in total 10 essays.) Wednesday I had to do the speaking part of the same exam, which took over 4 hours. That was in addition to my normal classes. Plus in two of my classes I had to give other standardized English mock exams and grade them. Plus normal book tests for my ordinary classes. Busy busy busy :)

But in spite of that, I managed to have more free time than usual. I think this proves my long-standing theory that I work much better under pressure and when I have less time. I'm hoping to do more with my Polish. I have only one 45-minute lesson a week, but I'm going to try to see if I can find a conversation partner I can buy coffee and a drożdżówka (pastry) for in exchange for an hour of haltingly painful Polish with me :) I'm also starting to study for the GRE. No definite plans yet, but I figure it'd be good to take the GRE in case I want to go to grad school down the road.

I had a two-week holiday (look at me, I'm starting to talk like a Brit. Yikes) at the beginning of February. I took a bus (14 hours) from Krakow to Hamburg to see my boyfriend. Over one weekend, I hitched a ride with someone--paid 25 euros instead of 80 euros for the train--to Cologne so I could see Amy Jantz. Spent the weekend with her, which was amazing, and hitched another ride back, again paying 24 euros instead of 80. My trip back to Tarnow was painful--about 16-17 hours on the bus--but I made it :) Jeff is coming to Tarnow on March 16, so I'm really excited about that. Also, Amy Jantz is hoping to come either in March or in April, so I'll get to have some visitors to my humble abode!!

Admittedly, I'm reallllly missing playing in chamber groups, especially. I've been practicing more, but I miss my string quartet and things like that. Kelly, sorry you have to deal with such crappy violinists....not too uncommon, unfortunately :( Oh, on the subject of music (and radio...) Tiffy, I couldn't get that file to work you posted :(

Well, nothing else exciting is going on in my life right now. I like my classes, and I'm learning how to be much more effective with my planning, which is making me generally less stressed out. At times I feel really discouraged about my language ability (especially since I'm losing Russian at the moment) but I know that I am getting better, cause I managed to get that phone number this morning. Siedem dziewięć pięć dziewięć dziewięć sześć sześć.....yeah have that thrown at you at the speed people normally say phone numbers. SCARY!

Anyways, sorry for the incredibly long post. I had to start off with venting about my ridiculous situation first haha. Hope everyone's well!