Szia Robyn!

I come from Pittsburgh.

There was a time in my life when I didn’t want to say that, when I had a very Andy Warhol-ian approach to my hometown (for those that don’t know, Mr. Pop Art is from my humble village — and his name was actually Andrew Warhola, the son of immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian empire…. further proof that Hungary is all over America. But he rarely admitted this, choosing instead to say that he was from New York or a “citizen of the world.” That Pittsburgh turned and both built an awesome museum for his work and named a bridge shows how hard it is to get away from the city. Go on and reject it — Pittsburgh will still claim you back). Like Warhol, I didn’t see being Pittsburghese as an advantage, particularly when I finally left the area and entered Georgetown with a sea of Califorinias, New Yorkers and people from “just outside the city,” Bostonians and other New Englanders.  There was a reason, I thought, why Pittsburgh was the butt of jokes in movies: Auntie Mame is from there to showcase her brashness, when Dr. Teeth and his band need to land somewhere pathetic during The Muppets Take Manhattan they land there, and so on. Mullets and man-jewelry run free there. We even have a less-than-charming local dialect.

But I got older. I took a hiatus from D.C. for a year-and-half long stint as a reporter in the Pittsburgh suburbs. I rediscovered the city. I wised up to the fact that all those fancy-pants Georgetown kids who were “from just outside the city” were really just from Jersey after all.

I still went back — and will go back — to D.C.  In the end, I do fit in there far better than I do in Pittsburgh. Yet, when it comes to where I am from, it is still Pittsburgh. Which is why I will miss the city tomorrow, when that great symbol of Pittsburgh — the Pittsburgh Steelers football team — will attempt to win its sixth Superbowl.

Taking my Fulbright role as “cultural ambassador” seriously, I attempted to endear my new Hungarian friends to my homes by giving away Steelers and Hoyas gear for Christmas gifts. This may have worked: yesterday, the head of my university department, András, e-mailed me this Newsweek story, where Howard Fineman speaks about the Steelers fandom as an imagined community, as a tribe that serves to makes us feel part of a group even when the traditional notions of “neighborhood” and conceptions of “place” and “home” break down in an increasingly transient society that America is.

da' burgh ahn' at

In many ways, I have to agree. The Steelers, after all, just aren’t about football. Indeed, no sports team is: in grad-school speak, the sporting event is the liminal moment, more about the ritual than the outcome. But I believe that, more so than in the newer and brighter and shinier cities, the Steelers have had to stand in for hope in a city that lost so much when the industry for which the team is named — steel — fell in the 1980s.  People had to leave, an economy had to restructure. Some parts of the city have improved; others haven’t.  But in any case, Pittsburgh now has a diaspora –  people who have full lives in some other city, but still have the sense of from Pittsburgh.

Like girls who live in Washington for nearly 8 years, but would never, ever cheer the Redskins (and not just because of the shamefully racist name). (more…)

Despite the patient attention of my kisci tanár, Petra, yesterday, my Hungarian skills still most closely mirror that scene in Love Actually where Colin Firth tries to speak Portuguese to win his lady love.  After Petra’s careful attentions in the morning, I headed to my usual classes at C.E.U., where Gabi, my teacher, wanted us to explain our day. This meant not only using verbs, but using the past tense, so I think what I said most closely translated to something like: Yes, the day is full. I working at Fulbright Center 7 hours. I helping student write things. Essays. I helping students study exams. It was being interesting, and all students being nice.”

While Gabi tried to help me untangle this mess of Magyar, she also taught the whole class a new vocabulary word: hallgató, which is a word for student, but it is only used for university students. (By contrast, the word I had used, diák, is a more general form for student at any level).

Trying, as she always does, to get us to make sense of Hungarian structure (ha!), Gabi asked us what new word reminded us of. It’s a verb, she hinted. You remember this from last term.  Finally, one of my classmates hit on the phrase zenét hallgatok, or “I listen to music.” Igen, said Gabi, pointing to the similarity between the verb hallgat and the noun hallgató. 

So, I countered, this word for student literally means “listener?” That explains a lot!! One of my biggest challenges, of course, has been getting my students to talk to me, to engage in discussion. The fact that the very name for their position implies passivity in learning certainly helps me understand the clash between my comfort with interactive pedagogy and my students’ seeming desire that I just lecture.

But that doesn’t mean I’m letting them off the hook.  On the contrary, I’ll just be enacting an even firmer nem hallgató approach this spring.

I’ve been working at the Fulbright Advising Center all day — but I’m getting as much of an education as I am giving. Annamaria, the wonderful program coordinator for us American Fulbrighters in Hungary, brought her 6-year-old daughter Petra to work today.

Petra, noticing my lack of Hungarian skills, has taken it upon herself to help me improve.  My kisci magyar tanár is quite excited, and does not seem to be concerned that I only vaguely understand her. First, she patiently explained, in slow Hungarian, that since I am an American, I speak English, but since she is a Hungarian, she can teach me Hungarian.

Nagyon jó! I said, “very good.”  And this was all the encouragement she needed. She drew me a few pictures, and reviewed the colors with me (and seemed disappointed — but willing to help — when I knew the word for “red” but not “purple”.)

Petra is also beginning her own multi-lingual adventures: she can count to ten in English. This discovery has led us to a fun new game, which I call “Robyn and Petra Count.” Petra counts to ten in English, then I follow with my egy, kettő, három …

Once Petra approved of my basic numbers, however, she began a bit more demanding, and insisted I count by tens, which involved several attempts until she was pleased with me pronouncing the word negyven or 40.  Next, she made me a paper fan, which involved many tries before I could say this word to her liking (…and, don’t tell the teacher, but I have already forgotten this one!)

I must run now. My tanár just made me a paper butterfly and she is very unimpressed with my pronunciation of its Hungarian name — pillangó —  so we need to go practice some more.

As if my next job — teaching English at Northern Virginia Community College –  wasn’t AWESOME enough already, my dear friend, Amanda, who with her journalistic prowess at washingtonpost.com gets all the juicy D.C. area news first thing, sends me this wonderful bit which must have come across the newswires very recently:

Jill Biden to Teach at Northern Virginia Community College

! ! !

Besides the fact that I am still a little (oh, OK, a lot…) starstruck with the new administration, I am just bubbling over with joy about this one because the fact that the second lady (is that an official term? nem tudom… ) is taking this job is a huge, huge bonus for NOVA and for all community colleges.

Most people in academia know that the community college does not get enough love from the general public. It finds itself the butt of jokes in mainstream movies.  It doesn’t get the same money from many states’ governments. Even a few of of my “liberal” and “progressive” and “social activist” professors, who would balk at the merest suggestion of any race or ethnic slur, actually were disparaging when I said, no, I am not going for the Ph.D. right now because I had picked the two-year track. But you could be an excellent scholar, sniffed one, look at this paper…  you could get into a doctoral program … “

Could, yes. (And still might — but later, when I have some more classroom experience to make it really worthwhile, and definitely in a more teaching-related genre of English, like composition and rhetoric). But why would I want to leave the classroom now, when, after two weeks into my first adjunct job teaching developmental English, I already knew that teaching at community college was the best job ever. To put things into perspective, the adjunct job paid so little I actually basically broke even after gas, and I took it on as my third job, in addition to being a full-time master’s student — and I still couldn’t wait to get there every week. Sure, I loved a lot of my grad school classes; but I loved rolling up to English 1 or English 111 classes even more.

You know how most girls talk about the happiest day of their life being their wedding day? Well, my happiest day thus far occurred when I was teaching at Lord Fairfax Community College:  a student, who had quite nearly failed out of English 1 (a.k.a developmental English, the course before freshman composition) and was ready to quit the course came in to say goodbye because he was heading off — with scholarship — to the four-year school he had dreamed of.  He was beaming; I burst into tears. You just can’t find that type of joy at every job.  (And forget the white dress and veil, for methinks said incident will always be displacing wedding day on the Great Day list … with all due respect to My Mysterious Future Husband, Wherever He May Be).

Indeed, when, after several semesters of this adjunct work, NOVA interviewed and offered me a full-time job at the Loudoun campus, I felt like Christmas, my birthday, the Steelers winning the Superbowl, the Hoyas winning the NCAA tournament and the Strand’s $1 book sidewalk sale had all come at once. In my mind, all I could think was I get to do this … AND get paid actual money for it? It was so much, I needed to lay down in the grass outside my apartment to compose myself (apologies, once again, downstairs neighbors, for freaking you out). It was too amazing, too wonderful for words.

It still is, to be honest.

So, while it is rather unlikely that Mrs. Biden would be picking my slightly-further off campus to teach at, or that her two adjunct courses would overlap with mine (so, no Amanda, I probably won’t be “picking up her Secret Service guards,”), her “star” power does wonderful things for all of us that believe in community colleges and the very important work they do.  As she said in her statement about the job:

“I am thrilled to return to the classroom to continue working with community college students, whom I greatly admire and enjoy teaching.”

Agreed. When I see what my C.C. students deal with in their regular life, the fact that they all try so hard to make it through and to class is enough of a kick every morning to make sure I’m doing my job at 110% all the time. I have always learned every bit as much from them as they have from me. Biden has also made previous statements about how she finds community college teaching to be so vital to the country’s success as a whole (ditto, Professor Biden. After all, with 50% of all college students in the U.S. being community college students, we have to give the two-year system much respect). Additionally, Professor Biden holds two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. degree as well, further demolishing the myth bandied about on many a Chronicle of Higher Education forum or frantic M.L.A. conference that the people who teach at a community college are somehow lesser than four-year instructors. One need only look at the bios of the English professors at my campus of NOVA to see that: these people are dynamos, times ten.

I once joked that the community college is like the Hufflepuff of higher education — if my memory serves me correctly, somewhere in the Harry Potter series, there was a song with a line like “Said Hufflepuff I’ll take the lot. And teach them just the same”. Well, that is what we do: we take people where they are, and we get them where they need to be. That’s not just a job that’s “as good” as a four-year school — in my opinion, it’s better. Those of us who have taught at a community college know this. I just think it’s fabulous that now we have a big-name pubic figure who knows the same.

I’ve just returned from that most gloriously geeky of events, an academic conference — or, more specifically, the Hungarian Society for the Study of English (HUSSE) Conference, with my fabulous colleagues from Pázmány Péter University.

Listening attentively

As an two-time English major and current English professor, I am a professional nerd. Maybe as I get older and spend more time in academia, I’ll start to hold similar opinions to those grumbly teachers who send in letters complaining about how awful conferences are to The Chronicle of Higher Education – but I think not. I love conferences: you get to learn a little bit about all kinds of different topics in your field, without any of the pressure of, say, taking a class. You get to actually do something with one of those treatises of academic-ese you wrote in graduate school by sharing it. And, if you’re in the humanities, you usually get some free wine. All in all, what could be better?

Zsolt and Kinga make academia fun!

But while I’ve enjoyed every conference I have participated in so far, my Pázmány colleagues completely blew me away at this one.  I have always known that they are very intelligent people — and they have shown themselves to be the kindest, most helpful and friendly hosts any visiting teacher could imagine — but this is the first time I got to hear their serious work in action. And it was quite nearly overwhelming, it was so impressive.  Two of my colleagues, Veronika and Kinga, delivered fascinating papers on Shakespeare adaptations that were excellent: Kinga’s looked at a BBC popularized version of Much Ado About Nothing, while Veronika’s focused on an adaptation of Hamlet staged in the Nyugati pályaudvar, which is the Western Railway station here in Budapest. (Although, since I know about how much work Veronika does in the average week — like getting this awesome book published – her ability to deliver a paper both as smart and enjoyable as hers only furthers my sneaking suspicion that she has built herself a clone).  Another colleague, Boldizsar, not only offered really interesting ideas about the connection between Chatterton and Walpole, but did it all without reading from a paper at all — he just stood there and talked, weaving gorgeous sentences extemporaneously.  I should probably also point out that I loved all these presentations, even though they are all on Dead White Guys — and, as anyone who knew me in graduate school or  has seen my syllabi knows, DWGs are far from my favorites … indeed, my M.A. years were usually spent trying to convince some professor to see that my ideas on pop-culture-y stuff like, say, Britney Spears’s image on tabloid magazines, were

The Pazmany Crew

worthy of academic papers (thanks for that one, Professor Tinkcom.)

And those are just a few of my brilliant colleagues. Needless to say, after listening to all of that, I was more nervous than I had ever been at a conference when I had to stand in front of them and deliver my own paper on abolitionist children’s literature. (It turned out O.K., too –  but I’m still considering it a work-in-progress).

But, more important than adding another line to my C.V., this conference reminded me how much I love being in academia. For all of the negative things frustrated academics can (often rightfully) complain about — the increasing laziness of students, the lack of attention and funding given to humanities departments, the less-than-gigantic salaries, etc. — I feel so lucky and happy to have stumbled into this career after a few years of post-college wandering. Having a career that truly lets you be creative and keep learning all the time outweighs any of the drawbacks.  Although the “Georgetown default” plan (i.e. lawyer or investment banker) might get more esteem from the general public, I’ll leave that whirlwind of Blackberries, billable hours,  and three-piece suits to my old classmates. I’ll just stay right here — happily — in the world of essay rubrics, dry-erase boards and sitting around and talking about books.

… but this was too good not to share.

I popped by the Fulbright Office this afternoon to print out my presentation for the HUSSE conference tomorrow in Pécs.

As I walked over to pick it up from our fancy-schmancy new printer, my Hungarian colleague Csanád came running down the hall — to fist bump me while saying “Change has come to America!”

Good to see the ol’ homeland is still setting trends, both politically and stylistically.

After three months of studying Hungarian language at Central European University, for three hours each week, I have graduated … to the elementary level.

Yes. That is correct. I had to move up to elementary.

But don’t get me wrong — elementary is hard enough for this English-speaker with a bit of Romance language experience. I am sitting here, staring at my little sheet of Hungarian homework, which I intended to do before I leave super-early tomorrow morning for a conference in Pécs with my colleagues. I remember thinking how my friend Carolyn faced a much more difficult task as a Fulbrighter to Bulgaria, because she had to learn the Cyrillic alphabet. But frankly, these few sentences might as well as be written in Cyrillic for as much sense as they make to me. Siiiiiiiiigh. I am fondly remembering being able to discuss politics in Italian; here, I would settle for knowing what to say to the little old Magyar ladies who populate my building after I pass the standard “good morning” or “hello.”

Szimpla!

Although, I was chatting online last night with Jeannette, who held the ETA Fulbright position in Hungary last year, and told her that my newest accomplishment is that the bartenders at one of my favorite hangouts, Szimpla, have finally begun to humor my poor Hungarian enough to tell me the price of my Dreher or forralt bor in Hungarian instead of English. She assures me this is rather impressive indeed, and that it must be a good sign for my language studies.

Still, back to the books for now.

I just got back to my little pad on Liliom utca, after watching the inauguration at Central European University with a few fellow Fulbrighters. Similar to the day after the election, I have that kid-on-the-day-after-Christmas feel: surprised the “big moment” has passed, but still glowing with happiness.

I teared up a little … but not when I expected it. I thought the waterworks might turn on when I saw Obama take the oath of office… but the little bit of fumble he made while repeating from Chief Justice Roberts got a chuckle. And then, like that, it was over. It kind of reminded me of the first time I went to a Protestant wedding (hey, with a last name like “Russo” and more cousins that I can count, is it any surprise that any wedding I was dragged to as a child was Catholic?): a bunch of lead-up for something that passes so quickly. A few words, and eight years of political embarrassment ended. What did make my throat catch was the sweeping shots of the streets of Washington, as the motorcade passed. I didn’t realize how well I knew them until I saw them blown-up on the screen — I could see my home, all decked out and packed up with people. I saw the places I used to walk, used to take runs, flash by. Then, the shots of the Mall, so vast and crowded with people waving flags and jumping up and down that it looked like one massive pile of confetti. Don’t let Fox News tell you differently: it did NOT look a thing like that at either Bush inauguration. This was bigger, and happier than anything I had ever seen … and watching it, six time zones and thousands of miles away from the familiar scene, well, that was enough to get me.

Alice Walker reminded people that we “elected a president, not a magician,” and Obama’s speech today — which I found less heartstring-tugging, but more serious and true than his happy concert speech Sunday — made the issues America faces clear time and time again. And though the words “tolerance” and “unity” and “peace” flew through the air with abandon, one need only cross into Anacostia — so close from the shining white Capitol building, so far away in equality — to know that today wasn’t a cure all. Certainly, I had an interesting reminder that tolerance and love are at danger internationally as well: on my way to C.E.U., I saw a huge table set up, with young Hungarians (who looked not so different than the type of go-getter college kids who campaigned in “hope” and “change” T-shirts for Obama) handing out infomation on the far-right Jobbik party, a political organization that might, perhaps, represent the furthest thing from tolerance and inclusion (these people protest Hanukah. Yup. Even tried to do it once in front of the Dohany Street syangogue.)

But, then, on the way home, I met a (rather wine-sodden) old German man, who randomly hugged me (before needing propped up on the wall so I could explain how he could get to Moskva ter). There is hate in the world. But there is also the love Obama spoke about. Thus far, the course of human history has shown that the majority of the time, when life is difficult — financially, politically — human beings have a tendency to show our worst side. Thus far, suffering and intolerance and inequality have engendered more of the same instead of compassion.  Obama asked this of us … and by “us,” I do mean not just Americans, but everyone:

“Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back.”

Thus far, history has show that such an outcome is unlikely. But, as someone — and who would it be? — once said, … in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.” Unlikely, yes. But possible, too.

Today, I find myself truly missing my homes for the first time since I arrived here.

I say “homes” because I do consider myself having two: Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C (cities just 5 hours of interstate apart, but in such decidedly different cultures, I often feel I ought to have a passport to go between them).

Pittsburgh is missed because the lovely Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday night, and hence will go on to play in the Superbowl. The last time this happened, in 2006, I was working as a reporter at The Beaver County Times … and I can’t say I’ll miss having my workday being 100% dedicated to every (and any) possible way of saying something about Steelers and Steeler love. I literally had to write stories about Ben Roethlisberger’s beard. No, I am not kidding. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I wrote another one. Yup — two stories, taking up valuable news space. About facial hair. (Perhaps you recall my earlier annoyance at the American press’s general neglect of the Russia-Ukraine gas crisis? Well, Russia and the Ukraine could both be wiped off the map and it likely wouldn’t even merit an inch of newsprint in a Pittsburgh region paper until after the Superbowl.) But, now that it isn’t my job to come up with the newest approach to Terrible Towel use, I will certainly miss the excitement and the way sports victory can briefly throw otherwise unrelated people together in one happy ball of Pittsburgh-love (Perhaps nobody has explained this feeling better than fellow former-’burgher/now DC-ist Howard Fineman in a 2005 MSNBC column, although his account came after a playoff loss.)

Yet, of course, far more missed by this ex-pat today is the festivities blooming on the National Mall for the Inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44^th President of the United States!!!!.

For eight years, I have grown more and more weary of a President who appeared to care about neither the interests of other countries, nor those in his own country who didn’t fit his strict ideals of “real” Americans (which must have meant rich, white, straight, male and so on, judging by the policy he made). For my entire adult voting life, I have listened to the word “intellectual” be used as a slur, and watched the leader of the free world bumble through the English language, basking in his own stupidity as a badge of what made him “real” (and, if to be like him was to be a real American, what does that mean he is saying about us as a country?) For my past trips and time abroad, I have hidden my nationality — “Si, sono olandese” I responded to many an Italian’s query back in 2002, because, since our reputation was so low abroad the Italians seemed to believe anyone who spoke Italian (even bad Italian) couldn’t be from that exceptionalist America, and they picked Dutch as the most likely place for my paler-faced self.

But today, I’m going out to do my errands and take my Hungarian classes and sit in my new favorite cafe wearing an Obama shirt, boldly addressing postcards with “U.S.A” as the last address line.

Because today … YES WE CAN!

And, so, today, I am missing the great big party that is erupting in my home of Washington, D.C. It’s ironic, to say the least, that I suffered the limo-clogged streets and back Metro service through two inaugurations of Mr. Bush, “celebrations” that, for me, felt more like times to mourn.

Whoa. I do love to watch that man speak. Throughout the election, both detractors and supporters worried over his eloquence. What if he is just a bunch of pretty words? they asked, seeming to be frightened of a politician who dared to treat his constituents as if they might have a reading comprehension level above the 5th grade … as if they might possibly understand complex issues. Words are not everything, no. But take it from an English teacher: words matter. Stories can be the beginning of something that changes lives (ask the female abolitionist writers of 19th century America, whose poems began a freedom movement, or anyone who was around hear the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.) I just wish I could see him say them in person … and, since Bono and Springsteen were in my old backyard, to walk down to see them, too.

I think if I was back there, I’d be so giddy on it all, I might even be nice to the tourists who stand on the left of the Metro escalator.

Yes, I miss D.C. today. One of the things that annoyed me the most during the past campaign season — and this came from both colors, Red and Blue — was the demonizing of urban life in Washington and New York. We suddenly became cities that weren’t “real America.”  We became the scapegoat for everyone else’s frustrations. Every politico and his or her supporters used rhetoric making of Washington into some sort of devil’s den (and even those areas which touched Washington, like my last residence, Northern Virginia, which was forever touted as not being “real Virginia” … and, hence, not “real America.”) Well,

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One of the odder … and more amusing … moments of my time here occurred when an average bus ride turned into a musical adventure…

While riding the bus down from Castle Hill one night with my visitors Emily and Arianne, the BKV (the acronym for Budapest public transport) employee driving it began to take on a role as a disc jockey.

Friends on Castle Hill

I knew something was up when he greeted us getting on the bus with “jó estét kívánok“, the very polite form of “good evening” … and a form considerably more polite than what one might expect from your average grumpy bus driver. Then, as he drove, he began announcing songs. From my limited understanding of Hungarian, I could understand that he was saying where the artist was from and a bit about each singer’s style. After this bit of background, we would get a snippet of song… everything from techno, to what sounded like Hungarian country-western to an odd German song (which Emily, a German speaker, translated as a man saying he was “crying beans”)

Decidedly, the most enjoyable public bus ride EVER.

Should anyone out there have access to the BKV, please pass on my gratitude to the driver of the 16 bus between Castle Hill and Deák Ferenc tér!