Week 9

So, apparently, this past week was my ninth week here. This makes it exactly six weeks from yesterday that I fly away back to the US of A. Crazy talk.

Confession: I literally took zero pictures this week. It'll make for a shorter and less interesting blog, but hopefully it will also inspire me to be much better this week. Big dreams!


Midterm week
My final thoughts on Midterms: I studied kind of more than I would normally, because I felt like I had a lot of time, and they were graded pretty easily (the two I've gotten back so far were, at least)--which means I did pretty well. Exciting. I'm loving the feel of post-midterms! Beautiful beautiful freedom. Very lazy weekend as a result. We've been realizing more and more lately how much our professors think that every original thought we have is brilliant. It's pretty silly. Through some casual deduction, we're pretty sure everyone in the lit class got a "Brilliant!" and an A on their paper.


Some musings on the Hungarian language
Being surrounded by and taught by native Hungarian speakers has definitely heightened my interest in English grammar. I'm repeatedly struck by how little of the specifics of the mechanics of the English language I know. Hungarian students have to start learning English, German, or both by about age 12 (in school), but many of them start earlier with lessons. By the time students get to our age, they have been instructed in all kinds of tenses that I fluidly use, but could not teach or explain. (When does one use the present perfect simple? The future progressive? Don't ask me. But, I bet Hungarian university students would be able to help you out.)

I've been noticing patterns of structures that are difficult for Hungarians--the most common one, I think is, the use of the word 'that' in long sentences. (See, if I knew more about grammar, I would probably be able to define this structure!) For example, take the sentence, "I am interested in English structures that Hungarians frequently get wrong." Even Hungarians who have been studying and teaching in English for years would characteristically say "I am interested in English structures what Hungarians frequently get wrong." This is a pretty consistent substitution and it fascinated me. I've yet to learn the elements of the Hungarian language that make this so.

My other favorite is the confusion/mispronunciation that comes with 'v' and 'w.' In Hungarian, 'w' is pronounces like 'v' and 'v' is not very common. Orsi, my Hungarian teacher, pronounced "vowel" like wow-ell every time. So great. I believe that BCSC friends said that one of their teachers completely reversed it and said "wov-ell." So great, especially as I can see exactly where that confusion originates. My history teacher exclusively says "re-ly-eh-tee" for "reality" (a word very commonly used when talking about the Communist regime in Hungary during the Cold War.)


Lamest thing of this week
I went folk dancing on Thursday with Meghan, Sam, and Val, which, in itself, was not at all lame. It was probably the best folk-dancing session I've had so far here. We got a little scared when we arrived because there were three couple dances in a row...but then they did a whole bunch of circle dances in a row, which was wonderful. I got blisters on my toes. The LAME thing was that my wallet and iPod got stolen. Everyone always puts their stuff on the sides, so we do too. I would normally stuff my purse into my bag with my water bottle, but I was just so excited to dance that I left it all in a pile. I didn't notice until I got home and I realized the iPod was missing. I came to terms with that, deciding it must have fallen out, and that that was okay because it was really old anyway. A few minutes later, I had that sinky feeling in my stomach and checked for the wallet. Very large, green, sparkly, and very missing. So lame. I canceled my cards that night. I thought I didn't have that much cash in it, but I forgot that I had money in there to pay people back for money lent in Slovakia. I ended up losing a good bit of cash. The good news is that I get a lot of money out of the ATM at a time and keep the extra at home, so I have some money to live on until Mama brings cards with her when she comes in 2 weeks and 2 days (!!!) I'm kind of looking forward to living on a pretty limited budget. It's the kind of challenge I enjoy as a planner. The OTHER good news is that I keep my transportation pass, my Corvinus ID, and my dorm beeper card all in a separate area of my purse, so I don't have to pay to replace any of those. That would have been really REALLY lame.


Week's activities besides midterms
















Very little.

Hmm. Well, I did register for a J-Term class. I'm taking Gay/Lesbian History: An Intro, with a visiting professor from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. It was really easy to get into--reflective of the Middlebury student body's heteronormativity, I think. I'm looking forward to it; I think interesting people will have chosen to take the class. I already have my schedule for spring picked out, as well, and will register for those on Friday. Now to tackle housing for my return. Ugh. Stressful.

In other news, I spent basically the entire weekend in Buda, being a BCSC wannabe. I brought Sam over there, which was a cool clashing of friend world. We had an excellent rendition of "Trick or Drink" on Friday night, and lots of movies and snuggling on Saturday. As always, Johna's vlog is a good source of some visual evidence of the people I hang out with and my activities. I spent most of the day on the computer yesterday reducing my 'to organize' playlist in iTunes. Such a music nerd. I've been loving my tunes this week too--all I want to do is listen to men with beautiful voices singing to me.

In other other news, one Miss Emily Kirk Temple arrives here in my arms at 2:55 PM on Thursday afternoon. I am beyond excited. Next week's blog will be much more exciting.