September 21, 2010: another day at school

September 21, 2010: I showed the movie about JPL to all of the 9B boys. They seemed to enjoy it but had no questions to ask me afterwards. Perhaps it was because it would have meant asking me in front of all 29 of their classmates and the other teacher, because some of the boys did approach me personally after the film to ask their questions. Other than that, classes were just the same as on other days. Except that I had extra time in my intermediate English classes so rather than spend the time going over exercises again, I decided to open it up to free discussion. This went well. The boys are not so reluctant to ask questions as before. One question that seems to come up very frequently is "Why did you decide to leave JPL to work over here?" Granted JPL was/is a very special place to work, but there seems to be no way that I can convey to others that there are other things I want to do in life even though JPL was a fantastic job – I was ready to try a new adventure to grow myself in a way that I have not grown for many years. And, as you can see from my blog, my adventures in Hungary are not wanting for adventure.

One other pleasantly surprising thing to report: as you can imagine teaching 14 and 15 year old boys, many of them approach me saying "I need another dialog slip since I lost mine." Finally in one class, one of the boys told me that he and another boy took the initiative to copy my dialogs onto a website so anyone needing to find them could do so without requesting a new slip from me. How pleased I was/am to see students to take this initiative! However, I warned them that I hoped they would be extra careful to make sure they had accurately copied the dialogs without any typos since if students are using this to prepare for class, I want them to be using "correct" materials.

Well, I guess that's it for today. Looks like teaching has become more routine. One of my next stories will be about my first appointment seeing the doctor. Being in the Hungarian healthcare system, it is obligatory for all teachers to meet with the doctor once a month. The doctor comes to school and after the examination, she (or the school) stamps a booklet indicating that I've met with the doctor. A good idea I think.


Later: Just got a phone call from Sandor, the friend of Ruth's dentist who plays bridge in Budapest. He asked if I could play bridge today. Unfortunately, since my apartment is so far away from where they are playing bridge, I wouldn't make it in time. However, Sandor knows of an "international bridge player" who can play with me tomorrow at another competition. I'm to meet with him tomorrow evening at 5:15 close to where my suite was when I lived in Buda. I'll need to get a larger map of Budapest because the street where I'm to meet this player is off my map. I wrote down his friend's telephone number so if I get lost, I can at least contact him. I wonder how this will all work out. I just hope that my "beginning" bridge skills won't let my partner down. (Actually, shortly before I left the US for Hungary, I graduated from "Rookie" to "Junior Master", so maybe things won't be so bad after all.) We'll see. At least it's another adventure for me to report on to you.