school pictures

This week may turn out to be one of the longest I've had all year (at least at school) partly because it will end on Saturday (see "things currently pissing me off") but also because yesterday, Monday, we had to stay till 6pm (I usually finish at 12:30) for meetings- yuck. First there was a faculty meeting/ training which I was exempt from- woo hoo! except that I had a 90 minute private lesson anyway so I was still here, then we had the "behavior grade vote" a process I'm still getting used to but am able to participate in more and more each time it occurs. Basically all of the teachers get together and go through each of the students (yesterday it was class 5) and together decide on one over all grade for that students behavior and one for their general "diligent work" I can handle this pretty well as it mostly consists of students names and shouting out numbers- which I understand- this meeting was slightly less boring than past ones as I am starting to understand a few more words so I was able to understand, and appreciate, the side comments such as "Gabor...do you think we could tie him to his chair?"
Following this meeting we had to stay for one more hour for parent-teacher meetings. The last time this happened I did speak to a few parents (through a translator) but this time I had no visitors (apparently the novelty of "lets go see the American" has worn off) but I was assigned to the computer lab so I got to spend my waiting time on-line (not replying to the many e-mails that need replies but instead trying to translate the upcoming movie schedule- time well spent.)

It was seeming for a moment that all of the little quirks that amused me before were starting to become routine and semi-normal for me, and then, this morning, it was time for a faculty picture. We all gathered in the library (after the bell had rung for first lesson of course, we never waste our own breaks- only class time) everyone was milling about and I assumed we would line up for the photo- but no! this photo was to be a fake set up! so we all sat at the tables, some with blank white sheets of paper and pens pretending to write, some with random open books pretending to read (including me which was especially funny since it was a big Hungarian text book) and one teacher was even standing next to a blank white board pretending to write- with a piece of chalk! ...I did all I could to stifle my giggles.