September 19, 2010: a lazy day

September 19, 2010: It was nice to sleep in this morning. With nothing special to do, I decided to do another load of laundry and just laze around. After a while, I decided to walk to the Tesco mall to explore more deeply into the things I could buy. It turns out I should have started there for my chicken dish because I think I found heavy cream and the dried chili peppers that give the dish that special kick. I b ought the chili peppers and some mushrooms, leaving me with 355 forints (~ $1.50) to last the rest of the month! I guess I'll have to go to the bank and change the last of my few dollars. The exchange rate at the mall was awful so I'll go to my bank tomorrow and see what I can get. It sure will be nice to be paid my first paycheck on October 1^st so I don't feel like I'm living on the edge.

Later: I just finished cooking my chicken recipe, and despite the fact that I used various substitutions, the recipe tasted like it was supposed to! Or is it just my imagination? Also just received a text message from Kati and it looks like I'll be substitute teaching a tenth grade class tomorrow. The lesson is to go over reality TV and blind dating. It's been a long time since I've had a blind date (ending with my marriage to Ruth), and I really haven't watched that much reality TV (if any at all). I guess the boys will be teaching me about these things. Also, for substitute teaching, I hear that one gets an extra 300 forints (~ $1.50) in one's paycheck per hour of substitute teaching. I guess Hungarian pay can't compare to that of substitutes in the US: at East Los Angeles College, I get over $70 an hour for substitute teaching – that's about 16,000 forints an hour compared to 300! But again, I'm not doing this job for money, so I really don't mind. It should be interesting to see what the older grades are like. Now if I could only teach a math class! I heard that my predecessors were college physics and mathematics teachers, and had been told they would teach those subjects and that the physics professor had planned several of his lessons before coming to Hungary, only to be told on arrival that he'd be teaching 100% English and US civics. Wouldn't that be the pits! But again, I'm here to satisfy the needs of the school, and if that's to teach English, that's what it will be.