The Cast Since Then

It was less than a year ago that I left Hungary. The cast of characters, myself included, has changed completely. And they've stayed the same. All at the same time.

Heves:

Little Janka and Big Kinga both have language certificates now.

A Canadian couple, Rob and Kitty, share little Deak Fer u. 4. All reports are that they are wonderful.

Well-belted Eszter, one of my favored German students, now lives with the English-speaking grandmother Barbara because her family moved to Kecskemet. I think it will be good for both of them.

English Peter finally quit the school, after years of moaning. He left for France with his fiancée. I’m proud of him.

Petra has braces now.

In Hungary, the prime minister Gyurcsany Feri admitted that he lied. He was caught on tape saying that the MSzP had been lying about economic figure for two years for political reasons. Perhaps they’re spoiled, but the Hungarian were so disappointed that they rioted. A lot.

The forint is trading at 185 per dollar. When I left, the exchange rate was 205 per dollar.

Friends:

Emily and Laura are the same. I think they always will be.

Kat is still traveling, but I think a boy with an accent is reeling her in.

Liz had to leave Hungary two months early, and it seems like she’s done a lot to support her dad back home, as he battles with cancer.

Gaines has learned she that she has no interest in the law and instead will carve out a different future in Dallas.

Jenna and Yerik divorced. Yerik’s in Chicago. Jenna will be going to med school in Hungary.

Chad’s in a band on the east coast. I would imagine that he’s well.

Brent landed a great job in one of the motion picture studios in Hollywood. But even after his departure, the confusion of love in Hungary still swirls his mind. He has plane tickets already, but is still undecided on a return trip this summer.

Thanksgiving Elli now has a year of college under her belt. Her Hungarian professor at Indiana kicked her out of class because she’s too good. She’ll be in Hungary this summer, back with her beloved host mom. She recently purchased hiking boots and a backpack. Her teeth are now braces-free.

Eva and the Ministry of Defense have gone separate ways. Same with Welder-Boy, too. Both changes are for the better, she asserts. She works for a Korean tire company now, orchestrating their training department. Not quite as she fulfilling as she thought it would be, she’s weighing job offers across Europe.

She took to writing a Hungarian-language blog, to better understand her own world after drawing inspiration from what I had written. My favorite quote from her musing on being an angstful young Hungarian in the midst of angstful times in Hungary? "I don’t have a movement, I am only a silent observer of the world around me who still believes it can get better and nicer."

Heves visitor Rachel spent four months in Spain. Apparently the Spanish boys were not as tempted/tempting as the Hungarians lads.

My friends R.J. and Gaby got married back home. As the only single delegate to the wedding, I was nominated to give a toast. The microphone shook in my hand. Wandering and love are the only two concepts I remember from the babble. Afterwards, I took it upon myself to throw a bowling ball blindly down a darkened lane. I’m not sure if I knocked over any pins in my lane or any others. The last I heard from them, they wanted to adopt a Hungarian child.

Me:

I turned 26.

I learned in Washington that I outgrew camp, somewhere along the line. I learned at the ALPs ropes course, that I’d outgrown ropes courses, too.

Washington also taught me that islands are beautiful, but claustrophobic. Maybe I was tired, but I didn’t make many friends there. And again, I proved better at establishing connections after the fact. Regardless, Rainer and her sisters charmed me.

Law school taught me that Baskerville is my favorite font. And that I miss writing.

Books and concepts are something I can only handle for so long before I need to actually do something. One year of casebooks and dicta was too much. I’m excited that next semester I’ll be manning the appeal of an actual prisoner in the Wisconsin prison system, likely writing for an international law journal and perhaps competing in an international moot arbitration. Two thumbs up for interactivity.

I earned a spot on the dean’s list in a completely overwhelming first semester. While I’m not a legal genius, and won’t ever be, I have some skills that work well in a field like law. My mind might not be aflutter with hypothetical situations and niceties of preciseness, but I’m good at analyzing problems and I’m getting better at arguing on behalf of my solutions.

I learned, though, that I do best in those wondrous challenges you can’t fully appreciate during the fact, you could never enjoy them until they’re over. Without any challenge like that this spring semester, I’ve regressed into half-heartedness. I left for Hungary, emotionally at the least, in about March.

A girl in the law school wished me the best socially, romantically and professionally last fall. I don’t think it worked, unfortunately. I worry now, in my old age, about my abilities in the area of interpersonal love. Maybe I’m allowed that fear when little sister Megan's moving in with her boyfriend, high school friends Shawn, RJ and Peter are either happily married or on their way to their second marriage, the ole camp girlfriend Sara’s engaged and freshman-crush Kelsie sent, just shy of her 5 year wedding anniversiary, an e-mail picture of adorable Mia Joan, almost 2 years old. She shares her mother's middle name. The introspection, coupled with a litany of fleeting crushes over the course of a spring, led me to question/realize/wonder most recently if writing and love might be mutually exclusive, either one or the other, at least in the way that this man approaches both.

I have started to use the phrase “this man” to replace I. Hmm…guess we’ll have to see what that literary device means.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. died. Heaven, too, continued with it started last year, stealing my third and final grandmother. “Family” now means something far different than when I set out for Hungary almost two years ago.

So it goes, I suppose. Things always stay the same and things always change completely, both at the same time. That's what makes the adventure so much fun.