A positive confirmation day

I was standing at the copier this morning, photocopying a test that I'd made that I was sure Balint was going to hide (he calls it "file") away and I would never see it again. I joked to Edit that I wanted just a copy of my baby. She smiled and said that they were lucky with me, that she appreciates finally getting a partner that she can count on. I almost cried.

Then at Avicenna one of my old students came and sat in on a class and thanked me for all my help with him last year. He said he got into university because of my work. I almost cried.

Then Mate commented that he finally realized how Americans and Hungarians are different at our Thanksgiving dinner this weekend (which was lovely and delicious! a dedicated post is sure to follow). How different we are! he marveled as I quietly raged that I had been saying that for over a year now. Wasn't I lonely? I explained the fact that I feel like I only have one Hungarian friend, that even the people I have that I really love, that I know care about me, haven't done everything to make me fully comfortable in their friendship by my cultural standards. That while my brain knows I am silly and cultural differences are real, sometimes I can't help but feel, really feel in my belly, that I'm totally useless here and nobody actually even notices my presence. And I finally burst into disgusting, hiccuping sobs in the middle of the sidewalk. And then I sobbed out all my angry frustration at my friends never inviting me to their homes, at everyone laughing at my attempts at Hungarian (in the oh-isn't-she-cute way, which still flusters me), at the fact that I can therefore talk in the conditional about economics but can't discuss the weather, at my lack of hugs, at just everything that a someone living abroad deals with and understands and embraces... but sometimes it still just feels lonely.

And poor Mate sat there and took it and looked terrified. And I feel much better now. The every-few-months cathartic sob is an interesting thing, because I feel it so passionately, and really mean it at the time. But as soon as it's over I move on and feel great again.

And it's weird, because I've had a great week. Everything has been going really, really well. I think it might have just been the shock that someone actually tried to understand me.

And now, the indisputably awesome part of my crazy life abroad: I'm off to a long weekend in Belgrade, done on night trains for next-to-nothing, where we will wander and sit and take photos of beautiful and exotic things. Not so rough, this life.