Drinking Juice Straight from the Carton

So I realize that I like living alone in that I can do things like drink out of the juice carton when I don't feel like washing the dishes, but the problem is that I'm a big ol' slob. I have worksheets, books and textbooks on pretty much every flat surface in the flat, including my bed.  I need to buckle down and spend an hour organizing all the teaching materials I have and find places for them, luckily I have a desk in my room. Not that I am in any way complaining about having a lot of material, as a first year teacher I spend a lot of time googling lesson plans and flipping through workbooks.

Unfortunately, the room cleaning will probably not happen tonight. I still need to finish planning my private student's lesson, which is an hour and a half so I need to make sure I have enough material. I also need to plan for my 8th grade conversation group. I absolutely love these guys they're hilarious and their english level is pretty high. We went through the material I had last week pretty quickly and I want to get them speaking to each other more and try to minimize TTT as much as possible. The last group I need to plan for is the grammar review I normally have right now. My contact teacher and I switched days because she has a presentation tomorrow so I'm taking the kids from 3:30-4:30 tomorrow.

Which brings me to the fun news for the week. I am taking Italian lessons! My contact teacher is starting the lessons with another Italian teacher and I thought it would be fun. I'll keep you updated.

Book is in Italian, Glossary is in Italian and Hungarian. This should be fun :)

Random picture from this weekend. 

Poutine from my kitchen, delicious.

These are right outside the building I live in, the students love hanging out here in between classes.

Statue of Szegedi István in the school courtyard.

Sziasztok.

The National Gallop

So I've been terrible about blogging and I was going to make up for it by posting a backlog but well I'm lazy. The most interesting thing I did was my trip last weekend to Budapest. I met up with Kristen at the train station (Keleti is cool by the way) and we headed to the hostel to drop our stuff off. We grabbed gyros which have become my new fast food love here in Hungary at a little shop a couple streets down. The people were very kind and spoke enough English I ended up using that instead of the little Hungarian I know. (Does anyone else have that problem? I know enough to have a very basic conversation in certain situations but if they speak English I cop out and just switch to my native language.) We then met up with Molly and Laura and got beers at a bar that Laura knew. We got carded walking in because the bouncer heard us speaking English, it was a bit annoying but I'm sure it's typical in the city which gets a lot of tourists. The bar decor was eclectic to say the least, and I wouldn't advise anyone who is afraid of bunnies to go there. The main room has a tree with rabbit figures strung around it, and there were some Lewis Carroll -esque drawings above one of the bars. I want to go back when I'm less exhausted so I can enjoy it more. 

Our beds in the 12 person room, pre-loud obnoxious people. 

 The above picture is in the cheap 12 person room we thought would be fine (though we noticed when we first dropped our stuff off the other occupants were probably male from the clothes), well we thought wrong. We got back at 2:30am and everything was quiet. About an hour or so later people came back, flipped the overhead lights on (I was on the top bunk about 3 feet from the light) and started talking, loudly. Anyone who knows me knows that if I woke up from it, the volume level and movement had to be ridiculous. This continued for a long time and eventually Kristen got frustrated and went down to get us a double room.

Our new room.

We got to the new room at quarter to 6:00am (the sun was actually coming up already) and managed to grab a few hours of sleep before we had to get up again. In the morning we wandered down to Heroes Square where the National Gallop was being held. We met up with Molly, Laura, and Sue and later in the afternoon Annie and Tom joined us. Wandering through the stalls and seeing the horse races was a fun time. It was hot and sunny and we probably should have drank more liquid but it was a nice slice of Hungary. Here are some pictures of the area and the National Gallop.

These people on stilts were hilarious! I was a little jealous, stilt walking is fun :)

Laura became our tour guide, she went to Central European University for the last two years so she can not only tell us the history of some building but also the best dessert places. We had cake and ate at a Hummus bar, which had really good falafel. 

Delicious cake that was 300ft (~1.50$)

I plan to try and read this by the end of the school year, hopefully.

Budapest-Keleti train station.

Sunday we had breakfast at the hostel and headed out to McDonald's to get free wi-fi, after checking train times and getting tickets using the write-it-down-and-show-it method we headed back to a different McDonald's to get back on wi-fi. I was tired (this was when I started getting my cold I think) and Kristen had a bad sunburn so we were feeling lazy. Wi-fi and air conditioning is nothing to sneeze at and we had fun looking for more places to visit on future trips.

This week has been busier, I am trying to get all the extra hours I am working sorted. I have 2 conversation groups with students, 1 grammar review, 2 private students, 1 adult conversation group and a business English group. I will also be taking Italian lessons from my contact teacher after school hours. The extra stuff will be good to give me something to do but it's going to mean a lot more lesson planning. I think that's the worst thing about being a first year teacher. I have the ability to google and find lessons and such but I don't have the experience to know what works, what doesn't, etc. I am going to try this weekend to start typing up and organizing all the notes and possible plans or activities I have. That way if/when I teach next year I will have notes to go through and hopefully make my life easier.

Sziasztok

Weekend Festivals and I Survived My First Train Rides

Train travel seems a bit less scary on this side of the 3 train trips (5 trains total) and Hungary seems a bit less intimidating after finding out fellow teachers were running into the same kinds of problems as I am.

The weekend started when my contact teacher drove me to the train station, and thank goodness for that. I probably could have managed my ticket with what she had written down for me before but there was a possibility of a different train and I would never have been able to understand that exchange without her. Once I found my platform we said our goodbyes and I headed out on my First European Train Ride. The capitals were for emphasis but really everything went smoothly. I made it to Szolnok, switched trains and got to Hajdúszoboszló (which I can finally say, most of the time anyway) at exactly the same time as Skye's train which was coming from the other direction. Seeing Jenna and Skye was nice although both Skye and I were jealous of her and Lee's apartments (mainly Lee's).

Random Tangent:

I had a weird fixation on being envious that Jenna had a shower curtain and I think that is because I am such a privacy freak normally. I am that person that locks the bathroom door to shower when home alone in an already locked apartment. Hungary is extremely lacking in shower curtains, which leads to uncomfortable showers as well as the constant threat of flooding the bathroom floor.
Aside from my shower curtain envy, I also was jealous of the fact that Jenna has Lee and Emma (a returning CETP teacher) to talk to. I am much younger than the other teachers and I am already having trouble with students not willing to listen to a teacher only a few years older than them so I don't really have someone close to talk to in Mezotur. It was amazing to be able to prattle on in English, and not have anyone beg me to slow down.

End Random Tangent.

Jenna, Skye, Emma and I checked out the wine festival in the town and Skye decided to face her fears by approaching one of the (admittedly gigantic) cows that were part of the atmosphere. I got a lovely magnet souvenir pictured below. After Emma left to go to aerobics class, the rest of us found ourselves hungry and wandered to find something to tide us over until dinner. What we found was a delicious potato pancake about 8 inches across and topped with cheese. Not only was the food good, but the people in the stall helped us with our pronunciation when we ordered. We also sampled some wine relatively cheaply, 200 ft (~1$) for what we estimated to be 3-4 oz of wine.

First souvenir purchase!

 Later we met back up with Emma and grabbed dinner. I had turkey stuffed with fruit and mashed potatoes. We also got pálinka (either on the house or as a gift from a teacher Emma works with who saw us there, we aren't entirely sure). It was sour cherry pálinka and had a good fruity taste once you got past the bite from the alcohol. Sitting across from Skye and Jenna I was once again treated to their hilarious faces when downing the drink, thanks guys!

We went to the train station to meet Dan, and to make a long story short the poor guy has a series of unfortunate events that led to him being phone-less and arriving on the last train in two hours after we expected him. Needless to say, when we spotted him waiting to climb off the train there was cheering. We stopped in at Emma's (talk about apartment envy she not only has a separate living room and bed room, she also has a guest room!) and chatted until it was time to grab some sleep before our train to Szolnok in the morning.

These are actually the train tickets (with kontrol's marks) from Szolnok
back to Mezotur on Saturday. The one on the right is the extra
ticket necessary for an Intercity (faster) train.

I had a super Harry Potter nerdy moment on the train in the morning when we got on and it was like the Hogwarts train with separate compartments. Unfortunately no wizards in sight, but we did run into Joe, who we had planned to meet up with in Szolnok and he just happened to be on the same train as our group. Christian got on in Karcag and I discovered that he also teaches at a Calvinist school. We had a small laugh at our similar experiences with the Calvinist greeting "Grace and Peace" that is used between teacher's and students and becomes an unending cycle when passing a group of kids. One kid says it to you, you repeat it back, the kid behind repeats it because they heard you say it and on and on and on ad nauseam.

Emma on the Hogwarts train :P

Emily met us at the train station and thankfully let us dump our bags in her and her boyfriend's flat so we didn't have to lug them around the festival. We got to see a little bit of Szolnok as we walked to where the festival was and it was nice to see a city with (relatively) tall buildings. Living in Columbus for almost 4 straight years has made me a bit of a city dweller and Mezotur is a small town by any standards.

The goulash festival was fun (if lacking in public bathrooms) and we ate and drank the entire afternoon and into the evening. We ended up at a bar nearby before we all had to head back to the train station. It was great to hang out with the other CETP teachers and share stories about our towns, contact teachers, students, schools and apartments. Commiserating about shared experiences was cathartic and reminded me that I wasn't the only first year teacher in the program who was finding syllabi and lesson planning somewhat stressful.

Here are some pictures from around Szolnok:

Jenna is probably the best photog of the group, I steal her photos sometimes :P

A really cool fountain by Emily's flat

Pedestrian bridge. We could already smell the goulash before we crossed it.

The main street at the festival.

Enjoying our goulash.

My goulash = finom

Soproni Narancs = a fruity beer of awesomness

Sunday was full of laundry, syllabi and lesson plans as well as a much needed nap. Monday went well in some classes and so-so in others but I found out I will be going to Szolnok on Friday to file the paperwork for my residence permit so I will finally be legal :) Speaking of lesson plans, that is what I should be doing now!

sziaszotk

First Full Week of Teaching

I have now met all the students in my 10 classes and have a general idea of their varying levels of English. There are definitely some classes that are going to be more challenging for me than others (because of level of energy, age, etc) but I am a little more confident in my ability to teach now than I was last week. I have to be careful in certain classes because when there is a stronger speaker the class often lets them speak whenever possible and/or I will give directions and instead of listening they wait for the stronger speaker to translate. One way I am trying to avoid the second part is slowing down and asking if they understand so hopefully that will help me judge their comprehension and not force the stronger students to spend time translating everything for the rest of the class.

While I will be traveling this weekend, (more on that later) I will also be getting some work done on my syllabi. We have to make syllabi for each class that lists what we are doing each week, topic, vocabulary, and any grammar points and they are due September 12th. This doesn't sound too hard at first but it's a bit overwhelming to plan for the whole year when I've had 45 minutes with each class! Luckily, the other English teachers are all wonderfully helpful and most have either given me, or helped me pick out books that are appropriate for each class' level. I have 2 classes using one book and 3 classes using another book, 2 graded readers (stories that have been modified for certain levels of English ability), 1 class doing Civilization/Culture that I will be doing handouts for and then 2 that I don't have a specific book for but I can borrow from a couple sources to create lessons. I am going to spend Sunday doing some laundry so I plan to take my laptop and hopefully finish up the syllabi while I wait for the washing machine to finish (I am using the school's washing machine on the weekends so I don't bother anyone).

On to more fun things, I will be traveling by train to Hajdúszoboszló, to visit Jenna (you can read her blog here.). Skye is also coming down from Sátoraljaújhely and should be getting into the train station around the same time as I am (hopefully 3:13 like the site says, or actually 15:13, Hungary uses the 24 hour clock). In preparation I had Niki write down these phrases for me. Szeretnék egy jegyet Hajdúszoboszlóra, means 'I would like a ticket to Hajdúszoboszló' and csak odaút! which means I only want a one way ticket not a return. I am taking the paper she wrote in on as well as the paper I wrote the time and train numbers of both trains. It will only be one ticket but I have to change trains in Szolnok.


Right now the plan is consists of visiting Jenna Friday afternoon/evening and staying over. Then we will go as a group to Szolnok (picking up some other CETP teachers on the way and/or meeting them when we get there) Saturday morning for the goulash festival. I am very excited and I plan to eat as much goulash as I can stomach, it's my favorite Hungarian dish! Also, seeing everyone will be fun and much better than sitting around all weekend like I did last weekend. With my Fridays free, I plan to travel and visit people as many times as I can afford to which will depend on train prices. The trip to Jenna should be about 3000 ft and I'll have to get a ticket back to Szolnok and then one from Szolnok to Mezőtúr, as you can see the prices add up. The train from Szolnok back here isn't nearly as expensive but I am trying to be fiscally responsible.


Speaking of fiscal responsibility, I got paid today!! I did not expect to be paid until my paperwork went through and I have not even filed it yet so I was completely surprised when Niki took me to the woman in charge of payroll this afternoon. I did not get my full pay for the month but I got most of it, I think it was possible because the school I teach at is a religious school so I am being paid by the school and not the government like my fellow teacher's at public schools. Anyway, I decided to make up a budget for myself which consists of Food, Travel, Savings and Misc, where Misc covers clothes, things for the apartment and school supplies. Travel got the biggest percentage as I know once I get the hang of the trains here I am going to be running around the country whenever possible to see friends and learn more about Hungary!

I just had to get up and close my windows because a storm is coming and it's cold in my apartment now. Fortunately, it seems like the storm isn't going to continue past tonight, as I am walking about 2 km to the train station tomorrow morning and I don't want to walk in the rain. 

The black dot in the lower right corner is me, the train station is circled in blue at the top.

Sziasztok!

I Survived the First Week!

Granted it was only one class that was admittedly not a stellar one on my part but more on that later.

It's hard to believe I have only been in Hungary for a little less than two weeks. The amount of information I've had to assimilate these past weeks has fried my brain a bit and I am not ashamed to admit I spent a hour  looking at Garfield comics online to give my head a break. Don't get me wrong, the experience has already been amazing and all of that information has been helpful and appreciated. I just don't think I realized how physically exhausting it would be to constantly hear and see a language I've barely scratched the surface of and I definitely do not understand when it flies rapid fire between two native speakers who are trying to figure out how to get the hapless American teacher what she needs.

I do NOT want to sound ungrateful at all, the teachers here have been supportive above and beyond what is required and I am constantly getting apologized to before they switch back to their native language to more easily deal with the matter at hand. It motivates me to learn more Hungarian as soon as possible at the same time it frustrates me to not understand.

First of all, I should say that I am deeply thankful to all those who made my schedule, I have 4 classes Mondays and Tuesdays and 1 class Wednesdays and Thursdays. I will also be co-teaching a Business English class for adults one evening a week, but overall it's not an overwhelming schedule and I am happy to be eased into the world of teaching.

So my only class on Thursday was 9a, I had a basic lesson plan of introductions and some partner work and I spent the morning running around getting more paperwork signed, more keys (bringing me up to 9 including the one I will get sometime next week) and being introduced to the canteen staff as well as the woman in charge of the laundry (I am going to use the washing machine on the weekends when there isn't anyone around). I didn't have much time to get nervous but I did as soon as I realized that the kids had not yet been split into the two groups they would be in for the rest of the year. This meant my lesson plan was worthless as it would only really work with the smaller groups. Their main English teacher gave me a few points to speak on and then I was up in front of a class of freshmen without a real clue what I was doing. I talked for a bit about my family and asked them questions and then talked about American education system to blank stares. I finally started getting a response when we shifted to music and so the class ended on a good note but I was frustrated that it hadn't gone as well as I would have wished. I firmly believe next week will be better when I am a little better prepared and I have a smaller class size.

Most of my keys, minus one I haven't gotten yet.

My desk in the English teacher's workroom.

Niki, my contact teacher in pink and Sáni (I think that's how you spell his nickname)

Friday dawned bright and early as breakfast is served from 6:30-7:30am or half-past six as everyone says because they are accustomed to British English, I admit I had a moment of confusion the first time someone said the time that way before I realized what they meant. Breakfast consisted of meat, cucumbers, butter, bread and a rather delicious tea. There were only a few students in the canteen and another teacher who spoke Hungarian and German (another language I really need to learn) so we only could exchange szia!s and my much improved Sajnos, amerikai vagyok. One great thing about the canteen is that at breakfast I get a snack, juice and a pastry, for "elevensies" a British thing that I love as it has brought me some of the best apple and peach juice as well as a kakaós csiga (literally chocolatey snail but in reality a spiral pastry with chocolate) and a cheesy pastry I don't know the name of. I will definitely not starve if the canteen workers have any say in it. Later I had lunch with Niki, my contact teacher and we talked about the Business English class as well as a possible film club I could lead for students. I want to try and get involved as much as possible so hopefully these all work out!

At some point on Friday, Anita (the lady in charge of the laundry), got me some plants for my flat! I'm excited to have some more decoration and I hope I can keep them alive.

Plant 1 

             

         Plant 2

A minor mix up Friday night, with me not remembering that there is no Friday night dinner and also my key not working to get into the building with the canteen and more importantly the laundry was cleared up with the help of Niki and her husband. It was nice to know they really were willing to help out when I needed but I was a bit embarrassed to have brought them over for nothing as the problem with the key ended up being that the door handle has to be lifted before putting the key in to unlock certain doors. I'm never very good at asking for help and I dislike inconveniencing people but I think I am going to have to get used to it until my Hungarian gets good enough I can communicate with more people.

The view from the hall outside my flat, this is the courtyard of the school

I did not get as much done on Friday as I would have liked, a nap and falling into the detective novel I'm in the middle of hindered my plans to finish typing up my notes from our orientation. I have almost 15 pages of notes that cover everything from lesson plans to Hungarian grammar and I need to get them more organized. I meant to rectify that by waking up early on Saturday but moving to another country hasn't erased my weekend laziness and reset my alarm several times. I ended up eating lunch, reading some more and finally making it to the Spar down the street. While I was walking I realized there was a wedding procession heading to the town hall. People were dressed up and I saw the bride's dress as well as several cars parked on the street with white ribbons on the mirrors. It was a nice moment and made me a little less anxious about my first solo trip to the store. I survived and didn't even have to use my fall back of apologizing for being American. I do need to pay more attention to when stores are open because I was thinking about stopping at the book store on the main square but the sign said zárva (closed), although I am not sure if that's normal or if it had something to do with the wedding. I should have stopped to look at the hours, but it was on the way back and my bag was heavier than I had anticipated. I'll be here for a year so I have plenty of time to check back in.

Snacks from the Spar

New section of the blog a.k.a My goals for the foreseeable future:
- learn Hungarian definite/indefinite endings so I can actually conjugate the handful of verbs I know appropriately
- finish typing up my notes from orientation and work on lesson plans for the year
- do some yoga in the perfect yoga-sized space between my bed and the TV
- remember to take my camera with me to take pictures of Kossuth L. tér (the main square right by me)

sziasztok