musings

Okay friends, look at My Laureate's Lasso. It's minor publishing for me, but it's still publishing. My English Department chair sent this to me and lo and behold, another Hungary hint hit my heart (scroll down to the post "Autumn in Budapest" and read my comment).

Favorite band of the moment: "Bowerbirds."

Favorite website: justinguitar.com If you're trying to learn guitar, it's so FREE and awesome!

I did some link cleanup - if I deleted you, it's because you don't post often enough. No hard feelings, but you probably won't even notice. . . .

Going back to open mic this week. Lots to share.

family

First, I'll introduce Jaimie, my youngest sister. She's a talented singer first and foremost (yes, surprisingly better than I), a good cook, and knows a lot about pop culture (my guess is that she'd be a good pick for any trivia night at a bar). Not only that, but she is also super attractive and extremely kind. She brings out humor in me like no one else and has a contagious smile.

Dawn is good at planning events. I'm going to feel like it's fall until Christmas and probably then still in January. She had spaghetti ready for us on Friday night, pumpkin pancakes Saturday morning, and beef stew Saturday night (and a lot of other snacks and food in between). She talked eight people into going to a corn maze and we competed 4 against 4. Okay, we lost, but it was so awesome. Dawn also had 9 pumpkins ready for carving at her house, and we had a blast carving them! Jaimie's was a monkey, Dawn's was a ghost, Andrea's was a cute kitty, and mine was a guitar.

Andrea is the reason our team lost the corn maze (she was on the opposing team). She's peaking through the corn here, seeing other puzzle pieces and getting young children to hand her puzzle pieces through the corn. Her navigation skills are amazing. I made sure to recount to others the story of her getting us through Dublin, Ireland in one day. I also appreciate that she is certainly a friend that I can cry with, laugh with, and pretty much say whatever I want without losing her respect or friendship. We've been through a lot together. She's my third sister. And, I simply love the fact that she's always up for a trip!

Can't say much more than that! I value these women's perspectives, appreciate their comfort when I'm going through tough times, and couldn't imagine a better family.

hungarians are everywhere

Gearing up for a show tonight at BCHQ (www.bullcityhq.org), I was sitting talking to a group of people who live in Raleigh when a man sat down and started eating hotdogs with piles of onions on top. We start talking, he tells me his name is Zsolt, and I ask, "Where are you from?," hoping Poland because I know about coincidences all too well.

"Hungary," he replied. Yep, the guy used to own a hostel in Hungary - he's definitely Hungarian. Lord, could you be any clearer?

This reminds me of the time I was stood up for my last tutoring appointment with this GRE student a few months ago at Caribou Coffee in Raleigh. A man named Iszti sits down and wants me to help him with song lyrics. After some conversation and my own private concert, I ask him where he's from: Hungary. He later came to open mic with his girlfriend, but we neglected to exchange numbers, so I may never see him again, unless he shows up randomly at open mic. 

Late for a post, but just can't help but realize that these are NOT coincidences!

And, on a completely nonrelated note - we've been experiencing spam in the Wake County School System email. You would think after decades of consistent email contact for professional purposes, people would be more considerate. Everyone in Wake County had about 600 emails over the last few days. Here's a sampling:

The original email was sent to every staff member at every school in Wake Co. When you reply and request that your name be taken off the list, that email is also sent to everyone in Wake Co. If everyone will simply delete all of these emails that they are receiving, this problem will take care of itself.

In other words, STOP REPLYING TO THESE EMAILS!!!!!!

(Just to note that this person also replied to EVERYONE. Shift. Click. Delete. Repeat.)

Szia!

weekend reflections

First, does anyone know what kind of flower this is? So awesome to receive this from friends Saturday night:

So, when you have about three options for every day of your weekend, what do you do? Exactly what you want.

Friday night artwalk (I knew two of the artists' works posted). Saturday night poetry reading, which spurs an hour of writing Saturday night and another hour Sunday morning. And Sunday, I left church and given the option of three different events, chose a day outside, laying in the grass, staring at clouds, listening to music at shakori hills. Started with my favorite local band Midtown Dickens, then moved on to other bands. Ended the night dancing, dancing, dancing to some crazy bluegrass. Speaking of bluegrass with a punk feel (reminiscent of Fiddlefoxx), has anyone heard of Boulder Acoustic Society? I can't find one particular song on iTunes about the Zombie Carnival *sigh.* Good times.

update on upcoming life abroad

The main thing I want to say today is read Justin's Sudan Blog (see link on the right). It is funny! and it makes me want to travel to Budapest today as in, right now.

Okay, so I won't have an African adventure. I'll be in a city, allowed to drink the water, etc., but I am excited even still. I'm currently getting ready for another Hungarian lesson. I met a girl through a language exchange website who currently lives in NY. She's tough. I read dialogues to her, and she tells me she can't understand me.

I will be in Budapest December 23rd - January 1st. I am so thrilled! Spending Christmas day with the Bullocks, meeting people for coffee throughout the week (I have a lot of friends with friends in Budapest and a lot of friends who have lived in Budapest), potentially taking a glance at a Christian school where I might teach part-time, and hanging out with Jen for a few days around new years. She lives in the city centre - no doubt we'll have a great time, and I'll get to hear more about missionary life in Budapest.

Meeting with a friend in human resources tomorrow for all the details about how my job in NC will be affected by my leaving. Counting the cost, but knowing it's worth every penny. No doubt about it, there's much to be excited about here and abroad. 

poem by alastair reid

I do like that my job affords me opportunity to read poetry while supervising students in the computer lab:

Curiosity
may have killed the cat; more likely
the cat was just unlucky, or else curious
to see what death was like, having no cause
to go on licking paws, or fathering
litter on litter of kittens, predictably.

Nevertheless, to be curious
is dangerous enough. To distrust
what is always said, what seems
to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams,
leave home, smell rats, have hunches
do not endear cats to those doggy circles
where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches
are the order of things, and where prevails
much wagging of incurious heads and tails.

Face it. Curiosity
will not cause us to die--only lack of it will.
Never to want to see
the other side of the hill
or that improbable country
where living is an idyll
(although a probable hell)
would kill us all.
Only the curious
have, if they live, a tale
worth telling at all.

Dogs say cats love too much, are irresponsible,
are changeable, marry too many wives,
desert their children, chill all dinner tables
with tales of their nine lives.
Well, they are lucky. Let them be
nine-lived and contradictory,
curious enough to change, prepared to pay
the cat price, which is to die
and die again and again,
each time with no less pain.
A cat minority of one
is all that can be counted on
to tell the truth. And what cats have to tell
on each return from hell
is this: that dying is what the living do,
that dying is what the loving do,
and that dead dogs are those who do not know
that dying is what, to live, each has to do.

my 9th-grade self tells all

Oh, get ready: I was reading my 9th-grade journal today, and I found these gems:

"The good thing about family parties is Mom buys you a lot of presents since your friends don't come."
"The quality I like about myself is my ability to get along well with other people."
"I'll tell you one thing, if I was a teacher students would like to come to school so much, there would be no absences."

Out of a list of things I would do with unlimited money:
"give money to the government to get it out of debt (even though there may not be enough money in the world to do that)." "I would buy someone to teach me every little thing and I would become the smartest person in the world."

"Today so far has been a pretty boring day. Things have gone so smoothly and so according to routine that I'm just a little bored, but hopefully things will get a little more interesting."
"I guess you could say I have a taste for situational irony."

After my Dad came back from Europe:
"You know, he said 'you expect lazanya [I love my 9th-grade spelling!] to come from Italy, well they served some kind of ravioli.' We were all a little surprised."
"In Spain, he said he loved the paella (it's a favorite Spanish dish with rice, some sort of meat, and seafood). My Dad said he didn't bother to learn any Spanish: just paella."

About my 16th-birthday party:
"I want my party to be the biggest one ever! (I sure am planning ahead, I haven't even celebrated my 15th birthday yet!). I'm going to invite almost everyone I know."

"I think the Government is trying to give too much power to the States. This could lead to states wanting to become separate countries and perhaps start another civil war."

"I am trying to learn to write with my left hand, that way I can use both my left and right hand to write with, that way if one hand gets tired like mine is now, I can just switch to the other." [On this one, I even drew an arrow to "I can" and wrote "this is lefthanded (pretty bad, huh?)."]

"You also may know that my hand and arm are hurting pretty bad right now and I have a bad case of writer's cramp, but so far I've got almost 2 pages, and I'm going to keep going. I may never write again after this so I hope you appreciate it."

"I've never been much of a person to go to football games and things like that, I must confess, and it's simply because I just don't want to."

"Mrs. Grey, a lady who lived in a big white house whom I used to rake leaves for, died Sat. She was 97 years old, she was one of my favorite older people, she was sweet and serious."

"One thing that's been in the news is the death of Rabin, Israel's Prime Minister, and I am totally for sure that I will most definitely not be the only one writing about this."

And finally, an entry about George Washington:
"Oh, if 'ole Georgie could see how the government is being run today, he would probably faint at all the chaos, how more emphasis is put on who is getting elected than who in this world is getting killed by people who were getting life-imprisonment got to go free in a minimum of 7 years. I think he would be most concerned."

I'm so glad I still have this precious English journal. I'm going to go encourage my students to save the journal they're writing for me now!