Hibernation

 

I'd like to hibernate today. After two weeks of fairly warm weather, with the coolest temperature at night being around 85 in my house coupled with a case of jet lag I haven't been able to shake, I'd like to curl up under a blanket and sleep this cool day away. I don't have any social events today, which makes the temptation to sleep even greater, but I found a cool extension on Chrome that will enable me  to make YouTube videos. I'm excited to teach myself that today. My first project will be to convert the New Route presentation on last Friday's blog to a YouTube video. Once I've figured out how create videos from slide presentations, I will record videos of my syllabi, major assignments, and conference presentation (for October). I'll take a walk to find pictures to add to the last two blogs and to go shopping for cereal.

Yesterday, I added a step counter to my phone. I'm not sure how long I will keep it on since it uses up mobile data (.12 gigabytes yesterday), for which I am charged. I should get a Hungarian phone, but I'm still not ready for the linguistic challenge of buying one. According to my Step Counter App, I walked 6.5 miles yesterday. It says only 6200 steps, so either I have a very, very long stride or I need to figure out which button I pushed that I shouldn't have.

That 6.5 miles of walking included a walk to the office, the library, and my American colleagues house. I went to the office for orientation. There were just three of us: the professor who organized the orientation, my tutor, and me. The professor showed us the conference room where we have departmental meetings every Wednesday, the classrooms, and the library. Classrooms and the conference room are equipped with computers and projectors. All but one of the rooms had a smartboard.  While we walked to the library, the professor briefed us on how to make copies and distribute them to our students. At the library, she encouraged us to get a library card as soon as our contracts were finalized (mine still lacks two signatures). Since all the cafes were closed, we finished the orientation session at Burger King, where she told us who to contact for various issues, briefed us about the web platforms where we will confirm rosters, post syllabi and assignments, and enter grades. She promised more detailed help once we had the username and passwords to access these sites.

In the evening, I walked to my American colleagues house for supper. He made pesto with the basil that he and his partner grew in their garden. He also made a very tasty gazpacho. During the meal, we talked about how they had celebrated Thanksgiving in years past and they extended an invitation to celebrate Thanksgiving with them this year.

Today's ads for the sales have been placed in the mailboxes. I see great materials for learning Hungarian. (Spar is the supermarket chain with a branch in the mall). I didn't go there to do my shopping today, but I did go to a closer, smaller grocery store to buy my food for the next few days; fruits, vegetables, tuna, and cereal (I bought milk on Monday).

I only walked two miles today and spent the rest of the day catching up on, practicing Hungarian on Duolingo, and relaxing by watching YouTube videos and playing games. Now its bedtime. I haven't returned to the video-making project today, but it will still be there tomorrow.