Iskola (Hungarian for "school")

I started school on Friday the 13th of September, and let me tell you there was nothing unlucky about my day :). Having your first day of school be a Friday is an excellent way to have it make a good impression. In addition, I do not have 1st period on Fridays so I got to sleep in a bit (only until 7:30 but still). My first class was music, not the way we think of music; it consists of theory and music history. I walked in and was immediately met with a "can I help you?" There were two girls, named Eva-Linda and Dori, who helped introduce me, translate, and make me feel comfortable my first day. The teacher was also really welcoming, he is my favorite so far. I really like them. So my first day went really well and then I had a weekend :)

My schedule, at Flora's request on my behalf, consists entirely of English, Spanish, Hungarian, Music, and PE. Seeing as I don't understand Hungarian literature or grammar those classes are relatively optional, which gives me another day each week with no 1st period. Because I don't have the appropriate uniform, and the teachers speak no English, PE is exceedingly optional (as in I don't go, ever) which gives me time to do this a few hours a week :)

Unlike most of my Hungarian piers I do not have a class that I attend the majority of my lessons with, which means that I don't have any classes like math, chemistry, physics, biology and such but it also means that I will not be able to spend a large amount of time bonding with one class of thirty people. The way my schedule was made does not indicate that it should have taken the two weeks it did to construct. My classes have been thrown together helter-skelter and I can pretty much make changes as I wish. After a week I have 8 Spanish classes, ranging levels 1-4, 5 English classes, 4 music classes, 4 fairly optional Hungarian classes, and 3 very very optional PE classes. By the end of next week I hope to have at least one history class, one more music class, and no PE. 

The freedom of my schedule is really nice for me and keeps every day different, unlike American school with the same 6 or 7 classes everyday. Though not having one class will, I think, make it harder to make friends I have met many people in the 22 classes I have attended so far who are very welcoming and friendly. Some stop to say hello to me in the hallway or on the street, others help me find my classrooms and translate the lessons for me, and others facebook message me, ask for my email, and say they would like to hang out sometime. All these things make me feel more welcome than I ever could have anticipated after hearing peoples horror stories about the loneliness at the beginning of school and being really nervous at first myself.

So, overall, school has been a success. I am not expected to try very hard, pay attention, or do homework (except in spanish where the teacher likes me to participate, even in the completely spanish level 4 class). I do pay attention, and do homework when I can understand the assignment though because, at least for now, I want to be as engaged as possible to give a good first impression and hopefully make lots of friends :). I am off to a good start. Wish me luck :)

Homesickness and a Newfound Cure

 Warning: This post will be entirely writing with no pictures.

I had my first homesick day yesterday. I wanted a mom hug and some Brian time neither of which I can have. I missed everything and woke up this morning (at the ungodly hour 6am) feeling the same way. So in some free time I had this morning I sat down in a beautiful park put in my earbuds and started writing. I wrote myself an alternate reality in which I was spending the day with my friends at home. 

Can I just go hang out with my friends today? I think that's what I'll do; it is a minimum Monday so we will have plenty of time. We will walk to Henderson Center after school and I will get a chai and a dinosaur cookie then we can admire the bikes in the bike shop window. We will stop in the Toy Box to play with the puppets and look for new board games that we never buy. Then we will go to Fin n' Feather to admire the cute animals and hear the bird story and the spider story just one more time. I will tell Josie that I still owe her a goldfish and she will confirm that I do but I never buy the fish. We will walk on to Fresh Freeze while Brian and I joke about the banks across the street. At Fresh Freeze Josie will order fries and a shake. We will all mooch off Josie's fries, which is why she got a large order, even Scott who got a bacon cheeseburger and has a bottomless pit stomach. After we are all done eating we will go back to my house where Bryce will kick Scott's ass at air hockey and Brian will suggest we play scrabble over an over. We will play pictionary instead. Josie and I (team awesomeness) versus Scott, Brian, and Bryce. Because Brian sucks at pictionary, and because Scott and Bryce have absolutely no mind link, Josie and I will obviously win. After we call it quits at pictionary we will walk to the park where Josie will be picked up an hour before the time agreed upon. Bryce, Brian, Scott, and I will wander around and antagonize ducks, an action accompanied by a "That's why nobody likes teenagers." On our way up the hill Bryce will sit in his enticing tree and Brian and I will laugh while Scott acts like he is above our childish nonsense. When we get home Fanny will be in her spot and Zach will be waiting for us in the kitchen. We will all talk for a while while we make coffee and wait for the cookies mom is making to come out of the oven. After we finish our coffee we will go out to the family room where Zach will put on music and we will just sit until mom brings the cookies out nice and warm with melts chocolate chips. We will devour our cookies and then everyone will head home because it is a school night, except Brian who has no homework or curfew. After I do a bit of homework we will play Yahtzee a few times before my mom gives him a ride home so he can get sone sleep for school in the morning where we will have marching band practice for homecoming. This years theme will be cinema and the band theme will be Casino Royale (like James Bond); that was Brian's and my idea. We will all wear button up white shirts, black pants, black shoes, and bow ties. We will play the James Bond theme as well as a compilation of the movie themes (Skyfall, Goldfinger, etc.) that Brian and Mr. Cox wrote together.

Although there are discrepancies in this story (I didn't thank mom for the cookies, we never just sit, and most glaringly Scott and Bryce never hung out with us at the same time) living this day for one hour made me very happy and my day was perfect from there on out. Cure to homesickness :) 

Fish Soup Fun :)

This weekend was Szeged's annual fish soup festival and the exchange students from Kecskemet came down for our rotary barbecue beforehand on Friday. 

Then on Saturday morning the kids from Pecs came for the festival. We had some fish soup, which I found out I am not a fan of.

We then went and played bumper cars at the little carnival portion of the festival. I don't think the civilians in the bumper cars appreciated our presence but we had a blast :). 

Then we walked around the city for a while before going home to sleep.

Exchange students are the best people :) We have so much fun together and I enjoy the company of people who will forever understand an experience no one else can :)

Summer Fun :)

On Thursday (August 28th) Becky came to visit from Kecskemet and Octavio, Tao Yi, Becky, and I went to explore Szeged.  

We went to get ice cream at A Capella ... Twice ;)

Then we went down and walked by the Tisza.

And ended up in the Arkád (mall type thing) for lunch where we all attempted to eat with chopsticks.

Notice the fork in the last picture :) Octavio had never eaten with chopsticks before and had a bit of a hard time.

This weekend was also fun :) On Saturday my sisters and I went to a friend's party with 5 other exchange students. There were 4 inbounds and 4 rebounds and we had a nice time hanging out. 

Then on Sunday some family friends came over and we had fun playing Hungarian board games, that I didn't understand, and eating yummy Hungarian pastries.