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September 19, 2001
Where has the week gone?
Where has the week gone? I feel like it's almost over already. It went by so fast. This is the first week that hasn't crawled slowly past.
Today was a triumphant day. Today I feel successful, adjusted, confident, and organized. It started off poorly though. I woke up around 6:30 and suddenly realized that the 3 hours I had spent last night planning for a lesson today was a wash. The class I had planned for isn't until Friday. Doh! So I found myself with no plan for a 2 hour class that started at 9:30. Luckily I am fast becoming a good bluffer. I am quickly learning the art of letting the students run the class - or rather letting them think they are running the class - so I don't have to do all the talking. I just need to steer them gently through areas that I know and let them do the work. The class actually went well. We might even have covered too much material. The upshot is that tomorrow night I won't have to do any planning for my Friday class. Then I spent an entire period with my 9D-1s doing a dialogue where they did all the talking. Good stuff. Then we had a school meeting. It was a 3 hour meeting. It was all in Hungarian. This might sound like a bad thing. It wasn't though - we all had to be there, so I took advantage of the sequestered free-time ( I couldn't leave, but I couldn't participate either) to catch up on paperwork. I filled out all the grades, attendance marks, lesson plan records, and stuff I was behind on. I graded 2 tests, and cleaned the old papers out of my binder . I was incredibly productive. I left there very grateful for the meeting. After the meeting, several of us went to a Hungarian coworkers house to hang out. We sat around, drank a few beers, and talked about Hungary's transition from Communism/Socialism to Democracy/Capitalism. It was cool. Then I went to the supermarket and did some shopping. I actually found ground beef too!!!!!!! Here's the scoop on that - beef is only ground on request. You can't find it prepackaged. You've got to go to the meat counter and ask for a cut of meat, then ask to have it ground. They may or may not grind it depending on the weather, mood of their mother, or amount of Cheerios they had for breakfast. I happened to get lucky and the butcher I talked to was willing to grind. So I got half a kilo. I came home and cooked up a big juicy hamburger and loaded it up with lots of Heinz (I had to pay extra for the imported ketchup but it was worth it) ketchup. Delich! Now I'm sitting on the couch drinking a delicious glass ( well it's not actually a glass - we don't have glasses, we have old 500g yogurt containers) of pear juice. I love all the delicious juices that are available here.
So it was a good day.
Since I'm telling happy stories, I have a few from last week that I never put in here.
Wednesday morning I was on the bus, on my way to work. I was mulling of the terrorist attack the previous day. I was feeling really down, isolated, angry, and sad. I was just staring at the floor in front of my seat thinking about this stuff. I am beginning to pick up the Hungarian trait of not looking at anyone. OK, I guess people look, but no one acknowledges strangers. If there are only two people in a hallway walking opposite directions, they won't even lift and eye, nod a head, or acknowledge each other. So I was trying to blend in by ignoring the people around me (this is very difficult for me) when the bus pulled up to a stop. I was sitting right across the aisle from the door. I glanced out the open door and noticed and old guy on the sidewalk. He was wearing a blue coat, a bright red shirt, and a pleasant smile. He looked up at me and smiled. Because he's Hungarian and I don't know him, I figured he was smiling at someone else, so I looked away. "Ahem", he coughed, so I looked back at him. He saw me and perked up a little bit. I gave him a halfhearted smile and looked away again. He "Ahem"ed me again. I looked back at him and he smiled and nodded at me as if to say, "yes, you." I finally gave him a real smile and his face exploded in a wonderful, toothy, ear-to-ear grin. He started waving madly too. I just couldn't stop myself from smiling and laughing. He was so cute and so sincere. Then the bus doors closed and the bus drove off leaving the friendly old guy standing on the sidewalk. It was exactly what I needed at that moment. I has a silly grin on my face all morning thinking about it. Later that morning, as the grin was fading, someone near the school began to play accordion. It sounded like he was playing traditional Hungarian drinking music. To hear this music drifting across the schoolyard was great too. Accordions make me smile.
Yesterday I had "The Perfect Commute." Each time I approached a street, the crosswalk lights changed in my favor. At every tram stop and metro stop, the metro or tram pulled into the station just as I was getting there, so I never had to wait or even change my stride. I just got on. The trip took almost 20 minutes less than expected. Awesome.
Posted by neal on September 19, 2001 06:58 AM