A friend turned to me a couple of months ago, as I was ranting about my lack of apartment (I was told I would move within 2 months into a great place, 2 weeks turned out to be 4 months and a different apartment), and said "You are certainly having an Eastern European Experience". I love this line, not only because of the alliteration, but because of its inherent truth. If you come to Hungary, you need to be prepared to accept and embrace the EEE.
Don't get me wrong, I would love for the schools to be more organized. Kat wrote a great letter to the schools of Hungary who are taking Foreign teachers with what they could do. Check it out on her blog here.
Not only can I verify all of the things on this list, I can add some that have happened this week.
1) Please tell teachers what they are/are not allowed to do. I have the reading level of a Hungarian 3 year old, the sign on the door will not stop me from taking students outside if I do not know what it says.
2) Do not change the way we notify the American about substitutions. If I am used to getting notes on my desk, please continue to do so. I got a note about the 2 German classes that I was supposed to substitute, I even checked on the noticeboard, but I can not interpret the 2mm name and dashes which say that I need to substitute 2 English classes at the same time.
3) Please, Please tell me ahead of time that you have changed the last 2 days of classes into game days. If I had known, I could have said goodbye to my students the day before. Now it is too late. (Although, as I got half of a day warning about this, so in comparison I was warned.)
4) Please tell me that school starts an hour later. I would like to sleep in too.
These are only my top three for this week. There are many more examples, but they seem fairly normal now. Truth be told, while organization is a blessing, this is part of the experience. And while I rant and rave, without the EEE, this wouldn't be Hungary.
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