First Days of School

The 'post a comment' link is now working again! I have also edited some settings to allow posting even if you do not have a blogger account. This is great for Grandparents who wish to stay out of the blogosphere, but still would love to tell their Grandkids that they love them :-)

I've felt like a little kid going to first grade again. Monday was our first day of school, and little Jacek and I went off with smiles and Spiderman® lunch boxes filled with peanut butter and fluff to our first class at 10am - Hungarian for dummies.

(And just for the record, I was deprived of Fluffanutter as a child. I was also deprived of old Bugs Bunny cartoons, for which I am ignorant of a great deal of classical music. Thanks, cheapskates.)

(Just for the record, I really do have very loving parents.)

Anyway, we got there half an hour early, because we realized when trying to enter the locked and dark room that class actually starts at 10:30. Decided to walk around a bit, and found a cozy little English book store where I picked up a 2006 copy of the Lonely Planet guide to Budapest. I'm really excited about this, because it has great ideas for walking tours of the city. I plan to do a few this weekend if the weather is good.

Our classmates for Hungarian seem to be our classmates for a few other classes, as well. As international students, the common language is English. In our little international cadre, there are a students from China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Turkey, Ireland, Holland, Portugal and Belgium. They all seem very friendly, and all know each other from last semester. It seems to be more common to take a year abroad for other countries than the semester abroad American students are used to.

Our other class of the day was Solfege, held in yet another building near the Astoria metro stop (Mom!). It's smaller class taught by a cheerful Hungarian man named László Matos. Our other classmates include the two Japanese girls, the girl from Singapore and the guy from South Korea. The class moves at a really quick pace. We started with a standard 10 question interval quiz, which took about a minute, compared to the 10 minutes it might take elsewhere. László keeps us on our toes, and gives little time to ponder before moving on. I really like it so far :-)

Today our first class was Chorus at noon. WOW! Our director there is also a cheerful guy, but doesn't cater to the two frightened American students in the 80ish member Hungarian choir. Luckily I sat next to David, a Hungarian conducting major who speaks some English. He occasionally pointed out where we were if I got completely lost, or explained what the director wanted if it was directly concerning us. Jack and I got through rehearsal alright, though he was coughing all the time and I quickly realized I should probably be in the bass section, not the tenors. Whatever.

There are some wicked cute girls in that choir. I need to learn Hungarian.

We also had Philosophy with Mr. Zoltán Kovács. I think this class is where we might run into trouble. Mr. Kovács doesn't speak English very fluently, and he doesn't seem to have a game plan for the class. It must very extremely difficult trying to explain complicated ideas in a second language to students who have never studied philosophy. We have also come into the year at the halfway point. I don't know what's going to happen with this class.

I spent 45 minutes waiting for a practice room after that, and I used the remaining half hour before our last class well. Pedal note after pedal note for 30 minutes. It felt great. I found myself concentrating harder when I knew that time was limited and pressure was on to do well. I forgot to mention that I met and played for Mr. Hőna on Monday, and I didn't do so well. I'm well aware that I'm currently below par for the studio, and if I wanna blend I've got to hit the shed, so to speak. Our lesson on Thursday will be sort of an evaluation/audition to see where or in what I get placed for ensembles. The next few days will be full of practice.

Our final class was with Mr. Paul Merrick. Not a very Hungarian name, you think? Right. Mr. Merrick is an Englishman who's been residing in Hungary for the past 20 years or so. Doesn't like the label 'ex-pat' to be applied to him, though. Very friendly and interested in his students and, like Mr. Matos, keeps you on your toes. While giving today's lecture on Renaissance music (in a VERY English accent) he would suddenly quiz random students on their knowledge of particular composers, places or dates. I'm a little worried because stuff like this usually leaves my head when my head leaves class. Apologies to Professor Dolp. When one of his questions was directed at Jack ("Why was Palestrina noted above other renaissance composers?") and got a full and comprehensive paragraph-length answer, he seemed very impressed. Heh heh heh! That's my roomie! Too bad I had never heard of Palestrina before today, or any of the other dudes he talked about. I think Mr. Merrick will soon develop a loathing towards trombonists. This particular one isn't much of an academic.

Well, that covers the last two days. We're almost out of food, but I've done a few cool things in that department today. This morning I took leftover chicken, rice, veggies and almonds from our Chinese food dinner last night and made a huge omelet. I mixed in some paprika to spice it up and had it with tea to chase with. I remember Grandma Metzler making me a Chinese omelet when I visited once, so I remembered her while making it. I've also gotten very skilled at toss flipping stuff on the skillet. Dinner today was leftover stew (it's taken four days to finish what we made on Saturday), half a bell pepper and leftover kielbasa from... a week ago, I think? Just fried the kielbasa and later the pepper in some oil and made rice to go with it all. It came out pretty starchy, so I'll try rinsing it first next time.

Tomorrow I plan to use the rest of the beef somehow. I was also deprived of beef as a child, so I have no freaking idea what to do. Jack just wants to fry it, but we paid so much for it I'd like to do something more interesting. Any ideas, send them quick.

Sziasztok!