Sushi in Budapest? What?

On Tuesday I saw a restaurant called "Planet Sushi" at Oktogon Square. (I just realized how funny that sounds... it is a square shaped like and octagon...) Right across from what was once the world's largest Burger King, right next to TGI Friday's is Planet Sushi. On Wednesday we went there for our team luncheon. Not quite as excellent as Kabuki, but comparable in price. I had to leave my Sushi comfort zone (which consists of California Rolls and Shrimp Tempura) and ordered some kind of Maki with a sweet paper outside. I found this place rather charming, everyone had kimonos, they gave us little hot washcloths to wipe our hands with before the food came, and they spoke perfect English (which is a great benefit to Lauren... and I appreciate it too from time to time. On top of all this, they have a special little room that is partitioned off, the table is set down into the floor and there are pillows all around, somewhat like a traditional Japanese table. The server opened the screen, bowed, knelt down, then served them. Us girls looked at each other and in unison said "We just found a great date place!" It was so cute... to bad none of us will be going on any dates any time soon in Budapest.

On Thursday I gave my first test. I was actually sort of glad that I was not there to actually administer the test. Agi did it for me while I was at home sleeping and drinking lots of orange juice. Lauren brought the tests home and I graded them. I now understand every teacher's frustrations with test giving. There were some sections which only had one correct answer (such as conjugating the verb "to be") and then there were other sections that were very subjective like "What do you do in your free time?" The objective parts of the test are straight forward and easy to grade, but they do not tell me if Ss understand, they just tell me that Ss can memorize "I am, you are, he/she is..." The subjective part of the test tells me if they understand the exact directions, if they know how to tell about themselves, etc. I can see which grammar points they understand and what they struggle with. But how do I give the S who was creative and wrote extra sentences a better grade than the one who just did the exact assignment? How do you mark differently between on mistake that they repeat over and over and a variety of mistakes? What about a sentence that is incomprehensible, or the word order is so severely wrong that in order to correct it you must rewrite the entire sentence? I graded the tests, but I think I might have been too easy on them. Isn't the first test supposed to be killer? I thought that parts of it were.... but they did so well... maybe I should just be proud of them.

Last night we had a "Meet mystery Lauren" party for everyone from ESI. Unfortunately a lot of people bailed, but it was still a lot of fun. During this party Lauren and I decided that we should have one of our classes over next week for a BBQ and American football/Frisbee party. We grilled last night and that went extremely well, so I think we can pull that off again. It will be a good chance to get to know our Ss better and get to actually play A. football outside (instead of in the classroom with a sponge instead of a football...)

A quick shout out to Shane... who called me yesterday! I was so surprised... and I am really excited that he is coming to visit in December/January! And to Brian and others who have said they might come... hurry up and buy your ticket!!! :-)

Please keep the following things in your prayers"
- Health (Jo and I have been sick already... Lauren and Tracey have not...)
- Open hearts of Ss
- For our little party next week
- For the mosquitoes to die
- To know what I am doing in the classroom
- For the "troublemakers" in my classes... new frustrations every week...
- To find a cheap ticket to Thailand in January!!!