May 26, 2011: The Final Lap in Hungary

May 26, 2011: It's hard to believe that the school year is almost over. It seems like in many ways I'm still getting used to my school, yet here it is with only two weeks of teaching left! And probably not a minute too soon -- the students are about to knock the walls down in anticipation of finishing their freshman year. Yesterday, I was asked to substitute for one of my challenging classes, the one that has a lot of bright boys but is it LOUD! They don't seem to know how to talk in a normal volume and often it's difficult to hear a student talk even two feet away from me due to the noise. However, as I was about to go to give this substitute class, three of the boys approached me very excited. They asked if we could meet in the IT lab instead of the classroom so that they could play computer games ("Richard, just think!  You can be on our team and we can play games together!" they begged.) Since I had already taught the boys three times so far in the week, I decided to grant them their wish. It's amazing how good their English can be when they have a real reason to make themselves understood. So, off we went to the teacher who's in charge of the room. We traipsed around the school until we found him and after he agreed to the boys' plan, we went to the IT lab for class. I've never seen these boys so excited. However, I still managed to complete doing interviews with some of the boys who had not completed their talks with me in the previous class so I got all caught up with that lesson. And, I also managed to shoot one of my teammates on the computer -- "Never mind, Richard -- it was friendly fire," they laughed.

I also decided to follow up on a hunch I had regarding the payment for my Chinese visa. At the embassy I was given a form with an amount written on it and the address of the Chinese Embassy also written on the form. At first I thought that all I had to do was to bring the money with me when I was to pick up my passport and visa, but if that was the case, why was I given an official form? So I checked out this hunch with a teacher at school and she pointed out that I had "yellow fever" because she could see the standard form that Hungarians are given when they need to pay a bill. I'm glad I asked, because I learned that I'm to take this form to the post office to pay it and then take the receipt of that payment to the Chinese Embassy to show them that it's paid. Lucky I asked. However, now that means I'll need to go to the post office and wait for who knows how long in who knows what line. I asked a Hungarian friend if he would help me and so that's what we'll be doing tomorrow.


Meanwhile, I checked in with the East Los Angeles College website to see the roster of the students that I will be teaching calculus to in September. It looks like 45 have signed up, and seeing as that's the maximum number that the school will enroll in any class, I anticipate that the class will be extra full with students who will probably want to add the course. It looks like I've got my work cut out for when I return to the US.


I also noticed that after school lets out on June 10th, I've got a few days in a row with no plans, so on the spur of the moment, I made hotel reservations for a short trip to Slovenia. I've heard so many nice things about Lake Bled that I just have to go there before I leave eastern Europe for good. I'll be leaving on June 11th by train to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, spend the night there, and then the next afternoon take another train to Lake Bled and spend two nights there. After that, I'll reverse the trip spending another night in Ljubljana before returning to Budapest. I can hardly wait.