school anecdotes

Last week at Sándorfalva, I had a class of 6^th graders that I didn’t have last week. They were, all in all, pretty cute kids—lots of giggling, Hannah Montana-obsessed girls and a couple of boys who hate said split personality pop star but love “rrrrock music.” One of the little girls was one of the most adorable kids I’ve ever met. She’s very earnest, eager to help translate my instructions into Hungarian when she understands them, all smiles, sat in the front row; you know the type. So you can imagine my dismay when she walked into the room and I noticed her t-shirt—a very small, child’s size shirt—and the writing on it: “Only a bitch like me could live with a bastard like you.” WHAT?! Burke and I love to talk about the English language/American cultural references that these kids have. They never cease to amaze us: they are often outdated and are usually inappropriate for both school and for their age, but they carry on wearing and saying things in English, usually because they don’t know what it actually means.

That little girl is a favorite, as is the first day with my 10^th graders. The whole section is boys, which makes for very interesting conversation in the classroom. On the first day, I asked them what kinds of music they listened to, and two boys in the back, without skipping a beat, said, “VU TANG CLAN! VE LOVE VU TANG!” All of their w’s come out sounding like v’s, which makes everything seem like a kitschy Béla Lugosi film as it is, but then to cite VU TANG? Amazing. They also told me how much they love “ehneh-double v-ah,” or N.W.A, most famous for their perennial classic “Fuck the Police.” One young seventh grader told me how much he loves Lady Gaga and Madonna. I had my eleventh graders (who are very good at English) engage in a lively debate about whether or not actors are overpaid. The side who had to argue that they deserved millions of dollars for a movie or TV show delivered this fantastic counterpoint: “Actors like Angelina Jolie have to get that much money because they have to buy more children.” Awesome.

We just came back from an amazing weekend in Budapest celebrating my 23rd birthday--lots of fun things going on there, so the next time I post it will be pictures/stories/videos from the weekend!