The TV/internet/phone company here, Aster, is driving me *nuts*. I've had TV problems with them a LOT since I arrived. Now it's a problem with the sound. For the past couple weeks, I've had no sound on a film channel I receive when I select "Original Language". I only get sound when I select "Polish", and that's annoying, because it's a Polish man's voice dubbed over the English dialogue- very distracting, and doesn't really help me learn the language any further.

For the first couple of months, I DID get English language on this channel- this problem's only happened in the last couple of weeks. A technician visited today to investigate the problem, but he spoke only Polish, so I really don't know what he said. I *think* he said that there was nothing wrong with my decoder box, that it was just this channel that got no sound in English- figures! This is the one with good movies, Monk, Pushing Daisies, etc. I tried to understand what he was saying, but I only caught a few words here and there- not good enough to get the whole conversation. I really wish this individual language class I'm in would teach me how to understand things like this instead of "My name is..." or "I'm an American". *sigh*

I really am trying to learn more Polish- I pay attention every time my colleagues talk, I look up things I see and hear around the city, I'm taking a class, and I try to pick up as much as I can. But it's really not something I want to throw every ounce of free time into. When I come home from a long, tiring, brain-frying day at work, I don't want to spend my evenings learning a brand new language. What I *want* to do is watch something on TV in English, decompress, then continue learning Spanish or Japanese, two languages I'm already fairly decent at that I don't want to lose. I don't want to come out of here having lost those- I've already spent a ton of time and effort on them.

And of course, all the English-speaking consultants were unavailable when I called their office. I don't know why this is so difficult. I feel deceived by this company- their sheet distinctly *says* this channel is available in both Polish and Original Language, and I got that service for about 2 months. So why is it failing now? I'm irritated about this because I'm paying good money for these channels and the decoder box and I'm not receiving the service they said they'd give me. And I'm frustrated that I can't communicate sufficiently with the company or the service techs.

Thank goodness I get to pick up the big laptop tomorrow. Hopefully, they will have fixed it (though, probably not, considering my luck) and I can watch the DVDs I brought, including ones in Japanese.

I'm just tired of all this crap. I'm primarily here to do a job; I don't want to spend my free time dealing with things like this. THIS is the downside to actually living in a foreign country vs. just visiting there- things people never tell you.