Word Muesli and March 15

My Stack of Ungraded Assignments is metastasizing on my desk like a hairy mole on an old man's scalp. Some of it is a month (a month!) old. It's not my fault, though, truly. Every time I assign something to my classes, about 70%, nay, 90% will forget to bring it in the first week around, making me wait another week to get the majority of their papers, then another week so that I can hand them back all at once.

The root of it all, the crux (what an awesome word), is that they -- how do I say this eloquently? -- don't give a flying frenulum about me or my class. Surely, you might cry, you can make them care by giving them grades? Alas, gentle reader, no. My grade is "combined" with the grade of the OTHER English teacher, the not-conversational one; that is to say, even if they behave like rabid monkeys (and they do, by the Hammer of Thor), they can still get a decent grade through the grammar-focused English classes they have. Luckily, my colleagues seem very reasonable, and have been nothing but helpful.

On a lighter (or graver?) note, this weekend is the National Day for Hungary, celebrating Hungarian... nationalism. It's actually a bit difficult to pinpoint what they're celebrating, since they haven't had much luck revolting against ANY of the foreign powers that have come, conquered, and re-conquered this place. March 15, 1848 was the day Hungary started a revolution against the Hapsburg Hemophiliacs (I kid,I kid, I'm sure there wasn't ANY inbreeding on the AUSTRIAN side...), which failed, though it weakened the Austrian powers until they finally tumbled down at the end of the 19th century, leaving Hungary to enjoy unfettered-ness for, like, five seconds, before being seized by the Nazis then the Soviets.* And they aren't exactly all there now, either. To phrase it in the words of 11th grade Attila: "Hungary is very much in the shits."



ANYHOOS, the high-school kids and the teachers were all dressed in black and white with Hungarian pins on their lapels, and it was all very interesting and somber. What amazed me most of all was the pride, the fierce love Hungarians have for Hungary, in spite of, and maybe even because of the fact that the government, the economy, health care, everything, is in the shitter (I mean truly in the toilet; America, by comparison, is enjoying a Tropical Punch CapriSun at a family picnic five miles away from said shitter).

It's damn near impossible to find a Hungarian who approves of the government, or thinks that things are great the way they are. Some Hungarians have told me despair is quite tangible here, and yet, they're still here somehow, and they still wave their Hungarian flags in earnest rather than as lip service. To me, that is patriotism. Acknowledging the faults of your country and loving it in spite of them. That is a demonstration of hope, and the only way a country can change itself for its people (thank you very much, Rush "Grotesque" Limbaugh).

I never realized until I left that I love America to tears.


*If any history is wrong, feel free to correct me.