Life and Times of an English Language Doctor

  Dec 17 Decorating the Church      On December 17, the whole church decorated the Christmas tree and sanctuary. It took a while to put up the lights, so the children got a little impatient. At first, they did silly things like hanging the Christmas balls from their ears. Then they found a live ladybug which kept them busy for half an hour.  December 23, I still did not have a Christmas tree, so my friend brought me some braches that she cut off of ther fir tree.  On Sunday, she had brough me gingerbread cookies, brightly wrapped candy, and dried citrus fruit to decorate the tree (top row, third picture). Appartnetly, the tradition in Hungary is to wait until Christams Eve to put up the Christmas tree. The parents put it up after the children go to bed.  Jesus puts presents under the tree for the children (Santa puts candies and nuts in their boots on St. Nicholas Day, December 6.)  I added one bough to my nativity scene display. A friend from chu...

Early this week, I had the idea of shadowing the English teachers at the high school where I will be working part-time as an English teacher. My students will be in the advanced English classes. I wrote to one of the teachers on Monday to propose the idea, but her week was so busy that it was Wednesday before she responded.  She proposed next Monday. That was okay, I have curriculum for my Spring courses to plan, so one week is as good as the next now that I have marked all of the papers from the Fall term and submitted my grades. On Thursday evening, just before going to bed, I received an email from another of the English teachers, asking if I could shadow her the next day. She apologized for giving such short notice. It required getting up a little earlier than I've been getting up, but I was excited to comply with her request. On Friday morning, a little before 8 am, I waited for the teacher on a corner about three blocks from where I live. We walked together to the school, whi...

Exchange rate: $1=321 forint 1 forint=45 Indonesian rupiah Today I did my weekly language acquisition checkup at the market.  The banana seller spoke to fast for me to hear the price, and she pointed to the price on the scale. The egg vendor is the same as the last few months, so I gave him the money before he told me the price.  The other vendors told me the price in Hungarian and I gave them the correct amount of exact change for our transaction. Szeged streets are all decked out for Christmas. They seem to have a preference for white and yellow lights.  The mall is also decorated with evergreen, gold ornaments, and yellow lights. I did my marketing without my phone this morning, so I could not take a picture of the decoration at the mall. This picture was taken on my walk home from school on Monday evening before 7 o' clock.