Couldn't find the book I needed for class tomorrow... Gonna blog instead. Last night, I went to bed early, thus the lack of a post. Although, it was a rather good day, I'd say. The Holocaust class in the morning was incredibly interesting, no surprise there; in fact, afterwards I approached the professor and asked her about my paper idea: writing on the Paper Clips project. The Paper Clips project was organized by a middle school somewhere in Tennessee. They bought a train cart, and I think the money they bought it with was donated to a Holocaust organization. Then, they proceeded to fill this train cart with paper clips, and they filled it with as many paper clips as people were lost in the Holocaust. This was a community project, and they had people from around the community donate the paper clips and everything. She actually seemed incredibly excited about this, so when originally I said I would not write about it if she knew about it, her excitement changed my mind. Also, she asked if I was from Tennessee, since how else would I know that project, ya know? I said yes, and within a few seconds, she went off on how she knows a girl who grew up in Nashville and studied here and works in the Galicia Museum here, and lo and behold, I got her phone number. It'll be really nice meeting another person. My professor said she'd be incredibly excited, and I agree; it'll be awesome.
Post-class, I went and printed off some things, and then I went to find the library where I could read my book for my Polish course. I went rather towards the outer edges of what I've gotten accustomed to, and the area looks beautiful; a national museum is actually situated there. The library was a bit out of the way, and at the library, I found out I am not a member of any school; therefore, I cannot check out books from any particularly library. Super unfortunate. So I read there for a while, before having to rush off for lunch at the pierogi place. By the way, apple pierogi are delicious. They are up there with blueberry pierogi now, no surprise. Oh goodness, so good!
History was also interesting, but unfortunately, the atmosphere in the room felt perfect for a nap... And I was fortunately not the only one who felt this way! But that was about it for the day; I worked on my presentation for today, and yeah. Oh! And the Mormons in Kraków called! I was not surprised at all at how quickly within that "second week in Kraków" they decided to call.
Today, thus far, has been rather good as well, with a bit of a roller coaster in emotions. I sat up closer to the front of the room for the history course this morning, so that really helped me pay more attention. Secularization followed. Very interesting class period, but oh goodness. The presentation went well! When Professor Bill called me up, he was surprised I had a PowerPoint presentation to go along with my little presentation. I'd say that's a good thing. I felt rather confident in myself and honestly went through most of the speech with a bare minimal of flubs. People actually looked interested, which was such a confident boost. I forgot to explain the ages for the American education system, though, but that's ok. The class had a good amount of questions for me, which I feel shows that the material was interesting, and in fact, Professor Bill had to stop them from going on, haha.
If you are curious, my presentation was on the lack of secularization in Tennessee, with a glance at religion in schools, evolution, and gay rights, primarily looking at it from a school perspective. After all, that's what the majority of my life has been focused on! At the end of the class, the professor addressed the class, saying that my presentation was a great example, good time, good amount of information, interesting. Oh yes, I felt wonderful. Even more so when at the end of class, two of the girls in our class talked to me, both complimented on my "bravery" to take the presentation first. One girl mentioned I did a good job and starting off the presentations at a fair level: nothing embarrassing for myself and nothing too challenging for others to follow up from. One of them discussed with me how it was nice to see such a different perspective, because indeed, many people idealize America to be so free and wonderful, without faults, and then here I went into the details of the essential close-mindedness of my area. Ah, someone asked about my perspective on everything as well, which means one of two things: 1) I did a very good job not presenting my perspective and making it an overall idea, or 2) she wanted to confirm what she assumed to my perspective from the presentation. By the way, since I was the first and since Professor Bill changed the standard for these presentations (people are now supposed to be in pairs instead of individual), I got extra credit. And he told me I got full marks. Heck yes! Oddly enough, this presentation also wasn't too intimidating to present. Beforehand, I was incredibly worried I'd be offensive, because I know I can be offensive, but then I realized, I'm in a place where no one knows much about Tennessee or really cares... The professor reassured me it was truly interesting, and hoorah!
I went on to the library again, this time, the main library. It was confusing. All the other libraries I have asked for the librarian's help, as... it doesn't seem like you are supposed to go find things on your own. But this library is enormous. Plus, I don't know if I have a library card; I think I do with my student card, but I'm not positive. Between that and the other library that I knew I could rely on for this book was closed. Oh, and I couldn't find the second book I need on the catalog. That was the roller coaster low. I'm incredibly school-conscious, and that made me panic a bit, because I'm not too confident that I'll be able to read as much as I need to tomorrow morning, if I can even get access to the book... Oh, which leads me to the fact of my worry about this class now... The results from the placement test came out, and I'm in level B1 (which also means the first class meeting interferes with the Zakopane trip this Saturday... I don't understand why the school thought it would be appropriate to have classes on Saturday). The minimum level my parents and I thought would be appropriate (between A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2) was B2... So between needing to get yet another course verified and having a drop of confidence in my Polish, my stress level just rose, and I could tell simply from my mini panic attack about the books for this course...
The likelihood I'll be doing anything else today, though, is very slim, so now I'm just going to try and relax and figure out if there is anything I can do to prepare for class tomorrow. Aka, be productive.
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