First Day of School

September 1st was my first day of school. The school that I attend, Krúdy Gyula Gimnázium, knew that I would be coming this year and which class I would be in all the way back in June. My teacher showed the class my picture last year and explained all about me, so everyone already knew I was coming. One girl in my class, Lily, sent me an email at the beginning of the summer, and all summer I bombarded her with questions and we became fast friends. When I arrived at school, Lily was waiting for me and was quick to introduce me to all of her friends. Everyone in my class was so kind and welcoming that I didn't feel like the "new girl" at all.

School starts every morning at 7:30 am and runs until about 2:15 with 10 minute breaks in between each class. There are 8 classes a day, each lasting 45 minutes. In Hungary, you are put into a class and you take almost all courses with that one class. The courses offered at my school are as follows:
Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History, Hungarian Language Arts, Phys. Ed., Film/Society Studies, Technology, Art, English and German.

Because I am not a full time student I am not required to go to every class, which is a life saver because every class is taught in Hungarian. Also, because I can't understand Hungarian yet, it is really boring for me to sit in class all day and my brain tends to go into Hungarian overload after too many classes. I have been trying to find inobtrusive ways of occupying myself during and outside of class when I have a spare, but I have so far been unsuccessful. I went to the public library downtown to raid the English and Hungarian childrens' sections, so the books I found have been a saving grace, but the English section at the library is very limited.

Almost every kid at school speaks English, so most days at school I have a new person intoduce themselves to me and tell me that they have heard that I speak really good English. Then they ask if they can talk to me for awhile. It's really fun to teach my classmates new words and to meet new people every day.

The other day, out of the blue, my English teacher asked me if I was at all interested in Drama. I told her about my addiction and she told me that every year the school puts on a play in English in order for the students to practice their English. She said that she would love it if I was involved and even asked me to pick the play we would present! The play has to be less than 30 minutes and appropriate for High School. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

I also recently started taking Hungarian lessons twice a week, and they are really improving my Hungarian quickly. I am loving learning the language here because it is so different from any other language. I still only know words, but hopefully by the end of the month I will be speaking in sentences.

Hope everything is going well in the motherland. Love to all,

Emily