Lottery Week

I feel like I won the lottery, it has been an incredible week. On Tuesday, I had my eye surgery. All went well, thank you for asking. It turns out it was 105 Euros LESS than I had been initially quoted and that was not because I only had one eye done. The quote was per eye. Not knowing better, I had planned on having both eyes done, so I saved a whopper amount of Euros there too.

Then our guests from Austin gave me the Windows 7 as a gift! I still cannot believe their generosity. 

You know how things come in threes? Well, I had sent an e-mail to Zack, the owner of Tipton Eyeware to tell him I had left a "Recommended by Frommer's 2010" sticker at the store, but I don't think they understood why and may have ditched it. While I was at it, I had to share that I had brought my friend Kim in there, not knowing we would be there for over an hour while she tried on and modeled frames for me, before settling on a pair. Another thing I mentioned was that due to the surgery, I needed good sunglasses without a Rx, but with 100UV protection. Zack zipped back an e-mail asking me to come in, meet him, and look over the collection. This time it was my turn to try on and model. 

The wowser part about these frames is that they are made from recycled 45 and 33 1/3 vinyl records. The designs are original and not the run of the mill off of the rack kind. When you wear Tipton glasses, you are making a statement. After a few different eyeglass changes, Zack suggested I try one of his newer line of eye wear. All of the temples are made of old, but genuine celluloid cinema film strips. The one Zack gave me to try was from an old 'adult' movie, risqué but tasteful still. 

They looked great, felt wonderful, but could I really splurge on sunglasses? Of course I can! I am worth it. However, Zack would not hear of it. They were a gift with his thanks for putting his wares in both of my books and bringing a eyeglass-a-holic friend to the store. Now, let me be upfront. If I did not like the product, they would never have made it into the first book, let alone the second book. The truth is, I love them and think others will too, so I am going to do my best to direct people to Orange Optika at Király utca 38 in Budapest. But hey, if you are not heading to Budapest, don't despair, there are plenty of other stores on their website.

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A Bit of Humor Some May Not Find Funny

I know the housing problems are nothing to laugh at for quite a few people, but this video was too funny to pass up sharing. The original film was Der Untergang a German movie about Hitler's last days. The English title is The Downfall. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend it. If you speak German, try to ignore the dialogue and read the sub-titles only. This is where the humor is. Since we do not have a mortgage and own our place free and clear, I snickered and chuckled along. If it makes anyone feel better, all the humor evaporated when he mentioned this 401k.

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Lights, Action, Camera

We woke up this morning to find our whole street had been invaded and taken over like a coup. We are still not sure how they pulled it off, but both sides of the street were filled. Where the cars that were parked there originally disappeared to, still remains a mystery. Every available parcel of parking space was now accommodating a film crew bus. Well, not just any bus, these were more like stretch limousine buses with FILMBUSZ on the sides. Along side of them, there were a string of white station wagons double parked along side of them in addition to the same type of cars parked on the other side of the street. There was barely room for a Trabant to pass down the street without scraping its cheap paint job off of the sides. Film crews were running around the streets, but no cameras or theatrical lights were visible. Our guess is that they were filming in the Old Man's Pub, obviously over-kill for a beer commercial, but the reality eludes us. In other news, I have been finishing up my chapter for the Frommer's "Eastern Europe" book. The template they sent has been driving me crazy. They use Word 2000, while I am using Word 2007. It seems ironic that a company that size is using such outdated programs, but perhaps it is due to the number of countries they have to deal with. The template loads, but when I go to make changes, the whole thing changes into an alphabet soup of styles. Highlighting a section and clicking on this section only, did not seem to help. Hatefully, I had to send a whining note to my editor, the fourth editor at Frommer's I have worked with. She has been great, so this will work out.

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Fall Break Work

It is fall break. I have spent four days working eight hours a day preparing courses for next semester. Under normal circumstances, it would seem logical to do this during the Christmas break. Fortunately or unfortunately, we will be gone from December 18^th until January 17^th. That will only leave me with three weeks when we return to get things finished. That is not enough time.

Next semester, the teaching load more than doubles due to new regulations of the university. There are no promotions in sight for me since there is a moratorium on promotions, so my course load increases due to my peon status. A doctorate degree does not come into play here. My classes for spring will be:

• Language Practice 4 – I will most likely use a curriculum I have already written and just revise it. The LP classes are American Culture classes with an emphasis on academic English.

• Ethnicities in the U.S. II – Have to write the curriculum for this one. I am teaching Part I this semester. Part II will focus on Jews, Hispanics, and Native Americans.

• Critical Thinking – I am teaching this this semester so there is little to do. I have the curriculum done, I just need to revise the syllabus.

• Gay and Lesbian Film in the U.S. – This is where much of my time and attention has gone. I have had to research the films, find them, watch them, create study guides for each, make decisions on which to use, and so on. I have close to 60 movies, but they are not all American films. I am trying to decide if I will have each student watch a different foreign film as well to do a comparison to the U.S. one. This is much more work than I ever anticipated, but I expect the course will be great.

• Survey of American Culture – This is available and mandatory to freshmen. We have had 300 enroll this semester, but none of them have been eligible for my classes. My first introduction will be with this course. My co-teacher and I will both be teaching sections of this, but based on the time slot, one of us may have more than ½ of the group. I usually teach my freshmen class at 8:00 am, while he has his at 9:30. Since the students take so many classes, it is more an issue of class conflict, rather than sleeping in. This course will be 1 ½ hours a week, but all lecture. I ordered a survey book from the States and will lecture on a different chapter each week. There is no chance of making them write essays. I will never have time to read all of them. They will have weekly quizzes instead with homemade scan-tron answer sheets and then a TA can grade them for me. I am dreading this. It has been years since I have had to lecture.

Then to complete my teaching hours, I will offer a two hour tutorial for the survey course for students who cannot keep up with the lecture. This is a glorified office hour, but it prevents me from having to offer yet another course.

I spent days looking at film reviews, book reviews, and ordering books and films from the US. The university does not buy the books and the students don’t either, so it is my responsibility to make sure they have the materials they need for each course. This is how I spent my four eight hour days of vacation. The method has a “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy agreement.

Now I am hoping beyond hope that the books and movies arrive before we break for winter. I could not find anyone that was coming over to bring them back with them or I would have ordered them and had them sent to these people. Everyone coming back or coming to visit someone is arriving after we leave. Time is of the essence.

I am going to be a bear next semester.

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