Awkward Student Bonding

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a concert with Joanna. The reason we went was because one of her students was in the band. Our friend Matt went to see this band last year when he was teaching at Kossuth, and he said "It was good if you like that kind of music." I figured it would be cool to get a taste of what our students are into.

When I visualized in my head what this would be like it was a crowded room with a lot of people none of whom I had ever met before. This idea was stripped away when we first got to the venue, Kek Lyuk, and three of our other students were standing outside waiting to go in. This was the beginning of the most awkward evening ever. We said hi... they stared at us like we were the last people in the world they would have expected to see here. The all said "Sziasztok..." We paid to go in then promptly ran into another gaggle of students. I started feeling like I should have gotten the memo on this being more of a goth/punk thing and wishing I had worn black. No one seemed too excited about talking to us so we just stood around awkwardly. The band was having sound problems so we had to wait a good half an hour before they started to play. In that time we managed to say an awkward hello to probably twenty students... which was basically everyone who was there.

Here's a taste of what the band was like... singing "I Believe I Can Fly"...remixed... punkish...horrible sound quality on the video...



I have never really been into hard music... or anything goth... or this kind of punk... I like pretty sounding things. Not to mention that in Bozeman, MT there was never any type of serious goth/punk scene like in Budapest. This was pretty crazy though... they were all moshing up front... Jo and I just watched awkwardly from the back. I have never seen anyone head bang quite like these kids could and was generally overwhelmed by the whole experience. My ears hurt by the end... Jo and I decided we should have brought ear plugs.

A few of our students did come over and say hello. Our favorite was one of Jo's students who said: "What are you doing here? I am SHOCKED!" The feeling with which he said "shocked" was hilarious. After the concert one of my students came over and said: "I am leaving. Goodbye. Jo ejszakat." He had this look on his face like there was a lot more he wanted to say... but he didn't know if he should say it in English or Hungarian... so he just said goodnight instead and ran off with his girlfriend in tow. As soon as we were able to say goodbye to the student who invited Jo we took off too...
I can't wait to see what my students will say to me about this awkward experience on Tuesday when I have class with the one student who I knew. He is in my fun class... I mean... the class where they are all at least six feet tall... refuse to stop talking during class... talk about their sex lives... light papers on fire during class... have multiple piercings... gaged earrings... and all listen to screamo, punk, techno or heavymetal that hurts my ears. I hope that this will make me a real person to them and not just the crazy American teacher. And I hope that being a real person helps rather than hurts my classroom management issues...

You might have caught the reference a few lines above... but last Tuesday was a spectacular day with the 10C's. I decided to try to reach these students by doing a song cloze with them. We listened to Gone by Switchfoot. They really liked the song and wanted to keep listening to is over and over again. But not all of them liked it... I was walking around the room and smelled something funny. Then I saw smoke... and I was thinking... you have got to be kidding me... this kid cannot be smoking IN class... he wasn't. Instead he had burned the lyrics to the song with a lighter... in class... Unbelievable. Next Tuesday their Osztalyfonok (classmaster) is going to sit in on class to try to help with discipline... Thank God I only see these kids once a week or else I would hate teaching. I now understand why there is a shortage of teachers in inner city schools... I feel like the teacher in Freedom Writers.... I just don't have any great ideas yet about how to reach their hearts.

Other than awkward student bonding... on Thursday Lauren and I went to the Budapest Prayer Wall worship meeting. About a month ago my church and a few other churches that are like minded started a 24/7 prayer campaign. Now they have prayer/worship meetings every few weeks to pray for Budapest and Hungary, their leaders, their churches, etc. I still need to pick a time slot... oops. The worship was great. I really enjoyed being together with the other churches because it reminds me that we are not alone in this city... there are a lot of churches here that are serious about God's power working in their lives and in Hungary. I met a few people from other churches which was cool... but I probably will not remember their names the next time I see them. Lauren really enjoyed our time there too... but she had no idea what was going on because everything was in Hungarian... and I only translated a little bit because it is hard to translate. I am really excited about how God is working in Budapest through this prayer wall.

Other news: I hate talking on the phone in Hungarian. This doesn't mean that I don't do it. I do. But I get very very flustered and cannot say what I want to and become restricted to the words igen (yes) nem (no) and szia (hello/goodbye.) I don't think that my Hungarian friends realize how difficult it is to speak on the phone in another language, which results in awkward one sided phone conversations in which I say nothing. Ugh.

Prayer requests:
- 10C... discipline... teaching... ahhhhh
- healthy
- mosquitoes (they still haven't died...)
- October 23rd to be riot free and peaceful
- safe travel for the Herrington's who are coming to visit!!! Yay!!!