d'oh.

spoke too soon. We left out an ad! oops. trying desperately to fix it...

in other, more positive, news -- it's Teacher Appreciation Week, which is ironic considering the vast # of hours I've put into this place when I should be taking it easy. That means an endless supply of goodies in the workroom, posters singing my praises, gift basket giveaways, and today (my favorite) -- lunch. All the South Korean moms got together and fixed a huge Korean feast for us. Wow. I am a huge fan of Korean food. Who knew?
and last night I ate Indian, which is always good. I feel so international!

DONE!

Praise Jesus.

so... very.... tired....

...of looking at yearbook pages. In the genius world of Hungarian publishing, all of your pages are due at once, as opposed to sending in several batches throughout the year back in the Land of the Free. That means all the stress comes at the same time. I've figured it up. In addition to the actual yearbook class, I've spent 34.5 hours in the computer lab working on the pages in the past week and a half. I'm not a math person, but I believe that accounts for roughly 14% of my life during that time. Nem jo, as my Hungarian friends would say. No good!

but the yearbook is, or at least better than in years past. I suppose that makes it all worthwhile. and thankfully I'm teaching Cyrano to my sophomores, which I'm fairly certain I could do with my eyes closed at this point. Hallelujah for experience.

The ordeal has also been made bearable by my wonderful roommate, so here's a tribute to Heather, who not only cooked me dinner, but offered to bring it to the school for me, and (more importantly) put up with my weird emotional outbursts when I got stressed. I believe you earned an extra jewel in your heavenly crown for this past week or so.

Almost time for study hall to be over...which means it's back to the lab! Hour 35 and counting.

sigh.

Happy Birthday!

A big boldog szuletesnapot to my dad... love you so very, very much!

ELL

Those people are so sweet. We played guesstures and ate American desserts (which they weren't too sure about, but were polite!), and they gave Heather and me each a beautiful bouquet of flowers. One of them even offered us the chance to stay at a lake house here in Hungary! Good people. I'll miss working with them. but Heather had the brilliant idea of setting up an email list, so we could keep in contact and maybe see each other later. In fact, one of them has already emailed us -- about singing karaoke this weekend!

I'm so glad I got to teach that class.

adventures in cooking

Tonight is our final ELL class, and Heather and I decided to bring all kinds of goodies. I have a brownie recipe I love and have made several times, so last night I confidently started making a double batch.
At some point I realized a huge mistake: I had confused the words for baking powder and baking soda. For future reference, if you use baking soda in a brownie recipe, your brownies will
a) fail to completely cook even after an hour and a half
b) rise until they spill over into the oven, thus creating a huge amount of smoke and a lingering smell of burnt chocolate
c) fall flat upon cooling -- except for the slightly burnt edges

They just don't look appealing.

Hmmmm.... perhaps I'll just buy some cookies.

weird Hungarian guy

Last night Heather and I went to Campona to get some dinner and buy groceries. On the bus back to Diosd, Heather propped her feet up on the bar across from her. A Hungarian man walked over to her feet, stared at them really closely, and said Ot (five). Then he got off the bus.
We were so confused, and yet we are thrilled that Heather apparently has all five toes. What a relief.

Anyway, today was research paper due day. That's never fun, and now I have a stack of 8-10 page papers to grade. This is, of course, in addition to the final week of yearbook before our deadline. oh, the stress!

back in the saddle again

It's nice to come back to work and have students excited to see you. I thought a couple would knock me over running to hug me!
It's not so nice to come back to paperwork. sigh. especially when the weather is so beautiful. This Sunday I deliberately did no work, because it was so very, very gorgeous outside. Heather and I took a blanket (thanks Nik!) and sat on the grass outside our apartment building. Before long, two or three of our neighbors had come out there too! If I could only talk to them... then Lisa and I walked around Diosd and just basked in the spring weather. As much as I love fall, nothing compares to spring!
Our yearbook deadline is this week, so I covet your prayers on that. It's a minor miracle that this thing is going to be published at all...
and on that note, it's time for yearbook class.

I'm back

No problems at all, unlike that harrowing dash for the plane back in August!

and I almost immediately went back to work. Seriously. I went to my ELL class Thursday night after being back about, oh, 4 hours. I'm not sure my English was any better than theirs! Friday I got two phone calls from work asking if I was coming in. Um, no. An emphatic no. And today is an all day workday for the yearbook staff. I've been here since 9 and will leave around 4. Definitely back in the swing of things, although slightly jet-lagged in the process. I woke up at 4 this morning. wide awake. sigh.

Lest you think my homecoming has been all negative, let me tell you how gorgeous Diosd is in the spring -- beautiful! (or, as we say here, nagyon szep!) and, I must say, considerably warmer than NC... It's also been wonderful to see people again. I tell you, being home with all of you, and then coming here to see people (including, can you believe it, students!) excited to see me -- I definitely have a little self-esteem high going right now!

Last night Heather, Austin, and I went into the city for dinner and then met up with our friends Sarah M. and Emma. It was nice enough to go outside on their porch swing, and then we got out the guitar. Fun. I feel officially welcomed back to Diosd now.

I should probably do some actual yearbook work now... but I really just want to go back to bed!

You know it's time to go home when...

...pollen season kicks in. Sigh. Although the cloud of yellow was not enough to keep me from fishing with my grandparents down at the pond (three keepers, I'm proud to say, although Grandmama beat everyone with her 8. 8!), it has been enough to keep me sneezing. And so, I can gladly say Szia to NC pollen.

It will be much more difficult to say goodbye to people -- and sadly, there is a whole slew of people I never got to see at all. I'm so sorry to have missed you, particularly the SE crowd. I think of you guys often!

To those of you I could see, I really enjoyed my time with you. Thank you for encouraging me and being excited with me. You have no idea what it meant to be able to hang out with you.

It's about time for the Last Supper -- Mom's fried chicken with biscuits! -- so I'm going to soak up my final piece of Americana. I'll fly out of DC tomorrow and arrive in Budapest sometime Thursday afternoon. Until then, stay out of the freakin' pollen, and know that I love you all.

what the...

I love spring, and it's especially beautiful here in NC. The azaleas, the dogwoods, the snow.... Snow??? Yes, last night I watched snow fall. Why are we having snow on Easter weekend? So strange.

hallelujah

My visa came!!!!

and in what I believe to be a new record and further sign of the Lord's love for me, the entire process took only 11 days. 11 days, after literally months and months of trying before. God bless America.

I wish I had a cool picture to celebrate, as did my dear friend Lisa, but I am pretty darn thrilled.