This thing is extremely hard to keep up!

It seems all be Hungry for math a few months longer than originally planned... Somewhat out of the blue, A Multinational Oil Company phoned me up a couple months back and inquired if I was still looking for work. I passed the interviews, pushed my paperwork, and two months later I have a job! I'll be starting in two weeks. Not totally sure what my job description entails, but I am looking forward to the change in pace.

In other news, this time next week I'll be on my second Whirlwind US Wedding Tour, this time to Salem, Oregon. College friends + tasty coffee = bitchin weekend, or at least I hope.

Today I rode the bus next to a man with a plastic crate full of five fat, sleepy puppies. They were yawning and crawling on each other. Occasionally one would poke its itty bitty nose over the edge of the crate and their owner would sooth its nose and send it back to sleep.

It was really, really hard for me to not take one to class with me.

Yesterday I got a bit peeved while running behind an older fellow who was clearly not paying any attention to the other traffic on the sidewalk. He was maybe fifty or sixty, a bit portly, dressed in brown cords, a green plaid shirt and a bright red sweater vest which, combined with his shock of slate grey hair, made me think he was an eccentric English gentleman or a distracted professor type. I forgave him when I passed and saw that he was trying to read Harry Potter while he walked.

In other news, I have a paid acting job! It's only four days of shooting for a video, but I'm looking forward to hob-knobbing with some of Budapest's eclectic expatriate set. One of the fellows is an Aussie with brown, papery skin around his eyes from too much time in the sun. His face is a bit small for his body, his facial hair looks a bit like pubes growing back in after they've been shaved, and his skin is orange. I just wanted to share that with someone.

I never know what to write on this blog! It's so public! This rules out my personal life, and also probably talking about mys students, although they do crack me up and make up the bulk of my human interactions. I also spend a lot of time thinking about Hungarian, which is probably interesting to two other people who don't read this blog, and about where I'm going with my life, which changes every moment.

... I think that leaves the weather. It is great right now! Hungary is a different country when it's sunny and 70 degrees. More later.

The weather is a wicked tease. It's much sunnier, at least -- I realized that the sun has started rising at 4:00 instead of 7:00, which makes the trip to work much more pleasant.

I had an emergency repair situation in the apartment today! Our door handle has been loose for a week or two and when I came home this evening, it finally gave up the ghost and fell off. This was a problem because it meant that I couldn't open the door. But, instead of panicking, I got comfortable and then reached for our handy-dandy Ikea tool kit. I examined the door, realized that a screw was loose, put the right head on the screwdriver and fixed it! McGyver would have been proud.

I like things like that, when you pause and look at an inanimate object and get a sense of how the parts fit together. It's like zen meditation.

Today's Culinary Success: Refried Beans

- 1 can kidney beans
- 70-80 grams salami (or to taste)
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1/2 red onion, chopped
- three or four cloves garlic
- Cayenne pepper, nutmeg, cumin, salt, black pepper
- Olive oil
- brown bread

Fry the onions with a bit of the chopped salami for a couple minutes, then add pressed garlic. Add one or two teaspoons of salt and black pepper. Fry until fragrant, then add the rest of the salami and the can of kidney beans with some, but not all, of the liquid. Cook for four or five minutes then add the red onion and cook for a minute or two longer. Next, squish the beans in the pan with a spatula or other kitchen implement. Add 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper, 1/2 tsp. nutmeg, 1.5 tsp. cumin, and salt and black pepper to taste. Cook for a minute or two longer and eat on toast with spread cheese. Delicious!

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz

We are unquestionably on the brink of spring. Originally, this is why I came back to Budapest: warm bike rides around Margaret Island, open-air beer gardens, and, most importantly, more asparagus and strawberries than it is possible for one human being to reasonably consume.

But I wish it would wait a couple weeks longer. My coat is warm and I am in love, so I can withstand the cold. More importantly, winter is stasis. In winter I can postpone difficult decisions, looking for jobs, thinking about the future. Spring, however, hurdles rapidly towards summer, and summer becomes the fall, and fall is when I have to produce once more some semblance of a sustainable lifestyle (by which I find a job with some income). Please, don't make me do it yet!

Wednesday I used up five more of my fifteen minutes when I won the February Gift of the Gab. In Budapest's own speech slam, five contestants first give a five-minute prepared speech, then consume some beers in the twenty-minute break, then finish up by giving a three-minute improv speech on a topic selected by the audience. Mine was "Things you would rather forget."

As a result, I 1. am the proud owner of a bottle of Jameson whiskey and two Jameson brand glasses 2. am now an extremely minor celebrity in Budapest's minescule public speaking circuit. I'll be speaking at Ignite in two weeks (probably about the Ottoman Empire) and then at the Gift of the Gab final on the 24th of March. Be there, or be square!

I realize that this will be the third post about food on my blog... I promise to write about other things soon (like pig killings!) but life seems too busy for whatever reason.

I am always impressed by how great lentils are to have around. My pantry is quite bare, and on Sundays here in Budapest that usually means preparing oneself for meals of peanuts and bland pasta. I was psyching myself up for similar fare this afternoon when, lo and behold, my eyes caught a glimpse of the lentils I keep in my pantry! Huzzah!

I rapidly set the water boiling and chopped up a yellow onion, a red onion, the four mushrooms that were hours away from being two old to eat, garlic, two bullion cubes and some basalmic vinegar and -- ta da! Instant soupy deliciousness.

Over the summer I made a soup with fresh tomatoes, a roasted pepper, garlic and fresh herbs. It was the essence of summer. I took one serving and hid it in the back of my fridge for the dead of winter when the weather is unrelenting and the vegetables taste like cardboard.

I knew today was the day to finally take the soup out. It was every bit as delicious and sunny as I thought it would be :)

Ode to the Split Pea

O yellow Split Pea!
You are filling and tasty
and affordable.

I went whole hog making split pea soup the other night. I even went to the market and asked for a pig bone -- what a thrill to look at a pot of water and sauteed vegetables and then chuck in a huge piece of spine!

Eventually you blend the soup and with it any small pieces of meat you could tear off from the spine. So, I ate some blended meat soup.

One of the few downsides of split pea soup is that when it is room temperature or colder, it tends to harden into a gelatinous lump. My solution last night was to reheat it in a pan with some water, thus doubling the volume of soup and improving the consistency. I encourage all of you to try this!

Yurrup

I remembered something I really like about Europe this Christmas when I chatted to a 100% straight male (Turkish) friend of mine who was wearing a well-fitting sweater with two diagonal fashion zippers.

I was eating pizza the other day when one of the three songs that had been playing all break came on the radio. Except, because we're in Europe, it was a techno dance mix. Obviously.

Something I want to bring back to America is well-fitting men's jeans. Seriously, guys! The day of the potato sack trousers is done.

One thing I will not bring back, though, is the fashion mullet.

This semester will be the semester of studying languages! Surprising even myself I am back at the Goethe for part two of Deutsch A. Honestly, I went in last fall really skeptical about German... I have little or not interest in German food or German history, I don't want to live in Germany, I probably won't be an academic and it's not useful outside of Europe, so really I have no reason to spend the time. But I made some friends and caught the language bug and here I am.

And... I'll be taking Hungarian at CEU! I had thought about it and waffled and kind of convinced myself not to, but then B. mentioned that he was doing it and I said heck, why not? So I'm in the Intermediate (=highest level) class. Suffice to say I am pretty pleased with myself at the moment. I'll go tonight and see how it is.

Every Monday and Wednesday I mean to leave home at 7:30 but instead end up leaving closer to 7:34. Every day as I leave the door of my apartment I see across the street the bus I’m supposed to take. There are two that go in my direction and, due either to the unforeseen forces that control the public transportation system, or probably rather to bad planning, the second bus tends to follow almost directly behind the first. So, this morning as all others, I walked to the crosswalk and just missed the light. As I waited for it to turn green the second bus appeared, following on the heels of the first. It drove through the light, paused momentarily at the empty bus stop, and drove away as my light turned green. This vision I have of my bus pulling away as the two of us are hopelessly separated by traffic is my daily tablespoon of regret.
---
I’m back in Hungary again after really more than a month away; I’m surprised to be enjoying myself much more than I thought I would be. The dread I faced at the prospect of return in fact dissipated in JFK airport Saturday evening as the woman at the ticket counter told me I couldn’t leave that evening because my reservation was, in fact, for the following day. Suffice to say, I felt like an ass.

But more than that, being denied from returning made me realize how much I did want to get back. My plans are only partially formed but I feel like I do have plans here, or at least a reason to get up in the morning, which is much more than I could have said in December. I feel now as I did when I was younger and I came back to my bedroom in Tokyo at the end of the summer after two months away. I dreaded my return to school and the end of my continuous leisure, but opening up my bedroom door (perturbing the thin film of dust that had accumulated in my absence) and seeing once more my things in their place reminded me of everything I liked about being home.
--
Because I didn’t find out that I wasn’t coming back to Budapest on Sunday until late Saturday evening, I didn’t have the chance to ask my boss to tell my students not to be in class on Monday. As I feared, they were there and I was not. Today the two out of five students who bothered to come were thirty and forty minutes late, respectively. I mentioned to the first that I was surprised that anyone had showed up and she said, “Well, we were all here Monday.” Twisted logic, but perhaps justified? I was really sorry, if that’s any compensation.

Small world

I spent all summer either applying for jobs or worrying that I was broke and not applying to enough jobs. Occasionally I had fun as well, but not as much as I should have been having. I dropped my resume off at maybe twenty language schools; some offered interviews and most never responded, but only one saw fit to send me a letter that was actually rude:
_________________________________________________________________________________
Dear N. ,

Thank you for your interest in our school, but unfortunately, we cannot offer a teaching position for you. We employ experienced, fully qualified teachers of English with university or college degree in teaching languages, native or non-native speakers of English. We have to meet the special requirements of the Accredition Board.

Best regards,

X
_______________________________________________________________________________


I checked my email today and was both surprised and amused to have received the following:

_____________________________________________________________________________
Dear Ms. B,

Thank you very much for your CV and interest in our school.

I would like to invite you for a personal interview.

Could you visit me on 18 January 2010, at 3:30 p.m.?

Our address is below; the building is in the vicinity of Móricz Zsigmond circus.

Would you please send the electronic copies of your degrees and certificates and would you bring the originals with you.

I would also appreciate if you could reply to this message by Thursday this week (the 14th January) by mail or by phone.

Best regards,

X
____________________________________________________________________________

My response:

Dear X,

I appreciate your interest. However, your initial response to my CV (copied below) was so rude that it destroyed any interest I might have had in working at [Your Language School]. I hope you have better luck with your other applicants.

Best regards,

Natalie Bowlus

Rapid Descent into Madness

Although I'm not back Stateside until Saturday, tomorrow I'm hopping on a train for an eight-hour jaunt to Transylvania, home of Dracula and my buddy Christian (until January). This means that today is my last full day in Hungary. As such, every single errand that I want run before mid-January, when I return, must be done TODAY. Understandably, I'm feeling a little crazy.

I've had to pick up books, drop off books, read books, reschedule classes, grade a final exam, see all my private students one last time, invoice for both my language schools (in person), buy tickets for the train (in person), buy food for the train, buy tickets for the metro, buy Christmas presents for my friends and family, visit the doctor, pick up medicine, drop off a blender I borrowed, drop off an SAT book, register for Deutschkurs, pay for Deutschkurs (in person, duh), get a new stamp for my student ID (should have done this a month ago), not to mention get drinks with everyone one last time. Ahhhh!

Also, my tummy feels funny and I look pudgy.

I am enjoying squash more than I thought it would be possible for any one person to do so. My house is filled with blue smoke, but at least if we asphyxiate it will be to the smell of olive oil and delicious squash.

I have also been f*cked by the Hungarian VAT. I tried to order contacts online and send them to my parents' house. However, you need either an American doctor (if you want to mail something to an American address) OR you need to 1. order by phone and 2. fax your prescription. Well, finding a fax is a pain in the derrier and I have a tough time calling 1-800 numbers for whatever reason, so I decided to just bite the bullet and send everything to Hungary. Mistake! While ordering contacts online was significantly cheaper, I now have to pay more than 12,000 forint (or about $75) to pick them up. Fuck me.

On a different note, I've been thinking a lot about language in context.

Until last Wednesday I taught a class of five advanced students. I don't know what it was exactly that brought it up -- probably the bitchy one snickering when I asked them how they were doing -- but I realized that they were completely ignorant of any general conception of cross-cultural differences. I asked, "Do you have foreign friends?" They did not. I asked, "Do you use English ever?" They do not. So, they are grinding away at a language in order to pass an exam to get, what? A better job? Academic credentials? A gold start on their CVs?

Despite how uncomfortable my daily "How are you?" made them, I continued, because I saw my role as that not only of an English teacher, but of a conduit to living English-language culture. I'm an American; likely, I always will be; and where I come from we ask how you're doing. It doesn't mean you have to answer honestly (people rarely do), but you should ask.

A living language is more than a merely collection of grammar rules and vocabulary. The difficulty I see in almost all my students is that they have little or no feeling for this other spoken life. And that begs the question, how well can you really learn a language if you're not interested, to at least some minimal degree, in its cultural trappings? I meet students who are quite fluent but who have never read a poem, or a short story, or a play. I get the impression that in schools here, whether out of bureaucracy or sloth, teachers churn through language book after language book. Students continually discuss such inane topics as "hobbies" or "holidays."

I agree that this is as good a place as any to start. My only points of reference are my study of French in high school and my current study of Hungarian (the sun and the moon). In French we moved through a textbook for perhaps the first two (or even three) years, although this was heavily supplemented with Madame's own worksheets. By the second year, though, she had us reading poetry, and then a detective novel, The Little Prince, and eventually the Stranger. We watched movies, too. I think she let us read subtitles once and then forced us to listen on our own.

Now, this was an extremely different situation for any number of reasons. Being at an international school meant we were largely unhindered by state or national requirements. Madame also had us for four years, instead of a couple of months, like I have my students. She made us suffer and if we couldn't handle the suffering, it was suggested that we discontinue French. Clearly, I can't do this to students who are volunteering their time to take a language class. Finally, Madame was a truly exceptional woman and teacher with few equals.

But it seems slightly hypocritical of me to accuse my students of being disconnected from English when I learned French in Tokyo. To be fair, many of them watch English movies, and sometimes even in the original language. It's just... I feel like there is so much more out there for them, if only they would take an interest.

Perhaps this is the burden/wish/regret of those who speak a lingua franca as a native language; for most people, it's merely about functionality.

Feeling more full of life than usual, I climbed Gellert Hegy in time to see the sun set over Budapest. On the way up, I passed a dog park full of people just home from work or airing their dogs after a long day of retirement. I was able to witness a very small part of the universal Human Condition: a dog owner pleading with her disinterested pet to fetch. I think this experience brings us more together as a species.

At the top of the hill is perhaps the statue that is the unofficial emblem of Budapest. I forget her name, but she stands tall with flapping dress and raised olive branch, keeping watch over the city. Her resilience throughout time is much like that of the Hungarian people themselves -- she was a symbol of fascism, then communism, and while they both passed on, she has remained.

She is flanked by two, much smaller, "soc-réál"* statues. The first, I supposed, is intended to be a man sprinting forward with the torch of progress or some such. A flapping cloth was thoughtfully sculpted around his front so as to conceal his genitalia. However, he looks more like a blossoming youth from an ancient Greek wet dream, sprinting around the locker room trying to slap one of his burly comrades with a wet washcloth. Mischievous passers-by have plugged the crack between his buttocks with chewing gum.

The other statue is a burly man beating the shit out of a three-headed dragon.

On my way back down I noticed that our lampposts had been dressed as Christmas trees. Lacking Thanksgiving, Hungarians have no natural limit on how early one can decorate for Christmas. But I am cheery; it reminds me of good things yet to come.

*socialist-realist

I just wrote a semi-formal email in Hungarian... Man, I hope whoever reads it laughs.

Things in Budapest have gone from bad to much better (knock on wood). Yesterday, today and apparently tomorrow, the bad weather let up; currently the colors of the city are singing as only I have seen them do here. The plan for this afternoon was (and still remains) buckling down and programming some Java, but I think first I'll profit from the fresh air and write on Gellert Hill.

(en profiter de qq chose is much more French than English, I think)

Speaking of programming, I was speculating with Baldur yesterday that since at least two of my students are software engineers, they must know something about Java. A topic in one of our classes might have to be "de-bugging Natalie's code."

I taught a student of mine "might have to" today. In Hungarian it's... kellene lett? I should have written it down when she said it.

On a mostly unrelated note, learning Hungarian (and Deutsch) now makes me think a lot about what learning French was like all those years ago. Fortunately, I have forgotten much of the suffering that was involved (and there was quite a bit)... I do think it strange, though, that so many of the things I have to concentrate on when studying Magyar seem completely different then those that threw me for a loop in French. Really, though, I think this is partly true, and partly because English and French are vastly more similar than English and Hungarian, but partly also I have forgotten how much time Madame spent hammering us about correct use of prepositions or how many diagrams she drew illustrating when to use the continuous past and when to use the past simple... There was a lot of work involved.

I've finally succumbed to the perhaps inevitable fall cold. My roommate has been under the weather for several days, and I didn't exactly treat my body well this past weekend, so it's no shocker. I'm hoping that sleep + rooibos will fix me up in a day or two, but one of those two is substantially harder than the other.

Teaching is a drag! I can't say how much I'm looking forward to being home for almost a month, but it is quite a bit. Things that have happened in class recently:

- A girl (who always does this, btw) was saying something in Hungarian while I was writing on the board... When I said, "Speak English!" she stopped talking altogether. I turned and asked her to repeat what she said, and she replied, "I'm sorry, I've already forgotten."

- I cut my hair last week. In class I was doing reported speech*, so I asked one of my students to say something... He got flustered for a minute and then came out with "I like short-haired women." That is not appropriate! The next class he started asking about my dietary concerns and then followed that with the whopper, "How do you maintain your figure?" I could give him the benefit of the doubt, saying that he might not realize quite how offensive it is, but to be honest I'm not at all inclined to.

- Speaking of the same class, the students hate/don't understand the material but I'm not sure I'm allowed to teach them something other than business English. It's also a shitty long commute.

Time for bed. Goodnight, twenty-two!


* e.g., "John said that he would gladly pay any price you might demand for these delicious bananas."