Study Leave and Other Lies

Have any of you seen that episode of Skins in which the college director abolishes study leave and forces all Year 13 students to revise "on the premises, 9 'till 4:30, no excuses, no exceptions". Well, that might be the kind of intervention I need now.

I'm not even kidding. The one month between the written and speaking exams - a.k.a. study leave - is intended to, you know, give us time to study, but for the exception of the first day - which I spent writing things to post on here - I have done absolutely nothing productive. Seriously, I've thought about everything I've done these past weeks, and this is all I could come up with:

1. I re-watched the entire first generation of Skins. Twice
2. I started watching the third generation of Skins, because why not give it a chance? But mostly because of Alex Arnold.
3. I obsessed over Alex Arnold. 
4. I went to an indie-music themed party, almost froze to death on the street as it started two hours late, and ended the night in a way that can be best described by Katy Perry's first hit single. 
5. I attempted to sort out the mess that USC created by failing to put my scholarship on my visa application form, but that issue is still very much ongoing. And it's causing me sleepless nights.
6. Tumblr.
7. This blog.

Yep. That's it really. I might have briefly gathered my thoughts on The Odyssey and the electoral system of Hungary, but it clearly hasn't been enough. My speaking exams start on the 16th, and I don't know a thing. And neither does anyone else in my class, apparently, because everyone else I've spoken to has been going to the beach, partying 24/7, feeding kittens and doing pretty much anything else to procrastinate. And that gets me wondering whether study leave is even worth it?

Because study leave is a lie. It gives you a false sense of comfort. It implies that you'll get to relax a little before the rest of your exams. It implies that you'll have plenty of time to study and catch up with what you failed to learn before. You put all your hopes in study leave, but then it lets you down by ending so quickly, and it is on your last night of your pseudo-freedom that you realize how little you've actually done...

And I'm not saying I don't study before exams, because I do. A lot. I pull all-nighters and drink five coffees a day and don't let myself get distracted, and guess what? It works. But then once I'm done, I enter a kind of state in which I am too tired to do anything and simply lie on my bed for days on end thinking about completely pointless things. And that's OK, because after an incredibly stressful period, it is alright to be really tired and exhausted. It's a normal post-exam state.

With exams coming in two waves, however, I'm an a post-exam state in a pseudo-post-exam period, as although I'm done with one half of the exams, I still have the second half left. And I should study, but I can't, because this is not what I'm used to. And I should return to the material that I've been cramming for weeks but what I've already forgotten, and learn it all again. And I wonder why this couldn't all be done in one go. Because then I wouldn't feel so guilty about procrastinating while writing posts such as this one right now...

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.

Explore USC: Day 1 - The Flight, the Hotel, and the Failed Quest to Buy a TAP Card

A photo I took in the shuttle that has nothing to do with this post.

On Wednesday, February 25th, at 2:30 a.m. precisely, a choir of alarm clocks went off in the southern suburbs of Budapest. One after the other, their soft but determined melodies merged into a terrible, buzzing cacophony, and the 18-year-old girl sleeping within striking distance was awoken, reluctantly crawling out of her bed.

Yeah. Basically, I set four alarm clocks just to make sure I didn't miss my flight to LA. Which leads me to...

The news is correct, I have been admitted to the University of Southern California!!!! For real!!! And yes, I know I'm delivering this in a pretty underwhelming way - considering how this is all I've ever wanted - but I promise to write the most enthusiastic post you've ever seen when or if I decide to attend. Because again yes, I have been nominated for a full-tuition scholarship, but the key is the word nominated, and I had to attend an interview that decides my fate  whether I get the money or not. And it was also this interview that ultimately drove me to LA, to this two day program called Explore USC.

 

My acceptance packages that are all over Instagram and Twitter

So, now that we've cleared all that up: the flight. Deciding that one connection was more than enough, I purchased a ticket to LA that was a tiny bit on the expensive side, but only had one occasion of changing planes, at Amsterdam Schiphol. The plane left at 6:30 a.m., so I had the airport shuttle pick me up at 4:00 a.m. - just in case - and I was already at the Budapest Airport by five. I had quite a lot of time left to linger around in duty free, which I spent by aggressively trying to find a WiFi network and sending all my friends a photo of the airplane. Just to make them jealous, y'now.

When I could finally board at 6:05 a.m. (gotta let all those very important Business Class people in front of me, who lo and behold looked less business-y, and more I'm-going-on-vacation-to-Hawaii-hence-I'm-wearing-boardshorts-y) I happily took my well-deserved window seat, next to a slightly grumpy businessman (the tourists took his Business Class seat, no wonder he was upset...) and a guy who enjoyed eating his sandwich more than I thought it was possible for an average human being, and concluded that for once, I would have a peaceful flight. That is, until a family of four with two babies sat right behind me. Typical.

Despite that, as it is, the flight itself was pretty uneventful. I was either staring out of the window, taking pictures, and repeating the words "so cool", or trying to guess what important business deal the grumpy man was trying to negotiate on his iPad the entire time. He seemed pretty invested in it, so I was devastated to find out by the end of the flight that what I thought were the terms a million dollar contract, was in fact Candy Crush. I even shed a tear. But at least by the end of the flight all his grumpiness dissipated and he started playing with the baby behind us, so that's an achievement. We even had a sweet little conversation at Schiphol, which - after spending nearly 45 minutes trying to cross it and almost missing my flight -  I affectionately named the Russia of airports. (Because of its size, get it...)

Half of the pictures I took were taken from the airplane. Just saying.

Now, KLM flight KL1972 from Budapest to Amsterdam is a friendly little plane, if you get what I mean, so when I spotted the gigantic intercontinental Titanic-sized beast that would transport me across the ocean, I did do a double take. Or quadruple. What's even worse that the queue waiting to board was basically longer than an entire moving walkway. I mean, forget businessmen and babies and reserved European passengers, people on this plane were everything from rodeo cowboys to valley girls. Sh*t was getting real.

So, when I booked my seat for this flight, I had two options: book one in the middle row, next to the toilets, or pay 40 Euros for one next to the window (the "Preferred Seat"). I went with the latter one, which ended up providing the perfect opportunity for my seatmate Paschal ("Like the unit of pressure?" "Yes. Thanks for calling me the unit of pressure.") to mock me. In a friendly way, anyway. But more on him in a second. See, the window seat certainly gave a nice view, but it also enclosed me in a sort of bubble from which I couldn't hear a thing, meaning that I couldn't watch a single film (the awful earphones they gave didn't help) and that poor Paschal had to yell at me so that I could hear him. Anyway, back to him: Paschal was a really cool guy from Virginia, who had an affinity for Dracula and tap water, and had spent a couple of months in Russia. He also told me how people in New Orleans with face tattoos get disability benefits, but I've searched online and sadly found no evidence of this being true. So Paschal and I had a lovely, lovely time during this 11-hour flight, dissing airplane food (He got the vegetarian food. I got the vegetarian pasta. There is a difference.), dissing World Business Class passengers, and noticing how the guy next to us was either snoring or downing shots at the bar. And noticing how KLM flights were dominated by male flight attendants (Air France too, as I found out on my way home. And I mean seriously, this was one of the few job positions with a predominantly female presence! My inner feminist is rising!) And noticing how they gave us more food than I usually eat in a week.

This might be Greenland. Or maybe Canada.

Enough about the flights, though! At 11:40 a.m. Los Angeles time (which is 8:40 p.m.  normal Budapest time) I began spotting palm trees. I began spotting snaking highways. I began spotting identical-looking houses - naturally all of them having swimming pools. We were in LA. At 11:45 a.m., we landed at LAX. (And, for the record, no, Miley Cyrus, I didn't just "hop off the plane at LAX". Getting off that plane was a struggle for survival.)

Border control was also a struggle for survival, as the lady there pretty much outright accused me of being an illegal immigrant and attempting to invade her country. And yes, I know it's her job to intimidate me et al, but I can't possibly comprehend why out of all people, she thought a girl with milkmaid braids and a stuffed animal in her hand would threaten US security. But then again, this is border control and I guess you just suck it up and try not to act sketchy. And I ended up being admitted, so all good.

And it's only now that I realize how much I've written, so let's speed up events. Basically, boyfriend Shane was supposed to pick me up at the airport, but he missed his flight from Colorado (verbatim, "I might not be in LA that early, babe, but I'll pick you up. I'll call you after take-off".) Now, kind of counting on him not making it, I asked one of my friends' boyfriend to pick me up as well, just in case, but he thought I was arriving at midnight  not at noon, so he couldn't make it either, and then I called about 5 of my other friends in LA, none of whom were in town, which made me seriously consider whether my arrival in the US was making everyone I know run like a jet stream from the city. Probably.

 

 The Theme Building, which you've seen in all LA tour books

This is LA. 

Yet this revelation didn't help me too much, so I dragged my luggage to the nearest Prime Time Shuttle station, payed $15 and arrived at the Radisson Hotel at USC within 40 minutes. I mean, who needs friends when you have cheap red vans and underpaid drivers? It was a bit early for me to check-in, so I dropped off my luggage and used the free hotel WiFi to send all my friends pictures of the LA palm trees. Just to notify them of my safe arrival. And of course to make them jealous.

My room at the Radisson was pretty cool. Except for my view. That was a parking structure.

After getting 45 questions on whether I was jet-lagged, and answering "No, not at all, jet-lag doesn't work on me" 45 times, I went on a quest to find the nearest Expo station and buy a TAP card (LA version of an Oyster card or whatever they call it where you live, unless you're Hungarian, because then you get an ugly piece of purple paper that no longer fits into your pass case). Needless to say, despite having a printed map and asking 5 different people, I failed miserably. On top of all that, by the time I got my room keys and took a shower, it was already 4 p.m., and since I didn't want to get back in the dark and the trip to Venice Beach would have taken 4 hours total, I had to cut that program from my schedule. Yep. Deep disappointment. No artsy pics of roller coasters and Ferris wheels for Layra.

Instead, I put my pajamas on, switched on the TV and tried to find Trojan Visions (the USC TV channel), failed at that too, hung the "DO NOT DISTURB" sign on the doorknob, set my four alarm clocks, and fell asleep at 5 p.m.. Day over.

(When I woke up, I was fresh and ready to start the next day. I glanced at the clock and it was only 7 p.m. Maybe I was jet-lagged, after all.)

TO BE CONTINUED WITH DAY 2. 
It won't be this long. I promise. Or not.

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.