Folyosó Autumn 2020

Butterfly

Petra Varga


Our life is full of emotions. We can’t avoid them. They make us who we are. Happiness is a butterfly. When it is there, it’s beautiful. You feel like flying, and it makes your days colorful like the wings of butterflies.

People usually think that every girl is in love with her dad. When I was a little child, my dad was my happiness. He used to travel a lot, so we didn’t have much time together. Before he would leave, we would spend a whole day playing, dacing, running around the playground, reading my favourite fairytales, watching some Disney princess movies, etc. I think I was the happiest young girl in the world. My dad treated me like a princess. When he grabbed me and raised me up to the sky. But at the same time, I knew that he would leave the next day. I would fall asleep with him, but wake up alone. Isn’t it incredible to feel like you are in heaven and hell at the same moment? When there’s something on your mind, but you try to put all the bad aside for a while.

Happiness is a butterfly. When it is there, it’s beautiful. You feel like flying, and it makes your days, or just a moment, colorful like the wings of butterflies. But it is evanescent, instantaneous. Fly away….

Letter from the Editor

Folyosó began in the spring of 2020, when school in Hungary had gone online in response to COVID-19. This fall, we are back in the school building, conducting classes in person, but the need for Folyosó has not diminished a bit. To the contrary: it continues to bring out lively ideas, language, and art; bring writers and readers together; and assume a character and life of its own. Folyosó pieces might be witty, eerie, or serene–but they all show writers playing with stories and words.

Some of the pieces have come out of English assignments; others came out of the blue. It has started to happen–with increasing frequency–that a student will stop to speak with me in the hallway, or at the end of class, and will tell me, “I think I have a piece for Folyosó.” In one case, a Varga graduate sent me a piece. Another former Varga student sent me photo art for the Folyosó Gallery. As the word spreads and the readership builds, there will be still more surprises.

This fall we had our first Folyosó contest, on the subject of how we determine what is important in life. This was a first in more than one way. It was the first time that students could submit work in Hungarian to the journal. Also, it was the first time that I involved colleagues in the selection of pieces. A five-person jury (Anikó Bánhegyesi, Judit Kassainé Mrena, Judit Kéri, Marianna Jeneiné Fekete, and myself) selected the winning pieces. This allowed not only for multiple perspectives, but also shared enjoyment.

So sit back, enjoy, and get rattled! Read Áron Antal’s touchingly humorous “Grandpa’s Stories,” Lilla Kassai’s morbid yet tender “Danse Macabre,” Gergely Sülye’s “All Should Be in Order,” Gábor Medvegy’s “The Damned Man,” Bernadett Sági’s “Taller Than Tall,” and much more! Share the pieces with others–and if you have a comment, please leave it here. We have one comment page for the whole journal, so please specify which piece you are commenting on.

For the winter issue, we look forward to our first-ever international contest, as well as a number of dramatic pieces that take Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in unexpected directions. Until then, the autumn issue of Folyosó will give you many hours of good reading. Thank you for taking part.

Sincerely,

Diana Senechal
English and Civilization Teacher
Editor of Folyosó

About the Contest


For the first Folyosó contest, which welcomed submissions in Hungarian as well as English, students were asked to respond in any written form, and in any way, to the following questions:

How do we determine what is important in life? What makes us change our mind about our priorities? Are priorities just a matter of personal preference, or do they have universal value? Whom do we affect with our decisions about what is and isn’t important? Who influences these decisions, and how?

There were so many strong entries, with such a range of approaches to these questions, that Diana Senechal decided to involve a jury. She, Judit Kéri, Marianna Jeneiné Fekete, Judit Kassainé Mrena, and Anikó Bánhegyesi read the finalist entries carefully and arrived at the following ranking:

First Place: Adél Mihályi
Second Place: Gergely Sülye, Erika Mária Szántó, Attila Marcell Kiss (each individually)
Third Place: Zsófia Szabina Gávris
Honorable Mention: Dániel Lipcsei, Heléna Laura Spinou, Gréta Tóth

We are delighted to present these pieces in the autumn issue of Folyosó! For information on the winter contest, go here.

About the Contributors

Folyosó Issue 1:2 (Autumn 2020)

Áron Antal likes to spend his time in nature and in the bordering land around his town; interested in old machinery, cars and motorcycles especially, and things from the mid-nineteenth century to the 90s, as well as the lifestyle of that era, he is trying to include these in his stories and build them a plot, an important role. 

Gergő Busa is a short and charismatic student who often helps his friends when they ask (especially in history), people often refer to him as the “Storyteller,” and he is also involved in the great hobby of Warhammer 40K.

Dániel Dancza is a student from 11C who is only now getting into writing after many years of daydreaming. Though currently working on a psychological horror series with many fantastical elements, he plans to move into pure high fantasy later.

Lili Forgács is a sixteen-year-old girl with an enormous heart and even larger dreams.

Zsófia Gávris is a sixteen-year-old girl who sees the positive side of everything and tries to find the beautiful things in her everydays.

Lilla Kassai is a bit of a weird girl who loves dark and morbid jokes and is not afraid of telling them to people like you.

Fanni Kepenyes is a bookworm who also likes to write her own stories.

Attila Marcell Kiss was born in Szolnok.

Ilona Králik is just a girl at the beginning of her life, but she already has big goals for her future.

Dániel Lipcsei is a folk dancer in two ensembles, Rákóczi Néptáncetyüttes—Rákóczifalva and Tisza Táncegyüttes, and a member of Class 12.C at the Varga Katalin Gimnázium.

Gábor Medvegy is a man as simple as a heavily modified MK-IV nuclear submarine, and whose chaotic, incoherent sentences are piled on each other in such way that he often mistakes them for a ‘story’.

Anna Mészáros tries as many new things as possible.

I am Adél Mihályi, and I am not good at speaking, so I write.

Laura Mora is a girl who tries to be a better person and makes an effort to improve herself in many ways.

My name is Bernadett Sági and I am so excited, because this is the second time that my work has been published on the internet.

Heléna Spinou is a seventeen-year-old daydreamer who loves adventurous experiences, especially during trips abroad.

According to Gergely Sülye, the quarantine of 2020 is something you can conveniently use for some serious self-improvement at home.

Alexandra (Süveges) is now drowning in an indescribable emptiness.

Sándor Szakács is a guy from Martfű who tends to overcomplicate things.

Erika Mária Szántó loves her dog.

Tamás Takács is an occasionally randomly inspired “writer.”

Gréta Tóth says, “Anything you say or do may be used in my story!”

Dorottya Turza: I’m like a book you have to read. A book can’t read itself to you. It doesn’t even know what it’s about.

Petra Varga: Dried roses, pictures, chansons, memories, poems. Rationalist….

Dominika Zahar is a daydreamer who reaches for the Sun.

Silent Rural Life

Lilla Kassai


Still Life with Guitar

Lilla Kassai


own choices

Gréta Tóth

(First Folyosó Contest: Honorable Mention)

Priorities are the most determinative factors in a human being’s life. There is no one who does not have priorities; maybe it cannot be described with words, but we all have them, and they keep us going even during hard times. They do not just influence our personalities but also make us who we are. For instance, deep down all of us know that if we suddenly started liking math instead of literature, switched from physics to a language, or gave up drawing just to start learning how to sing, that would not be us anymore. That person who takes singing lessons instead of painting breathtaking pictures has nothing to do with the person we are right now.

Certainly, a question will arise in many of us: why do a person’s priorities change, then? Well, these changes mainly depend on life circumstances and can range from temporary to permanent. To set a powerful example, let’s imagine that there is a young girl with two little siblings. Their only family is their mother, who gets seriously infected by a virus and is taken to the hospital. There has been a temporary change in the girl’s priorities: her number one mission is now to manage everyday life with two siblings until her mother gets better. Some other examples, which are a bit more down-to-earth than the previous one and mean a permanent change in priorities, are going to university, having children, or starting work.

To sum up, we absolutely can’t imagine a world without priorities and without people differing in terms of what is important to them. Priorities make us strong and different from each other.

Important Things in Life

Heléna Laura Spinou

(First Folyosó Contest: Honorable Mention)

Do you think money is the most important thing in life? In my opinion, though life often seems to be too short and people often say “you only live once,” it doesn’t mean that we cannot live a beautiful life. On the one hand, I have many goals in my life and sometimes I’m a bit afraid that I won’t be able to achieve all of them and satisfy my parents. On the other hand, I think that it’s not a problem if you try to live your own life without trying to be the way others expect.

To tell the truth, I’m a bit stubborn and don’t always listen to others’ opinions. But if I do, I usually listen to my mother or my friends, because I know they are honest and trustworthy. Probably one of the most important things in life is to have somebody who you can always rely on and who keeps all your secrets. Close friends can cheer you up even if others can’t, and you can share some nice and unforgettable moments with them that you may later call your best memories.

As my Greek grandmother always says, “without a big fat Greek family you won’t live happily.”  She means that there are some friends who may later become your enemies after a big argument, so it’s better to trust your family members, who will definitely be by your side. Furthermore, I consider lifelong experiences especially important, because they make your everydays more colourful and you can learn something new from each of them.

Moreover, certain priorities come to people’s minds more readily than money: for instance, health and love, which are the keys of happiness. Not only those who have severe health problems, but also those with mental problems caused by addictions or disabilities have to face difficulties that may cause never-ending sadness. Often addicted people end up as dossers. If they can’t take a bath and they’re dirty, they can lose their job, and then it will be quite hard to find a new one.

In conclusion, I don’t agree with those who think that money is everything, because there are plenty of other things that a rich person might not have, but that would make him or her happy. A rich lonely person with health problems could give all his money to recover, have somebody by his side, or just lead a so-called “normal life.”

The Shorter Way

Dániel Lipcsei

(First Folyosó Contest: Honorable Mention)

It usually happens when I have to wake up early that I find myself in a dilemma: whether I should get out of bed and get ready sooner or fall asleep again in order to sleep a little bit more. Most of the time, I choose the second one but know that it is really disadvantageous and makes no sense. According to my experience, I am not the only one doing this in the mornings. At that moment, we consider sleeping more important than getting ready and being able to get more things done. I always promise myself that I won’t do it like that next time, but then the same thing happens. Why is this so?

There are many people whose life is ruled by laziness. Or, to generalize, we (except for a few) often do things in a particular way because another way would require more work and patience, so we arrive at an outcome that is more easily achieved but not really better. People usually choose laziness instead of putting effort into something because they think that it’s not worthy enough. In this waking-up situaton, people don’t get ready sooner, because they think that there will be another day when it will be more neccessary to get ready earlier and more comfortably. We still wait for that day to come. This is true in other cases too: “Doing my homework at 3 pm is not really important; I will do it at night.” Then the night comes, you write your homework, but it’s the end of the day; by then you are tired, so your homework isn’t as good as it could have been if you had done it in the afternoon.

To sum up, people often chose the shorter way to manage their daily tasks. Not because they’re unimportant but because they do them every day and get tired of them, as can be seen in the examples mentioned above.

Mi a fontos az életben?

Zsófia Szabina Gávris

(First Folyosó Contest: Third Place)

Azt gondolom, hogy a dolgok, amiket fontosnak találunk az életben szinte folyamatosan változnak, mivel mi is változunk. Ettől függetlenül befolyásolhatják a minket körülvevő tényezők is. Például az emberek, akikkel mindennap találkozunk, az adott családi helyzetünk, a párkapcsolati státuszunk és még sorolhatnám. Ezek mellett függ az életkorunktól is, hiszen amikor még gyerekek/fiatalok vagyunk másként gondolkodunk és vélekedünk ezekről a dolgokról. Egyrészt azért, mert kevesebb az ismeretünk, másrészt nem rendelkezünk még kellő mennyiségű tapasztalattal. Előtérbe helyezzük a szórakozást, barátokat és néha a kicsapongást. Ahogy telik az idő és érettebbé válunk, természetesen változik a véleményünk és a látásmódunk, illetve nyilván mi magunk is. Egyre inkább átértékeljük a dolgokat és felelősségteljesebbé válunk. Előrébb helyeződik a tanulás, a jövőnk, a fejlődés.

Véleményem szerint a fontosnak vélt dolgok sorrendjét a megfelelő értékrend meglétével tudjuk meghatározni. Nagyon sok esetben mérlegelnünk kell és komoly döntéseket kell hoznunk, melyek akkor sikerülnek ha az értékrendünk a helyén van. Pontosan nem tudom mikor, de kialakul bennünk egy igény arra, hogy fontossági sorrendet állítsunk fel a minket körülvevő dolgoknak. Személy szerint nekem ez az igény hamar kialakult, hiszen amellett, hogy évek óta sportolok, a tanulmányi átlagomra is nagy hangsúlyt fektetek. Illetve mindig is szerettem a barátaimmal lenni, így jelenleg is arra törekszem, hogy amikor lehetőségem engedi értékes időt töltsek el velük. A sport, a tanulás és a barátok mellett a családommal és a párommal is rengeteget vagyok, mert elképesztően fontosak számomra. Sokszor elmélkedem a sorrenden amit felállítottam, és rádöbbenek, hogy valószínűleg így a legoptimálisabb. Nem részletezném, mert szerintem ez mindenkinek a saját dolga, viszont boldog vagyok, hogy kézben tudok mindent tartani és ennek köszönhetően úgy érzem, hogy egyre több stabil pont van az életemben.

Összességében úgy gondolom, hogy a prioritás egyéni vonzódás, amit nem befolyásol az, hogy másoknak vagy a többségnek mi a fontos. Mi magunk vagyunk azok, akik ezt befolyásolhatjuk és megváltoztathatunk. E mellett legfőképpen önmagunkra van hatással az, hogy milyen sorrendbe helyezzük a minket körülvevő tényezőket. Szerintem, ha az értékrendünk a helyén van akkor fejlődéshez vezet az utunk. Ellenkező esetben, tapasztalhatók negatív irányba történő változások.

Végezetül kifejezetten fontosnak tartom azt, hogy néha szakítsunk időt arra, hogy magunkba tekintsünk és átgondoljuk az értékrendünket, a döntéseinket és a cselekedeteinket. Olykor a kérdést is feltehetjük magunknak: ”Jó ez így Nekem?”.

A kérdésre a választ pedig valahol a lelkünk mélyén kell megtalálnunk.

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