Life and Times of an English Language Doctor

 I might have called this post novelties had I written it a week ago when these events were somewhat new. Instead, I'll save that title for another and call this perspective.  I'll begin by looking at Texas from a Hungarian perspective. Last week, I ate a street food restaurant called Zero not far from my office. The food was a little pricier that my usual lunch fare (around 1400 forints, which is just under $5).  They had a Texas tortilla on the menu for 2190 forints, so I thought I would try it. They offered jalepeno, but I declined. It was a tortilla rolled up with gyro chicken*, tomato, lettuce, corn, kidney beans, baked beans, and red onion chutney inside.  As you can see from my photo, it was served with fries and red cabbage coleslaw. It was quite delicious. *In Lebanon, gyro chicken is used for schwarma, you can see pictures of the countertop rotissary of pressed chicken if you google Doner Kabob. I've been tutoring a student in algebra lately and was creatin...

Document Drama This week's dramma involves getting my resident permit. A month ago, I submitted about 20 pages of documents to immigaration in application for a residence permit. Becuase I was unsure of my address (the official address is on a cross street), we had arranged with immigration for them to send an email when it was ready. So far, no email had been forthcoming though I have checked my spam box every day for the last three weeks. I have also been checking my mailbox every day, just in case the papers were sent to my home address. Yesterday morning, a voice in my head told me to go to the immigration to see what was going on. The immigration officer spoke excellent English. She looked up my file on the computer and found that they had sent me a letter last week with a notice that one of the apartment owners had not signed the document. In this letter, I was supposed to get the signature and resubmit the document by September 13. The immigration officer printed a copy of t...

diaper cake Today our special event at church was a baby dedication. One of the members saw me taking a picture of the display and told me that we were celebrating a special gift that God had granted to one of the families in our church. He told me that we celebrate the birth when the baby is six weeks old. He called the display a diaper cake. The baby dedication occurred after singing a few praise songs. The first song was for the kids, it was about Jesus being better than Batman, Zorro, and Superman. The family went to the front of the church for the dedication. The pastor said a few words about the Biblical basis for a baby dedication and talked about the baby and the meaning of her name. Then he prayed for the baby and her family, the baby's father prayed, the baby's mother prayed, and another member of the church prayed. The family and all the children went to children's church. Here, it seems that the parents accompany their children to children's church. When t...

Sunday Surprise This week has been full of surprises.  Last Saturday, as I walked to the market, I rehearsed what I wanted to say to the pastor about joining the church.  He is a teacher at heart, explaining from Scripture the reason behind decisions and rituals that we engage in. I figured I would ask if I might give my testimony when I joined the church.  I planned to give a couple of weeks because I thought the translator might need the time to prepare for translation.  I went to the church early so that I could listen to the rehearsal of the worship team and perhaps identify some of the songs that they sang so I could find the English translation.  I discovered that many people had arrived early and the worship team was not rehearsing. There was a prayer time.  One of the first ladies that I met at the church split us into different groups and gave us different topics to pray for: the worship service, the university ministry, and those who were absent b...

Language Learning Milestones This morning in the wee hours, I woke up with a song playing in my head. I only know one word to the song, but I sang it over and over:  Megnyugszik. This first Hungarian word to sink deep into my consciousness means, "she calms down" according to Google. If you change the e to an a, it means, "she rests." Other misspellings cause more dramatic changes in meaning. If you change the e to an a and drop the second g, it means bunnies. If you drop the second g, it means, "She gets bored."  I found a YouTube video with the instrumental version of this song I learned at church. It is originally an English song, so its not surprising to find the English lyrics. (See the end of the blog) Today, I went to the market by myself for the first time.  If success is measured by the vegetables I brought home, then I was successful.  If for actual verbal communication during these four transactions, the vendors get an "A" for their su...