Merry Christmas from the Nadas Family

1998 is rapidly coming to a close, and it is about time for the Nadas family to send you all an update on our lives. I know this is not always the preferred vehicle for news, but since I am among the worst letter writers I know, please accept my humble offering.

As with any year, this has been one of joys, hopes, opportunities for growth and learning, difficulties, disappointments, and change. Overall, though, it has been a good year.

Gyuszi a.k.a. Julius (jnadas@ccc.edu) finds it annoying that he simply cannot burn the candle at both ends as successfully as he could twenty years ago. But because of the many jobs he does, it seems he still has a need to do so. What he does, he does so well that he is in great demand. Any time someone at school wants a job done well, it seems that he’s the one to tap. I think deep down inside, he loves it, but occasionally, when the lack of sleep catches up with him, he mumbles about lost youth and occasionally about retirement. This is life – The best diversion for him is travel. We took a few smaller trips this past year: Florida; Nashville, TN; white-water canoeing in Wisconsin; to name a few. We all love to travel, but for Gyuszi, it stands far above all other leisure-time activity.

Erika (enadas@worldnet.att.net) decided that the time had come to have some fun. Accordingly, I registered for a course in Anatomy and Physiology at Wright – where Gyuszi teaches, and I can take courses for nearly no cost. I thoroughly enjoyed it – both the course material and the idea of learning something just for the fun of it. So I took the "cadaver" class in the summer (where we had the opportunity to apply the first semester of Anatomy to a human body). This required a considerable amount of clinical detachment, but was incredibly fascinating. Gyuszi told me I wasn’t allowed to practice at home – I wonder why? In the fall, I’ve been in the second semester of A&P. Again, I’m enthralled. The other thing that I’ve been doing for fun has been singing in the Church choir. The highlight of the year was Bach’s Magnificat – a challenging, but incredibly beautiful work. Yet one more thing has been keeping me busy lately. When Gyuszi was unhappy about the difficulty in finding daytime part time teachers for his Introduction to Microcomputer class, I (foolishly?) said that even I could teach it. So I currently have a pre-enrollment of eleven for my class starting in January. I also have about an inch thick stack of paper outlining about the first five weeks of material – note: there are 17 weeks! Never having done this before, I feel only slightly (ha ha!) overwhelmed.

Krisztina (knadas@imsa.edu) probably had the most changes come into her life this past year. Her marriage to Jason was dissolved by mutual consent. In January, she married her best friend from high school, Scott (tobytoes@hotmail.com) Sundem. She chose to keep her Nadas name, however, since she has been professionally published under that name. Scott is an officer in the U.S. Navy, thus relocating is part of the deal. At the moment, they are living in Charleston, SC. Addresses are probably futile, since their future location becomes questionable in February. This is one reason for the e-mail addresses – they are more permanent. In any case, she is very happy with her decision. She left the University of Chicago with a Master’s degree, and is currently working in a diabetes lab at the Medical University of S. Carolina in Charleston. She is also taking an Income Tax preparation course, partly for the knowledge, and partly to have a salable skill if she has difficulty finding a job after the next transfer. Needless to say, we miss her.

Gyula a.k.a. Jay (Gyula.Nadas@walgreens.com) graduated from college (University of Illinois, Chicago) in June with a BS in Biology, and a minor in Psychology. He had been working as a Pharmacy Technician at Walgreens for three years, and in August, they hired him to the corporate office (here in Deerfield) to work on quality control of the computer software new releases destined for use in the stores. He has been very excited about the work, learning several computer languages and significantly increasing his computer literacy level. He has been made a team leader and has been recognized as employee of the month. He even got exposure to the high powered executives by making a presentation of speed comparisons of the same software on different operating systems and hardware. So with all of this going for him, he still wants to leave, applying to Pharmacy programs in Universities all around here – in other words, his heart is still in the pharmacy. We’ll see what the future holds.

Zsolt (znadas@imsa.edu) is a senior at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, and is busily applying to colleges. He is leaning toward computer sciences (big surprise!), and has chosen schools accordingly: U of Illinois school of Engineering, Case-Western Reserve (Cleveland), U of Wisconsin – Madison, and Carnegie-Mellon (Pittsburgh). Note: tuitions range from $3,500 to about $21,000. Hmmm. At the moment, he is much happier at IMSA than he’d been in the last two years. In his dorm wing (about 26 boys) he works as a residential assistant, coordinating activities etc. His goal is to make the wing a close knit group, and to help the boys be happy at school. I hear he’s doing well at it. This summer he worked as a computer consultant – mostly network – and was paid as much as $30! Wow!

Tas (tjnadas@hotmail.com) is in seventh grade, and actually likes school pretty well this year. He, too, is looking toward the future with the need to choose his High School. So we are going to high-school nights, open houses, etc. Fortunately, there is another year before he has to decide. Otherwise, he has rehabbed very well, coming back strongly after a shoulder injury this summer. He has been able to swim pain-free, but in the end chose not to join the swim team. The time commitment was too much for him. Frankly, I’m not too disappointed. I, too, like having time for other things. Tas’ highpoint of the week is his Hungarian Scout meeting. He is very actively involved, and his best friends are there. In any case, he is a delightful, normal, pre-teen, sometimes wise and ancient, sometimes testing the limits, sometimes the charmer, sometimes the little boy (but growing up fast – literally, too. He’s just a hair smaller than my 5’7" height).

We wish you all a New Year in which the joys are more than the troubles, where peace outweighs the arguments, and where contentment infuses every day.

Egy pár szót magyarul – nem ismetelem a családi beszámolot, igy adom az alkalmat az angol olvasást gyakorolni. Talán kellene kérni elnézést hogy nem irok többet magyarul - bocs. Mindenkinek kivánunk minden jót, boldogságot, az unnepekre is és az egész jövo évre is.