21st Century Hobo

In the last post (I’m not linking, just scroll down, you lazy schmuck), I mentioned that contrary to the sentiment of “Bezrobotny,” I’d seemed to have fallen into a relatively stable work situation, for which I was awaiting phone calls and confirmations of hours. To which the cosmos replied, reading from a collection of Robert Burns, “The best laid plans of mice and men / often go awry.” One by one, schools failed to call, and again, one by one, informed me of the economical impossibility of employing me, or simply disappeared, never to be heard from again. At this point, with one private student and two through the Skype School, my workweek consists of 6 hours, totaling 168 zlote in pay. Did I mention that the exchange rate has been plummeting for some unfathomable reason?

Yesterday (Monday) marked four weeks since my arrival in Krakow back in September. For the last month, I’ve been sleeping on a fold-out couch in the spare room of some friends of the family, unsuccessfully hustling for work and sitting in various cafes, reading or trying to find a day without embarrassing news online. Suffice it to say, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind. But as those of you who know me well no doubt already know, when I have undue amounts of time on my hands, which was more often than not, considering my study habits, I tend to think. And think. And reconsider. And think again. And because I can’t really travel, what with money being tight and my needing to stay in Krakow, in case someone actually DOES call, time is the one thing I’ve got in spades.

So, I’ve had more than enough time to think this over, and then reconsider it, and then think it over again. And I’ve come to the conclusion that, for a myriad of reasons, Krakow is not really the place for me to be right now. Mainly, its because my goals for this year to either put away a pot of money for tuition/living when I got back to school in ’09 or ’10, or to do something constructive towards preparing for that. I was initially planning to learn another language or improve one of the ones I already speak, in order to make translation and comp lit a real possibility. But apart from questions of supporting myself, Polish doesn’t grab me the way, say, German or Spanish do. Add to my inability to fulfill either of those main goals the fact that since I’ve arrived, I haven’t really gone out or met anybody, even when I DO work. I don’t speak Polish, apart from buying food or paying for tram tickets, and the few schools I have worked at were more brief contract positions than teaching posts, with a staff room and the kind of friendly interaction even schools in Toronto managed to have.

So I’ve decided to give it one more week. If the next week triples my weekly workload and at least triples my pay, I’ll consider staying and find a flat. If not (and this seems more and more like the most likely outcome) I’m getting on a westbound train, and heading to someplace closer to the Atlantic. I’ve got family, I’ve got friends, and they’ve all got couches.