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Hi, everybody!
Phew! I'm done with midterms. In addition to the C&P test
last
Friday, this week I had a Combinatorics test on Monday and an Analysis
test on Thursday. I didn't do as well on the Combinatorics test as I
had hoped--I've been sick this week, so I opted to go to bed rather
than give my notes the last read-through that I would've needed to do
my best. By contrast, the Analysis test wasn't as hard as I expected.
My host mom, Eva, has taken good care of me this week, since I've been
sick. She makes me tea with honey, and even brought me breakfast in
bed one morning! She's made me take some gargle solution; a pill that
I think was supposed to be a cough supressant; and a pill that I had to
let dissolve in my mouth, whose label, when translated, said that it
was a "mouth and throat disinfector." It's rather
disconcerting to be
taking medicine when I don't entirely know what it's supposed to do.
The Halloween party last Friday, at Alethea and Amanda's, was very
fun. Everybody wore a costume. I went to the Chinese-Vietnamese
flea
market after class, and found the ideal shirt for the costume of
Aliena, from _Pillars of the Earth_. I also found a headband with
fake
curly brown hair attached, which looked wonderfully ridiculous on me,
and helped establish that I was, in fact, wearing a costume, and not
just being myself in an interesting shirt.
Mike R. had the least elaborate costume--he was wearing a pumpkin-
orange shirt and carrying around a green-striped bag, which he put over
his head as a stem whenever anybody asked him what his costume was.
Later in the evening he cut some duct tape into a jack-'o'-lantern face
and stuck it on his shirt. Other people had put more effort into
their
costumes: Pei Zhuan, Melody, and Jonah were wearing sandwich boards
painted to look like giant cards from the game Set. They had even
worked it out so that when they stood facing the same direction,
neither their fronts nor their backs formed a set, but if any one of
them turned around, they formed a set! Amanda also had a mathematical
costume: With cardboard boxes covered with B's on her front, back,
and
head, she was a "block of imprimitivity," a concept that the
people in
Algebra 2 have been working with. She said, "It's my scariest
costume
since I was five--when I was a ghost princess!" My favorite
costume,
however, was Forrest's. He was a lamp! He was wearing a hat to
which
he had attached a flashlight shining into a balloon, surmounted by a
lampshade made out of a "Portable Baby Crib Curtain" that he
found at
the dollar store ("szazforintos uzlet"). He also had an
electrical
cord trailing out of his pocket, for good measure.
The party was fun. We ate orange-themed foods--carrot soup, made by
Amanda; orange bread, made by Alethea (who was dressed as an American
tourist); sweet potato casserole, made by Natalie (who was dressed as
Strongbad--a superhero character I'm not familiar with); paprika-
flavored cream cheese on rolls, brought by Ian (who was dressed as a
pirate); and apricot juice, brought by Pei Zhuan. Of course, we also
ate candy. Then we played Prooie, a game in which everyone but the
Prooie closes his or her eyes and wanders around with arms
outstretched, trying to find the Prooie. The Prooie tries to avoid
being caught. When you bump into someone, you ask,
"Prooie?" If the
other person also says, "Prooie?" then you both move on blindly.
If
the other person is silent, you've found the Prooie. Then you open
your eyes, hold hands with that person, and join in the efforts of not
being caught. It's like the inverse of Marco Polo.
On Saturday, Amanda, Forrest, Mai Anh, and I got up (relatively) early
and took the blue line metro almost to the end of the line, to go to
another flea market, which Amanda said was even better than the Chinese-
Vietnamese one. Unfortunately, it was closed for All Saints' Day!
It's sort of annoying to be living in a community that's observing a
holiday in which you don't participate: You want to go about your
daily routine, but you can't, because most things are shut down.
Museums, however, were not closed, so that afternoon, Melody, Forrest,
Pei Zhuan, and I went to the Ludwig Contemporary Art Museum in the Buda
Palace. The permanent exhibit there was pretty interesting, but the
temporary exhibits were stunning! One was an exhibit of contemporary
Chinese art that commented on the state of China; the artwork was bold
and varied. We were lucky to get to see that exhibit, because we
found
out afterwards that it closed November 2nd.
The other exhibit, "Vagy Kepek," ("Pictures of Desire")
I thought was
especially cool. Two artists had gone around the world asking people
of all ages and lifestyles what they would wish for if they could have
any wish. They got answers ranging from, "A beautiful dress and
three
horses and a castle in the mountains," to "To give the gift of
life by
donating my organs after I die." Then the artists made pictures
representing the people being successful in their wishes. For one
Hungarian man, who wished for his son to be successful, and to have a
position of power from which he could do good for the world, the
artists designed the front page of a newspaper, with a picture showing
the man as Prime Minister of Hungary, shaking hands with his son. A
headline in the corner of the newspaper announced in
Hungarian, "Standard of Living Rising." For another person,
who wished
for "A perfect suburban home--white house, white picket fence, white
dog, white everything..." they painted a neighborhood scene that was
entirely a black-and-white outline, an amusing distortion of what the
person had wished for. I really liked seeing the different meanings
that "desire" had for different people, and I enjoyed seeing the
people "in" their wishes...it was like seeing their wishes come
true.
On Monday evening, Melody, Mike R., and I had dinner at Nagyi
Palacsintazoja, the palacsinta (Hungarian crepe/pancake) fast-food
restaurant I really like, and then joined Forrest, Mai Anh, and Richard
at Mathyas Church in the castle district. There, we heard a concert by
the Tallis Scholars, a British a cappella group that sings Renaissance-
era religious music. They were very good, and it was especially
inspiring to listen to them while admiring the decoration in the ornate
Gothic church.
I hope you have a good weekend! I'll write again soon.
Viszlat,
Abra
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