From the Silence

The last week and a half have been busy only with things not worth putting on the blog.  Specifically, Amanda and I were finishing off the last of our studies for this semester.  I had a few exams last week which I think I went fairly well in (but you can never be sure), while Amanda had to complete assignments for basically all of her subjects.  In the space of a week she wrote around 10,000 words on a variety of topics from government policy to a retrospective essay on "what I have learned".  It was rather painful and nearly all contact with the outside world had to be shut down in order to get it done.  We won't find out our results until the 5th of December, so here's hoping that we passed.  Once I'm done with this semester, I've got another year next year of uni and I'll have completed my major in philosophy and my minors in English and Writing.  Then we'll see where I go from there.

I was talking to the Principal of our school today as he's introduced a new schedule of timetimes.  Basically, we're getting two extra weeks of holidays at Christmas, and as such we have to make up those classes over the next month.  We will be doing this by shortening all the class times and breaks and squeezing in an additional lesson before lunchtime.  That will make 9 lessons per day for each class instead of 8.  To make things even more complicated there will be a different timetable each week to decide what goes into this additional lesson.  More timetabling fun and games - it seems to be the year for it.  So, what is the reason for this latest change? Well, it seems that because the local council received 30 million forints (~$130k AUD)  less than requested for the month of December, there just isn't enough money to pay to heat the school over Christmas.  In fact, the town council was only given a little more than wages, so it's going to have to default on the 65 or so million forints that it is currently in debt.  Amanda and I think that the council should have a serious "downsize" of government employees rather than close the school for two extra weeks but I don't think that's the way things are done around here.

In other news, the temperature has been steadily dropping over the last few weeks. It's often negative 5 degrees or so in the morning, and for the last couple of days it hasn't hit much more than 6 degrees Celsius at the hottest during the day.  The principal told us that it might actually snow next week, but maybe he was trying to cheer us up.  Even if everyone else thinks that the snow is annoying, Amanda and I still love it.

Our classes have been going well.  We've been getting a handle on the kids and (for the most part) have them under control, although there are still a few spats every now and then.  In my Grade 4 class, they're still obsessed with going outside or going to the computer room.  It's annoying to have to work through the objections every lesson but it can be a funny conversation.

"Hi Balint, how are you?"

"ANGRY!"

"Why?"

"Daniel!"

"Why?"

"No outside! No számítógépes terem!" 

At this point they're usually desperately trying hard to act as angry as they're pretending to be. I find it interesting that although the kids know the words "computer" and "room", they haven't managed to connect them yet.  I might fix that on Monday actually. If they're going to be angry with me, they might as well do it in English.

Amanda has also been having fun with her classes. She was teaching the Grade 1s about winter clothes today, so she brought in some of our coats, scarves, gloves, hats, pullovers and boots.  The clothes were piled messily in the back of the classroom and a pair of kids were chosen to act as mannequins. Then two different students had to listen to Amanda say one of the new clothes words and race to collect the right item from the pile to dress their mannequin. She said that although it got a bit noisy at times, it was awesome fun and the photos of the kids dressed in our oversized clothes look pretty adorable.

- Daniel.

Dog in a nest

A few months ago  family moved into the house next to ours. For the most part it's been awesome having neighbours. Their kids love playing with Iago, they are always giving us gifts (mostly food, but sometimes I score fantastic homemade jewellery too!) and they help out with other random stuff - like assisting us to fill in the Hungarian census and telling us when we've left our car headlights on.

Unfortunately there has been one smallish downside to having neighbours. They make us feel guilty about not cleaning our house and the yard enough :( I don't know how they find the time with three kids and full-time jobs, but they always seem to be cleaning. If they're not washing their car, they're sweeping the driveway, and it feels like we hear their vaccuum cleaner through the walls every second day. Normally this wouldn't really bother us, but as we share a yard with our neighbours, we feel like grotty slobs every time we step outside and discover that they've been cleaning again while we've been inside doing nothing more productive than playing computer games and doing the occasional load of  laundry. Also, we feel guilty that our leaf strewn driveway is somehow dragging down their well-kept path.

So, in the spirit of neighbourlyness, we've tried to do more to keep things tidy. It's difficult as I don't really understand the Hungarian obsession with sweeping and raking everything ALL THE TIME. Honestly, even if all people have out the front of their homes is a small patch of dirt, you can bet money that it will be the most pristine dirt ever, full of rake lines and completely free of leaves and other clutter. I don't get it. What's the big problem with letting the leaves stay where they fall? 

Anyway, in spite of this objection, Daniel and I spent some time this weekend raking up the leaves in our yard (well, really only half the yard as our neighbours already took care of most of the work). It seems like every tree in Hungary has decided to shed its leaves over the past week so raking up was a pretty big job. But we managed it. The only issue was what to do with the big pile of leaves at the end. Seeing as we don't really understand why we gathered the leaves in the first place, we weren't entirely sure what the protocol was for getting rid of them...so we just made a big pile and shoved them under a tree.

Which brings me finally to the point of this post. I came home from work today to find Iago sound asleep in the middle of the pile of leaves. It was the cutest thing ever :) He reminded me of a little bird hanging out in its nest. Awwwww. It kinda made the whole raking thing worthwhile.

- Amanda

I judge you...awesome

Happy Halloween everyone!

On Friday afternoon, Daniel and I attended another Halloween party - this time it was in the nearby town of Mátészalka at the school where I teach an extra hour of English each week. The school has just implemented the same program that we are running in Máriapócs for their Grade One class and I am providing the students with the requisite contact with a native English speaker.

Everyone in Mátészalka has been super nice to me right from the beginning and so I didn't hesitate to accept the invitation to attend the Halloween Party. But by the time Friday afternoon rolled around, I was feeling a little less enthused about going. I was tired. It was such a long way to drive. And besides, they wouldn't miss me anyway, right?

Wrong! 

It's lucky that we decided to go to the party - even if we did arrive 7 minutes late - because I had a special seat reserved just for me at the Judges Table. I even got to wear an awesome witch's hat. After I got over my initial embarrassment at being so late (and my relief at going at all), the party was actually a lot of fun. My Grade One class performed to a number of English songs, including the funkiest version of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes that I've ever heard. They also did a cool streamer routine that I am totally stealing for the next school ball in Máriapócs.

After the singing, each class at the school paraded in front of the judges (myself, the school principal and the two vice-principals) and were awarded scores for their Halloween costumes. This took quite a while as about 600 students attend the school. Then two students took to the stage and provided a bunch of information in English and Hungarian about the history of Halloween. Each class was then quizzed to see how much they remembered and the scores were added to their total. Finally, each class was awarded points for either their Halloween artwork (Grades 1-4) or their Halloween videos (Grades 5-8). 

I must admit that the videos were my favourite part of the party. While some of the classes had just slapped together a bunch of Halloween clipart pictures and overlayed them with spooky music, other classes had gone to the effort of acting out short stories and dances. There was one in particular that everyone, including Daniel and I, thought was awesome. In fact, it was so awesome that I wanted to post it to this blog.

Unfortunately, the only way I could access the video is via the school's Facebook page. So I finally bit the bullet and signed up....only to discover that I can't embed the video on this blog anyway. Still, I have managed to save it to my Facebook "wall" thing, so if anyone's interested you can check it out there.

Daniel and I both have this week off from teaching, though I doubt we'll be relaxing much. Daniel has uni exams to sit and I have a bunch of assignments to plough through. So looking forward to the semester being over!

- Amanda

Halloween Party 2011

This week we had the Halloween party at school.  Amanda, our colleague Ili, and I had organised it for Wednesday afternoon and all the kids were excited to try out their costumes.  We have been teaching the kids Halloween vocabulary and songs for the last two weeks so even the little grade ones knew how to say ghost, witch, vampire, skeleton etc.  Unfortunately, Amanda and I have been a little busy with everything lately so we made some last minute costumes the night before.  Amanda was a black cat and I was a ghost (taken from Amanda's costume last year).  We also had to carve new pumpkins as the ones that we carved with Danni were getting a little mouldy.

The party went pretty well, we had the hall decorated with the kids' artwork and a white sheet then brought the 150-odd kids into the room.  It was a little crazy.  There were ghosts and knights and witches and vampires and spiders and pumpkins and black cats.  Most of the kids got dressed up which we were pretty happy about.  It was a little funny, we teach the kids a song that goes "knock, knock, trick or treat who are you?  I'm a ghost, I'm a little ghost."  We then brought all the witches up then sang it again while replacing the word ghost with witch.  This continued as we went through all the various costumes that the kids had put together until we got to one little girl who was dressed as the wife of Frankenstein.  So here were 150 kids and various adults happily singing "knock, knock, trick or treat, who are you? I'm the wife, I'm the little wife!" Actually, now that I think of it I think I was the only one laughing.  Oh well, I found it funny.

So after the songs and speeches we played the toilet paper mummy game.  We had each class line up, each with their own mummy candidate, then one by one had a turn wrapping them in the paper.  Ili manned the microphone and yelled "CHANGE!" every 20 or 30 seconds, while the kids screamed and threw toilet paper around the room.  It was messy, crazy, but it was a lot of fun.

The last game that we played was the corner game.  Each corner had a picture of either a witch, ghost, pumpkin and black cat.  The kids ran to a corner then Amanda stood in the middle of the hall and spun a spinning wheel which determined which of the corners was out.  The kids from that corner then had to sit down.  It was simple, but fun (mainly because the kids got to run from corner to corner between spins).

Anyway, another Halloween finished.  Awesome fun.

- Daniel.

More guests!

This weekend has been rather awesome. My dad and my sister Danni arrived in Máriapócs to visit us on Thursday afternoon, so we have had the pleasure of their company for the last few days. Things got off to a great start when they opened their suitcases and began loading us up with lots of presents from home. There were lots of goodies for next year's Australia Day party, new stickers for the kids, as well as several items of clothing for both of us. Score!

But I think the happiest Máriapócian of all was Iago. Not only did Danni bring over an entire bag of new toys for him, but he also scored a fantastic handmade blanket from Anthea, Daniel's sister. As you can see from the picture, Iago wasted absolutely no time at all in making use of his new possession. He loves it :)

Anyway, the rest of the weekend has flown by pretty quickly. We've spent a lot of time just hanging out together at home - playing cards, cooking up a storm, and carving up our very first Halloween jack-o-lanterns. I think they turned out really well! The initial plan was to bring them to school next Wednesday for the annual Halloween costume party, but unfortunately they are looking a little droopy already so I don't think they're going to last.

Yesterday we ventured out to Hungary's famous Tokaj wine district and stumbled across a neat little outdoor food festival. We also checked out a bunch of the local cellars and bought lots of white wine, much of it wonderfully packaged in recycled coke bottles. But while it may not have looked particularly classy, it certainly tasted great.

Today was a public holiday in Hungary so basically the entire country shut down. Absolutely nothing was open, so we all enjoyed another cruisey day in Máriapócs. It looks like Dad and Danni will be setting off on the next leg of their trip tomorrow which is a little sad as it seems like they just got here. Still, it's been fun having them around and I've really enjoyed seeing them both. It's been quite educational too, as I've been able to quiz Dad about his childhood in Hungary and learn a bit more about our family's Hungarian roots.

- Amanda

AMANDA HAS NOT WATCHED ALIENS!

I just found out something shocking about my wife.

She has never seen the James Cameron classic movie: Aliens.

That is all.

- Daniel.

A week in review

Gosh, is it Sunday night already? Where did our weekend go? In fact, where did the last week go? It seems like time is just flying by at the moment. Anyway, here are some highlights from the last week....

On Monday, the principal sent a handyman over to our house to turn on the heating system after a pretty chilly weekend. Daniel and I had tried to do it ourselves but hadn't had much success. It turns out that we just needed to turn the thermostat above zero. Oops! I'm sure that the principal thinks that we are complete morons as this is just the latest in a series of embarrassing incidents. Only a few weeks ago the same handyman came over to our house as we had been having some issues locking our front door. He took one look at the situation, moved our front doormat and locked the door on the first try. Yes, the mat had gotten itself wedged between the frame and the door and neither Daniel or I had noticed it during our many, many, many attempts at getting the door to lock. Pretty embarrassing. Worse still is that we left our car headlights on overnight this weekend, so tomorrow morning we are going to have to ask the principal to help us solve yet another silly problem.

Halloween is rapidly approaching, so last week I used most of my freetime and art lessons with the Grade 1s to introduce some Halloween words. I'm absolutely amazed at how spongelike these little kids are. They picked up the new words really fast and were soon drawing some absolutely amazing Halloween themed pictures. I like to think it's my skill as an art teacher, but really I think that this year's Grade 1s are just incredibly talented.

On Thursday morning I drove to Mátészalka (a town about 30 kms away) where I teach an extra English class each week to some Grade 1 students. The first couple of times I taught the class, the school arranged for one other teacher to sit in on the lesson in case something happened. They'd never employed a native speaker to teach English before, so I think they were a little nervous about how it was going to work, especially with such young students. But everything went really well and the kids very quickly adapted to my teaching methods. In fact things are working out so well with the class that more and more teachers - and now the parents - want to sit in on the lessons and see how the class operates. Last week there were eight adults sitting up the back watching the class. The week before the principal and three teachers attended the lesson. The week before that the vice principal, two upper class English teachers and a photographer were present. It's actually getting a little weird and I'm starting to get really nervous before the class because I don't want to stuff up in front of so many important people. Hopefully my novelty value will wear off soon and I can go back to just enjoying being silly with a bunch of great kids.

Speaking of silliness, on Friday I was back teaching in Máriapócs and had just taken one of the Grade 1 classes to lunch. After lunch I took the kids outside to play and some of the kids to decided to hang around me and practice their English. Mostly this involved them repeating the few English sentences they know over and over again. For example, they just love telling me their names and asking what my name is. They then extended this to pointing at objects that they know, like an apple, and saying "My name is apple". Sure, it's not perfect English but the meaning of their sentences is pretty clear. Anyway, on Friday one of the students decided to insert an adjective into the sentence as well. She pointed at my jumper which was decorated with a rhinestone butterfly and said "My name is Amanda beautiful pullover". I just think that's an amazing linguistic accomplishment for a 6 year old who has been learning English for only a few weeks. They are so brave. I love it.

Of course, after that things got a little weird as all the kids started touching the butterfly on my jumper. As you can see from the photo, the butterfly is right on my chest, so it was a pretty awkward experience having all these tiny hands groping me. Luckily I'm a lot taller than the kids, so standing up soon put an end to the impromptu patdown :)

As for this weekend, it was pretty uneventful. Our Saturday morning class in Nyírbátor is winding down, so Daniel and I were able to devote most of our time to working on uni assignments. I also found some time to put the finishing touches on my toilet paper roll mummy. I love this little guy and am hoping to get some of the kids to make their own this week.

- Amanda