The Great Transylvanian Experiment, Take Three

Day Zero - Inauspicious Beginnings

The first leg of the journey, for me at least, was getting from Szolnok to Budapest. Normally, this is not at all problematic, but since I had the grand idea that arriving into Nyugati would simplify my inter-Pest traveling, it became more complicated. Not the least of my problems was that the train was 45 minutes late. Anyway, I arrived in Pest, and arrived at the Kollégium.

And arrived at the second problem. Or, if “problem” is too strong a word, maybe I could just say “situation”. I met the other Americans. How? By standing in my room and listening for other American voices, which drifted loud and clear down the hall. I poked my head in and asked, “Are you Hajni’s Americans?” to which they replied in the affirmative. I had found the group of Lexia students.

Let me clarify this. In addition to CETP, Hajni also runs the Lexia Student Exchange Program, which I did in 2003. When we went to Transylvania in the fall, the entire trip was CETP teachers, but for this trip, in addition to 6 teachers and one teacher’s boyfriend, we also have Lexia students from Krakow, Budapest, and Berlin.

Right, so I met up with the bulk of the students, who are from the Berlin leg of Lexia. Two things which occurred to me after meeting them: one, that I need to stop teasing Janos about being the old man. Two, a memory of a conversation we had some weekend, I think in Tiszaújváros, when we were all together and discussing the upcoming trip. Someone, possibly Liz, said something about how not fun the trip would be, to travel around on a bus with a bunch of rowdy college students. Someone else, possibly me, came back with, “How bad could they be?” because really, we’re mostly only a couple years removed from them. Ha ha. I’m eating those words now.

Day One - Nagyvárad and Bánffyhunyad

Today we drove a lot and visited two churches.

Despite a late start, due to flood-related transportation problems, we were on the road by 7:30. My fellow travelers this time around are:

The Adults are almost the same as last time: Hajni; András, our translator; Péter, our bus driver; unfortunately this time our guide isn’t Sándor, but instead we have a quiet young woman named Ildikó.

The Teachers: myself, Nicole, Jess, Jenn, Jillian, Tara, and Tara’s boyfriend Tom.

The Kids (the Lexia students): one from Krakow, Mike; one from the new Hungary-and-Romania program, Meghan; and a whole large group from Berlin. Their names escape me, and until any of them do anything to distinguish themselves from the group, I’m just going to refer to them collectively as The Kids.

We drove across Hungary, past Szolnok and eastward. We made it to the border and across without major hassle; we were through by 2 o’clock. I had a brief reminder of my earlier feeling of inauspiciousness as the first sight I saw in Romania was a dead sheepdog lying in a ditch (a sight which, sadly, was not a singular event). We stopped in Nagyvárad to see the a church. After leading us to the main walking street, Hajni let us loose for half an hour to exchange money and scavenge up some food. On the way back to the bus, Jillian and I walked past two younger girls who made a comment about Americans, then turned around to see how we would react. Unfortunately, at the same time Jillian and I turned around to see where the group was. The girls started cracking up, we started cracking up, and when we meandered back towards the group, they started following us. They followed the group for a couple of blocks - unlike so many people, ranging from sketchy to sad, who would follow around a group of Americans begging or pick pocketing, these were just two bored girls. So all was well, until we got back to the bus, when One Of The Kids thought it would be a nice parting gift to make idiot faces at the girls. At which point, they started sulking, and The Kids started snapping pictures. Not that I didn’t have the same impulse. But I didn’t.

After Nagyvárad, we headed into the Kalotaszeg region. When we came over the Királyhágó pass, Hajni announced that we were officially in Transylvania. We applauded tiredly. We stopped in Bánffyhunyad to visit the 13th century Protestant church there. András told me I should give the speech, since I’ve heard it twice before. Actually, I was proud of how much of the speech I could understand in Hungarian, before András translated it.

The first evening was, as it has been on my two previous tours, the village of Kalotaszentkirály. We all had dinner together in one room, at two tables to which we automatically separated ourselves: Kids at one table, Teachers at another. Jillian said she felt like we were the camp counselors of the group. Dinner was a veggie and meat soup, followed by rice and veal, and a pastry for dessert which was sort of like a powdered-sugar-covered, light, spiral donut. Plus palinka, of course. Amazing.

After dinner, Hajni divided us up into groups for the night, and although we schemed to all be put together, we were split. After the Dividing, we all sat around for a while, until we staged a coup d’état by standing up and putting on coats under the pretense of huddling around the stove. It worked; everyone stood up and started moving towards the door. Good job, Teachers - way to instigate some social change.

Day Two - Körösfö, Kolozsvár

Today we drove a lot and visited one and a half churches.

This morning, we three girls (myself, Jess, and Jenn) walked back up to the place we had dinner for breakfast. It was the traditional spread of bread, meat cheese, rosehip jam tea and coffee. Mmm, coffee. At breakfast, we plotted our attack on the bus - we were determined to snag good places and let The Kids share seats today. Success! The bus picked us up first, and Jillian and Nicole were the only two on time to the meeting places, so we staked our claims.

Our first stop of the day was Körösfö, which has nothing in the way of tourist attractions other than dozens of tiny shops and stands lining the single street, which is actually a highway with cars and semis rushing past. So in my mind, it will always be the Highway Mall village. This time around, I managed to restrain myself a bit, and despite much drooling over embroideries and pottery, I got back on the bus having only spent 55 lei ($18) on two rugs. (And yes, I know that it was only a couple weeks ago that I spent $35 on rugs at Ikea. I’m sorry, I’m developing a new obsession or something. But there are far worse things I could be spending money on. At least rugs are practical.)

The next chunk of the day was spent in Kolozsvár. We saw the Farkas utcai Reformist Church and part of the medieval town wall. We walked past the Babes-Bolyai University, which in a past life was the Franz Joseph University where my great-great grandmother Katalin earned her degree in midwifery. We wandered around the town, saw the main square, the statue of King Mátyás and the Szent Mihály Church, but only from the outside (hence the “half a church”). We listened to Horváth István’s speech about the problems of the minorities in Transylvania, which was informative as always (I’ve now seen it four times). After the speech, Hajni let us loose in the town. Jillian, Jenn, Nicole and I immediately headed for coffee and pastries, followed by a toothbrush-hunt (successful) and a bathroom-hunt (also successful) before we hopped back on the bus.

As a final note, I have to say that the best part of Kolozsvár was when Péter ran a red light and got pulled over by the cops. Nothing came of it, because Ildikó jumped out and saved us with protestations of, “We’re just a bunch of American tourists; we need to find food and bathrooms and exchange money and we only have one hour in your beautiful town...” But it was funny anyway.

The planned final stop of the day was the Torda Canyon. Thankfully, it was drizzly all day and Hajni and the driver decided not to risk the possibility that the muddy roads might swallow the bus (not to mention us walking). So, hooray, no canyon. It was beautiful last time, but the walk back up nearly killed a good group of us. In fact, I seem to recall Hajni vowing never again with the canyon... but apparently her memory isn’t as good as mine.

The back-up plan was a tour of the Torda Salt Mine. Words fail me. Salt is beautiful. It forms in waves and swirls, it drips down in massive stalactites, and it grows to cover the cut walls and underground buildings like delicious crystal barnacles. Mmm, salty. Yes, I licked one of the walls. And broke chunks off the ceiling. No goiters for me!

Our overnight stop was in Torocko, the village where the sun rises twice (because of the giant mountain. Remember the giant mountain?) Once again, we had dinner together, and once again, we self-segregated. The Teachers sat on the left, the Kids sat on the right, and the Adults sat in the middle, joined by a couple of the less-bubble-headed Kids. Dinner was a creamy meat-stock soup with carrot pieces and rice, followed by noodles and pork in a paprikás sauce, and something like cinnamon cake/bread for dessert. Because we were following the local tradition, we had a pálinka as an aperitif, in addition to as a palate-cleanser between courses.

In the evening, after dispersing to our houses to drop off luggage, we reconvened in the town square to search out a bar. The Teachers plus Ildikó ended up at the same bar where last time a farmer invited Laura for a ride on his tractor, and other such shenanigans. It was interesting to talk to her (Ildikó, I mean). She’s Hungarian, of course, living in Satu Mare with her husband and two small sons. She said that this is actually her first tour, which surprised me because although she is shy around Hajni and András, it’s obvious that she knows so much about everything we see and do. I like her - if I come on this trip a fourth time, I hope she’s our guide again.

Day Three - Marosvásárhely and Korond

Today we drove a lot and visited one church, one museum, and a culture house.

After a group breakfast, we toured the Torocko Ethnography Museum. I’ve only been there once before, and I was just as interested this time. Too bad others didn’t follow my example.

After the museum, we hopped on the bus for the long ride to Marosvásárhely. As yesterday, it was rainy and yucky, but nevertheless we tramped through the city to visit their Orthodox church. The iconostasis and sheer level of opulent decoration was almost enough to make me convert.

Continuing the day’s theme of overwhelming opulence, our next stop was the Kultura Palota to marvel at the painted walls (I’m thinking about doing some folk-style embellishment when I do my hallway) and stained-glass windows.

Our last stop of the day was the pottery-making village of Korond. As usual, after a brief tour of one of the pottery-makers, we and our cash were let loose on the village. I made a pre-planned purchase of two vases, one blue and one brown & green. The most exciting part of the trip was that for a brief few minutes in Korond, a tiny village in the Carpathian foothills, my laptop picked up a wireless signal. But not long enough nor strong enough to get online.

The evening we spent in Zetelaka. Tara, Tom, Nicole and I were together in a house, owned by Lukács Erzsébet and her husband Tibor, and daughter Annamari, who was dragged out of her comfortable position glued to the computer to speak some English for us. Erzsébet cooked us soup, stuffed cabbage, and dessert, and filled and refilled our glasses with homemade pálinka and homemade wine. Oh, wonderful. I could have stayed forever, but retreating back upstairs to a warm, downy bed had it’s own appeal.

Day Four - Segesvár and other things

Today we drove not as much an usual and saw two churches and a castle.

The theme for the day had to be something along the lines of “so close, yet so far away.” Example number one: on our itinerary, all it said for day four was Segesvár, and spending the night in Zetelaka. Since the two places are relatively close, and having done Segesvár twice now, I knew it wasn’t going to take all day, I was wondering what we were going to do with all the extra time. The answer: we took the long road and made various side excursions, to Nagygalambfalva to see the Reformist fortified church, and to Cris to see a Renaissance era castle that belonged to the Bethlen family.

Example number two is more personal. We were so close to both Bögöz (where as a Lexia student I stayed with the Demeter family, my favorite memory from that trip) and Medgyes (near to which my family came from, a few generations back), but obviously we didn’t stop in either.

Segesvár is important for two reasons: it’s the city where Dracula was born, and it was formerly one of the biggest Saxon towns. We used the restroom in the café next to Vlad’s birthplace before visiting the Saxon Monastery Church. The speaker about the church spoke German and Romanian, which made for some interesting translation work. After an attempt for her to speak in German for one of the Lexia Berliners to translate failed miserably (she made it three sentences, but I knew it was doomed when she mistranslated Wilkommen. And apparently her German is the best of the group. Honestly, what do these kids learn?), the church lady switched into Romanian, which went through Ildikó and András to become Hungarian, then English. Ever the linguist, I was fascinated by the process, but I may have been the only one.

After the church, we walked up the Covered Steps to the Church on the Hill, and then Hajni released us for the day. We had an unheard of two hours free, so I stuck out with Nicole, Jess, and Jillian to find lunch. It was a bit of an adventure, first to find a restaurant, and then to order. Three of us opted for what appeared in English as “Frankfurten with bread and mustard,” which we assumed could only be bratwurst. Wrong! They turned out to be nasty, pale pink, bologna-like hot dogs. Despite trepidation, we ate them. They lacked any flavor outside the mustard, so I guess the best thing about our “bratwurst” was that none of us got sick. Yet.

The days’ third and final example of “so close, yet so far away,” is in the situation of the gypsy beggar children which abounded in Segesvár and the roads to and from. Their physical proximation (close, very close - they run up and grab at you, or knock on the bus windows) contrasts with their social distance from us (far, obviously far. I can’t imagine what they think of us).

The evening we spent again in Zetelaka. Dinner was subdued, despite Erzsébet’s attempts to ply us with food and drink. We ended up not going out to the disco as planned, but instead Tara, Tom, Nicole and I sat around upstairs and played cards and drank the two bottles of water they gave us. Yes, we sat around drinking water. It was great. One of the bitchier things we did was go over The Kids and try to figure out who was who. Since none of them will ever read this, and I think it’s funny, here’s the descriptions we came up with:

Josh - surfer who wants to be a doctor
Sean - the one with the beard
Michael - nice kid from Krakow. As smart as the rest put together
Meghan - the Budapest / Romania program
Ursula - trendy beyond belief, maybe not in a good way. Iowan
Aurora - dumb as bricks. Asked, “What’s hay for?” Wears leggings and moccasins
Anya - chubby, sweet face like a cow, and personality & brains to match
Stefanie - quiet, loner, takes a lot of photos
Kelsey - the screecher. Fashion major, wears the tucked jeans
Leah - quiet beatnik. Looks “like a New York poet”
Erika - has a cool scarf. Artsy, in a good way. Bought a porcelain Milka cow
Colleen - small loud Irish girl

Day Five - Communist Buildings, and Nature

Today we drove a lot, up and down mountains, and saw two churches with much embarrassment.

The theme of today was nature, namely in the form of water (the Killer Lake) and earth (the Frags’ Canyon). But before we would get to that, we stopped in Máréfalva to look at the painted gates, in Lövétebánya (I think) to taste the mineral water, and in Csikszereda. Csikszereda is a marvel of communist architecture (much like Szolnok; I felt at home). After we saw the Clapping Square, where crowds were forced to stand for hours and clap for Ceausescu, we moved on to see the Roman Catholic church designed in the new Organic style by Makovecz Imre, a friend of Hajni and András. The fact that it was Palm Sunday was a bit awkward, to say the least. There we were, indifferent group of 20 Americans, standing in their courtyard listening to a lecture while they were trying to conduct a service. It was worse when we got back on the bus and drove up to see the bigger Csíksomlyó church. It was surrounded by hundreds of cars and thousands of people, who stared at us passively as the bus made two passes by the church, driving slowly through the crowd.

Finally, we left the crowds behind and headed nature-wards. We saw the Killer Lake (frozen) and Frags’ Canyon (cold but sunny), but since I’m getting lazier and lazier, I’m going to skip over elaborate description. One is a lake, with a bunch of petrified trees in it, and one is a dramatic rock canyon. You can guess which is which. More important than describing either of them was the fact that Hajni moved to the back of the bus (she hates heights, so driving over a narrow mountain pass isn’t her favorite part of the trip) and we got to talk for a couple hours. So this was definitely my favorite part of the day.

The last night we spent at the Motel Dorina, which is not the hotel the group normal stays at. After a mediocre dinner made better by the Teachers splitting 4 bottles of wine, I got ready for bed, but was sucked into playing cards and drinking with some of the Kids. And I discovered that, who knew, some of them are actually cool people. I mean, with brains and all.

Day Six - Marosvásárhely, and homewards

Today we drove a lot, a lot a lot, and saw some gas stations.

After an even-less-than-mediocre breakfast (veto on the Motel Dorina), we backtracked a few minutes to Marosvásárhely to listen to a speech by the Hungarian vice-mayor of the town. It was interesting, but not worth reiterating here. After the speech, we settled back on the bus for the nearly 12-hour drive back across Romania and Hungary. We stopped in Kolozsvár to drop off Meghan, and in Satu Mare to drop of Ildikó. András and Hajni tried to spice up the journey by teaching us Hungarian folk songs (anyone from last time, remember the cinege-cinege song?) and András gave a quiz about the things we had learned in Transylvania, the prize being a can of authentic Transylvanian beer. But it was a long day.

Finally we made it to Budapest. I spent the night at Jess, came back to Szolnok, canceled my private lessons, and am sitting here now typing these final thoughts.

Speaking of final thoughts on the trip, here they are: Transylvania is the same. It’s beautiful, and I know I will go back again and again. The people were different this time around, and I can’t say for the better. This wasn’t just the fault of the Kids; there just wasn’t the group chemistry of the October group.

But overall, good trip. I’m looking forward to trying again next fall.

Messages

This is an idea I stole from Priest’s blog (which I love despite it’s angst), who stole it from Darkneuro (whose blog scares me), and hopefully someone will steal it from me. The idea is, you write ten messages, things you wish you could say to people but probably never will. The only other rules are that you don’t say who each message is for, and you can only write one to a person. Because I have problems following directions, I wrote 11. I’m also going to cheat a tiny bit and tell you that one is to a student, three are to CETPers, six are to Americans, five are to Hungarians, five are to men, six are to women, one is to two people, and one is to more than two people. So here goes:

1. I like being around you but I can’t stand how you use humor to keep people at a distance. You’re so good at it, it’s barely obvious 90% of the time. Which makes it all the more disturbing and sad when your facade slips. You’re a great person, but you need psychological help.

2. If we had met in America, I wouldn’t have liked you. I don’t know if being in Hungary has made me a more accepting person or maybe I’m just desperate for English-speaking contact, but in any case I am thankful beyond words that you’re in my life.

3. You are my icon. It’s for you that I try to live a good life and be a good person.

4. You are the victim of the most terrible thing I’ve ever done, and I’m not sorry.

5. Once a week you terrorize me without feeling the least bit of regret or shame about it. I can’t imagine what is in your head to make you believe that the way you behave is anywhere near acceptable. I think deep down you are just a horrible human being and I don’t think you’ll make it past age 30 without being killed or incarcerated or both.

6. I wish I were part of your family.

7. I wish you could understand me. In either language. In any langauge.

8. I don’t miss you as much as I tell you I do. In fact, I barely miss you at all.

9. I miss you more than I can say. I don’t think a day has gone past when I haven’t thought about seeing you. I drive myself crazy making up scenarios: What if my doorbell rang and it was you? What if I were walking up the street and saw you standing there? What if I ran into you in the store? I know it’s completely impossible but I can’t stop. Just thinking about you makes me smile, makes me calm, makes me whole.

10. When only the two of us are together, I enjoy being with you. When there are other people around, you act like a completely different person, and not a better one.

11. I think about you every couple of weeks and it scares me that it should be so infrequently. I’m afraid that when there’s no one tying us together, we’ll lose touch completely and that there might be a point when you’re not part of my life at all.

That’s all for now - tomorrow afternoon I’m off to Transylvania, so in about a week I should be back with some new stories. Hopefully good ones.

Lazing

Having spent I-don’t-even-know-how-many weekends in Szolnok, this last weekend an escape was long overdue. So Friday afternoon I hopped a bus Kiskunhalas-ward in search of adventure and booze. Success on both counts.

Since spring has finally arrived to stay in Hungary, we made it our mission on Saturday to get outdoors and enjoy the sunshine. Granted, this took almost until noon to accomplish, due to an extreme laziness and lack of motivation. Finally we settled on a goal: finding the Kkhalas river, which appeared on the map as a tiny blue line snaking through the city. A secondary goal was the two pubs the map indicated on either side of the bridge.

Well, the “river” didn’t really live up to it’s name. Unless you picture a river as a garbage-filled, stagnant channel. Which I don’t. We did run into some interesting characters along the “banks” of the “river”, including frogs, turtles, a tribe of dogs and a tribe of gypsies.

The pubs turned out to be quite similar to the river - dead, ugly, and sketchy - so we settled on a marginally better place near the bus station. After lunch, having satisfied the need to spend time outside, we retreated back indoors for an afternoon of lazing (and yes, that is an actual verb. I looked it up. Not that I’m overly concerned with whether the words I use are “real” or not - why start now? But in my opinion, both the verb “to laze” and the action itself are underused. And I’m trying my best to remedy both).

Wait, where was I? Oh, who cares. I’m skipping ahead to Sunday morning, when we got up, I won’t say early, but it did involve an alarm, in order to go to the fantastic, first-weekend-of-the-month market, which is held on a big field outside of town (near the “river,” actually). There are miles of booths filled with clothes, tools, produce, electronics, housewares, textiles, and pretty much any other type of junk you could imagine. The best part (and the reason for the alarm): at the far side of the field, an entire section devoted to animals. Horses, cows, the occasional sheep, and the most adorable little pigs (as well as some that weren’t so cute). We spent a good time ogling the animals, but went home empty-handed.

Although I didn’t come back to Szolnok empty-handed; I managed to steal 6 books, which should keep me reading for the next month or so. Wait, I forgot that I’ll be spending a week on a bus, followed by a week lazing around my flat not working. So, maybe for half a month. Well, we’ll see.

Lessons and Gossip

Yesterday I met with two new private students. Unlike others, these two didn’t find me in some random-and-vaguely-creepy method, like calling my school after seeing my name in the newspaper. The first is the sister of Oxford School’s director, Anita, and the second is the daughter of my contact teacher Kati. I’m pretty sure that half the reason Kati wants me to teach her is so that Kati can keep an eye inside my house. But since I’m desperate for both money and English conversation, we both get something from it. Not to mention, during our first lesson yesterday, which was supposed to be only half an hour, we talked for an hour and a quarter. Mostly we talked about ourselves and people we know in common, which brought out a good deal of interesting information about the Kassai teachers, the Varga teachers, and the various Szolnoki Americans.

The second gossip-provoking lesson is one I’ve been doing all week with 7th and 8th graders. They work in groups and each group gets an envelope containing 12 pictures of The Happy Couple. Each picture is some small situation, like couple meeting at party, couple at restaurant, couple getting married, couple holding baby, couple breaking up, etc. So the groups make up stories, tell them to the class, and the class votes on the best one (on a side note, the you-vote-for-the-best was my greatest idea this week - it actually makes them listen to each other).

Anyway, most of the classes made up perfectly typical stories. Until today, the 7abT class (this is why I love them): after making up almost-normal stories, they continued playing with the pictures, and made up stories about various celebrities, their classmates (two of their classmates are sleeping together - 7th graders!), and one disturbing story about how a classmate had been given a 1 by one of Kassai’s teachers because he turned down her advances. Yikes.

The Meeting

It began on Monday, when my contact teacher approached me and “asked” me to stay late on Wednesday. Actually, her exact working was something like, “You should stay late on Wednesday, to have a meeting with Éva (the director). She wants to talk to you about your future plans.”

So, being the easy-going (read: lazy) person that I am, I first assumed that this meant she just wanted to confirm my staying next year. But then, two days is a long time to mull over what the director could possibly want with me. Especially since the other shoe never dropped. And I’ve been saying since September that I’m staying here, and anyway that one simple question wouldn’t seem to warrant a Meeting. So my mind started coming up with other possibilities. My favorite scenario involved me being fired. Because really, this wouldn’t be so terrible - I was looking over my contract (for no particular reason, just checking up on things) and I think it says that if I am fired, depending on the reason for firement (it’s a word, right?) the school might still have to pay me and for my flat until June. So, hey, that would really be great.

Anyway, the meeting. Éva was half an hour late, so I waited in the teachers room, not biting my nails. Finally, Kati tracked her down and we went into her office. On a tangent, I hate that office, because it has padded doors. I mean, really - I’m sure they’re for soundproofing or something legit, but it’s just so sinister looking.

Right, no more tangents. The Meeting. Was. Awesome. They love me. They want me to stay forever. They want to help me in a variety of ways to make my life easier. They want me to design some of my own project classes for next year, they want to give me a completely free hand - I could do a film class and do nothing but watch American movies, I could do a literature class and they would make the students buy books, or I could do a history class and they would let me take the kids on excursions to Pest. They wish that we could communicate better, because everyone thinks I seem like such a nice, good person. They think I am an excellent teacher, that I prepare well, and I learned that the classes which give me trouble (namely, most of the 8th grade) also give Kati trouble. And Kati is wicked fearsome, so if she can’t control them, no one short of God could.

So, unfortunately I guess, I wasn’t fired. But I can’t mean that, because this outcome is so much better than I could have imagined.

And the day ended even better with - yes, it’s basketball again - Szolnok beating nasty Kesckemét. Their fans were louder, and had three drums plus airhorns, and yet... both our team and our fans still beat them.

By the way, for anyone who can’t appreciate my recently-found obsession with the Olaj, it’s only because you’ve never seen a game. In which case, I invite you to Szolnok for the last game of the season, April 12th at 6 pm, against Nyíregyháza. Then you’ll understand...

I Mean It This Time

I know I say this every time, but this weekend’s basketball game - best one yet! But I get ahead of myself.

Friday evening was tame - mainly, me watching movies in my flat. Later, Juli and I went out driving. She let me drive around in her car a bit, which was amazing after I figured out where first gear was (I do drive standard, but her car is different than mine).

Saturday we went to the game. Szolnok vs Paks. Beyond being a rival, Paks is also the team that formerly owned Davis, Szolnok’s newest American player. They had a large group of fans there to support them, and the fans had brought their own drum, noisemakers, and banners. So in addition to the match, there was also an ongoing battle between the fans to see who could be loudest, who could out-drum the other, and who could yell the nastiest things. Juli and I sat right in the middle of Section Crazy (those of you who have been to a game know what I mean) and chanted and clapped and screamed and jumped as much as we could. Highlights include:

-when one of Olaj’s players dunked the ball so hard, the timer above the basket was knocked sideways
-the fact that we have cheerleaders, honest-to-short-shirts-and-perky-hair cheerleaders, and moreover, when they lost the beat of their performance because we were chanting too loud
-learning some new chants and taunts, such as “Indul a busz!” and “Hol a bajnokok?” and one song that was just “picsa” every other word
-getting fallen on by people higher in the stands who jumped too hard and lost their balance, or who were trying to charge onto the court
-the fight that broke out after the game when an old man (a Paks fan) called Szolnok a bunch of gypsies
-the fact that we WON! Despite a gloomy outlook and a close game for the first 3 quarters, Szolnok pulled it off 72-59. Oh yeah, we rock. Hajrá Olaj!

After that, what could really make the weekend better? Well, being invited for lunch to one of the other English teacher’s lovely house in Szandaszölös (one of Szolnok’s nicest suburbs). The weather was perfect, the food was amazing, and Edit and her son (who will soon be taking one of the English exam) were great company (as were her husband and daughter too, they just didn’t talk as much).

So knock on wood, the coming week shouldn’t be too bad, since I already have complete lesson plans (gasp!) for each and every class. Plus, there’s a midweek game (yeah, sorry, I’m back to basketball again) on Wednesday. Then hopefully I get out of here for the weekend. Then a short week, and then Transylvania. Then spring break. Then it’s mid-April, and there’s only two months left. Wow, happy spring.

Waiting For The Other Shoe

Halfway through the day today, I suddenly realized that it was Thursday already. This came as a surprise to me because, for the most part, my weeks drag on endlessly between weekends. But this week, everything has just come together. For example:

The weekend was fantastic all around, beginning to end. Due to Ikea, my flat is starting to look, if not act, more like a real home. My lessons were like one miracle after another: every single one (so far) was either canceled, half the students were gone, or they were just shockingly well-behaved, or some combination of the latter two. Even the 5ab Terrors, when faced with an activity that was way over their heads (my mistake) were frustrated but still pleasant. The English teachers decided they loved me because I let them use my Penguin photocopiable books (which aren’t even mine; they’re Oxford’s). At home, I actually did some house work, including successfully fixing my vacuum. I watched movies, Walk the Line in the cinema and Moulin Rogue courtesy of Limewire; I watched the Simpsons, I watched Scrubs. I worked on making fabric postcards. I studied Hungarian. Everything was great.

All of which is increasingly frightening to me. I’m not a huge believer in anything, but I do have a vague idea in something like karma. So with that fact established, there are two possible explanations: one, that I did something really good recently and am being rewarded. Or two, that shortly something terrible is going to happen to me. Knowing that I’ve done nothing so good recently eliminates the first option, so I’m left wondering what the punishment will be. It’s been a while since anything in the flat broke, so it might be time for another round of Repair Wars. Currently, the only three things fully functioning are the TV, computer, and gas. TV would be sad, computer would be excruciating, and gas would be deadly. So I’m going to go enjoy this while it lasts.

PS. I think I’ve mentioned the basketball obsession before, but just to stress it: this weekend, I am actually passing up a trip to TOKAJ, wine capital of Hungary, to see Szolnok play Paks. What’s become of me?

Hotel Guests (Lesson Plan)

Two successful lesson in one week? My life is amazing. This one I’ve done so far with 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders, and although some classes got the concept better than others, the actual English was neither too easy nor too hard for any of them. I plan on doing it with every single class this week except for the 4th graders, the worst 5th graders, and the 8th grade class I mentioned in the previous entry.

So Hotel Guests is a logic puzzle. Students work in pairs and get two lists of clues, and using these they have to fill out a chart with who is staying in the hotel, what room they’re in, what city they’re from, and what their jobs are. This took 45 minutes for most of them, including going over the answers at the end.

Student A’s clues:
- The man in room 104 is an architect.
- Mr Carter is a librarian.
- The nurse comes from Leeds.
- The woman who comes from Brighton is in the room directly opposite Ms Smith.
- Ms Brown is a web designer.
- Both Mr Jones and Mr Watson have rooms next to the left.
- The woman in room 106 comes from Brighton.
- The architect is from Belfast.
- The man between Mr Jones and Ms Webber is called French.
- Ms Webber is a journalist.
- The man from Cardiff is in the room opposite Mr Watson.

Student B’s clues:
- The man in room 102 comes from Cardiff.
- Mr Watson is an engineer.
- The web designer is in the room between the teacher and Mr Watson.
- Ms Webber lives in Brighton.
- The woman in room 109 is called North.
- The architect is directly opposite the web designer.
- The man from Birmingham is in the room next to Ms Brown.
- Ms North comes from Leeds.
- Mr Jones is a dentist.
- Ms North is in the room next to the woman from Cambridge.
- The man in the room nearest the drink machine comes from London.

And, you need the map:
And you need this one extra clue, because for some reason they just forgot to tell you that Ms Brown is from Dundee, and a couple of my students got really pissed about not being able to finish. Anyway, the answers:

room, name, home city, job
102, Mr Jones, Cardiff, dentist
103, Mr Watson, Birmingham, engineer
104, Ms French, Belfast, architect
105, Ms Brown, Dundee, web designer
106, Ms Webber, Brighton, journalist
107, Ms Smith, Cambridge, teacher
108, Mr Carter, London, librarian
109, Ms North, Leeds, nurse

And the last things I’ll say: watch out, the kids’ll think “Belfast” is hilarious. Points to the first person who gets why.

How Wrong Is It? (Lesson Plan)

The very last thing I ever want to do at 7:30 on a Monday morning is to go teach a bunch of snotty, disinterested 8th grade girls. In general, the better my weekend is, the less I want to go back to life on Monday, so I was in a particularly rotten mood yesterday morning. I decided to torture both myself and the girls by dragging them into a philosophical discussion - another thing which is quite low on the list of things I want to do at 7:30 on Monday.

Amazingly, it turned out to be the most productive lesson I’ve ever done with them. They talked, they argued with each other and me, they shared stories - frequently in Hungarian, but some in English. They amused themselves by yelling, “English, please!” at each other. Most incredibly, they stayed on topic for a whole 45 minutes.

So, here it is, the miracle lesson: basically, it’s a list of 20 questions with the form, “How wrong is it to...?” I had one student read them, and the others answered. You can ask additional questions like, “When is it right to....? Have you yourself ever....? What happens if you...... and get caught?” At the end, I had some extra time, and they each made up some questions.

How wrong is it...
- to lie about your age?
- to claim for “extra goods” from the insurance company after your house has been burgled? (I skipped this one)
- to have plastic surgery to look younger and more attractive?
- to sell your countries secrets (especially defense secrets) to a foreign country?
- to refuse to fight when your country is at war?
- to phone work or school and say you are ill when you just want a day off?
- to keep 10 pounds change given to you by a shop assistant by mistake?
- to do “extra work” but not pay tax on the money you’re paid? (in Hungarian, this is fekete munka, black work)
- to not vote in a national election?
- to cross a road when the traffic lights are red?
- to throw litter in the street?
- to hit someone in self-defense?
- to forge a cheque? (this one was very confusing)
- to fail to stop after bumping into a car, if no one saw you and no one was injured?
- to park in a no parking street?
- to smuggle goods through customs when coming back from a holiday abroad?
- to drive through traffic lights when they are red, if no one gets injured?
- to travel on public transport without a ticket, if you aren’t caught?
- to hit a naughty child?
- to copy CDs, DVDs, movies or computer programs for your own use?

In general, my students told me that most things are okay, provided that you aren’t caught. The last 6 or 7 questions provoked the most debate. The questions they came up with were about things like cheating on a boyfriend, lying to your friends and parents, cheating in school, and killing animals. And I found out a lot of interesting laws in Hungary, not to mention some interesting stories about the girls and their friends. One of their classmates, a kid I don’t like too much, had to pay a 10,000 forint fine because he took the bus without a ticket and tried to run away when they caught him. Ha, couldn’t happen to a nicer kid. Anyway, great lesson. Please use it and tell me how it works for you.

More Time Killers

I should be cleaning, I should be lesson planning, I should rearranging my house to fit the new loot I got from Ikea, I should be watching the movie I put on, but what am I doing? Messing around on the internet. If you have a blog or not, you should still check out BlogThings.

My Fortune Cookie:

Your Fortune Is

It's ok to let a fool kiss you, but don't let a kiss fool you.

The Wacky Fortune Cookie Generator

My Sellout Price:

On Average, You Would Sell Out For

$1,086,039

At What Price Would You Sell Out?

My Machiavellian-ness:

You Are Somewhat Machiavellian

You're not going to mow over everyone to get ahead... But you're also powerful enough to make things happen for yourself. You understand how the world works, even when it's an ugly place. You just don't get ugly yourself - unless you have to!

How Machiavellian Are You?

My Weather Type:

You Are Lightning

Beautiful yet dangerous People will stop and watch you when you appear Even though you're capable of random violence You are best known for: your power Your dominant state: performing

What Type of Weather Are You?

And now I just need to stop.

I'm Back!

Well, sorry I haven’t posted anything recently. This time, it really wasn’t my fault - I was having an on-again, off-again relationship with my internet, which eventually devolved into it not working at all. I barely noticed at first, being caught up in a frenzy of Lost-watching (I watched all episodes to date in the space of a week). Long saga short, the cable people agreed to come and look at it today between 4:30 and 8 pm. So by some sort of ugly, ironic twist, the Internet decided to start working again last night at about 10:30. I’m telling you, there’s something diabolically clever about everything in this flat. Rach, what was that movie with the killer house? You know which one I mean, with the garbage disposal and the switch? That’s going to be me, armless and screaming, any day now...

Back to normalcy. For a while, I was keeping a list of things I wanted to write about when I could. But now somehow it seems kinda pointless to write: “One morning a couple weeks ago I woke up to no electricity...” etc. Because it was only vaguely interesting then, and by now if I hadn’t written a note, I would have forgotten all about it. Anyone, to be short about it, in the past two weeks...

- I developed an obsession with Lost (see the casting, below)
- I missed both Pancake Day (because of the Lost obsession) and Pie Day (because I was on the way to Bp)
- I went to Budapest three times, and will go again this weekend
- I got a bunch of loot from Women’s Day
- Both of my 8th grade private students were accepted to Varga. Congrats, guys.
- I decided to let basketball take over my life, to the point of not traveling some weekends so I wouldn’t miss the home games. This led to...
- I spent several consecutive weekends in Szolnok. Four, to be exact. A whole month worth.
- I discovered that I have a fourth-grade fanclub, in the form of two little girls who follow me around, beg to come to extra lesson with me, and refuse to let me go home until I pretend to be fainting with hunger.

So that’s it, two weeks in less than 200 words. To finish, this is the casting list which Gaines and I came up with for Lost (maybe I should have asked before making this public, Gaines, but in any case I’ll take the blame if anyone is insulted):

Emily is Charlie (without the drugs or musical talent)
Gaines is Sawyer (without such an evil streak)
Jeremy is Hurley (without the fat)
Chad is Boone (without the death)
Jenna is Claire (because how do you not like Claire)
Yerik is Locke (without the baldness)
The New People are The Tail Section
Laura could be Kate (because they're both really cool)
Hajni is Rossau (without the crazy)
Janos is Ethen/Nathan (because he's just too chill... its suspicious)
Rosemary is Rose (for the quiet contemplation)
Jack is too [something] to cast
JoAnna and Kyle are Scott/Steve and the chick in the water
Our students are The Others because they're killing us slowly

Emily's Movie Reviews

On Sunday night, Juli, Chad and I went to see “Derailed”. The basic plot is that these two people start an affair, but the first time they go to a hotel together, they are attacked, and then the attacker starts blackmailing the guy. And there’s several other layers of scam going on as well. So this sounds like a great movie idea (I love scam movies), but in this movie it just never came together. You could see the twist coming an hour away. And the end was terrible (if you care, stop reading now, I’m going to give it away), like they just gave up caring about the movie and said, okay let’s just kill everyone off in a big, bloody shoot-out. But wait, one of them isn’t dead yet... so we can have one more over-dramatic confrontation scene... and then finally it’s over.

But on the plus side, the movie did have Xzibit playing the role of Dex, a thug with ideas about using rap to sell tea... or tuna? I don’t remember. But whatever, Xzibit is funny, so any movie with him is okay in my book. Derailed: C+

Yesterday (Monday), my private student was kind enough to burn me two DVDs, one with Robert Koltai’s film “Sose halunk meg” (We Never Die). I don’t any way to describe it other than a coming-of-age story set in the 60s in small-town Hungary. It follows Imi and his vivacious Gyuszi bácsi (“Uncle Juicy”) over a summer adventure involving coat-hangers, horse-racing, travel, booze, and women. I’ll have to watch it again before passing a final judgment, but for now: Sose halunk meg: A.

Solitary Weekend in Szolnok

Not so solitary, really, just other-American-less. Even Chad went away, so for once in a long time I was on my own. That, plus the addition of spending significant prime-time evening hours in a school and in a church made for a weekend that was not the typical CETP party, but rather something different and fresh.

My weekend really started with Friday, where at Kassai, three of my normal five classes were canceled, and I was done by noon. I still had classes at Oxford, followed by a Hungarian lesson with Juli. I now know all the possible conditional tenses in Hungarian. At least, I would know them if I studied more.

After dinner at Halászcsarda, Chad went off to the theater and Juli and I went to Verseghy Gymnasium to watch Juli’s friend’s little sister and her classmates practice their ballroom dance routine. After, we took a stroll around Tesco and a drive around Szolnok, just wasting time.

Saturday, I hung out in my flat, watched Chocolat and Chicago, and generally putzed around until evening, when I went with Tamás and Dóri and little Tami to their church’s Farsang celebration. We watched skits, poetry recitals, singing, and dancing. My absolute favorite was the final act: a Hungarian rendition of Havah Nigilah, complete with Hungarians dancing a hora ring. Stupendous.

Today was much like yesterday: lazing around, watching the same DVDs again and again. I did have to go out to Spar in order to buy more chocolate. But other than that, a calm and home-bound weekend. I guess despite having oodles and oodles of time to myself during the week, a weekend alone after almost 2 months of being with people was just what I wanted. Now, I don’t think I’ll want another for a few more months.

One Hundredth Entry Extravaganza

Yes, that’s right! Blogger informs me that this will be the 100th time I’ve posted. So today, in lieu of the normal blathering about my life, I’d like to dedicate this entry to self-tribute and lauding my various blogging achievements (not the least of which is actually making it to 100).

1. I got other people to start blogs
Although neither lasted particularly long, I did successfully encourage both Juli and Rach to start their own blogs. Now, if either of them could get into the habit of updating more, I would be tremendously happy.

2. I was mentioned on another blog
Ten of the happiest minutes of my life (until I got distracted by something else) was when I was checking Timbo’s blog (The Hungary Years, link below) and noticed that my blog was one of the links in the sidebar. Cool.

3. People read my blog
As of this moment, my counter informs me that almost 1100 people have been at my blog. So that’s more than 10 people per entry. I can guess who about 5 or 6 of those people are, but that still leaves 4 or 5 strangers per entry who find my blog worth reading.

4. I became obsessed with reading other blogs
I guess this isn’t really an achievement as it is an obsession which is taking over my life. But for better or worse, here are some of the blogs I check every day (all right, fine - twice a day). Sadly, this isn't even a complete list - I took out the ones that haven’t been updates for a while, and the quilting and fiber arts blogs which I think only a limited population is interested in.

Blogs of people I know (other CETPers):
- Gaines, who I can always count on for frequent updates and interesting entries
- Yerik, who writes great long entries... when he remembers to
- Jeremy, of who I am jealous because he has so many more readers then I do... and I was the one who installed the damn counter!
- Laura, also an infrequent updater, but worth the wait
- Jenna, snippets of life in Nyíregyháza
- Kat, adventures with teaching and dogs
Blogs of random people:
- Timbo, an ex-pat living in Budapest
- Alec, another ex-pat in Bp
- Seth, an English teacher living in Székesfehérvár
- Scarlett, not your typical soccer mom
- Jonathan, a Canadian guy who does both blogging and vlogging

Political and Middle Eastern blogs:
- Politics the way they should be told - by imaginary characters: Fafblog
- This project is so cool, it almost makes me want to move back to the states just so I could take part: Freewayblogger
- A former Saudi Arabian, now living in London: The Religious Policeman
- The best blog I’ve found, written by a young woman living in Baghdad. Although she doesn’t update frequently (I guess having electricity 2 hours a day makes that difficult), I read the entire archives in 2 days: Riverbend

And to finish with something light, gossip blogs:
- Proving that everyone looks better in jeans: Go Fug Yourself
- All you want to know about what's on tv and big screen: I Watch Stuff
- All you want to know about the people you pretend to hate: The Superficial

5. I made it to 100!
I suppose this means I should change that line in the title bar where it says “we’ll see how long this lasts.” But I won’t. 'Cause I'm lazy.

I Fight the Evil (Lesson Plans)

Two pedagogical successes this week. The first was the lesson plan I did with my 7abT (the four boys). Together, we made a list on the board of things in a city (houses, school, park, river, shops, factory, streets). Then I gave them each a blank piece of paper and told them to draw their own city. Their eyes positively lit up. The rest of the hour they spent happily, busily, and relatively quietly designing their cities. They used more English than I’ve ever heard from them, trying to explain various buildings to me and ask me what different things are called. By the way, I think I stole this from someone, but I don’t remember who. But whoever it was, great idea - I’m going to try and use it in other classes as well.

The second item of business isn’t so much a teaching success as it is just a personal amusement. In the process of giving The Quiz this week, as well as having them use the new words in sentences last week, the 7th and 8th graders came up with some great sentences. Some of the more interesting:

True, so true: Emily’s work is vain in our class, because the boys speaking and laughing each other.
Short and sweet: Hitler was very dominant.
Family gossip: My sister was loyal to her boyfriend, but the boy wasn’t so.
Good idea, poor word choice: I’m not dominant because I’m not a leather.
A perfect example: Bree Van De Kamp is fussy she thinks about unimportant things and makes her life perfect.
Just interesting: I am a cautious man because I don’t want to die.
And two that are just odd: Ádám is a cautious person because he cane the bad things and he think the things.
I’m a worrier person because I fight the evil.

The Softening of Emily

Something strange and perhaps horrible is happening to me: I’m softening. I’m becoming squishy, malleable, compliant, and gooey.

It happened today in 7b. I was giving The Quiz (mentioned a couple of entries ago), so between occasional shushings of the class, I had some time to think. I was thinking about a couple of the students, wondering where they’ll be in a few years, and all of a sudden it hit me: I’ve become attached to them. I care about how they do, where they’ll go, and what they’ll be like.

So I realize that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Having a stake in the success of my students is probably, in most books, an extremely good thing. After all, I’m supposed to want them to do well and be successful and all that crap. It was just disturbing to have it hit me so suddenly. For the most part I try to maintain a Cox-like state of indifferent sarcasm towards the kids. And so soon after my revelations about Szolnok, this new self-discovery fills me with general feelings of self-disgust, mushiness, love for the world, tolerance, sappiness, contempt, and softness.

Johari

Have you heard of this? I read about it on a couple of the many blogs I read obsessively (more about that later). As I understand it, a Johari window is basically a four-square grid containing words about personality traits. The four quadrants are divided by traits that are known by you and those that are known by others, and how these overlap: Arena (known to self and others), Façade (known to self but not others), Blind Spot (known to others but not self), and Unknown (not known by anyone).

So, Readers! All five of you! (And I’m overestimating generously.) In order to collect data for the “known to others” part... I need others. That means you. And you. But not you. So please take 60 seconds to go here and tell me something about myself.

Rach, I also expect your comment as to whether this is a legitimate psychological technique or just another wondrous way to kill time on the internet.

Regime Reinstated

The Regime of Terror is back! It reappeared in my lesson plans today in the form of a simple, 15-point quiz. Who knew a half sheet of paper could inspire such a cacophony of whining, moaning, bitching, groaning, and finally... sweet, blessed, bitter and glare-filled silence.

The details of the quiz: last week with the 7th and 8th grades, I introduced 16 new words to describe people. Some were easier - amusing, loyal, dominant - and some were more difficult - meticulous, indecisive, vain. I said to each class that we would have a small quiz. So I marched into 7a (one of my favorite classes) at 7:30 this morning and passed out the quiz. They took it with only one or two small sighs (as I said, one of my favorite classes), and although they made me promise that I would grade them easy, they all did really well.

My 8a(Wed) class was the complete opposite. The class started as it normally does: the bell rings, they continue talking. I take stock of who’s there and start the lesson. They continue talking. Two or three students try to listen. I whip out the quiz and, in order to be heard over them yell the single word, “Test!” A collective gr/moan goes up, almost as loud as my shout. I laid down the only rule: no talking. Had I been thinking, I would have also said, no using your notebooks or dictionaries. I had to take two away. The highlight of my day was Tami trying to tell me that he needed his back, because he was going to study English tonight. He couldn’t even hold a straight face. Anyway, with much sulking and shooting me nasty looks, they took the quiz. I haven’t graded them yet, but I have a gleeful suspicion that there will be many 2s and 3s.

I’m excited to give the quiz tomorrow in my other 7th and 8th grades. And to see if next week they’ll actually study the words I give them. I bet it takes two or three cycles before some of them catch on.

Other good ideas this week include Around the World with several levels, and drawing “monster animals” with 4th and 5th graders: they have to pick at random two of my animal cards, then draw them combined as one animal. My favorites were a ducksnake and a squirrelbird.

Commitment

Everyone in CETP knows that I’m staying in Hungary indefinitely. It’s such a given for me that I rarely think about it. It’s enough to just have it on hold in the back of mind, that of course I’ll be here forever.

But the subject of my stay in Hungary has come up twice recently, with two different reactions. First, talking with my mum a few weeks ago. I mentioned in passing something I was going to do here next year, and her reaction was quiet, sad shock. She had assumed that I would come home after a year. Second, talking with my 5th graders today. They asked when I would go home for the summer (June), and when I would come back in the fall (August). Not if I would come back, but when. They never assumed otherwise but that I would stay for two years.

The point of this rambling is... well, I’m not quite sure. Pointless, as usual. I’m not questioning if I’ll stay here or not - that’s still a given. I guess I’m just questioning what it is about Hungary that can provoke this level of commitment from me. Mostly because I’m already anticipating having to answer the eternal question that I know I’ll hear a thousand and one times this summer: “So what is it exactly that you love so much about Hungary? Why are you staying there?”

Any ideas? Rach, any psych insights?

Song of the moment: Woke Up This Morning, by Alabama 3

A “Spring” Weekend in Szolnok

Song of the Week: I Write Sins Not Tragedies, by Panic! at the Disco

Oh, well imagine; as I'm pacing the pews in a church corridor,
and I can't help but to hear, no I can't help but to hear an exchanging of words.
"What a beautiful wedding!", "What a beautiful wedding!" says a bridesmaid to a waiter.
"And yes, but what a shame, what a shame, the poor groom's bride is a whore."

I'd chime in with a "Haven't you people ever heard of closing the god damn door?!"
No, it's much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of poise and rationality.
I'd chime in "Haven't you people ever heard of closing the god damn door?!"
No, it's much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of...

Well in fact, well I'll look at it this way, I mean technically our marriage is saved
Well this calls for a toast, so pour the champagne
Oh! Well in fact, well I'll look at it this way, I mean technically our marriage is saved
Well this calls for a toast, so pour the champagne, pour the champagne

I'd chime in with a "Haven't you people ever heard of closing the god damn door?!"
No, it's much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of poise and rationality.
I'd chime in "Haven't you people ever heard of closing the god damn door?!"
No, it's much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of poise and rationality.

Again...

Although it seems a bit dry without the music, the bizarreness of an excess of syllables crammed into one line without regard for accent or pacing, or the video, which might just be the Best Video Ever: it teaches us that even if you are scorned by your lover, and your fiancee leaves you at the alter to run off with a mime, and then you catch them making out behind the church, you can always go on to lead a happy and successful life as the leader of a troupe of circus performers. But only if you have a cool hat and some kick-ass lipstick. Sexy eyes help, too. All right, you just have to see it.

So the song has nothing to do with anything, right? Well, wrong, but that’s not the point. The point is, I had an awesome weekend in Szolnok (yet another sentence that at one time would have seemed oxymoronic - or just straight up moronic). Gaines and Nicole arrived on Friday, and I showed off my dish of the week, stuffed peppers, which they proclaimed excellent. We met up with Juli and Chad and went to the new Jazz 2, where Anita and Jacek’s connections had snagged us a table right in front of the performers, Gál “Boogie” Csaba és a Someday Baby zenekar. Amazing. Some sort of mix of old Southern music and jazz and a whole bunch of other things: “It's like a 1930's barrelhouse on one side of the street and a skateboard bowl on the other. They are still in the same house.” That’s from their website; I’m not sure if it makes sense but it’s as good as anything I could write to describe them. Just plain great.

Saturday we spent about equal parts of time lazing around here and traveling to and from the train station to collect Jenn, Jillian, Brent and Tara (in that order. Because knowing that is vitally important to the rest of the story. What?) It was an amazing spring day, and despite the massive puddles everywhere, Szolnok was almost, almost prett- no, I just can’t type it. But the weather was gorgeous. In the evening, we had a pleasant walk over the stadium for the basketball game, minus Juli, who was home for the weekend, and Chad, who had decided to take the day and visit Abony and didn’t get a bus back in time. Great game; complete with the usual screaming fans, and I’m starting to learn some of the chants now. My favorite is aimed at one of the referees, “Egy, ketto, három, négy; kurva anyád Szabóné!” Rough job, that must be.

Afterward, we went over to Halászcsarda, where despite a long wait, the food was incredible as always. The end of the evening, for some at least, was Panorama, which unfortunately was filled with both smoke and loud techno. But also with beer. So still acceptable.

This morning, after a jaunt around the city trying to following my directions, Hajni arrived. In my mind, seeing her again ties with Friday night as the highlight of the weekend. After she left, taking some people with her, the rest of had an anticlimactic walk to the train station in the sunny, near-balmy mid-February spring. Lovely. Despite my resolve to clean up my house and do some lesson planning (ha - do I even need to tell you how that turned out?) I spent most of the afternoon staring out my open window, gazing at the sunshine like a moon-stuck lover. Hm, that reminds me of something... something from the Best Video Ever. I think I’ll go watch some more MTV in hopes it’ll come on.

The L-Word

Well, it’s happened. I’ve lost my mind.

What happened was, I was talking with Jillian, and she asked me if I would stay a second year (of course) and would I stay in Szolnok. The words that came out my mouth were: “Yeah, of course I’d stay here. I mean, it’s not Pest, but I like Szolnok, and - wait, what?” Because, yes, those three words in that order did in fact come past my lips: I like Szolnok. I. Like. Szolnok. It’s okay. It’s good. Oh my god, I think the toxicity of this place has finally leeched into my body and infected my blood and taken over my brain.

Don’t Throw Rocks or Paper - More Disciplinary Problems

Was it just a few weeks ago that I was so happy and proud of my new Regime of Terror? While for the most part, the new system of “every time you see me, you WILL get a grade” has been both successful and amusing (to me, I mean), today there was a stunning deviation.

Thursdays are an awkward day for me. I have a 7:30 class, then a 3 hour break, then a class, then one hour free, then my last class. First class, 7b. I like this class because they’re just so normal. Their English is average. Their behavior is the same. There’s one class clown, one brilliant kid who refuses to do any work, some loud boys, some quiet boys, some hair-twirling girls, some diligent girls - but as a class, they’re just so normal and wonderful. They never annoy me, they never delight me, but as I scribbled once in the margin of the class notes I keep on them, “I like them calmly.”

During my long break, I walked to the market and stocked up on fruit. I’ve gotten into fruit and tea in a last-stand attempt to get rid of a long-running low-grade cold. I had a nap, followed by coffee, to steel myself for my next class: the dreaded 5abT.

This class is... wait, let me think before making a bold statement... yes, this class is my absolute least favorite. If you ask me on a Tuesday, I might tell you my least favorite was 7ab, but at least 7ab can speak English. 5abT is the worst of the worst 5th graders. Both in behavior and language. They had begged me to do more speaking with them, instead of just written exercises, so today (much against my better judgment) I concocted an activity which had them writing questions with “Do you like...?” (Do you like swimming, do you like cats, do you like English, etc) and then asking them to each other. Absolute chaos. They ran around; they climbed over tables; they screamed; they laughed at things out the window; they laughed at the light switch; they doodled; they made up games; they threw around wads of paper. The climax came when, as I was standing in the front desperately trying to grab their attention, one little monster took a ball of paper, looked me straight in the eye, then whipped it right at me, hitting me squarely in the sternum. Not the force of it, but the nerve of this kid, his completely indifferent and apathetic attitude, was enough to take my breath away.

What should I have done? In hindsight, options lay themselves out before me like a buffet of punishment possibilities. I could have screamed at him. I could have screamed at all of them. I could have left the room. I could have ordered him out. I could have grabbed him by the ear and marched him to the principal. I could have smacked him. That last one actually crossed my mind, but instead I took what was probably the path of least resistance: in the moment of pure blessed silence that followed the ball hitting me, I made a show of opening my gradebook and writing next to his name. Which prompted the other students to all leave their seats and crowd around to see what it was I had written, which led to a whole ’nother round of me fruitlessly screaming “Sit down!”

After class, I took the high road and tattled on him, plus the others who were just being generally disruptive, to Kati (my contact teacher and the most feared teacher in the school). She told his form-teacher, who didn’t seem the least surprised about neither the paper throwing nor the other stuff. In fact, as soon as I mentioned one name, she named the other three without hesitation. I also told Vali (my favorite of the English teachers, mostly because she gives me tons of advice and ideas without ever being condescending or dictatory), and while I was teaching my next class, Vali confronted the paper-thrower in the hallway. He angelically explained to her that he had been throwing the paper in the waste basket, and I had happened to step in front of it. Bullshit! I told her that A) I hadn’t moved at all and B) there’s no waste basket in the room! Vali was quite upset, more so that he had lied to her than anything else. That kid will grow up to be a serial killer.

I guess it’s too late to say long story short, but quick conclusion: Kati said that in the future, I should grab their tájékoztatós (the small, personal napló) and bring it to her, another English teacher, or anyone that speaks Hungarian, so they can write a message to the parents. Not exactly an ideal situation, but we’ll see.

On the positive side of life, my 7:30 class tomorrow will be canceled - which I found out not from my contact teacher, not from a memo, but from the students themselves. The way it was explained, it might be a permanent thing... meaning one less class for me, hooray! But I’m not hopeful, because things Good For Emily so rarely come out of that school.

English Speakers Needed

As I was perusing Tiszaújváros’s webpage, I came across the following paragraph in the English-language section of the page:

At the place where river Sajó flows into river Tisza our forbears in the 13th century thought this place is suitable for settling. A certificate mentioning Tiszaszederkény village in 1268 proves it. The ancient settlement was beaten by the weather and history, and unstocked under the Turkish thraldom. In 1651 it was Zsuzsanna Lorántffy who settled 32 heyduck families and denizen the village. Its figuration appears in the blazon of the town, on which the arm holding a sword indicates the heroism of heyducks and the vine-leaf was the emblem of Zsuzsanna Lorántffy

Normally I find the “Hunglish” spoken by English-learners both amusing and endearing. However, when it comes to any sort of published work, even one that will probably be read by a handful of people, it just irritates me. Seriously, in all of Tiszaújváros, they couldn’t track down one person to proofread this? It would have taken me all of 5 minutes to read this, change a few words, and retype it. If I lived there or had any sort of stake in the city’s future, I would have done it for free.

On the other hand, this is the sort of thing that gives me hope for my own future in Hungary: because they need English speakers. And that’s one of the few things I’m pretty damn good at. Oops, I meant: one of the things at which I’m pretty damn good.

Tiszaújváros

This’ll have to be a short entry, because I’m in the process of - wait for it, wait for it - I’m in the process of cooking something. Oh my god, I’ve become so domesticated... wait, maybe that’s not the word. But it works that way too.

Anyway, I went to Tiszaújváros. It was great. Yes. As much fun as the weekend itself was the travel adventure involved: Gaines and I needed to switch trains in Nyékládháza, with a planned 6-minute layover (being the two people we are, we had multiple backup plans in place). The train was nagyon late, and then made up some time, and then was really late again, and then I had to try and talk to the conductor, and he told me that the connecting train would wait, and I said, “Biztosan?” and he shrugged. Long story short, we had exactly a one-minute wait in Nyékládháza. But we made it. The trip home also involved switching twice, but with longer waits, so all successful.

I have to say Tiszaújváros gets two prizes: Most Well-Designed, yet Hardest To Reach. In addition, Liz’s flat is much nicer than mine... shocker. And that’s it; really; nothing else happened of any interest that hasn’t happened every other weekend. Well, we did go ice-skating, so that was new for some people. Sorry for the gloom; I’ve been teaching personality adjectives to the 8th graders, and I can now describe my life as dull, boring (but not bored, there’s a difference!), stubborn, unchanging, and unstimulating. And I’ll stop now, ’cause I’m smelling burning, and post more later.

No wait, just before I hit the post button there was a knock on my door, so I have to record that I just got out of listening to a speech about Fidesz with a smooth, “Bocsánat, de nem magyar vagyok.” After which he asked me what I was (“amerikai”) and gave me a, “Clinton (thumbs up); Bush hanem nem jó (hands making the so-so gesture).” Oh, the glory of American politics correctly and precisely summed up by two hand gestures. Although, if it were me, I’d have used a different gesture for Bush. But whatever. I do hope that canvassers (or whatever they’re called; I’m using that word because I sort of vaguely remember it from my West Wing-watching days) won’t be making a habit of knocking on my door. Because the elections aren’t until April, and that’s gonna get tiring. Hm, maybe I should just paint a huge American flag on my door... ’cause that wouldn’t be obnoxious or crude...

Winter Wonderland... ugh

After a perfectly acceptable snow-less winter, Szolnok has finally caught up with the rest of Hungary and allowed itself to be blanketed by snow. I had a theory going, which was something along the lines of: Szolnok is so ugly, it is physically impossible A) for it to snow at all, or B) for snow to stick around any amount of time. Because either of these things would improve the appearance of the city, and that just can’t happen, because Szolnok is and must remain an Ugly City.

But I’ve been proven wrong on both counts. It snowed Tuesday evening and night. It snowed overnight Wednesday. It snowed overnight Thursday. There’s snow on the trees, snow on the streets, snow on the buildings and snow in the gardens. Szolnok has become, I certainly won’t use the P-word, but I’ll say it has become Almost Not Ugly.

However - the clever city has found other ways to manifest its inbred ugliness. The snow turns brown and wet. It migrates inside. The students throw snowballs at me, usually at times when I’m clutching my bag, or pile of notebooks, and can’t fire back. One hit me in the face. Had I seen who it was, I wouldn’t have been above tattling on him to the director. My shoes are wet, my pants are wet, my socks are wet. I don’t want to walk anywhere, so I’ve been eating stale bread with nothing on it.

The best part is, back during the cold spell a few weeks ago, I told everyone who would listen about Minnesota weather (“Temperatures like this, but with more snow”). So now everyone is telling me, This must be just like home for you! Yes, indeed. Just like Minnesota.... grrr.

Oh well. Spring is soon enough. It’ll be all the more appreciated now. This weekend I’m off to Tiszaújváros for Liz’s Olympics-watching party. Should be interesting.

Pancake Day!!!!

Holy God! There was a Pancake Day, and I missed it! Today, my private student Lili, in the course of reciting the holidays she had to know for an upcoming quiz, listed off “Christmas, New Years, Easter, Pancake Day-” wait, what? She explained it was a British holiday when they make pancakes, eat pancakes, exchange pancakes, and generally revel in the glory of pancakes. The second she left, I looked it up and damn if she wasn’t spot on:

For centuries, the English have celebrated Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent, with merriment and antics and, especially, great quantities of pancakes. In fact, the fried flat cakes became so important to the holiday that is has also been called Pancake Day, or Pancake Tuesday.

Long ago, strict Christian Lenten rules prohibited the eating of all dairy products, so keen housewives made pancakes to use up their supplies of eggs, milk, butter and other fats. They could be easily made and cooked in a skillet or on a griddle. Families ate stacks of them, and pancakes were popular with all classes.

Yum! I love it when serious religious holidays can also be about eating massive amounts of food.

On a related note, I don’t think it’ll be feasible for me to give up alcohol for Lent this year. Stop laughing, I really did it last year: 40 days without a drop (with a foreseen St Patrick’s day exception). As interesting an experience as it was, it just won’t happen this year so it’s pointless to try. In addition to not having a motivating factor as I did last year (that factor being the disgustingly indulgent drinking for Jenny’s birthday in early February), this year the truth of my life is that for better or worse, it revolves around alcohol. Besides, I think I’ve already done my penance for this year by living CWO (cold water only) for two months. And yes, I know that that’s not technically an act of penance because it wasn’t self-imposed, but what do I care? I’m not even Christian.

Because I Spent the Afternoon Lesson-Planning...

Oh, I wish there were some better way to type laughter, because just writing title above made me crack up. Really, I spent the afternoon putzing around the internet, blog-hopping and most recently, taking an absurd number of mindless, pointless quizzes to learn completely random, insupportable trivia about myself. To spend your very own afternoon “lesson-planning” as I did, check out Blue Pyramid, Quizilla, or just Google. In the meantime, here’s what I learned about myself... because I know you’re all as fascinated with me as I am.

*What state are you? The Panama Canal (since when is this a state?) because I’m all about the shortcut.
*What animal are you? A Ladybug, for my quiet dignity and soft demeanor.
*What book are you? Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, because I’m willing to try anything once. Apparently, I’ve spent some time in every camp, but still don’t have any idea which camp I really belong in. Hm... that’s thinky.
*What railroad are you? I’m the Hogwart’s Express. But this quiz doesn’t seem very scientific. Unlike the others, I mean.
*How will you die? Cancer. Charming. Something to look forward to.
*And my favorite (equally for the topic and the obvious fact that it was written by a non-native speaker): If you were a teacher, would students like you? Answer: “The students loves you!” Does they really? Awesome.

The Graves in the Woods

So I’m still thinking a lot about Erfurt. I don’t know why; it’s something about Szolnok that pushes the right buttons in my memory, but it seems like there’s nothing that happens to me here that doesn’t remind me of Erfurt. Anyway, since last month I’ve been dwelling on the following story:

One town over from Erfurt is Weimar, near to which Buchenwald Concentration Camp was located (the good and innocent townspeople, of course, had no idea what was going on up on the hill). To the puzzlement and sometimes disgust of the Germans I knew, I visited the camp several times. It never upset me, it’s just such an interesting history that I wanted to know it completely. One beautiful spring day, Kaitlin, Wag and I decided to make a trip. Long story short, the bus we got on did not end up in Buchenwald, but instead on the other side of the hill. We asked the bus driver what to do. He pointed at a trail through the woods and told us it was half an hour’s hike. We gamely started walking through the cool, green forest. After a while, Wag revolted and turned back. Kaitlin and I continued, figuring that as long as there was a path, and only one path, we had to come out somewhere. Eventually, the path became more cared-for. We saw a short fence and a gate which had a Buchenwald sign on it. We went into the fenced-in area. Gradually, walking through the thinning forest, I realized that scattered among the young trees were narrow metal poles. They were silver and the sun glinted on them - otherwise, they blended with the forest.


The picture here doesn’t really do it justice; when the forest is green the poles aren’t instantly visible. My storytelling can’t really do it justice either, because I can only describe the feeling in a most basic way: imagine walking somewhere, somewhere innocent enough like through a field or a forest, then gradually realizing that something you’d been noticing all along, those rocks on the ground maybe, were actually human bones. Even if you’d never been disturbed by death before, it’s the feeling of being caught unaware, of death creeping up on you in a place you weren’t expecting it.

The end of the story has a small twist: it turned out that the inhabitants of the mass grave in the forest were not in fact concentration camp victims. They were Germans. They were some of the 7000 Nazi war criminals and other political prisoners who died while Buchenwald was being used as a prison camp by the NKVD from 1945-1950. Although the first memorials at Buchenwald were established in the 1950s, these Soviet mass graves weren’t discovered until 1989. There was some intense discussion about how or if the two histories (Buchenwald Concentration Camp and Soviet Special Camp #2) should be portrayed together in one memorial. Eventually the Thuringian Ministry of Science came up with the following guidelines: "Both the Nazi concentration camp and Soviet Special Camp No. 2 are to be commemorated. The concentration camp is to be the primary focus. The commemoration of Special Camp No. 2 is to be subordinate. The commemoration sites are to be separated spatially...” etc. Hence the unobtrusive poles in the forest, in a separate fenced area behind the camp and down the hill, best reached by a hike through the woods.

Weekend in the Tropics

... and by tropics, I mean Kiskunhalas, where Janos has the most gloriously warm apartment (I, on the other hand, spent half my time at home reading in my bathroom, which is the only truly warm place, or in my living room huddled as I am now in sweater, scarf, and layers of blanket). Despite the lack of a keg and two unsuccessful bars, there was still an abundance of other good things including beer, hot wine, paprikás krumpli, the regular market on Saturday and the giant market on Sunday, lots of Viva, Kill Bill 1 & 2 (in Hungarian) and other bizarre after-midnight TV, a snowfall, and a mission to find the Howling Beast, which lives down the block and is the creepiest sound in the world to wake up to. Or fall asleep to. Or hear in the middle of the night. Or, really any time. Yeah, just plain creepy. Anyway, we went on a mission to track down is whereabouts. Unfortunately, the devilish creature knew we were coming and decided to shut up. Hm... diabolical.

But other than that, a great weekend. The superbowl party about which I was so enthusiastic turned out not to be so great - a bunch of people I didn’t know. Liz, Chad and Julie were exhausted from skiing all weekend; by the kick-off at midnight, they were falling asleep in the bar. So shortly after, Liz and I came home. After she left this morning, I was planning to use my free day to do some lesson planning... and I’m sure I’ll get around to that any time now...

TGIF

It’s Friday, and I’m off. In more ways than one, probably. Check out my favorite new music video. It's so great I had to share it. Don't try it at work, though, because there's no way to stop it or turn down the volume (that I could find).

Rachael is Amazing

Today, by some miracle of time I managed to make it to school at 7:24. This meant I had 5 minutes to savor the peace, quiet, and solitude that occurs in the teachers room before the other teachers pour in 30 seconds before the bell rings at 7:30. I used these minutes to enjoy the surprise waiting for me on my desk: yet another wondrous package from homefriend (and former-fellow-Townhouse-F-roomie) Rach. This is the 4th package I’ve gotten from her, which makes her my second-best person to get mail from (after parents, of course).

So far, my loot includes: cards, both the playing type and the Hallmark type; 2 DVDs (Huckabees and Practical Magic); a Friend of the plush variety; and countless, irreplaceable collaging supplies. Rach, you absolutely rock. In your honor, two cards from my newest project, which I’m un-originally calling “e-collage.”






































See, they’re not great. But I challenge you to make a couple and put them up on your blog.

The Final Battle of the Water War, and the Demise of My Nemesis (aka Evil Old Water Boiler)

Three random men (none of them were Páli or Szabolcs, the handymen from my school) showed up at my flat yesterday afternoon to install My Ally, The New Water Boiler. This process involved them mumbling and joking a lot in Hungarian as I hovered in the bathroom doorway. There was also use of power tools, including a metal-shavings-and-spark-throwing circular saw, with no sort of goggles or gloves. Wow, does Hungary do workers’ comp? I’ve noticed construction and highway workers here don’t wear helmets either.

Right, tangent. So... I have hot water! It’s beautiful. I had resisted the temptation to tear open the box and inspect it as it waited in my bathroom, but let me tell you now that it’s sleek and shiny, clean white with smooth gray knobs. After the men left, I cleaned up the mud and soot deposited by boots and power tools. My bathroom was sparkling and warm. So I turned off the light and basked in the warm glow of the crisp blue flame reflected on the pure white surface, and a feeling of warmth, love, and peace with the earth came over me to such an extent that I pressed my cheek against New Water Boiler while running my fingertips gently over its caressable smoothness.

Wait, no, I didn’t. Maybe my brain really has been frozen. I counted up the days, and for the 5 months I’ve lived here, I’ve been CWO (Cold Water Only) for about two of them. Ouch. Anyway, if I never have to write about the the hot water in my flat again, other than to occasionally mention that it’s working perfectly, and how blessed and grateful I am to have it, I would be so happy. Today, it seems like a viable possibility.

The absolute endnote to this story is that when Páli and Szabolcs showed up this morning to lug away the old machine and inspect the new one, I had just gotten up, was dressed in awful old clothes, and my vacuum was parked in the middle of my hall. “Oh, you’re in the middle of cleaning?” they said, nodding approvingly. So I hope they carried that story back to the school - I know they think I live in filth. Which may be true... but still.

Sorry I’m weird today. I’m picking it up from The Kids. Plans for tonight include Soproni Time, followed by going to see some English movie which looks incredibly boring to me, but Chad is fired up about it - and he has reasonably good taste in movies, so we’ll see.

Martin Moll's Monday

A few weeks ago when I was bored and Google-ing old friends, I found a web page with the poems of one of them. Since I’ve been thinking about and feeling Erfurt a lot lately, seemingly every time I turn around, here’s my favorite:

Monday
The start of another week
and a pack of cards in the mailbox.
They are dealt but aren't read.
Though the future might be promising.
But as we know
things are not always what they seem.
Like the shadow in the dark
or the bustle in your hedgerow.
People could lie and people could cheat.
and people could never find out.
But as long as the cards aren't put on the table
the chances of having a good hand remain.

Hell has not frozen over

... but yes, it's Laura in a skirt. A hippie skirt. And a frilly shirt. And she let us take pictures of her... sort of willingly.

LacigolonorhcitnA

Song for the weekend: Eminem, Lose Yourself
... because that damn club wouldn't play it. Among other reasons.

Today I boarded the train from Nyíregyháza to Szolnok, snagged a compartment to myself, and settled into my book. Before we left the station, I was joined by a jovial middle-aged Gypsy woman, who promptly cracked a Soproni, offered me some (declined), showed me her backpack full of perfume, tried to sell me some, smoked like a factory, offered me pogácsa so persistently that I finally had to take one, and complimented me on my Hungarian. She got off in Debrecen and was replaced by much more staid and quiet travel companions.

This morning was calm. We woke up to a heatless house, but quickly remedied the problem by turning on the stove burners and shutting the kitchen door. After running to the Csemege for bread, bacon, and more eggs, we had a hasty breakfast (thank you, Jenna!) before packing and departing.

Saturday evening, we ate a fantastic dinner of spaghetti and Jell-O. This, along with other fun activities such as dressing up in Mariah’s clothes (pictures of Laura in a skirt will be posted as soon as I get them) kept us busy until it was time to head out to the bar/club. We abandoned plans of The Atlantis in favor of a much closer place, which turned out to be two floors of bar and an attic dance floor, where we took up residence. The evening went as it usually does: us dancing, Hungarian gawking, us demanding good American music, the DJ complying for a time before devolving to mediocre Hungarian techno. Still, it was a good time. That place, whatever it was called, is now one of my favorites yet.

On Saturday morning, our main goal for the was making it to the store before it closed at noon. This turned out not to be a problem, as we were up and coffee-infused by 10 at the latest. We spent a good chunk of midday and afternoon watching Sex and the City before the Nyíregyháza contingent (Jenna and Yerik, plus Tim and Jen) arrived. Mark also stopped by for a while, but cut out early (pre-spaghetti, although not pre-Jell-O) to attend some school-related event.

This was my first trip to Kisvárda. Mariah’s flat is, shockingly, much nicer than mine. Although she suffers from similar hot water problems. After a long, cold walk from the train station (during which my new scarf from Juli played a vital role in keeping my face not frozen), Mariah, Laura and I decided not to brave the cold any more than we had to, and stayed in. It proved a good choice, although a relatively early evening.

Friday afternoon, I made it to Kisvárda despite being on a freezing cold and extremely bumpy train. Mariah, bless her heart, was waiting for me at the station with hot chocolate. We waited for Laura at a bar down the street which has to win the award for Sketchiest Bathroom Yet in Hungary. The lights in the back part of the building had gone out (I think the owner told me it had happened just that afternoon), so a trip to the WC involved a candle. The candle, set into a pool of wax on the sink, shone light into the doorless stall. Nice. I love small town Hungary.

I WON! I WON! I WON!

... the hot water war. Well, not yet. But victory is in sight: I see it in the distance... Monday-ish.

So allow me to tell what will be, I hope to God, the penultimate chapter of the Water War: yesterday, after I had written the “Bitter” entry, I was sitting in my bathroom reading (don’t laugh, it’s the only warm room in my house), when I noticed the smell of gas. I examined my nemesis, the water boiler, only to find that in a new and disturbing maneuver, it had managed to extinguish one of its two flames. No flame = no gas being burned off. Thus, gas filling the room, replacing the oxygen, Emily can’t breathe, Emily is dying. That is one diabolical machine. I went for the quick execution: I shut the whole thing down. Then I marched straight over to my school and reenacted the various Battles of the Water War for everyone standing around the teachers room. Since all the English teachers were busy with some performance that I had never been informed about, this involved a lot of my broken Hungarian and grandiose gestures. No hot water (me shivering). Gas filling the room (waving arms around). Deadly! (me clutching my throat and coughing).

So once again, the handymen took my keys and went over to inspect it. I had no idea what they did, because my keys were returned to my desk but I didn’t see either them nor an English-speaking teacher for the rest of the day. When I came home, the boiler was still off. Hibernating, waiting, I know. Plotting something worse - a way to drive me permanently crazy, freeze me to death (has anyone seen Sunshine? Do you remember the camp? The human icicle?)... or gas me once and for all.

But! Just now at my door appeared the two handymen plus an unknown third man, carrying a box... a new-water-boiler-shaped box. We established that Monday would be a good time for them to come put it in. Meanwhile, it sits on my bathroom floor waiting: a box filled with the promise of reliable hot water, no hitting or fiddling involved, no gas leakage, no threat of death. Blissful.

I feel as though writing and publishing this might be tempting fate. I have visions of that damn evil machine, despite being turned off, still finding a way to kill me in the next few hours before I can escape. Or maybe the new machine will be even more demonic in some terrible, as-yet-unimaginable way. Oh well, I’ll risk it - besides, by now I think fate owes me big time.

Today I'm Bitter

Currently, I fulfill two of the three meanings of bitter, the second and third. The first one will happen soon enough, if I don’t get a shower.

This morning I gave in and decided I couldn’t make it another hour without washing my hair, at least. I turned the tap, hoping beyond hope that by some miracle the hot water would have restored itself. No such luck. I took advantage of the 2 seconds of lukewarm water to wet my head. I lathered up, took a deep breath, and stuck my head under the water to rinse. It was icy. Gaspingly, painfully, brain-chillingly, hand-numbingly icy. I may have shed a tear or two of pain and frustration (at least they were hot). Rinsing seemed endless. It did take twice as long as normal, because halfway through I had to stop to let my hands thaw.

On the plus side, I do love a drink of cold water. And, I tested, the water from my tap is colder than water from the fridge. Great. At least I won’t get dehydrated this week!