The Sun'll Come Out

But as the sun always comes out, the kids, too, always get a little better.

Yesterday I met with a 12A student, probably the best English-speaking kid in the whole damn town. Her name is Gitta. She has already taken the first-level English exam, required to leave high school. She's already taken the second-level English exam as well, which means she doesn't have to go to English class during the day. But she comes to my class, and wants to work for an hour outside of class, because she's planning on taking the third-level exam next spring. It earns major points for college and is supposedly tough. The wonderful part is that she's a great girl, very eager to learn and already has excellent English. I think she can become better than many of the teachers by the end of the year.

The best part of the deal for me is that it's almost like having a friend! I gave her my yearbook from last year to read, she had no problems plowing through it, and then we talked for an hour. Just like Eva, she got a little sick of answering all my difficult questions.

And on the friends theme, I am thinking about starting a club. They don't have clubs here, but I'm in need of friends, so I figure I could recruit some kids who want to speak English. We'll have camp-like fun. Some days we'll play games, maybe some days we'll pick up garbage around school or do some vague "make the world a better place" stuff. I think we will meet on Mondays so that I can try to recruit them to come watch the English movies at 6:00. I'll even pay.

I received a letter this week...my first letter! (Thanks Allison Snavely McGinnis!)

And my least favorite class has decided to strangely idolize me. And here by idolize I mean repeatedly snap cell phone camera pictures of me from all possible angles at all possible times. Then they compare with friends to see who got the best shot. During class, in the hall, eating, wherever. Not quite the same cell phone rules in Hungarian high schools as back home.