Miss Hungary

Hi! So I have less then 11 days to be in Hungary. And as my time here comes to an end, I am having crazy emotions. As much as I have said I can't wait to be home, there are tons of things I am going to miss from here.  So this blog will be a list of things I will miss about Elet Szava.
1. Coke made with real sugar.
2. The laughing fits I have with my dorm.
3. Climbing up a whole bunch of furniture every time I want to get into bed.
4. Pogacsa for lunch... and dinner... and breakfast.
5. Sleeping on the couch.
6. Hearing random songs 24/7
7. Noemie's facial expressions.
8. Leaving my Skype open and having Noemie call people.
9. Hearing 13 languages everyday.
10. Tereza's Czech humor.
11. Yelling in the room, but not understanding anything.
12. Puzzles.
13. My blanket.
14. Making bracelets in class.
15. Having my 'job' consist of sitting alone for three hours a week.
16. Doing puzzles by candlelight.
17. Ice cream for 150ft.
18. Having to convert money in my head every time I buy something.
19. Baking every Thursday at Holly's.
20. Having people thank me when I correct their grammar.
21. Dying hair all the time.
22. Learning how much I don't know about the English language.
23. Hearing words with 'h's not having them, and words without them having them. (French people)
24. Late night talks with Noemie.
25. Angela's hugs.
26. Walking to the store.
27.Milka Chocolate
28.Having at least six different countries be within an eight hour drive.
29. Public transportation
30. All the delicious baked products.
31. Reading Hungarian billboards.
32. Using Google Translate all the time.
33. Daniela's continual Skyping.
34. 'BeckyTranslating' things.
35. Delicious pizza for 5 dollars
36. Ultimate Frisbee
37. Tennis on clay courts

And a lot of other things. But thats all for now.

My 2nd family and 3rd

Hey ya'll, if you are reading this, there is a good chance that we are related, because there are only like 3 people that read this I am not related to, so I just want to say that I love my family, and miss you all a whole bunch, but I wanted to take a few minutes to tell you about my family here. AKA the 5 girls I live with, and Jeff and Holly. And maybe David and Kevin if I have time.

So first off, I live in Nemetorszag dorm, which is Germany in Hungarian. We have one large room that we all sleep in, and live in, and a bathroom with four showers. Its way differnet then anything in the states. It is sometimes the worst thing in the world, but also amazing. I mean who can say they have lived with girls from 4 different countries? Not many. So here is my 'Family'.

Angela is 29 years old and from Brazil. Even though I am the RA, and the 'Mom' of the room, Angela is kind of a mom to us all. She is amazing. Super patient, and has been through way more then any of us, so she always has advice and experience. She makes sure we get stuff done, and over all is awesome.

Daniela is the other Brazilian. She is almost 20 and has the prettiest clothes. Everyday I love what she wears. We have peanut butter sandwich dates, and both work in the library. So she is who I call when I want to do something on Fridays but have to work :)

Teresa is from the Czech. She is 20. She is one of the funniest people I have ever met. And one of the loudest. Like when she is in the room, you know she is there. But overall she is the most inspiring people I know. Coming from where she was, she has grown so much this year. She recently started dating a Hungarian :) Super cute.

Becky is the most recent addition to our room. She was the RA in another dorm, but asked to step down so she could focus on school and other parts of her life. Having her join the dorm has been an amazing blessing. She just turned 20. She grew up here, and speaks fluent Hungarian and English. She is awesome and soooo
much fun!

Noemie is from Quebec. The baby of our family, she is 17, almost 18. Out of all the girls, I think I talk to her most. Because of that, we fight the most, but I love her a lot! She is soooo hyper, especially when you combine her with Becky. She watches scary movies sometimes, and then spends the whole evening scaring the crap out of Becky and I.

We don't have any pictures of our family... because... I don't know why. But we are a pretty bunch. Take my word for it. I don't know what I would do with out them.

So my 3rd Family consists of my mentor, Holly, her husband, Jeff, and the two boys Jeff mentors, David and Kevin. Sometimes it feels like the three of us 'kids' live at Jeff and Holly's house. I make food there at least once a week. I even have my own cabinet of baking stuff :D

This is our family Christmas picture. Kevin is on the far right, the David, then me, then Holly, and Jeff. They are awesome. And I am really going to miss them.

Kevin is 19. He is from Brazil, but his father is American. He is a musical genius, pretty much. He learns to play songs in the piano in 20 minutes from Youtube Videos. Its crazy. He will be attending Liberty University next year.

David is 24. His parents are missionaries in Turkey, and he lived there for 18 year. He already has a degree in Public Health, but is going back to school somewhere in Mississippi next year to be an RN.

Jeff and Holly will be staying here next year. They will both attend classes. Instead of being part of the staff. Really they live in Missouri. I think maybe there will be road trips there in my future.

So those are my families here. I don't know what I would do without them. And leaving is going to be so hard, because I don't know when I will ever see them again. But I am so blessed I got the opportunity to know them.

Now it is time to go play Frisbee, because it is warm now. Bye!

Long time no blog

Hey guys, this blog is for Katie Mathena, because she needs more reading material, and I love her. Also I am an awesome procrastinator, and this is a good way to.
Its been a LONG time since my last blog, and there are a few reasons for that. 1) I am lazy. I would rather nap then write a blog. 2) I usually like to have a topic before I start so there is some direction and not just rambling. 3) I really have been busy.
Now I know none of these are really good excuses. But there they are.
Right now I am sitting at a table in my dorm, with my Bible and the Bible Knowledge Commentary open, Raman noodles (Well the Hungarian equalvant(I can't spell that)), my Kokoum cup full of water, my Beetles pencil case, and ginger-lime-mango tea. I should be reading the commentary on Revelation, but instead am doing this. Already have I procrastinated with 9-Gag and Postsecret. And Stumbleupon. Today was scheduled to be my productive day, but that did not work out well.
So I will probably procrastinate till about 10:30, then panic and do everything in half an hour. Thats usually how I  work. I have over 60 pages to read by tomorrow night at 8. I am on page 4.
It's been about 20 minutes since I wrote that last sentence, because Stumbleupon gave me Bubbleshooter. And as Josh or Corbin can tell you, after that my attention span is zero.
Once again, like 20 minutes later. And I have moved onto my 2nd cup of tea of the night, but I was too lazy to get up and get my good tea from my desk, so I am drinking the generic kind from our kitchen. It was not in a package, so I have no idea what kind it is. It is just that kind of night.
I lost Bubbleshooter, so this should move a little quicker now. If I can stop being ADHD for a few seconds. According to a quiz on Stumbleupon, I am NOT a psychopath, but you can never trust those online things you know.
My roommate is humming Star Wars under her breath while she studies Greek. Oh the college life.
Now it is almost 2 hours after I started writing this, and I am now on page 7 of my book. This is ridiculous. And this entry is horrible. I am sorry that I dedicated it to you Katie. But now it is going to end, and I promise I will be better about writing more. But you should remind me.
I'm sorry to everyone reading this for how tragic it is. But C'est la vie.

Indianapolis Airport Gate B9

Well here I am again, back where this whole thing started. About to head back to start my second semester of school. Joy. If you cannot tell. I am not very happy about this whole thing. I have little to no desire to return, and have spent the last three days crying. So this is kind of my distraction from thinking about it. This post will probably be really random. And maybe get boring. So be warned.
The guy who was sitting four seats away from me inthe terminal just walked away. And left his unopened diet coke on the floor. But took everything else. I am very tempted to go take it. I need caffeine. But going on a hunt to find a vending machine while carrying my two back packs does not sound pleasant. But I cannot leave my backpacks. Because on of them holds two laptops and a kindle. (Geoff, as you are the only one from Hungary who reads this, it is not yours. Yours is in my checked bag.) So I am caffeineless till I go through so much withdrawal I NEED it.
You know what is over kill? Earbud packaging. Like seriously? Do they really need to be sealed into their package? I have no idea why it is necessary. I mean They are a tiny little package. Its not like someone would take them out of the package before they stole them. And it makes them really difficult to open in an airport terminal when you don't have scissors. (That's my problem at the moment). But they are super cute, and obnoxious lime green. So they are totally worth it.
The End. I need to focus on getting these airbuds out of the package. Talk to you from NYC Next. (Maybe sooner)
<3
UPDATE: The man with the coke is back :( too bad

The Final Countdown! (But not)

13 more days! In 13 days I will be home! Words cannot express how excited I am! I will be arriving at 6:30 PM, and my family and two bestest friends are meeting me at the airport! I will be crying, no doubts there.
But moving on, let me catch you up on the horribleness that was this weekend. Basically it is sufficient to say I spent a lot of quality time with the bathroom floor. I slept on it for 6 hours Saturday night, and spent close to another two hours sitting on it on Sunday. I am not sure what I had, but it was in no way fun. I slept well over 27 hours in two days and spent all but two of my awake hours sitting in bed. I read all of Catching Fire, and listened to 'Perfect or Something' probably close to 20 times. Pretty much I went insane.
I have still not eaten a full meal. All I can say is that today's lunch better be good. Because I plan on eating a lot of it.
This is a very pathetic blog, I'm sorry, but I have nothing more to write at the moment.

Experimenting with media

So to keep my promise this is going to start with a list of acceptable places to wake up right before going. To those of you who are friends with me on Facebook you may remember the status that I am referring to, but for those of you who are not, first you should be, and second I will retype it all out for you. I like waking up very close to when I have to be somewhere. It's like a game, like 'Alright you wake up looking like a you're dead, so you have 10 minutes to make yourself look as close to a productive member of society as you can. Ready? Go!'. Its is in a weird font because I actually copied and pasted it from Facebook so I would get all the words  exactly right, because I write a honest blog, no shortcuts here! And this is my list of places this is O.K. to do this for: School, Work, Hanging out with Friends, A date (If you have been dating longer then 3 weeks), going to Wal-mart, Sitting watching TV, Going to the Cheap Theater, McDonalds, The Library, and probably a lot of other places. Now I am also going to include some places you should probably not do this for, just to make sure you don't do this and blame it on me when it doesn't go well: Your Wedding, Prom, A First Date, A Job Interview, and The First Day of School. Once again this is not an all-inclusive group, so before doing this, you may want to check with other people first.
Now the title of this blog is because I am going to try to spice things up and throw in some pictures, and a video, but I am not sure what I am doing so we'll see how this goes.

First up is a picture of my dorm-mates and I at the Bible School Director's house. We were invited there to watch a movie and have cake for Asia's birthday. From left to Right: Me (I hope you would know that), Asia from Poland, Danielle from Brazil, Noemie from Quebec, Angela from Brazil, and Tereza from Czech Republic.Watch out for the red-eye.

And now a time-lapse video of one hour of my Old Testament Survey class, staring your's truly. But it didn't work, and the message is in Hungarian so you are just going to have to wait. Because tonight I am going to my mentor's house, so now I need to do some homework. Maybe,  might just end up on Facebook. No way to know.

Hungary 1956

So today I went to a rememberence celebration in Toalmas. Basically I stood outside in a cold mist and listened to people speak Hungarian for about half an hour by myself, because no one else from school wanted to go. But thanks to the history lesson we received in Presidential Chapel last Tuesday I at least knew why we were remembering, and thanks to Reka's hard work in my Hungarian class, I could pick out obscure numbers and even the occasional word, but with no context it was not very helpful. But since I am going to be living her for another 7ish months, I wanted to be as involved in community life as I can, I mean how many of you can say you have been to a Hungarian rememberence celebration? Not many. Now I would like to take the time to tell you why this occurs each year on October 23rd.

Obviously Hungary is a European nation, and so was super involved in World War II. Unfortunately they were part of Nazi occupied territory for a long time. In 1945 the Soviet Union 'liberated' Hungary from the Nazis. But instead of being all like 'No problem glad to help, have a good time ruling your own country.' The Soviets were more like 'Hey it looks nice here, lets stay.' And long story short they communisted the country. Intimidation, false accusations, torture, and imprisonment were used to keep political challenges from arising. The capitalist economy was forced to transform into a socialist one, leaving the majority of Hungarians with a horrible standard of living. More then 7,000 people were 'relocated' to a camp in Eastern Hungary for disagreeing with the government. Schools taught Communist Principles, and Russian language became required. People were placed in concentration camps, tortured, and executed. What it boils down to is that Hungary was one of the most repressed countries in Europe in the 1950's. And considering what a mess Europe was after WWII, that's saying a lot.
So by October of 1956, there were a lot of unhappy people in Hungary, and they decided that enough was enough. A group of students began a protest on October 23rd, and soon over 20,000 people had joined it. A 30 foot statue of Stalin was torn down, and basically the protesters did a whole bunch of illegal stuff, but totally had reason to do so. The government reacted by killing a lot of them, by shooting from the windows of the government building they surrounded. Early the next morning, at like 2:00 AM, the Prime Minister of Hungary AKA Evil Communist Dictator Who Is Super Horrible or ECDWISH, called in tanks. Also this was the night ECDWISH traded places with some other horrible person, and so there was a new Prime Minister. But once again to shorten the story, there was a lot of fighting, and the army killed a lot of people. The Hungarian revolutionaries fought the tanks with Motolov Cocktails, and eventually the Soviets got the picture and left.
But on November 4th, the Soviets totally lied and said 'No don't worry, we don't want to live in your country anymore.' But really were thinking 'Actually we are like on your doorstep and going to come in even though you didn't invite us back.' They are like the guests at Christmas who come with out being invited, and then leave for the weekend and come back for New Years. The Hungarians and Soviets fought for 6 days, and once again a lot of people died. The Hungarians lost, and once again were under Soviet rule.
The consequences for the revolution were huge, 13,000 were imprisoned, hundreds were executed, and over 200,000 fled the country as refugees. The Hungarians lived under communist rule until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Then there were treaties and a whole bunch of political things I don't really understand.
But that is the story of the Revolution of 1956, and why the people here remember this day every year with a holiday. Even though I understood .01% of the things being said, and it was cold and misty, I am very honored to have been able to be a part of this celebration of the brave Hungarians that fought to make their country better.

Please note that the information I have provided it all from Al Konya, and Wikipedia. And I highly doubt the Soviets used the language I did, well obviously they didn't speak English, but I mean I doubt it was the same wording or anything, I paraphrased.
Tune in next time for my list of acceptable places to wake up 10 minutes before going to! :)
Also Josh Durham is by far my most dedicated reader because I have my own short cut on his internet page, the rest of ya'll should try to be more like him.