2007.03.15 | the last two weeks

i've come to the conclusion that it's certainly more work to find work, then to do the work itself. i've sent my cv out to many places but i've yet to get a single response. my cv is also in the hands of a head hunter who deals with technical companies and no reply from him either. he'll try and peddle me off to some company he deals with. and... i've also just been to a targi praca (work fair), but the one i went to was mainly for it, telephone operators, economists, financial guys and programmers. some other work was also available (mcdonalds was there, as was a pizza company and green peace was at the doors) but nothing in an engineering field. however, there was a game programming company which might be quite interesting. obviously i won't do any graphics related stuff cause i have no skill in that regard, but game programming would certainly be more interesting than web apps (and i'd imagine the network gaming there would be a cut above the business apps we produced at icti).

some more notes on driving, drivers and pedestrians; it's come to my attention that the driving philosophy in poland is that they will drive to the maximum potential of their vehicles (as explained to me by some polish people [possibly friends]). that usually means they speed and drive recklessly. the pedestrians, on the other hand, as actually quite obedient. at least 90 percent of them wait for the green light before crossing the road. that's quite a change to south africa where only about 1 percent wait for the lights to change whereas the others lead their children into the throngs of death. i think it might have something to do with the fact that the police actually fine you about 50 pln here for jaywalking unlike in south africa.

i did some light research on crime statistics between pl and za and the differential is quite extraordinary. for example;

  • murders with a firearm (per capita of 1000 people): 0.719782 in za vs 0.0043052 on pl.
  • and of course, rape: 53,008 in za vs the 2,399 in pl.
i don't know, maybe it's the cold weather (or the fact that we drink beer and vodka, as opposed to sab [which no longer makes amstel] beer and brandy)? but actually i'm not sure you can use the stats from that website because they might be from different time periods (something i did not spend time to check). anyway... enough on that.

i've meet some of my extended family last weekend, which was nice. from my family tree, it would be my grandmother's (from my mom's side) sister and her husband. i suppose that would make them my "great" aunt and uncle (if that's how it works). i also meet they son and his family (ie, wife and two children). what would you call them on the family tree from my perspective? the son of my grandmother's sister's son? surely not cousin? perhaps cousin once removed? or is that for family joined by marriage? anyway, nice people, and i'll probably see them quite often. still got loads of other family to meet, but there's still lots of time for that.

oh, and for those of you using google earth, here's a link to some places in poland (note that the availability of the file is governed by south africa's power supply system ["i think i can, i think i can" - eskom], which as you know is quite erratic).

i've been going to a swimming pool twice a week recently. probably the most exercise i've done in at least a year. but swimming is one of those sports that i can handle. but today after coming from the pool, it turns out they've turn off our gaz (gas).
  • side note: for those of you that don't know, most houses/flats in poland use gas for cooking and in most cases, the water boiler. we're thankfully not on a gas water boiler.
turns out that our ventilation is not working properly in the kitchen. not only ours but all the vents on all the floors for that particular vent system. and it seems that a gas anything does not burn all the gas in its flame leaving some gas that settles on the top of your roof. this apparently is not safe and so we've got no gas until they sort out the ventilation.

turns out that the government is largely controlled by the church here in poland. mind you, it's not as crazy as the christians in america, but it is the catholic church which is probably the most conservative church known to man (don't know about the muslims, but my money is on the catholics). this isn't helped by the fact that the president and the prime minister are brothers (twins i think) and very much for the church. apparently the concept of separate state and church hasn't quite sunk in here in poland. seems there's also a huge fuss over abortion here in poland. it's currently prohibited, but we'll see how things work out.

time for some history (you can skip this section):
recently i've been sightseeing as those of you that have seen the pictures would know. i've been to two places of importance as of yet; the stare miasto (old town) and the pałac kultury i nauki (palace of culture and learning).

i'm not going to repeat what you can find on wikipedia so here are some links to the various sights (in english for your pleasure):
and finally, the links to the new photo albums (although not all of them):
pałac kultury i nauki (palace of culture and learning) and surroundings

muzeum techniki (museum of technology) in the pałac kultury i nauki (palace of culture and learning)

1 comment:

Andrew van der Westhuizen said...

going as far as history... are you procrastinating something. btw i dont think that ppl on facebook get the comments. worth a test though.

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