Fresh Start/Miroslawa Gorecka's college diary:I wouldn't kill a spider in my bathroom but yesterday I was asked to drown a cockroach in alcohol and pull it apart. My new zoology course at college is testing my sense of right and wrong.
I have always thought it was wrong to kill a living creature for no reason. Of course, as a medical student, there could be some reason for it, but my conscience is telling me that there isn't. I wriggled out of the situation yesterday, but next week's earthworm might not be so lucky.
Hopefully my act of mercy towards the cockroach might have earned me a little bit of good fortune for my driving test tomorrow.
As readers of this column will know, I have been saving my children's allowance for two years to buy a car and pay for driving lessons. After six months on the road, tomorrow's the big day. The omens are not good. My engine sounds as though it's been smoking 80 Sobieskis a day for 20 years. They're Polish cigarettes, one of the most popular brands. If you're an Irish smoker you may have come across them already, because according to the Minister for Justice here, we're bringing cigarettes in by the plane load.
Minister Brian Lenihan was hoping to get Eastern European states to hike up cigarette prices because right now the difference is so great that it's actually worth a Pole's while to fly home and buy cigarettes.
In Ireland, cigarettes are expensive but flights are cheap.
The extra money that Poles are making here - and the boredom that many of them feel being away from their friends and families - makes them smoke like chimneys! Apparently Polish people are smoking more here than they do at home.
Of course, the attitude to smoking in Poland is still pretty relaxed. Even the doctors are smokers; about one in three male Polish doctors smoke, which is odd, considering that they're supposed to know better.
Some of the medical students here at NUI Galway are smokers, too. I suppose when we start dissecting emphysematic lungs they may reconsider.
The attitude to drinking and driving is pretty relaxed in Poland too. I'm really impressed with how Irish people are fighting so hard to stop drink driving, and that there's so much awareness about it. At home everyone drinks and drives, including my own family. Our deaths on the road are very high.
We handled our first corpse in anatomy last week and it wasn't what I expected at all. I didn't think I'd have a problem looking at a dead body, but I did expect it to have skin on. We all got a bit of a shock when we saw the skinned corpse, but I have to say that I still found it easier to stomach than the cockroach.
When we started to look at the bones, and I heard the list of names, then I started to feel nauseous. Clavicles, scapulae, metatarsals, inferior nasal conchae - how am I ever going to remember all these names? The trouble is, even if I do learn them all, when I return to work in Poland I'll need to learn a whole new vocabulary or no one will know what I am on about. Can I be bothered to learn all of these names only to try and unlearn them again in a few years? I'm exhausted just thinking about it.
Meanwhile, my car is in need of emergency surgery but it's not going to happen before tomorrow. Still, if I fail it would be no great loss. I'm only 17 and in Poland I wouldn't even be allowed to take the test. If I get it - what a bonus. If I don't, I'm no worse off than any other Polish driver-to-be.
As a last-ditch measure I went to church and asked for a little guidance on observation and mirror use. The university chapel was full to bursting, because of Lent. I was really impressed to see so many young people at prayer - on a normal Sunday at the chapel there are only 20 or 30.
They all say that they're giving up smoking for Lent. I'm giving up the senseless annihilation of innocent creatures, although I may have to put my Micra out of its misery.
