Wednesday.
right, a bit of venting, a bit of cultural interplay (aka chaos).
I’ve been trying to get the internet in my flat since arrival. I’m still taking classes at new school, and the net at work is spotty at best, and involves a lot of people looking over my shoulder. my landlady, through her english speaking daughter, promised that her son would go to the internet people monday. By Wednesday night I’d heard nothing, so I sent a text to the daughter to see if there was any news. She didn’t text back, but did come over later. Not, mind you, to say a word about the net, but to get mad because today when I’d gone out for an hour I’d forgotten to close my window.
Of course, the reason given for closing the window was chance of theft when no one was in the main house. Since she knew it was open she was obviously home, thus negating the necessity of window closure. Which of course makes entirely too much sense to be of any use to me in this situation.
I wonder if my problem isn’t in part that so many things are so visually similar that the bits that end up different grate more strongly. . .
Apparently the daughter either didn’t tell her mother she’d okayed the smoking in the house, or they changed their minds and didn’t bother to tell me, because they’ve been calling the director of my school every day to complain; I found this out not from the school but from Hajni, the CETP contact in Budapest.
As cetp claimed to already be displeased that I’m parked rather in the middle of suburbia without easy access to anything in a piece of farce which requires taking a 1km train trip to get anywhere because roads simply don’t go that way, they’ve decided to push for new housing. whether this actually happens remains dubious, but I’m thinkin that when the landlady throws me out for leaving the window open again… of course, it’s entirely probable that I’ll end up a train stop or two farther away from school, and still not allowed to smoke inside. ; )
I’m rather amused by my newfound ability to monumentally piss people off by simply being myself in their universe.
granted, I’m likely just a bit worn. I’ve been given ten separate courses to teach to start with (more to come), not one of them with a book or any semblance of syllabus. I’m still working out where to buy things and how to communicate in this new language, which does tend to kick my butt the first month a bit. The school outfitted my flat with some wonky necessities – I pulled out a frying pan the other night to make dinner only to find an 1.5“ divot jarring up at me, as though someone had whacked the thing on an anvil. I fall off the broken toilet seat roughly every other day. and I have to take a 1km train trip to get into town proper (aka away from the residential/car repair neighborhood I currently inhabit) because there’s not so much as a path in shorter than 7km. Mind you, my co-teachers are fantastic, warm and welcoming. Though they’ve got some issues with direction-giving. Twice since arrival I’ve walked upwards of an hour for a trip that should have taken ten minutes because ”it’s on your right“ actually means ”it’s half a mile back from the road on your right and you can’t possibly see it from where you’ll be.“ And it’s been raining and cold for three days straight, which I get to content with any time I want food, or now apparently a smoke.
Thursday.
had three joyous classes today (I’m going to enjoy thursdays I think, even if I do have to arrive half an hour early to sit in the playground and make sure no-one maims anyone). The first graders, six and seven years old, are so sweet you just want to plop then in espresso. Sure, they misbehave, but they’ve that charming quality of trying harder when you praise them, or anyone else in the room. The seventh graders have perhaps the best english of any class I’ve had yet (odd, as they’re one of two classes not on a bilingual curriculum), and though they do like to swear I can’t really complain as they’re doing it in english, which in my immersion classroom universe is a hell of a lot better than pleasantries in hungarian. So reality-challenged landlady and tempermental cutlery aside, I’m having a rather fantastic day 