yes I said yes I will Yes

summer travels

2009-05-26T20:51:00.001-05:00

happy summer! most of the coursework for my MA ended in april, so may was like taking one huge sigh of relief and then one huge breath of fresh air. the first two semesters of a graduate program is much more busy/stressful/difficult than i expected. (although still fun!) however, i'm sure writing my thesis (starting around january) will bring another round of stress, so check back next spring :)

this summer is also the first semester i'm not TAing, so i also have a more flexible schedule. i have a research assistantship (RA) with my supervisor related to my thesis (mostly "data collection" via surveys and interviews involving an interpreter). i'm also applying for some part-time jobs at the moment; more later on the results.

the commercial drive neighborhood is also a blissful place to be in the summer - it's actually sunny in vancouver during this time of the year, so people are outside, talking, hanging out on the grass in the parks, etc. i put cruiser handlebars on my bike (myself!! which involved replacing all the cables!!), got a bell, and now am sufficiently comfy (+ nerdy looking) when i ride around in the sunshine. my friend majid moved to the neighborhood so we've been hanging out a bit too. i don't have to make the long bus-commute to burnaby mountain (where my university is located) as often these days, making things generally nicer overall in my life.

with this new-found flexibility i've been taking lots of trips to seattle to visit iman. we've gone to stuff like the mozart oprea "the marriage of figaro" (or at least half of it, since we were a little late), the play "the smile off your face" by ontroerend goed, the Official Bad Art Museum of Bad Art (OBAMA) at cafe racer, a u-district community day with lots street vendors (& elephant ears, which i tried for the first time but seem like a wanna-be version of cinnamon funnel cakes), and the my bloody valentine show (totally, totally wonderful - - really - - this song in particular was incredible). i've gotten to know all the u-district coffee shops by now, since i hung around the neighborhood working on my laptop while he did his work in the lab during the day. i started learning farsi a bit more seriously - which isn't saying much - but i have high hopes.

rachelle also came to visit, which was wonderful!! - we met at the seattle airport, hung out with iman a bit in seattle, took a boat to victoria & saw SO MANY BUNNIES at the university of victoria!!! (seriously a highlight of our lives, not kidding), & then rented a car with some friends and headed out to tofino (so beautiful!!) for a 2-night camping trip. . .then a ferry back to vancouver.

i also went to the women's health research network summer institute/conference in kelowna with 2 friends & hung out in the Okanagan for 2 nights.

this weekend i'm heading back down to seattle & will go to the juniper dunes in washington with iman & some of his friends.

despite all that i've mentioned, i really am doing work!! - besides the surveys, i'm presenting my first conference presentation on friday at SFU's Interrogation Techniques: Law, Texts, Culture and wow - i'm on the schedule i just realized - anyway, my presentation is called "Legal Restrictions and Community Definition: The Early Years of the Ladder" which is about how U.S. restrictions on magazine distribution influenced the creation of a national lesbian community in the 1950s by enabling the legitimization of a limited, assimilationist expression of lesbian sexuality.

i'll also be in toronto from june 6 - 14 taking the "summer course on refugee and forced migration issues" at the centre for refugee studies at york university in toronto. my supervisor is teaching part of it so hopefully we'll be hanging out there.

so! that's what's up. i'm trying to reconceptualize this blog into something more structured and potentially more useful/interesting (rather than just a laundry list of what's going on in my world) but until then - بدرود ("bedrood," or bye!)

update from b.c.

2009-03-06T00:38:00.006-05:00

This semester I'm taking 3 classes (research methodology, grad studies/research proposal preparation, and introduction to immigration and settlement at the university of british columbia with a really awesome prof) and liking them a lot, especially the class at UBC. i'm a TA for a class called "gender & geography" taught by my supervisor who is awesome as well. i settled on a thesis topic (government-assisted refugee resettlement in vancouver) and am in the early stages of the "data collection process" ("field work" ??). oh! and i'm going to my first conference - the metropolis "frontiers of canadian migration" conference in calgary - generously paid for by my supervisor :)

speaking of migration, i started a new blog at http://migrationinthenews.blogspot.com/ to casually comment on migration themes in popular online media in case anyone is interested.

A few other random things:

- here's a cool interactive graphic from the New York Times on the gender wage gap in the US
- i'm totally into sarah haskins & her target women show
- i also recently discovered cake wrecks and why cats paint and kittens inspired by kittens! - all 3 of which i genuiely find out of control!!! in a good way.
- as evidenced above, i've been spending a lot of time on the internet. iman is still in seattle :(

however, my friend Mr. David did come to visit me from pgh, which was awesome! Here we are celebrating the superbowl. . .

and me about to cross the Capilano suspension bridge (with what seems to be only one leg!):

and me with my friend Arefe about to eat a meal we (mostly Arefe) made:

bye for now!

hi from vancouver

2009-01-29T21:22:00.007-05:00

hey! i haven't posted in. . .er. . .about 9 months or so, but now i'm living in vancouver, BC & studying at simon fraser university. i have a website!! - which is something i always wanted to do (learn the basics of how html works) & thus exciting for me, maybe more exciting than it should be. other than school-stuff, i primarily:

1. avoid bears:

2. get really happy when i see the beautiful scenery of the west coast:

3. ride the bus:

4. and, until today, hang out with my awesome boyfriend:

we USED TO ride the bus together (primary activity), play racquetball, go out to eat, watch curb your enthusiasm, play soduko and water polo and backgammon, go ice skating, go on hikes, do work at coffee shops, watch movies, make cookies, go swimming, go to hot springs, walk near lakes, sleep on floors, ride bicycles on sidewalks, celebrate halloween, go to birthday parties, hang out at the library, go grocery shopping, etcccc. . .but today he moved to seattle (temporarily). hence, spare time to update the blog - you might have noticed a suspicious correlation between blog activity and meeting him!

anyway, that's where i am, and this is iman's official introduction to the blog. he's probably the only one who will read this anyway! more later!

hey van kedi, kedi from van!

2008-04-29T11:49:00.011-05:00

2 months ago (oops!!!) i spent my final week-long break from work (april 17 - 27ish) with both my dear friend laura and one of my close friends from home - john f. - who came to visit after a six month stint in afghanistan and iraq. our trip started out by flying from ankara to trabzon and taking buses along the following path through eastern turkey (you can click on the blue bubbles for info):

View Larger Map

then finishing with a flight from van to istanbul and, two days later, a bus back to ankara where john flew back to washington and laura and i returned to our "BUSELogic" lives.

here are some highlights (mostly taken by john) including wildflowers in the port city of trabzon:

and the black sea!

and the nearby sumela monastery in the mountains:

an amazingly scenic bus ride through north eastern turkey:

seljuk architecture in erzurum:

the fields of abandoned ruins at ani, former armenian capital - one of the more beautiful and interesting scenes i've seen:

views of mt. ararat where noah's ark supposedly landed:

ishak pasha palace outisde doğubeyazıt:

the armenian church on akdamar island, lake van:

driving around van/getting lost in a dedicated quest to find the famous van kitties with one blue, one yellow-ish eye!

after while we saw some hope. . .

and then the real thing, albeit in a CAGE and not swimming around.

then a traditional van breakfast. . .

before wandering around istanbul. here is the underground basilica cistern (with creepy classical music piped through!)

and lamps in the grand bazaar.

جمهورية مصر العربية

2008-03-26T10:57:00.009-05:00

my friend michelle and i originally intended to head to syria for our week's vacation in mid-february (over a month ago! oops.) however, when the visa turned out to be more of a hassle than we'd expected and a cheap flight to cairo turned up, we decided on egypt. michelle studied arabic in college and wanted to go to an arabic-speaking country - unfortunately, the dialect difference turned out to be a big problem - but egypt it was.

("egypt" in hieroglyphics)

so on february 9th we left snowy bilkent, ankara. . .

. . .for warm, dusty cairo. (notice the pyramids in the distance.)

for the first two nights we stayed with my friend dan from semester at sea who is currently teaching english in the suburb of 6 october. our first-day attempt to get to cairo on a minibus accidentally took us to the sphinx (much smaller than i expected) plopped down immediately next to three pyramids and the sprawling town of giza (not out in the desert at all like my imagined geography had me think.) we paid a chunk of money to climb up inside the biggest pyramid, which involved crawling up a claustrophobic, diagonal coffin-shaped space - squeezing past people going both up and down - only to arrive at a small, musty stone room with nothing inside. the pyramids were certainly different than i'd expected, but seeing such an iconic landmark up close (and the accompanying horrific tourism machine clunking along with it) was still an interesting experience.

dan took us to a great lebanese restaurant in 6 october for falafel, hummus, baba ganouj, nargile (called shisha in egypt) and great seats to watch the televised african cup football match - egypt vs. cameroon - which egypt won 1 - 0. this resulted in CHAOS across the city: male-dominated mayhem in the streets, chanting, singing, and dancing, and impromptu torches made by lighting hairspray cans on fire.

we spent the next few days in cairo going to the egyptian museum (with an amazing mummy collection), eating stuffed pigeons, wandering around Islamic cairo and the Khan al-Khalili bazaar, and having the best shisha & coffee ever at naguib mahfouz's favorite coffee shop (Fishawi.) cairo shocked me: despite the traffic and pollution, i found it much more manageable and pleasant than people/guidebooks suggested.

to my delight, cairo actually reveled itself through rose-colored glasses: valentines day was approaching and stores went all out with pink lights, flowers, and gifts (particularly lingerie stores - an interesting contrast with the mostly covered female population.) michelle and i celebrated by buying each other bags of relatively fancy chocolate which turned out to be awful - coming from me, that's saying a lot. my heart was elsewhere. . .

later, michelle and i took an overnight train to luxor. even though we splurged for the tourist sleeper car, michelle got sick from the food and hung out in our hostel room for the first day. i rented two bicycles (both which immediately got flat tires) and consequently got invited up to an apartment with some curious pre-teen kids. we had a "chip and dance party" (their idea) and i got headscarf-ed and my nails painted. this was fun until i announced i had to leave and an entire apartment full of children (new faces had mysteriously and exponentially arrived) started wailing and following me down the street with my (equally mysteriously repaired) bicycle.

over the next two days we took a falluca boat trip on the nile, hung out with some brits living in syria and americans living in israel, smoked shisha much stronger (and better) than in turkey, and saw a few beautiful moons/sunsets.

despite a dull questioning in the back of my mind regarding the ethics of visiting tombs, we went on a tour of the valley of the kings (and queens) and saw some beautiful paintings and hieroglyphics. photos weren't allowed in the tombs, but below are some shots from a nearby temple.

in the evening, we visited the extremely impressive luxor temple bathed in beautiful sunset-light and relaxed for a while. we unknowingly missed the karnak temple (!!) but by that time were so worn out we had no problem wandering back to the hostel and trying some cups of beans/pasta/meat as suggested by our friend paul.

back in cairo, we went to the beautiful and relaxing coptic neighborhood where we visited some museums and churches and, later, hung out in the bookstores of a foreigner/upscale neighborhood called Zamalek for a while.

two things overriding all other experiences were watching the tourism machine of egypt function (for me, at least, an amazing, depressing, and difficult system to see) and being one half of a young, white, unaccompanied female duo. even though we were pretty well covered up and remained as inconspicuous as possible, michelle and i had some serious issues with harassment from men. it was never a dangerous feeling - more of a nagging, omnipresent sense of objectification - but it really bothered me. i've never really felt like a piece of meat on display before egypt. there was mild harassment in parts of india, tanzania, and brazil, but nothing like what we experienced in egypt. i wonder if this has anything to do with it. . .

finally it was back to turkey, where i spent the rest of the weekend hanging around in the snow/sleet/slush of istanbul with my friend iman before taking an overnight bus to ankara.

right now i'm deep into the third (out of four) course i'm teaching. because the level i'm teaching is lower and includes more repeat students, it's much more difficult than past courses . i'm unfortunately also working more hours this semester; combined with some scheduling problems and worn-out-ness, i'm no longer taking graduate or turkish classes. work is getting increasingly frustrating, but luckily i've spent every other weekend in istanbul - this weekend i have plans to rent a car & visit gallipoli. brie visited & we had a great time. . .john is coming in 3 weeks. . .mallory and jared are coming mid-may. . .and rachelle is most likely coming in june! other than anticipating visitors i'm mostly waiting to hear from grad schools. . .

. . .but it is spring, and that's a great thing. here's my first haft sin table to celebrate nowruz:

happy new year.

2008-02-08T15:59:00.000-05:00

it's been a while since i've posted but in 24 hours i'll be in cairo - so here's a whirl through the past month of my life:

bedra took me to get my hair cut which involved 45 full minutes of blow drying the life out of my hair (see below, with nargile.) cutting hair is apparently a very masculine profession in turkey and many turkish women get their hair professionally styled weekly. i avoided washing my hair for as long as possible after the cut, but it's now back to its wavy frizzy mess.

both my first round of grad classes and my second teaching course ended. teaching got significantly easier the second time around. here's me with one of my speaking skills classes to give an idea of how old my students are (mostly between 17 and 22.) i teach small groups - typically between 5 and 7 students at a time.

i also accepted invitations to go out with two of my classes - one to a traditional restaurant with live musicians and lots of raki + dancing (where several of the students got hopelessly drunk for the first time and i had to shuttle them back to campus mother-duck-style) and the other to a bowling alley where even my limited bowling skills still put the boys to shame. for the next course i've been switched to a new teaching unit (now teaching "pre-intermediate" english as opposed to "intermediate") so i'll have to gauge a new level of english speaking and adjust my teaching/speaking accordingly.

i attended lectures by greek prime minister costas karamanlis and professor walter russell mead, applied to grad school for an MA in geography (only at UBC and U Toronto, so wish me luck. . .) and took a weekend trip to istanbul where i spent most of my time eating fish and watching the sunrise/set. at 2:15 tonight i'm taking an overnight bus back to istanbul to catch a flight to cairo with my friend michelle. . . we'll be there for a week.

brie (in march) and john (in april) are officially coming to visit - i hope my brother, rachelle, and others make it too. . .more after egypt!

happy leap year.

2008-01-13T03:48:00.000-05:00

since new years i've pretty much been a recluse in my room, finishing up two term papers for my grad classes and scrambling to get two last-minute applications to MA programs in geography together. (wish me luck.) i'm loving the queen's gambit by walter tevis. . .getting invited to eat fancy food in a bunch of people's apartments. . .crossing my fingers for obama. . .and, as usual, hanging around laura a bunch. she gave me the most amazingly-wrapped gift: a beautiful print she did - now up on my wall - which came rolled in a hand-colored map of eugene:

and outside my window this month: snow!

this is "lojman 106" where i live. as you can see there is NOTHING near it . . .except lots of mud currently hidden by the snow.

and these are a few views from atop the ankara kale (fort/castle) at sunset.

“Travel (like walking) is a substitute for the legends that used to open up space to something different.”
- Michel de Certeau, from The Practice of Everyday Life

ich bin ein berliner.

2008-01-05T04:38:00.000-05:00

when americans ask about my travel experiences, a common response is: but you've never been to europe. it's true that i've traveled in a round-about way compared to most americans; turkey seems incredibly developed and comfortable compared to most places i've been. yet other than a vague desire to experience the romance of paris (and see berlin after wings of desire) i've never really thought about visiting europe until arriving in turkey. now my heart is totally set on madrid and prague and helsinki etcccc. someday!!! - but with a winter break, cheap(ish) tickets to germany, and a friend with a german-history-major who'd never been to berlin, a trip to germany sounded nice. i ended up remembering german words i didn't even know i'd learned and falling head over heels in love with berlin.

brian and i flew ankara ---> munich ---> berlin (only missing one flight!) and met up with megan the next day. we stayed in a hip yet relatively cheap hostel near the tv tower and started off with a highly recommended free walking tour of the major outdoor historical sights (the brandenburg gate, the pretty amazing memorial to the murdered jews of europe, checkpoint charlie etc. etc.) i dragged brian to the berlin state library where a scene in wings of desire was filmed - however, without a library card, we were left to the purgatory of the lobby. we spent a lot of time at museums on museum island and beyond; the architecture of the jewish museum was especially impressive. much to brian and megan's dismay, i spent way too long at the hamburger bahnhof museum for modern & contemporary art awing at bill viola's "he weeps for you" and ceal floyer's "working title (digging)" (not to mention paul mccarthy's "santa chocolate shop" - faint of heart, beware.) when i found them waiting in the lobby as i was barely half-way finished, we decided to split up and meet later for döner kebab (way better in germany than turkey and fun to surprise vendors with bits of turkish) and (accidental) dancing at a gay bar covered wall-to-wall in HOT PINK FUR and christmas lights. i half-seriously considered a convenience-marriage proposal in exchange for an EU passport.

cold and tired but happy to be in a city with both burritos and indian food, we ate, drank beer (and absinthe - not particularly amazing), wandered, and relaxed as i bugged brian to translate and explain everything. checking out various sections of the berlin wall was interesting & only added to the amazingness+confusion of the history crumbling everywhere in berlin.

other highlights included a pair of foxes darting around in the snow of a construction site, the silliness of a giant snow tubing hill built right by the sony center, 10 euro tickets to a performance of handel's messiah in the incredible berlin philharmonic hall, and hipster girls-in-skirts rolling by on old bicycles every few minutes. we also stopped by the beautifully chaotic christmas market near our hostel almost every night to gorge on chocolate-covered apples, bratwurst, mulled wine, and the occasional cup of (disgusting but hot) grog. imagine christmas lights, a maze of handicraft stalls, a mix of steaming/greasy and colorful/sugary food, crowds of frazzled families and giddy teenagers, carnival rides, and buskers playing christmas carols on giant-cranked-music-boxes and the rims of water-filled glasses. a flash:

then: a contrast. megan and i visited the remains of the sachsenhausen concentration camp, a 30 min. train ride from berlin in the town (literally) of oranienburg. we left later than we'd planned & arrived as the sun was setting somewhere behind a thick, menacing gray sky. as it got dark we were the only visitors and still a long walk away from the entrance, quickly turning a haunting, somber experience into a distressing and borderline-terrifying one. walking through a fully-furnished prison and barrack alone with megan in the pitch black was more than i could handle. it was truly the landscape of death. i didn't take any photographs there, but imagine this (stolen from the internet) at dusk with the bleakness of fog and flurries:

that's "work will set you free."

the whole thing was surreal and more difficult than i'd expected. i spent the following day (dec. 24th) nursing a hurt foot (from awful boots) alone on the s-baun ring. . .circling around. . .trying to process things.

we actually managed a nice christmas eve despite being far away from our families: some wine at the hostel, a super-fancy meal at a very euro restaurant where we accidentally ordered refills of our giant glasses of beer instead of the DESSERT MENU (but went with it + a banana split all the same), and a tipsy midnight church service at a big lutheran cathedral called the berliner dome. although the service was in german, a children's choir sang haunting, angelic songs that transcended language - it was beautiful. you can see the dome here from a christmas market:

inside:

and our christmas eve self-portrait here:

although the dollar/lira vs. euro exchange rate was almost prohibitively awful throughout the trip, we still stocked up on face wash, conditioner, and other relatively expensive turkish goods (thanks to importing costs) before leaving. coming "home" (on christmas day) was a strange experience; the juxtaposition of returning to ankara after berlin helped me see ankara with fresh eyes. i realized i'd been subconsciously self-censoring my individuality/gender performance in turkey - i'd grown meeker, quieter, and more careful with my body movements - whereas in germany i felt more free to move and dress and randomly sing on the street as i pleased. i suddenly missed things as banal as efficient public transportation and international cuisine to thought-provoking contemporary art and the presence of vibrant, alternative subcultures i could celebrate and understand - not to mention the familiar pleasures of stumbling across all-girl accordion punk band shows and squatter kids playing beautiful acoustic guitar on the subway with their dogs. most of this is can be found in istanbul and, to some extent, in ankara, even though my lack of turkish keeps any meaningful understanding just out of my reach. but, in another way, the individualistic mindset isn't the same in turkey. my ability to be the woman i want to be feels stunted. maybe all this has to do with being abroad and yet not visibly a foreigner for the first time - and probably because berlin is just an amazing city as far as cities go in general. but the trip solidified my decision to leave turkey after this year. while there are obviously incredible experiences unique to living in turkey that would only grow as my turkish improves, i really felt the benefits of existing long-term in a more accepting, liberated society (ironic coming from germany.)

i also experienced my first earthquake!! - on december 27th around 2 in the morning when i awoke to my entire bed shaking. since our building is brand-new and got finished in a hurry, laura and i (unintentionally??) took whatever genuine element of danger existed and went with it, getting dressed, searching online for earthquake survival tips, and freaking ourselves out over the 1999 earthquake in İzmit that killed around 17,000 people (including the father of one of my friends here.) it turned out to be a 25-second-long 5.5 magnitude earthquake, preceded by a 5.7 magnitude quake the week before while i was in germany. there are now several big cracks in the walls of both my classroom and laura's room.

i spent new years drinking gin & losing at monopoly in my apartment building (sorta more fun than it sounds.) now it's back to teaching (i love my students so much!!) and finishing up the work for my grad classes (i'm so stuck!!) after our coveted trip to syria was fully confused by time constraints, train logistics, and visa difficulties, michelle and i decided to go ahead with a pair of relatively cheap tickets to cairo for our february break. i'll be visiting a friend of mine from semester at sea and hanging around with my co-worker paul who studied abroad there & is excited to play tour guide. thanks to my aunt who gave me the christmas money to afford it!

happy new year, everyone! if you're reading this, chances are you're dearly missed.

iyi kurban bayramlar

2007-12-15T04:04:00.001-05:00

this is my first winter-holiday-season away from my family. even though i'm not especially nostalgic for american-style christmas-time, i hosted a gingerbread-house-making night to get in the spirit of things. recently i've been growing to love (and appreciate) my american friends here - especially laura and michelle - and since we're pretty isolated in a mostly-foreigner dorm-like apartment building in the semi-middle of nowhere (on bilkent university's campus) we spend a lot of time together. it's not ideal in terms of exposure to (let alone immersion in) turkish culture, but it's fun to pretend i'm a fresh(wo)man in college again, wandering around in pajamas & stumbling upon impromptu visits/dance parties/existential crises/discussions & dreams of life-plans. it was nice to gather up some people and realize how much i genuinely like them. makes being away from home a lot easier.

michelle, as always, came over early to help set up. we tried to eat something healthy before the whole thing -

until marion brought real gingerbread, , ,

and everyone dug into a mess of sugar.

we also cut paper snowflakes,

stuck cloves in oranges,

and don't be fooled by laura's grave expression: got goofy + stayed up way too late for a wednesday night with work at 8:50 the next morning.

thanks to this year's kurban bayramı falling in mid-december, after work on tuesday i'll be leaving for a week in berlin with my friends brian and megan. i'm looking forward to great museums, sorely-missed indian food, good beer, confusing turkish immigrants with my turkish, and a fancy christian christmas eve service somewhere before flying back on christmas day. since brie pushed her visit back i'll be staying in ankara over new years to work on my final paper + project for my grad classes. even though i love my new batch of students, juggling work with my classes has been pretty tiring recently & i haven't been able to give enough energy to the latter. these breaks will be nice.

also, after four months in turkey i was just given keys to a mailbox!! if you wanna send mail you can either send it to my work address at BUSEL or. . .my apartment, which is probably better:

#202
Orta Kampus, Lojman 106
Bilkent Üniversitesi
Bilkent, Ankara 06800

more after germany. . .my first time to europe (unless istanbul counts?)

brick in the wall

2007-12-06T16:18:00.000-05:00

While working at the Marlboro Music Festival this summer, I befriended an awesome & inspiring girl named Brie (featured in this older post) who runs the blog Where have all the cowgirls gone? with her friend Huma. Brie asked me back in July or so for a contribution and I finally got around to putting one together this week with the editing help of Michelle and especially Laura. (THANK YOU!!) It should be posted on her blog soon, but I've decided to post a version here too since I haven't written much about my experiences teaching. I'm also posting a picture I didn't take because 1. it vaguely reminds me of brie (since i first saw it this past summer on the BBC's site) and 2. pembe seviyorum!

This August, recently armed with undergraduate degrees in literature and political science, I did what any directionless American liberal arts major lacking financial ambition might do: ship off to teach English abroad. I was lucky to land a year-long Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship at the prestigious Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey – a part of the world I’d always wanted to visit. I could take free graduate classes while teaching “speaking skills” to small classes of would-be Bilkent undergraduates lacking the language skills necessary to meet the English-medium university’s standards. Read: they wanted warm-blooded native speakers to talk for twenty hours a week. Sounded simple enough. Little did I know just how provocative those hours of essentially free-for-all conversation would be.

My original goal was simply to hold the students’ interest, avoid philosophical landmines (i.e. obey the law) and nudge them towards fluency. I start out with a seemingly flawless lesson plan: an analysis of the Beatles’ “When I’m 64,” followed by predictions of what their lives will be like when they reach that age. To my dismay, my chirpy questions are answered with blank stares. The distant future? They’re late teens still trying to pass the upcoming exam, much less deal with answers to existential questions fifty years from now. To top it all off, the questions are coming from a wacky 23-year-old teacher – barely older than them – hiding anarchist sentiments under awkward-fitting “professional” clothes. The fact that I’m ditching my friends and family to teach them the English they need to get a Turkish education is beyond comprehension. What can they say? Will they end up staying in Turkey or go for the “utopian” dream of graduate school – and potentially life – abroad? Will their passports ever double as tickets into the EU? Is Turkey sliding down the same “slippery slope” towards fundamentalist Islamic rule à la Iran as some Turks insist? For those with immediate family in current or potential war zones, the future is even more precarious. “Insh’Allah, teacher,” they say, Arabic for “god-willing,” “we want a good life, but we don’t know what will happen.”

Actually, each time I walk into a classroom, neither do I. I consistently find myself in a crossfire of social issues I only vaguely understand. A macho student in a pink playboy-bunny shirt fiddles with his brand-new BMW keys in one hand and seductively swings his prayer beads in the other, bragging about the girls he’d met at a bar the night before; next to him, a girl pats her hairpins to make sure the hat she’s wearing covers all her hair (since by law she can’t wear a headscarf to school) as she complains about society’s expectations of women’s physical appearances; next to her a heavily made-up girl in a skin-tight miniskirt and knee-high boots furrows her brows at the mention of alcohol (technically prohibited in Islam) and promises to bring me a copy of the Koran next class. An Iraqi exchange student describes her recent trip home as “peaceful” while an adrenaline-charged boy fresh from his military service demands an explanation of the US’s presence there. A previously quiet girl offhandedly suggests the army destroy Kurdish villages out east; an invisibly-Kurdish boy from the far east is silent. The Bulgarians and Azerbaijanians need special translations of new vocabulary. Those on scholarship need help circumventing the all-too-prevalent topic of “shopping.” Most students are happy discussing their hometowns and Turkish food, but for a small yet vocal minority, the topic of Greeks and Armenians (not to mention Jews, Asians, and blacks) offers endless material for cruel jokes. One boy says he wants to “holocaust gay people.” And I am to say…what? “Holocaust” is not a verb?

The problem is, I’m trying to juggle a little too much: teach English with laughable training, wind my way through a labyrinth of cultural nuances, and figure out what to do with my life. Let’s be frank: for most young graduates, “teaching English” is less a passion for grammar than it is a “gap year” between school and “real life.” Meanwhile, the luxury of my indecision feels increasingly unfair. Bilkent University is one of the top universities in Turkey, and the Turkish-born English teachers I work with are some of the best in their field. Their jobs are competitive and they work hard towards advanced teaching degrees. Me? I didn’t take a single education course in college – yet I have the option of teaching virtually anywhere until I decide to dabble in the myriad of choices available to me. Japan or Spain? Journalism career or graduate school? I’m the face of the cultural imperialist force neither side can escape: no matter how hard my coworkers study English, I’ll always have a leg up just because my native language happens to be the current international one. No matter how much I struggle with the assigned English translations of Foucault and Deleuze in my graduate courses, my Turkish peers are facing an exponentially more difficult battle. And yet no matter how American foreign policy taints my students’ gut reaction to my nationality, they’re always up for talking about Justin Timberlake’s new song. Not necessarily because it’s good. Just infectious. Because it’s everywhere.

These students don’t particularly care about the Beatles. Like most of the industrialized world they know Lost and Angelina Jolie, but they’re also growing up in an especially conflicted and diverse country currently facing issues with enough conversation material to last a lifetime. They deserve teachers who will encourage critical thinking relevant to their lives. I’ve adjusted my lesson plans to discuss topics like gender roles, global warming, and international standards of beauty – even the wildly popular (and arguably anti-American) Turkish television show Valley of the Wolves Iraq. We have debates. Heated debates. And I learn far more about Turkish culture from my students than I ever could fumbling through Turkey on my own.

The cliché rings true: I learn just as much as – if not more than – my students. What was originally a vehicle for getting abroad has become the most stimulating aspect of my life in Turkey. I can’t always give them my all; teaching, studying, translating, and missing home is exhausting. However, I give them more than I expected. Like them, my future life-path is fuzzy. We’re figuring it out together.

sanfran- - i mean safranbolu

2007-11-25T16:00:00.000-05:00

due to a blissfully lackadaisical avoidance of planning-ahead, my weekend trip to amasya with laura, michelle, sidney, and marion was abruptly botched when we realized the bus schedule wouldn't allow for enough time in the area. instead, michelle and i opted for two days in the partially preserved ottoman-style town of safranbolu (where the others had already visited) - a UNESCO world heritage site about 3 hours north of ankara. a visit to the old-part of town mainly involves wandering through the maze of ottoman houses and narrow stone streets, picking at street vendors' wares, and taste-testing a bunch of lokum (turkish delight); - - however, the brisk/crumbling november weather made it especially atmospheric (and off-season as far as the tourist industry goes.)

our pension (bastoncu pension) was gorgeously restored & immediately discounted.

however, it was also very cold - the owners turned on the heat upon our arrival - so michelle and i hung out in cafes as late as possible & drank salep to keep warm.

it's a hot drink made with the flour of ground + dried orchid tubers, milk, sugar, and cinnamon. (recipe here.) i loved it, although apparently it's apparently depleting turkey's orchid population (and thus illegal to export.)

we also got a semi-creepy impromptu massage from a blacksmith in the back of his shop, two free private tours by a parking lot attendant-turned-"official"-tourist-guy and a certain (more genuine & wonderful) mehmet, and ate ridiculous lollipops from a man who must HATE his work uniform. but was jolly all the same.

as usual, there are a few more pictures here. ALSO, the most wonderful thing just happened: it's snowing and i got to announce this fact to a CELTA girl from florida who has never seen snow before. words cannot express the joy this brought laura + me as we watched her look out the window. before it was snow it was rain, and this is what laura looked like when she came home:

(hi dad, she says!) she then requested i post this picture of a mannequin from an ottoman-house-museum in safranbolu.

because it is crazy.

happy turkey-turkey day.

2007-11-22T18:06:00.001-05:00

after work today the SSIs (speaking skills instructors - that's me!) in our building really pulled together a wonderful-giant thanksgiving potluck dinner in our building's atrium - here are the initial tables which ended up seating a portion of the people that came:

and the line for (some of!) the food:

a picture of laura (for her dad!) making mulled wine with alix:

and a general picture of bucky, me, and michelle:

i made 2 giant bowls of fruit salad. laura, sidney, michelle, and i are going to amasya this weekend so check back for a report on that. until then, happy thanksgiving!! - i really missed my family tonight.

look for me on tv.

2007-11-10T14:35:00.000-05:00

to convey the pleasant & self-indulgent nature of most of my weekends here in ankara, here's a recap of this week's:

after finishing friday's 7 hours of teaching duties i took the bus downtown to go out with the 3 aforementioned american speaking skills instructors (also known as SSIs - abbreviations are a way of life here) from my teaching unit (TU): paul, anna, and erik - along with laura and a few other SSIs - to meet up with azra and bedra (from our TU) and a few of their friends. we met in the landmark known as BURGER KING and headed on to a bar with a texas/western theme (complete with a giant texas flag + a COVERED WAGON inside) to hear a live band playing the 80's english-language pop music that is so incredibly popular here (featuring billie jean and englishman in new york.) azra chose shots of sex on the beach as our drink which ensured a night of dancing and singing. at 1:30 laura + most others took the last bus back to bilkent while paul, azra, bedra, and i drove to another bar/club to dance to the same songs played by a different (actually, much worse) cover band but in a really cool atmosphere - there were blue christmas lights strung all over, stained glass lanterns, and outdoor space heaters hanging from trees in a shaded garden. afterwards paul and i went to bedra's apartment to eat pasta and sleep for a few hours before waking up on saturday and driving to atatürk's mausoleum for the annual remembrance of his death.

atatürk died in 1938; since then, every november 10th at 9:05 am the entire country stops for a moment of silence as deafening sirens blare. everything stops. we were actually next to a large outdoor running track/exercise playground on our way to the mausoleum when it happened and it was such an eerie scene to see all the runners standing erect and motionless as only tree branches rustled near my face. cars stop (although some blare on their horns the whole time to enhance the effect of the sirens, i guess) and time freezes. it was an incredible minute.

afterwards the three of us walked to the cafe-ish middle-class neighborhood of bahçelievler to drink turkish coffee and buy some produce; the sun filtered through the trees and buildings in the beautiful, relaxing way only saturday-morning-sun can. paul and i took the bus home where i relaxed in my room for only an hour or two before laura invited me to the lower-class & more religious neighborhood of ulus for my first-ever trip to a hamam.

inside, we were instructed to undress and wash ourselves off in a steamy white marble room while naked women of all shapes and sizes did the same, older women sang, and a purple sunset hovered over the star-of-david-shaped skylights in the domed ceiling. after a bit a large kindly woman beckoned me to lay down for an intense scrubbing massage where layers of black dirt i didn't even know existed peeled off on large quantities. she then dumped buckets of warm water all over me and completely soaped me up. i rinsed off as laura went through the same process; afterwards we were totally pink-skinned, clean, and relaxed.

we walked from ulus to a nearby metro station to get back to bahçelievler for some silly fun on these ubiquitous outdoor exercise machines in a park, went to a restaurant for amazing pide, kebabs, and ayran while goofing around with two rambunctious little boys, and took a cab to a bilkent bus stop. unfortunately it started RAINING & we were forced to take cover in a nearby sweet shop & subsequently buy some fancy chocolate. our plan to watch a movie in my apartment was quickly foiled after we had to run for 20 minutes through the rain & i promptly fell asleep - exhausted - at 11pm.

this afternoon i went for coffee with my friend michelle and attended a ceremony awarding shimon peres with an honorary doctorate from bilkent university. although i would have gone anyway, bilkent - perhaps fearing low attendance? - required all BUSEL teachers to attend. he was an eloquent, charismatic speaker & answered the expected questions re: the wall separating israel and palestine, his views on iran (or, rather, his views on mahmous ahmadinejad, since peres was quick to separate the president from the iranian people), the connection between israel and the US in regard to their middle east involvement, etc, in a somewhat evasive yet wise-grandfather-like-way. afterwards i was interviewed by either the turkish or israeli news (not sure which, although most bystanders claimed to see israeli on the video camera) whose eyes lit up when i said i was from the united states. it was actually pretty stressful since it was obvious they were asking me purposefully provocative questions like "no one here is wearing head scarves. is turkey a muslim country or what?" and "what do you think of the claim that the US and israel are involved in a conspiracy together?" and "why do you think most turkish students are against america and israel?" i tried to be as honest as possible, but after working at npr where selecting seconds of clips is key, it was hard to be candid knowing any given phrase could be chopped out and spread across national television.

i just finished eating michelle's eggplant parmigiana & now i'm planning to read for the rest of the night. this week is our last week with our first set of students - next week they'll find out if they pass on to upper-intermediate or will stay to repeat intermediate. apparently repeating is more common than it should be, which for me isn't totally bad - i love my students!

i can't hide

2007-11-05T14:33:00.001-05:00

apparently in another life i resembled turkish top model deniz akkaya, since every week or so a new person tells me i look like her. ("just the face" they usually point out.) it's seriously getting ridiculous.

i have yet to be convinced!

however, a fight practically broke out in one of my classes after two girls said i looked more like liv tyler:

either one is fine by me, although i think the comparisons might have to do with my "foreignness" rather than my actual looks. maybe.

today was the second in a series of tests at BUSEL (the english school where i work) called "CATs." last time i was a hall monitor, but this round i had to "invigilate" - in other words, stand silently in a classroom for 50-minute chunks to watch for cheating students. it was actually an amazing experience in mental stamina - 50 minutes is a long time to be completely silent and motionless for multiple hours in a row. after i had thought of multiple potential life-trajectories for myself, analyzed and re-analyzed across the universe (which i saw sunday night and, despite its many flaws, thoroughly enjoyed - especially t.v. carpio singing "i wanna hold your hand") and tried to recall both every turkish word i knew and then every word i knew in any foreign language, i invented detailed life-stories for all the students in the room. what i should have done is think about the paper i have to write tonight since i spent the night eating authentic tapas (made by my friend mirelle), frying apples, rearranging my room, and. . .uh. . . updating my blog. clearly my college-esque procrastination habits must come to an end - especially since i just discovered james clifford and totally want to study with him at uc santa cruz where funding is apparently non-existent!! rats!!

dinosaur backs

2007-11-04T03:54:00.000-05:00

on saturday i went on a fulbright-sponsored day trip to the town of baypazarı, famous for carrots, silverwork, mineral water, and really good food like thinly-wrapped stuffed grape leaves (the thinner the better) and 80-layer baklava. apparently the town is used as a model in the tourism industry as a highly "successful" rural-town-turned-tourist-destination transformed over the past few years. i was shown around by four turkish college students studying to be tour guides; being the first native english-speaker they'd guided, i was given special attention and learned a lot. below is a section of the town from a hilltop - notice the two "dinosaur back" rock formations.

we walked along narrow streets of beautiful old/restored ottoman-style houses:

tried sweet turkish-delight style dessert (maybe from carrots?):

& ate the BEST dessert ever (next to a glass of ayran which i totally love & drink all the time here):

upon returning home i was quickly swept up in the frantic communal preparation for a a halloween party in the basement of our apartment building as we (silly) foreigners ran from closet to closet - - looking desperately for semblances of costumes with the limited junk we'd brought over to turkey. here i am with the 3 other american speaking skills instructors from my teaching unit (i.e. the people i see the MOST during the week & eat lunch with every day), all of whom have totally different personalities/backgrounds from me/each other but have slowly + endearingly won my affection. there's erik as a character from lost, anna as a ladybug, paul as the marine he actually is, and me as a. . .zapatista guerrilla. (crazy-high commando boots not shown.)

i see the potential for a problematic/hypocritical reading of me "dressing up" as an indigenous rebel involved in a serious struggle - not that i necessarily disagree with the majority of their ideologies - but my options were limited and very last-second!! as usual, a few more photos from the day are available - both of beypazarı and some incriminating shots - although the subsequent midnight trip downtown for nargile and dancing is better left undocumented.

now to recover. goodnight!

istanbul take two: republic day.

2007-11-01T18:06:00.001-05:00

last weekend i returned to istanbul to visit my friend dilek, an incredibly kind and intelligent turk who scored twelfth on the ÖSS (a terrifying multiple-choice national university entrance exam) and visited pittsburgh on her way home from studying abroad in san diego last year. dilek kindly welcomed me into her beşiktaş apartment at 5:15 AM on saturday morning when my overnight bus arrived; after a nap, i woke up to the call to prayer and a beautiful view of the bosporus from her apartment balcony:

after breakfast with her equally kind roommates zehra and ayşen, dilek and i took the tram to topkapı palace to see the large complex where ottoman sultans once lived. once inside, we paid the (well-spent) extra 10 YTL to see the harem where the sultan's mother, concubines, wives, family, children, and servants (including many "eunuchs" apparently taken from africa) lived. the architecture and ornate decorations were gorgeous and different in each room/passageway/courtyard - below is a photo i took from a room in the harem, but there are much better photos on the wiki page:

afterwards dilek graciously waited in the non-turk line with me to enter the equally beautiful and difficult-to-convey sultanahmet camii (also known as the blue mosque or the Sultan Ahmed Mosque - camii meaning mosque.) a strong emotion overtook me immediately upon entering; it was clearly a spiritual place even though we hung towards the back in the tourist area near the rear "women's section" and watched from afar.

hagia sophia (basilica/mosque/museum and largest cathedral in the world for a thousand-ish years) is the third main tourist attracting in the immediate area but was closed by the time we arrived. (i'll be back, inshallah.) just the outside was impressive:

as we were getting back on the tram i watched helplessly as a tram door separated a fellow foreign girl from her group of friends - - - but when i approached her to see if she could use some help (from dilek) i realized she was my friend hayley from vermont! we actually ended up getting separated ourselves a few stops down the line, but there was enough time before that to exchange phone numbers & meet up later in taxim for a birthday-turned-mini-dance-party with dilek's friends in a chic high-rise bar overlooking the city and, later, hanging out at the apartment of some german exchange students.

the next day about a dozen of dilek's funny, generous friends carpooled out to a protected forest (bahçeköy belediyesi) where we cooked a giant meal of grilled meat and vegetables and played a turkish variant of dodgeball in the woods until it grew dark. the day offered exactly what i had been craving: a real experience of autumn with trees and october air and crunchy leaves and friends. nothing could have been better.

afterwards dilek's friend kanon drove her, her two roommates, and me to a funky outdoor tea (çay) house looking out over the bosporus towards the asian side to sit for hot chocolate and tea. eventually he dropped us back off in beşiktaş where we wandered around a maze of jewellery/cloth/trinket stands and sat by the water to watch the changing patterns of the bosporus bridge and the fireworks celebrating the eve of turkey's republic day.

we also ate waffles - a crepe-like snack stuffed and rolled with flavored nutella-ish spreads, fruit, honey-drenched nuts, candy, and other sweet things - made in colorful stands throughout the area which i found so pretty.

that night dilek, zehra, ayşen, and i had a calming & enlightening conversation about religion and our spirituality. it was so wonderful to relax by the water with them and people-watch. they gave me gifts: a cell-phone holder, a book to write turkish in, and a pillow for the bus ride home (much appreciated.) we went home, made popcorn, and watched the TERRIBLE movie "girl next door" before falling asleep very late into the night.

the next morning was republic day - a holiday - so i made pancakes for everyone before kanon returned with his car to take me on a whirlwind tour of a few neighborhoods before my bus arrived. there were flags everywhere for the holiday - it was a great day to drive around and watch istanbul flash before my eyes.

i left istanbul with a crowd of dilek's friends waving me on in the rain and then faced about 10 hours of exhausted-travel back to bilkent where i proceeded to unpack, lesson plan, write a response paper on gilles deleuze, and make dozens of halloween pumpkin-and-ghost-shaped halloween cards for my students before getting any sleep. although i'm still recovering from sleep deprivation, it was one of the best weekends i've had in a very long time. possibly ever. i'm considering finding work in istanbul for a while after my fulbright grant ends at bilkent next august.

for more photos of the weekend go here (although wikipedia has very extensive pages on the three major sights i listed if you want the real deal.) next is a day trip to beypazarı on saturday organized for fulbrighters. i've been feeling busy and too tired lately to give my full self - just not taking care of my physical self - so hopefully i'll be able to prioritize that over the next few weeks. the weather is still unusually warm but with daylight savings time the days are drastically shorter. winter is definitely on its way.

! ! ! جني

2007-10-26T11:56:00.000-05:00

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??

what happens

2007-10-18T04:30:00.000-05:00

i want to share two Hāfez (14th century persian poet) poems my father recently sent me. (the text is copied from an email - not sure of the original source.) what a comfort to remember the joy in finding wonderful, wild (literary) companions.

How Does It Feel to Be a Heart?

Once a young woman asked me,
"how does it feel to be a man?"
And I replied
"My dear,
I am not so sure."

Then she said,
"Well, aren't you a man?"

And this time I replied,

"I view gender
As a beautiful animal
That people often talk for a walk on a leash
And might enter in some odd contest
To try to win strange prizes.

My dear,
A better question for Hafiz
Would have been,
'How does it feel to be a heart?'

For all I know is Love,
And I find my heart Infinite
and Everywhere!

What Happens

What happens when your soul
Begins to awaken
Your eyes
And your heart
And the cells of your body
To the great Journey of Love?

First there is wonderful laughter
And probably precious tears

And a hundred sweet promises
And those heroic vows
No one can ever keep.

But still God is delighted and amused
You once tried to be a staint

What happens when your soul
Begins to awake in this world

To our deep need to love
And serve the Friend?

O the Beloved
Will send you
One of His wonderful, wild companions-

Like Hafiz

thank you so much, dad.

iyi şeker bayramlar

2007-10-15T04:29:00.000-05:00

so. my first turkish bayram (literally "holiday") was şeker ("sugar") bayram, meaning the end of ramazan when everyone basically visits family + friends and eats a ton of CANDY (especially baklava & similar honey-drenched desserts) at the various stops. kids also go door-to-door trick-or-treat style, kissing the hands and foreheads of elders in exchange for sweets. while most of my foreign co-workers headed for istanbul's hostels and sights, i totally lucked out with an invitation from my 26-year-old co-worker to go to her mother's house in istanbul to see what a traditional bayram involves. translation: 4 days of eating really good homemade food, peering around turkish apartments, and memorizing turkish commercials as i drifted in and out of mental consciousness between the perpetual presence of television and the intense level of turkish around me. although i still haven't seen the blue mosque or a single hamam, such an intimate, homestay-like experience was great. here's bedra and her super-fashionable mom (anne in turkish):

and bedra's anne showing off the beautiful traditional turkish breakfast awaiting me each morning in her pretty amazing apartment (on the asian side of istanbul):

over the course of the trip i developed a mysterious bond with one of bedra's anneannes (grandmothers.) bedra translated for us for a while, but eventually her anneanne was content to simply sit on the couch and hold my hand, occasionally waving her mug around for me to refill with su (water) or çay (tea.) not only did she give me two of her old rings but (!!) she also complained (loudly) that her grandson should have married me instead of his new wife. here she is reading bedra's future in her coffee grinds:

we did head over to the european side twice to meet up with bedra's friend and thensome of my american co-workers; in just a few hours i fell in love with istanbul's beautiful architecture (especially mosques) even from afar.

both times we stuck around taxim, (one of) the city's centers.

from a rooftop teahouse we saw a drizzly, overcast, Pamuk-esque view of the city:

& here we are waiting in line with bedra's friend for the year's final iftar (breaking of the daily fast.) during ramazan restaurants offer deals on giant plates of food and, just before sunset, hand out dates to the lines of fasters winding up and down the streets so they can eat immediately as they wait. iftar dinners are fun; apparently it's common to gain weight during ramazan thanks to the giant helpings of pide and the like.

the juxtaposition of secular, non-fasting turks (i.e. bedra) against those that do fast and are religious to varying degrees (i.e. her friend pictured above) is subtle. the bus ride from ankara to istanbul was interesting - turkish bus-rides, by the way, are incomparable with the typical american greyhound experience; most companies serve complimentary drinks, food, and moist towelettes, show movies, and stop at privately-owned rest-stops. on the ride, food and drinks were served twice - once for non-fasters and then again just at sunset, accompanied by a call to prayer played over the bus' speaker system. when i was in zanzibar over ramadan in 2004, the entire archipelago (save travelers, the ill, menstruating women, and others exempt in the koran) was fasting to the point where it was impossible to find food before sunset. not so in turkey. my extremely rough estimate (based on informal surveys of my students) is that less than half the urban population fasts, and eating in front of fasters is not an issue.

in other news, my fellow foreign speaking skills instructors and i (finally & somewhat amazingly!) moved into our new 5-story building overlooking ankara. my 2nd-floor apartment is small but fancy and probably the nicest place i'll live for a while:

totally brand-new kitchen:

bathroom (insane storage on the right wall - described as an "entertainment center for personal hygiene"):

mandolin-playing-couch overlooking the city:

laura is next door & constantly cooking me things like curry-apple-eggplant-bulgurwheat stir fry. here she is posing next to a starry-painting she gave me and my ridiculous new knee-high BOOTS bedra talked me into buying. i love them.

You can see more pictures from the trip (mostly tipsy karaoke-related action-shots) here.

according to bedra's anneanne, my coffee grinds say i'm emotional, moody, and take things as problems when there's really nothing to worry about - i should get happy news from my family, "hug a male friend," "talk with a female friend," and in general have a çok ferah (very open/bright) future. i hope she's right. i'm trying to keep in mind a quote my former next-door neighbor mille recently sent me in a letter: be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle (supposedly by plato.) she's an amazing, spunky, elderly woman who just suffered major injuries after being hit by a car - and, in her bed-ridden state, she's thinking about quotes like that. sometimes, when i'm walking home from work alone through the cold mud of a deserted field feeling especially lonely, incompetent, and lost, i remember i'm in turkey and hopefully growing somehow - and incredibly lucky to be here. i know there's a reason why i'm here, but i still have to figure it out.

2007-10-09T03:08:00.000-05:00

we must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. we must learn to sail in high winds. - aristotle (maybe)

butterfly cloud

2007-10-06T10:44:00.000-05:00

on sept 29th, four other speaking skills instructors (i.e. similarly-aged foreigners on my program) and i trekked down the street to middle eastern technical university to meet up with some turkish co-workers & see the wonderfully fun/wildly popular yugoslav goran bregovic with his wedding & funeral band. it was in an outdoor stadium and quickly turned into a full-fledged dance party once the crowd broke through the gates - the video below (not mine) gives a sense of the atmosphere.

this is a fairly good (& haunting) recording of one of the more somber pieces from a performance in Plovdiv:

but this (found on youtube and insanely edited - you've been warned) video from the night in ankara gives a much better feel of the whole thing. it was a great time.

other recent highlights include fancy taxpayer food & drinks at the u.s. ambassador's fulbright party (and the blissful realization that i can wear silly, colorful, barely-formal clothes and still hold my own among fancy-smancy government types), going out "drinking" with some turkish co-workers (most of whom drank energy drinks, re: ramazan) followed by the equivalent of an adult sleepover at a teacher named bedra's apartment and cozy turkish-style breakfast in the morning, and the promise of moving into our new apartments this wednesday.

teaching + planning lessons for 20-hours-a-week of english as a second language classes is surprisingly draining. on fridays i leave work after seven solid hours of conversation in a zombie-like burnt-out haze; it's amazing how much i cherish the time spent zoning out on the bus to and from work as part of my coping strategy. (a steady dose of chocolate and pomegranates are also involved.) still, there are moving moments: last thursday i walked into my dreaded uncooperative 8:50 class (of several hyper-masculine, somewhat intimidating 20-something male students) still red-eyed from the expected occasional sobbing that accompanies culture shock + loneliness mixed with mild heartache in the morning (not a good combination) and was shocked to find a class of suddenly eager, hilarious, good-natured students practically falling over themselves to speak english: ghost stories about haunted hamams, where i should go to get the best doner kebab, and why they call ferit (a student) "little cow." i guess life has a funny way of making sure you get what you need. without those students i really don't know if i could have made it through the day.

bedra invited me to stay with her and her mom in istanbul for bayram which means i'll probably be leaving this wednesday night until next sunday afternoon. i'm excited to get my first shot at istanbul with a native istanbul-er and maybe go to the istanbul biennial while i'm there. finally moving into my apartment will hopefully help settle things a bit - until then i'm off for another unpredictable week!

virtual overview of my first day of teaching.

2007-09-20T09:48:00.002-05:00

finally.

waking up & getting "professional" at 7am with my roommate laura. . .

and leaving the beautifully-painted dorm i'm temporarily living in:

for the bus to my east-campus BUSEL teaching-unit-room (note my desk in the lower right-hand corner! looks like. . .a desk.)

and then my classroom!!! - just before it was filled with my first ever pre-college "intermediate" BUSEL students. . .

and finally. . .afterwards. . .seeking refuge in my beloved main-campus library to hole up and read about new media theory and the history of digital technology.

I started taking two graduate classes this week: "Theory and Method in Media, Visual and Cultural Studies" and "Body, Movement and Vision in Immersive and Interactive Media 1." They both seem as potentially wonderful/chaotically interdisciplinary/borderline -unorganized as they sound; so far the readings are great. i'm gonna write a paper with hypertext and i'm kicking myself for not learning (at least) HTML (yet?), but TURKISH classes start next week and i've only got time for one language (if that!)

also, my official work address:

N Building
BUSEL School of English Language
Bilkent Üniversite
Bilkent, Ankara 06800
TURKEY

my first day of teaching was a bit frazzled around the edges but - still encouraging. tomorrow i'm teaching 7 straight hours so another report will soon follow - - - !

2007-09-17T14:53:00.000-05:00

"Why be seduced by something as small as a front door in another country? Why fall in love with a place because it has trams and its people seldom have curtains in their homes? However absurd the intense reactions provoked by such a small (and mute) foreign element may seem, the pattern is at least familiar from personal life. There too we may find ourself anchoring emotions of love to the way a person butters bread or turning against them because of their taste in shoes. To condemn ourselves for these minute concerns is to ignore how rich in meaning details may be. . .

In the more fugitive, trivial association of the word exotic, the charm of a foreign place arises from the simple idea of novelty and change: from finding camels where at home there had been horses; from finding unadorned apartment buildings where at home they had been pillars. But there may be a more profound pleasure: we may value foreign elements not only because they are new, but because they seem to accord more faithfully with our identity and commitments than anything our homeland could provide. . .

What we find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home."

- Alain de Botton writing of Amsterdam and Egypt in "On the Exotic" from The Art of Travel, which I highly recommend.

2007-09-16T09:45:00.001-05:00

i'm into this video. ("Reverse Graffiti : Graffiti ao contrário" - nothing to do with turkey.)

a few new things i'm experiencing for the first time in my life:

- growing out/dealing with longer hair (this is a bigger deal than one might think)

- exercising with a rowing machine

- actually, really attempting to exercise/jog regularly

- really feeling the significance/difference of my (culturally american?) individualistic mindset, particularly in regards to gender performance and specifically amongst my mostly female co-workers

- TEXT MESSAGING allthetime

- feeling uncomfortable/embarrassed of my body/lack of "turkish" style, especially while wandering around the super-cool kızılay area of ankara (i don't even wanna think about istanbul)

- grocery shopping as a weekly highlight. . .

- . . .and developing a soda-water-habit (which i just recently "got" after being puzzled my whole life over the whole carbonated water thing) - - - especially cherry-flavored. and also getting good at opening bottles without bottle openers.

classes start tomorrow. . .and teaching officially begins thursday!

pomegranates grow on trees (!?)

2007-09-10T08:24:00.001-05:00

merhaba from (the wireless zone along the sidewalk of) my new location on bilkent university's campus: a slight downgrade to a tiny dorm room shared with fellow-fulbrighter-laura and surrounded by international undergrads. the dorm i had been living in was needed for students but the apartment building i'm supposed to move into isn't built yet; from the looks of it, i doubt it will be ready for at least a month (or few.) most BUSEL interns got put in fancy faculty apartments, , ,but a few of us are mysteriously out here with a communal pots-and-pans-less kitchen. . .no internet. . .or english-speakers. . .or elevators to move our stuff to the third floor! the good side to all this is that we'll have ample opportunities to practice our turkish and hopefully make some friends (i got offered hazelnuts in the laundry room today) AND: i have the top half of a bunk bed, which i love. i just hope none of my soon-to-be-students see me struggling with the endless embarrassingly difficult domestic tasks i face daily: can i borrow your pot? how do i get the stove to turn on? why isn't the water boiling? wait, how do i cook brussels sprouts anyway??? (why did i buy them in the first place?!)

just before the move i had a 6-day vacation for which i pretty much cashed out the majority of my salary so far and took a sleeper train south to izmir. the ride was an adventure in itself since i cluelessly booked myself into an all-male, painfully-slow, smoking 6-bed (but super cheap!) car and spent the entire 17-hour ride trying to appropriately respond to phone number requests/doting comments/beer invitations from the middle-aged passengers around me (who all, consequently, smelled fowl, snored loudly, kept the windows closed, and walked around in their underwear all night!) despite being terrified from the start of the CAR he rented for the trip - turkey has a high motor vehicle accident rate - i was extremely happy to meet up with my childhood-friend bryan at the train station and begin our trip around western anatolia/mediterranean.

after a quick meal in izmir we were off for ephesus to look at the ruins of an ancient ionian greek city (not to mention the ever-entertaining crowds of tourists and cats slinking around.)

lots of huge, well-preserved structures like this famous roman celsus library. things were especially beautiful in the orange afternoon-sunlight. afterwards we settled into a little backpacker-heaven called atilla's getaway with a nice pool, garden, and hammocks. . .had some much-needed beer and ice cream before trying to sleep alongside the all-night party going on with the backpacker clan outside our door, amazingly too tired to join in.

afrodisias was our first stop the next day - more ruins but spread out across a larger space and far fewer tourists. there was also a museum with great sculptures.

and POMEGRANATES on trees!!!! pomegranates hold a special place in my heart (a totem fruit, perhaps?) so this was actually quite exciting. sheesh.

we then took the longer-drive-than-expected to pamukkale (literally "cotton castle"), a semi-insane geological curiosity aptly described by wikipedia as "thick white layers of limestone and travertine cascading down the mountain slope resembling a frozen waterfall" with ruins at the top. we were greeted by an eager hostel owner who literally escorted us to his cozy house via moterbike, checked in, and drove up the mountain to wander around as the sun set.

low-quality semi-panorama of the upper pamukkale pools:

although the pools are now dirty and filled with bacteria as a result of mismanaged tourism, the whole ordeal was still amazingly beautiful. the pristine sunset played off the white mountainside as the reflections in the pools went from blue to orange to red to purple with the sky; as night fell we watched a meteor shower above.

you can find lots of pictures of pamukkale online - and endless caravans of tour buses headed there throughout turkey. having a car was a definite advantage here - we were able to
stay well after dark and pretty much had the place to ourselves.

the next morning we were off on the day-long drive to adrasan, a more remote, sandy beach just over a mountain from the insanely crowded backpacker-haven of olimpos - again, accessibly only by car. we spent a night on the beach watching more shooting stars, followed by a relaxing day swimming in the warm, salty, turquoise-blue mediterranean sea.

in the afternoon we drove over to olimpos to wander around the jungle-like ruins, hang around the beach, and climb a fort to enjoy the gorgeous view.

the ruins were tangled up in trees reminded me a little of angkor wat, although much less spectacular. still, there were secrets to be found: stone path-ways, ancient churches, castles, mosaics, and rivers with clear, beautiful water. afterwards we trudged back to the littered, well-worn path to the "tree house" backpacking village of olimpos (not-so-eerily reminiscent of thai backpacking culture) where round-the-world backpackers come to drop out for a few weeks in a summer camp-like setting. after some debate we decided to stay the night and ended up in the same tree house camp as several others from the BUSEL intern program (AHHH!!!) and one of them finally taught me how to play backgammon.

that night bryan and i hopped in a crowded van for quick drive and a dark 20-minute hike to see chimaera, an amazing centralia-esque mountain burning with a dozen or so eternal flames as a mysterious result of natural gas reacting to oxygen, providing the reason for nearby greeks fire-god-worship. the flames were just seeping out of holes in rocks; if snuffed out, they'd just start up again. the stars were very bright at the top of the mountain as well. the stuff of legends (literally.)

the night ended back in olimpos at the ubiquitous ORANGE CLUB disco for a few hours of dancing to terrible music late into the night with some of the BUSEL interns. always fun. :)

the next morning bryan and i drove off to antalya where our planned excursion to a hamam was foiled after getting hopelessly lost. after a valiant effort, bryan finally dropped me off in the afternoon so he could drive back to the west coast to catch his flight to new york. i had the rest of the day before my midnight bus ride back to ankara, so i went to the antalya museum and was surprised to find one of the best museums i have EVER been to, featuring lots of beautifully-lit sculptures. . .

. . .many passive-aggressive jabs at the international antiquity market such as this display lamenting the US's refusal to return the upper-half of this poor guy's body. . .

and the relics (i.e. JAWBONE) of st. nicholas (i.e. SANTA CLAUS!!!) who was totally from turkey. and real.

i spent the rest of the evening enjoying the beautiful mountains, wandering through the old city among re-constructed traditional ottoman homes, sitting by the marina, and daydreaming about what i imagine san francisco must be like. eventually i took a public bus to the bus station, a fancy overnight bus to ankara, and a dolmuş (literally "stuffed" and a lot of fun to ride!) back to bilkent. where i was exausted & still had to pack + carry all my stuff to the new dorm. and here i am!

today i joined my "teaching unit," got a desk, and started preparing for actual-teaching. although i'm constantly lamenting my college-esque experience out here with dozens of americans, tonight i met another fulbright ETA at a different turkish university (METU, the university i requested actually) who was distraught - she was a lone foreigner, had no one helping her with finding an apartment, was staying in the living room of a random american she met and claims to be resented/ignored by her teaching department. so maybe i'm lucky to be on this end of the extreme.

i also attended a meeting with the rector of the university who said he started the whole BUSEL intern program because his son applied to teach english in China via the Princeton in Asia program (after graduating from Princeton) and was so amazed his son was willing to go teaching in the middle of nowhere for very little money that, hey - turkey can beat that - and throw in some extra perks (grad classes, a major city, and, theoretically at least, nice apts) to boot! he's right, since i came very close to doing the exact same program (in taiwan) until i heard about the fulbright offer. despite my frustrations, this is an excellent program. the rector says they hope to majorly expand their recruitment next year, so if anyone's interested in applying let me know.

if you're interested in more photos, visit my flickr page - you can either view then all "as a slideshow" (upper-right hand corner) or click on the "Western Anatolia / Mediterranean Trip" collection (just below the slideshow option) to see them (hastily) labeled and organized by location.

you can also check out the new york time's recent take on cappadocia - they've got much better pictures but terrible hotel advice!

WHY HAVE I NEVER HEARD OF HALVA BEFORE?!

2007-08-30T10:29:00.000-05:00

Things have been steadily improving over here in central Anatolia. It finally rained for the first time since I've been here, first of all - always a promising sign in a drought. I figured out how to activate my Turkish bank account & found my first paycheck waiting for me - another good sign - as well as how to buy a train ticket from Ankara to Izmir (to be used this Tuesday night) online for cheap, although I might've stuck myself in a male-sleeping-car accidentally; we'll see about that! My poison ivy is gone, my first post office excursion was successful, I have an ID card, my graduate class times are arranged, I've been going to the gym, and all lingering symptoms of my water-related sickness have been eradicated. I've got my bearings at Bilkent and my position as a "speaking skills instructor" looks more promising/challenging/exciting the more training we get. The moon/sunsets are beautiful.

But most importantly, I've started exploring Ankara and have found it (somewhat surprisingly) charming. Bilkent is a good 20 minutes outside the city-center, but the university runs 2 free bus lines to Tunus (the hip, modern, upscale shopping/dining area) and Sıhhiye (closer to the older, more traditional part of the city.) A few of us Bilkent teachers met up with some funny, generous middle-aged Australian/Canadian/Dutch expat journalists/embassy workers and got both a feel of what "relocating" to Ankara might involve and advice on taking the foreign-correspondent route (not to mention some free drinks) in a swanky area south of Tunus. Yesterday, however, was Victory Day (no work) so Laura and I went for the Sıhhiye section and stumbled upon streets and streets of tucked-away markets offering olives, nuts, shoes, copper pots, antiques, flowers, baklava, fabric, vegetables, bread, wooden spoons, and HALVA (my new favorite thing) among piles of everything else.

Laura and I stopped in a courtyard cafe for some gözleme, ayran, and çay before shopping for some pizza ingredients: (and a few other things.)

Laura, my kitchen mate Marion, and I take turns cooking dinner for each other; last night I sort of cheated and made a simple pizza on flat-bread, but all the toppings were so fresh it was worth it. When I tried to buy the tomatoes from a merchant he insisted that I just take them (!!!) and several minutes after giving a cute little boy 3 lira (about $2.25) for the box of pistachio baklava that was 2.5 lira (meant as a tip) I found his tugging on my arm, breathless, with the change. Ankara doesn't get as many tourists as, say, Istanbul or the west coast, so although our presence in the market wasn't exactly unusual it did rustle up some commotion and undeserved special service/attention. The whole experience really reminded me just how isolated and elite Bilkent's campus is - my first experience with a college "campus" at all, really, other than Marlboro this past summer.

accomplishing small tasks is what my life revolves around at the moment. being able to explore a market in a new part of town, practice my turkish, come home with a pile of cheap ingredients, and make some good pizza with friends is good. but when every bus is caught on-time, no one gets lost or tired or frustrated, the only mishap involves buying BUTTER instead of CHEESE, and a kindly man helps me more than he can ever imagine by offering six free tomatoes (when i asked for 5) with absolutely no gain on his part - that's basically heaven.

they made frogs smoke til they exploded

2007-08-28T15:45:00.001-05:00

although i had been looking forward to the premier of animal collective's new video for the catchy (albeit repetitive) song "peacebone," i'm not blown away. it was actually the video below which helped me relax after a particularly rough day:

thanks, múm. it's amazing how relatively normal/connected life within my dorm room can be thanks to the internet. . .after crying in front of a whole bus-load of people, walking way too far in shoes that blistered up my feet even more, and failing at a whole bunch of seemingly simple things, i can still rant to ross and lizzie (thanks) & find normalcy in silly american-cultural phenomena online:

living/getting things done abroad is totally different from traveling and is actually MUCH HARDER than i expected, especially now while i'm waiting for something concrete to materialize in my rather unstable world. (an apartment to unpack my bags in would be nice.) it's only been a week and a half!!!?!!!

dried apricots from a cappadocian gas station.

2007-08-27T15:09:00.002-05:00

this past weekend the entire BUSEL "speaking skills instructor" crew piled into a posh bus and headed out to a fancy hotel in Ürgüp for a carefully scheduled & guided group tour of cappadocia. our first stop was Tuz Gölü, or "salt lake," the second-largest "lake" in turkey (a.k.a. a deserted expanse of bright, damp salt.)

next was Göreme National Park where artistic remains from the Christian-Roman period cling to carved-out cave walls (somewhat similar to the ajanta caves in india, although less elaborate.) most caves were used for monasterial purposes, such as this nunnery:

there were also several quirky details, like these pigeon-home-holes (look carefully) made because (according to our guide) the ancient cave-inhabitants used pigeon dung for fertilizer, pigeon flight for carrying messages, and pigeon meat for eating:

many rooms in the caves were decorated with simple red-painted designs and often contained stone-carved ovens, caskets, clay-pot-holders, and various furniture including this last-supper-ish table:

others served as churches complete with vivid frescoes depicting mostly biblical stories, although in this case the woman on the left was mysteriously punished with a male body from the waist up for being a sex-worker:

after Göreme we wandered through the incredibly beautiful volcanic-eroded landscape of cappadocia at large, somewhat similar to the the south-west U.S. and, for me, emotionally reminiscent of hampi's surrounding landscape, , ,even though further inspection reveals the two aren't very similar at all:

nazar boncuğu tree

undeniably phallic "fairy chimneys"

low-quality panorama of the landscape

we also visited the pretty impressive underground city of Kaymaklı where multiple levels of underground cave-rooms provided protection for various people throughout time including early Christians and Greeks. there's room for thousands of people; large plaza-like areas have amenities like stone-carved ovens, stables, and wine presses. we skipped derinkuyu, the nearby larger complex.

the trip included some expected big-group disappointments such as visits to "educational" tourist-trap pottery/jewelry/winery shops and a stern saturday-night warning from the hotel management for being too unruly (the disappointment being directed towards the majority of the group for drinking too much prohibited alcohol even after the hotel set up an impromptu disco for us the night before.) three girls and i avoided the whole scene and went off for a walk through town which, at 2AM, ended swimmingly at a courtyard table with two turkish men, 3 smoked hookahs (or "narghile" as they're called in turkish), the spoils of about a half-dozen rounds of çay (tea), and a nod from the owner that our bill had been taken care of. by that time we were too tired to bother wondering which cultural nuance we had botched in exchange for our free ticket, but in retrospect the all-too-common american-tendency-to-smile-misconstrued-as-flirting is a good guess. nevertheless, we were carefully escorted back to our hotel by one of our suitors and all ended well. finishing into thin air on the bus ride home helped me come to grips with the fact that i'll probably never climb mt. everest. i'm now okay with that.

if you'd like to see more photos, feel free to visit my flickr page where i plan on uploading images throughout my year in turkey and possibly beyond.

merhaba.

2007-08-23T11:44:00.000-05:00

Merhaba from my borderline-swanky dorm on Bilkent University’s campus in Ankara, Turkey, where sprawling steppe-(ish?) mountains and wild brawling cats are currently having their way with the world outside my window. I arrived Saturday for my year as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to BUSEL (the university’s School of English Language) and graduate student in the Media and Visual Studies program. What was initially promised as a small-town solo teaching position has morphed into an experiment as a “speaking skills instructor” at Turkey’s wealthiest elite private university in the capital alongside 40 other recent American college grads (virtually all of whom are from elite private universities themselves.) The idea is to nudge the begrudged Bilkent undergrads towards fluency so they can comprehend the university’s English-medium classes. This, apparently, is not an easy task, but our two-week-long orientation program is doing its best to prepare us for the worst. And give us a crash-course in Turkish, which so far is quite difficult for me to understand aurally. And make sure we’re not planning on bringing up the Kurds/Armenians/Cypriots any time soon. And keep us on a steady dose of Cipro.

Nestled atop rocky hills covered in a mix of dry, scraggly vegetation and dust 20 minutes outside the city, Bilkent is a strange world in itself. Although the university is supposedly non-profit, virtually everything affiliated with the campus – the furniture factories, textbook printers, restaurant suppliers, construction firms – is owned by Bilkent. Hundreds of classy, modern buildings are spread out across three “campus” areas connected by a seemingly random bus schedule, and although the city is facing a severe drought, disconcertingly artificial arrangements of pine trees and flowers are drenched in water from Bilkent’s own private reservoir.

from atop a bilkent hill, drought-stricken ankara in the hazy distance. . .

while water flows free on main campus.

Most facilities, such as the gyms (not to mention the library’s current periodical room, to my delight) are fancier than those at Pitt. The weather, however, is harsh and dry and the landscape somewhat desolate and bare; a walk from one campus to the other involves crossing a ravine scattered with brush and olive trees.

the ditch between my apartment (middle campus) and job (east campus). . .

and the road i take to cross it (!!)

My 3-connection flight was uncomfortable to say the least thanks to an unexpected bout of poison ivy on my feet (picked up the eve of my departure) combined with the brilliant idea to break in a brand-new pair of Doc Marten shoes. Since then, my mood has drastically wavered between extreme highs and lows which, like any foreigner fumbling about in a new culture must find, are largely determined by the successful-ness of small tasks. Get lost, take the wrong bus, and end up on the edge of a desert-y embankment for an undetermined period of time, bad; bus driver takes pity and energetically teaches me Turkish for an hour, good. Blow out the power in my room, feel constantly nauseous, get yelled at for accidentally standing in the express line at the grocery store, and watch as faucet water turns from orange to brown, bad; get mistaken for a Turk and actually answer a question in Turkish correctly, good! The water quality in general is poor due to the drought, the apartment I’m supposed to be living is currently a slab of cement, and I don’t feel as though I fit in with the other Americans; on the other hand, the program is cushy and well organized and I’m excited to start my grad classes and travel. I have a cell phone. My life is still very "American," although Turkish hospitality has begun to peek out via kindly security guards, store clerks, and receptionists; learning Turkish and getting a handle on how to get around Bilkent/Ankara will help wean me off my current dependency on strangers. (Never have I felt so embarrassed for my inexcusable ignorance of a language.) I'm also expecting major changes once the students arrive on campus and my classes (both those that I'm teaching and taking) begin.

luckily there's always fellow-fulbrighter laura to bring a little raki over to my apartment. . .

for our first home-cooked dinner of bean salad and yoghurt.

Friday afternoon my “colleagues” and I (all 40 or so of us) are going on a weekend trip to Cappadocia, and during a short holiday in the beginning of September I'm taking a long train ride to meet my high school friend Bryan in Izmir for a trip up the west coast, so excitement approaches. . .more soon.

To Punish Thai Police, a Hello Kitty Armband

2007-08-11T09:00:00.001-05:00

so the thai police force in bangkok are trying out hello kitty armbands as punishment for disobedient officers. from the new york times article:

Ten of the armbands have been prepared, but so far none have actually been issued, according to an officer who declined to give his name while discussing this sensitive topic.

“After this policy came out, the police are scared,” the officer said. “It will be very embarrassing to walk around with Hello Kitty on your arm.”

...An early experiment using armbands was not encouraging. Mr. Pongpat first tried using plaid ones. But instead of feeling shame, Major Weeraprach said, the officers took them home as souvenirs. The force still has only one of the ten it originally issued.

After that misfire, police commanders met again to consider strategy, he said, and agreed that Hello Kitty might work where tartan had failed.

So far, he said, there is no fallback plan. The department has not yet decided what punishment to impose if officers make off with their pink armbands as well.

embarrassing workers in a "masculine" occupation with a "young/feminine" symbol? something's not right here.

the concept of feeling extreme gratitude for your life

2007-08-10T23:46:00.000-05:00

although i'm only 23, i recently realized that my life has already been way more exciting than i ever thought it'd possibly be growing up. . .i feel totally lucky, as if everything from here on is an added bonus. it's like. . .waking up every morning and realizing: there's more?!

i'm aware how incredibly earnest/trite/silly that may sound, but i think feeling this way is a conscious act and it's shifted my perspective on things. not that i no longer feel largely cynical about human nature. . .just that life is way more fun than i thought it'd be, maybe.

i feel like something in my spirit is calming the heck down. i feel more level and happier than i can remember.

hopefully turkey won't send me too much of a curve ball. . .limited water and daylight are lurking in my future, if i even make it there (in less than a week!)

knut, kleinen eisbären

2007-08-10T01:26:00.001-05:00

ack, these insanely cute videos are all over the place - knut is berlin's first captive-born polar bear "in over 30 yrs," was rejected by his mother, and subsequently raised by zoo-keepers. i feel bad enjoying knut's cuteness despite his impending future in a depressing zoo-environment - apparently others feel the same way (see "controversy")

the cutest thing i have seen on the internet...

2007-08-09T22:20:00.001-05:00

...in a long time.

130 cats in one (russian) apartment.

2007-08-07T19:33:00.000-05:00

so is this real?? watch the video - it's truly crazy.

and how are the cats (and the apt.) so clean/healthy looking?

harp-lust

2007-08-07T12:12:00.000-05:00

i just had a mini introduction-to-the-harp lesson with the very kind sivan magen and it was the most beautiful wonderful thing. dear mandolin! my eyes are wandering!

update

2007-08-06T01:35:00.000-05:00

some new things for me these days:

- an attempt at growing my hair long
- mentally preparing to move to turkey
- eagerly anticipating (while recovering from the shock of) my sudden entrance into graduate school
- learning bluegrass-y mandolin
- formulating plans for a merfolk-themed fantasy novel
- a revived love for swimming/hanging out in water
- giving some serious thought to issues regarding child-raising, adoption (particularly international), the role of family, and emotional/cognitive child development via the two boys i've been nannying this summer
- feeling more confident, independent, and enjoying my time alone

and, unfortunately,

- a laptop, meaning more time online!!

a giant attempt at cooking & baking. . .

2007-08-05T23:45:00.000-05:00

. . .after not cooking a single thing all summer.

for my part in the traditional "international dinner" at the marlboro music festival where i've been working (hosted at marlboro college in south-eastern vermont), i experimented with two recipes i've always wanted to try.

four old-fashioned pennsylvania dutch shoo-fly pies - where, to my sweet-toothy delight, sugar in various forms (mainly molasses, corn syrup, brown sugar) gets plopped down on a pie crust and somehow (just barely) clings together:

and a gallons of german chilled raspberry soup mixed in with some vermont black & blueberries, inspired by a fond memory of the most wonderful cold-cherry soup at a russian restaurant in toronto:

the trick was making mass quantities of it all and getting each to their appropriate gooey-thickness.

after multiple rounds of taste-testing, frantic sprints between two kitchens, and a few gin and tonics among a half-dozen or so others trying to concoct their own dishes, both turned out better than expected.

(not that i exactly had high expectations to begin with - hopefully everything'll be eaten tomorrow night!)

queen hatshepsut.

2007-06-29T08:25:00.000-05:00

The most famous cross-dressing mummy was finally found!

2007-04-03T08:56:00.000-05:00

cherry blossoms, , ,

and giant lobster kites, , ,

a new friend, , ,

and good-bye DC. (coming home to collegeville tomorrow.)

more here.

cocoNET safety

2007-04-02T11:44:00.000-05:00

This website is worth checking out. A solution to dangerous falling coconuts. . . the cocoNET.

FAQ is very informative, including questions such as. . .

"WHAT IF SEVERAL TREES ARE CLOSE TOGETHER, CAN WE STILL APPLY NETS TO ALL
Yes, all that is required is to stagger the height of installation of each adjacent net."

and

"WHAT IF VANDALS WANT TO CUT THE ROPE THAT HOLDS THE BASKET
Depending on public access, the ropes can be attached at a nominated ladder height so as to lesson the chances."

Otters holding hands.

2007-03-30T09:42:00.001-05:00

thanks mallory!

GOBBLEDYGOOK

2007-03-22T11:06:00.000-05:00

i am LOVING the word choices in this article!!! news just keeps getting better and better.

Alternative therapy degree attack

UK universities are teaching "gobbledygook" following the explosion in science degrees in complementary medicine, a leading expert says

Professor Colquhoun, of the university's department of pharmacology... said the teaching of complementary medicine under a science banner was worse than "Mickey Mouse" degrees in golf management and baking that have sprung up in recent years as "they do what it says on the label".

"That is quite different from awarding BSc degrees in subjects that are not science at all, but are positively anti-science.

"Yet this sort of gobbledygook is being taught in some UK universities as though it were science."

i wonder if there was a tense moment in the BBC newsroom re: the spelling of "gobbledygook" (i always thought it was "gobbleygook" !!)

2007-03-19T11:29:00.000-05:00

So we've already established: Australia's camels 'driven mad' by drought. But NOW...

Australia is urgently looking to establish a "wild camel management plan" as the country's severe drought is sending camels stampeding into settlements looking for water.

And by wild camel management plan...they mean "culling."
Camels were introduced to Australia in the 19th century...interesting...

2007-03-16T12:13:00.000-05:00

Now the "wild" camels are "mad with thirst" - i LOVE it.

They helped to build the Australian nation and had a cross-continental railway named after their handlers. But now the camel population here is wreaking havoc in the desert and remote communities because a desperate lack of water.

Wild camels, descendants of the beasts that helped early explorers to open up the country's vast arid interior, have rampaged through a settlement in Western Australia, trampling toilets, taps and air conditioners in a frenzied effort to find water.

A severe drought has exacerbated the problems posed by the animals, which cause damage to the environment, agriculture and property. They are "mad with thirst", according to Glenn Edwards, of the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Service.

2007-03-15T10:05:00.000-05:00

Australian Drought Provokes WILD CAMEL RAMPAGE

apparently those are the wild camels...rampaging.

"PLEASE DON'T READ THIS! the phenomenon ..."

2007-03-14T18:41:00.000-05:00

Mr. David and I have been following the youtube chain-letter-ish phenomenon to the point where I think some kind of study might actually be interesting. Wikipedia's entry on chain letters mentions youtube. . . and apparently it's on myspace as well. Mr. David's blog says more. For example, the video I am currently (and just as strangely) obsessed with usually has some gems - there are many varieties. The typical one:

In 1876, a young girl named Jenn was walking down a river, an insane man killed her by stabbing her in the back, raping her, and then hanging her in his closet. While he hanged her he said Bukakke Bukkake.
Now that you have read this message, she will find you and her dead body will haunt your house for 5 years. Every night you go to sleep she will appear in your closet, hanging their with her glowing red eyes.
repost 3 times to be saved. sorry

BUKAKKE BUKKAKE. WHAT????????
Here's a new one:

Read this.
There are 20 angels in this world.
10 are sleeping.
9 are playing.
1 is reading this post.

Put this on 4 other video comments within the next 15 minutes.
If you do, someone you love will suprise you somehow.
If you don't, you shall lose your dear beloved. =(

with an alternate version:

read dis
There are 20 angels in this world
10 are sleeping
9 are playing
1 is reading this

put this on 4 video comments within 15 mins,if u do, sum one u love will surprise u sum how!! If u don't , u will lose ur love.!!

and a pretty strange one - why would anyone believe this?

this is a true thing that happens! its not a chain letter! its kinda scary at first but it really works!! paste this message into 3 comments and press ALT F4 and your crushes name will appear on the screen!!! its soo wierd

there are even misinformed activist posts...

Watch a clip on YouTube: Dolphin Massacre In Japan

Most people in the world don't know about it, so tell your friends & family about it to raise public awareness for our ecosystem.
SPREAD THE WORD!

Dolphins are an ENDANGERED SPECIES.

The Japanese EAT 23,000 dolphins every year for sushi & sashimi since 400 years ago.

Dolphins are migratory mammals, therefore they belong to the world, NOT to the Japanese alone.

The Japanese have NO right to eat them to extinction.

Some dolphin species ARE endangered...but not most. Interestingly, I also found the first "response" today by HermyH:

HermyH

Read this.
If you're reading this you're going to die tomorrow unless you tell your mum you're pregant, if you're boy, tell her you have sif.

OH C'MON SPAMMERS, stop doing that, no one believes it... Just stupid people believes it.

coolgirl1751 also got upset:

coolgirl1751

Please Read!

In 2007 a bunch of Dickheads planned to send chain mails and if they keep on doing it they will get banned forever.(retype this to 3 other videos to stop the dickheads from making us believe that the chain mail are true)

and THIS is an actual example of comments left on a page:

allfree2bme

this is a true thing that happens! its not a chain letter! its kinda scary at first but it really works!! paste this message into 3 comments and press ALT F4 and your crushes name will appear on the screen!!! its soo wierd!

ellah14

this is a true thing that happens! it's not a chain letter! it's kinda scary at first but it really works!! paste this message into 3 comments and press ALT F4 and your crushes name will appear on the screen!!! its soo weird!

ellah14

hollywooddied100

enzochiove

Opprobrium

GuitarGirl007

MY GOD. SHUT UP.

etniesgirlx

I'm going to think about this...more later.

baby sloth.

2007-03-11T17:18:00.001-05:00

to go along with other cute baby animals. . .

in an effort to smile while on crutches!!!!!

awww.

2007-02-28T10:34:00.000-05:00

Tiger, Orangutan Babies Playmates at Zoo

CISARUA, Indonesia Feb 28, 2007 (AP)— Call them the odd couples. A pair of month-old Sumatran tiger twins have become inseparable playmates with a set of young orangutans, an unthinkable match in their natural jungle habitat in Indonesia's tropical rainforests.

The friendship between 5-month-old female baby primates Nia and Irma, and cubs Dema and Manis, has blossomed at the Taman Safari zoo where they share a room in the nursery.
After being abandoned by their mothers shortly after birth, the four play fight, nipping and teasing each other, and cuddling up for a shared nap when they are worn out.

"This is unusual and would never happen in the wild," said zoo keeper Sri Suwarni, bottle-feeding a baby chimp on Wednesday. "Like human babies, they only want to play."
The four have lived side-by-side for a month without a single act of hostility, she said.
Indonesian tigers and orangutans are both endangered species, threatened by rapidly shrinking habitats.

Conservationists estimate there are fewer than 700 Sumatran tigers still alive, while fewer than 60,000 orangutans remain in the wild. Around 90 percent of the jungle has been destroyed by illegal logging, poaching and cut-and-burn farming practices on Borneo and Sumatra islands.
The exceptional friendship will likely be short-lived, said veterinarian Retno Sudarwati, because as the animals grow up their natural survival instincts will kick in.

"When the time comes, they will have to be separated. It's sad, but we cant' change their natural behavior," she said. "Tigers start eating meat when they are three months old."

it's so funny to me how INSANE the news world goes over these "friends". . . . but darn it,, i love baby animals too!!!!!

"I hear more Elton John than Public Enemy, and that's just not right."

2007-02-20T12:38:00.000-05:00

in general i'm not a big fan of pitchfork, but this article on antarctica's music scene is interesting,,,

. . . icestock 2008, anyone?

my weekend

2007-02-18T17:07:00.000-05:00

jet interview:

hanging out with mouse the dog:

ice-sliding (with shoes) on the canal:

2007-02-13T11:14:00.000-05:00

don't get enough sun? maybe a giant mirror can help. . .

Swiss Officials Want to Spread Sunshine

Local officials said Monday they are considering the construction of a giant mirror to light up this mountain village with 198 residents who are deprived of sunlight for three months each year.

The project would help illuminate parts of the southeastern Swiss town of Bondo that lie so deep in the Bregaglia Valley they do not receive any sunlight between December and February, said mayor Renzo Giovanoli, confirming a report in the daily Suedostschweiz . . . The mirror would be similar to a 26-by-16 feet sheet of reflective steel installed last year in Viganella, an Italian town close to the Swiss border. Viganella, like Bondo, is dark during winter months because of its position at the bottom of a steep Alpine valley, blocked off from sunlight by the surrounding mountains.

2007-02-13T09:57:00.000-05:00

happy getting-ready-for-valentine's-day, which i love for absolutely no good reason. (the getting-ready part is usually more fun.)

in a way i like this postsecret:

but i like this more:

because including platonic/familial/unrequited love i'm knee-deep all the time and it's ALL WONDERFUL!!!

2007-02-12T11:31:00.000-05:00

while looking for a cut flower bouquet in alan's pet shop (squirrel hill, pgh) a few valentines ago, alan himself gave an impassioned & convincing argument for potted plants over cut flowers (which he'd "never sell") mainly because potted plants last longer. i don't think i've bought cut flowers since. here's a reminder of some other reasons to pass up cut flowers this year & beyond:

Cut-Flower Industry Relies on Heavy Pesticide Use

It's probably the last thing most people think about when buying roses.

But by the time the velvety, vibrant-colored flowers reach a Valentine's Day buyer, they will have been sprayed, rinsed and dipped in a battery of potentially lethal chemicals.

Most of the toxic assault takes place in the waterlogged savannah surrounding the capital of Colombia, which has the world's second-largest cut-flower industry after the Netherlands, producing 62 percent of all flowers sold in the United States.

With 110,000 employees -- many of them single mothers -- and annual exports of US$1 billion (euro771 million), the industry provides an important alternative to growing coca, source crop of the Andean nation's better known illegal export: cocaine.

But these economic gains come at a cost to workers' health and Colombia's environment, according to consumer advocates who complain of an over-reliance on chemical pesticides . . . 36 percent of the toxic chemicals applied by Florverde farms in 2005 were listed as "extremely" or "highly" toxic by the World Health Organization.

also, way to go harvard for fixing their former president's blunder,,,

and have fun CHINA measuring the entire great wall!

2007-02-09T13:55:00.000-05:00

wow. i think i just discovered the most potentially perfect band:

The ZEatles are a GenderQueer Beatles cover band that plays original material too. We grew out of the Feminist, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and ALLY UCLA community and are coming out into the world near you! . . . ZE is the gender neutral pronoun. HE is male, SHE is Female and ZE is anything in between, upside down and inverted!

2007-02-08T12:25:00.000-05:00

two interesting feature articles from yesterday's washington post:

Sold on a Stereotype about the chinese book market's fascination with titles like "Jewish People and Business: The Bible of How to Live Their Lives," and...

Teddy Bear, Version 2.0 mainly for the most wonderful paragraph!! :

Last week, one of Megan Leffew's friends held a birthday party for her hippo, Cotton Candy, right in the middle of the Leffew family dinner. Megan excused herself from the table to log on to the Webkinz site, where four other girls were waiting. They played a four-in-a-row game and exchanged virtual presents. (Megan gave Cotton Candy a gumball machine and a snowflake sweater.) There were a birthday cake and goodie bags -- and then Megan's mom, Sandra, finally persuaded her to come back to real-world dinner.

2007-02-08T11:15:00.000-05:00

itadakimasu.

2007-02-07T11:35:00.000-05:00

luckily nothing like this happen to me when i had my own bus mix-up in cambodia...

Thailand: Missing 25 Years After Taking Wrong Bus

Jaeyaena Beuraheng, a 76-year-old woman from Malaysia, has been reunited with her family 25 years after she got on the wrong bus, local reports said. Ms. Jaeyaena, who cannot speak, read or write Thai and speaks only Yawi, a dialect also spoken by Muslims in southern Thailand, where she was bound, ended up in Bangkok, 750 miles north. She boarded another bus, thinking she was heading south, only to end up in Chiang Mai, farther north. She eked out a living as a beggar for five years before being arrested in 1987 and put into a homeless center. She was thought to be mute, until last month when three students from her province came to work at the center and spoke her language.

2007-02-07T00:41:00.000-05:00

some things i am listening to a lot recently:

guided by voices: little whirl, strawdogs, queen of cans and jars, peep-hole, indian was an angel, awful bliss, GOLD STAR FOR ROBOT BOY

bonnie prince billy: maundering

bole 2 harlem, hand picked for me by linda wertheimer & actually not too bad in my un-educated world music opinion

plus the esbjörn svensson trio
and unicorn mountain compilations...because i miss pittsburgh.

OH! and soon, new stars of the lid, which you can also listen to here thanks to ross!

2007-02-06T18:04:00.000-05:00

hi from dc! here goes nothing with one of many attempts at a meaningful blog, mainly due to my increasingly terrible correspondence habits + busy schedule. check here for general scattered musings & expect inconsistencies!!

also, a guide to fancy chocolate written by melody, a friend of mine here at npr:

A Bittersweet Guide to the Best V-Day Chocolate

i was a taste-tester & am anonymously quoted all over the place, most notably (sheepishly) as the "one tester" who gave a "rave review" of Whitman's and Hershey's (!!) when it comes to sugar, i'm apparently easy to please.