cheJake

Friday, October 30, 2009

I just had some cool ideas for Turkey, where we plan to go next January, the start of an 8 month stay. I also had some cool ideas for the classes I'm teaching and some excellent business ideas and discoveries for my time here in Hungary and for our return.

Laszlo Horvath just bought a building that he will make into a university. I think it's a great idea. For its size, Hungary has damned few colleges and university and way too few in the countryside. It could be very useful to pull people I know together on this from McDaniel. Get them involved,

For my communications class, I have a neat way to learn Turkish. I will tell the class that for the first hour of each class we will learn English, but for the second half of each class we will learn a foreign language, starting with Turkish because the Turkish boys missed so many classes at the beginning of the semester.

For my Journalism class, I will show Star Trek episodes this week and discussion will be held afterwards.

I myself would like to open a university here in Hungary at Matraszentimre, Hungary's highest settlement, in the same range as Mt. Kékes, the *Everest* of Hungary. There is a beautiful old church in neighboring Matraszentlaszlo that could serve as the conerstone building, suitable as a lecture hall during the week and a chapel on the weekends. As the church likely owns the building, we would go into partnership with them and open it as a fee-charging Catholic university. Work study programs would be available whereby students would get tuition waivers and a modest stipend if they do some useful job, and do it well.

In Turkey, I think Lucia should hire old grandmothers in the hills to produce fashion-worthy garments by following the designs of leading Hungarian designers for export to highstreet market locations. Also, in Fethiye I think we should restore the ancient amphitheatre to its original condition and use it as a theatre for the finest performances. I would like to do so with the assistance of Michael Tippin, the man who restored the Flatiron Building in Toronto and many other historical landmarks across the globe. The amphitheatre would draw the finest yachtsmen from around the world into the harbor. It could become a true palace of the arts without the rough nature of other resorts frequented by the four-wheeling, beer guzzling stag party crowd.