On the Perils of Job-Hunting, or, My Day as a Marketer

About a year ago, I started my hunt for a job in the Boston area.  My parents had convinced me that if I didn’t start looking for a job months ahead of everybody else, I’d never be able to get one.  I had taught ESL (English as a Second Language) for three years in Poland, and prior to that had had part-time jobs working in my university art gallery and for an arts festival in my hometown.  It hadn’t been too easy to find jobs in Poland when I first moved there, because I was young (only 21, but I was told I looked even younger) and had no real work experience.  I figured this time around it would be a breeze.  I knew Boston was full of young people looking for jobs, but now I had three years’ teaching experience under my belt, plus a Master’s in English from an excellent school.  I dutifully sent out my resume and cover letter to a few charter schools in the Boston area.  I got to go visit Boston Collegiate Charter, a wonderful school, and did an interview.  I patiently waited, convinced I would get a response.  After about a month later, I was forced to acknowledge that even with my Master’s degree, I wasn’t quite appealing enough for these schools. 

I began hunting for more schools to which to apply.  I emphasized my years of experience with a variety of age groups, and talked about my passion for English.  I mentioned my high school mentor, Dr. Torrance, who inspired me to want to study English.  I explained that with my twelve years of intensive piano classes, I would be happy to help start an after-school music program.  And yet, despite claiming that they only wanted teachers who had passion for their subject—a year of teaching experience was only a plus and a Master’s was not necessary, although it was preferred—most schools did not consider me worthy of so much as a response.  Of the 90+ schools to which I applied, only six ever wrote back to say they’d either received my information or had decided to go with another candidate.  Needless to say, I pretty quickly began to feel bitter and discouraged.  I began applying for jobs I knew I’d never be good at—receptionist positions in small offices, administrative ones in larger companies, even personal assistant jobs for business directors.  Of course, my lack of enthusiasm (and relevant experience) was probably very clear, and the majority of those places never wrote back, either.

I decided I was aiming too high. After all, was a Master’s really useful?  Did it really make me qualified for anything?  In fact, was my Bachelor’s even particularly necessary? 

I started applying for different kinds of jobs.  Dunkin’ Donuts, Bruegger’s Bagels, Friendly’s Diner, you name it.  Domino’s was looking for drivers, and I had an excellent driving record, but they decided to go with a high school student who inexplicably had more driving experience.  Barnes and Noble seemed like it would be a good fit—I love books, after all—but I was sent a kind rejection that said I didn’t seem to have enough “book experience.” 

Finally, one bright May morning, I finally got a response that sounded promising. A marketing agency in Waltham was looking for new people to hire.  I looked at their site, and they had glowing reviews from both clients and employees, and had even been named one of the top places to work in Boston.

Now, frankly, I had (and have) no interest in marketing.  I appreciate that it’s an important job.  But between doing marketing and being a math teacher, I’d probably pick math teacher, even though I can barely add.  At this point, however, I was desperate.  I didn’t feel like I had a lot of options.  I managed to convince myself that maybe I’d actually enjoy doing marketing for a year or two.  After all, a lot of it has to do with psychology, and being good with words is probably an asset, and heck, maybe even my art history degree would be put to use.  I started to feel excited.  I had visions of myself in power suits, speaking to rooms full of business people, all hanging on to catch my every word.

I woke up the day of my interview prepared to go sell myself as a would-be marketer.  I put on my nicest professional-looking clothes and my brightest smile.  My dad drove me to Waltham and stayed calm in spite of the bad traffic.  I walked into the small office and was a bit alarmed to see how much more business-like all the other interviewees looked.  But I told myself to relax.  Obviously, they’d found something worthwhile in my resume, or they wouldn’t have called me.

I went in for my individual interview.  The director was pretty young and friendly.  He didn’t seem perturbed by my humanities background.  When he asked me to rank the following in order of least important to most important in a work environment—I said “Growth, fun, and money”—I saw him grin and write something down.  Our interview was over.   

I went home, certain I wouldn’t be called back, but proud of myself for thinking outside the box and at least getting an interview.

But I was wrong.  Later that day I received a voicemail, inviting me for a follow-up interview.  The ten “most promising” candidates had been invited back, and we would be shadowing some of the company’s most successful marketers.  My excitement came back.

Again, I woke up early.  Dressed up and ate a big breakfast and packed myself a lunch.  Again, my dad drove me to Waltham and wished me luck.  I went excitedly in to the room of nine suit-wearing males.  I thought that being the only female in the room meant I was extra-impressive.  I was assigned my marketer to follow, a young guy in a suit that was way too baggy for him.  He was also in the process of training another would-be employee.  He didn’t make the greatest impression on me—anyone who chuckles when I say I got a Master’s in English generally gets on my bad side—but I was still optimistic.  I was going to convince this guy I would be a stellar marketer.  I started taking in the notes while he bragged about his success at the company.  If you’ve ever watched the American TV show “The Office,” think of Ryan after he gets promoted to corporate.  That’s what this guy was like, except shorter.  But it was going to be okay.  I was going to learn so much today!

We pulled into Cambridge and parked on the side of the road.  The guy had told me that Verizon was one of their biggest clients, so they were in charge of selling Verizon to other companies.  I was excited.  I was a bit surprised when he left his laptop in the car and didn’t take his briefcase, and it also seemed odd that we were walking along a tiny street in Cambridge, full of boutiques and bakeries, but appearances can be deceiving.

We walked into a 7-11 and I assumed he was stopping for water or coffee or something to give him an extra kick before he performed his pitch.  He went up to the cashier and said, “Excuse me, sir, I’m with ABC Marketing, and we wanted to know, are you happy with your internet provider?”

My heart sank. 

For the next hour, I followed the guy (and the trainee) while he went into all the stores along the street, asking if they liked their provider and if maybe they wouldn’t prefer to switch to Verizon.  In other words, I was essentially shadowing a telemarketer, except instead of using a phone, he was doing it in person. 

The lowest point came when we went into an old record store.  The owner looked like someone who had probably been at Woodstock, and he very angrily told the marketer that he had switched to Verizon and his cost had gone up.  My marketer obsequiously began apologizing profusely. 

I found myself wondering if the music store owner was looking for an assistant.

The final straw was when the trainee managed to whisper to me that you could earn big bucks at the company—if you could make a sale.  Otherwise, every hour you worked was unpaid.  I finally realized that it was my putting "money" last in terms of importance that resulted in my being called back.

We stopped for lunch at a little sandwich shop.  I ran across the street to Dunkin’ Donuts on the pretense of needing the bathroom and texted my dad that I didn’t think I could do this job.  And—in another example of how wonderful my dad is—he wrote back and told me to tell the guy I was done.  He would drive to Cambridge to get me.  Although my dad knew how desperately I wanted to find a job, he also understood that there were some jobs I wasn’t meant for. 

I went in and nervously told my marketer I wanted to quit the follow-up process.  He proceeded to tell me it was okay, he understood that some people weren’t willing to think outside the box and take risks.  I didn’t bother telling him that even applying for a marketing job was already taking a risk in my case.  He insisted on driving me back to Waltham (I was too embarrassed to admit my dad had driven me).  He spent the whole car ride talking about how much money he’d earned.  I got out in the parking garage and said I would go look for my car and thanked him for the opportunity.  They drove off.  I was left standing in the parking garage.  Worried they might come back and find me still standing there, I walked down to the Waltham Costco and sat on a rock outside the parking lot.  Instead of feeling chagrined at yet another failure, I felt oddly at peace.  Yes, finding a job was difficult, discouraging, and depressing.  But it was also a relief to realize that just because I was desperate, it didn’t mean I had to take just any job.  Ultimately, having a job I’d hate and would be terrible at wouldn’t really help in the long run.  Although I felt pretty sorry for myself, sitting there on that rock, I also realized that in a few hours, I’d probably find my one day as a wannabe marketer pretty hilarious.  

From that day on, I decided only to apply for jobs I realistically thought I could do.  I wrote to a few more schools, set up a nanny profile, and looked for international school positions.  I was still depressed and discouraged.  I still dealt with a lot of rejection (or worse, no response).  But eventually, in the same week, I was suddenly invited for three interview, two of them for ESL teachers.  Both ESL schools offered me jobs within 24 hours, and instead of having to take whatever was offered, I got to choose which offer I wanted to take.   And now I happily work at one of the top English language schools in the United States.  I have fantastic students, I get health insurance, and I work with other people who are interesting and intelligent.  I’m exasperated when I see articles about how lazy my generation is, and how unwilling to work hard we are, or when I hear people complain about how much they hate their jobs.  I’m a lot happier than I expected to be, this time last year, and I was willing to take just about any job.  The problem isn’t that my generation doesn’t want to work.  The problem is that there are so many of us who want to work that we outnumber the available jobs.  All our degrees and experience count for nothing when there just aren’t enough jobs.  At this point, though, I’m inclined to think that maybe eventually things will work out.  After all, I might have been knocking on your door asking you to switch to Verizon.  Instead, things worked out, and I’m doing something I’m a lot better at.

Happily teaching

The Best Pierogi in Krakow

I have a long-cherished memory of the first time I tried pierogi.  I say long-cherished because I have clung to this memory, as though it reveals some important detail from my past or explains the significance of my pierogi obsession.  It doesn’t.  And I’m even willing to acknowledge there is an excellent chance I’ve crafted this memory out of my imagination. Maybe it never happened.  Maybe I’d tried pierogi before this time.  Maybe I wouldn’t try them for many years yet. I suspect that many of our memories are woven together from hazy details, given a shape and meaning we ourselves inscribe onto them.  I think maybe this memory has become so important to me because when I was a child, we traveled a lot, and I didn't feel very stably American (or Polish).  Pierogi somehow became a point of consistency in my life.

Either way, I remember being in Olsztyn, the town near my mother’s hometown of Ostroda, and which my mother’s sister and aunt lived in.  It had been raining, which seemed to be common for Olsztyn in the summer (and was one of the reasons that, as a teenager, I dreaded the thought of going to Poland in the summer.  For a California girl, summer should mean dry heat and sun).  But at last the rain had stopped, even if the rain hadn’t stopped.  My Wujek Krzysztof (my uncle) and my father decided to take the three little girls (my cousin Natalia, my sister Magdalena, and me) into the Stare Miasto, possibly to get us out of our mothers’ hair.  At this point, I must have visited Olsztyn at least once or twice already, but while some things about the town seemed beautifully familiar, other things remained a surprise.  I was always excited when Wujek Krzysztof turned onto Ulica Lipowa (Linden Tree Street), and my sister and I would try to remember which red-roofed house was Ciocia and Wujek’s.  Walking down the steps that ran along the side of their house, we followed side paths (I think) and eventually came up to the small river, Rzeka Lyna, that runs through Olsztyn.  Compared to the Wisla, which runs through many of the main cities in Poland, the Lyna is very small and narrow.  But for all that it’s much lovelier.   Many parts of its winding path are lined with old, leaning trees, and even in the dead of winter you can find swans lazily floating by.  I remember thinking that Olsztyn was a beautiful city, and although I then didn’t visit it for quite a long time, the last few times I went back I was again struck by its small, picturesque beauty.

Rzeka Lyna in winter

Eventually, our walk led us to the Stare Miasto in Olsztyn.  Wujek or Natalia had a place in mind for us to go to, so we went in, and each of us ordered a plate of pierogi z miesem (pierogi with meat).  We sat at a big wooden table with wooden benches around it, under a big umbrella, right on the town square.  It was still overcast but no longer cold.  My father and uncle must have managed to communicate, probably through some translation (and interpretation) on the parts of my cousin, sister, and me.  Eventually, the pierogi arrived.  I don’t recall if there was anything spectacular about these particular pierogi—there probably wasn’t.  And there’s no real reason why I am so convinced that this was the first time I ever tried pierogi.  But I think of this as my first real pierogi experience, and from that point on, pierogi became one of the main things I associated with Poland.  

Each time we were getting ready to go to Poland in the summer, I would start dreaming of pierogi z miesem.  Within 24 hours of our arrival, I usually managed to get a plate in.  One year, my aunt confused the day we were arriving, and when we got into Warsaw, my uncle wasn’t there to meet us (keep in mind this was in the days before cell phones).  My parents were exhausted after traveling by overnight train from Italy with two little girls in tow, but I was ecstatic to eat pierogi in the grimy Warsaw train station and drink my orange Fanta.  I tried them everywhere we went.  There were some traditional Polish foods like barszcz that I refused to try, all for love of pierogi.  One summer my uncle’s sister, Pani Hania, made huge pierogi with blueberries (even the name--pierogi z jagodami--sounded magical).  Fruit pierogi are traditionally served with cream, which horrified me.  But my mother convinced Pani Hania to give me some just with sugar sprinkled on them, and then I devoured those, too.  My mother’s friend Lucyna once made pierogi with strawberries when we went to visit her, and at first the pink-tinted dumplings caused me some anxiety.  Eventually I overcame it.

Once we started going to Krakow, my quest became to find the best pierogi in town.  Krakow is a big city, and it was no easy feat.  Some places, like the chain restaurant Chlopskie Jadlo, clearly served frozen pierogi they’d bought in bulk and warmed up.  Other places, like the wonderful U Babci Maliny, experimented with different fillings and even baked their pierogi.  I’ll never know how she did it, but one day in the first year we were in Krakow, my mother found the best pierogi in Krakow.

If you walk down Dietla, one of the main streets in Krakow, eventually it will veer off and become Grzegorzecka.  Grzegorzecka is far enough from the center of town that its buildings haven’t been restored after World War Two and Communism.  They are sooty from factory pollution, imposing, and somewhat ominous.  If you walk down Grzegorzecka long enough, you’ll arrive at Rondo Grzegorzeckie, a roundabout, and from there it’s a straight path into Nowa Huta, the city that was a Communist pet project.  If you are walking somewhere with a purpose, as most people who walk down Grzegorzecka are, you’ll probably notice the occasional billboard or see a tram go by, but you’ll mostly remain undistracted.  If, however, you are simply wandering down this street, your eye may catch a dingy yellow sign that says “BAR POD 17, KUCHNIA DOMOWA” (this roughly translates to “Bar at 17, Homey Cooking).  If you decide to go into this place, your eyes will take a second to adjust to the dimness.  You’ll see a bare, tiled floor with about half a dozen little tables in the main room, and a low counter at the back of the room.  Behind this counter will sit a middle-aged man, with dark brown hair and a thick mustache.  He’ll greet you kindly and ask for your order.  He’ll pass on the message quickly to the three ladies in the kitchen.  He’ll tell you to sit anywhere you like, as though there were dozens of tables to choose from, although during the dinner hour, the place is so full of regulars who come in for their break, you might be hard-pressed to find a seat. 

Bar pod 17 decorated for Christmas

Within about ten minutes, he’ll bring you a plate of ten, beautifully-shaped, steaming pierogi.  And when you try them, you won’t be able to stop from scarfing down your plate.  The pierogi are very simple.  There’s no secret filling, no unusual way of preparing them.  If you get ruskie, they’re prepared with pureed potatoes, a bit of onion, and twarog, or farmers’ cheese.  The meat ones are just ground meat.  They’re boiled, then heated on low heat with a little butter and pork fat.  That’s it.  They are perfect.  They are exquisite.  They are delicious.  And if you love pierogi, you will probably go back there almost every day.  When you meet your future husband, you’ll convince him that these are the best pierogi in Krakow, and he’ll start going there, too.  Although his Polish is not too advanced, he’ll manage to communicate to the man that he is your boyfriend and he is there to pick up two portions of pierogi.  When your parents arrive in Krakow for a visit, you’ll go to the man as soon as the place opens, and after you explain why you need six portions of pierogi, he’ll ask his wife to bring you a jar with some of their pork fat so you can reheat them correctly.  Sometimes you’ll see him at the Farmers’ Market and he’ll nod, but even though you see each other most days out of the week, for three years, he’ll properly refer to you as Pani and you’ll address him respectfully as Pan.  When you go there for the last time before you leave Krakow for the States, you’ll thank him for feeding you for all these years, and he’ll shake your hand goodbye, and as you leave, you’ll burst into tears for the first time.

Bar pod 17

And even though you’ll learn to make pierogi on your own and will learn to enjoy the process, you’ll never, ever forget the secret little place on that gritty street, the place with the best pierogi in Krakow.

Making my own pierogi

The Best Dinner Guest: Jane Austen

When I was a kid, I never went anywhere without a book.  I was actually that kid who took a book to the playground, on field trips out of town, to the movie theater (just in case), to the bathroom, you name it.  I repeatedly got in trouble in third grade for hiding a book under my desk and reading it when I should have been learning fractions.  (This is probably why I still have trouble with fractions, even using a calculator).  Luckily, I had the kind of parents who applauded my love of books.  They were happy to give me an allowance, knowing it would be spent on books, and bought books that they thought I would like or read books out loud to my sister and me.  As I got older, I obviously learned there was a time and a place for reading, but books were never far out of reach.  My sister and I even took to reading over some meals, which my parents still refer to as "dinner reading."

Since high school, however, my reading frenzies have gone in phases.  When I was suffering from my first heartbreak in college, I stopped reading for a period of close to eight months.  My grades weren't that great at this time, either, but my parents were most concerned by my sudden disinterest in reading.  My father even, on driving me back for the winter quarter, bought me three books at the Bakersfield Borders as a special treat, in hopes of helping me get back to normal.  When I studied abroad a few months later and didn't have internet, I finally went back to reading anything and everything.

I haven't gone through another eight month break like that, but there have definitely been times when I haven't found myself absorbed by a book.  (Coincidentally, these seem to be times when I am either feeling down or overwhelmed, like this past fall, as I struggle to adjust to a full-time job and trying to keep our home afloat while my husband worked and studied full-time).

Today, however, I experienced a few moments of reading pleasure that took me back to my childhood.  I reached the climactic moment in my book on the bus coming home, right before my stop.  I contemplated staying on the bus until I finished the book, but the prospect of possibly getting lost when it was -6 Celsius (about 20 Fahrenheit) didn't seem too appealing.  Agonizing over what to do, I finally got off the bus, put my gloves on, opened my book back up, and walked home reading.  Having to keep an eye out for ice slowed me down a little, but I made it home and got to the end just as I stepped into the elevator.

Even Bluegrass seems intrigued

The book that held me so enthralled was Jane Austen's Persuasion.  It was the only book of hers I hadn't read.  I'm not sure why.  I read Sense and Sensibility when I was 11, Emma one summer vacation spent in Poland, Pride and Prejudice for a class, and Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park the summer before I started college.  Persuasion was the only one I never read. And to be honest, I had little interest in reading it.  My sister and I had once watched the film version, and all I remembered was that the main character was "old" and not that pretty and the story was sad.  I was also put off by how short it was in comparison to her other novels.  I worried that maybe Austen just hadn't cared enough about her own heroine to write her a full-length novel.  The other day, though, while I was wondering what to read after my Prus, I thought, why not give it a try?

And it proved to be another book I could hardly put down.  Now that I am myself no longer in the bloom of youth (at least not by Austen's standards), Anne Elliot's mature age of 27 doesn't bother me.  Although Austen was supposedly unable to edit Persuasion to the extent she did her other novels, in many ways it's a more tightly constructed narrative.  While there are secondary plots, each of them is, directly or indirectly, connected to the story of Anne and Wentworth.  And while Austen's digressions are always charming and entertaining, I didn't feel I missed the multiple secondary narratives.  The social commentary is also sharper than usual.  There is no complicated syntax that allows for multiple interpretations.  Whereas the ending of Northanger Abbey can be read as chastising either the parents or the flighty children, in Persuasion, the shallow characters like Elizabeth and Sir Walter are soundly and definitely punished.  Often in Austen's other works, only the truly villainous characters are not redeemed, while the comically vapid ones are made to look foolish but then let off the hook.  Not so in this last novel.  And in many ways, this is more satisfying.

As I was reading this book, I found myself wondering what it is about Jane Austen that makes her so appealing.  She is beloved by all kinds of readers, from those who generally avoid classic works, to those who live and die by dense postmodernist poetry.  She's basically the closest thing Regency England has to a bestseller.  She has her detractors, like all popular artists, but she remains adored by millions of readers.  Why?

I can't offer any new opinions about her enduring popularity.  But I have some thoughts on why I've loved her for fourteen years--unreservedly, unashamedly.  To begin with, all of her heroines, from Elizabeth Bennet to Fanny Price, are intelligent.  I was (as has probably been made clear) a huge nerd all throughout school, and I still think of myself as a nerdy bookworm.  To find so many smart girls the object of affection for dashing men like Mr. Darcy and and Captain Wentworth and even Mr. Willoughby was kind of a consolation for someone like me.  The mean girls are always punished and the social climbers are ridiculed.  But aside from these fairly trivial, personal reactions, Austen has written some of the funniest books ever published.  Her wry wit practically sparkles from page to page.  It's almost impossible to find a sentence that doesn't contain a laugh.  About how many other books can that be said?  Her language is precise and her complex syntax often sounds as though she's speaking to you directly from the page.  It's hard not to feel, after you've read one of her books, like you've somehow befriended Jane Austen.  There are hundreds of other authors I admire and books I've loved.  But if I could choose one person from history to invite over for dinner, I am pretty sure it would be Jane Austen.

Prus, The Doll, and the Internet

Studies have shown that regular internet access and usage have decreased our ability to concentrate for long periods of time.  Over the past few years, this inability to focus has become painfully clear.  If I sit down to watch a movie, I will inevitably get up to make myself some tea, check my e-mail, send a text message, play with my cats, or paint my nails.  It's not that I don't enjoy the movie--it's just there are so many other things I could also be doing.  Even better, there are things I can do while I'm watching a movie.  Multi-tasking!  That's what women are supposed to be good at, right?

However, there are more disturbing implications of this reliance on the internet.  I have students (young and older alike) who refuse to part with their phones.  Yesterday, an adult student openly checked his Facebook in front of me.  When I told him to put his phone away, he protested that he'd finished the exercise.  What did people do before smartphones?  They'd have looked through the book to review vocabulary or brush up on essay structure.  Not this student.  He was finished, and he wanted Facebook.

What has been even worse for me than the occasional distracted student has been my tendency to read shorter books because I know they won't take up as much time.  I read more than a dozen books over the fall, and while some were light fare (such as Mindy Kaling's entertaining book "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?"), others were legitimate literature, like Graham Greene's "The Human Factor."  One thing all the books had in common, however, was that they were comparatively short, i.e., under 350 pages.  There's certainly nothing wrong with reading short books, of course.  What I do think is a problem, however, is refusing to read longer books because they take up too much time.  And this was the trap into which I almost fell.  I almost missed reading one of the most incredible books I've ever come across, all because it was 705 pages.

Last year I tried to read Boleslaw Prus's The Doll on my mother's recommendation.  I got about 70 pages in and then decided I did not like it enough to lug it back and forth from the MLA conference.  This year, when I mentioned to my mom that I was considering trying to do a PhD in Comparative Literature/Slavic Literature, instead of English Literature, she told me I would need to be much better-read in Eastern European literature, and she again recommended The Doll.  Dutifully, I picked the book up again.  I started back at the beginning, and again found myself uninterested, and, moreover, working very hard to follow the chronology.  One day, I decided I would read for an hour more and if I still wasn't interested, I'd give the book up once and for all.  I didn't think I was ready for a 700-page commitment.

That day, after another chapter or two of exposition, I suddenly found myself thrust into the middle of Wokulski's tragic preoccupation with the icy Izabela.  And I couldn't stop reading.

Boleslaw Prus is considered (by many people better-versed than I) to be the master of Polish realism, and his style has been compared to Balzac's, while his all-encompassing view of Warsaw society in the 1870s is considered as skillful as Tolstoy's in Anna Karenina.  High praise for a book that too few readers have heard of.  Part of what I find fascinating about Prus's novel is that he presents characters that manage to be interesting without being idealized.  While I loved Anna Karenina, I didn't particularly care for Anna Karenina herself.  I knew I should admire her for her refusal to be conventional and her desperate unwillingness to give up on love, but I despised her for abandoning her son, and I thought Vronsky seemed hardly likely to inspire such passion.  (Lest my facetious tone be misunderstood, I did love the novel, and absolutely consider it one of the four or five greatest works ever written). In The Doll, Wokulski falls in love with the beautiful Izabela without even knowing her.  She, in turn, is shallow and selfish.  And yet I continually found myself hoping that each of them would somehow have a happy ending.  What makes both Wokulski and Izabela--neither of them particularly prototypical protagonists--so fascinating is how painfully a product of their sociohistorical context they are.  Wokulski has worked his way up the social ladder by making millions in trade with Russian merchants (and, according to several characters in the book, has betrayed his country by not trying to trade within it), but he never quite becomes a part of the highest circles.  In one impassioned speech, he tells the useless Prince:  "Mr Starski, who never did anything and got his money Heaven knows where, stood ten storeys higher than I in your estimation.  What am I saying?  Any foreign vagabond could get into your drawing-rooms, which I had to conquer with fifteen per cent interest on the capital entrusted to me.  It is these people, not I who had your respect.  Bah!  They even had far wider-reaching privileges...Although each of these respected men is worth less than the doorman in my store, for he does something, and at least doesn't infect the community" (624).  Izabela may be unkind and selfish, but likewise, she was born into an inescapable ideology, which, in her case, values beautiful women with sizable dowries.  Her father's bankruptcy leaves her few choices, as most of her suitors abandon her.  Even Wokulski, who is willing to do almost anything for her, falls in love with her at a distance because of her beauty, and then is disappointed to discover the angelic face masks a contemptuous soul.  In a conversation with the spirited widow Mrs. Wasowska, Wokulski agrees that women like Izabela "were brought up in a certain sphere of society and in a given epoch, and amidst certain notions.  They're like a rash, which isn't a disease, but is a symptom of sickness in society" (634).  What makes The Doll even bleaker than Anna Karenina is that in the end, neither of the two principal characters uses suicide as a means of escaping an unjust world.  Instead, they remain constrained and unhappy.

Even more wonderful than the tragic story of Wokulski and Izabela, however, is the portrait of Warsaw society as a whole.  Each of the minor characters is beautifully detailed, and no character is left without a personality.  There is the old clerk, Rzecki, who worships Napoleon (all the Napoleons), and is fascinated with politics, or P, as he surreptitiously refers to the subject in his journal.  The Baroness Krzeszowska is the closest thing to a villain the novel has, and she manages to be realistically horrible while also being buffoonish.  Her battles with the socialist students who repeatedly drop herring on her head when she pokes it out the window are endlessly riotous, and her persecution of the poor Mrs. Stawksa causes some genuinely anxious moments.  The Baron's ridiculous duel with Wokulski and the increasing economic success of Szlangbaum also provide clear pictures of this world in which Wokulski and Izabela find themselves trapped.

After I finished the book, I realized how silly it would have been not to read this book just because it was long.  When I was younger, it seemed perfectly normal for a book to spend some time providing background.  But nowadays, we all want instant gratification.  If a book isn't captivating by the end of the first page, it's not worth our time.  No wonder so many young authors find themselves drawn to writing memoirs about drug addiction or outlandish murder stories.  They know they have only seconds to get their reader's attention and keep it.  After I read the first paragraph of Gillian Flynn's Dark Places, in which she manages to drop the words "blood," "murders," and "dead sisters," I couldn't imagine putting the book down.  And it was an entertaining read, all right.  But it was no Prus.  And yet I almost gave up on this classic, because it took a few chapters to get to the real meat of the story.

Are we destined, eventually, to stop reading the greatest works of literature, all because they're long and slow and meandering?  I hope not.

New Year's Resolutions: Eating

One of my resolutions for 2014 was to eat more healthily.  It's involved a little more planning, but aside from yesterday--where after four hours of sleep and freezing temperatures, fish sticks and fries were all I wanted--I've actually managed pretty well, and have even tried out some new recipes.

Homemade burgers with avocado and simple salad

Chicken paillards with roast squash, sauteed spinach, and caramelized onions, plus rice on the side

Very simple chicken salad--chicken, avocado, feta, cucumber, and lettuce

Salmon, potato salad, and tzatziki sauce

Dzialki and Smoked Fish

When I visited my mother's aunt and uncle, my Ciocia Jagoda and Wujek Zenek, they took me to their dzialka.  A dzialka is commonly translated into English as an allotment garden.  For people who live in city apartments, dzialki are small gardens with tiny houses attached, which allow city-dwellers the freedom to garden and relax.  Ciocia and Wujek's dzialka was just a few minutes away from their small apartment near the center of Olsztyn, but it felt as though we were far out in the countryside.  Each dzialka that we passed was different.  Some had tiny garden sheds and big vegetable patches, while others had actual houses and barbecue pits and even fish ponds.

Ciocia and Wujek's dzialka was utterly captivating.  When they purchased this patch of land, there had been a very small shed.  Over time, however, they had expanded it into a very small kind of a house.  There was a foldout couch, and a small stove, and even a keg of beer on tap.  The highlight was a porch they'd added onto the main part of the house, with two comfy couches and a square part cleared away that they told me was for dancing.  There was a beautiful garden with a big apple tree and bushes with raspberries, red currants, and wild strawberries (all fruits I associate with my childhood and Poland.  My mother loved walking through Mazurian forests and picking berries, and whenever we visited Poland she would reminisce about those times.  As a result, berries make me think of Poland and of taking walks with my mother).  They had built a small greenhouse for growing vegetables in the back, and Wujek had even assembled a makeshift smokehouse, where he proudly showed me rows of sausage and fish hanging from the ceiling.

The dzialka

                                                                     

Ciocia and Wujek dancing

 For some reason, visiting the dzialka seemed especially emblematic of Polish culture, for reasons I can't quite articulate (although I will try). I loved the idea of living in a city, in an apartment, but not having to give up the idea of a garden.  And I loved the idea of smoking your own fish and growing your own vegetables.  My paternal grandfather in Mississippi had always grown his own vegetables, too, but it had been years since I'd visited his garden, and as a child it seemed more like a strange habit my eccentric grandfather had than like a possible, sustainable lifestyle choice.

In 2011, Gordon and I went back to Olsztyn for my cousin Olgierd's baby's christening.  This was Gordon's first time meeting anybody in my family (besides my mother), so it was a big deal.  I knew Gordon would love Ciocia and Wujek, because they are warm and kind and quirky (and Ciocia even plays the accordion).  What I had not expected (this shows how little I actually knew him at that point!) was for him to be as charmed by their dzialka as I was.  As we walked through the dzialka community, Gordon commented on how nice everything was, but I imagined he was simply currying favor.  Then, we walked into Ciocia and Wujek's dzialka, and his jaw dropped.  Although Wujek speaks no English, and Gordon's Polish is a bit limited, they managed--somehow--to become lifelong friends in the course of Gordon's tour.  Wujek was thrilled to have someone genuinely interested in seeing how the beer keg was installed and hearing how to tell if the cucumbers are ready for pickling.

Gordon and Wujek discuss grilling techniques

                                             

Gordon and the greenhouse

                                                       

Now Gordon and I frequently daydream about buying some land in Poland and building a little house.  Although at first I thought of these plans as only dreams and nothing more, I've gradually come around to hoping desperately that one day we do indeed have a little homestead somewhere in Poland.  This past summer, as we got ready to move into our first little apartment together as a married couple, we built a lot of the things we needed.  I discovered that Gordon is excellent at making all kinds of things, from guitar rack to tables to bookshelves, and I am a pretty good assistant and a decent painter.  It seems possible to build a house.  It seems possible to grow our own vegetables and maybe even smoke our own fish.

Relaxing with my niece Julia

Resolutions

Although I don't set much store in New Year's resolutions, this year I've decided to make a few.  My primary objective is to have resolutions that I can realistically follow.  (For example, I know I won't exercise every day, so resolving to get daily aerobics in would be pointless, and the year I resolved to grow taller also didn't work out ).  I think I've come up with a mostly manageable list this time around.

1.  Keep my pantry organized.  It's fairly organized as is, because I can be obsessive about things, but I've decided to keep a list on the inside door of the things we should regularly have in our pantry, like pasta, rice, canned tomatoes, and flour.

2.  Exercise two times a week.  When I don't have to worry about ice, I like to go running, but winter shouldn't be an excuse for not exercising.  I'm lucky in having a very fast metabolism, so I don't worry too much about weight gain, but for the brief time in my adult life that I belonged to a gym, I definitely felt like I had more energy.

3.  Incorporate more vegetables into my dinners.  I tend to make elaborate pasta dishes most days of the week and often neglect having an actual vegetable side dish.  I am going to try to change this.

4.  Nap less.

5.  Learn Russian.

6.  Keep in better touch with friends.  I have a handful of friends with whom I text and exchange phone calls regularly, but I've gotten shamefully bad at writing actual e-mails to people.

7.  Read more.

8.  Give up soda.  This one I'm not totally decided on yet.  Mercifully, my parents never really let us drink sodas when we were little, so they were really only a special-occasion-kind-of-thing.  Unfortunately, as a working adult, I frequently feel like I need a "special drink" after work, so I've begun drinking them more often than I would like.  This resolution seems the least realistic of all of them, actually (even less realistic than #5), so it may become just limit soda, and only drink soda from Whole Foods.

9.  Continue making things.  As a child, I was always terrible at doing anything with my hands, whether it was cutting something out, drawing in the lines, or putting things together.  I'm still pretty terrible with scissors, but my husband has shown me that with a little imagination, a lot of things are more doable than I might initially think.  Together, we made a lot of the furniture for our apartment, and I even made a spice rack on my own for our kitchen.  I want to continue these kinds of projects in 2014.

10.  Practice my Polish.  I worked so hard to maintain my Polish and I am determined not to regress into a horrible Americanized-sounding Polish.

11.  Follow a strict budget.