Hike in the Borzsony

Me and my absentee ballot. Here's to not not having your vote matter!


Saturday I went on a hike through the Borzsony mountains with maybe thirteen other math students. It looked suspiciously like the Crum, although maybe we took the wrong path because we never made it to Lang.



A group photo. Fortunately things went smoothly and we left with as many people as we started with.



The view along the way was pretty great.









Tamas and Marci (?), two of the trip's organizers.


Some ruins, presumably from a castle. It's hard to see but there's grass on the top of the largest column. We played some frisbee here. I also heard one young boy say to his brother, "Nagyon csunya vagy!" which is more or less the equivalent of "you're a big dummy-head." I was pleased that my Hungarian proficiency approximated that of a three-year-old.



I thought the ruins would be the end of the trip -- little did I know this was still to come.

Wine festival musicians and Pecs

Now that I'm no longer hob-nobbing with the late-night, coffee-chugging McCabe die-hards and instead studying in a comfortable couch in my living room, I find myself reverting to my early to bed, early to rise high school habits of yore. Today I was up at six thirty for a full two and a half hours of productivity before showering and leaving for class!

The weather here in magyarorszag has swung back to sunny and pleasant after two weeks of unbearable cold (I had to use the heat at night!). Unsurprisingly it makes and enormous difference in my mood. If we're lucky this might last through the end of the month, although I'm not getting my hopes up.

Classes are going well. I'm taking seven, which together makes for twelve hours of class, give or take. Hungarian class and my now-standard weekly meeting with my graph theory profesor make for four more -- it almost feels like Swarthmore! It's hard for me to guage how standard a load like this would be. Initially my official advisor (as opposed to my de facto advisor) thought that six would be fine, but I've talked to Hungarian students who say they have closer to thirty hours a week (!). One friend said she had class five days a week but skipped several of her larger lectures. All in all, though, I think people are pretty busy.

Tuesday in class I was passed a note about a hiking trip this Saturday being organised by some Hungarian students, so after six weeks I might finally get to know some of my classmates! It means I'll have to pass on an opera that some Fulbrighters are going to in the morning (with a real live opera singer, no less!) and potentially the subsquent Palinka and Kielbasa festival, but I think it's probably worth it. Also my mom tells me that physical activity is good for me.

I should write at some point about my trip last week to Pécs. Maybe after I upload my photos onto my computer.

I think I've been adopted by my graph theory professor. He's really interested in speaking English. I had to move a meeting with him back from eleven to twelve and I got this response:

"Twelve is fine.

But postponing a meeting from eleven to twelve is pushing BACK?

A.F."

Nothing terribly interesting to say at the moment, but I'm getting really frustrated by a problem (like so much of graph theory it seems very intuitive but I can't prove it. Then again, I think most problems that seem intuitively true really aren't at all.)

I think Baldur and I need to do something about this office. It's okay when we're both here, and even when we're just working I can pretend that I'm having a human interaction and am therefore not completely cut off from the rest of the world, but when I'm here alone and work is frustrating me the high, white walls seem very oppressive. I'm also achy after avoiding yoga for almost a week.

The weather finally came around on Sunday and I've been feeling a lot better, almost entirely as a result. Tomorrow Fulbright is whisking us away to Pécs for the evening -- apparently there's a wine festival? I'm missing two classes, which makes the good American student in me cringe, but I think a change of scenery will do me well.

I don't remember if I've said this yet, but whenever I look around I remember how happy I am to be here.

Noah and the Whale

Check this out

I feel like I started Hungary over again today, in a good way. For whatever reason (or for ten million reasons) the past week was really taxing, but hopefully the worst is over. I still have to register for classes by the end of September (read: in three days) and the professor I asked to help me with that referred me to the other MSc student who either doesn't check his gmail or doesn't want to respond to me, but hopefully that can get sorted out tomorrow.

I went to bed at eleven last night, woke up at nine and decided that I should go for a run on Margaret Island just because it's the first beautiful, sunny day we've had in two weeks. (Exercising for its own sake, like relaxation, is a novelty unknown to me) I successfully ran the entirety of the 5k loop and now I'm back home about to make lunch accompanied by fresh-squeezed orange juice. I hope I'm not turning into one of those obnoxiously healthy people, but I feel great right now. :D

(We don't have a juicer, so I'm just going to disassemble the orange and stab it with a fork.)

I've also started doing bikram yoga three times a week -- it's the one where you heat up the room to 105 degrees. I remember reading about celebrities doing it left, right and center and wondering why you would voluntarily exercise in an overheated room for an hour and a half, but I think I've hopped on the bandwagon. Admittedly there are days when the heat gets to you and everything touching your skin (including your own sweat) is a violation, but mostly it's very calming and meditative. Not only do I leave with a great high, but I've noticed precipitous changes in my body just in the past two weeks. I have muscles! I feel healthy! I might have to keep this up.

Good news

Hey, it turns out I'm not as stupid as I thought I was!

Background story: I was supposed to receive an email from a professor telling me what to read and what problems to do for a meeting on Friday. Instead I heard nothing, sent an email, still heard nothing, and therefore showed up 100% clueless instead of 100% brilliant and prepared. Turns out he was sending things to the ELTE email I didn't even know I had.

We changed our meeting to Tuesday and again I found myself without any emails... I thought I was going crazy (I checked my inbox about a hundred times) but the professor (who is also a tech head?) looked into it and apparently he set up the account wrong! It feels good to have one very small thing figured out.

Also I have an ELTE library card. I checked out my first book today :D