"Resolutions 2009"

Well, "I won't procrastinate" will never be a resolution for me. Anyway, back in January I resolutely resolved not to wrangle with New Year's Resolutions this year. And I'm keeping that promise: I won't call them resolutions. They can be my "daily determinations". Or "erstwhile ill-fated intentions." Or "mad missions". Or... okay, I'll stop.

Have you noticed that so far, there's really an "absurd" number of quotation marks in this entry? I just started reading The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks, and maybe she's inspired me. De-spired me? Whatever, I feel like I can justify all my marks, including the ones in the title. since these are neither resolutions, nor will they be (I hope) just for 2009.

Are you picking up on the fact that this whole venture may have been cause by lack of coffee? It's a dangerous place for me to be in. Anyway, the goals:

1. I will exercise 5 minutes a day. Weekends optional. Five minutes is totally doable, right?

2. I will do something, anything, in Hungarian every day. One exercise. One translation. Ten new vocab words. Free-writing, journaling even... just something.

So, baby steps. These both seem very reasonable and (what the hell is a word that means doable but is an actual word?). Any bets on how long the goals will last? I'm guessing an optimistic 3 weeks on the Hungarian and a realistic 5 days on the exercise.

Due my school being small and poor and having too many students, several of our "classrooms" are not actually classrooms, but, say, a former closet. Or a closed-off corner of the gym. Or the old teacher's apartments (where Chad, Petra, and I myself all lived for a time), which is across the courtyard from the main school building. I have several classes here, and they can be easily measured up on a lazy <---> ambitious continuum: some will ask the key from the reception, let themselves in, and wait nicely in their seats. Some won't ask for the key, but will go out into the courtyard and stand huddled together for warmth by the door, waiting for me. And the laziest sit around the reception, waiting for me to come, fetch the key, and open the door, after which they will gradually get up and meander their way out.

My class today was one of the get-the-key-and-get-in-nicely classes. Which is why I was surprised, while crossing the courtyard, to see several of them busily amusing themselves all around the courtyard. One was playing basketball with a gym class*. One had found a broom and was chasing after the basketball players. One was leaning over the fence to make out with her boyfriend standing on the street.

And I bring this up because just this morning I was gloating about the awesome weather here, and this is the other shoe dropping. This behavior is all the weather's fault. Warm weather breeds teenage craziness. As a human being, I have to love spring time (ahem, see previous gloating entry), but as a teacher...

*another curse of the warmer weather - all winter the P.E. classes were safely inside the gym and I was able to cross the courtyard without worrying about being knocked on the head with a basketball/football/frisbee. But now they're back and I'm under fire every time I have a class outside.

"Winter" in Hungary

My dad sent me this picture a few weeks ago, because I'd expressed disbelief that snow could actually be higher than someone's head. Living in Hungary the past few winters, I've been so calmed by the winters here that I seemed to have blocked out an entire childhood of New Hampshire October-to-May whiteness, as well as a teenhood of Minnesota and Wisconsin blizzards.

During the same conversation when I accidently admitted to my dad that I'd forgotten what snow looked like, my mom mentioned that it was a "nice" 20 degrees, but was going to get to 20 below the next day. I nodded (yes, I nod on the phone) and "uh-huh"ed absently; the numbers didn't sink in until later. I'd forgotten that 20, in Fahrenheit, is actually BELOW freezing. And -20 is WAY below.

And I'm just saying all this because at the moment, I'm looking out my window, the sun is shining, the sky is blue and clear, and the forecast is predicting 15 C. That's almost 60 F! It's February 6th. February was the month when I fell in love with Szolnok... maybe you can see why.

If I die in my sleep tonight, check my left foot's alibi

My left foot has decided it no longer wants to be part of my body. It's been playing kamikaze for the last few days - first, it tried to make me fall by twisting my ankle while walking across some soft earth in high-heeled boots. Then, that stick-out-y bony part just down from my big toe impaled itself on the corner of my desk. And just now, my middle toe tried to self-amputate on the coffee table.

But it makes for a good story; the last ten minutes are exactly like the entire week I've had. I came home after a long day and wanted to relax a bit - namely, drink a coffee and put on clean, comfortable clothes. So I grab a clean shirt and on the way to the kitchen I take off my outer shirt and throw it into the bathroom hamper. I put a cup of water into the micro to heat. I go back to the living room to get my clean shirt, remember that I had left it in the bathroom, can't find it in the bathroom, and go back to search the living room. As I'm searching I suddenly think that the coffee water'll overheat, spin around and whack my toe, which was sufficiently painful to make me fall down. Of course my bottom half is still dressed in school clothes - nice pants and nylons for warmth - so now I'm sitting on the floor watching my toe bleed through my nylons. I carefully maneuver my bloody foot out of the nylons and past the pants, and grab a tissue. And now I'm sitting on the floor half-naked, clutching a blood-soaked tissue to my foot, thinking about how the water in the microwave is getting hotter and hotter and I'm going to burn myself when I try to drink my coffee and for the love of god, what has my left foot got against me anyway?? Why is everyone on the planet and everything in the world (mechanical appliances and machines especially) against me???

So multiple those last 10 minutes by 6, then by 24, then by 5, and you've got my week. Nearly everything that could break, fail, annoy, disappoint or go wrong did in fact break, fail, annoy, disappoint, or go. But! TGIF, people, TGIF. I'm nothing if not optimistic. I plan on spending the next 48 hours sitting carefully at my desk, reading blogs and doing very little work. First order of business: I'm sewing myself some cushioned booties.

See, Mum, I do eat well!

So what has prompted me to finally write again? Please choose from the following answers:

- Jeremy taunted me with his "one month" comment.
- I actually have some new stories to tell.
- My students did/wrote/said something funny worth sharing.
- I was reading Jamie/Brigi/whoever's blog and became jealous of their continued posting ability.

Nope, trick question, none of the above. The real answer is, I cooked something both delicious-tasting and photogenic (ha ha, at least the delicious part was true), and I need a bit of a brag. So I present to you baked spaghetti a la Amy-and-Nancy*, my now-infamous "salad is the one dish no one can mess up" salad**, and oddly-positioned garlic bread. Tessék:


That's all for now. More pictures/stories/excuses next month :)

* Amy and Nancy, I think half of Szolnok still talks about the dinner you made...
** Well. The salad disaster was not entirely my fault; someone-who-shall-not-be-named put my green ingredients (cucumber, peas) in various hiding places; plus we were running low on lettuce..... so maybe 'salad' was the wrong word to use... whatever, it was delish

Christmas tree!

Story A: The day after Thanksgiving, actually on the way home from the feast, I said to Tomi that we should put up the Christmas tree. He guffawed and said we would put it up on December 24th like everyone else. In my role as cultural ambassador I explained that in America we put up our trees at the beginning of December. He patiently reminded me that I wasn't in America, and what would the neighbors think? I stomped my foot and declared that my home was extraterritorially part of America, and we would put up the tree NOW. Fighting ensued. After a long debate, we compromised on a date in mid-December.
Story B: Sometime in the first week of December, I said, hey, we should put up the tree. Tomi said, what, so early? I said, yeah, like in America. He shrugged and said, okay, do what you want. I, being lazy, got around to it a week or so later.

Well, which story do you like better? At least one of them is true... Anyway, here's the tree. The first picture provides a lovely view framed by the pipes on the wall; in the second picture you can see the cabinet which was the subject of an earlier post:

We could have been at a pig-killing today, but instead...

Hey Jamie, remember last week, when we ended up at Cora on a Sunday morning. and I swore that I would never set foot in a shop on the weekend in December again? I'm sure you remember me saying that, because I said it dramatically. And repeatedly. And yet somehow it slipped from my mind...

Hungary of course has no Thanksgiving, which means no Black Friday, no post-T-day Official Christmas Shopping Season. But they have a different tradition, which holds that the three Sundays leading up to x-mas are bronzvásárnap, ezüstvásárnap, és aranyvásárnap - Bronze Sunday, Silver Sunday, and Gold Sunday. Shops are open later, hell the fact that they're open at all on a Sunday is a miracle. In terms of the number of people out doing their x-mas shopping, these 3 weekends translate to insanity, super-insanity, and oh-jebus-save-me-jebus-insanity.

And yet I allowed myself to be dragged into it. Actually, it was surprisingly bearable; the only problem is we managed to spend three hours shopping, spend several thousand forint, collect bags and parcels from 5 or 6 stores... and yet only buy one present. The rest - all for us.

Anyway, the shopping adventure was nothing compared to the insanity of the afternoon. Tomi's dad bought a new stove, which turned out to be 5 centimeters shorter than the kitchen cabinets. So either the stove had to be made taller, or the cabinets made shorter. For some reason, he chose the latter. Tomi was understandably a bit pissed about having to dedicate an entire Saturday to helping with this foolish undertaking, but what could he do. Thanks to me, he's pretty well used to people doing stupid things with kitchen furniture (ahem) so maybe the idea of sawing 5 centimeters off the bottom of an entire row of kitchen cabinets seemed feasible. So over we went to help out; being a girl, I was assigned to cleaning. I left when The Men started waving power tools around. But, lo and behold, only 5 hours later Tomi arrived home with all his fingers still attached and a smile on his face - success!

Sweet. Next time I want to do some grand, well-thought-out but ridiculous-sounding project, I can bring this up...

By the way, new favorite Hungarian word: aránytévesztés "loss of one's sense of proportion." I love my dictionary.

home "improvement"

I'm generally a girl of few hobbies, and most of them involve sitting - reading (sitting), watching movies (sitting), sewing/fabric art (mostly sitting). My most recent hobby, about one year old, is home improvement, which involves a bit more physical labor, or so you would assume. My version of it involves a lot of - wait for it - sitting, reading IKEA and Lakáskultúra magazine, checking design blogs, sighing wistfully.

I think Tomi hates this hobby. Mostly because when I do get motivated enough to get off my bum and actually improve something, improvements take one one of two forms: I got out and buy things (plants, throw pillows, kitchen gadgets, etc) OR I move furniture. Most of our furniture is giant and heavy. Him being an engineer and me being a girl means that I'm disallowed from moving furniture by myself (despite years of injuring neither myself, nor another person, nor any item of furniture while working alone...). He is methodical and gets bossy. I am spontaneous and get cranky. Good times.

So yesterday I decided that the kitchen needed some change. We have a relatively big kitchen, with a kitchen table, sink, fridge, stove - the basics. What it was lacking was any sort of storage or counter space. There was exactly one tiny square of counter between the sink and the stove, usually covered with dirty dishes, or clean drying dishes. The space beneath it is food - flour, spices, cans, potatoes, etc.

In the pantry was a nice big counter unit: shelves below, counter space, and a top section of more shelves above. I decided to drag it out of seclusion in the pantry and put it in the kitchen, where it could be more useful (also, freeing up space for the next improvement project, hiding away all the junk in the living room). Feeling very grown-up and ambitious, I requested that Tomi stay out of my hair and let me work alone. I think he only agreed because he'd just bought a new Mp4 and was immersed in playing with it.

Commence dragging. Sweaty, but successful. The lip of the pantry and the fact that I couldn't get behind it so I had to pull, not push, were the greatest problems, not to mention the nest of spiders I uncovered. But in a relatively short time I had the whole thing in place (and the spiders drowning in Raid). Then problems ensued: the unit couldn't sit flat, because there was a shiv under one side. So I pulled it out again, lifted, and tried to kick the shiv away. No dice, the stupid thing was nailed to the bottom. I asked Tomi if he had any wooden blocks (I wanted to use them to prop up one end so I could fiddle with the shiv and pull it off). He was fascinated with the new Mp4 and vacantly said no. Under normal circumstances he might have asked me what I needed them for, and disaster could have been avoided...

So, no wooden blocks. I used two firm books instead. This in itself was not a problem; it was actually quite successful, as I managed to yank the shiv away from the bottom of the counter, huge long rusty nails and all. Disaster occurred when I lifted the whole stupid thing off the books to set it right again, and... the top part, which had up to this moment been firmly attached to the bottom, suddenly freed itself and tipped over, face first. I caught it before it got too far, but the doors swung open, and ... I may have left a few things inside. Glass things. Glasses and mugs and things. Including several souvenir and memorabilia mugs. Everything ended on the floor with a horrific crash. Glass shards bounced everywhere.

Tomi came running. He took one look at the disaster zone, threw up his hands, and retreated back to the living room after ordering me to put on some shoes and clean up the mess. I nodded meekly.

But wait, there's more! In the process of cleaning, all I wanted to do was shove the counter back into it's corner so I could sweep unhindered. But the stupid thing was still up on the books. I kicked the books out - the counter stayed magically suspended. I looked down to see what the hell was holding it up and found half a broken shot glass. I jerked the counter down... and the top part completely disattached itself and nose-dived forward again. This time there was nothing left to spill out, so it contented itself by knocking the microwave off the fridge onto the floor.

Again there was the horrible glass-falling sound, this time accompanied by screaming, yelling, crying, and a bit of hysterical laughter (thank god our neighbor on that side is deaf). Tomi came running faster than I've ever seen him move. He helped me move the top cupboard off my arm and onto the floor in the hall, then prudently went outside "for a walk" while I swept up all the glass. He kindly asked me to try not to kill myself or damage anything else while he was out. I seriously considered trying to lift the top part up again (because I wanted everything nice when he came back) but in the end I waited. Mostly because if I had damaged myself or something else...

So he came back, we lifted the damn thing up, and I put everything to rights. And long story short: it looks quite good now, don't you think? No sign of the disaster of yesterday. But I do have to buy a new microwave. And I guess all of my home improvements will be of the buying kind from now on.

Epilogue: This whole episode happened on a Saturday night. Sunday, we inherited a new-used microwave. Monday, I discovered JYSK, which is like a Danish version of Ikea, and spent a lot of money. Everything back to normal ;)

Thankful, non thankful, kinda thankful

Things I'm thankful for:

- Two days off work. This is the first time since I've been working in Hungary that I've taken the Thanksgiving days off, and it's been worth it.

- My awesome contact teacher, for insisting I take the two days off. She basically decided for me that I needed them... maybe I looked stressed? Maybe she felt guilty because it's her class that causes me 90% of my school-related headaches... anyway, love her.

- Having made a good start of x-mas shopping. Yes, laugh if you will, it's only November, but unlike last year when I mailed home my gift package in mid-December and paid $75 for it, this year I'll be sending thing early, regular post.

Things I would be thankful for, if only I had them:

- Hot water. That's right, it's that magical time of year again, when the weather gets cold and my hot water disappears. Here's hoping this year turns out to be a "2007 simple adjustment to the boiler" year and not a "2005 40 days without hot water" year.

- My exam results. Somehow, repeatedly checking the website while chanting, "It's Thanksgiving, dammit, I deserve my results!" seemed to have no effect.

Thing I'm mostly thankful for, because I mostly have, but could be more thankful for if I had more of: my health. I'm pretty well off, but at the moment I've got one of those just-barely-sick colds, the kind that are the most irritating because half my face is snotty and puffy and half is fine, and half of my throat hurts, and hurts just little enough to be soothed by hot drinks, but still enough to be irritating.

pictures and plans as promised

I would start with a picture of all the snow we got, cough cough, but this morning when I went outside, the sun was shining so brightly off the still-green trees and little tufts of remaining grass and all the green plants and bushes that, well, maybe tomorrow.

Anyway, some Thanksgiving pictures. Jeb carving the turkey (breast):


Table full of deliciousness, complete with Christmas decorations:



Later in the evening, we went to Varga's tablóbál (formal dance thing, often translated as "prom" which is ridiculous because it has nothing in common with an American prom, other than dancing and music, which means you just as well might translate it as 'disco' or 'musical'). Anyway, here's my favorite class (ssh!) doing their grand finale:


And finally, one picture, kind of, of us dressed up in our formal clothes. I look really pissed off in this picture because I'd forgotten how the timer on my camera worked, and so Tomi's taking the picture at arm's length. Which is rather pointless, because we have loads of picture of our heads/faces already, and what I really wanted was a picture of our excellent spiffy-elegant clothes....

And, as promised, here you can find my grand Thanksgiving lesson plan. This is the first time I've tried embedding (is that the word?) files with blogger, so hopefully it'll work...

time, exam, techno

Random updates:

It was a long week. Longer than most. So long that if I look over my shoulder, I can't see Monday anymore. In fact, I can barely see this morning.

But. If the week went slowly, I realized today how fast the year is going. November 21st already, yikes. Every store is selling x-mas junk already - although, to be fair, in Hungary not only is there no Thanksgiving rule, but their holiday season starts December 6th with St Nick's Day. I have yet to do any shopping, other than one thing I bought for my brother back in May, and miraculously managed not to lose.

Still no exam results, despite me checking the website three times a day. Maybe if I checked it more, they would post the results sooner - you know, like pushing the button repeatedly really does make the elevator come faster...

Our directly-above-us neighbor has become enthralled with techno music. Sigh. Which means that a dull, throbbing beat now accompanies every conversation we have, every movie we watch, every book, every radio, every every every. Tomi suggested the neighbor is either high as a kite or working out all the time (maybe both??). I lost all hope when Jamie exclaimed, "Hey, that's the song they play at my aerobics class!"

Wow, and, as I was writing the above, the volume of the dull throbbing beat increased to a level that must have been near-deafening upstairs, because I could hear not only the beat but every single insipid word of the 'song'. Then after a minute, back to a normal volume, and just the beat. So... what was that? Was that a warning of some kind? "Stop posting about me, or it'll be full volume all the time"? I'm scared...

Supposedly it's going to snow this weekend. We'll see how that goes, pictures possible.

We're getting together for an early Thanksgiving tomorrow, pot-luck style, supposedly I'm in charge of stuffing, carrot cake, and potato salad. Repeat on seeing how that goes, repeat on the photographic evidence.

And finally, because as pestiside is always saying, it takes three to make a trend, this weekend'll be my seniors' "School Leaving Ball" - kinda like prom, but much more formal, and everyone is required to go. Petra, Tomi and I will be hurrying back from Thanksgiving, changing into our spiffy-nice elegant clothes, and watching the students dance and whatever. One last time, all together: we'll see how it... pictures... etc...

college students

I haven't written much about the college class I'm teaching. It's.... hm. I wouldn't say it's going well, I wouldn't say it's going poorly, it's just.... going. Going on, and on.

My former Tower of Babel has dwindled to 6 students. Maybe 5 now, as I haven't seen one all this week. I'd describe them as follows, in no particular order of who I like the best:

1. speaks almost fluently, would prob'ly teach the class better than I do, and thus is completely bored in class, does no work
2. could speak medium-well-to-quite-well, but doesn't because too shy, great at grammar and repetition exercises
3. speaks medium well (good vocab, iffy grammar), but enthusiastic, wants to know everything, always asking why
4. seems to somehow speak quite well about some topics, but simply refuses to talk about others... don't know why
5. speaks poorly and never wants to, says everything in Hungarian instead
6. speaks medium well, I think... don't really know because also shy

Hm, writing the list actually made a couple things clear... namely, that many of them just don't want to speak, for on reason or another. That, along with the late hour, the fact that they'd rather be sleeping, I'd rather be sleeping, we have a crap textbook, and I don't plan well enough... well, let's say things are not stellar.

Actually, it's only been in this week (I've been teaching them since September) that I felt like I really related to them at all. It's funny, when I was doing my napló today (which, ahem, I should have been doing every day, but...) I realized that we've had almost 30 lessons together... that's the same amount of time I would spend with a high school class over an entire year.

Completely out of the blue, one of the students asked me today, "Didn't you take a Hungarian exam recently?" This fact I had not shared with them. It led to a flurry of questions and a breakdown of my resolve to speak only English. The girl later told me she had heard it from friends of hers who go to my high school Varga. Thus confirming my theory that in Szolnok, EVERYONE KNOWS EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYONE.

Funny students

Language exam? No thanks, I'd rather not talk about it. Ask me again in a couple weeks when the official results are in...

Anyway, to keep both my loyal readers content until I'm ready to actually write something... another edition of Funny Things From Students.

about American politics: "She (Palin) doesn't have enough presidental XP."

about American history: "John Paul Jones was the nasal hero of the Revolutionary War."

about Jesse James, who fought with the Conferderacy: "He fought against the army for the consideration on Western Amerika."

about geography: the state of "Sassachusetts"

a smooth, un-flustered presentation:
presenter: "Jamaica is famous for it's rivers, it's reggae music, reggae museum..."
other student, in Hungarian: "And pot."
presenter, not missing a beat: "Yes, and for it's typical Jamaican atmosphere..."

my one single, lonely, politics post

I'm so thoroughly sick of hearing about American politics that yesterday when Whineydefensive Máté asked "Why do we have to learn this stuff? It doesn't matter for us..." I would cheerfully have smacked him upside the head with our textbook and said, "Bam, head wound! Guess it matters for you now, huh?" But instead, I was the picture of restraint, laughed when the other students answered him, "We have to learn it because it's on the final exam," and patiently did my spiel about why I'm forcing American Civilization down their throats (we're a superpower, our decisions affect the world, blah blah blah).

Anyway, what did I want to write about? Right... so, sick of politics. Congrats, Mr. Peach, we all know you're going to win, sincere condolences about your grandma. Now, what caught my attention this morning: I was reading CNN.com's Election Trivia (because trivia is way more interesting than actual facts) and this one really made me stop and think:

"This is the first election in 24 years without a Bush or a Clinton heading a major party's presidential ticket."

When I first read it, it struck me because, 24 years, that's almost my age! A Bush or Clinton has been in the White House for all of my life? Yup. Beginning with George H.W. as VP, and a straight line through today. Weird.

Ok, great political insights over. Return to normal life in 3... 2... 1...

Misadventures in Mail

story one: OTP

Grab a seat, it's a long story. Back at the beginning of October, an ATM ate my card. My reaction was protesting in shock to Petra and random-woman-standing-behind-me-at-ATM, and shedding some tears to Tomi. All three of who calmly informed me that probably my card had simply expired, and hadn't I gotten a new one in the mail?

Well, no. So Tomi and I headed to OTP (major bank of Hungary) to sort things out. This was visit one. They explained that for reasons beyond their control, the new cards had gone out slowly this year, and I should just wait. I noticed that on my statement, they had two addresses for me: my mailing address at my school, Varga, where OTP had been sending my monthly statements, and my residence address, Kolozsvári utca, which was my first flat in Hungary. Where I haven't lived for... um... 16 months. So we corrected that, and I was sent home to wait.

one. Lacking other options, we agreed, and went home to wait the two weeks it would take for the Visit two, about a week later I was in the bank again to wire money to Hajni (I know the exact date, it was October 14th, because the money was due the 15th). While there, we thought it prudent to mention that I still hadn't received my new card, and... wasn't it possible that it had been sent to my old incorrect address and my ex-landlady had simply thrown it out (I, ahem, sorry karma, may have thrown out some of her mail while I was living there, so Iwouldn't have had hard feelings if she had tossed it). OTP service lady admitted this was possible, and thought it best to cancel the new card they may-or-may-not-have already sent, and issue a newnew card. We were sent home to wait two weeks for newnew card to arrive.

So today. It's November, no newnew card in sight. I need access to my paycheck. So, once again, we trudge to OTP, visit three. We patiently inquire if there's any news about my card. Service lady looks surprised, and says it should have arrived a month ago. We explain that it didn't. She says hm. We explain about the non-arrival of new card, and the cancellation of new card, and the ordering of newnew card. She says that, according to her magical computer, newnew card was never order. Tomi has some biting words for the efficiency of OTP, and I sign a paper ordering a newnewnew card (or maybe it's just a newnew card, since newnew card was never ordered in the first place...?). Service lady tells us to come in two weeks and pick it up.

But here's the cap of the story: this evening, as I'm sneaking into my school to make illegal copies for the extra lessons I shouldn't be teaching, I check my postbox out of habit. And guess what's there? The original new card. Turns out my landlady's not a total bitch after all; as I can reconstruct from the post stamps, the card arrived as it should have at my old address, current tenant gave it to landlady, landlady took it to her home in village-near-Szolnok to ponder what to do with it, ended up mailing it to my old school, and old school somehow got it to my mailbox in Varga. But now, it's been canceled, so it's worthless. Although, I now have serious doubts about OTP's ability to perform simple functions like canceling a card, so maybe I'll give it a try anyway. What's the worst that can happen? It gets eaten and we start this whole thing again...

story two: ITK

As I may have mentioned to one or two people, I'm taking the Magyar mint idegen nyelv vizsga (Hungarian as a second language exam) this Saturday. I mailed in my registration papers to ITK (idegennyelvi továbbképzõ központ, center for foreign language studies) mid-October, and was anxiously awaiting a letter in return confirming the registration and telling me when and where to show up to be tested.

Sunday, as I was gazing blankly into space, avoiding doing whatever work I was avoiding doing at the time, my eye came to rest on my copy of the registration paperwork. "Oh $%^&!" I yelled, causing both myself and Tomi to jump in out chairs. Just at that moment, I had noticed that instead of XX utca 4, my actual address, I had written XX utca 6.

So this mail mishap was totally my own fault, but it did involve a couple of adventures, first over to number 6 to speak to the woman who lives there. She was very kind and helpful; she had opened the letter and was able to tell us that there wasn't much info on it other than the date and time. After asking around her block of flats, if anyone knew some foreigner named Emily, she asked the postman to take it back. An adventure to the Szolnok Main Post Office told us that by now, my letter was probably back in Pest.... I hope they don't cancel my registration. Funny that I haven't even taken the test yet, de máris elrontottam :(

Transylvania, take # I-don't-even-know

Thanks for the prodding, Jem. Your comment about Erdély was actually right on target... On Sunday we arrived back in Hungary from the annual CETP Transylvania trip. This is the 5th (?) time I've gone there, including some Hajni-led trips and some others - namely, last summer's trip with Petra and Csomanok, which was laughably led by me.



The above two pictures are from this year, us after surviving the "one-hour hike" in Békás Canyon.


And, for nostalgia's sake, here's my "first generation" CETP family (missing are Janos and Chad, who were down with a case of Ceausescu's Revenge, although Janos is represented by that scarf Jeremy is rakishly sporting).

TMTA - Coffee

As much as I'm in love with the site Think Monday - Think ATC, I've never felt inspired to actually partake in one of their weekly challanges. Same with this week, but when I saw the topic I had to post this ATC, which I made over the summer. It was part of a series of 6, but this was my fave. Too bad the picture is wonky:

minutes, sick, card, Babel

- The Hungarian minutes are spreading! Spreading like a cold in a kindergarten, spreading like the Tisza will creep up to my doorstep this spring, spreading like a cold morning fog that sends it's chilly slimy fog-fingers up your pant legs and down the back of your jacket... The other half of the 13.A is now firmly enchanted with the idea; possibly they're taking it even more seriously than the first group (they actually stayed past the bell to harass me). And in a third class, the 12.A, I heard a couple of hopeful calls for "Hungarian minutes?" but I managed to glare the callers into silence. I think.

- I'm sick. It's just a cold, but the Hungarian side of me enjoys whining about it for sympathy, using it as an excuse not to do anything more than I have to, and drinking lots of tea. Well, drinking lots of coffee, at least.... it's all the same, right?? Anyway, I used being sick as a reason why we had to turn on our heat, so TinyLittleFlat is a bit more cozy now.

- I finally have my residence card. Yay to be working here legally! Next project, permanent settlement card.

- I'm teaching a tower of Babel. My new class at the Szolnok College is made up of a handful of Hungarians (including Serb-Hungarian, Slovak-Hungarian, Japanese-Hungarian), a handful of Chinese students, and two random Spanish. They range from semi-fluent to barely-able-to-count. Unfortunately, the semi-fluents are dropping out like flies or finding higher-level courses, and the beginners are sulky and whiny. It's going to be a fun semester...

I think I've been duped....

.... into speaking Hungarian.

It all started last year. In June, after a year of my adorable 12.A begging me to speak a single word of Hungarian (and giggling good-naturedly but uproariously whenever I gave in and did), I made them a foolish promise. I promised that in September, I would tell them about my summer in Hungarian. With sentences and everything! I didn't really think they'd understood what I was promising. I really didn't think they'd remember. But they did. Of course. Within 10 minutes of me walking in the door. Since they were so cute about it, I sucked it up and, at the end of class after the 5-minute-warning bell rang, I sputtered out a few sentences about my summer. They all giggled, politely but intensely, and left the classroom looking smug.

Week two, when the warning bell rang, they all looked at me expectantly and began chirping, "Emily! Hungarian minutes? Hungarian minutes?!" "Oh, no!" I said, "That was a one-time thing!" They looked so sulky and disappointed that I came up with a compromise: since their homework was learning a bunch of new vocabulary words, I promised to learn the same words in Hungarian.

Week three, I marched into class with my neatly-printed-out list of English-Hungarian vocab and waved it (perhaps a bit overdramatically) in their faces, proclaiming, "I did MY homework, now where's yours??" Suprisingly, most of them pulled out their papers. I secretly patted myself on the back, thinking I had just found a way to kill three birds: make them learn, learn some new vocab myself, and build rapport with them by letting them think they were forcing me to learn Hungarian, all while not actually having to SPEAK Hungarian to them. Yay, me!

But no. Once again, as soon as the 5-minute bell rang, they started packing up their materials. "Hey, hey, hey!" I chided. "What are you doing? Five minutes more!" "No," they said, completely soberly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, "Hungarian minutes, Emily. Hungarian minutes." "Okay, class dismissed!" I said. "No," they repeated, sitting calmly in their seats with obviosuly no intentions of leaving.

So what could I do? I sputtered for a few minutes, looked at them blankly, until one cheeky student put forward a question about my weekend, which I was able to answer in one or two stumbling sentences. Again, they laughed, a couple clapped, and they all left with self-satisfied looks on their faces.

I wonder how long this game will hold their interest. Twenty-seven more weeks of class.... but only 3 more 'til fall break!

Off and running: so here we go on another year... my fourth year teaching, if you can believe that. I still remember walking into my first class at Kassai and having three puzzled 6th-graders not understand a word I said. This year is off to a better start.

My schedule's much the same as last year, the major change being that I'm no longer teaching at Kassai. This year'll be all Varga, 9th to 13 grades. In the C "bilingual" classes I teach all grades, mostly twice a week; in the other classes I teach seniors and juniors.

So far classes are falling into three categories:

1. The classes I hated disliked struggled with last year, I'm struggling with this year.
2. The classes I was meh with last year, I'm finding suprisingly fun this year.
3. The classes I didn't have last year, and are so-far-so-good this year.

But... we'll see how it goes. I'm off to get my lungs scanned.

(the anklet, mentioned in the post directly below, I lost today. Meh, easy come, easy go. Although this makes a disturbing trend along with the watch and necklace that broke last week...)