My name is Lilla Hudoba. I spent most of my life in Hungary and now I have been in the US, in Philadelphia for 4 years. Some of my friends and my nostalgy have inspired me to devote this website to Hungary to help people learn more about this small country.
I was born and raised in Kecskemét. My parents always expected a lot from me, but I myself also wanted to do my best every time. After high-school I learned in Jozsef Attila University in Szeged for 5 years. I prepared for a teaching carrier in Mathematics and Physics. I met my husband in Szeged, who got his degree in Physics in 1974. We got married that year and moved to Székesfehérvár, which is my husband's birthplace. He got a job in the VIDEOTON and I started my teaching carrier.
In 1976 my son, György was born, but I went back to school when he was 6 months old. Fortunately we got lots of help from the grandmothers.
I waited 7 years for my second child, Eszter, who was born in 1984. My husband always travelled a lot, he worked in different countries from Germany to Greece. I was alone a lot, raised our children and worked hard. I have liked folkart, so if I had some free time I made crochet and needlework mostly with Hungarian folk patterns. I plan to set up some pages with these wonderful old patterns in the near future.
In 1995 I got my second degree, in computer science and worked in the new computer lab of my school for some months. In 1996 my husband decided to look for opportunities in the USA and we moved here as green card winners. I thought it would be good for my children to master their English, and agreed to this big change. I had no relatives - both of my parents had died earlier - and our financial situation was always hard in Hungary; I expected a little better future here especially for my children. However, at the beginning it wasn't easier here either. Now my husband has been moving back and force between Hungary and US to keep his college teaching position in Hungary, too. I decided to stay in the US, because of my children. I hope I can move back to Hungary one day, but my first goal now is to provide support for my children here.
We have lived in Philadelphia since July 1996. In the first years I had 4-5 part-time jobs to make a living. I taught computer programming and calculus in a high-school and I worked in the learning centers of some colleges, universities. Fortunately the internet has always helped me to give in touch with my Hungarian friends, and also to make new friends which has always helped me to survive.
In September, 1999 I became a part-time faculty member of the Community College of Philadelphia. I taught 2 classes and I worked as a Math Specialist in the Learning Lab. I kept my part-time job in PennState University as well. One year later, in September 2000 I became a full-time Math Specialist in the Learning Lab of the Community College of Philadelphia, so now we enjoy a secure life with all the benefits. I am thankful to my friend and collegue, Prof. Gail Chaskes who has helped me in every step on my way.
My webdesign-experience started in November, 1998, when I signed up for a free personal webpage at Geocities.com. I wanted to learn webpage creation and to put some pictures to the web about Hungary. Amazingly, people started to visit my pages, I received e-mails from all over the world even in the first month. People told me their stories and asked for more information. I had nobody to help me - I learned HTML from a bargain, $8 book. I became a community leader in Geocities/Heartland in June, 1999. I helped others, wrote site-reviews and taught advanced HTML in Heartland University. I learned a lot here and made wonderful cyberfriends, too. Unfortunately Yahoo bought Geocities a year later and terminated the community leader program. That time I left Geocities and bought my domain name (hungarotips.com) and decided to put together all my existing pages. ( I had pages at other free webhosts as well.) This site is very important to me. I have met wonderful people through the internet with the aid of these pages, and many of them became my friends. I have more than 200 students from Finland to Australia, even from Vietnam, Mexico, Japan and from other exotic countries. There are more than 800 e-mail addresses on my 3 mail lists - and just to answer e-mails takes almost two hours every day. I hope I can keep up with this growing project.
I am very lucky -- I have had only wonderful experience in the internet so far. I am proud of my visitors -- their constant encouragement, interest and support have helped me to survive all the hardships I went through.
Please drop an e-mail to me if you have question about Hungary or about me, or if you just want to say hello. I would be happy to hear about you. Finally a picture about me and my children. (not the best, sorry) I plan to put more in the future.



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