a silly incident recalled

It has been over a month since last I wrote...always, busyness clashes with my time to write. But, today is as good as any..So, let's see, how is the state of things?
Well, last night I returned from a weekend away. It was supposed to be a relaxing time. It began that way. The four of us packed ourselves and our stuff onto an Intercity train travelling south to Pécs, a city much smaller than Budapest but beautiful and more Hungarian-like, if ya get what I mean. (like, if you went to NYC, you really wouldn't have a good idea of what the US is really like..you have to go the small towns) did the usual ridiculous laughter that almost always accompanies our efforts in figuring out public transportation :) and amused at least a few people around us. And the rest of the 2 hours consisted of making up our own songs with our own made-up language (living overseas will do this to you) and laughing (the only way to survive living in a foreign country) as we corrected tests. We mostly laughed about the silly ways our students use the English Language. One student, when writing an essay on Special Hungarian Customs, described one unique custom of 'water throwing' at Easter. (Yes, boys actually go to girls' houses and throw water on them!) Peter writes: ' This is a custom when some boys knock on the door and the boys throw water at her because after this she will be an unfading flower.' We got a real kick out of that. Peter is a fourteen year old who has a good attitude and is always smiling. Unfortunately, I only know half the reasons for his smile, since there are always jokes (in Hungarian, of course) being thrown around..yep, he likes the dirty jokes. However, I really get along with him well, since he works hard (most of the time) and the only time he gets into trouble is when he is laughing. Believe me, there have been times when students have literally fallen out of their chairs with laughter! Try being a stern teacher then!

Last year, something unfortunate happened. I had just started using these flourescent coloured stickies as bookmarks. During one lecture, I decided to sit on my desk while I was explaining all of the wonderfully deep truths about English grammar. (yeehaw) I got up to the board to continue this exciting lesson. But then, when I turned my back (which is also your rear end, remember) it all broke loos. Clearly, i had no clue what was happening, but such a sound erupted in that classroom as I had never heard the likes of before. Suddenly, any kind of tension that I had kept taut was unwound, and the class fell to bits. I turned around to face the chaos that was unfolding and watched as Barney (my class clown) held his sides and eventually gave up completely and was soon rolling around on the floor whooping this hyena laugh. Others were pointing at me and laughing with one another, and there I was, the one who was supposed to be in control, on the outside of this great joke. I felt the heat rising and knew that I was getting angry. (If you are a teacher, you know this heat) Luckily, I had one mature student, Agi (as women often are), who bailed me out. You can imagine what getting bright green and yellow pieces of paper wagging in front of you on the rear of your teacher would do to you if you were a 9th grade boy! YIKES!! Here I am trying to teach them to stop thinking about rear ends and other such stuff that boys think about...oops. Teaching definitely keeps me laughing at myself. If I take myself too seriously, I am a basketcase, if I laugh too much in class, I am a pushover. Such is the life of a teacher. More stories to come!