It's tough being attacked for speaking my mind

Fresh Start: Miroslawa Gorecka's college diary

It seems that at least one reader of The Irish Times does not admire my resourcefulness. I wrote last week that I had saved up my Irish children's allowance for two years to buy a car. I got a bitter letter from a student accusing me of coming to Ireland for the money. He (or she - the name was withheld) was "shocked and dismayed" at my lack of understanding of Ireland and helpfully reminded me of Poland's communist past. He also attacked my right to study medicine here when he couldn't get a place.

I suspect that was the point of the letter.

He believes that I am one of those students paying for a place on a medical course. It's all over the news at the moment and I suppose he's feeling cheated. An Irish student, Frank Prendergast, is taking a case against the Department of Education and Science and the Higher Education Authority for the right to pay for a place in medicine. Non-EU students can do it, he says, so why can't I?

I'm the villain, at least in the mind of my anonymous penpal. The fact that I did the Leaving Cert, and worked damned hard at it, has obviously escaped his notice. Oh yes, and Poland's in the EU. I wonder did he take geography for the Leaving?

I've been following the story with interest, however, because I intend to take my qualification out of Ireland when I'm finished. This doesn't go down well, as the recent debate has shown.

The Dean of Medicine at NUI Galway was quoted in this very newspaper this month, saying that a third of his class who qualified in the 1970s are still working overseas. "We were spending years training the brightest and best students only to export them," he said.

Is that such a problem? Does it matter if Irish-trained doctors are saving Irish lives, or American lives or African lives or Polish lives?

Well, as I'm here, draining the resources of the Irish education and social welfare system, I thought I should give something back. I've filled up my nights with a tax-paying job and some voluntary work. It's been amazing. I'm working in a veterinary clinic and it's perfect. The people there are really good to me and the work is a joy. I'm vaccinating, setting up drips, sterilising, taking blood tests, doing laboratory work - all the stuff I thought I'd be doing in college. I may be looking at dog cells instead of human cells, but it's all blood and I love it. I have exams in two weeks but I find it hard to tear myself away from real medicine and back to the books.

I got involved with a programme on the NUI Galway campus called Alive, in the hope of finding some interesting voluntary work. I am now part of the Friends Club. Every week, I and the other volunteers spend two hours entertaining the young children of refugees. They come from all over the world and from a variety of backgrounds, but they have all known hardship. They are lovely children - great company. We are currently preparing a Christmas musical with them. I thought I might meet a few other students at the club, but I'm the only one.

My Mum, the Galway GP, for whom I left my beloved Drogheda and came to this lonely city, has now moved to Dundalk. This is a lonely city for me, but it's not because I don't like Galway. I am lonely for home and this will never be home. It's just that simple.

When I left Poland to do the Leaving Certificate in Ireland, I believed that by 2008 I would be back. It hasn't happened and I am trying to get used to that.

I have upset at least one Irish reader by not falling in love with Ireland, but it's not about the place. I am having an unrepeatable experience here, and learning a great deal about life. If I speak my mind about the drinking culture and the CAO system and student life it is because I am outspoken. Do I deserve two A4 pages of anger for that? I suppose if you put your opinion out there you have to accept what comes back.

By the way, that car I got using my children's allowance savings is sitting outside the door. It broke down within days of purchase and hasn't started since.

That won't get my anonymous letter writer a place in medicine but it might make him feel a bit better.