The teachers were assigned to one of three tables and there was a planned program for us all to participate in. Points were assigned to the various teams for the various activities. First up was the judging of the costumes. Our team won the prize for Jermendi Andi's costume (Romanian school girl costume). Then all the teams were given words to a song that everyone sang to music that was played over the audio system. The words of this song were about teaching at UMSZKI (Ujpest High School's acronym) and how well we do our jobs.
Next on the agenda was a team game. Two men and two women from each team went to the front of the room and the four were given a wooden spoon to which was attached a long red string. The idea of the game was for each of the four members of the team to thread the spoon up their sleeves down into their shirts/blouses down their pants and out the leg of the pants before giving the spoon to the next team member to do the same. The team that completed this "threading" of all four team members won the prize. Our team won this game, too. Then they had to "unthread" the wooden spoon and red string. Our team didn't do so well because the spoon got caught in one of our team member's bra. Obviously this was a very funny game.
The next activity was for each team to read a poem in Hungarian. Each team was given two poems and the team had to divide up the lines of the poem that had to be memorized by each member of the team to eventually recite. Obviously I thought that our team was at a definite disadvantage having me on the team, but the coordinators of the games said that all I had to do was to speak the poet's name and title of the poem as my contribution to the game. I don't recall how we did but I don't think we won. (I did manage to remember the poets' names and titles though.)
Next each team was given a poster sheet, a wooden block to be used like a ruler, a pair of scissors, and a roll of tape. Each team was to cut rectangles from the poster sheet the size of the wooden block and then construct a tower that would stand on its own and support the weight of a wooden spoon. The tallest tower supporting the wooden spoon won the game. Our team's tower was the tallest so we won that game.
The next activity was that each team had to come up with excuses to the principal for why the class record books were not in the teachers' room as they are required to be. (A little explanation here: each class has a record book in which all grades are recorded for each student, all disciplinary remarks are recorded, attendance is recorded, etc. The school rule is that these books MUST be in the teachers' room at all times -- teachers need to record their grades in the book while sitting in the teachers' room. The books are never to leave this room.) So, each team had to come up with excuses as to why these record books were not in the teachers' room when the principal looked for them. Of course all the explanations were given in Hungarian and from the laughter I heard, it was obvious that our team won that activity hands down. The excuse from what I heard when Andi told me about it was that the Hungarian language teacher told the principal of the school that she had arrived at 5:00 a.m. to update the books but they were not in the room so she searched the whole school to find them and on the way, ended up cleaning all the offices of her colleagues eventually finding them. Then she put her grades in the book and was going to bring them to the other teachers to fill out their grades but the other teachers hadn't quite finished doing all the lessons so the teacher (a Hungarian language teacher) said that she would teach electronics, English, chemistry, etc. for her colleagues and grade all their tests so that the grades could be recorded. I'm sure there was much more to the story than that judging from the laughter and the length of her story, but it was great to hear everyone having such a good time.
Next on the agenda was the doughnut eating contest. One man from each team was given a plate with three donuts on it. The teacher who finished eating all three donuts won the prize. Our team's doughnut eater tied with another team's doughnut eater.
All in all, our team easily won the first prize which entitled us to exactly the same prize that all the other teams got. But it was really the spirit of the party that was the real prize.
It was really fun to participate with UMSZKI's teachers in this social event.
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