The First Full Week

Getting Plugged In
One wonders how we ever got along without the internet and TV. When we first moved in the cable TV, internet and wifi were all disconnected. It took the usual 24-48 hours to get it up and working. I managed to sporadically get on an unsecured wifi but the MSU email system is very slow and I would be timed out before I could really go through all the emails. On Saturday I saw several emails I had to read but could not, so we went to a nearby internet café. We got an email telling us the system should be up and running. All we had to do was just reboot. We figured out that to reboot the system, we simply flipped the on/off switch off and then on. David our landlord had sent us the codes for his wifi and we successfully got on. We get several TV stations in English—CNN, Animal Planet, Discovery, Disney and the BBC. Most of the others are either Hungarian or dubbed in Hungarian. A few are in French or Italian.

On Sunday we set up a skype call with our daughter Emily from St. Louis. She called in and it worked very nicely. We both could see and hear each other. We plan to set up a call next weekend with our son Roger and his family including the two grandsons.

We got two local cell phones with Budapest numbers so that we can call each other locally and locals can contact us easily. Through Kristie Foley, who had been at Semmelweis two years ago we made contact with Kristen, a grad student living in Budapest and married to a Hungarian—social networking works! She helped us find a reasonably inexpensive set of phones and a pre-paid plan. They are plain non-flip phones, no cameras, and most important, no side buttons! On my regular cell phone I am constantly either turning off the ringer or taking a picture of the inside of my pocket or the floor.

Kristen also took us to WestEnd, a humongous shopping mall to find some electronic plug adapters for our computers etc. We also purchased a printer/scanner/copier for a very reasonable price, but the black and color cartridges together cost more than the printer. The unit works just fine. We scanned in some bills and receipts, saved them in pdf to the lap top and then emailed them to the landlords so we would know what to pay and when.

Academic Matters
Peter met me Monday morning and showed me how to get to the Public Health Institute. From our apartment it is four metro stops on the Blue line. The Institute is in a 30 story building. I was shown around the Institute and introduced to a number of faculty and staff. I will undoubtedly get to know them better in the coming weeks. My office is on the 21st floor. I will bring my laptop and plug into an ether net for web access. I am not plugged into the local server, which is all in Hungarian. It took another two days but I finally got a magnetic card that lets me into the building and elevators after hours and weekends, and at any time into the office hallways without having to ring a bell to get buzzed into the hallways like the students do.

The most interesting and intensive part of Monday morning involved oral examinations for several students in the English language program who had not passed the written exam. The students were at a table in Peter’s office. A younger professor handed out three slips of paper each with a question to each of the students. They were then given about a half hour to write down notes for their oral answers to the questions. Each in turn discussed their three questions. Peter listened attentively and would interrupt to ask a “why” question or “what is the most important aspect of ____.” His questions were aimed at eliciting a key point the students should have known.

One student did not pass and was very upset. The student could have had a second retry three days later, but had already booked an air flight home. After that another student indicated that it might be best if the oral part was taken next semester. I was aware from my trips to Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj Romania that the examination period extended over almost four weeks. This time is allocated to the oral retesting if the written test was failed—repechage (second-chance round). It is a lot more formal and public than the US practice of having individual students come and petition to find a few more points to raise their grade.

Afterwards, Peter and I sat down and I told him of the dates when I had Fulbright obligations—orientation the whole first week of February, the first Fridays of Feb, Mar, Apr and May when all the Fulbrighters in Hungary come to Budapest for an all day meeting and get together, and the third week in March when we will be in Berlin for the German Fulbright spring seminar. He told me that spring break was the last week in March just before Easter. He will finalize my teaching program at the Institute and also inquire about some possible lectures at the Health Services Management Training Center.

On Tuesday Tari and I went to the Fulbright office to meet with Annamaria Sas. She made sure we were settled in with respect to the transit cards, shopping etc. She filled us in a bit on what to expect during the Fulbright orientation week. But the best thing was that my two boxes of books had arrived. The Fulbright grant provided money to purchase books and educational materials that would remain in Hungary. In the fall I had asked Peter if he and his colleagues wanted any books. He emailed back a list of seven. I then went on Amazon and ordered the seven plus another seven that I had listed in the two syllabi I had submitted as part of my application. I added two or three other books on public health and medical sociology I had in my office that were either duplicates or the previous edition. Just before Christmas we put them in two large US post office priority mail flat rate boxes that had been advertised on TV. We shipped them to DC where they were put in a diplomatic pouch and sent to Budapest. Since the Fulbright office was half way between our apartment and my Semmelweis office, we took them directly to the office. One of the books order by a faculty member was of interest to me, so I am taking some notes from it before handing out the books.

On Wednesday Peter took me to the Faculty of Health Science to meet a young colleague of his. Helga is an assistant professor in the Department of History of Health Culture with an interest in history and sociology. The Faculty of Health Science is an undergraduate bachelor’s degree program added to Semmelweis University a few years ago. It is located in an old hospital building that has been nicely refurbished. The courtyard has become a covered atrium and is very open and airy. We discussed the possibility of my giving some lectures to the students in the program and also a lecture at a University in Eger. Helga teaches Social Norms. She is doing research comparing the English Public Health Act of 1848 and the first Hungarian Health Act of 1876. I said I would be happy to help her out by reading the English Act and discussing it with her. She talked with her faculty and it looks like I will be asked to give a few lectures in April and May.

On Thursday I found out I would be giving eight lectures on Wednesday afternoons. I would have given three more but the first Wednesday was in the Fulbright orientation week, and then two in March were taken up with a lecture in Szeged that Peter had arranged, and the German Fulbright Spring Seminar that I wanted to attend in Berlin. I had to condense two 15 week syllabi. I proposed a list of 11 topics. Peter and I will meet next week with the coordinator of the English language program at Semmelweis to finalize the eight topics I will present.

On the Home Front
When we are at the WestEnd Mall we looked at the new washing machines. We found several that were like the one in the apartment. The door opens on the top but the drum stands on its side just like a front loader. To put clothes in the washer you slide open a panel and two panels in the drum flip up. The drum is very small, about 16" in diameter by 9" wide. Tari felt much better about using the one in the apartment. It was big enough for eight shirts or eight sets of men’s underwear. In a way it's a good thing the washer is so small because the drying rack would not hold much more. Kristin warned us that it might take two days for a load of laundry to dry but the underwear only took one afternoon and night.

And yes I finally found a jar of peanut butter at the Match in the basement of the Central Market. It was the last one on a shelf between the canned salted peanuts and the beer!