Some news from Plock

Dzien dobry my friends ;o) It's been a while since the last post and so many things have happened... We'd like to update you with some of our doings at school. So first of all we made a small change in the participants of the project on our side. This was entirely my decision as a teacher and supervisor of the project and it should have been made a long time ago. Namely I decided to change five students who took part in the project and take five different students from a younger class (2A) to replace the old ones. So this caused the change in pen pals couples. From now on the new penpalling couples will be: Weronika and Riccardo, Paulina and Andrea, Dorota and Davide, Magda and Michele and finally Ewa and Daniele. Hope these students will get to know each other soon and the cooperation will continue as smoothly as always. The next important thing was the Carnival Ball for the third year students which was organized both by the students of the last year of gimnazjum and their parents. It looks like a small prom... a time for dancing and having fun with all of the classmates. It takes place always half a year before they all graduate from gimnazjum and each of them starts walking on his or her own path of life. Unfortunately life is brutal enough and I couldn't go and see my third years on the ball but they did mail me over some pictures that you can see on the slide. In my humble opinion they all looked great and I must say that it truly touched me to see them wearing these fancy clothes, make ups, high-heels (just the girls fortunately hihih ;o)) and guys in suits - all posh and so grown-up... and just imagine that when we met each other three years ago they all looked like kids... times goes so fast (sigh). This is the slideshow with some pictures from the ball...

Probably I shouldn't say this openly but I do really like these kids and I must say that noone really thinks of this side of teachers' work... some of us truly like their jobs and their students and it is so hard to say goodbye to them sometimes. This year will be hard for me too. I'll be saying goodbye to four groups of 3rd years. I am pretty sure they feel happy to start something fresh and new which will lead them to adulthood but saying goodbye to their own schoolmates and some of their teachers won't be easy for them too. So this is exactly the period we're getting into... the last couple of months of school for most of my students and for most of these who take part in this project. It won't be easy as all of them will fight to prepare the best for the final exams that they take at the end of April (so just a month from now!!!). We are in the middle of the 'hottest' period at school for those students who graduate. Two important events have just happened...namely the 'small prom' and a preparatory exam which the 3rd years took on the 23rd and 24th of February. Most of the students who take part in our project had to write this exam last week. The exam was applied mainly to show them all the procedures of the REAL exam that they will take in April and to let them check their knowledge both in humanistic and scientific subjects. The exam cosists of two papers which they write in two following days. On the first day they pass the humanistic part of the exam which is a test containing elements of knowledge of the Polish language and literature, History, Art, Music and knowledge of the country's political system and government etc, the second part is the scientific one which containts elements of Maths, Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry, Biology and Geography. The students had the preparatory exam which looks similar to the main one in April and they all said that the humanistic part was far easier than the scientific one... Now what they have ahead is learning, learning and learning as those who want to be admitted to the best high schools in Plock not only need to have a high level of points from the final exam, but also very good final marks. In Poland all high schools, while recruiting the students for the 1st year, take into account both the marks from the final exam and the marks from a couple of subjects... for instance the highest level of points from the exam to achieve is 100, then they can get e.g. 10 points if they have '5' as their final mark in Polish, 8 points if they have '4' as their final mark and so on and on... And each high school sets a different level of points that the student needs to have to be addmited to this school. In Plock students mostly want to be admitted to three high schools: Malachowski High School, then Jagiello High School or Maria Dąbrowska High School also known as the 3rd High School. If you go to the bottom of our blog you'll find all the websites of these schools. These are the three most popular high schools in our city. There are a couple of more to choose from but majority of students decide between these three. I personally graduated from Malachowski High School some years ago and I have to say that these were the best years of my life ;o) Each of these high schools has an unique atmosphere and although there has been a quiet rivarly among these schools for many years now, the students like each other any way - no matter which school they choose the bonds they made in Gimnazjum is a strong one and often keeps them together. Many students who were in one class of Gimnazjum end up in the same class of high school. Hopefully they won't forget the teachers who guided them all through the three years of Gimnazjum ;o) And as far as our project is concerned I hope to push it a little bit further soon. Last week we have completed point B1 of our project namely "Introducing Italy and Poland". My students have prepared many presentations of different regions of Poland which are worth seeing when you visit our country. I will try to post some of these presentations here soon. Now we entered the next point of the project and my students are currently working on preparing the presentations of Polish cuisine and fashion. One group (3B) has just started to prepare a Fashion Show which will be recorded on a video camera and sent to you at the beginning of April (I hope ;o)) and the second group (3S) is working on presenting Polish cuisine - they were assigned into groups and they will meet at home and record for you a Cooking Programme ... they will show you step by step how to cook or bake some easy Polish declicacies... So that's the plan for now... we shall see how fast we can make it as the students have plenty of other responsibilities at school and the exam to think of. But surely we will try to do the best we can ;o) One more thing... I have created an online calendar of my school so you can check it up and see what both the teachers and the students of Gimnazjum no 8 are up to during the second term of 2006/2007 school year. I also added the National Holidays and days off for the students and so on... You will find the link to the calendar at the bottom of our blog ;o) Soon I will be adding the events from the school life of students who take part in the projects... like their tests and classworks and other importants things they would like to share so keep your eyes wide open ;o) That would be all for now folks ;o) hope to hear from you soon and greetings from Poland...

Finally back...on the Carnival season ;o)

Carnival dance wooooo hooooo ;o)))))

Hey there our Italian pals ;o) After some period of silence on our part we finally pulled ourselves together and are ready to go on with the relationship!!! Frist of all thanks a lot for the lovely classroom calendar you made for us!!! It'll be placed in our classroom right after winter break... The break lasts from January 26th till February 12th and believe us - both the teachers and students are equally happy to be out of school for some time ;o) Especially now that winer has finally come to Poland and we have some snow and great sledging and skiing weather. The winter break traditionally lasts for two weeks and it's the official time off school that we have between two terms of the school year. On Feb 12 the so called 'summer term' starts which will last until June 22nd - and then the summer vacation rolls on ;o) woooo hoooo - still half a year to go but we cannot wait!!! ;o) So right after the New Year's Eve that we lived through safe and sound we entered the fun season of Carnival here and everyone gets ready to rumble ;o) In Poland the Carnival season isn't celebrated in such a festive way as in Rio de Janeiro but we like to throw parties here and there too.... There are many balls and functions organized here then and people have lots of fun on parties in privacy of their homes too. The Carnival Season is a holiday period here during the two weeks before the traditional Christian fasting or Lent. Here are some facts about Carnival I digged out on some websites: the origin of the name "Carnival" is unclear. The most common theory is that the name comes from the Italian carne- or carnovale, from Latin carnem (meat) + levare (lighten or raise), literally "to remove the meat" or "stop eating meat". It has also been claimed that it comes from the Latin words caro (meat) and vale (farewell), hence "farewell to meat" or "farewell to the flesh", letting go of the earthly or bodily self). Another theory states that it originates from the Latin 'carrus navalis', which was a Greek cart carrying a statue of a god in a religious procession at the annual festivities in honor of the god Apollo. Most commonly the season began on Septuagesima, the third from the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday, but in some places it started as early as Twelfth Night, continuing until Lent. This period of celebration and partying had its origin in the need to use up all remaining meat and animal products such as eggs and butter before the fasting season. The celebration of Carnival ends on "Mardi Gras" (French for "Fat Tuesday", meaning Shrove Tuesday), the day before Ash Wednesday, when the rigors of Lent's 40 days of fasting and sacrifice begin. It sometimes lasts until Piñata Weekend, the first Saturday and Sunday of Lent. In the old days it was a period of active socializing in Poland. During the carnival, entertainment included hunting, weddings, balls and masquerades. Not only gentry, but the city and village common folk enjoyed themselves during carnival. The company not only ate, drank and danced, but also sang songs, sometimes with quite frivolous lyrics. There were no special carnival delicacies. Only among cakes there were carnival faworki (chruscik) and great amounts of pączki (doughnuts) are still consumed throughout the country on the last Thursday (so-called “Fat Thursday”) of the carnival - you can see the picture of both faworki and pączki just right here on the right. In the villages the young farmhands went around with a wooden cock on a cart, obtaining cheese, butter, bacon, kielbasa and eggs from the girls. In the end they organized a merry feast from the collected food, along with drinks. Carnival came to an end on Ash Wednesday. All good food was forsaken and żur (sour soup made from white borsch) and herring were eaten instead. In Poland the traditional way of celebrating the Carnival is kulig, a horse-drawn sleigh ride through the snow-covered countryside (picture on the left). The Tuesday before Lent begins is also a holiday called Ostatki, which is translated as the "lasts," meaning the last day to party before the Lenten season. So this is just a litle bit of what we have ahead here... we're so happy to have the snow and a little bit of winter as the rain and wind can drive everyone mad if it's too much of it ;o) I've just looked outside and it's snowing beautifully again!!! Time for some sleighride down the slopes my friends!!! So I am off for now and hope to post something new in the nearest future ;o) Happy Carnival time anyway there and hugs too all ... some more danicing now ...nothing better than Jacskon moves ;o)

Hi Friends! Hi everybody is following our exciting adventure on this blog.
The 2 Bs has started the new year sending its Polish e-pals a calendar with jokes.

Here's a sample of jokes dealing with "school" of course:

A little girl was playing in the park when an old lady started to talk to her: “And do you go to school?”
“No!” was the angry answer “I’m sent!”


Teacher: “Jake, what do you know about the Dead Sea?”
Student: “I didn’t even know it was ill, sir! ”


Dad: “Did you get a good place in the exam, Julie?”
Julie: “ Yes, dad, next to the radiator.”


“Jill, what do you know about Good Friday?” “He did the housework for Robinson Crusoe.”

Tables and jokes by Fabiola Giacon, Claudia Cairoli, Emma Rognoni, Alessia Villa

Drawings by Melissa Vago 3 Bs, our guest artist!!