Barbara Deák aka Barbi Interview

Do you remember your time as a student here? And the time when you started to work? How did you get the work?

 

As a student I can't really remember anything. I was a students’ helper I was administrating things as the final exam and the next days I was administrating the exam of my classmates. I knew some things before I worked here. I had a good relationship with an administrator. I didn't even have a job interview. I met my husband here. I was in the theatre group and he was a director and I was an actress. They were in a crisis. One actress fell out. They made me to say a few words on the day of the festival. And he asked me where have I even before. Next year I got the main part.

 

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We are eager to know about the Brown cow… We do know that you met your husband there…

Could you tell us more about it?

 

Brown cow was a company theatre group. I was only a part of it for two of three years. It was nice. Everyone was doing it because they wanted to be a part of it. They was a course of it so you could get credit. They were always preparing for the English drama festival. The mother of the company was Erika who retired a few years after that. She was the soul of that and also very good language teacher. Probably there were funny stories but nothing else comes to us. Obviously it was hard to talk to teachers in a less formal way. But there were a couple of teachers who were close to my age so it wasn't so difficult to address them informally in the Hungarian language. I think there was some time while I didn't address anyone on the regular first basis not just a couple of them. I wrote a list like: Okay, I have to address her as this or this. So that was funny at the beginning. It wasn’t so natural for me.

 

 

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How many years from graduation do you work here?

 

10 years. I missed two and a half years because of my daughter. But basically ten years since I work here and graduated.

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You were an English major, is that right?

 

I had a minor programme and it was history.

 

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Not drama?

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But you didn't graduate from master’s studies?

 

No, I was a bit old student because I didn't come here after highschool. I was at ELTE studying Egyptology and Italian.

 

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Wow! I love how they're not related!

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Yes. I studied a lot of things. It was a bachelor programme. I completed all the courses but one. Then I spent some years to complete this class. At some point I quit. Then I worked a bit. And then decided to get a degree and decided to study English major here.