Gloomy Monday

I decided that perhaps this pansy had a scowl. That's how I felt. I walked in the rain to my office early to print out things for a class tomorrow as well as journal articles needed for next week's doctoral nursing class. I couldn't get onto the Internet for nearly 20 minutes and then when I thought I had, I kept getting messages from Foxfire that someone told me meant, "This site isn't reliable." I tried another computer, got the same result. Then we found that the projector hadn't been delivered for the class today, so we thought perhaps we could have the class in my office -- except that is when I found out my office computer won't read the flash drive. This sort of thing just went on and on all day. For me it was an inconvenience, but a good lesson in productivity. It takes so much longer here sometimes to get something done. I also encountered a colleague  I work with very upset over recent University decisions. It was a real learning day -- I'm seeing the consequences of just not enough money to make the system work.

Yet the students are great -- they patiently waited for us to make an alternative plan. Can you believe it took 20 minutes to print out four pages of a PowerPoint handout? This was plain black and white, nothing fancy,. Then it took more minutes to make a few copies of this for the students. What I wanted to do would have taken at most two minutes in the United States. One has to admire the people for keeping on when faced with frustrations like this all the time.


Last week the students told me they are expecting their country will be better in two generations What faith!

Here is a view of those who will make things better. They are busy in the empty fountain in front of the Szinhaz. My colleague who has been coming back and forth to Pecs for 20 years tells me he has never seen water in this fountain. Perhaps this year when Pecs is a Capital of Culture? But if this gets filled with water -- where will the children play?