other stuff

CHECK OUT THE BLOG ENTRIES AFTER THIS ONE. I MADE 4 BLOG ENTRIES TODAY.

xander was gettin' all comfy in MY bed! little squirt.
UNCLE BOB and AUNT PAM sent me a package. a heavy, heavy one. i wondered what made it so heavy. how about 50 pounds of candy!? in the card it said they wanted to help me out with the not-so-sweet-sweets-situation here. well, they certainly did. i'm sure i'll have to share all this with some well-behaved students.
there was just so much!
this is a meal i had in budapest. some potatoes, tomatoes, roasted garlic, and chicken.
another meal. this is some bean goulash, mmmm.
AWW, AGI! this is one of my colleagues. a fellow english teacher, she and i teach some of the same students. we both stay really late at school on fridays to teach a few kids. anyway, agi teaches me hungarian words all the time so she is indispensable to me. i pronounced something correctly and she was so excited she hugged me. thus, my first hungarian hug!
a two liter - tastes the same but looks a little different. and i found some already-sliced bread. and so - this is my "communion" picture.
uh, i was in a phone booth in budapest.
some more food. i don't really remember this meal.
ah, but i remember this one! i didn't eat it; it belonged to the girl across the table from me. it was a meat platter. and wow, it was huge.

SCROLL DOWN. THERE IS MORE TO SEE!!!

welcome freshmen

this week was sort of a welcoming week for the freshmen. i have only 2 9th grade classes. this is how the whole grade came dressed to school on thursday.

they wore garbage bags, socks and sandals, goggles, floaties, leotards... anything to make them look stupid. someone - i'm still not sure who - was awarding points for people dressed the craziest. i hope my 9a kids did ok. during class they gave me a shower cap, some water wings, and a ducky floaty to wear. i did it proudly!

today was STUDENT DAY at the new dorm. there were competitions among 9th graders starting at 830am. then students had street art, dancing, handball, pet beauty contests, and cookoffs. i was able to talk with many of my students and plenty of colleagues. i even got to taste some authentic, traditional hungarian cuisine. here are some pictures from student day.

market day!!

every saturday and wednesday there is a large outdoor market. today i went to ours! this is outside the building. inside the building are small shops, lunch counters, and many shoppers.

here is a flower shop inside.

this is the flower aisle inside. there are so many varieties and they are SO cheap!

this is another aisle inside. on the left are pasta and eggs, on the right are jars of honey (big ones!) and some stuff i can't identify.

all along the outer walls of the building are meat counters where you can buy freshly cut meats. they look ok but man, that part of the market stinks!

this is what i saw when i went outside to the outdoor part of the market.

here is a typical merchant's selection.

aw, little old ladies were buying roses. so sweet! plus, they are good lookin' flowers.

here is the flower aisle or section outside. it wasn't very busy but there sure were a lot of flowers!

here is one last look before i left the market. *sigh* oh the marketplace.

Pictures of the town

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this is my apartment building. that patch of grass is what xander is most familiar with.

this is the mexican restaurant RIGHT across the street from my flat. the food is ok, not mexican by any stretch, but delicious still. the green building is a motorcycle store which is shockingly busy. the yellow dumpster you see is where many gypsies shop. they collect random stuff - shoes, old bags, cans, old food - and carry it off in plastic bags or baskets.

this is the street i live on and walk down everyday. it's so cute!

fashion suggestions...

more fashion suggestions...

a typical scene: hungarians waiting for a bus. i myself am part of such a scene about 8 times a week. it's lovely.

ah! the bus is coming! this is one of the longer ones. usually i ride buses that are just a single bus. they are sometimes so full that more people are standing than sitting! people often give up their seats to old people or mothers with small children.

though this side street is just precious, the crosswalk where this picture was taken is the most dangerous one i've come across. yikes!

when i walk to school or to the market this is the area of town i pass through. i cross this street, look in all the shops, and watch people all the way there.

old people are everywhere. it makes me think of florida. hehehe

our nike store. they have the same brands we have in america but some of the styles here are very different. whatever - nike is nike.

an example of hungarian parking.


i hope you enjoyed seeing pictures of my neck of nyiregyhaza. i like this little town and its people.

a rainy weekend

it was so cold and rainy this weekend that i basically did nothing all day everyday. sad, but that's ok. it's always good to have some down time. i took some pictures of the money because... why not.




the paper ones are handy. here are the conversion rates: 200 ft = $1.30
500 ft = $3.20, 1000 ft = $6.40, 2000 ft = $12.80... there are also 5000 and 10000 forint paper bills... but i am poor and don't have one of those. there may be higher denominations, but none i'll ever see!
the coins are pretty useless except the 100 forint ones (the gold and silver in one coins). the others are just as useless (to me) as american coins are. but they're everywhere.


my OTHER sister sent me 2 care packages!!! i got them the other day at school and i was so happy!!! (incidentally, they were bound with strong plastic binding so i needed scissors. i asked a colleague for some... in HUNGARIAN! she understood me quite easily and i started dancing around. not only did i remember the word for "scissors" but in hungarian when something is the direct object you need to add a "t" to the end of the word. in my sentence i even remembered the T!! i said, "kerem egy oloT." and i got scissorssssssss!! woo hoo!)
anyway, in the packages were games (for my classes!!) hand towels - which are proudly displayed in the bathroom, one of which was used to dry off xander from his first hungarian bath yesterday, a toy xander left in america, some kleenex - not nasty rough face tissues like they have here, some over-the-door hooks - to hang towels on, some GUM!, a few other things and most importantly: macaroni and cheese!!




WE LOVE YOU, LIZ!! THANKS FOR THINKING OF US!!!

Teacher Room Video

this is a very short video, sorry, but there were a lot of people in there and i didn't want to be disruptive.


there are 15 minute breaks between all classes. the teachers use these breaks to prepare for the next class, write in the daily book (the naplo), or eat a snack. i don't return to the teacher room as often as everyone else because my classes are very spread out.

regarding the naplo: i hate this concept. for class 9a there is a book which has all the students' names. in the book after every class i have with 9a i must write who was absent, what we did in the class, and any grades i have assigned. that wouldn't be so bad if i were a "form teacher" and had one or two classes (like 9a or 10c) only. however, since i am the lektor, the native english teacher, i have all levels. since there is a book for 9a, 9b, 9c, 9d, 10a, 10b, 10c, etcccccc, i have the lovely task of writing in 15 naplos a week. some naplos i will write in twice a week because i have 10a(1) on tuesdays and 10a(2) on thursdays. so, i must write in these silly books 21 times a week. it's a lot!!! plus, it's all in hungarian! *sigh* today i wrote in class 10c's naplo for last thursday and friday, and yesterday and today. it took 10 minutes. so far, naplos suck... not to mention the fact that no one will ever read what i write but it is necessary that i write it. grrr.

oh yeah! the other day i had a meeting with my "private student" aniko. we met at the mall and had a cup of hot chocolate each. we just had a nice conversation and got to know each other, not a real lesson. she asked me to travel with her somewhere sometime. i said i would and that i'd love to have her along on some trip of mine. she's 23, nice enough, and pretty good at english. she bought my hot chocolate, too. what a sweetie. we shopped for some shoes for me, too. it was good to have a translator handy. that's really what i want full time! not someone to translate everything, but someone to teach me all the words. hehe. yeah, i like her.

weird stuff

today i saw a guy eating a pretzel with ketchup and mayonaise on it.

many women from age 20-70 dye their hair bright pink or bright red here.

people don't even try to match.

i like seeing shirts in english and being certain the wearer doesn't know the meaning. shirts like, "red doorstop please" and the like.

pregnant women don't wear maternity clothes here, though there are maternity clothes stores. instead women just stretch their already too tight shirts over their growing bellies and walk around as if they are skinny.

guys have mullets. big ones.

high tops are alive and well in hungary.

old people, like really old people 80+, ride bikes everywhere.

the dumpsters in front of my apartment are apparently great places to go shopping.

in the mall the hungarians have employed a "marketing strategy." there are two connected buildings which comprise the mall. there are up escalators on every side, every floor. there is only ONE down escalator per floor and it alternates which building it is in. so to go up and see all the stores is easy, but to go down means you must go to the other building, go down, cross back to the other building and go down again. this nonsense would never fly in USA, i tell ya what.

Mail time

i got my first care package this week!

it was from my middle sister katy/paisley.

wanna see?

sheets, towels, powdered drink mixes, an eco-friendly reuseable bag for grocery store purchases, a can of my favorite soup, honey, pumpkin seed, peanuts, poptarts, cheezits, breakfast cookie, and instant soups - yummmmm, i love soup! (dog not included in package)

here we have some skin care products, bath solution, nail polishes, blister preventer, advil, and purell - i can't wait to take a nice warm bath and then pamper myself with this stuff :)
xander kept nuzzling his way into the towels and sheets while i was looking through my loot.

not pictured is the necklace and earrings katy made me (yellow and precious!), a stuffed squeaky fox for xander - he is in love with the thing, some treats for him (he says thank you!!), and a pack of cheezits i ate on the bus.

THANK YOU, KATY! WE LOVED THE PACKAGE!

i heart the internet

school is going well. i don't have classes on mondays, ever. fantastic. the first week i only had classes on tuesday and wednesday because all the students went on a class trip on thursday and frisday. that's right, the first week of school they went on a 4 day field trip. this week i got to meet my thursday and friday classes - except 2 friday classes were cancelled so i will still be introducing myself on the last day of the third week of school. the reason some friday classes were cancelled was because there was a ceremony to commemorate the opening of ZIG(my school)'s new dormitory. there was a lot of government funding for this dorm and it is used mostly by ZIG but also by some school for underpriveleged/handicapped kids. it used to be a military base but has now been gutted and remodeled. the ceremony was in a gymnasium and all of ZIG's 750 students were there. there were some great speakers - the previous headmaster of my school, the current headmistress, the mayor of my town, and the prime minister of hungary. a colleague of mine was translating for me and i was very appreciative. no one in hungary likes the prime minister, but i thought he was an excellent speaker. i was also impressed with our headmistress and her speech. my translating colleague said her speech was so elegant because she was a literature major and loves painting word pictures. there was mild security at the event - like we had to show the guards our invitations and sign a sign-in sheet. no metal detectors, bag searches, no showing of i.d. very different from american security.

the other day i met another CETP teacher who is living in my town. she showed up at my school hoping to meet me and there i was. we went and got a snack and drink, sat around chatting for two hours, and had a good time. she and her husband teach english, but her husband lives 40 minutes away in some small village. they only see each other a few times a month so i am hoping to have her as a friend. she speaks un-accented hungarian and american english. i am endlessly jealous of her bilingualism. her parents are hungarian but she grew up in america. anyway, she's like 45 or something and will likely adopt me as a surrogate daughter since her own is away teaching english in italy. i love people who love english.

i'm sick with a cold. the weather is getting very cool (58 today). i'm staying home in bed until school on tuesday. pray me healthy, guys! i hate the flu. although i do have a sexy raspy sick voice... if you can look past the coughing fits and drippy nosed sneezes.


HERE IS A VIDEO OF MY APARTMENT!!!! i didn't know the sound was working or i would have given you a commentary. sorry i'm such an idiot. love you people!

branching out

school got better after the first class, as i expected. i did the same activity with all of my classes on tuesday and wednesday to observe the english abilities. there are some really good students and speakers, there are some ok ones who are willing to learn and be actively participant, and then there is 12D. i hate this class of seniors who is apparently the lowest section of the 12th graders, ability and behavior-wise. i couldnt even get through the instructions of the activity with them before they were completely out of control. i had to separate some students, asked one if he would like to teach the class, raised my voice, and lost all the motivation to teach them. i kept thinking how glad i was that i only had them once a week.

my contact teacher and i went to the immigration office to get me legalized. there were some small problems and i am now waiting for a few more papers. we will go back there again on monday to get the process rolling for making me a legal immigrant and resident of hungary. it will be fine, though, so don't worry.

some friends from CETP are here in my town to visit for the day. we have been exploring Nyíregyháza together and im sure they are thoroughly jealous of my precious town. i found a new appreciation for it too since they have about a tenth of the people in there town as are in mine. my town has big stores like walmart or something, a big market 2 days a week (which is right by my house) , and 2 really big malls or plazas. i think ill be just fine here... and they think thez will be here often to visit, buy stuff, and speak english. fine by me.

today we went and saw a movie - journey to the center of the earth. it was as good as any brenden fraizer movie. i think they only made it so they can make it into a ride at universal. it will be a great ride, though.

i am right now at an internet cafe which is so cool. its called euro cafe or something and there are beverages and snacks available plus big cushy chairs and two floors of computers. the cost is 10 forints a minute which comes to about 2 dollars an hour. i think ill come here again if my internet doesnt come through soon.

we just went to then big walmart-ish store and i bought something like febreeze to spray my furniture. i coundnt find it right away so i asked a girl who was giving a demonstration of a cleaning solution. she helped me and we got to talking - as is my custom with most decent looking strangers. i gave her my phone number and she will be my first private english student starting on monday. yay for Ánikö - i think thats how she spells it ... ah-nick-ooo.

tomorrow everything is closed for the most part, but i am going to finish the HOUSE marathon i have going at home on my computer. i wish i had season 4 but oh well (thats not a hint to send it to me, its just a thought).

if you do want to send me anything here are some ideas:
matches
ketchup packets
bbq sauce - ooh, packets of that would be nice, too
index cards... i use them a LOT in class
english poetry books - more like shel silverstein books, not shakespeare or anything, kids poems
bumper stickers
to-go menus
fortunes from chinese fortune cookies
pictures of you people
postcards
sweets for me - their sweets are not that good really
lipton sides - like chicken rice, broccoli rice, spanish rice, lo mein noodles, etc.
macaronie and cheese (I DO NOT HAVE A MICROWAVE)
anything you want will be welcomed wholeheartedly, im sure!

if you want to me call me it would be very good. remember the time difference though. i have mondays off work, and i am done with classes by 3 everyday. my number is 0036-30-519-3481

school

the first day was not really the first day. i went to the opening ceremony where all 750 kids were in an auditorium and so were all 50ish teachers. we listened to the principal talk and introduce allthe new teachers. we were each given roses and kissed on the cheeks by the students delivering the roses. i think they were seniors. the hungarians call the seniors school leavers. i think its funny, they think its normal. i was given a tour of the school and it was pretty extensive (long) and i was pretty hungry by the end of it. i will take pictures soon adn put them on here. who knows when because internet is a scarce commodity. but keep checking back and you will one day be surprised.

today was the second day of school, first day of teaching for me. it was not the best day ever because hungarian organization leaves a lot to be desired, this is coming from someone who has never been called organized. i coudnt find the classroom where my first class was to meet and when i got help to find it no one was there. after about 20 minutes of getting me and the students int he same room, the right room, class began. they were not as talkative as i had hoped, but they didnt just sit and stare. we had some activities and the bell rang pretty soon after since we had wasted time already. no one other than me seemed annoyed or bothered at the non-matching schedules and room numbers the students and i had. i had been warned about this but i didnt think it would be so stupid. i was crying some when i was walking with a lady from room to room trying to find my class. she was laughing and saying no big deal, but i was pretty frustrated. i have 4 more classes today. so we shall see.