Motivational Teaching

I was advising a BA thesis student. His topic concerns teachers’ motivation and its impact on student learning. He sent me this story he found particularly enlightening. It came from the book Teaching Well and Liking it: Motivating Faculty to Teach Effectively. This is the story as the student sent it to me. Since this has been published in the book above, I am leaving the names intact.

Dr. Ralph Connors and Dr. Carol Raynor have been colleagues for eleven years. They have adjoining offices in the modern science center of Eastern State University. Both teach introductory physics to undergraduates. They have much in common, but they are entirely different teachers. Among the undergraduates, Dr. Connors is known as “Dr. Snores.” As he lectures, Ralph has the curious habit of looking down at his weathered boots while constantly counting and recounting his pocket change. Occasionally his right hand emerges from the side of the podium to add emphasis to what is being said or to flip pages. But only his hand is animated. His speech is soft and slow. There is little life in what he says or in the way he says it. All the fraternities have copies of his notes, copies of copies that date from 1984. But he is popular with them because “Snores only gives two multiple-guess tests, and if you’ve got his notes, you can skate his class.”

Dr. Raynor has a different reputation on campus. Students call her Dr. Rap because in the spring of 1990 she invited to class a local group to rap about Ohm’s law. Midway through their performance she suddenly turned off the lights and told her two hundred students to join in: “The louder you sing, the brighter the lights will become.” Sing they did, much louder than she ever expected. The lights swiftly rose to glaring intensity and then flickered and began to fail. After their applause she said, “Now let’s talk about the role that resistance can play when circuits get overloaded.”

Dr. Raynor no longer needs the rap group; it has become a tradition for students to rap on their own on the day that Ohm’s law is scheduled. She constantly works on her teaching. She enjoys physics and shares her enthusiasm with students. When asked by a campus reporter about the best class she ever taught, she replied “Teaching is a work in progress; I’ve been pleased with some of my classes, but I have yet to teach my best class.””

On that note, I want to share my pride in all 9 of the students who I advised for their thesis this semester. For some I was their direct advisor and for others, they were part of my thesis writing class. Each and everyone of them received a grade of 5 (the highest possible) on their written thesis. So far, they each have received a 5 on their defense as well.

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Keep Calm I Am Done

Tomorrow will be a week since my last day of school. I went in on Wednesday to do final grades and of course there were some students who came in to take last-minute make-up quizzes. Normally when school is over, what I delve into with a ferocious attack is the preparation for the next semester. It always felt satisfying to have things entirely finished keeping any agenda from hanging over my head, giving me the opportunity to start the new semester with a clear head and not the stress of procrastination. It feels a strange this time; there are laborious resources researching details, no syllabus writing, no schedule planning after having to hunt down the academic calendar in addition to all the other tidbits that ate away the minutes of my ‘free’ time.

What I am doing instead, is training my Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking speech recognition software. I had used this program many years ago, and it was okay, but not anything near what I had hoped it would be. After many years, with many upgrades, after getting a promotion with a deep discount, I decided to try it again. The 30 day guarantee was the deciding factor. It is extremely impressive this time around; they have fixed many of the bugs in the system from the past. I’m writing this entire blog post only by speaking. This is great since I really need to type, plus it keeps my hands-free for doing other things like reaching for my coffee cup.

Without school to prepare for, one of my projects is to review and update the BudaBab Review blog site. There are 165 blocks or posts of information, which each and every one needed updating to some degree. Put them in chronological order, but within groupings such as tours, shopping, medical needs, etc. made the most sense. However, in order to do that I have had to change all of the dates and times. Thinking it would be easier to do each post with 15 minute increments in between; I realized it allows me to have gaps add any new posts at a later time without disturbing the order. Although this seemed like a great idea when I started, after spending two whole days working on it, I am still not finished. On the bright side, in the process there are new sites that I have found to include, many revolving around travel. I will be sharing some of those sites here in the next couple of days.

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Teaching Perks

Sometimes, there are perks to being a teacher that go beyond the salary or benefits offered by the institution. This is a note I received from a former student who I gave some help and advice to when he sought me out. Names have been omitted for privacy.

Dear Dr James,

I feel a bit ashamed for not having written to you since you helped me with your recommendation but I wanted to wait some time before I give you some feedback on what it's like being on the other side of the world.

As you know I have applied to the Screenwriting MA program of Georgia State University and was accepted which made me really happy but also anxious about what life would be like. I was working in the corporate sector for 1.5 years after graduating from ELTE and I was worried what it would be like to return to school. I remember reading your blog and your bad experience with the "new generation", the Bologna process students. My friend G.H. who was actually in one of your classes told me about how, um, different the attitude and abilities of current students are.

So I took care of the paperwork, and flew for the first time over to the US. What a different experience. My first few days were great, then a number of bad things happened but I eventually survived. Money is, unfortunately, a new factor. As my first degrees were practically almost free in Hungary, facing the financial toll caused a bit of an emotional crisis but my parents' emotional support helped me through.

My first semester was actually pretty bad: my classes were mostly theory based, and the "old school" style of most ELTE professors did teach me to hate theory. I also had a job at international admissions (as international students can't have jobs outside campus) but that also was pretty frustrating.

It's all different now. I have two production classes, one on acting/directing and one on screenwriting plus I have a job at the school's studio so life has definitely gotten better. I'm producing my own web-based sitcom and that also has its challenges but at least I'm doing something worthwhile. Also, as part of a school project I'm working on a gay-themed series with a group of fellow students. Unfortunately, the group suffers from the same flaws as what you experienced, a lack of enthusiasm and work ethic, but all in all, I think I'm headed towards something good.

How about you? How's ELTE and Hungary treating you?

Again, I'd like to thank you for the help you've given not only with the recommendation letter but also with helping me create my CV - I'm still using the same document, updating in once there's something new to add!
G.

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The HIghs and Lows of Teaching

What you will read here are the actual e-mails that went back and forth with one of my students. This particular student was in my thesis writing class as my advisee in addition to being in my Religions Born in the US class. I had her last semester for Social Problems in the US. The first part is in regard to her thesis and my having edited it before submission. I did not change language, grammar, or spelling, so all mistakes are part of our human nature when writing an e-mail.
 
Student:
Dear Professor James,
Thank you again for all your work.
I am so sorry for all the stupid typos! It must have taken you forever to correct all this I feel so bad.
April 15th will be here soon and part of your torture will end.
For the record, I have learnt a lot from your comments and corrections. Wish I had learnt from you from the beginning of University. My writing would be much better.
Only 28 days left and 1 chapter to go.
See you tomorrow,

Me:
I should have you speak to my journalism class. They think I am the devil incarnate.

Student:
I would talk to them. They should be glad to have you. I have had teachers at ELTE who demanded nothing, gave me 5s, but I learned nothing. That is not how it should be. This results in students becoming so lazy that they end up hating a teacher just because they have to do something. Even though your comments sometimes make me want to jump into the Danube I greatly appreciate them. There is always room for improvement and I strive to be the best I can be. You can motivate me and I am so thankful for that.

Student: after the thesis was submitted:
Dear Professor James,
Here is the very final version of my thesis.
I can't believe that it is done!
I am so happy that you accepted me as your advisee and I got to work with you. I couldn't have hoped for a better supervisor. You have helped me so much and I couldn't have done this thesis without you!
Thanks for everything!!!

Me:
I have faith in you. I think you could have done it alone! But thank you...

Student:
Having someone believe in you when you don't believe in yourself makes all the difference!

Me:
Bear that in mind for the exams. I continue to believe!

Student:
I have been thinking how to respond to this email for the past hours but still haven't been able to come up with anything except for a huge thank you. You made me cry.. I am going to print this, put it in my notebook that I take everywhere, and every time I feel bad or sad I will look at to feel better.

Thank you so so so much. Really!!!


Student:
Dear Professor James,
I just found out that Professor X is going to be my opponent. 
Frightened does not even describe what I'm feeling right now.

Me:
Well, we both know you did an exceptional job. Reading a thesis can be subjective, so remember no matter what she says, we know you are 5 (A) quality.

Then she received her grade for her Religions Born in the US project. Things had a slight turn-around.

Student:
Dear Professor James,
Thanks for the feedback and the evaluation!

I was just thinking. Right now I am at -10 points in the course. We have still 3 classes - 6 points for participation plus 30 for the quizzes. I think there is no problem with my participation so I should have no problem with getting the total points. However, I stink at quizzes. Of course I will prepare for them but for some reason I always mess something up.

The questions are (in advance): Can I do anything else to still get a 5? I can do another essay (although I’m pretty sure you don't want to read any more than you already have to) or whatever extra work you can give me. Grades don't really matter to me, I just want to learn as much as possible, but having a 5 in your class is a prestige thing. I prepare the most for your classes; your courses are the ones worth taking at this university so I want to leave ELTE with not being just one of your average students.

With that said, I am going to try my best to ace those quizzes.

Me:
I have been thinking about this all day. I am still reading student papers and have 5 theses to read and grade still. I was supposed to write a book proposal for myself over 6 months ago, but never got to it. It has to be done by the middle of May or I stand to lose a great deal of money. Do I want anything else to read? NO WAY!

Confidentially, I had some talks with other class members about their performance, grades, and potential outcome with their grade. All of this reminded me of something that happened to me in my doctoral program. I took a course on Psychology of Education. I loved the instructor and the course. The only assignment for the entire semester was to write one 60 page research paper. I cannot remember what the topic was now, but I was so engaged with it that I knew I was doing my best work. This was still in the days of Windows 95, not even Windows 98. I didn't have MS Word back then; the main program was called WordPerfect. About six times, during that semester, my computer crashed and each time, I lost all of the work I had done up to that point.

By some stroke of luck, I had backed up part of the psychology paper on a floppy disk. This was before USB ports or external drives. After I continued writing where I had left off, I printed the essay and turned it in. I was thrilled with the way it turned out and knew the professor would be just as excited with reading it as I was with writing it. When she returned the papers, she made nice little comments to each person as she handed them their paper. "Nice work on this" or "I really enjoyed your topic" or other things in this vein. When I received mine back, she just looked at me without a word. I received a B-. I was horrified and wanted to cry. As I looked through the essay there were red marks everywhere. I could not understand it at all.

When I took a closer look, I realized that the first part of this essay that I assumed was the latest version was an older unedited version. I had not bothered to reread it since the deadline was so close and I was so certain it was a good copy.

After class, I went to the professor and apologized for giving her substandard work. I offered her an explanation. She offered me the opportunity to rewrite it and turn it in again. At first I said, yes, I would like to do this. Then I changed my mind and said this has been an important lesson for me that I will never forget. As much as I don't want that grade, it will be a constant reminder that I need to check, double check and if need be triple check my work before turning it in.

After all of this thinking about your grade today, someone posted this on Facebook. Not that you did not do the work, but I think this will be a lesson you will never forget.

Student:
Dear Professor James,
I just found out that Professor X gave me a 5 (A) for the thesis. I am beyond happy!! Thanks again. If this makes you 1/10 as happy as it makes me that would make me even more content.

Me:
Congratulations! I had a feeling… The last time she read one of my student’s thesis, she suggested it be published.
Does this now make up for you being upset with me about the potential Religion grade?

Student:
Thank you! I am very happy!! She had some minor remarks - she especially disliked the fact that I did not refer to myself as "I." She said it was "awkward" :-) Oh, well. Overall, she said she really liked it.

Well, I won't say that it makes up for it. I am so frustrated. I can't even tell you. I have to be honest regarding the quizzes. I feel like no matter how much I study, I will never get a 100%. I worked my butt off and studied for the whole weekend and made two outlines for the 3 religions. I have a nice word document besides the highlighted texts. I wouldn't say this is it weren't true. I knew everything that was to know about them. I reread everything, did extra research and even found some online tests. I knew everything except whether only psychologists, anthropologists, or sociologists use the term cultural relativism. Also, I don't know how to interpret when only half of a statement is true. If you say Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions for medical reasons only - this is partly true. They do refuse it for medical reasons as well but mainly for religious reasons.

I had the same problem with the quizzes last semester and I cannot tell you how frustrated and sad this makes me. If you asked what cultural relativism was or to write a short essay on any of the religions, asked to define any of the terms I could do it. I am 100% sure of that.

I know life isn't fair but I just feel stupid. The fact that no matter how much work I put into it, I won't get a better grade. I cannot help but feel like an idiot.

I don't mind the studying and I am happy that I am so motivated (even though I know that I screwed up the last quiz as well) to learn. This is a great thing, really. I hope you know that I have learnt a lot and will continue to study this hard for the rest of the quizzes as well. I am not upset with you particularly. I am upset because I cannot seem to change anything regardless how much effort i put into it.

Your quizzes are my enemy, not you. You are a great teacher.

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Crispy Critter Part 2

One of the problems I have created for myself is that I explain most everything to my students. I share with them all of my background thinking which forms the foundations for my motives in how I plan out class procedures. Included in this is an explanation of how I perceive them fulfilling the demands for each class. What seems to me as a transparency in teaching translates to them as a democracy; they have this sense that they should get a vote on each of the assessment components. Whenever something changes without giving them advance notice, they huddle like the crowd outside Frankenstein’s castle ready to lynch the monster. Generally, there is always one spokesperson who claims to have been appointed to be the champion of justice as if by some royal decree. However, time and again, when I question other students, they have no memory of appointing any person to be their spokesperson.

This happened yet again this semester where someone from the Justice League had issues with my assignment. It has happened in the past over minor issues, but this one seemed to be a significant event, at least in some of their mercurial minds. Prior knowledge of having 115 students, to deal with this semester, with 18 of them being in creative writing, it was a no-brainer that I would be drowning in a student writing pool of papers. This led to my creating changes to maintain my sanity assuring I would still have some of it by April and with any luck possibly still by the middle of May. By May 15th, I would need a mental douching.

There had to be a reduction in the number of pages assigned per assignment. Both Race and Ethnicity and Religions Born in the US had their required essays lowered to six pages, not including the works cited pages. To substantiate this change of expectations, there was the added requirement that once they wrote their essay, they were to create an online magazine with it. Pictures or video clips could be added to provide a real magazine feeling if they chose. Three online magazine sources were provided as well as a sample magazine created by one student last semester. I also shared that the student admitted it took her a week to format the magazine properly. This tip fell on deaf ears. An additional peremptory warning was that the essay would be run through two grammar checkers and two plagiarism checkers. I also shared that I would send out the magazine with the accompanying essay to all friends and acquaintances who were willing to read at least one.

Again, they unquestionably want to believe this is a democracy. As one student claimed, “Students don’t want to learn, we just want to accumulate the credits.” This is where the war began, so I had to write this disclosure statement.

If you look at the essay/magazine grading rubric, you will have to notice there is nothing there pertaining to the magazine itself other than the word at the top. The word is there just to clarify that the magazine is created from the essay as I mentioned in class.

Some of you are more advanced than others with technology and will have different outcomes in negotiating the magazine. The intention for having you turn in the essay with the magazine was because editing a magazine, to show you the errors, would have been impossible.

The reason for having you create the magazine at all was to expand your thinking and creativity. In the Hungarian educational system, expanded thinking and creativity are in short supply. Students have complained to me about this for over eleven years.

This project was meant to assist you in developing critical thinking skills that still need developing.

You knew about this assignment from the beginning of the semester. If you did not plan ahead to find sufficient research material, this is a student issue.

Please do not insult me by speculating that you or anyone else can send me mediocre, shoddy work and expect to get a gold star.

This is the 21st century, yet Hungarian students are far behind the times of many other countries, not just the US. Before they pointed to other countries where they consider it to be far worse than here, I warned them to ask themselves if this alone makes them proud of their education.

I sent these to educated friends to review. Initially, my reasoning was to brag to others about what my students are capable of doing. In addition to this, I wanted to have an objective point of view about the essay/magazine. Unfortunately, what I discovered was that many of these reviewers were more concerned with protecting student egos than they were in giving an honest critique, but hinted at their concerns. Those who were honest were quite harsh in their comments about the limits of research, the poor grammar, and all of the other issues that I had also identified and marked in the essays.

My hopes that knowing a stranger would read their work, would have pushed them into being higher achievers, never came to fruition.

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The First Day and They are After Me

Today was the first day of school. Yipee! Summer is officially over as holidays go. There are only 45 days until fall break, but who is counting? I am. I am feeling overwhelmed and each time some American university instructor tells me "Full-time in the US would be three classes" I feel even worse. No, not worse enough to return to the US, but then again, I would never get a position here. 

Today, I had five classes in a row. This is mostly my fault since I create my own schedule, but I do it this way to have long weekends; weekends are 5 days long. I only teach 2 very brutal days a week. Tuesday is five classes and Wednesday is four. This doesn't mean I sit around eating Bon-Bons the rest of the time. There are tons of papers to read, students to advise for their thesis, student problems to solve and so on. 

This semester it is not nearly as bad as it could be. I decided to teach 2 classes online. Today was the orientation for one and the other will be tomorrow. Tomorrow morning, when I would generally be teaching Academic Writing, I have a Fulbright student to do that for me this semester. After I do the initial class tomorrow, she will take over for the rest of the semester. 

Here is where they are after me though. I have been e-mail chased after by another college. They want me to come teach there too. After exchanging a couple of e-mails. I said I would meet with them at least. They are going to have to make a really appealing offer, but they have aroused my curiosity. 

What I really want to do is start up my private practice once again. I maintain my CA clinical license and have done some life coaching. This is where it is at. I need a professional change of pace to balance my life out. I have the office ready to go. Now I just need to start the marketing.

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And the Winner Is...

I am proud and thrilled to announce that my thesis student LÍVIA MARIÁN was nominated for and won the Outstanding Student Thesis of the Year Award. I am so proud of her. Her thesis title was The Megachurch Phenomena in the American Society: The Marketing of Religion in the United States. 

I have had other students who I have advised be nominated, but as their adviser I cannot promote their winning in any capacity.

On another note of congratulations, one of my current journalism specialization students, Orsolya Horváth. She entered a creative writing contest after I sent her the information. The contest was in the US, but participants were from all over. The contest was very controlled. On a pre-arranged date, they sent the applicants the theme for the story, the length required, but they only had 24 hours to write it and send it in. She won Honorable Mention with a prize of a subscription to a writing magazine. From the list of winners, there were only 2 people who were from non-English speaking countries.

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It is Nice to Be Appreciated

I received this note from a student who I had in a number of classes for the journalism specialty. Now, I don't see him very often. This is what he wrote me. I asked his permission to place it here.

Dear Dr. James,

While wasting my time on Facebook, I stumbled upon some status updates written by members of the current generation of journalism students. After using my critical thinking skills (), I figured out that it must be close to the due date for the Race and Ethnicity essays.

This reminded me of what I had planned to tell you earlier: I somewhat miss the assignments which you gave us.

I wouldn’t say that I thoroughly miss them, for there were times when I had no idea, and I was just staring at the computer screen for hours not knowing what to write about, but it’s indisputable that they were useful. I think I won’t hurt you if I confess that I never liked Race and Ethnicity. And, quite frankly, there were times when I just hated the blogging tasks. But every writing assignment is useful in some way.

The most difficult part of writing, as you told us at the beginning of our Creative Writing classes, is to start it. Indeed, it is. In this semester I only have to submit two essays. This makes me extremely lazy. Previously, I thought I couldn’t be any lazier, but I was wrong.

Since I don’t have to write, I really rarely do it. I even questioned whether journalism and professional writing are right up my alley. (I still don’t know the answer.) I am concerned that I might forget words and how to write in English. Interestingly, seldom do I update my Hungarian blog, so I’m also concerned about that, but to a less extent because I suppose it’s impossible to forget one’s mother tongue. To make a long story short, I think the assignments were really good for keeping us in the routine.

Of course I don’t say that I was always fond of what we had to do. But I realized that those assignments had helped us a lot.

There’s a nice quote, I think from Daniel H. Pink: “Write every day. Regaining momentum takes three times as much energy as sustaining momentum.”

So, to put it in a nutshell, this is what I wanted to say.

Enjoy the break (and have fun while grading the essays),

Árpád

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Interesting Tidbits 4 Book Rentals

If only I had thought of this while in school, I could have been a millionaire by 25 years old. Every American who has gone to an institute of higher education knows the cost of textbooks. 

It is not uncommon for one textbook to cost $50 to $150 and most  courses require multiple books. When I taught in CA, I would try to choose the required texts bearing in mind the cost of the books, knowing the financial pressures of being a student. It was not always possible. When students sell their books back at the end of the semester, they only get nickels on the dollar. This is a fantastic alternative. It still seems pricey to me, but then again, in comparison with new books, there is some savings.

Rent your college texts from Book Renter for 30 day increments or a semester. For example, the book I will be using in the fall semester for a new Masters class is called Social Problems. To purchase the book new is $118.40. However, a rental is $46.16 for a full semester. Not sure if you want to stay in the class? Then rent it for 30 days for $33.47.

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High School Pranks

When I was in high school, we would never have thought about a senior graduating prank, but then again, my senior class numbered 51 students. 

Somehow, I came across this story. I just love the creativity the students used and from the looks of it, there had to be a great deal of teamwork involved, not to mention the collection of allowances to afford all of these Post-A-Notes.

Check this out: Awesome Class of 2010 Senior Post-It Prank

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Blogging Rules 1 and 2

The first two rules you learn in blogging is

1.) to post regularly to maintain your readers' interest.

2.) never break rule number 1.

Though it seems like forever since I wrote last, it hasn't been that long. What I have been doing in the meanwhile is trying to scrape the mold  off of my body. With the exception of one day, it has rained here every day since May 10th. Some days it rained all day, but few. Most days it rained for an hour or two with dark bloated "I am going to get you" clouds still lurking  above ready to pounce upon us with more water. 

The good news is that I lucked out with the State Exams. My days of confinement have whittled down from seven to four. The first of the series is out of the way and it took less than half a day. Yowzer! June 2 did not include me, but I was uncertain. Due to a typo, I was exonerated from June 9, they decided they did not need me on June 16, so that only leave BA State Exams on June 23 and 25th. Well, I do have a doctoral dissertation defense I need to attend on June 7th, being made part of the committee without my raising my hand to volunteer. They needed to fill a minority quota and I was it. I believe I am the ONLY US native speaker with a doctorate in the entire university. Being the largest university in Central Europe and one that offers 68 Masters degrees, this is quite something. I would venture to guess that the number of native English speakers of any nationality with a doctorate, within our university system, would still be few enough to stuff all of us into a phone booth and still have room left over to dial home.

As I said, I was uncertain about today. I had filled the exam dates on multiple calendars. One of the calendars has all of the dates for exams. Other calendars had some of the dates, but no remarks. Then dates were added and deleted, causing much consternation and confusion as when I needed to be where. To avoid mental conflict, I went into school this morning, found my name was no on any committee, but went to my office to work.


I spent from 8:45 am to 3:30 pm working on my classes for the fall. The first day of classes for me is September 14th, yet here I am in June working on the course syllabi and schedules, finding new and hopefully better books, and so on. This is because I have such a hefty "To Do" list for this summer, mostly work filled and not necessarily fun in the fashionable sense of the word, that time is too precious to waste. Three of my classes are no squared away, checked off of the list. One is almost complete, but I am changing books, so need to read it again for scheduling. Then I am teaching a new masters level course Social Problems in the US. After ordering six books for that class to decide which to use, I had them send to a friend who consults here often to bring back from the US. What slipped my mind was that she was married in March, so though I had the books shipped to her home, she had been at her husband's home, 150 miles away. Now those books will not be arriving until August when she returns again. The joys of teaching out of your own country.


Speaking of books, Frommer's owes me 10 copies of my own book. They contacted me for shipping info, but it turns out that they will ship them from jolly ole England, where they have not been printed yet. That puts me on hold. It would seem reasonable they could spend a few extra to ship from the US, where it has been out for weeks now. We have received five phone calls for bookings from the US. Strangely, they prefer that to e-mail or even using our Jajah free call button on the website. Go figure.

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Oh My Throbbing Head

I have been reading students' theses for the MA program. These are for the students that I advise. My criteria for taking them on is that they send every five pages that they write, so I can find errors in clarity, sentence structure, grammar, spelling, and so on and so on ad nauseam. My theory and what I share with them repeatedly is if there is something wrong, I can catch it early on and save time and energy for both of us later. This semester, I was supposed to have seven MA people writing and four BA students. 

The MA thesis has to be turned in April 16th. How many students have I heard from? Three! However, only two have sent me anything. What they did send was their whole thesis. So, I am juggling reading those, reading my Creative Writing class assignments, and then there are the essays for my Race and Ethnicity II class. 

Though I have taught "Academic Writing" to 99% of the R and E class, those who chose to grace me with their paper, turned in something I would be humiliated to turn in in junior high school, let alone university. These are students who are supposed to be going on a journalism internship next semester. Well, I am the Chairperson of the Writing Program, so I have final say. Until then...

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So Proud

I remember reading years ago that teachers should keep a journal of their accomplishments, compliments from staff and students, and their successes and their failures. The point of it being that beyond degrees, diplomas, training, passing exams, the real proof of what makes a good teacher is in the daily doing. I had attempted this type of journal a few times, but then get too busy to keep it up. What I do instead is include these kinds of things in the blog, so they don't get lost. Every once in a while, I need a mood refresher, so I know where to come look. Yes, I put the screw ups in here also, so I can either go back and shake my head or have a good chuckle.

This was a response from one of my MA thesis students. I was honored to have had Anna in the classroom for more than 6 different classes. When she asked me to be her adviser, I had no qualms at all. She just recently defended her thesis and I sms'ed her asking how it went.

Dear Dr. James,
Thank you for sending the sms! I thought I would respond in an email, because it might be long...:)
I got a 5 for both my thesis and my state exam. YEEAAHH! I was very happy about it!

When I defended it, I got very good questions from Stanley, and some less relevant ones from Prof. F. She made a comment about the sources I used. She felt that I could have used other libraries than the ones available in Budapest. I didn't really understand what libraries she thought of. When I asked, she said that I should have registered in on-line libraries. I responded that I did not have the financial resources:) Anyway, they gave me a five.
I want to thank you again for all your help! Not just with my thesis! Your courses were the most helpful ones during my university career. I made good use of everything you taught us about writing or critical thinking in my other major as well. I'm sure that without those classes I would not be able to write my Italian thesis (for which I also got a five:)). It was an honor to be your student. Thank you again!!!
Anna

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Back in the Saddle

It is COLD outside; it has been snowing all day, but it is not sticking. Where are those 90 degree days we complained about? Isn't human nature funny? We are never content with things until we don't have them. 

I feel really accomplished getting all of my photos uploaded. I have been bombarded with requests from students to write letters of recommendations, which I don't mind doing, but some of them are living in other countries. That meant running around for oversized envelopes that will accommodate three regular sized envelopes and them mail them off to Germany. I also ran over to school today. I knew I was slated for State Exams and thought I signed up for this Wednesday, but decided to check to make sure. Deep down inside, I was hoping they would not need me and I could get out of it, but no such luck. We have six students to exam on the 20th.

This weekend, I will be teaching the second part of an adult education course on writing. I spent half the day today preparing for that. The class is only 1 1/2 hours this Saturday and again next, but if I over plan, I will feel more confident. 

While we were on vacation, I was able to convince Ron to take a photography class with me. He is always fine with expenses on vacation, but when it is an expense at home, he about gags. Before he had a chance, I had him signed up and committed. We start Tuesday night, tomorrow. It lasts ten weeks. In preparation, I thought I should start reading the manual of my new camera. Dung the whole of the vacation, I wondered if I had made the correct decision to leave it behind; the dangers of theft were nothing like we had been warned about. However, when I read the directions, I knew it was a smart decision. In big bold letters, it said to protect the camera from the heavy movements of a car, motorcycle, or ship. I could not protect myself during this trip from the ruckus of the car, let alone a camera. My old Minolta seemed to stand the tests of shake, rattle, and roll without so much as a squeak. 


One last thing, today is one week since I last had a cigarette. Yahoo!

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Clogged Pipes and Google Burps

It never fails, Ron leaves for weeks at a time and the old old pipes start getting clogged up to the point of making my life back here miserable. They are begging for some action, usually requiring something invasive, but definitely not a do-it-yourself type of project, though I have tried different methods. It is just not the same as having an expert. When in doubt, when Hungarian is needed to get the waters flowing smoothly again, call a student. Balazs, our knight in shining armor came to my rescue making the call that would set things right once again. Within twenty minutes, both kitchen sinks were draining like my sinuses in winter weather, or as a Hungarian once told me "my nose is melting." Now I can wash dishes carefree, no worries about it taking an hour for the sink to drain. Reservation requests have been coming in on a regular basis, but Google calendar was not cooperating. Of all of our calendars, of course the only one that would not load was the B and B one. I sent Google a report stating it have been 1-4 hours that it was out of service. Actually, it was only twenty minutes, but it seemed like four hours. I have grown truly dependent on it to keep track of our bookings, plus it shows on our website reducing the number or requests that cannot be fulfilled. When I looked at our website, there was only a large white box where the days, dates, people's names, and other vital information should have been. Google don't fail me now. Hoping for the best, I ran off to my private lesson, with an eye on my watch, having to get back in time to let a guest in. Two more arrive tomorrow, a last minute booking translating into I cannot put off cleaning the room and making up the bed. The guest who arrived today is named Sloane. Failing to identify a gender with the name, Google searches assured me it was a male, but when I answered the doorbell and heard a female voice, it took more than a minute to add two plus two and let the poor thing in. She is a young and lovely woman. Google you failed me on this one.

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It is a Small World After All

Dear Dr. James, I have a nice story for you, I am sure you will smile as I tell you. You know I just arrived in Portsmouth and started my internship at RMC. As I was spending my first week in office, introducing myself to everyone, a nice lady came into my room and said she has been to Hungary and had a great time there. I was happy to hear that, so we started to chat about Budapest and her experiences about the city. She said she and one of my other colleague stayed in a B&B in the Pest side of the city, a nice, cozy place owned by two Americans, one of them is a collage professor... Then, all of a sudden, it occured to me that I read about your B&B in the intro of your Frommer"s Budapest Guide, so I asked whether his name was Ryan. She said yes, so I immediately logged on to facebook, showed your picture to the lady, and she smiled, "oh, yes, that's him." The women are called Susan and Kim; they spent some 3 nights at your place around December, 2007. They also told me you might remember them as "they were pretty good guests":) and they also brought some presents with them from the States, a book, titled Water for Elephants and some maple syrup. They were both excited to hear that I was one of your students at the University, and they gladly recalled their fond memories about the two of you with Ron and about staying at your B&B. We were all overjoyed by this little nice coincidence and smiled about how small the World actually is. Isn't that great?! After all, I told them, without you I might not even be here in this office right now since you gave me one of my recommendations, a really strong one that helped me to gain this opportunity. Thank you again for that and hope this story made your day as it definitely made ours the other day! Best regards, Viktoria

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Monday, Monday

It is Monday and I am charged as I boarded the bus to bring my Windows disc to the computer store to have it installed on the new computer. They said it would take an hour and then I could come back for it. Thinking ahead, I also brought the software for the monitor and the cordless mouse and keyboard. When I arrived at the store and was asked if I needed help, I said I was waiting for Peter. Peter was the salesman I had arranged all of my needs with on Friday. He asked me in Hungarian if he could help me and I showed him my paper with his name and all of the data HE wrote on it. When he looked up at me with a blank stare, I could tell there was no recognition happening, he had a short in his hardware. I could have been a new immigrant that had just arrived at the airport and made my way to the store for all of the familiarity we shared. After multiple attempts at trying to communicate with me in Hungarian, a point he seemed to have forgotten that my student warned him about, he went to get an English speaker. They did not have any of the computers in stock. As I repeated "But you said..." I was transported in time to a childhood of adult promises that were withdrawn at the last minute. A new offer was given. Leave my discs, they will get a computer by tomorrow and then they will call me to come pick it up before 6:00 pm. What could I do? They had me by the short circuits. Later, I called my student and told him the story. I could have recited his response before hearing it "Welcome to Hungary".

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Ropes to the Sky

We again had the pleasure of seeing the performance Frenák Pál Társulat: FIÚK - Les hommes cachés at the Trafo Theater. This theater is all about experimental dance. We went to this show last year when they performed for the Spring Festival and were in awe at the dexterity and strength these young men displayed.

Lynn and my student/guardian angel Balazs went with us.

Three ropes to the sky, 4 men. Beyond being a beautiful work about the masculine body and the use of spaces and falls as tools of a choreographic expression, “Fiúk” is an immersion in the unconsciousness of men and boys. A research into the very foundations of the common inheritance that feeds the construction of man as a social animal. By calling up alternately male chauvinist violence, stupid pretentiousness, the balance of power that structures our exchanges with others, both men and women, Pal Frenak, offers us a radical vision, somehow desperate, of human relationships. Once again, Pal Frenak presents a show whose theatrical dimensions, almost cinematographic in conception, is the expression of his intuitive knowledge of human functions, a kind of direct access to the unconscious as well as a social vision without concession.

http://www.ciefrenak.org

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Victory in Publishing

One of my former Advanced Grammar students came to my office. She was overflowing with excitement. She shared with me that she had her article published that she had to write and submit for my class. She said she would never have believed she could get an article published if it had not been for me and my class. I am so proud of her. This is the second student who had an article published as a result of my Advanced Grammar class that I am no longer teaching.

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