Life and Times of an English Language Doctor

  This is my first year to celebrate Pentecost as a national holiday. In Indonesia, the Christians celebrated Ascension Day, but not Pentecost. Here, we did not celebrate Ascension Day. I spent the morning doing research. I looked up some articles about assessing speaking which led to interactional competence. I was also rereading my students' evaluation of the communication skills course that I taught and thinking about how to rejig the curriculum next semester to align with the new mode of testing. In the afternoon, I took a long walk. As with all national holidays in Hungary, the grocery stores were closed. I used to think that everything was closed, but when I saw some people with ice cream, I did a little exploration and found that the confectionaries were open today as was the bakery across the street. I did not hear or see as many trams or buses running today. On my walk this afternoon, I saw many out enjoying the warm June sunshine. Some were walking their dogs. Some were p...

 As life here becomes routine, I have less and less to publish on this blog. I have a few chapters of a book written that I might publish just to show that I haven't forgotten about my blog audience. I'm afraid my only adventures this month will be figuring out how and where to get a COVID shot and figuring out whehter I can turn my dissertation into a novel.  Yesterday, I went on my routine Saturday trip to the market to buy fruits, vegetables, and eggs. Sadly, my Hungarian is regressing in spite of my faithful practice on Duolingo. I repeated "nyolcvan" (80) to the vendor for the carrots and onion, then gave him fifty forint, expecting 10 forint in change (40 is negyven). I didn't hear the price of the bananas, but rather than repeat it, the vendor resorted to showing me the number on the scale.  I paid for the cherries with a 1000 forint bill because I didn't hear the price she gave me either.  When I dropped by Goodsmart (the Hungarian version of the Dolla...