Until recently October 23 has not had a very long tradition in the history of Hungarian state holidays. Up to the 1990s it had not even been considered to be a date worth commemorating. The so called Third Republic of Hungary was, however, declared on that day in 1989 and since then the people in the country have been celebrating it with more or less enthusiasm depending on their political commitment on the left or right.
Since the present government came to power last year the celebration seems to have become a tug of war between the children of the new-old mainstream elite of the communist past and those of the second-rate leaders who, having no other choice to exert any kind of political power, had to become representetatives of the so called conservative national right wing. The latter without sufficient real weight are able to win all the unimportant votings in the country but are unable to seize the mass support of the public and come to power to form a government like they did in the first elections in 1990 and in 1998.

I do not like watching Tv because none of the programmes are interesting to me. The other day on one of the channels there was a programme lasting for a whole hour about people with weight problems. I can understand that being overweight can result in very serious health problems including hypertonia, diabetes and heart disease. I also understand that the public must be informed about the risks and hazards of the problem but I can hardly accept that showing ugly-looking characters for a whole hour in the period when the greatest number of spectators are sitting in front of the box is the only possible way of advertising otherwise sound messages. I am really concerned that even the most uncritical audience gave it up after a couple of minutes and decided to switch to something more educational, explanatively amusing like Győzike's show.

Can mail dancers push themselves forward easier?

The other day having a conversation about carreer prospects with one of my acquaintances, who attends a school for dancers, she complained that it is much easier for men to be successful than women. In principle I accepted her arguments because it seemed true that more women than man try to earn a living as professional dancers and competition is so ferocious that only the most determined and dedicated can win. She made a further remark about promotion fuelled by sex that made me think later especially because she also mentioned that she had no chances with her trainer as he prefers boys.

If that is true, and we accept that in certain professions sex has more importance than it should, we must come to the conclusion that it does not matter whether the dancer is male or female. Those who wish to build up their carreer on the fundament of sex instead of talent, dedication and hard work will not succeed anyway. Regardless of their gender they will only become disillusioned and disappointed prostitutes blaming others and the injustice of the cruel world instead of their own stupidity.

Reaction to True Education

Socrates suggested that one should “Look into their own selves and find the spark of truth that God has put into every heart and that only they can kindle to a flame”. I think this is true because when we are born we cannot do things like for example standing up, walking, speaking, etc. So we must acquire all these. These things are rather hard for young babies who do not know how to speak or walk, however, they are born with a certain potential that helps them to overcome most of the difficulties and by the end of the first year after birth they will have acquired the most important basic skills.
The first years are also very important for young children because there are things which are programmed in their memories (the potential for walking and speaking) and they have got things which they have to learn for example how to ride a bicycle, read and write, or speak foreign languages. These, however, are not too difficult because they can be mastered through practice. In primitive societies there is not much difference between the activities of the adults and the young, the games of the latter constitutes the preparation for becoming a helpful member of the community, which is achieved by almost all.
Somewhat different is the case in the more sophisticated industrial societies in which the intellect of the country have to go through academic training in the course of which applying to “the rules of reason, the inner knowledge of what is proper for men to be and do” may not be enough. How can one be able to “to sift evidence” without having a firm basis of knowledge to recognize what is evidence and what is false, misleading information?
In my opinion the problem quite often is that the educators themselves are not really aware of what is important and tend to oversize the load of material or overemphasize the importance of their own field of interest, which result in “indigestible mass of material”. Nevertheless, the acquisition of the basic skills including the important facts of evidence is inevitable.

I can hardly call my first day at school a real first day. As a major in Hungarian language and literature I've been attending the University of Miskolc for several years. Nevertheless, a first day is always first in a sense that however long you've been eroding the stairs in the building and furniture in the classrooms, you can always have unexpected and unwelcome surprises when you come to school after a long interval for the first time.
What actually happened to me was that I simply couldn't register with Neptun despite all my efforts. The system of network simply seemed to neglect all my trials, didn't recognize my pin, refused to remember any of my previous records. I got really frightened, contacted every secretary I have contacts with including Marika néni, but none of them were of any help. Nor were the otherwise very helpful and efficient girls at the students' office of study matters. Even Attila Lengyel was away. I was thinking of asking my dad for help but knowing his computer operating skills I decided not to.
In the end I came home with the embarassing feeling of not completing the first day's task. My second day wasn't any better either. Actually it was only on the fourth day that I was able to arrange all the necessary administrative work and have myself registered as Hungarian major and English minor student.