So I Graduated!

There were so many great pictures of me, that I decided to choose the worst.

You guys...

on April 30, 2015, I actually GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL! I mean, technically, I still had all my finals left, but that's just a minor and insignificant detail, because what even depends on those? I mean, apart from our future...

Graduation invites

So graduation in Hungary is a little different from graduation everywhere else in the world, and by that, I don't just mean the absence of caps & gowns. Want to know how it all went down? Continue reading, guys!

Exhausted juniors get up at five in the morning to arrive at school before we do, and decorate the building with flowers they secretly chopped off their neighbors' well-kept lilac bushes or even potentially off their own very lilac bushes, as lilacs are the flowers traditionally used for graduation. This is not too much of a fun activity, believe me. Last year, we forgot to bring scissors and therefore were cutting flowers with a razor blade. By the end we were so exhausted, that we were just tackily sticking flower stems on the walls with Sellotape. Yep. This year, based on what I saw, something similar must have happened, but I didn't really care because the amazing scent of flowers and the general look of the school left me quite touched.

My class and our beautifully decorated classroom.

So many flowers. And you guys, those bows actually had our names on them!

Us seniors only had to arrive at half past nine, as we had one last class with our tutor in our actually beautifully decorated classroom. She adorably started crying midst her speech (!!), which also made me cry of course, so there went all my make-up. She also gave each of us a little goodbye present, we took a couple of group photos, and after that our parents arrived to give us our flowers. It was also then that we received our "tarisznya-s", which are little fabric bags with our year of graduation on it. Traditionally, tarisznya-s contain a biscuit, a small bag of salt, a coin ( a 2 Ft coin in our case, which is not even used anymore) and a card with the name of every graduating senior on it.

Erm...this is the card. I guess you can imagine what biscuits and salt look like. The 2 Ft coin? It looks like this.

My class, 13. C <3

Oh, and our top secret tableau - the one I needed my senior portrait for - was also displayed in our classroom. And if you didn't know already, it's based off "Lunch atop a Skyscraper", and it was my idea, because who else is obsessed with New York and old photography? And if you didn't know what tableaux (tableaus? It's French...) are for, well they're hung up in the halls once a class has graduated.

Here it is! Our tableau!
(Though in the end they decided to choose the B&W version, because certain people believe they look better on that one. Delusional.)

Aaaand...you can also see my disastrous senior portrait finally. Sorry about the reflections, I don't have a digital copy yet.

Once all the parents were herded out of the building kindly asked to leave, we started the part of graduation, from which the whole thing actually got its name (graduation in Hungarian is "ballagás", literally translated to "ambling"): strolling through the school. With our bouquets in our left hands, and our right hands on the shoulder of the person in front of us, we started walking down the halls. I guess we were also supposed to sing graduation songs, but a CD took care of that. As we made our way out into the schoolyard, we went into a couple of classrooms, the cafeteria (where we got free pizza sticks!!!) and the gym (where we had to walk down the balance beam).

Leaving our classroom

Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball...

The gym.

More walking.

And even more walking.

Finally leaving the school building.

After taking our seats in the schoolyard, the ceremony begun. Erm...I'll admit I didn't really pay attention, but there was some off-key singing done by the choir, someone read a poem, and about half of the graduating seniors got books for one reason or another, with me being one of them as I got the BEST AWARD OF ALL AWARDS. You guys, for the second time in a row, I got the Student of the Year award, which is, like, better than being valedictorian. It basically makes you the coolest person in the school, because it's a school-wide award (so I'm not just the best out of graduating seniors). I already got this award last year and I didn't know I could get it twice, but that just makes it even cooler. I mean...people didn't really care that much, the guy who got a book for playing guitar in the school band got louder applause (probably because I was screaming his name, though...) but I don't care. It also means that my good friend and greatest enemy Adam can only be the second in the competition. Ha! Because it was always the two of us competing against each other. But now it's over. I won! Ha!

Also NOTE: never take me 100% seriously guys, I'm not trying to show off, and if you knew me as well as I know my self, you'd also know that I really didn't deserve this award. And that Adam would have. (BTW, my prize was a certificate and book on art in the middle ages. Last year it was a book on art in Tuscany. I see a pattern.)

The flagpole, on which the graduating classes tie a ribbon. Ours was not too pretty. It was made in the cemetery, out of ribbon usually meant for wreaths. Just FYI.

Getting my award.

Showing off my superior intelligence

The other super cool thing that happened was that I gave a speech! Again! Except that unlike last time, I didn't mess it up! And people actually loved it! Even though I wrote it the night before! Yep. And even though I mentioned the fact that back in junior year, we tried to determine how strictly our German teacher would be grading us that day by what color shirt she was wearing! And our German teacher also happens to be our vice-principal! And she didn't even disapprove!

The only negative happening was that my balloon burst while cheering for my friend Erik, so I couldn't let it go...and I know that I saved some poor birds with that, but it still broke my heart a tiny bit because...because what if that's the universe trying to communicate something?? What is the world is telling me not to soar? Not to fly away to America? Not to inadvertently poison pigeons?

Let it gooooo, let it goooooooooo

Off they go! (except mine)

In all seriousness, though, my graduation from high school was a bittersweet, once-in-a-lifetime, heartbreaking but amazing day in my life, and I am so thankful for everyone who came & supported me and brought me flowers, and I'm even more thankful for my entire class and all my teachers for these awesome five years. I couldn't have been more wrong back in 2010, when I thought I would hate this place. I loved it, and I always will.

More pictures:

ME (and a concerned Petra behind me)

More me, because good hair day, that's why

Adam there behind me isn't too pleased

And even more me.

Me and my sister and my cousin who's also my sister.

Mommy & Daddy :)

Math class gang. We are badass.

There we sat in the sun.

Photo credit: Mom, Dad, Luca & Luca's mom. Thank you!

Pre-Graduation Madness

Warning! Certain people could potentially find this post offensive, so if you think you're one of those people who are easily offended, leave NOW. If you have experienced high school life in all its glory, feel free to continue. I promise you, it's not worse than BuzzFeed posts.

There are three traditions high school students in Hungary have pre-graduation.

1) Serenade - During this one, we visit our teachers homes and sing songs for them in front of their houses until they have enough and kindly ask us to stop, or else the neighbors will call the police. Or something like that...

Our wonderful class decided to serenade four teachers, with varying levels of success.

CASE A: Our Biology teacher. Some of my highly intelligent classmates decided to go drinking right before the serenade and as a result, by the time we got to her house, they were howling like hungry hounds at the moon, and our poor teacher hated it so much that she stopped us mid-song. This was the very same teacher who kindly asked us not to go there drunk, because her previous class threw up all over her dog and she had to pull out sleeping individuals from her doghouse at 5 a.m.. Yes, and despite that, the majority of my class decided to largely ignore her request and pee all over the streets prior to arriving, then pee all over her bathroom whilst taking selfies in the bathtub, and leave only after being kicked out by our poor Biology teacher. Because y'now, this is totally not disrespectful. I don't even know why I'm even putting this on the Internet. Our teacher even decorated the entire garden with candles (which was SO beautiful) and baked for us, and in the end...ugh. Needless to say, I didn't stay for too long. Two of my friends and I were the earliest ones to leave, and it was a shame, because I really like my biology teacher...

CASE B: Our History teacher. This was our second and final day of serenades and we had school the next day, so it was more tame. We walked up to her house, sang three songs, were invited in, had a sandwich and a cookie, played with her dog, and left. It started getting a little chilly outside, though, and we had two more places to go, and then it started raining and I was wearing nothing but a leather jacket, so the night started going a little downhill...

CASE C: Our Math teacher/tutor. Our tutor lives 10 minutes from me, so I asked my mom to bring me a sweater. And another sweater. And my ski jacket, as it was getting colder every minute. And I'm so glad she did, because when we got to her house at around 8, my ears were starting to freeze off. I put on a sweater AND my ski jacket, and gave my other sweater to my friend, who was already wearing two sweaters and a jacket. We serenaded our tutor and had cake and sausages, which was all great and everything, but we were sitting in her garden and did I already mention how cold it was??? Our tutor kept bringing us blankets and pillows as we huddled together in little groups around candles, trying to warm our hands. This is when the idea of carrying around a space blanket in my bag occurred to me. We were still sitting in the garden at around 10 p.m., about to fall asleep, when we decided to leave for the next serenade. The joys of life!

That's me on the far left. Yes, I really was wearing my ski jacket.

CASE D: Our German teacher. After getting off the bus and walking a the length of a Marathon, we arrived at her house and started singing. At 11 p.m.. The neighbors must have loved us. I already felt really bad about arriving so late, but when we went inside (because yes, she actually allowed us to go in), oh my goodness...it was like a fricking wedding reception! So. Much. Food. I repeat, FOOD! I mean, she had sculptures carved out of fruits, and five different types of cookies, and meatballs and I bet she even gave my class a five tier wedding cake after I left, because I left pretty early once again. And she gave each of us little German storybooks! I just wish we had gone there first...

2) "Thank You" Reception - This was just a little reception we held for our teachers to say thank you for everything. We gave them all food and gifts (mostly gift cards, because we're not very creative), sang a song and that was it.

Singin' in our classroom...

My wonderful class & tutor & assistant tutor.

3) Crazy graduation (this is the best translation I could come up with) - During crazy graduation, graduating students dress up and walk into classes yelling and laughing, and sometimes even destroy school property. I suggested we dress up in beach clothing, and throw around beach balls, mainly because summer never seemed to arrive in this country, but also because it's simple and fun. But no, our class decided to dress as bookworms. Like, actually. I don't know how anyone can actually dress up as a bookworm, but their idea was to basically dress as stereotypical nerds. We were told to wear knee socks and polka dot shirts and high waist skirts, which is, well, pretty much what I wear all the time, so I did feel a little offended that my everyday attire would be used for something called "crazy graduation". But who am I to complain?
Our plan was apparently to go into class and give everyone candy, while one of my classmates starts reading something out loud from one of their textbooks (but in German class all my classmate said was "Mein Kampf"), or parodies the teacher's teaching style, until he is interrupted by another one of my classmates, who hands him a Sexology textbook and asks him to teach from that. From there, it went as follows:
"You know kids, there are the bees, and there are the flowers. Bees pollinate flowers. Sometimes, a bee pollinates multiple flowers. This is called prostitution. Prostitution is wrong. Sometimes, flowers grow on street corners..."
...and you can all guess how offensive it got from there on. Oh dear. The worst part is, he was reading this to 14-year-olds, and we were the only ones laughing...But hey, at least we didn't opt for blackface, or dressing as runaway lunatics, like the other senior classes.

Minus the stupid, fake plastic glasses, the mismatched shoes and the pigtails, I literally wore that outfit the previous week. (I'm the one with the heart print shirt, if you couldn't tell).

Yeah, so that's it basically. The beautiful pre-graduation traditions of Hungary, completely desecrated by today's society. I hope you aren't too shaken by this post. If you are, I'm sorry. I wrote it because I wanted to remember all these things.

Photo credit: Luca, the photographer of our class.

GRADUATION BALL!!

That is right, everyone!

Time has arrived.

Curiosity won't kill the cat.

It is now.

You can all finally read about this very, very special, once-in-a-lifetime event, which I have mentioned so many times before, yet never truly discussed. You can finally read about my graduation ball, this impatiently awaited celebration, which I had been dreaming about every second night, which didn't go unmentioned for a single day, which ultimately did live up to my expectations and become an experience that will be etched into my memory until the moment of my death. Or at least that's the plan.

So, now that I've got that painful introduction off my chest, I shall first recount you all a little background information, so that you guys actually know what I am blabbering about. First things first: graduation ball is not the same as a prom, or even a Leaver's Ball, or a formal. As a matter of fact, it is not even called graduation ball in Hungarian (we just called it that at my former school, BIS), but "Szalagavató", which literally translates to "inauguration of ribbons". Why ribbons? In Hungary, it's a tradition for seniors to receive a ribbon, with the school's name and the year of graduation on it, which they then wear as a badge for the rest of the year. To help you visualize it, here is mine:

(taken with phone, don't lecture me on the overexposure)

Now, the ribbon pinning is meant to be the most important part of the ceremony, but at some point in history, an actual ball part - you know, with dancing et al - was added, and ever since, whenever high school students or their parents or anybody else thinks about grad ball, they think about the waltz. The waltz, which girls dance in wedding dresses, and guys dance dressed as penguins, to make it fair to everyone. Yep. You think that's all, though? Think again, as once again at a certain point in history, somebody decided that a single dance performance was not enough, so individual class dances are now performed as well.

Yep. That's right. It's kind of a huge deal. And I haven't even mentioned the after-party yet.

So how did all this mayhem materialize when it came to MY graduation ball? Well, my friends, the time has come for you to find out. Now, you shall see a timeline of events:

8:00 AM: Pulling my carry-on luggage behind me and holding a large, purple sack containing my beautiful dress, I hop into my grandpa's car and drive out of town, onto the motorway, leaving my wondrous capital city behind in order to find the very special sports arena with the cheap rent that is to be my home for the day. 

8:30 AM: I turn up. I lock the car and head inside, but only after dropping the contents of my bag in the parking lot and having to climb under a car to retrieve my phone charger. Why did I even bring a phone charger? Anyway, nothing unexpected has happened yet.

9:10 AM: This changing room is tiny. It's also really, really hot. I have a feeling that the school might have accidentally rented a sauna for us to change in.

9:30 AM: Dress rehearsal commences. My tutor and substitute tutor have baked us cake, and instead of pinning our ribbons, they hand us brownies! They are the sweetest, and I want to hug them. The teachers, not the food.

10:00 AM: Rehearsal of my speech. Everything's good, I am convinced that I will ace this. Little do I know what is waiting for me...

 ~~fast forward (a.k.a. I don't have a vague idea about what happened in these next couple of hours)~~

13:00 PM: Waltz rehearsal, stylishly late. These dancing shoes they gave me are murdering my feet. It's a slow and painful death. Also, all the girls are wearing their underskirts, and we look ridiculous. I am no way going to dance in these shoes. The skirt will hide my feet. How does that Patti Smith song go? "I'm dancing barefoot..."

1:30 PM: Let's take five! Let's take five! Now!

2:00 PM: Make-up session. I spent about $50 on this foundation, and I bought a separate brush for it. It better be good.

2:05 PM: Two possibilities: A) Estée Lauder foundation is crap and I wasted all my money. B) Estée Lauder foundation is good, only I don't know how to use it.

2:50 PM: Make-up done. Not even all the tears and sweat can ruin my look. Only my false eyelashes are falling off, but I've kindly asked the make-up artist lady to fix it for me. I should probably offer to pay for it, but I have no cash left thanks to...

3:00 PM: The hairdresser! She pulled half of my hair out the last time, but she is actually doing a decent job now. My hair looks like that of a normal person. I mean...kind of. Yeah, only kind of.

4:30 PM: I put the uniform on, but my head doesn't fit through and my hairpin gets caught in a thread and disaster follows...

5:00 PM: I phone my mom impatiently, and scream at her. They'll be late and all the good seats will be taken. And then they won't be able to take good pictures of me, which I then won't be able to upload to Facebook hang on my wall.

5:30 PM: People are arriving. People are weird. I'm starting to worry that someone else will have black lace on her dress as well. Because these are the things I worry about. Not the fact that I have to submit a university application the following day. That's right.

6:00 PM: People have arrived! Everyone is here! Yay! Yaaay! LET THE SHOW BEGIN!

6:15 PM: We emerge  on the basketball court on stage, triumphantly snake around for a minute, then take a seat. You guys, it's happening! It's real!

Tryin' so hard not to fall over.

6:40: PM It's time for our pinning! I think I'm about to get emotional...I think I'm about to start sobbing. I don't have any tissues with me. My name is called. My portrait appears on the screen. I take a deep breath, and step forward.

(I'm the one on the left if you couldn't tell...those three words are my name)

The moment the needle penetrates my collar...

6:50 PM: Time has come for my speech! It's OK. I'm not even worried. I've rehearsed it several times, and it went well. Who are we kidding, I even know it by heart! I begin speaking...I'm through three sentences, but then...am I sure this is coming next? I pause. I look at my transcript. I frantically search for the part where- I lost my line I- I- sh*t, I should probably speak on. Sh*t, I just messed up my speech. Dammit. It's all gone wrong. Breathe. Breathe. Continue.

Appearance: calm. Reality: panic & hysteria.

6:52 PM: I finish my speech and traumatized, I walk back to my class. They did not just stick their tongues out at me, did they? Horrible, horrible people. I love them.

7:00 PM: We stride out and prepare for our class dance, and this is when I lose track of time... In between changing and actually getting to perform, this guy from our class and I do a chicken dance along the corridor, at a certain point and for no apparent reason I declare my love for him, I get yelled at for deciding not to go to the after-party, and I realize that said guy is about to put me on his shoulders during the dance. Oh well...

Between 7 and 8 PM: Our class dance!!! The concept is convicts and lawyers, and no, it wasn't my idea. I wanted flappers and cops, and Charleston music. We are wearing stupid fake plastic glasses and I can't see a thing. The guys have stupid fake nylon tattoos and they don't look too comfortable either. I also don't think the shirts we're wearing are made for dancing. An arm raise is enough for this performance to turn inappropriate. Here's what's happening:

Yep. In retrospect it looks pretty cool, I must admit. After performing our dance two times, so that it's visible for both sides of the audience, we sit down and enjoy this little video about our five years at this school. I notice that I appear significantly few times in it. Oh well...

This is my only noticeable appearance in the video, and I look as if I had just come back from a jog. I know it's a USC hoodie, but still. 

About 8:30 PM: OK, so unbeknownst to us, our marvelous teachers have also prepared a dance performance. This night is getting better. The two teachers who actually have doctorates enter wearing lab coats and stethoscopes, and the rest of the staff shuffle in, all wrapped in towels and demonstrating convincing acting skills by playing ailing old people. Geronto-dance! Rad! But wait what...why are they undressing? I might not want to see this after all. What the-

Oh right. Cue ABBA music. Dressed for the seventies. I'm lovin' it. I told you I'm lovin' it.

9:00 PM: Time has come for what we've all been waiting for. The waltz. I'm suffocating. There is no air in the changing room, and my corset is compressing my ribs. At the dress salon, they told me I'm supposed to feel "delicate" in this. I don't, I feel more like a whale. The diameter of the dress is inversely proportional to the diameter of my corset. As one gets smaller, the other gets larger, and I must say that my corset is minuscule.

9:10 PM: I will let the pictures speak. 

(Also, if you're new to my blog, I booked that dress in April. Nobody books dresses in April. I loved that dress. Nobody had a dress like that. I have eternal love for that dress. That. Dress.)

9:30 PM + Meet and greet. I waltz with all of my family members and take pictures with all my friends and try to not step on my dress. That dress...It's gotten kind of busy and thousands of people are crammed on this poor basketball court and I can't find anybody I'm looking for and I keep bumping into people who demand photos with me, but that's OK. It's OK, because I'm crying a little bit, and I have an urge to hug everyone I see. I love these people, I do. And in a couple of months, we'll graduate and I'll probably never see them again. We just danced our goodbye waltz. We looked so beautiful tonight. We probably are, too. All the time. Only, we don't notice it. We're too young to notice...

A while ago, I wrote a song for graduation ball. It's really, really trite, and really, really unlike me, but for an occasion such as this one, that doesn't really matter. It was such an elating experience, dancing there in those swishy, sparkling ball gowns, proudly standing there as they pinned my ribbon, dancing with all the people I've grown to adore. Anyway, I digress. I once wrote this incredibly cheesy song, and it goes something like this:

"This is our night,

Then we'll have to let it all go
We'll have to fight

And not just go with the flow

We'll start our flight

And we'll learn how to cope

'Cause we've survived

And we're unstoppable now..."

Yeah, that song is even worse than I remembered.

*Note: Most of these pictures were taken by my family members, but some were taken by the relatives of my friends. I've done my best to separate the photos based on their sources, but it's gotten a bit mixed up. I'd like to thank everybody who took the time to take pictures, and I'll always be grateful for all the effort put into taking them.