My School Years in Romania, in the 60's and 70's

A Nostalgic View Across Decades and Thousands of Miles

For those of you who are in school, have school age children, are teachers yourselves, or simply, would like to know more about Romania, here it is: a description of what schooling used to be when I was in the system. To give you an idea, I started First Grade in 1961. Some things have changed in the meantime, but not everything. Later on, I will try to convince a friend of mine who is a schoolteacher in Romania to give you her view of schooling nowadays.

Now, as a person who has lived in the United States for many, many years, and who now has school age children, I can draw comparisons between the two systems, and between Then and Now. And according to my own evaluation, there are quite a few things that were done better when I was in school.

Aside from the oppressive political system in those days, the education was pretty good. In fact, I think that policymakers in this country could adopt some of the ideas from the educational system that I am writing about here.

Before Grade School

You had to be at least 7 years old to be able to enroll in first grade. Before that, you could stay at home, do nothing, learn a few things from your parents if they were inclined to teach you something or you could go to a state run pre-school. You could basically go to pre-school at the age of 4. At the pre-school where I went, there were three levels, the "Little Ones", the "In-Betweens" and the "Big Ones". Certain skills were taught at each level. For instance, I remember that we were required to learn to tie shoelaces in order to promoted from the Intermediate level to the Advanced one. Well, I thought I could trick my teacher and went to her with a perfect knot (done by somebody else). She made me untie it and then tie it back in front of her. Of course, I was sent back to "study" some more. We had music, art lessons; we were encouraged to get creative. At the end of the year, we had recitals with singing, dancing, poems, etc. We wore beautiful costumes and were proud if we were selected for a solo number. Children were encouraged to resolve disputes by themselves. I was very skinny and children were pushing me around. When my parents complained to the teachers, the response was "We generally do not get involved except in extreme circumstances. If you child is being pushed, she should push back." As simple as that. That did not lead to any violence either. Walking alone to and from school was no problem even at that age.

And there were no negligence lawsuits either. Nobody would ever dream of bringing a lawsuit against a school, a teacher, a colleague or the like. There were no such lawsuits period. I remember that once in pre-school we were required to bring penknives and cork to school so that we could carve designs into the bottle corks. Nobody thought anything of it. When I cut my finger deeply and then developed a severe infection that required surgical intervention, I cried but nobody would have thought of holding anybody accountable. It was just tough luck! Something similar happened in first or second grade. We did not have pencil sharpeners and used razor blades to sharpen our pencils. While doing that, my then desk mate cut me deeply on my chin. Blood spurted out in all directions. No teacher was present because it was break time. I got scared and so did my friend. I called her "Stupid idiot, imbecile, and so on and so forth and she was repeating after me: I am an idiot, an imbecile, etc. We then went to clean me up at the bathroom sink. I still have a thin scar but she is still my friend. No teacher or parent took any measures. It was a fact of life.

Of course, even in pre-school you had to wear a uniform. You did not find it repressive, or intruding upon your civil liberties. It was the normal thing to do. It promoted unity. You felt good in it. And it was so easy. No anxiety as to what you were going to wear the next day.

Here we are at pre-school, in our uniforms, posing outside, in front of our building, accompanied by our two teachers. You may note that even then, we were told to keep our hands folded behind our backs. That was very effective in holding us still, you can bet on that.

The "General School" - (Grades 1 through 8)

Every school, at every level was state run. There were no private ones. There was no middle school or junior high. The first 8 years you were in one of the numbered "general" schools and then you went to high school. You went to the school that was closest to you. You couldn't choose. Generally, all "general" schools were within walking distance from home. There were no school buses. And I don't remember parents driving their children to school.

My school was #56. It was located in a nice park and it took me about 10 minutes to get there. We walked to and from school, sometimes with colleagues, sometimes alone. There was no danger. No deranged pedophiles, no speeding cars, nothing. And school was Monday thorough Saturday, generally for 6 hours. And because we walked, school was never interrupted because of snow, storm or whatever. We did not have lunch or snacks in school. If we wanted, we could take a little tidbit to munch on, from home.

The classes were rather large (38-42) and designated by grade and letter. For instance I was in Grade 1 A. There were also Grade 1 B, Grade 1 C, and so on. Groups that were formed in Grade 1 stayed together until the end of Grade 8. So I started in Grade 1 A and ended in Grade 8 A with the same bunch of people. People were not moved from class to class every year, nor did they wish to. This promoted a very good cohesion among the students.

All classrooms were rectangular with windows along one of the long sides. Opposite the windows, the wall sported one or more large, roll-up maps. Along the back wall there were hangers. There were no lockers. The classrooms had 3 rows of 7-8 wooden desks. Each desk had 2 seats. You could pick a seat or one was assigned to you. You had to keep that seat all year unless the teacher asked you to move. Sometimes, a less bright student would choose to sit in the back. The teacher could move him/her to the front. Or one better student would be paired with a poorer student to help him/her out.

The desks were not movable and the seats were permanently attached to the desk. You had a very fixed place that you called your own. There was space under the desk (like a drawer) in which you kept your book bag. You were held responsible for keeping your desk clean. In the first grades, we had to have a white cloth covering for our desk. That was probably meant to make us extremely aware of being neat. Take into consideration that in grade 2 or 3 we had to bring inkpots and write with old-fashioned pens with nibs that were dipped in ink every 2-3 letters. We even had to take calligraphy.

Of course, there were uniforms. There were uniforms from pre-school on to the last year of highschool. They were not voluntary. They had to be kept clean. In fact, we had to keep our bodies clean. Our ears, necks, fingernails were regularly checked and if found less than perfect, we were sent to the potty-room to clean up.

For festive occasions, such as a holiday or inspection, our uniform was somewhat changed. You see that the girl in the front row (actually a friend of mine to this day) is wearing a white pinafore. She made a mistake that day. White pinafores were for special days and picture day was not considered special. Of course, the boys had to have short, regulation cut hair (if it grew too long, they were sent home and not accepted back until the hair was regulation short). The girls had to have their hair neat, short or braided or pulled back. And a white ribbon headband was mandatory. You could not stay in class without one. And of course, the hands had to stay behind our backs when we were listening to the teacher. I think that when the body is still, the mind is more receptive.

One of the most strictly enforced things was the wearing of your "matricola" (your number). This was a piece of cloth, roughly 2 x 3 inches that had the name of the school and your personal number embroidered on it. You had to wear your Matricola from Grade 1 to the end of high school. At the beginning of "general" school and again at the beginning of high-school (grade 9) you received 2-3 copies of this cloth rectangle and you had to affix this securely on your left sleeve half way between your shoulder and your elbow. You had to have this number on your uniform and also on your coat, cardigan or whatever. You could not come to class without one.

This might horrify people that don't know the system but it served a very good purpose. Knowing that they could be reported by anyone, (by their school and number), students behaved. And nobody thought that it was a violation of his or her rights. A good friend of mine I went to highschool with, reportedly started wearing her matricola again long after highschool was over, just to give the impression that she was a highschool student (to appear younger).

Another thing we had all throughout school (to the end of highschool), was the student's grade book that each student was issued at the beginning of each grade. It was a small, thin, cloth - bound booklet that each student was required to bring to school every day. You had your name in ink on it. Inside, there were pages for the end of trimester grades for each subject but also pages for regular, every day grades. There were term grades for your general behavior. To get a final trimester grade in a subject, you had to have at least 2-3 individual grades in that subject. An average of the individual grades would give the term grade. And the average of the three term grades in each subject would give the year average in that subject. The average of all subjects would give the final score. And you were ranked by that score. A handful of people at the top would get prizes at the end of the school year. It was a public festivity in which you came in your crisp, pressed uniform and then they called your name and said that you got First Prize, Second Prize, Third Prize or Honorable Mention. All of the prizes and mentions were books. You got more books for a higher prize. They were nicely tied with a ribbon and a flower. You also gave bouquets of flowers to your teachers.

Third grade, when I remember getting First Prize

In this picture, you see other kind of uniform. It was the "pioneer" uniform. You became a pioneer in third grade if you had good grades. It was vaguely political, we had to promise to respect and abide the rules of communism, but to us, it was just words.

During a school year, we had our own classroom. Al subjects would be taught in that space with few exceptions (gym, of course was out or in the gym room).

Each class had its own register and the teachers would get it from the teachers' lounge and take it to the particular class they were teaching. Some teachers would call the roll every time and marked who was absent. Usually students were present. Only in extreme circumstances, a parent's note would explain why the child was not present.

The teacher would single you out (or a few others too), ask you to stand up or come to the front of the room in front of everybody and then she or he would ask you questions. Or you could be required to speak freely about a subject that he/she indicated for 5-10 minutes. Or you could be required to write sentences, solve some math problems, etc. on the huge blackboard at the front on the class. That is where the teacher's desk was too. He/She might call only one person at a time to the front while the others were fretting at their desks not knowing whose turn might be next and who might be called to continue what the one in front was doing.

The pressure to do well and not become the laughing stock of colleagues kept us in line and we endeavored to learn and do our homework. And after we performed our part in front of our colleagues, we received our grade for that specific performance. The grade was not secret. Everybody knew about everybody else. Some students, trying their hand at being teachers, also graded their colleagues (privately) and then compared the grades they gave, to the teacher's official grades.

When you got a grade, the teacher would carefully write it down in the huge register of the class under your name and particular subject. The student would be required to present his/her personal grade book and the teacher would inscribe the date, subject and grade. The teacher would then sign it. There was another column for the parent's signature. The student was required to show that the parent had seen the grade and signed. This way, the parent knew right away how the student was doing in each particular subject. There was space in the student's book for notes to the parents. If the child misbehaved, there was no time out or any such thing. A note was written to the parent and the child would have a talk with his/her parent. The following day, the child had to bring the signature of the parent on the student's grade book. I remember that in first or second grade, my friend and deskmate had finished our work sooner and we proceeded to amuse ourselves with I don't know what. We laughed harder and harder until we fell under the desk. We both got notes to take to the parents. In the event of a more serious misdeed, the student would be sent to the principal's office. This was so dreaded that it practically never happened.

Each class had its own "Diriginte", main teacher (home teacher). Every week there was one period when we had the "Dirigentie" class. This could be about anything. It was mostly administrative, and feedback. The Diriginte might also talk about health issues, human relations, etc. The Diriginte would periodically have conferences with parents. The meetings were with all parents present at the same time. The parents would sit in their own children's seats and the teacher would discuss everybody's concern in front of everybody else. Everything was very open. And surprisingly, there did not seem to be any resentment that some child was doing better or worse than another. I have a feeling that the parents were being motivated to try to stimulate their children to do better, by these open conferences. All parents participated to the meetings. It was a kind of social event in which they got to meet one another.

The grades were between 1 and 10 with 10 being the best. 1 or 2 was given for cheating. 5 and above were passing grades. Usually 5 was considered a "charity" grade. The usual grades were for oral examinations, in front of the whole class. There were however, written examinations. Some were announced, some were not. Sometimes you got a grade for a home assignment. Starting with the 5th grade, we started having term written examinations for a few subjects, first just 2 and then up to 5-6. The term written examination was announced from the beginning of the term. Everything covered in that subject for that term could be tested. You had to know everything. To get to the term grade for that subject, an average of the oral examinations would be taken, and that figure would be averaged with the written exam to get to the term grade.

At the beginning of each year, we would assemble in the schoolyard, by class, in a U shape. Our main teacher (diriginte) was there. We would line up and then, two by two, go to our class. Each year the classroom would be different but the class itself stayed the same. Some kids moved away, or moved out but just because their parents changed residences and they enrolled in other school.

Then, the very first day, every student would receive (free) manuals for each of the subjects. We got to keep these manuals. Later on, in high school, the manuals were recycled. We might have gotten used manuals for some subjects and at the end of the year we had to turn them in.

Before school started, all stationery stores had long lines of people who waited to buy school supplies. We had to buy these. Everything was very organized. Each store had received the exact list of what a first grader, second grader, third grader, etc. would need for that year, down to the smallest detail. Supplies for each grade would be different. Wrapping paper would also be bought because books and copybooks, draft books, everything had to be neatly wrapped (only blue paper) and neatly labeled with the student's name and grade.

The first day we would also get the schedule for each day. School was taught in the morning and in the afternoon. I remember that in some grades, we started around noontime or 1 PM, and stayed in school until 5 or 6. Each day, 4-6 subjects were taught. Usually, each of these subjects necessitated a book and 1-2 exercise books. We were required to carry all these books and exercise books that would be needed for that day. One exercise book was for writing in class and one for homework. There were no loose papers. Everything was in book format. Homework was checked every day. Sometimes a student was assigned to check the colleague's work. There was some cheating, students, copying their homework off some colleague's exercise book just before the teacher came, but it was not widespread.

Before the school year started, we also had to buy school uniforms (usually at least 2 so that we could change into clean ones mid-week) and also uniforms for gym. The required outfit for gym was black satin shorts and white t-shirts (for inside) and navy blue sweat pants and shirts for outside and colder weather. The uniforms had to be kept neat and in your size. You could not wear a uniform that was too short or too long. We usually bought them long and hemmed them to save on the expense. And as we grew, the hem would be let down. I remember that one time, when there were just 1-2 months until the end of the school year and the following year uniforms would be different, a principal asked me to buy another uniform because mine was getting a bit short. I pleaded that the time left was too short and that it would be a waste of money, but to no avail. I had to buy a new uniform. And there were no consignment stores to sell it to, once you no longer needed an item.

School usually started on or around September 15. We would then break in mid-December for 3 weeks. At that time, while in General School, we took class trips to the mountains. These were 1 week or longer. Parents did not come with us. Only teachers came as chaperones. We had a great time playing in the snow, and generally horsing around. We had another 2-week vacation around Easter and then we had the long, 3 months vacation in summer. The students who did not get passing grades in certain subjects had to study during the summer and take exams to be promoted into the next grade. Rarely, somebody would have to repeat the class. This was a deep stigma. You did not want to be in that position. Usually, results were posted for everybody to see.

All subjects, with no exception would be taught for 50 minutes. Then you had a 10-minute break in between subjects. There was also a long break (20 minutes) in the middle of the day. You could use breaks to go to the bathroom, socialize with friends from your class or some other class, go to the library, go outside to play when the weather was nice, have a snack if you brought one from home, go to the nearby store to get something to eat or study for the next subject. It was practically up to you. The end of the 50-minute period as well as the end of the break was announced by the load sound of a bell broadcast over loudspeakers everywhere. Sometimes the bell saved you when the teacher was just about to ask you something you didn't know. But when the next class started you had to be in class. You had to salute your teacher by standing up at attention and greeting him/her in chorus when he/she stepped in. This was especially so in lower grades.

Romanian is a phonetic language. What you see, is what you read. So, generally, there are no problems with spelling. Grammar is an entirely different matter. It is much more difficult because everything has to "agree" with everything else. Words change a lot if they are singular or plural, masculine or feminine. Verb endings change quite a bit if the action is performed by me, you, him, her, them. It can get quite interesting. Still, for a school child, it is not very difficult to master. The very first book in First Grade is an Abecedar. This is an ABC book. It teaches you to read and write.

When I went to school in First Grade, I happened to get into an "experimental" class. Usually, all subjects, no exception, were taught by the same teacher in the first 4 grades. However, in my experimental class, there was one teacher for every subject, just like in the higher grades. All in all, I think it was a good experience. We had good teachers and I still remember most of them.

Before 4th grade was over, we had to indicate (or our parents had to specify) what language we wanted to take starting in the 5th grade. The overwhelming majority of parents chose French. However, without consulting anybody, our Diriginte and math teacher (she was also one of our colleague's grandma) chose English for all of us. And guess what? Nobody protested. And then, after starting the English lessons with our very young, just graduated English teacher (a pretty lady called Anca), all of us were overjoyed. The English lessons were so much fun. She brought hand puppets, English nursery rhymes, songs, etc. and she made the learning into a game. For most of us, including myself, it turned out to be our favorite subject. It might have affected our entire future like it did mine.

Along with the usual subjects, Romanian, Math, Botany, Zoology, Biology, History, Geography, Painting, Music, Gym, we also had political sciences such as Marxist philosophy, scientific socialism, and the like. We also learned how to cook a meal, darn a sock, embroider, sew from a pattern, and even some elementary carpentry. Of course, the boys had other, more male-oriented classes when we, girls had embroidery, sewing, etc.

Of course, there were unpleasant things such as political propaganda meetings, field trips to the History Museum of the Communist Party, mandatory "patriotic, volunteer" work such as sorting dirty, muddy potatoes outside an agricultural cooperative on cold winter week-ends, etc. But for young people they were opportunities to socialize with colleagues, laugh, tell jokes.

Highschool

In 8th grade or even sooner, some parents hired private tutors to rehearse their kids into exam taking. There was some exam at the end of the 8th grade and you got a diploma for it. The more important exam however, and the one where the stake was much higher, was the one for admission to the highschool of your choice. Sometimes, the tutors were the highschool teachers that you would have as your examiners. It did not hurt if they already knew you and you had already paid them a pretty sum for them to tutor you.

When you applied to the highschool, the grades that you had had previously did not count. They were not taken into account or made part of the grade to admit you. Because I was a very good student, my parents did not want to hire any tutor. And it might have turned out to be a big mistake. I almost failed to get a good enough grade to get in. The exams were both written and oral. From these, a final grade was computed and the scores were tabulated. Students were then ranked from the highest grade to the lowest. And if the school had a certain number of available seats for incoming 9th graders, that's exactly how many would be admitted, starting with the highest score. It was quite expected that there would be 5-6 competitors for the same seat. Especially for the more prestigious schools like this one was. In the end, I managed to get in through a supplementation of seats. We knew that if the child of a high-ranking communist official did not make the grade but wanted to get it, some kind of supplementation would take place and along with the child of the communist official, others, like me would get in.

If you failed, you had to keep trying, or switch to other less prestigious highschools or apply for a trade school. But you needed to go to school for 12 years.

Once I was in, I proved myself again. I did better and better in the four years of high school. The last year (the 12th grade), I had straight 10's. I was on the principal's honor roll (my picture was in the teachers' area along with pictures of the best students.

At the beginning of 9th grade, we had our "Ducklings' Ball". We were the Ducklings, the freshmen. A Miss Duckling was chosen. The ball was held in the halls of the highschool. I went to see just how it was, but left quickly because I was incredibly shy and didn't want to dance. One of the famous traditional dances was "Perinita". It was danced in a circle with everybody participating. A person (girl or boy) would start the dance. He/She would be inside the circle and holding a kerchief would look around at the people dancing around him/her. Then he/she would pick someone of the opposite sex by draping the kerchief around her/his neck. The person thus chosen would have to accompany the person that chose to the center of the circle. They would both kneel and then kiss. Then the first person would join in the circle and the other person would be the next person to choose somebody of the opposite sex to bring to the center and kiss. That was definitely not for me.

This was the first school social event. There were no other balls or proms prior to that. Actually, after the Ducklings Ball, there was one other ball, when you graduated.

In 9th grade, you decided whether you wanted to go to the humanistic arts ("human" branch) or Sciences ("real" branch). That's what they would be called in Romanian: uman or real. I did not like math and the math teacher I had in the 9th grade made my mind up. He almost flunked me in math. I barely made a 5 in one of the trimesters. This completely soured me on the "real" side.

So, starting in 10th grade, the classes would be taken apart and re-assembled into Human and Real. Some of the colleagues that I had in the 9th grade went to the Real side; I went to the Human. But then, from the 10th to the 12th, we stayed together in the same group. The grades were also differentiated by a letter. For instance, there was Grade 10 A, 10 B, 10 C, up to H. When we graduated from highschool, there were about 200 of us.

At the start of highschool, we were required to pick a second language to study. The choice for us was between French, German and Russian. And I picked German, which I studied for 4 years all throughout highschool. But, I forgot 99% of it. When we had German class, we had to go to another classroom where we would meet part of the "D" class (the kids who had picked German). I was in the "C" class. Then we would go back to our regular classroom for all other courses. Of course, we still continued with lessons in our first foreign language, the one that we started in 5th grade. For me, this was English.

After switching to the "human" branch, there was no more math for us. Instead, we had Latin. Our teacher was quite young, too, (a man) and he didn't seem to like it too much. Apparently his father had forced him into it. He even named his son (our teacher) Claudius. We later heard that he went to college and got a degree in English. While we were his students, we did not put any effort into it. We considered it a total waste of time, a mockery. We had scheduled written tests in Latin too, but they were open book tests. We brought magazines to our teacher and we were left pretty much to ourselves. He would also tell us exactly what would be on the test.

At the age of 14, any youngster would receive his/her "Buletin de populatie" (ID booklet). It was not a card, but a booklet, about half the size of a US passport. You had all your basic information there, including address, date and place of birth, and blood type (very useful). If you changed your address, you had to report it and have it stamped in your Buletin at the local police station. Getting a Buletin was a mark of having grown up.

I was increasingly more interested in the English language. I started to go to the British and American libraries (very close to my home) to try to borrow books to read. Unfortunately, you had to be at least 16 to do that so I had to wait to do that. But then I started reading extensively. I also went to shows, movies, art exhibitions, everything that was available at the libraries.

School was very intense. There were lots of subjects, lots of papers to write, a lot to read and memorize. There were announced and unannounced written examinations and the mid-term papers that counted so much in making up the term grade. Although we had no more math after the 9th grade, we still had physics and chemistry. I loved chemistry probably because the teacher was very good. She was very strict but very fair, a no-nonsense kind of person. Physics was entirely different. I found it totally useless and had a hard time with it. Of course, I loved English. The teacher, again, like the teacher in the General School, was very good.

The curriculum was the same in all schools in Romania. No matter where you where, you learned the same thing, at approximately the same time. Periodically, there would be inspections from the Department of Education to check on the progress of both students and teachers.

A lot of girls were infatuated with the biology teacher but I couldn't understand why. There were no reported inappropriate relations between teachers and students. The teachers knew their place and so did the students. And probably nothing would have happened if a male teacher had patted a girl on her behind. There were no cases of molestation, no abuse, in schools or at home. At least we never heard of any such thing. Like I mentioned, lawsuits were unheard of.

Actually, we were extremely unsophisticated when it came to sex. At 18, we probably were less sophisticated sexually than a 12-year-old in America is today. We did not have boyfriends or girlfriends. There were no pregnancies in school. At some point, there was a rumor that a girl and boy in our highschool had a baby who was placed for adoption. But the rumor was not substantiated. Also, we never heard of anybody in school or elsewhere that was openly gay. We knew of a man in town who liked to wear clothes that seemed somewhat inappropriate for a man, and we assumed that he must have been gay, but nobody cared.

Of course, we did not drive. Having a car was the utmost luxury and very few people had one. So, there were no traffic accidents with teens involved. Also, there was no drinking or drugs. Drugs were unheard of. There was no age requirement for drinking. It was normal to see even a young child going to buy a bottle of wine for his family. And for older teens, it was not inconceivable to have a wine spritzer or a glass of beer with parents or friends. This was never abused. The fruit was not forbidden so the attraction was not there.

There was no violence in schools. Sometimes the boys would punch each other but everybody solved their conflicts on their own. Of course, there were no guns. Nobody had guns. Generally, teachers or parents did not get involved in the children's disputes. I heard that at some point, a boy was harassing another boy. This boy's father came to school and warned the bully that unless he stopped picking on his boy, he would get a severe beating from him. That's all it took for the harassment to stop.

The worst that boys would do was smoke in the boys' bathroom. When they were caught, they were sent to the principal's office and told they had to go shave their heads completely. The following day, when they appeared with totally bald heads, we knew what happened. Nobody would question this policy, students or parents. Anyway, boys were not allowed to wear long hair. They would be dismissed from school and asked to come with a regulation haircut if their hair grew past the required length. And girls had to have braided hair or pulled back. The ribbon hairband was still enforced. No jewelry or makeup were allowed. Some girls were known to smoke but they were never caught. Some of the girls in school tried to convince me to smoke but I was never interested probably because nobody in my family smoked and nobody had forbidden me to smoke.

At one point, during the winter I came to school wearing a very slight pink chapstick. Well, I was turned back from the door and asked to remove it. I pleaded that it was not cosmetic but therapeutic, that my lips were very dry but I didn't convince anybody. At some point, I faced some unhappy teacher that objected that my wintercoat was too loud. It was indeed loud, green and purple checkers. It was also made to order and the pattern was very unusual too. You see, I tried to be different, not to conform, even in a world of uniforms. This time I won. My loud coat had the required Matricola on the left arm and I told them that was my only winter coat and my parents would not buy me another coat.

There was practically no truancy. You just went to school because that was the thing to do. In the last years of highschool however, if the teacher was late coming to class and especially if that was the last period of the day, we would just take off. If the teacher came late, too bad, we were not there to wait for him/her. Usually, I was one of the instigators and tried to convince everybody to leave. I realized that if we all left, they could not punish all of us.

There were no sports competitions between schools. We played various sports in gym, but not competitively. Privately, you could enroll in various sports but not through schools. Each school had its own chorus and our highschool had a very famous one that had concerts at the Concert Hall. But, I didn't like that activity and I did my best to be kicked out of it. You could not simply say you didn't want to participate. It was not allowed. But, if you managed to sing out of tune, they would surely dismiss you. I took swimming and tennis lessons but I didn't get to be very good in either. I also took ballet lessons when I was little.

At the beginning of highschool, the best students were told they would be enrolled in the Union of Young Communists. You got a badge and had to swear allegiance to the communist party. We had no choice but to comply. By the end of highschool, most everybody, with very few exceptions belonged to this organization. They had to report that numbers were up. For us it was totally meaningless. The bad part was that we had to participate in long political propaganda meetings after school. Sometimes, roll would be called at these meetings. All classes would participate at the same time. I, along with some others, became quite adept in avoiding these meetings. We would simply run away using any door that was not guarded by a teacher at that time. Because you see, they knew that you didn't like it and wanted to run away, so they had to keep you there. Or I would go, stay a little while and then pretending to go to the bathroom or some other excuse, I would vanish.

We would also be required to march in the communist parades. We were threatened that bad things would happen if we didn't go so we went. But, as usual, I found ways to take side streets that were not heavily guarded and I would just go home after making sure that the person in charge saw that I showed up when the parade started.

Of course, periodically, we would be required to go for the mandatory "volunteer" work. I could not avoid this because each teacher would be in charge with a rather small group of students. The work was rather unpleasant but unfortunately, unavoidable.

In the 11th and 12th grades, we all had pre-military practice. We had to have blue pants and tunics for that, as well as a blue cap. We had some instruction in the classrooms but also in the field. We had to learn to shoot at targets (blank shots, of course). For me, it was an impossible task. I missed it by so much that it was laughable. But my heart was not in it. Nobody's heart actually.

During the last year (12th grade) or even sooner, most parents hired private tutors to make sure their kids would be admitted to college. If highschool admittance exams were rigorous, college entrance exams were brutal. Usually, a lot of students competed for much fewer seats. This time, my mother decided to hire a tutor too. In fact, my mother and my best friend's mother decided to pool their money and hire a tutor for both of us (to teach us both at the same time). We were preparing for the English Department of the Bucharest University. Our tutor was an English teacher. She was very, very good and trained us very well. She gave us a lot of homework, which was on top of the regular homework from school. Our English teacher from school also held after-hours sessions for those of us (quite a few) who studied to go to the English department of the University. We did a lot of work from special manuals. I still remember that at some point I contradicted my teacher about a certain point of English usage. He did not press it very far but went home and researched it. The next time he had the grace to tell me that I had been right and he had been wrong. I still admire him for this. You see, by that time, I had read lots and lots of books and became very good in English.

Throughout my schoolyears, I had the "talent" of contradicting my teachers, or stating a different point of view than theirs, if I thought that my point had merit. It did not happen very often to make me obnoxious to all, but occasionally it did happen. Some teachers were amused, some were not. But some would admit that I made sense.

I was a very good student although I did not study too much. Studying was just something that I had to do, not something that I liked to do. My parents never checked my homework or asked whether I did it or not. It was entirely up to me, my sole responsibility. In highschool, some of the homework was rather difficult so my parents wouldn't have been able to help me anyway. I had a very strong sense of duty. I always did my school work first thing after coming home and then I was free to do whatever I liked which was reading, movies, shopping with my mother. I was very close to my mother and would go out shopping with her practically every day. Shopping meant mostly shopping for food because that was very scarce, especially after 1964 or so. Finding a nice plump chicken or some ham or hot dogs, smoked fish or anything really, was a great accomplishment which gave us a lot of joy. It was probably similar to the feeling a hunter has when he gets something. Finding a good book to read was also a great accomplishment. Usually, for anything you had to know somebody. My mother was friends with the bookstore salesperson next to her work and also with the grocery clerks nearby. When something good came in, they would generally tell her.

There were no supermarkets so for everything you had to go to a different store. Grocery shopping was very tedious. But everybody managed to get by somehow. At holidays, everybody had a feast. Even if you had to wait in line for something good, maybe even wait in line just in hopes that merchandise would be delivered soon, it was still worth it. If you wanted to eat a little better, then you waited. I remember many times, waiting in line for hours, hoping to buy some bananas or oranges, in the dead of winter, outside of the store, in the back, where the huge lines would not be noticed, freezing, and when you almost made it to the front of the line, they announced you that the store ran out of the thing you had waited for 2-3 hours. Very frustrating is an understatement. But imagine making it just in time to buy the coveted bananas or whatever and to know that the store ran out just after you had bought them! Ahhhhh, what a feeling of deep joy and accomplishment! Many times food was rationed. You could not buy as much as you wanted. This was applicable to food and non-food items such as toilet paper. Standing a couple of hours in line for 6 rolls of toilet paper and finally getting them did not give you such a great joy as getting a bunch of bananas, but still it was an accomplishment.

Reading was the main pleasure. Good books were hard to get buy and were published in small numbers. Bookstores were full of books with political propaganda that nobody wanted. When something good arrived in the store, long lines would form and in an hour or so, the book would be sold out. Sometimes we went to the movies and saw American and European films that we liked. There were many that were just propaganda that nobody would go to see those.

We got our first TV (second hand) when I was 13. It was, of course, black and white and quite small. And it frequently needed repairs. There were only 2 channels and the programming was just for a few hours, most of it, political. But occasionally we had series such as the Avengers, Untouchables, Bewitched, Flintstones, Time Tunnel, Lost in Space, Dallas. We loved those. Streets would be deserted when our favorite series were on. All in all, we, children did not have the opportunity to waste our time too much on TV.

Before graduating from highschool you had to pass the Baccalaureate exam. That was the highschool exit exam. The exam had both oral and written components. The Real and Human branches had different exams. I did very well in this exam. When all the scores were tabulated, with grades from all 4 years in highschool + the baccalaureate exam, I turned out to be very close to the front of my class. That was the class of '73.

This is my class, 12 C.

The teacher with us was our Diriginte (home teacher). She was a teacher of Psychology. We had Psychology classes too. We seem happy because highschool is practically over.

The last day of highschool was very emotional. Everybody went crazy. Each of the classes (A through H) had their own ideas. We, in 12 C, had a metal badge made that showed 12C. Everybody had a long wide ribbon on which they asked colleagues and teachers to write something. Then, this long ribbon was tied around one's neck. I still have my ribbon somewhere, I think. After an all school meeting and pep talk, we all left the highschool and walked as a group towards downtown, singing at the top of our voices. Everybody would look at us and smile. And we were very proud of ourselves. We were like drunk. We were free from uniforms. Colleges did not require uniforms. And the great majority of us would go to college. There were very few of us who didn't. A lot of us went on to study English, quite a few to become doctors. Some others left to become engineers, architects, teachers.

A few days later, we had our grand graduation ball at a fancy restaurant. There was food, drinks, dancing. All under the supervision of all teachers and the principal. Everything was very civilized. Nobody got very drunk. And of course, we all walked or took the bus. There were no limos and we didn't even take taxis. I didn't have too good of a time because I was running a high fever and had to leave early.

College

Shortly after, I applied for the admittance exam to the English department of the University. It was only one college that you applied for. You could have applied at a few other colleges that offered English but they were in far off towns in Romania and nobody would do that when we lived in the capital. Sometimes people living in the provinces would come to the capital to apply for college but not the other way around.

In order to apply, you had to show that you had passed the Baccalaureate exam. Score was not important. You did not have to be good to be admitted to take the exams. The exams were both written and oral. First you took the written exams and then the oral ones. You did not have to write any essays on your application to show that you had a "well-rounded background". It did not cost anything. All you needed to do to take the exams was be a highschool graduate. You could have graduated the last one in highschool and it didn't matter.

For the boys, the pressure was even more intense because if they didn't pass the entrance exam, they would go for mandatory military training for 16 months, usually far away from home, with just a couple of visits back home. Even boys that passed had to go for military training, but only for 9 months. So if they passed the entrance exam in 1973, they did not get to start their college studies until the fall of 1974. 45

The exam was in summer. A few days in advance, you had to find out what hall you had to take the exam in. Lists were posted at the front of the building. On the day of the exam, you came with your Buletin (your ID) and sat down. You were given some blank papers and told to write your name in the top right corner of the first paper. Then, a proctor would come to check your name on the paper against your name and picture in your ID booklet. Then you had to fold the corner over your name, covering it. The fold would be sealed and stamped by an official. When everybody was ready, the subject to write on the exam would be written on the board.

I had to take exams in English and Romanian. When you went to the University for languages, you had to specify a language which would be your primary subject (like your Major) and a secondary language (like a Minor). In my case, I picked Romanian because my German was not good at all.

I don't remember what the subject was in the written exam for Romanian but I do remember that in English it was some kind of comparison between the poets Byron and Shelley. You had to write for about 3-4 hours on the subject. When you got out, you felt totally dizzy.

After the written exams, you took a break for a few days. In the meantime, the results were tabulated and again, posted, for everybody to see. And lists would be drawn with the people who would go on to the oral exams. You would be assigned a room, date and time when you had to show up to take the exam. When you stepped into the room, a few students waiting to take the exam would be already there. On the examiner's desk, there would be a few dozen sheets of paper, face down. You had to pick one, as if playing the lottery. That was your exam. On the paper, there would be 2-3 short, very focused subjects that you had to talk about. Then you would be given a few pieces of draft paper and a pencil. You could sit down and prepare what you had to say. You did not have too long. While you took your time to prepare, other students were talking about their subjects.

Although I did very well in the written exams, I did not get the same excellent grades in the oral exams. It seems to me that the examiners were nit-picking and splitting hairs. Although my grades were not bad, they were not great either. What happened, I presume, is that in the oral exams, students that had connections in high places got much more lenient examiners. And thus they got excellent grades in the oral exams.

In the end, when all scores were tabulated and a ranking was made, I placed too low to be admitted. We appealed. Every year, the number of students admitted would be different and also the lowest passing grade would differ. It all depended on what grades the students would get. They would be ranked according to the final average score and they would be admitted in the order of their grade. So, one year, one score may have been a passing score, whereas another year, it may have been a failing one.

Anyway, this failure was a terrible, terrible blow for me, especially since all my closest friends had been admitted to various colleges, including some to the English Department. After all, all we were thinking of in highschool was to get into college. That was an objective in itself. We did not care what would happen after college. We did not think of money, fame, glory. We just wanted to get into college. That was the supreme achievement. And not getting in was a terrible, shameful thing. The blow to my pride was unbearable. My grades in highschool, including the final exit exam (baccalaureate) had been higher than most of my friends', yet they got into college and I didn't. And they were pitying me. They came to visit me as if to offer their condolences. And I couldn't stand it. I became more and more despondent and one day took a handful of sleeping pills and drank a good quantity of heavy liquor. Pretty soon I felt very sick and got scared. At that time we were living in my grandfather's huge house and had to share bathroom facilities with some tenants. On my way to the bathroom down the hall, I fainted and one tenant who was around, caught me. The next thing I remember was being in a hospital bed with my mother sick with worry beside me.

Later on, she told me that when she heard what I did, she went to the University and told me that if something happened to me, she would break all of their windows. Nobody dared say anything because they could see she was overcome with grief and fury. Luckily, I was OK, and resolved never to try anything like that. I also decided that I was too mad to apply for the next examinations (the following year).

So, I had to find myself a job and jobs for highschool graduates were not too great. Luckily, my mother knew somebody who had a husband in a high enough place to find me a job as a key-punch operator in a large manufacturing plant. I worked there for almost a year. I had to work shifts and the morning shift would start at 6:30 am. I didn't particularly like it.

We had a quota every day. I worked with 5-6 other girls. We did not have a direct supervisor all the time. The other girls chatted, drank coffees, smoked, even took showers in the plant's shower rooms. They did not do their work until very late and therefore they had to rush and struggle. In the meantime, I came to work, did my keypunching and then took out a book to read. I mentioned that reading was by favorite pastime.

At the end of the shift, when the supervisor came to check how we were doing, the others were working feverishly and I was reading. It did not appear too good for me. I tried to explain that my work had been done sooner and that's why I was relaxing. My explanations fell onto deaf ears. In the end, I had to pick up and help the lazybones finish their work. So I ended up working more than others, without any recognition. That unfairness certainly upset me.

Sometimes, when we worked the afternoon shift, everyone was motivated to finish his or her work soon and then leave. The supervisors or most of them were gone for the day when we finished. So, we felt entitled that since our work was done, we could leave and go home. I, for one, did not believe in sticking around and wasting my time doing nothing. There was nothing else to do if I were done. Our quota for the day was given to us day by day.

One day, when we were just leaving, the big boss, the director of the plant caught us in the act and after reading us the riot act, announced that the following day we would be demoted and our work would be standing up all day at the assembly line. I protested forcefully but I did not convince him that he shouldn't do it. I told him that it was common practice to do it and it was unfair for him to do that only to our shift. In the end, I quit. I did not work on the assembly line for a single day.

That convinced me that I should start studying for college again. In the meantime, I had lost a year when I could have applied for college. I studied, but leisurely, not hard, and on my own, without any tutor. I worked as an interpreter for a few international exhibitions and that opened my eyes to what life was like for people beyond the Iron Curtain.

Then, I went to take the exams again. There was no emotion in my heart and soul, no trepidation whatsoever. I didn't care one way or the other. I felt that I knew everything, much better than everybody else did. Later on, some friends that I made in college told me that they envied my calmness during those times. This time, I got great scores, even in the oral exams. I even volunteered to answer questions that students before me couldn't answer. I had an air of supreme confidence. Naturally, I was among the people admitted. When I had failed, my score had been 7.87. When I got in, my score was 9.06. But later on, before the start of classes, there was a supplementation (for reasons unknown?!? and a few others got in.

In college we had some great professors, some good ones and some that were not too great. We learned a lot about the English language and literature. During the 4 years of college, we learned about English drama, poetry, novels, essays, and about phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax and a lot of other stuff that I have long forgotten. I remember a class that taught Old English vs. Middle English vs. Modern English. It was rather difficult to remember all forms of words that had evolved so much that they had no resemblance to what they looked or sounded like hundreds of years ago.

There were 2 semesters each year and we had courses and seminars. At the courses, everybody was busy taking notes. There were manuals but most of the time there would be material from the courses, not covered by the manuals on the exams. There were 3-6 exams each semester. They would have written and oral components. On the oral components, you could choose to pick another face down paper with different subjects on it hoping that it would be something that you knew better. That is if you thought you did not know too much on the subjects that you had picked initially. But that lowered your grade a couple of notches from the start. I never did this. One time, I loaned my class notes (one semester worth of notes) to a friend who had not taken good notes. Two days before the exam she told me she had lost my notes. I was hysterical. I managed to do well on that exam though, because I rapidly switched my exam paper for another one. The one I had picked contained material from the class notes, which I no longer had and had not studied. The teacher either did not see me do it or closed her eyes to it. She knew what had happened to my class notes.

Of course, we still had classes of Marxist Philosophy, Scientific Socialism and other similar studies. And we had exams in those. The teachers were very strict and often flunked half of each class. I managed to navigate these courses without incident.

As usual, I was confrontational with the teachers when I felt justified. There was one lady who was supposed to teach us but she herself needed to learn a few things. I, having read a great number of books from the American library, was pretty well versed in the language, even some idiomatic phrases. I remember hotly contradicting her when she marked me down on a test for having used the term "How come?" in a translation. She said that phrase did not exist.

I had some confrontations with the dean of the college too. He was also a professor and I took some exams with him. At some point I managed, through heated arguments, to convince him to change my grade into a higher one in an exam.

Classes would be held in the morning or in the afternoon. Space was scarce so we used every little nook and cranny of the old building. We would also have gym classes in another building.

Starting with the 3rd year, we could take some electives. There was one very interesting class dealing with translations of poetry. The professor was an old man, probably the best in the college. We managed to get some amazing translations done under his direction. I also took some class, I don't remember what it was on, but the fun thing was that it was taught by a visiting professor from England.

During that time, I had studied and taken an exam and license to become a tour guide-interpreter. So, during vacations, on weekends, in any spare time, I would work for the National Travel Office shepherding groups of English speaking tourists on tours. It was a great opportunity to visit all regions of my own country (quite expensive to do on my own) and be paid for it. At the same time, my English skills were further improved.

I also took an exam to get a translator's license. And of course, passed it.

In college the pressure was again on us to become members of the Communist Party. As usual, they asked the best students to join first. And being one, I was asked. I was quite evasive about it. They asked me a few more times but I managed to postpone it indefinitely. We had a lot of political propaganda meetings anyway and I hated those. I did my best to leave early or not attend at all. I did not want any more political propaganda, more meetings and having to pay membership dues too. I did not like the system but I was afraid to say so openly. Of course, everybody criticized the system, there were a lot of political jokes told at parties among friends but generally, when you were not sure whom you were talking with, it was much wiser to keep your mouth shut. People had been known to disappear who had been too open in their disapproval.

We also had more of the mandatory "volunteer" work for the motherland. One late summer, when classes were about to start for the new school year, word came that the harvest had not been collected and soldiers, inmates and students would be "drafted" to go work on it.

For three weeks we were supposed to be taken to a small town on the coast of the Black Sea (about 5 hours away from home by train), lodged in a military building of some sort and put to work. We went by train. The weather was cool but still nice. The sea was turning colder but it was still possible to go into the water. In the beginning it seemed like a nice vacation.

But pretty soon, it became abundantly clear that it was forced labor. We slept 10-15 in a large room. We were awakened at 5. We got some kind of breakfast (not very consistent or tasty) in the cafeteria and then we were taken by truck to the fields were we would stay all day shucking ears of corn. We worked in groups of say 6-8. Each group was given a mountain of corn to finish shucking by late afternoon. It was non-stop work. And not easy at all. We would sit on the ground around the mount of corn and work on it. Some of our college teachers would come to visit and occasionally lend a hand but only for a few minutes. Our English born professor came one day and declared that it was great fun to work on the corn. He did not resist more than half an hour at the most. Some party people (security police, I imagine) were after us, urging us to work harder and faster. Lunch would be served on a metal plate. And it was cheap, horrible food. For me, who was very finicky about food, it was totally unpalatable. It was brought by truck at midday. If you had to go to the bathroom, the corn field was all yours.

At dusk, we were taken back by truck. We would wash briefly and then go to dinner at the cafeteria. The food was on regular plates but hardly any better than the one served in the field. After about a week of this regimen, I was totally fed up, mad and disgusted and being an aggressive kind of person, went to the person in charge and complained about it. I even went to the kitchen staff and said that I would go on strike and stay there, not moving until they fed me a nice meal. I was shaking with indignation and crying crocodile tears at the same time but I stayed there until they cooked some tough, greasy steak for me. Anyway, it was better than the regular fare.

What was even more infuriating was that practically every night, the security police would gather us and scold us that we were not working hard enough, that we were not patriots. They even threatened us that unless we cleaned up our act and did better, we would be charged room and board. Of course, I protested saying that it was not our wish to be there. I even led a kind of "uprising". One day, the weather was bad, rainy and cold. Still, they took us to the fields and expected us to work. A few of us convinced all of the others that it was not right to force us. So we stopped working and found refuge from the weather in an old abandoned house. After this, we were threatened that we would be kicked out of college. But, of course, they would have had to kick a lot of us out so they didn't after all.

After a week or so, I couldn't stand it. I got extremely depressed and cried all the time. So, I was sent to the camp infirmary, which was staffed by med. students. When I got in, a young man sat me down and proceeded to write notes. He knew my name, my age without even asking. I was amazed and asked him how he knew that. He answered that he was one of my classmates from General School and we have been in the same class for 8 years. He had changed a lot since that and that's why I did not recognize him. He sent me to see a specialist.

In the meantime, I had called my mother home and described the situation with the work camp. She was outraged and promised to come to "save" me. It so happened that the specialist (I guess it was a psychiatrist, I don't remember) decided to come to my rescue and stated that I was not to continue the work at the camp. So, I gathered my stuff and went to the train station to return home. Just as I was waiting at the station for my train to arrive, my mother arrived from Bucharest. Happily, we took the train back home together.

But I was not excused from work. Together with other students that somehow had been deemed not fit for the work camp, I had to go to the University every day and do translations, administrative work and the like. This was much better. The work lasted for weeks and weeks and so the courses were all delayed. Then we had to rush to be able to make up for the delay.

There was also military training. This time, real military training. It was once a week and a couple of weeks during the summer vacation. We were issued military uniforms, with heavy boots, winter coat included. When I put the full military costume on, it was so heavy, I could barely move. We were supposed to shoot real rifles. A female sergeant who was one tough lady trained us.

After the first day of training, when I had to carry all my equipment, and dropped everything on the city bus home because they were simply too many items and too heavy, I knew that I was in for some long, hard task. Luckily, I found out that if your weight was under 100 lbs. (45 kilos), you would be exempt from military duty. I was extremely skinny, right there on the verge of 100 lbs. I went to the students' polyclinic right after military training when I was red in the face from exhaustion, my heart beating very fast and angry as a rabid dog and sure enough, the doctor put me on the scales, listened to my heart and found a murmur too and my military career was gloriously ended.

During the years in college, I had numerous courses that were interesting, fascinating, courses, which I loved. There was also a good number of them which I disliked, or considered totally useless but I managed to do an excellent job in all of them. We had gym and we were graded for it even in college. Most of the exams were written and most of them were in essay form. My most unexpected success was getting the top grade in an exam on 18th or 19th century English poetry. Poetry was my least favorite subject but I managed to ramble quite eloquently, I suppose.

When I got into college, you had to study two languages. English was the primary language (the major) but there had to be another one. For some, it was German or Spanish or French. Not being confident enough that I could do well with the German I had learned in highschool, I picked the old stand-by, Romanian. But, by the end of the first few weeks of the first semester in the First (freshman) year, I hated it and mostly because of a course on Romanian phonetics with a historical perspective. It was absurd. 95% of it was based on sheer memorizing. We had a test in it and nobody did well. We had another test and we all decided to cheat and we did and of course, we were caught. The test was voided.

At that time, there was a notice on the bulletin board in the main hall, that whoever wanted to switch from their secondary language to Japanese was encouraged to do so. You would stop studying the language that you had picked previously as your minor and study Japanese for the entire 4 years of college. Japanese became your minor. Of course, I applied. But many others did too. They had only about 7 spots for the Japanese introductory course that was offered and they screened the applicants based on their college entrance exam scores. And I didn't make the cut although my score had been pretty good. One of my good friends got into the course and she was delighted with it. She had the opportunity to go to social functions offered by the Japanese embassy.

Not long after that, another opportunity came along. It was Arabic. The deal was the same as with Japanese. And I applied for this too. And I didn't make it into this course either for an entirely different reason. They only accepted male students because they considered that as a female you were not safe to mingle within Arabic circles. In this country, both the women that were turned down and the Arabic community would have screamed bloody murder. In Romania, we all took it in stride. One of the colleagues in my team, a man who was known for having entered college with one of the lowest scores, got in.

Finally, a third opportunity for abandoning my Romanian studies came up. And this time I got in. What was it? Hungarian. A very particular language, spoken only in Hungary and unlike any other language except a few distant affinities with Finnish. I picked it out of desperation but also because my grandfather on my mother's side, grandfather in whose large house we all resided, was Hungarian, in fact still a Hungarian citizen after almost 50 years of marriage to a Romanian woman. But I could not speak a word of Hungarian.

The Hungarian language did not attract too many so they accepted everybody that applied. There was only young man in about 7-8 people who could speak some Hungarian. He became our interpreter. Our teachers were Hungarian but they did most of the teaching in Romanian because we didn't understand it. It became quite funny to learn about Hungarian grammar, sentence structures, Hungarian history, literature and even take exams in which we struggled bravely to learn enough of the language to actually be able to talk and write in Hungarian. It was incredibly difficult but still much more fun than Romanian. The teachers were very good and very understanding. I managed to do well in these courses. I even encouraged others that had more difficulty than me. We struggled with this for 4 years. My grandfather was of some help but not much.

At a certain point, we had to take a third language for at least a few semesters. The choices were Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. Everybody seemed to apply for Swedish. Norwegian was the second choice. As usual, I got the third choice, Danish, an extremely harsh, complicated language. But it was fun. Our teacher was a middle-aged Danish man. He had been very interested in Romanian and was speaking it fluently, with no accent whatsoever. His Romanian was so perfect that it sounded unreal.

We managed to pick some Danish at the time but I promptly forgot it. There were some funny episodes with this course. Once, he had brought a book of modern Danish poetry to class and during break he left it on his desk. One of our colleagues, a young man, picked it up and started to read from it out loud, without understanding anything. He picked a funny sounding word and kept repeating it. Just then, the teacher returned to class and overheard. He started laughing uncontrollably. Apparently, that word meant bowel movement.

An interesting development with this Danish professor was that one of the students married him. He was much older and apparently less good looking than the girl's own father. She was or pretended to be very interested in Danish and then in him. She invited him out to shows, dinner, etc. until she managed to find her way to his heart. In the end, she left with him for Denmark.

During communism, a lot of girls had married foreigners just to be able to leave the country. Girls (and everybody for that matter) were desperate to leave by any means. There was a lot of joking and sarcasm in the media regarding this phenomenon. There were even programs on TV in which women were brought in to tell the whole nation their story of misery (lured away by false promises and then abandoned, living in poverty until they managed to be returned to the motherland, Romania).

I know of another girl who married a Norwegian. We both worked as tour guides for the National Travel Office during our vacations from college. But while I obeyed the strict rules imposed by the Security Police not to mingle with foreigners outside normal working hours, she didn't. She broke all the rules, went to dance with foreigners at the discotheques that charged admission in foreign currencies only (where Romanians did not normally have access).

During college, we were basically trained to become teachers. We had pedagogical training (methods and methodology of teaching English and Hungarian). As part of our training, we had to have some hands-on experience. In groups, we went to various highschools, observed how English (and Hungarian) were taught and then each of us was supposed to give his/her performance (twice) by teaching an actual class. A class was 50 minutes. We had to have a plan as to what to do with the students all that time. The first part of the period was to ask questions from the previous lesson. And we actually could pick a few students to give comprehensive answers and then grade them. Then we had to teach the next lesson. This was a relatively stressful situation for us. But at least we were confident that our English was much better than the highschoolers' so we coped fairly well.

The crazy situation occurred when we had to go to the Hungarian school and teach a class of Hungarian natives a language that we couldn't speak ourselves. Romania had and still has thousands and thousands of Hungarians and Germans living for centuries on its territory. Practically for ever. There are certain areas in the middle of Romania where practically everybody speaks only Hungarian or German. Anyway, here we were at this school for Hungarian born kids who spoke nothing but Hungarian. And we couldn't speak Hungarian except a few limited phrases that we more or less memorized. And we were supposed to teach them. It was a very interesting situation. The way I handled it was to ask the questions which I was supposed to ask to test them if they had learned the previous lesson. I had no way of knowing though what they were answering to me, because they spoke rapidly, idiomatically and of course, free speech. When I asked a question and somebody gave me an answer, I waited to see the class reaction. If the class as a whole, was quiet, it meant that it was OK. If they protested, it meant it was wrong so I asked somebody else. Then I taught them the new lesson that I had down pat. Of course, I couldn't answer any of their questions so I played deaf. All in all, I don't think they caught on that I had no idea what they were saying. Luckily, they were in the primary grades not highschool kids.

In the last year (senior year) we had to pick a subject for our exit exam (dissertation thesis) which was solely in English. No Hungarian there, fortunately. A long list of subjects, pertaining to both language and literature were offered. Depending on what subject you picked, an advisor would be assigned to you. It had to be some original work, something that nobody had written about before. About 30-40 pages long. I picked the theory behind movie translations. In Romania, there was no dubbing, just subtitles. I had to discuss both, with pros and cons and anything related to that. As part of my work, I went and discussed with movie translators that worked either for the big screen or for TV. I was given access to their files and observed how they worked. My advisor was a very down-to-earth lady and she gave me some good suggestions.

Just before graduating, you had to submit a few copies of your typed thesis to the members of the examining committee and then talk freely about it for 10-15 minutes. I got the maximum grade (10) for this but then again, during the senior year, I had got 10 in all subjects. All in all, my grade average for the entire college was 9.83 out of 10. I was ranked about the 5th or 6th. The ranking with the respective grades was posted on the bulletin board. Because I ranked so high, they wrote on my diploma that in case they would ever have openings for teaching positions at the college, I would be given the chance to apply.

During that time, upon graduating from a college, you would be automatically given a job. Alongside the ranking with the grades, job listings would also be posted. Practically, all the positions were in teaching, and all of them were somewhere other than in Bucharest where most of us lived. Ideally, all of us should have gotten positions in Bucharest. That's what everybody wanted.

The assigning of jobs was extremely stress-inducing. The procedure was that we would all assemble (about 200 of us) in a big hall and then the one with the highest rank would be asked to choose first. After that student chose, the next highest ranking one had his/her chance to pick a job. And so on, until the last position would be assigned to the lowest scoring student. All of us had studied the list of job openings for days. And made plans as to how better to get there. Practically nobody had cars so the commute was by train or bus. Some jobs would be close enough to Bucharest to allow for a daily commute. Most of the positions however were too far so people assigned there would have to live there for the week and only come home on the weekends.

I determined which jobs I might like to pick and found a couple that were fair. Not great, fair. There was one position that was slightly better than the others. When one colleague asked me what my pick was going to be, I told her because knowing that her grade was much lower than mine I knew that I would pick before her. But, that proved to be a bad mistake because at the last minute, a handful of people that had been ardent communist activists in college received additional points for their political activity and that girl in whom I had confided about my intended pick turned out with a slightly higher score than mine so she picked before me and she chose the one that I had told her about. So I had to pick my second favorite.

First Job After College

That was in a small town about 70 miles away from Bucharest. I was to teach English to both primary grades (2-3), middle (5-6) and high-school (9-10). I went to meet the principal and discuss my schedule. Because I was from the capital, I was not perceived as one of them, serious enough to pursue a career there. And they were quite right. I was very unhappy about this position and the prospects of commuting by train every day approximately 5 hours a day (half there, half back). The train was a slow one that stopped at every little village and it had to be changed with another train half way. As if to make my life more miserable, the principal showed me my schedule and it was terrible. I had 1-2 hours here and there so that I had to stay there all day. One day, I think it was on Saturdays, he had put one hour down for me. I told him that it was a very bad schedule and that it did not seem worthwhile for me to waste 5 hours on the train for 1 hour of teaching. He did not make any amends.

To make things worse, we did not start the lessons right away. The students had to go harvest the grapes. It was again the patriotic "volunteer" work. This time, I had to go as a teacher. Every day, with students in tow, we had to board large trucks and go to the vineyards. It was hard, dirty work and the weather was hot. A few times I felt I got sunstroke and had to lie down. One day, after hard work at the agricultural endeavors, I boarded the train to go back home. I was hot, sweaty and dirty. There were no facilities to wash and change. I fell asleep on the train and when I woke up I overheard some people discussing me. They were pitying me and saying they imagine that it was hard being an agricultural worker. I chuckled to myself. I didn't tell them that I was a teacher not an agricultural worker.

When classes started, my satisfaction level was still low. I had some success with little ones. With middle grades it was somewhat harder. Highschool kids had no interest whatsoever for English and probably thought it was a waste of time. These were kids raised in a rural area and probably they were more concerned about the state of the fields, farm animals, etc. These students played pranks on me, did not come to classes and pretended they didn't know they had English at that time, etc.

In the meantime, many of my classmates, even with lower grades, had managed, through connections to find jobs (non-teaching ones) in Bucharest. Some of the colleagues had not even worked at their state assigned jobs for one day. So, I pressed my mother to find some solution. As a pharmacist, she had contacts with many people. Luckily, the same person who had helped me find a job in-between highschool and college, was able to help me again. He found a job for me as a technical translator in a Bucharest construction company. These jobs that were "found" were most of the time just created. They were not really needed but that was the communist society. Everybody had to be employed, even if there was no need for that product or service.

There was a long, hard struggle to obtain release from my teaching post. The principal did not create too many problems because he knew that people from the capital would not stay there. They had to find somebody local. The greatest difficulty was with the Department of Education. My Hungarian teachers had some connections there so they tried to help. But, the Minister of Education (a very fierce communist woman) would not let go. She was granting interviews with people that wanted to be released, like me, but the interviews were not one-on-one, like I would have thought. She called 4-5 people at one time, and before anybody could open their mouth, she said, "NO, It's Not Possible." I interrupted her abruptly and told her in no-uncertain terms that I came there to be allowed to speak my point of view not told to shut-up. She was extremely surprised that somebody had dared to oppose her. After talking with me, she suspended all interviews saying she had a bad headache. But I obtained my release and happily started my career as a translator.

I worked at that position until I immigrated to America but that's another very long story.