Mikulás!

In Hungary (and many other places in Europe) Santa (Mikulás, a distortion of Miklos, which is the Hungarian version of Nicholas) doesn't come on Christmas eve. He comes the night of December 5th and leaves little presents in your shoes, and then Christmas eve family presents are exchanged. More on Mikulás here.

Yesterday College International hosted a Mikulas party. It started with food (which we showed up late for and missed out on) and was followed by presentations from different countries. There are (I believe) about 45 countries represented by College International. BSM is not the only program that takes classes in this building, this is also where the McDaniel: Budapest campus is, and there's also some sort of pre-med program. The McDaniel students presented some Christmas carols, a Japanese girl played piano, some of the Israeli students lit a menora and said a Hannukah blessing since it was the second night of Hannukah, the Skandenavian students did a Santa Lucia procession with candles, and two Chinese students performed, one on Bamboo flute and the other some sort of Karaoke.

After the performances there were games, karaoke, movies and Greek dancing. The BSM students got put in charge of the 'Mind Games' room. We were good, nerdy students and played Set, did the Red hat/Black hat logic puzzle and Bill read some minds using math. Casey and I went back to her and Voula's after that, she and I did some Number Theory, and then the three of us watched Love Actually.

This morning I was sitting at the breakfast table and Éva ran out to buy more bread. When she came back she told me that she had run into Mikulás on the street and that he wanted her to let me know that I had been a good girl and that he wanted me to have a foil wrapped chocolate Santa.


Today is the day Kate gets here! And it's Voula's birthday! The 8 of us (Me, Kate, Voula, Casey, Luke, Zeb, Mihály and Aaron) are going out to celebrate after I pick Kate up from the airport. Tomorrow is Halcy's birthday and she's organized a (drunken) walking tour of Budapest to celebrate that. I'm excited for that, since it'll be a good way for Kate to see the city and meet some more of my friends. Saturday night is the talent/no-talent show I've been (sort of) organizing, which cuzzie will also be here for. Talents I've heard might possibly be performed are a guitar duet, a Rubik's cube being solved while Dan stands on one foot and holds his breath, and Kyle shoulder pressing Voula. There will be much more, I'm sure, since we have two guitars and a piano at our disposal.

In school-ey news I have decided that I am going to audit Algebra since I have absolutely no idea what is going on in that class, and haven't for over a month. The material is too abstract, I don't get enough one on one time with the professor, and our schedule was so funny for a while (several missed classes, and several 3 hour long marathon classes to make up for it) it threw me off.

Two problems with deciding to audit:

1.) I will probably only be recieving between 9 and 12 credits for all the work I have done here, leaving me a bit behind on my credit requirements, which means I will have to take 2 classes this summer instead of the one I was expecting.

2.) I was intending on taking Abstract Algebra 2 with one of my favorite professors from LC, Naiomi Cameron, next semester, but since I am having so much trouble with Algebra I don't think I'll be able to take it. I wrote her telling her this, and she wrote back, saying that only 2 of us, myself and Amy, are registered for that class for next semester, and only one other person is considering taking it. If I don't take it, the class might be cancelled altogether. She told me that even though I'm auditing, if I have picked up enough this semester in Algebra 1, that she will let me take Algebra 2 next semester. The problem is that I'm not sure if I've picked up enough... this is something I'll have to figure out...

For now it's time to do a little Number Theory, then go to Abstract. Then more number theory, then braving the long ride on public transportation to the airport. Hooray!!

Note on the absence of pictures: My camera is no longer recognized by my computer when I plug it in. It's a problem with the camera, not the computer. I also have the largest memory card in existence in my camera, so it doesn't fit in anyone else's camera (You know, so I could put it in someone else's camera and plug it in to my computer) besides Aaron's. So I need to get ahold of Aaron's camera and upload some pictures because I took a bunch of my walk to school and my neighborhood and of course, a lot more of my friends.