! ! ! جني

after 2+ months in turkey, an amazing feeling is creeping up on me: normalcy. although i still can't linguistically understand most of what is going on around me (i find turkish interesting but difficult) things are starting to make sense & my days are less and less frustrating on a basic getting-by level. as a result, i'm feeling much more comfortable being "myself" as opposed to an apologetic charade of my personality fumbling around through turkish culture. i go to work five days a week, love my students (although not necessarily my job), and get along well with my co-workers (both turkish and foreign.) i go to + enjoy my graduate & turkish classes. i go to the gym. i can handle grocery shopping, the post office, the bank, and (finally!) the borderline-illogical on-campus bus system. i know my way around downtown ankara. i have a stable living situation (big help) & regular, genuinely fun social activities like communal cooking with some of the older (read: not fresh out of college like most) foreign speaking skills instructors. below are my dinner partners marion, sidney, and laura about to eat my attempts at ratatouille (in honor of the movie!) and buttered brussels sprouts with peach juice (very popular in turkey, as well as cherry and apricot juice):




teaching has been the focus of my life recently; i've grown to really develop relationships with my students via conversation classes on topics (that i make up) like media and violence, climate change, global standards of beauty, and most importantly HALLOWEEN. they are totally (and very seriously) into/afraid of cins (say: jinns) or genies, which are apparently written about in the koran and all over the place all the time! luckily my students take pity on me & teach me strategies (like repeating bismillah) to keep them at bay.

in general, turkish students seem to get a bit closer emotionally to their teachers than americans: after class today a few of my (17-year-old) students took me out for iskender kebap (vegetarians beware) and aşure, a deliciously sweet mix of fruit, nuts, wheat, and beans - supposedly what noah ate to celebrate upon arriving on mount ararat (in turkey!) i've also been promised various types of traditional turkish foods and english versions of the koran; we'll see if they materialize. my students seem totally invested in my happiness here and love to give me advice on foods, places to go, random problems, and turkish culture - i'm so lucky to have such a constant support system.

maybe a concrete plan to leave turkey helps a little: after much deliberation, my friend/fellow speaking skills instructor brian and i bought relatively cheap winter-break tickets to BERLIN leaving december 18 and returning christmas day via munich. brian is super nice & majored in history and german (i think - or at least speaks it and wants to get a phd in german history) at williams college, so i think he'll be an ideal travel partner. i've romanticized berlin since falling in love with wings of desire's angelic black and white portrayal & i'm looking forward to my first trip to europe (not counting istanbul or moscow) although i'm still trying to wrap my head around the cost of traveling in hyper-developed countries. the pathetic state of the dollar doesn't help.

as for now, i'm off for another long weekend in istanbul - this time to meet up with dilek, a friend-of-a-turkish-friend of mine from pittsburgh named nurözge. dilek visited nurözge in pittsburgh last year and we spent a silly + fun time running around the andy warhol museum together - so i'm excited to see her & meet her friends.

oh, and apparently i'll be attending a lecture with shimon peres on november 11th??