Dear friend from high school, with whom I still keep up correspondence

Beej-a-muh-J,

You talk like a stoned man. I love it. Maybe because I'm stoned right now, but also maybe not. Now you'll never know.

So! My turn, eh? I have moved into my apartment again here in Austin, which I returned to only to find a flood had taken place when the 3rd floor left the water on/ maybe management was also to blame. I was to work the next morning, but having experienced both an intense 7 day conference and a snow storm in Chicago and then randomly going sledding in Wisconsin on a random trip to Wisconsin for the night about a week before, I wasn't feeling so swell. I was sick for the next 7 days or so, while I tried unsuccessfully to work and got sent home instead and took care of the flooded apartment/ no carpet cleaning/ property management situation, as my roommate was in Utah and all her things needed to be cleaned because the flood dripped right on to her bed. At one point, when the carpet cleaners came to clean the carpet and all my stuff was moved out because I thought they were actually going to clean the carpet and not just remove the blower things that had been blowing it dry for the last week, I broke down and called Dave who is a solid rock and can not be made stressed out by anything and we got some beer. My bike doesn't always work, it chuh-chinks sometimes and I'm waiting for Kirk to help me fix it, because he got back from China early- this was after my whole upper respiratory infection from Chicago thing and in the middle of the flood thing- so he's living with me while looking for a job in Austin and I'm so happy he's back.

I'm glad to hear that you were able to quote Winston Churchill after drunkenly chewing out your boss and I'm sorry your sign language partner date thing didn't work out. I can understand how hospitals can seem so city-like when one lives in a town where tumbleweed can jolt one out of a daydream and into the reality of a situation. What will you be presenting about at the sociology conference in New Orleans? My good ole stat prof went to a research conference for psychology in Berlin this summer, so we got to hang out! and in Germany! After spring break, I might be in Macedonia, Brazil, or if flights are reaaal cheap, in Kenya for another AIESEC conference, because I got a scholarship award for $500 from our national committee. My good southern-German friend, who I met in Berlin this summer, will be in Austin visiting before and during spring break! We called him vodka-Uli and I forsee fun and frolicking about the town; they say I am his mini-me.

We should do this more often. Correspond, I mean... and hug... alas. Well, gotta tend to the email folder, the mailbox is full again.

-Aga-muhn-es

Cold front in Texas

It's getting down to the 40's.

I shaved 3 months of winter coat leg hair today and learned the whiskey heirarchy of colored labels. I forsee Nigeria as a topic of conversation in the very near future, hopefully over Green Label Johnnie Walker that Jesse brought back. Surya, my first VP OGX who is most responsible for brain washing me and getting me into the AIESEC thing and was crazy enough to take Jesse home to Nigeria wth him, turned 21 an hour ago. If I drink any more echinacea tea, my body will slowly begin to take the shape and colorings of a cornflower.

Much of the future will be decided this semster.

I sent random Texas postcards out during the break, and one sent to Lyonya in Ukraine got the following response. Ahhh.. Ukraine. I miss you. The email:

Lyonya's Grandma says: "Dance!!!"
He says: "why???"
"You've received a post card..."
"Really? From who?"
"Agnieszhka..."
Lyonya starts to dance...

Singing a happy happy happy happy happy happy song coz I've got a real paper postcard from You!!! Actually this is the only one I received, which makes me even more happy. Thank U very much... Once I heard the words of truth: "AIESEC is for few years, friends - forever..." I'll be damned if I don't see U again.
Going to make a haircut now. Long hair from the back, short one on the top and on the sides. (Is he describing a mullet? Lyonya...) My grandma's going to kill me. I'll send U a picture for sure.

We're having elections this saturday. I'll write U about the results later.
Bye

Happy New Years

It's been an eventful few weeks. To recap...

WSC in "Chicago" (but really, Crystal Lake):

• - driving a van to and fro for 3-6 hours at a time, meeting new arrivals was a plus
• - dancing like there's no tomorrow, when tomorrow i needed to be driving again
• - CO3 and the drama involved when a delegation of a national conference takes the future of the organization into their own hands, including sessions with the president and national staff of AIESEC US that lasted until 1:00AM
• - Lady Cragnes brought in the New Year, the pictures are my only testament to the good time as my memory seems to have failed me
• - seeing Ilya, returned trainee of Ternopil', Ukraine who I last saw there 1 1/2 years ago and the Ukrainian vodka that followed
• - feeling the Austin love, Clarali as the Sexican Wrestler, Ali being loud and obnoxious (!), dancing with Emir, Johnny, Eric, and more... and UT won.
• - the initial excitement of snow, running out in an exited frenzy with Johnny, the flakes going straight for the eyes, retreating only 10 seconds after
• - Sexiest Delegate = the Polish race. I love the Poles: Jarek of Purdue, the infamous Maciek & Jarek of Baruch, Kasia of WU-Wien... we need to rock the next Global Village, damnit.
• - party up in Madtown... room 525, wha?

Chicago after WSC:

• - meeting the legend, and then crashing on his futon with 4 Madtowners (Thanks, Dody)
• - just when there was no hope of alcohol in the foreseeable future... finding a bottle of champagne in my suitcase left over from New Years festivities
• - having fun with Steve, the drool, the bottles, the condom- sorry, dude
• - deciding i needed to experience the Madison crowd in their natural element after hearing the stories of Halloween, Rambone, and more
• - taking a bus to Madison with Phil, the snow glistening like in a Winter Wonderland, the shisha, the Wisconsin Belgian Red, sledding at 2:00AM despite signs of an obvious illness onslaught, followed by Trent's pad thai before bed and Burb's waffles in the morning. i love you guys, Madison-Austin coalition is a go.
• - back in Chicago, meeting up with Tim Holtin, a best friend from high school, before he departed for Sweden

Texas, and the post-WSC upper respiratory infection:

• - coming home to a dinner with our Polish priest and a blessing of the house
• - packing and driving to Austin to work the next day, only to find my apartment had been flooded the day before by the 3rd floor
• - crashing on Cristen's couch for a Cragnes reunion, where we both were a pathetic mass of sickness together and infected her mom's house when in need of a mom-cooked meal and eating vegan for the past 4 days
• - getting a call from Kirk in China saying he would be in Texas within a week and the squealy-wheezing excitement that followed
• - dealing with the flood aftermath- $185 dry cleaning, 3 blowers set up throughout the place, moving all my things out to have the carpet cleaned only to find out no such thing would happen until after the weekend, breaking down before moving it all back in
• - getting sent home early from work after just being able to work 6 of the planned 25 hours this week so that i could recover (i'm sick of recovering! i want to be better!)

about me

Born to immigrant parents, she was raised a first generation American in a very Polish household.

She then went on to do great like things, like a traineeship in Ternopil', Ukraine through AIESEC, study in Vienna, Austria for a semester, and work at T-Systems in Berlin, Germany this past summer.

Now living in Austin, which can best be described as a bubble. "I especially love Texas," she says, "we fly our flag as high as that other red, white, and blue one, here in Texas."

"They say I study International Business at the The University of Texas at Austin, but really I try not to, and instead, enjoy taking classes like "Bad Boys and Girls in Russian Literature and Film" for my major in Russian, Eastern European, & Eurasian Studies. I plan to graduate in December 2005, but if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

Otherwise, I still do the AIESEC-Austin thing, because I continue to love everyone I have met since I joined in 2002."