the first week of classes

wow. that's been quite a busy week... i shall compile the thoughts about it in this short post:

i started my classes on tuesday and even though i hadn't had tutorials i feel like the busiest person in the world. (i know, everyone does) so after couple of changes i made in my schedule i am taking four courses: spanish ab initio, philosophy: knowledge and reality, intro to communications and intro to pyschology. i have had all of them already and i think i shall stick to them, at least thru' the first term.

the professors are really fine. i have a mexican spanish teacher (un alumna, chica bonita!), but the rest of the professors are canadian (or canadianized). all are quite all right, except i didn't get much of the first communication course. i hope it'll improve, cause i have to obtain a cosmic gpa in order to maintain my scholarship. well, i have no doubt it's worth it - they pay me humongeous amounts of money just for me being here.

only the books are bloody expensive - one psychology (watch: used, yes used) book costed me 80$. a new one costs like 130$. crazy. on the other hand i bought an excellent oxford thesaurus for 15$. where's the logic?

i reckon, i am busy not yet to academics. well, at least not in a large extent. i repeat: yet. it's mostly settling down issues. damn, here i have to do everything by myself! i have to apply for insurance, i have to go thru' the whole wide vancouver to pay it, i have to open my bank account, get the laundry card etc. etc. etc. god bless norwegian social democracy which had kindly protected my polish ass for last 2 years.

another issue - food. as i have mentioned before i am on the dinning plan. it means that i get a card with a certain amount of money and i can use it whenever i am hungry. the food is not bad, it's just a little expensive to me. of course, most of the canadians complain to the food in the dinning hall. whenever i hear a complain i tell them scary stories about fiskekake and carrot mush, but they don't seem to believe. anyhow, the choice is between 3-5$ hamburgers and french fries and 10$ nice chicken dish with salad and everything. so as they advertise - you've got a choice, indeed.

now my first real weeken at the residence is coming; i wonder how will i spend it...

jessica's party

i shall not comment the pictures. however, can you imagine that they actually drink alcohol out of plastic cups!? just like in the cheap holiwood college movies! incredible!

glossary

a canuck - a canadian. see also: the canucks (vancouver hockey team)

loonie - 1$ coin. its name comes from the loon (a bird similar to duck) which appears on the back of it.

toonie - 2$ coin. no one knows where does the name come from. there's a polar bear on the tail of the coin.

safeway - a network of grocery stores where i usually shop. i have got a membership card there so i can save like 2$ each time i am there. wicked, innit?

wal-mart - a network of stores where you can buy anything for nothing or almost nothing. the labour-rights defenders, the green party members, the environmentalists and certainly other groups condemn wal-mart for various crimes like labour abuses, killing the local enterprises or promoting unhealthy life-style. whenever i shop there, i try to be quick and sneaky.

eh? - a typical question tag which is added to all stating sentences.

liquor stores - unlike norway in canada you can actually buy alcohol in a reasonable price. there are government controlled liquor stores all around. honestly, they are everywhere. i haven't been to a mall where they didn't a

stephanie greaves - this lovely and helpful women work (among others, i assume) for us, the uwciers at sfu.

ron heath - this is another person who ables me to be here. he is the one who offered the scholarship and encouraged to accept that offer. very energetic gentelman. unfortunatelly he's retiring this october, so we're haveing a uwc pizza party as all uwciers are ron's kids.

how's it going. - notice a dot instead of a question mark. that means in canadian english "hello"

soccer - football.

ikea - the only place i have been to in a radius of 20 km where i actually feel european.

ca - this stands for 'community advisor'. each floor has one in the residence buildings of towers. they're usually older students who get better (means more spacious) rooms, closer to lounge rooms and washrooms for the sake of taking care of the rest of us. my ca is called justin.

burnaby - a city around 20 km from vancouver downtown where i am currently living. well, i am actually living on the burnaby mountain, which is over the town.

greater vancouver - vancouver downtown plus 7 other cities which basically blended into one huge aglomaration. burnaby is just one of them.

skytrain - a very popular and convienient transportation means, which could take you anywhere you want in the area of greater vancouver. it's very fast and there is no driver! pretty scarry if someone gets stuck in between the door...

maple syroup - for those of you who doesn't know what maple is: it is a tree species with a very charachteristic leaves. so charachteristic that the canadians decided to put one of those in their flag. i haven't tasted this canadian delicacy yet, however i heard many good (and sweet) things about it. you could pour it over you waffels or pancakes.

pitch - field.

the second part of the glossary to come...!

orientation

since 29th there are three orientations going on and i have signed for all of them. i still cannot really distinguish them anyway. there's residence orientation, campus orientation and international students' orientation, which as far as i am concerned hasn't began yet.

so i meet a lot of new people these days; my head can't memorize all the names that appear. i think i will get used to it sooner or later. there are almost 30 000 students studying at sfu, so i don't think i will ever get them all. max, jeff, jessica, astrid, devyn, fraser, henrik, selina, nilo, joolin, katrina, barbara, lindsey, matt... yeah, and so on up to eternity. no one has got such a cool name as i do - grzesiek. people can't really get it how to pronounce it, but they have to get used to it. no excuses. ;-)

yesterday we drove down the mountain with jessica to buy some drinks for the "european social club party". european social club is practically a european DRINKING club. i don't mind that, though. in the liquor store max henrik and i got a hold of polish wyborowa vodka. i felt a bit like home... only that it was twice as much expensive... anyways, i am getting used to expensive things. books here cost 100$ a piece, which is just crazy. i mean, isn't canada one of the world's leading paper producers? i thought so. i have to get those bloody books.

i have already met two polish speaking people on campus. (nevermind bartek) yendrick (jędrek, i mean) and sussan who was actually born in b.c. i have also met two other people who were born on 31st of january. jessica the canadian and anna the finnish. so my birthday perspective look quite promising right now. ;-)

apart from all that i constantly feel like in a cheap holiwood movie. just like those i have so many times laughed at - how could you do all that things? how could you behave like that? etc. i feel it's very very north american up here. except the downtown impression which i have already described (tall buildings, wide streets, fast-food all around etc.), the general attitude of the locals is very north american to me. they cheer, whoe and try to keep the enthusiasm up all the time. some time it seems so bloody artificial and forced that it is actually painful. i think i will expand that point a little bit later on this blog.

that is it for this time, i am running off for dinner!

the room b2053

hi there,

i have taken some pictures of my room. it's still quite raw, however today i plan to go to the ikea and buy some stuff to make it cozy. anyhow, check the pictures!

picture no. 1 - the mirror, the fridge, the drawers, the hangers and the door.

picture no. 2 - the desk area (the desk is quite long, so i get a place for laptop and study area at once), the shelves.

picture no.3 - the bed area.

picture no.4 - the fridge: inside. please notice 3 bottles of molson canadian on the top shelf and żubrówka bottle on the side of the door...

the room is not vast at all, but somewhat it's very cozy. i am loving it. i have bought most of the stuff i needed already, but still i am missing some. the bollocks is that the washrooms and toilets are on the corridor and i get to share them with the whole floor, which might cause queues to the showers. i have also met my community advisor. he's name is justin and is pure canadian (from victoria, vancouver island). quite a cool guy.

all right. tommorow is the real move-in date, so i guess there will be bunch of people coming. i am quite exciting, though i will probably not be able to memorize all the names. i am so bad at that! anyhow. i shall go to sleep now. need to get up early.

on burnaby campus - new home, new address, new people

so i moved out of masoud's flat leaving daina behind. no, it wasn't the fact i didn't like it. quite opposite - i loved it. originally i was supposed to move in to the campus residence on 29th august and i was fully prepared for that. however, yesterday i went out together with bartek and we had a pint of beer each towntown. we talked a lot about how it is to study at sfu, how to make the transition smooth etc. then he told me that he heard the early, early move-ins possible. i was right up to check it out, cause, believe me, it is hard to live on your backpack in a stranger's flat. the guy at sfu told me he was ready to check me in. i was really happy as i felt a bit limited and isolated in masoud's flat. i packed my stuff up and i took the millenium line of sky train to the production road station and then further bus no. 145 all the way to sfu, burnaby campus.

and i am here in the residence hall called "tower b", room 53 sitting and writing this entry. quite improbable that a week ago i was still in gliwice drinking beer for not more than a dollar... anyway. the room is not big, but the space is smartly solved, so it seems spacious. i have everything i need, really. a desk, a chair, two massive drawers, a shelf, a hanger, a bed with a mattress and... a fridge. yes, i have got it equipped with a six-pack of molson canadian (which is quite a brand here) and obligatory with polish żubrówka i have already written about. the showers and washrooms are on the corridor. each floor of this residence has got a common room with a microwave, tvset and a sink. downstairs we have laudry facilities. evrything one needs, really.

the new address is as follows, so please write me a lot, i repeat, a LOT:

Grzegorz Wieclaw
Tower B, Room B2053
8888 University Drive
Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6
CANADA

i am meeting a lot of new people. that's quite understandable. mostly international exchange students. from all over. i feel like in the uwc again. my former gang at uwc might be interested in jamie who comes from the west staines (no kidding). respect for that jamie. others are cool as well. today we bought massive amounts of beer and pizza and we just sat in front of the residence houses and consumed it. it was awesome. just talking crap, talking deep stuff. teaching people how to pronounce my name. yes, that's always fun. apart from that me and jamie, the guy from west staines massive, made a deal we'll never start calling football soccer. that's just the way it has to be. there's many of swedes too. one dane. when i told them: "skål for helvette!" they all bursted out laughing. and telling the story about uwc is quite improbable and complicated. i quited around midnight. i am still having a jetlag, can't get used to the time zone. whateva. tommorow i am going to the ikea again with a bunch of people to get like other things i need - a lamp, some mugs and perhaps one more set of linens.

for now i say "goodnight" to everyone around here and "good morning" to the europeans...

vancouver - first day, first impressions

i landed in vancouver international airport on 2.34 pm. or something around that. daina, eve (a girl who i met on the shuttle bus from ibis hotel) and i got out of a 12-hour plane journey quite worn out. we had to go through the passport control (standard), immigration office (to get a sudy permit) and customs (it was the first time i declared what i had. funny, ain't it?)

having gone through all that terrible beaurocracy process i called bartek (a polish dude studying at sfu who helped us to find a place to stay) who told me to get a taxi and get to masoud's flat. masoud is from iran and also studies at sfu. masoud lives at 12th avenue 1829 east. if that tells you anything. it is a very messy, but quite charming flat. it's got a fire place, many weird posters on the walls (example? pulp fiction, the simpsons, cartoons of bob marley and bruce lee, a mixology periodic table...) and many strange objects thrown here or there, you would think of as garbage.

masoud himself is very helpful and hospitable. even though he didn't know we were coming he welcomed us laughing that he was used to having unexpectable guests all the time. it looks like it, honestly speaking. there's like a massive empty-alcoholbottle exhibition on every single shelf in the living room. he even had bottles of wyborowa and luksusowa. cool.

there are two other guys living in the flat. brant, a canadian dude who is working as a carpenter and pasha. for those couple of nights before i move into the residence hall i stay in pasha's room. he's away with his host family.

i have been here one full day now. i should sum up what's happened so far and what sort of thoughts are going through my head. do i like it? or perhaps i think it's complete crap? well, neither of those yet, really. but have a read through these:

1) the downtown. enormous, overwhelming, impersonal and very north american. i strolled down the main streets of vancouver, checked out the observation deck and had a starbucks coffee (good, but not fantastic. i really don't know what people see in that brand). anyway, from my point of view it was impressive, but not amusing. just different, starange, you know what i mean. those buildings really make you feel so goddamn small and insignificant, as daina smarlty noticed. that is why europe rocks. it's got a charm. and history. nevertheless, i haven't come here for the sake of architecture, have i?

2) the measures. pounds instead of kilograms, farenheits instead of celcius, miles instead of kilometers, ounces or gallons instead of liters and dollars instead of polish złoty. terrible. hopefully i will get used to all that...

3) shopping. i hate shopping, but sometimes i have to do this painful activity. apparently the residence house doesn't provide things like pillows, duvets and linens. weird, but i said "ok, let's go and shop the mentioned". at 'ed's linens' i got a pillow, duvet and towel and at ikea (god bless the swedes!) i bought sheet and linens. wikid, ha? the pain in the neck is my credit card which does not want to work in here. i have to check that with my bank back in poland, so i am not cashless anymore. another annoying thing is the tax. the price you see on the label is not the actual price. i mean, it does contain some sort of tax, but not a province tax. i am not sure about terminology. so to the price you see, you usually have to add around 15%, which isn't nothing. i still hate shopping, though there're so many shops around here.

4) clubbing and nightlife. i am not a club person. fuck no! but masoud invited me and daina to go to a house club. no, masoud doesn't particularly enjoy the house music either. it was just that a friend of his was djing, so he needed to go. out of courtesy. the club was called "lotus" and was terrible musicwise. even though i had couple of shots of vodka and had quite a good mood for a party, i could not stand the beat: bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, tututu, bum, bum, bum... one indeed needs to be on speed to enjoy this sort of 'music'. i also realised that the effect of "lotus" club was much worse than alcohol. in the morning i got sober, but: bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, tututu, bum, bum, bum... still sounded in my head and, what was worse, didn't want to go out. god bless iron maiden.

5) the canadians. half of the canadians i see on the street are chinese, or from the far east. further quater are bums or hindi. the rest are white people. but those are mostly in big, expensive cars. i can't say a bad word about canadians so far. they're so polite, nice and positive somewhat. however, bartek says that this politeness and neatness is very... how did he phrase it? superficial and shallow. well, time will tell if i agree with his statement.

so far so good.

my move-in date to the residence is 29th august, so i still have two days of wandering around the city. i am getting used to it, honestly. i am also getting knowledgeable about vancouver. i know how to travel around, how do the tickets work, where not to go after midnight (yes, even here there are places like that), what's the average price of beer in the pub (~5$) etc. etc. i learn the names of districts, streets, bus-stops. it's fun to get to know a new environment.

stop: london gatwick

(written on 23rd August)

"oh shit!" it was raining with cats and dogs this morning while my mum was coregously driving through the only real highway we have in poland (connecting wrocław and kraków). ironically, even this one is permamently under construction. the poles are somewhat not able to build roads. so remember, never hire a pole to build your road. but this is a different issue. the worthwhile thing of that journey was the car in front, which of us suddenly broke on a slippery surface, turned around and on its full speed smashed into the fence. we stopped, but the driver (rather embarassed than hurt) told us he was all right. hoping for the limit of accidents to be over for today, we drove on...

"what? bloody 20 kilos and no handluggage!?" now, is it called security or ripping the poor students off? i could not afford paying more than a hundred dollars just for the overweight. so i went to the british airways office. i smiled and explained my situation. i got kicked out. then i went there again. the attendant, though remained cold, started questioning my case, asked for the university papers etc. then i went to the office for the third time. this time with a rose. a juicy red rose. that must have worked. the woman finally agreed. "you won't pay" she said. "but never do that again" when i gave her that rose she even smiled. for a moment. anyhow, i got away with 40 kg of luggage. paying nothing!

"push the button and wait for signal opposite" funny? no. british. that is what one is supposed to do in order to safely proceed through the pedestrian crossing. well, at least here where i am currently, in the tiny but beautiful town of crawley. i have taken a walk from ibis hotel (tm) to the queen square, which is practically the center of crawley. narrow old streets, peaceful atmosphere, fish&chips in all the bars around - just like in my first english book. practically i did nothing there. i ate pizza handmade by a whole pakistani family, had a look around and bought some good old guiness for today's champions league qualification game ajax vs. fc copenhagen. yes, i smuggled it into the hotel room. room number 221. every staff member i met in this hotel is eastern european, so they understand. ;-) although i had good time there, i haven't seen a british who actually pressed the button...

oh, before watching the game one more thing i'd like to touch upon. the left-hand driving thing. the british and only british thing. well, fuck the fact that i got almost driven by a bicycle on a pavement, just because i was strolling on its right side. fuck the fact that i was running through each pedestrian crossing, afraid that i was watching the wrong way. fuck the thing that it seems completely unnatural. what concerned me is how the heck did the briritsh convince the continetal europeans' car companies like bmw, volksvagen, skoda, seat, volvo to produce such a mistaken cars with a driving wheel on the right side. what made me confused was how did they manage to convince the americans (chevrolet, ford etc.) what stroke me down completely was how did they convince citroen, peugot and renault to do the same thing. buissness? yeah. yeah?

tommorow i shall meet daina at south terminal at 8:00 am. no worries, i have changed the time.

a night before leaving home

holy crap! it has actually come. it has quite happening. i am leaving tommorow morning to start my university life in vancouver. holy crap!

ok, no panic grzesiek, no panic. it's going to be all right. those big iron birds are there to transport you safely and quickly. or shall i say quickly and safely? brrr... anyways, the luggage restrictions piss me off so far. i hope they'll let me take the laptop on board. apart from the small laptop suitcase i have a massive backpack, which certainly exceeds the weight limit. i pray for nice, blond women at the check-in, so i can get my way through (as i always do!) without wasting cash.

everything else is quite ready and more less arranged. i said goodbye to all my friends, grandfathers, grandmothers, great grandmother (well, that was at funeral, unfortunatelly), little sister, father and mother. no pain, really. melancholy (as i expected), though my crave for the unknown still wins. i am looking forward to leaving.

so what is the plan? i shall explain: tommorow, early morning my mum is driving me to the kraków airport and around 11:00 am i am supposed to depart. then i am sleeping over one night at london gatwick airport (ibis hotel - i have already booked a place, trustfully it's not some british sort of shithole for which you pay a lot of pounds). on 24th at 8:00 am i hope to meet daina zvidra (a latvian girl from rcnuwc) in the hall of the south terminal. we pick up the tickets and we check in and then... we fly away. over the ocean. for the very first time.

i will try to report from london gatwick.

goodbye poland.
goodbye cheap beer.
goodbye beautiful women.

i shall be back, though.

soon.

six days to go

well, well, well... i have started the preparation process. that means i have started buying the essentials. yesterday i went to the tabak shop and bought some proper polish snuf and a pack of vanilla cigarillos. the latter for some special occasion, not that i have become a smoker. today i bought a 500 ml bottle of delicious polish żubrówka. [for those who don't know what żubrówka is i send to wikipedia.org or to poleo who is probably getting drunk with this stuff right now] those who know me well enough would ask: "why only 500 ml?" no worries. i am not becoming an absteiner. there's actually a different reason behind it. first of all, i have a very limited luggage weight, so i (after all) prioritze cloths, books etc. second of all, the customs are extra-aware of all the things you bring with you, because of the detailed controls. yeah, but 500 ml should be fine. the rest of the shopping is not worth mentioning. however, if anyone terribly wanted to hear the story about a new pair of trousers i bought a week ago, please contact me via e-mail.

moving on to the spirtual things. i have visited my grandparents and started saying 'goodbye' to my friends around here. well, there aren't many, but still they are. i wonder how the things will change after a year, two years in vancouver. i don't belong to gliwice any more, at least i don't feel any sort of attachment. i am 'outrooted'. hence i am looking forward to the new challenges of sfu. i am looking forwad to meet new people, see different places, be an explorer again. so 'goodbye' will not be painful. only a little bit melancholic...

psychology

yes. i have enrolled in the psychology course (intro psychology I). this course finally closes the list of subjects, i have undertaken in my first-year-first-term of studies. even though the lectures and lab are in the afteroons or evenings i am so elated that after all i have got all, i repeat all, the courses i wanted. as for a latecomer, quite awesome.

now, keep also in mind that it was the last place i enrolled in and the circumstances were pretty random. i logged on go.sfu.ca just for the sake of checking the class schedule. i did that and then i thought: "oh, perhaps in should go and see wheather the psychology has opened" as you know, it has...

i don't really believe in coincidences; some things are just designed for us. i think this is what am i going to do in life, treat people from their own craziness. and the world IS going crazy, don't you think? turn on the news then...

better late than... later

i have finally made up my mind and enrolled in 4 courses. well, i obviously did not get everything i wanted, because my stupid head thought: "oh yeah? i am a scholar, so i would always get what i want". the time passed by and suddenly (i.e. yesterday) i woke up and checked the enrollment status. my preferable classes (psychology) were all closed. "shit!" i got quite emotional and tried to take the opportunity and make up my schedule in the most interesting way i could.

so i take spanish ab initio, because since i started the junior high school i wanted to learn that language, but there was no such opportunity. to get some latino friends (and free conversations...) i take latin american history (1490-1810). that continent, those people and their culture has intrigued me a lot. therefore i decided to leanr more. why not? the third course is philosophy: knowledge and reality. that also for fun and out of interest which i had never had chance to fullfil. additionally that course covers some sort of writing requirment, which (obviously) i am not bothered about yet. the last course is intro to communications.

although i have enough numbers of credit now to be considered a full-time student on an entrance scholarship, i think i should take one more course to make the second term easier. i shall see what can i take. all the free courses now are either afternoon course or science/math courses (yeah, who the heck takes math on the university level!?)

so after all i believe there is some angel watching me. she is for certain. it didn't turn out as bad as one could expected. i am interested in everything i am taking and by the time i am writing this post all of the mentioned courses are closed. not bad, i tell you. there must be an angel involved...

gwa1@sfu.ca

well, well, well... i have got the access to mysfu and sfu's webmail. wicked! everyone should be proud of me. now the new e-mail (provided by the university, ha!) goes like this:

gwa1@sfu.ca

much ado about visa

i hate bureaucracy, i hate frustrated officers who hate their jobs, and i hate waiting whenever i have no clue what am i waiting for. this is the system, though. i have nothing else to choose than playing according to its rules (at least if i plan to get what i want out of it...).

yesterday i went to warszawa in order to make my stay in canada legal, i.e. i went to get a study permit. well, actually i went to buy it. there was no sale, so i had to pay a full rate for such a permit - 125$. horrendous price for such a gloomy and unhelpful service.

anyway, the timeline looks approximately like that:

• 8:15 - i take my place in the queue in front of canadian embassy at piekna st. 2
• 10:00 - the security checks my backpack if i don't have any weapons
• 10:20 - i am kindly allowed in
• 11:00 - my papers are recieved by a cold officer who probably has never smiled
• 12:00 - i pay the fee of 125$

then i waste two hours sitting in the embassy waiting and waiting until they announce a lunchbreak and kick everyone out of the building.

i am pissed at the officers, cause they do not inform the people that the visas will be available after 14:00. anyhow, i come back to the embassy, i get the letter, which has approved my application and a beautiful sticker-like visa in my passport. actually, it is the first input in my passport since we joined EU!

happy end: i have the study permit for two years. now i can just fly to vancouver...