On Introspection and the Trains

Sunday is train day.

We sit, crammed into the overheated and sometimes clean metal tubes, which cut paths throughout the nation, on our way home from a weekend packed full of togetherness. Bleary-eyed from the lack of sleep and sometimes queasy from the incessant rocking, the train can be a great inspiration for introspection.

I know that introspection is not very interesting for others to read, but as my time shortens my brain is frantically trying to discover what I have achieved over the last 5 months. Have I changed? Have I helped someone? Was it worth it?
This weekend was an eye-opener. I embarrassed myself in front of 20 of my CETP colleagues and their friends. I wish I had not done that.
I was asked by a friend of a friend "Do you see your time in Hungary as real life, or as a buffer?" This question keeps playing over in my head. I wonder what is "real life". How is it defined? Is it when you are working the daily grind and working towards set goals, or is it a string of a million moments all connected by a tangled web of our actions? I don't know, but I think that I will spend a lifetime trying to find out.
This was also a strange weekend, because I met many of the CETP people, who I had heard stories about. At the end of the weekend no phone numbers were exchanged, and no half formed plans were made, it was a familiarly terse "Good luck with your life, It was nice to have met you" and we stepped out of one another's stories.



This is a somewhat depressing post, so I will finish with another not to Clare of 3BT :

Being linked by Clare of 3BT. Her site has reminded me to appreciate the little things.
A friend defending you against gossip.
Receiving Boxes of Chocolates from students on Teacher-day.
A message from a friend you haven't heard from in a while.
Mail with Moose stickers in it.
The school getting re-plastered and painted, so it already looks nicer than when I came.
Having someone like the ATC that you were not sure about.

A nod to Clare of 3BT and why it is OK to eat fish.

Ahh Palinka and Tavas. Sometimes I think the gods are out to get me in trouble, like the mischievous friend who pushes buttons just to see if this time will be different from the last 17 times. It wasn't, and while I could rant and rave about the bad parts of the weekend (all caused by my own drunken stupidity) I wont. Instead, with a nod to Clare of "Three Beautiful Things" I will remember the simple and the beautiful things.

1) The daisies that dot all of the grassy pathways in my town.
2) The sweet burn of good palinka as it slowly slides down your throat, and then eating a piece of dried apple afterwards.
3) A friend peeling off the layers of an unopened Iris, until it exposes the yellow bit
4) Friends, who instead of scolding, are willing to play "Dude, where's my phone" and go on an adventure across town at 8am after only 4 hours of sleep.
5) Blue sky and sitting in the sun
6) Understanding one of the students asking a non-English speaking colleague questions in Hungarian
7) Being called Tanarnő
8) Walking under trees full of pink blossoms
9) That moment when the student 'gets it'.
10) Lying in bed, covered in blankets, the sun streaming through the windows and not having to get up.
11) The word Bliss.
12) When a student surprises you with something very clever


A while ago I went to a teacher convention in Budapest. It was really good, and gave me tons of new ideas. One of them was a graffiti game, where students should write a phrase in English and decorate it in the style of Graffiti artists. I did this once on a Saturday, when there was some extra time, and no one wanted to be there. Most of them wrote the usual "Happy Easter", "I love Timmy" so on and so forth. My favorite was from one of my sassy students:

"It isOK to eat fish, because a fish doesn't have feelings"