Last Post?

So.
It's been, what? Nine months? Ten months? And in three days (two days, I suppose, since it's past midnight) I'll get on a plane to Istanbul. I'll spent a day or two at an AFS camp watching people cry and exchanging hugs and making promises to reunite that may or may not ever come to fruition. For me the AFS camp is kind of a bookend. With two or three notable exceptions, I never really bonded with any of the other AFSers. A lot of the other AFSers have spent the last two-three months traveling around Turkey, staying with the other AFSers. I didn't.
Why? Partly because of the money, although I have money and financial self-control is not one of my strong points. I've worked since my freshman year of high school and I've never really had to deal with living on a budget - the money always came in faster than I could spend it, especially when I was constantly getting handouts from my parents.
Anyways, why didn't I travel? Part of me regrets not doing so, but most of me doesn't. For starters, this isn't going to be the last time I visit Turkey. For me, AFS isn't about hanging with the other foreigners. I don't say this to disparage those who chose this; I made my own choices and respect others' right to do the same. I traveled with fellow AFSers once to Izmir. It was okay; I had fun. But it wasn't really the experience I wanted.
I went to Istanbul last week and stayed with an old friend of mine. We went to Morocco together three years ago and met up in NYC once. He came and visited me in Antalya and I came and stayed with him in his university dorm in Istanbul (the European side). For those of you keeping score at home, that means that every time I've met him, it's been on a different continent. Fate will probably dictate that the next time we meet will be in Colombia or Argentina - either that or Australia.
Anyways, we had a great time. I turned 18 while I was in Istanbul, so we celebrated that. My friend has an internship in Istanbul, along with 8 of his fellow Yalies. We had a great time touring the city - neither one of us had any real objection to just wandering around aimlessly for hours in Istanbul, so that's more or less what we did. We saw some pretty cool stuff, a lot of which wasn't the touristy stuff in Lonely Planet. Good times in Istanbul.
Hanging with the Yalies was also... perhaps "fun" isn't the right word, but it definitely got me thinking about my rapidly upcoming college years. I had fun. It was nice being with intelligent people my age who knew how to lighten up and have some fun. I'm definitely thinking about going home a lot more fondly than I was before I went. Yeah, I'm going back to stay with my parents and work and I'm going be sharing a car with my kid sister. But really, I'm just spending a month and a half revisiting my high school life - something that seems so remote and far away I'm getting nostalgic. I'm sure in two weeks I'll be bored of Freeport once more. But now, I'm actually OK with the fact I'm going home. That's not to say I won't miss Turkey, or that I didn't enjoy my time here. But as I've said before, I'll be back. I'm not going to forget Turkish, as everyone here seems to think.
I'm ready to be back in America, I think. I guess I'm lucky in that I have a lot to look forward to. I studied abroad in my senior year - a decidedly non-traditional path (most of the seniors I know who are studying abroad are either applying to less-competitive schools or else delaying college altogether). Yet I don't know what I'd be doing if I were a junior or sophomore. Not only would I have to deal with the high school bureaucracy to ensure that my credits all lined up, but I'd have to go back to high school for another year. Not that my Freeport High School experience was terrible but... I'm ready to be someplace else. I feel like a very different person that I was 10 months ago.
Part of the reason for this change, I think, is that being a place where you can't speak the language instills humility in you pretty quickly. I was many things before I came to Turkey, but humble was certainly not one of them. I don't know what will happen once I go back to speaking English. We'll see.

Belated post, can't think of a title

I realized today how rarely I actually get in a car here in Turkey. I get around on the dolmuş – basically a small version of a public bus. The dolmuşlar (lar/ler is the plural suffix in Turkish) in Antalya aren’t actually true dolmuş. The real dolmuş is just a van (we’d probably call it a 14-passenger van in the US; in Turkey, it’s about a 30-passenger van), that may or may not have any markings saying where it is going, and may or may not follow an actual route. The word dolmuş is related to the word dolu, which means “full”. Some connoisseurs of Turkish cuisine may be familiar with dolma, which is also related – dolma means “stuffed”. I think my readers can probably understand where I’m going with this – the dolmuş is pretty full. I have a priceless memory of an old British man getting furious at the driver, yelling “it’s full up! It’s full up!” It’s doubly funny, because saying “it’s full up!” is one of those British expressions that just strikes me as ridiculous, and also because no one paid any attention to him. In Turkey, public transportation is never too full to accommodate a new person. I’ve ridden in a normal-sized sedan (4 people in the US, maybe 5) with a total of 7 other people. I’ve seen 15 people in a taxi (Fiat Doblo, in case you were wondering and have nothing better to do than Google “Fiat Doblo”).

I probably ride in a car, at most, once or twice a month here. In America, I probably get in a car every day. As AFS would say, it’s not right, it’s not wrong, it’s just different. There are times I definitely miss having a car, but to be honest, most of the time it doesn’t bother me. There’s basically no parking in Turkey anyway, at least not in the massive, well-tended, paved sense that we enjoy in America.

I actually wrote the two proceeding paragraphs a while ago. I’m writing now because I have a few essays to write. I’m applying for a program at Duke called Focus which is basically several clusters of related classes. Students in the same cluster live together and have small seminar based classes which is a neat way of making friends, or so I’m told. I have to write four essays, which is a bit of a drag. I gotten out of the habit of actually having to study anything except Turkish and I’ll probably be in for a little bit of a shock once I get back to the states and actually have to start hitting the books. (Multiple books, plural, instead of just my pocket Turkish-English Langenscheidt dictionary.)

What else? I suppose that I should write something about the “Kurdish issue” here in Turkey. My first advice would be to read up on the issue well, although take every thing you read with a grain of salt. In my opinion, anything you read about any extant conflict should be treated this way, whether it’s about Israel, China, Russia, Sri Lanka, Congo, or even, dare I say it, our own United States of America. You can’t believe everything you read, no matter what the name at the top of the page.

So. The Kurds are a trans-national ethnic group living in the southeastern region of Turkey, as well as parts of Iran, Syria, and Iraq. There has never been a census in Turkey that asked about the ethnicity or race of Turks, mostly because according to the Turkish government, all Turkish citizens are Turks. Indeed, in Turkish, there is only one word, Türk, that describes both ethnic Turks – i.e. members of the ethno-linguistic group that came from present-day Mongolia, settling down throughout the present-day Central Asian Republics – and citizens of the modern Republic of Turkey. For many years, the official Turkish government line did not even accept the fact that Kurds were ethnically different. This is pretty much nonsense – the Kurdish language is Indo-European (a Kurdish-speaking friend of mine tells me that it has some similarities to Russian).

The Kurds make up, probably, about 20% of Turkey’s population. Some of them live in large cities like Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara, and are highly successful. Many, however, still live in very rural and undeveloped areas in the southeast of Turkey.

One should not confused the “Kurdish problem” with the “terrorism problem”. The terrorism problem primarily comes from the PKK, a (theoretically) Marxist organization that espouses Kurdish nationalism. It is based mostly in northern Iraq these days, and has lost a bit of power since its leader, Abdullah Öcalan (“Apo”) was captured in Kenya in 1999 by MIT, the Turkish intelligence service. It still, however occasionally manages to kill Turkish military targets. This tit-for-tat struggle has been going on for decades. One of the reasons I’ve heard for Turkey’s generally close relationship with Israel is the fact that both have been plagued since their inception by terrorism. It’s an interesting comparison, full of realpolitik and irony (the Kurds are sometimes called “the Jews of the Middle East” because of their lack of a state, although, then again, so are the Armenians.)

Turks, no matter what their political stripe, take this issue extremely seriously. You will never hear a joke or lighthearted comment about a “şehit” – martyr, any soldier or policeman killed in the line of duty – nor will you see the PKK ever referred to as a “militant” or “guerilla” organization as you sometimes will in the western press – in Turkey, they are simply “terrorists”.

There is also the “Kurdish problem”, which stems not from terrorism but just from the fact that Kurds do not have as many civil liberties as Turks in Turkey. They have virtually no access to Kurdish-language education. Some Kurdish names that do not have equivalents in Turkish are illegal, making it impossible for parents to register for identity cards for their children. In some cases, Kurdish children born in Germany have been reused entry into Turkey because of their names. The situation is definitely improving, though, for Kurds, albeit slowly. Twenty five years ago Ankara referred to Kurds as “Mountain Turks” and claimed that the word “Kurd” was a nickname that came from the sound of their sandals as they walked through the snow. Today, there is a TRT channel (the Turkish state broadcaster) that broadcasts in Kurdish. The current prime minister of Turkey has even tentatively uttered the previously taboo word “Kurdistan” to refer to the autonomous region in northern Iraq. Many of these gradual reforms are being spurred as Turkey tries to comply with various EU treaties and agreements regarding the rights of minorities as part of it’s 50-year Quixotic quest to be admitted to the European Union.

I’m happy to try my best to answer any other questions.

On a lighter note… how many of my readers know what Eurovision is? If you have a sec, Wiki it. Basically, it’s like a cross between World Cup and American Idol. Every nation in “Europe” (for the purposes of this discussion, let’s assume that countries like Israel count as Europe) is eligible to enter a song. The results are, in general, hilarious. Any person residing in any of the European countries sending an entrant is eligible to vote via text message, the only caveat being they cannot vote for their country of residence. Each country picks its favorite ten entries and points are awarded to the other countries accordingly. While it would be nice if people voted based on the artistic merit of the performers, what usually ends up happening is “bloc voting”, where all the Scandinavian and Slavic countries vote for another. Cyprus and Greece, without fail, award each other the maximum 12 points every year. Turkey receives a huge amount of votes from Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, thanks to the Turkish Diaspora in these countries. I was shocked when Serbia awarded 12 points to Bosnia & Herzegovina – perhaps they were feeling guilty? Most of the former Yugoslavian countries, in fact, ended up awarded points to each other. I guess that having a neighbor win a song contest can trump years of ethnic cleansing.

So? Norway won. If you want you can probably find the winning song, on YouTube, by Alexander Rybak, who looks like he is about 12. I liked the Azerbaijani entry better myself.

University, Izmir, Public Transportation, and other anecdotes

So it’s been a while. I’m trying to think what’s happened since I last wrote.

The biggest thing was probably that I once more found my life, to a certain extent, taken over my university applications. (Because I’m in Turkey, even when I think to myself English, saying “university” seems much more natural than “college”.) Luckily, I had some amazing options from which to choose. The Robertson Program, an amazing scholarship that is offered at UNC and Duke (Google it if you’re curious), paid for me to return to the states for a week to interview for a place as a Robertson Scholar at UNC. I had the chance to visit both UNC and Duke. In the end, however, I was not offered a spot as a Robertson Scholar, but I did get the chance to have some quality time with my dad – suit shopping, staying in fancy hotels (actually, just one fancy hotel), and eating all the meat I could in the course of 5-days. I hadn’t had one of those incredibly oversized, environmentally-unfriendly American steaks in 7 months. As Don King would say…

So for the past month I’ve been considering my options. Considering what a terrible year it was economically, and, by extension, for college admissions, I’m very lucky to have received only a small number of rejections, at schools that were tremendous reaches. To make a long story short, and spare my readers more waiting (I’m very aware it’s been months since my last blog entry), I’ll just go ahead and say it. I’m going to be attending Duke. Cool, right? I’m pretty excited to be done with high school. It’s just so incredibly rewarding to know that all those years of work I put in have paid off and I’ve ended up exactly where I wanted to be – maybe not at precisely the school I would have guessed 3 or 4 months ago, but at an amazing school, with genuinely knowledgeable and enthusiastic people, studying something that I love.

Yeah. I’m pretty damn excited.

I spent the last week with some AFS friends of mine in Izmir. Izmir is known for being the most liberal part of Turkey, and for having the most beautiful girls in Turkey. We toured around with the AFSers who lived there, mostly. I ate an entire fish, which is something I’ve always hated doing – it’s so much work. It’s worth it, though. I’ve heard for years that the eyes are the tastiest part, and it’s true, although the “eww” factor is definitely present.

I had a lot of time to think about my college decision whilst travelling to Izmir. I took a bus, and it’s about 7 or 8 hours each way. As the crow flies, it’s not tremendously far, but to get to or from Antalya you have to traverse the Toros Mountains. The road is not particularly windy, but instead you just have long, long bends that take you slowly from side to side. The panorama is beautiful. I’m glad I didn’t fly.

Turkish inter-city buses, in general, are awesome. Round trip, I think I paid about $45. That includes the “servis” that take me from the bus station back into the city, so you don’t have to pay like you would if you went to the airport. There is snack and beverage service on the bus – not much, but it’s about what you get on a short-haul flight in America these days. I elected to pay slightly more and take the “comfortable” service. The bus only has 3 seats abreast – 2 and 1, instead of 2 and 2 – so you get a nice wide seat and I didn’t have to have someone sitting next to me. The bus stops a few times so you can go to the bathroom. “Turkish transportation” is listed as one of my interests on my Facebook page, and it’s true – I find it to be, in general, convenient, cheap, and fairly reliable. I wish we had something like that in the US, although the US is simply much, much bigger.

So… that’s my post. Sorry I didn’t write more, but I’ll try to once more take up the writing mantle and keep the folks back home up to date.

My excuse for not ever posting any more...

... college. My responses have come and I'm trying to filter through them. I was actually in the states last week for a college interview at the University of North Carolina. Unfortunately, I didn't get offered the scholarship for which I interviewed, but happily I have some other fabulous options from which to choose from. This makes my life a little difficult as I'm having a bit of a difficult time making a decision.

Hopefully, at some point, inspiration will strike and I'll write a detailed description of what I've been up to for the past month and a half. Unfortunately, that time is not now. I am aware that I've neglected my blog, however. In the meantime, though, my education comes first (sorry!) and keeping everyone posted comes second. My apologies.

Answers to my dad's questions

I figure I might as well strike while the iron is hot and respond to the multitude of questions posed by my dad.

- How observant religiously are mainstream Antalyans?
Not at all. Less so, in fact, than the United States. Turkey is laik, similar to the French model. The separation between church and state is present but it manifests itself in different ways. Turkey is, in general, aggressively secular. This may seem like a peculiar use of words, but it is, I think, the best way to describe the predominant mindset. Of course, this mindset isn’t actually all that predominant, considering the religious party has a majority. But in general, city-dwellers and people who live further west tend to be less religious. For example, I don’t think my host brother has ever actually been inside a mosque, except historical ones that have been converted to museums.

- Are mosques prevalent? Are there muezzin in the towers?
In Antalya, somewhat, although no more so than churches in a similarly sized American city. It isn’t like Cairo, “the city of a thousand minarets.” There are muezzin and they do chant the call to prayer five times daily. I can hear it from my house but it doesn’t bother me; it’s must less irksome than the guy who is up at 6:00 yelling about how amazing his simit is (simit is sort of ring sesame-encrusted bread).

- What Muslim beliefs are honored and observed, and which are not?
No one eats pork, just because it is impossible (or extremely difficult) to find, and while most people wouldn’t care about eating it on religious grounds, most people think pork is dirty. There are wild pigs in Turkey, though, and I’m told that there are some farms where pork is produced for export to Bulgaria and other (Christian) places. The vast majority of people have no religious objection to drinking alcohol, at least not in Antalya. Antalya is pretty secular, even by Turkish standards. Not nearly as secular, as, say Izmir, but more secular than Istanbul and much more so than Ankara.
A lot of other things are not so much Muslim as they are just folk traditions. The evil eye (nazar boncuk) is everywhere, on basically every door and sometimes on babies, to ward off bad luck. People invoke the name of God by saying “mashallah” and “inshallah” and similar expressions that come from Arabic, even if they aren’t religious. A lot of people play with tesbih (prayer beads) in their idle time. These have 33 beads, which, if counted 3 times, equal 99 – so one can recite the 99 names of Allah if one is so inclined. Most people aren’t, though, and just use them as worry beads. I have a set that I like to play with – I don’t smoke, so I need something to do with my hands while I wait.
Most people don’t pray at all. I can’t stress enough the fact that Turkey is secular, and most definitely not Arab.

- How does your host mom shop for dinner? Does she shop every day, or does she shop for a week? What are grocery stores like as compared to a Hannaford’s here? What choices do you have?
A little of both. There are little shops on basically every corner. If you like, they will even have someone send up whatever you want to your apartment. Every morning our kapıcı (doorman is perhaps the best way to translate this) bring us the newspaper and a fresh loaf of bread. If we run out of yogurt or bread, we can go to the little store. For more regular shopping, there is a small grocery store in a mall near our house that my mom probably goes to once or twice weekly. Most things we get about once a week, some things fresh (like bread and fruit). Maybe every month or two we go to a big “hypermarket”, which is about the size of a standard supermarket in America – maybe a little bigger, but definitely not as big as a Sam’s Club or BJ’s.
The choices are not nearly as extensive as what we are used to in America. For some items – instant coffee, tea, nutella products and associated knock-offs – there are more choices, but in general it’s less. There aren’t nearly as many different types of soda: you have basically Coke, Diet Coke, Fanta and Sprite, although you get a choice of a few different brands. There is basically one type of beer in Turkey – Efes, and imports are expensive. There’s also Tuborg, but it’s produced under license by the Efes company, so it doesn’t really count. There is no ice cream in the stores, just individual serving-sizes. We don’t have a regular freezer anyway, just a deep-freeze. It’s a tiny bit difficult to find normal coffee (filter, non-instant, non-Turkish). A lot of things are made by Ülker, which is a Turkish company that produces a lot of candy and also Cola Turka. The money that Ülker makes, though, is called yeşil para – green money (green being the color of Islam). Ülker tends to give money to conservative causes in Turkey and my family, for instance, generally prefers not to buy Ülker products.

- If you go into a pharmacy, is everything out on a shelf or do you have to ask someone to retrieve every item for you?
Yep, you have to ask someone. Pharmacies are a lot more common here because a) grocery stores don’t have their own pharmacies and b) hospitals don’t really have their own pharmacies, so you have to get the medicine yourself. They also seem to make a lot of money selling Viagra, at least judging by the large window displays. (I don’t know if you need a prescription for this or not; somehow I doubt it.)

- Are there more misconceptions about Americans that Turks hold that you could share?
Nothing all that new or interesting, other than that our government isn’t particularly well-liked in this part of the world. There is a best-selling novel here called “Metal Storm” which describes a US-led invasion of Turkey, and people actually seem to think that this is something fairly realistic, and something they worry about. There is also a movie called “Valley of the Wolves: Iraq”, which features, among other things a (Jewish) American doctor who sells organs from Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib to businessmen in Tel Aviv. During the invasion of Iraq, US forces captured Turkish commandos operating in the north and pictures were taken of the hooded Turkish soldiers. While the prisoners were eventually released, the “hood incident” was not exactly a high point in US-Turkish relations. The movie is based on the embarrassment caused by this incident.
What else? A lot of the stereotypes are just based on what people see in the movies: we all have big cars, eat fast food 24/7, snort coke 24/7, we all love basketball, etc.
A lot of people think that the Armenian and the Jewish lobbies are very powerful in America, which is, to a certain extent, true.

- What do they think of other nationalities, such as the British, or Germans, or Asians?
In Antalya we get a lot of tourists, along with people who retire or move to Turkey. Most Turkish people believe that pretty much all foreigners from central or northern Europe are “cold”. While Turkish people are a warm and hospitable people, the worst of the tourist stereotypes are as follows: British people – kind of white trash. Drink a lot. Not wearing enough clothing. Germans – cold. Extremely cold. Also drink too much. Russians – cheap. (Think 5 or 6 people in a 2-person hotel room cheap.) Drink too much. Israelis – same as the Russians. Maybe because a lot of them are from Russia. Asians – there is only one country in Asia, and that is Japan. I feel bad for the Thai students, who have to deal with “Japan? Japan?” and “konichiwa” whenever they go outside. In general, Asian tourists (read: Japanese) prefer to go to historical places, such as Istanbul and Kapadokya, and stay away from the beaches. Americans – surprisingly, people like us. We don’t come to Turkey so much, so there aren’t nearly as many stereotypes just because they are’t as well known.

- It would also be interesting to hear more about students in your school. Do they pay attention in class? Do they write everything diligently? Do any of them pass notes, or throw paper at each other, or throw pencils up to stick in the ceilings? Are there disciplinary issues for harmless, mindless mischief?
Not so much. There is more discipline in the sense that teachers yell a lot more, but less in the sense that no one really listens to the teachers. All the teachers have decided to crack down on people bringing food into their classrooms, which most people solve by just putting their food in their bag or waiting until the teacher isn’t looking. Classes are a lot bigger here so the teachers can’t really enforce discipline as much. Side conversations pretty much occur all the time. Students don’t form lines (“queue up”, as I’ve been taught in English class), instead they just form a mob. I’m tall, so I actually do okay for myself. People sometimes pass notes, but usually its easier just to talk across the room to whoever you want to speak with.
In Turkey there are no substitute teachers. If the teacher doesn’t come, you just have a free period. Sometimes people play football (soccer) with a piece of paper, or have fights with the chalk. In general they don’t pay as much attention in class, but they somehow manage to write all the important things down. A lot of times students will sleep and the teacher will either not notice or just not care. People also have all sorts of cool tricks they can do that involve twirling their pens.

- Do some kids drop out?
Yes. If, after 8th grade, you want to stop school, you just stop going to school. Some people do. Some girls do because it is forbidden to wear the headscarf in school, but most of them just wear it outside of school. I’ve heard that in some places girls wear wigs to get around this, but, as I’ve said, Antalya is really secular, and I’ve only actually seen one girl in my school who wears the headscarf while not in school.

- What if a kid loves sports - you mention that in 11th and 12th grade all they do is prep for the exam - do the athletes just give up their sports for two years?
Pretty much, if they want to get into a good university and get a job. There aren’t really school teams – we have matches with other schools, but usually they just organize a team a week or two before the match and practice during lunch. After school, everyone has private study classes to attend, and there aren’t sports teams (at least not at my public school – perhaps some private schools do). If you want to play sports, you rent a field and get a group together to play football on the weekend. Same goes for music and just about any other hobby outside of school.
I was late to class yesterday and rather than showing up late, I decided to sit in on a conference with all the 12th graders in my school. One of the teachers asked if any of the students were still trying to have any relations with people during the weekends – social activities and whatnot. About 25% of the students raised their hands, and laughed nervously. The teacher then basically told them, good for you for wanting to have fun and be young, but you really should be studying more for your own good. And he’s right.

- Do any kids hold after school jobs? If so, what do they do?
It’s hard to get a job in Turkey, even for university graduates. That being said, I know a few people in my school who work in hotels during the summer, and they tend to have better English than their peers. Some of them have even picked up a few bits of Russian. It’s not very common though. Bulatcan, my host brother, had a tourism-related job for a week or so. I think it was kind of like a bellhop type-thing, but he had to stop after he hurt his wrist. Some of the kids from poorer families help out around the house or the job, I think. Having an actual job during the school year is unheard of – actually, the same is true in Europe to a large extent.

Money, and a quick story (not in that order)

I got back from our mid-stay camp yesterday night. I’ll probably talk about it in a different post. After only 3 days away, I had 28 new messages in my email inbox. I read about 3, gave up, and decided to write a blog rather than address the backlog of emails.

A few hours ago I was walking back from the gym I’ve recently joined. It’s kind of nice having joined a gym in Turkey. The differences between a gym in Turkey (or at least the one I go to) and a gym in America are kind of like the differences in shopping. In America, the employees are there if you need them, but they pretty much stay out of your way unless you ask them for help. When you walk into a store in Turkey, the first thing you usually notice (depending on the time you are there) is that there are frequently more people working than there are actual customers. This is especially true of Turkcell stores, which seem to be able to employ massive amounts of people despite the fact that they are everywhere – I have literally seen a block in Turkey where the storefronts were Turkcell, Vodafone, Tobacco Shop, Turkcell, Avea (another cell phone company here), a general store, and another Turkcell. All 3 Turkcells had customers. If you walk in a clothing store, and show an interest in a certain item, the employee won’t hesitate to offer you his or her opinion on it. At first I thought they were a little pushy (“so do you want to buy it? Do you? Do you?”) but now I’m actually a little disappointed when I go in a store an no one comes forward to helps me.

Anyways, the gym is the same way. When I first started, Tolga, the guy who works there said, “okay, let’s get started.” And he sits me down and works me mercilessly for the better part of an hour. It’s basically like having your own personal trainer to tell you what to do, especially if I go at a time when it isn’t so crowded – of course I’m not the only one who gets this “special treatment”.

Another thing. We have municipal elections approaching in Antalya. It’s pretty likely that AKP, the conservative, somewhat religious party, will win here, because the current mayor is from AKP and is pretty well liked. That, and the fact that AKP has several times more money to spend on this election than anyone else. AKP puts that money to good use by having vans drive around with pictures of the candidates and loudspeakers on the top, playing surprisingly additive songs like “Muratpaşa (a district in Antalya) is our home”. I always have to suppress the urge to dance whenever one of the vans passes by, because the song is very addictive. Luckily, I can’t understand all the Turkish, so I don’t get the full Orwellian effect. CHP (Social Democrats) and MHP (Nationalists) have vans as well, but I don’t see them as often. So basically campaign advertising in Turkey is like the Blues Brothers, I think. At least they don’t have those stupid little signs on the side of the road. I feel like people are much more likely to vote for someone because they have a song stuck in their head than because they’ve seen someone’s name written more than the other guy.

So I’m still walking back from the gym. Even though I’m actually really skinny (hence the reason why I go to the gym), I’m taller than nearly everyone in Turkey, and when I’m wearing a rain jacket (because it’s always raining in Antalya) I can look pretty big. Someone got my attention while I was walking by the mall parking lot near my house (I live within 2 minutes’ walk of 2 medium-sized malls), and asked me if I could help him with his car. He pointed out that I looked athletic and could probably manage to push the car, and his flattery must have worked, because I, of course, agreed to help him with his car. He asked me if I was from Antalya, and I said, no, I’m actually from America. He told me his wife was Russian, and pointed out his half-Russian son, trotting alongside.

So after we got his car running, he thanked me with a wave and an (English) “thank you very much!” At first I was a little upset. I generally don’t like it when I tell people in Turkish that I’m from America, and then they say something like “welcome”. I guess I feel like if I’m speaking Turkish and getting along fine, why not continue in Turkish with a “hoş geldiniz” instead of a “welcome”. And then I remembered what I said upon hearing his son was Russian: “privet”. So I guess it cuts both ways. People try to be friendly and hospitable. All I can do is enjoy the friendly sentiment, and respond in Turkish.

So that’s the story part of this post. The second part is just a brief explanation of the money here, with thanks to Wikipedia for the dates.

Until 2005, Turkey used a currency known simply as the Turkish lira. This worked fine until the 1980s, when inflation necessitated constantly adding zeroes to the money. Although the Turkish government kept adding zeros, it never reached “hyperinflation” – it wasn’t like Zimbabwe. People could still afford everything, it just made international trade a little more difficult, and, of course, all those zeroes get confusing.

It got the point where in the early 2000s, a can of coke was usually around a million Turkish lira. For a tourist-oriented country, this was seen as kind of embarrassing, not to mention confusing for foreigners when they look at a menu and a cup of tea is 2.500.000 [2.5 million], or see that their hotel bill for the night is 220.000.000 [220 million], or they want to buy a car and it is 70.000.000.000 [70 billion] (in Turkey they use periods instead of commas).

Anyways, in 2005, the government had had enough. Luckily, the lira had stabilized and was actually rising against the dollar. They decided to remove 6 zeroes from the currency, so the 2.5 million lira cup of tea was now only 2.5 lira. Except to distinguish, they called this the “New Turkish Lira”, commonly known by its Turkish abbreviation “YTL”. The YTL was divided into 100 sub-units, called “kuruş” – basically like cents. There is no 1 kuruş coin – people here don’t care about exact change like they do in America. All the prices are rounded to the nearest “5”, and because tax is included in everything, not just added on top of the normal price, you don’t have to worry about this like you do in the states.

Another thing about the kuruş coins – the 50 kuruş coin and the 1 lira coin look almost exactly like the 1 euro coin and the 2 euro coin, respectively. They are made from the same metals, and weigh, I’m told, the same. While it could be that this was purely coincidental, it was more likely a political move, saying “look, we’re ready to join the European Union, because our money looks rather similar”. Either that, or it was a way for Turkish people living in Europe to cheat vending machine owners, because I’m told as well that the coins will work in vending machines that accept Euro. So it’s kind of like how you can use Canadian money in the US. The major difference is that a Canadian quarter is worth almost the same as its American counterpart, whereas a 1 YTL coin it worth ¼ of its Euro counterpart.

On 1 January, the money changed yet again. The “New” was dropped, and now the currency is known once more as the Turkish Lira, or TL. The value hasn’t changed at all, just the name. For a year you can continue to use your old money, and after that, you have to take it to a bank to exchange it for new notes. I’m kind of amazed, though, how quickly the money has changed. I still sometimes see an old $20 bill when I'm in America, even though the money changed... what, maybe three years ago? In Turkey, probably 2/3rds of the bills in my wallet right now are new, and it hasn’t even been 2 months since the money changed.

The coins have been changed so that they no longer look like the Euro coins, and, in my opinion, the new coins are prettier as well. Everyone, however, seems to hate the new paper money, and I agree. The old money was made of some sort of cloth-type paper, whereas the new one seems like it is made with cheap printer paper. Furthermore, on the front side of the money, there are pictures of people. It’s the first time that the Turkish Republic has ever put anyone other than Atatürk on its money. Some people think that this is a deliberate AKP attempt to diminish the role of Atatürk in every day life. I just thing its stupid that there are people on the money, and no one has any idea who any of them are. Literally. Except for the 200 lira note (which, because it is worth like $120, I don’t see very much), which has Yunus Emre, the other people are completely unknown. The old money was bigger as well, and had pictures of historical sights instead of the “famous” Turks who no one knows. The new money also, according to some, looks like the Euro (it’s colorful, which is a major improvement over American money), and also features, on certain notes, a smiling Atatürk. A lot of people don’t really like that either – they grew up accustomed to a serious, stern Atatürk, and the idea of him cracking a smile on the money seems a little bit weird, I guess.

The money can be a little confusing, because even though they got rid of all the zeroes, many people still say “million”. So if your sandwich that costs 3 TL, the waiter may say “3 million”. How much is the water, you wonder? “Five hundred thousand.” My mom doesn’t understand the new money, and she always tells me things in millions and billions. As if that wasn’t confusing enough, sometimes people still say “YTL”, even though now it is just “TL.” So your sandwich is “3 YTL” (pronounced yay-tay-lay). Fun, isn’t it? And many places don’t accept credit cards. The little corner store accepts credit cards, but the electric company, for instance, does not. To pay your bills, you have to go wait in line and pay in cash.

I’ll write about the camp later, maybe. Anything else people want to here about? I might write more about the election, but writing about politics in Turkey makes me feel a little uncomfortable just because I really don’t understand it so well and I don’t want to misrepresent things.

The rules of Turkish cuisine, as noticed by me

- add salt to everything. Everything needs more salt.

- yogurt makes everything better. Pasta, rice, meat, soup... yogurt is also an elixir that has the power to solve any and all health problems.

- drinking while you are eating a meal is optional. One glass of water is more than enough to last an entire meal.

- you can drink tea with anything. While I was in Norway at a pizza restaurant, my host brother drank tea. With pizza.

- on that note, tea is always available. Much like the fact that many workplaces have coffee pots in America, teakettles are pretty much ubiquitous.

- if you are my host brother and you are drinking something hot, add 3-5 sugar cubes. I've seen him add sugar to hot chocolate.

- if you buy something from the canteen at school, offer to share it with anyone who passes by, no matter what it may be. If they don't want any, insist.

- if someone offers you food and you don't wish to accept, patting your hand on your stomach a few times is an acceptable refusal.

- everything at the school canteen is made by Ülker.

- ayran (yogurt + water + salt) is delicious.

- so is kokoreç (lamb intestines).

- it seems like you drink Coke and/or Fanta more often than water.

- everybody loves American fast food: McDonalds and Burger King are the favorites, but Pizza Hut, Dominos and Dunkin' Donuts (in Istanbul) are also liked. Starbucks is nice, but expensive.

- real coffee is hard to find. People drink instant coffee, usually pre-sweetened. Turkish coffee isn't drunk all that regularly.

- ketchup and mayonnaise are the main condiments, used not only on fries, but also on pizza and pasta.

- eggs are always a little runny.

- white bread is delicious and should accompany all meals.

- a salad is topped with olive oil and lemon juice, maybe vinegar. Sometimes nar eksısı, which translates as... pomegranate vinegar?

- simit is the ultimate "grab and go" food, and you can buy it on the street for 50 kuruş. (Simit is a round type of bread covered with sesame seeds. Wiki it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simit)

- people love to extol the virtues of rakı, fish, and white cheese when consumed ensemble.

- dinner (at least in my house) always has soup.

- there are dozens of restaurants, yet they all serve the exact same thing. You can walk past a row of dönerciler (döner restaurants), all of which have exactly the same menu.

- (non-Turkish) ethnic food does not exist. (Italian pasta is an exception. I've heard Mexican food also exits, although I've yet to see any.) Turkish food tends to be simple, some might even say bland. People don't mix tastes - if something is spicy, it's spicy, and if something is sweet, it's sweet. Rice tastes like rice. Pasta tastes like pasta.

- the word "pasta" means "cake", while "kek" can also mean "cake", and "makarana" means not only macaroni, but all types of pasta.

- no pork.

The roller coaster that is my life

I think within the exchange student community, comparing one’s life to a roller-coaster is perhaps the oldest cliché in the book – like a Valentine’s Day poem that is some variation on the theme “rose”.

Some people like roller-coasters. I, however, am not one of them. When I went with my family to Disney Land (or World, whichever one is in Florida), we had the special pass-tickets that let you ride Space Mountain first thing in the morning, before the regular riff-raff get their turn. I rode it once, and managed to survive. Because there was still no line, I felt obliged to ride it again – I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to ride Space Mountain twice in five minutes! Of course, the second time around I threw up.

Right now I also sometimes feel like I need to vomit from the whiplash between the highs and the lows of my life. Our fifteen-day term holiday ended this Monday. My two-week break was a pleasant, if extremely boring, respite from the (also boring) school day. I hung out with the other AFSers in Antalya and a few others who came with their families here on holiday. It was… pleasant, I guess. It filled the time. I wish that from time to time a male student would come, though. There are three other girls in Antalya, and so far the only students who have come to Antalya have also been girls. Now, I have nothing against the female kind, but the fact that all the girls have 7:00 curfews makes everyone’s life pretty boring, especially given that I was in the habit of sleeping until noon.

And there’s also the fact that I always feel guilty hanging out with the other foreigners. Nothing against them, but I’d much rather be spending my time with Turkish people. Unfortunately, spending time with young Turkish people is hard, as I’ll explain, albeit in a roundabout fashion.

Today in school we had a 100-minute practice test for the ÖSS, which is the Turkish university entrance exam. I decided not to participate, since I don’t need to practice for a test I’m not going to take, and instead just sat in my school’s “garden”, which in fact is just asphalt surrounded by a fence topped with barbed wire. Some of the better schools have actual signs of natural life in their gardens, but not ours.

Actually, I kind of marveled at this fact at the time. In my school, pretty much what I do is up to me. I go to all my lessons and sit quietly, studying Turkish, reading, or (occasionally) sleeping, but I don’t think it would really make a difference if I decided to stop coming to my lessons. My school doesn’t really do anything special to accommodate me – so my report card for the first term, which I’ll hopefully be able to pick up tomorrow (long story) is going to contain a lot of 0s (the lowest grade) and 5s (the highest), because teachers either decide that since I haven’t done anything I don’t really deserve a grade (the 0s) or they just decide they like me and they don’t really care (the 5s). In theory, AFS and my school are supposed to work out a way in which I receive alternate assignments, but neither one has shown any signs of doing so, at least not yet. I’m definitely OK with the current state of affairs; I have basically no school work, besides the ever-difficult struggle with learning Turkish.

But anyways, I was thinking about the ÖSS, and some conversations I’ve had with Turks. The test, unfortunately, basically makes being a teenager impossible. After school, students generally go to private study schools for the test. In a 10th grade class like mine, they usually will go two or three days during the week, and sometimes one day during the weekend. By the time they are in the 12th grade, they’re probably going five days a week. In Turkey, there are no after-school activities, except for studying. When students don’t have classes, frequently they just go home and sleep or study, filling out book after book of multiple-choice ÖSS test-prep questions.

Nor is the ÖSS the only test. In order to “win” the ÖSS and gain admittance to a university (the ÖSS not only determines which university you get to go to, but also if you are in the lucky 1/3rd of high school students who get to attend university at all), you need to be in a good high school. There’s a test for this, too, taken in 8th grade. So 7th and 8th graders have their own private courses to go to. Sometimes they start even earlier. All this combines to make my social life a bit limited. Sometimes I can go to a café (regular café, internet café, or the ever-popular PS3 café) after school with some school friends. But the activities I’m used to in America – sports, clubs, etc. – don’t exist here. I’m trying to find an organized activity to do after school; maybe I’ll take music or dance (yes, dance) lessons.

Now, pretty much everyone here dislikes this competitiveness, and I’m sure most of my readers probably don’t like the sound of it either. But the unfortunate reality is that there really isn’t anything else that can be done. What do you do when there are three people who apply for every one spot in a university? There simply isn’t money to accommodate more. An objective test like the ÖSS is pretty much the only way they can sort out who goes to university and who doesn’t.

I should note as well that if you are a Turkish citizen and you win the ÖSS, you get to attend university for free. (Everyone says “win” the ÖSS, not “pass” or, “do well at”, in Turkish you also talk about “winning” money if you have a good job.) So people who might think that the American system is a panacea should consider that you can attend the best university in Turkey for free, while an American university comparable to Boğazıçı University or Middle East Technical University would probably cost upwards of $40,000 dollars a year.

What else: today, in particular, I saw that Turks my age really believe in conspiracy theories, especially ones that involve Israel. Israel isn’t all that popular in Turkey at the moment… actually, my understanding is its pretty unpopular everywhere save Israel and the US now. The things I’ve heard range from the Da Vinci Code to that Nicholas Cage movie where he finds the secret Masonic treasure to some things that probably have their roots in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – although I should say that as a Jew who draws a clear distinction between Jewishness and Israeliness, I have never gotten in any arguments here. A lot of people also seem legitimately interested in the possibility that the US could conceivably go to war with Turkey.

I also have to deal with the fact that, apparently, my life in America is EXACTLY LIKE every single Hollywood movie in the minds of my Turkish schoolmates. (Sometimes I try to explain what the American stereotypes of Turks are – first of all, Turks and Arabs are one and the same, and second of all… Midnight Express.) Of course, no one has heard of Maine, and people find the idea that I live in a town of 8,000 extremely quaint. So people want to know what kind of drugs you can buy on the streets in America. Or how the relations are between white people and black people. Have I been to Harlem? What are the “Red people” (Turkish hasn’t really caught up as far as political correctness, I’m afraid) like? Can I teach them street language? Do I have a gun? I have tried to explain the size and heterogeneousness of America, but now I usually just settle for yes-or-no answers that are usually gross oversimplifications and frequently out-and-out lies. That’s probably how these stereotypes get started in the first place – bored exchange students with nothing better to do than make up hilarious stories about how you can buy heroin in the super markets in America, and you have to carry a gun to protect yourself when you go to get the mail. I haven’t actually said these things. But I’ve thought about it.

So I guess my spirits are good at the moment. My sense of humor is with me. I have a killer headache that I haven’t been able to shake for a few days, probably because my sinuses are ridiculously clogged and no one in Turkey uses Kleenex. Ah well.

An open question to the English-language Wikipedia

Wikipedia

Why is it that this story about three people killed in an avalanche in Scotland is the number-one News item on Wikipedia's News Feed, but this more current story about 10 people killed in an avalanche in Turkey is nowhere to be found? I'm pretty sure that 10 is more than three - but, then again, Scotland is a neat little country with golf courses and whiskey, whereas the Turkish avalanche happened in a fairly poor part of a non-European country.

It's easy to see why people (not just Turks, mind you) can get bitter about how their suffering doesn't ever get reported in the west? Granted, Wikipedia is not principally a news outlet, but we'll see which one gets more coverage in the upcoming days.

Photograph

I'm using Facebook to host my photos, but even if you don't have Facebook (and if you are over the age of, say, 30, you probably shouldn't...) you can still see them by checking these links.

Istanbul School Trip

Norway

Bayram Pictures (Old)

Misc. Pictures of Antalya (Really Old)

I tend to add pictures fairly regularly, because it takes forever to upload them and I get tired after uploading a few. Some of the captions are in (probably incorrect) Turkish as well, but I'll probably go through and make them all bilingual. Most of them are pretty self-explanatory anyway.

A really, really long post

I guess my last blog entry was a hit. As my dad aptly put it, “6 or 7 people responded to your last entry, and I wasn’t even one of them! Neither was your mom.” Wow.

Of course, my newfound success has the drawback that I feel like I should actually update my blog on a fairly regular basis. It’s easy to procrastinate when you think you are writing to yourself, but now that I know that there are actually people out there who read this… I feel obliged to write more often, actually run a spell-check, and perhaps give a proofread. Fame, man… it’s a fickle beast.

So… İstanbul.

(Pedantic note: In Turkish there are two versions of the letter “i". The first is dotted-i: i or İ, and the second is undotted: ı or I. Dotted-i is pronounced as in English, but undotted-I is pronounced like “uh”. According to Wikipedia, it represents the close back unrounded vowel. Imagine you’ve been punched in the gut, and that’s kind of what it sounds like. Normally, this isn’t a problem when I’m typing, because when you are instant messaging it doesn’t really matter if you spell the word incorrectly. Sometimes, though, you can get into trouble. The word “sık” means often, but the word “sik” (pronounced exactly the same as English “sick”) means “f*ck”. That’s why in English classes here they teach students to say “I am ill” and not “I am sick.”

I’ll try to keep the Turkish minutiae to a minimum.)

İstanbul. Last week, I went on a school trip to İstanbul. When I heard that there was a school trip, I expected it to similar to a school trip that might occur in America. Of course, one should never, ever have expectations as an exchange student. I also need to stop comparing things to America. In a recent meeting with my counselor here, she pointed out that I have the habit of starting my sentences with “compared to America,” or “well, in America we…” and it’s a horrible habit. I’m trying to break myself of it.

So no comparing the school trip. I guess I’ll just try to describe it as best I can as a sui generis occurrence. The bus ride was about 13 hours, I think. We stopped four or five times so we could go to the bathroom, eat, and buy lokum (Turkish delight). We traveled in two separate coaches – there were almost 90 students and four teachers. I managed to get two seats to myself, so I was able to sleep about as well as is possible on a bus for a 6’2” person.

When we arrived in İstanbul… wait, this is İstanbul? Turns out we weren’t actually staying in Istanbul. We were in Şile, which is improbably situated in the middle of farmland, about an hour outside of the city. We were in a holiday village, which means that we were all staying in little villas, five to a villa. It was alright for about five minutes, until my villa was trashed and smelled permanently, I think, like cigarette smoke.

I think for many of the students, this may have been one of the first times they had stayed away from home. They certainly took advantage of the opportunity to… well, in Turkish, there is no word for “to smoke”. They say “to drink” – so you “drink” cigarettes. (Apparently in Azerbaijani, which is a close relative of Turkish, there is a word for “to drink”, so Azerbaijanis think it is hilarious that Turkish people drink their cigarettes. I do too.)

Anyways, there was a lot of partying and “drinking” (both types).When I got back to school on Monday, one of the teachers asked me “you didn’t drink (or smoke…) too much, did you?” And I hastily said, “no, no, I didn’t drink at all.” I’m pretty sure she didn’t believe me, and that she wouldn't have cared if I had said "yes".

What about İstanbul itself? I can hear my readers wondering. Well, unfortunately, I didn’t get to see a whole lot of the city. I got my feet a little wet, but that was all. İstanbul is a beautiful, beautiful city. I saw the Hagia Sofia and Topkapı Palace, but the main purpose of our trip was to give the students a chance to see the universities in Istanbul. The most memorable university was Galatasaray University, which was founded during the Ottoman period. The language of instruction is still French, and it is situated right on the Bosphorous. Beautiful.

We also visited Taksım Square, the heart of İstanbul. It was extremely, extremely crowded. I was a little worried because I had seen people protesting the war in Gaza as drove around İstanbul, but there was nothing of a political nature going on in the square. Phew. We were set loose to wander around, with a warning that if we weren’t back at 5, we would be left behind. Some people actually were left behind, and had to take a cab.

I managed to find some people who were willing to let me be their friend, and we wandered around. We went to Pizza Hut (because there isn’t on in Antalya) and went to a nargile café (because… well, Turkish people like nargile?) I have pictures that I am sifting through at the moment, and I’ll try to upload them to my Facebook eventually. I’ll make the link public and post it here so everyone can browse them if they so desire. If you already have Facebook, you can see other people’s pictures of me in Istanbul as well.

As long as I’m writing, I figure I should probably comment on the situation in Gaza. I’m not going to talk about my personal opinions here, as this really isn’t the appropriate time or place. I did, however, get this message recently, from the embassy in Ankara.

“This Warden Message alerts U.S. citizens to
Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip
and Palestinian rocket strikes into Israel.
The escalation of hostilities within the Gaza
Strip has resulted in a strong possibility of
large public demonstrations and potential for
disruption of traffic throughout Turkey. In
southeastern Turkey, demonstrations have
already taken place in the provinces of Hakkari,
Bitlis, Elazig,Mardin, Gaziantep, Diyarbakir,
Antakya, Sanliurfa, and Siirt. Demonstrations
have already taken place at the U.S. Consulate
Adana, U.S. Consulate Istanbul and U.S. Embassy
Ankara and may continue given the possibility
for long-term conflict. When possible, we will
update American citizens with the latest demon-
stration information.

We remind American citizens that even demonstra-
tions intended to be peaceful can turn confronta-
tional and possible escalate into violence.
American citizens are therefore urged to avoid
the areas of demonstrations if possible, and to
exercise caution if within the vicinity of any
demonstrations. American citizens should stay
current with media coverage of local events
and be aware of their surroundings at all times.”

Ironically, while I was in Oslo there was a demonstration there in front of the Israeli Embassy that turned violent. None of the provinces listed, though, are anywhere near me. Antalya is a pretty peaceful place. Nevertheless, though, people are very, very upset about what is going on. Schools across Turkey had a moment of silence this week to commemorate the Palestinian casualties, and the head of one of Antalya’s municipalities came to our school two days ago to try to raise money to send to Palestine.

The differences between the western media outlets and the Turkish ones are shocking. The BBC World Service and CNN International tend to show the same clips over and over again, of cameramen stuck in Ashkelon watching distant rockets explode, or of Israeli Magen David Adom workers running to the site of a rocket attack, wearing reflective vests with Hebrew lettering.

While foreign media outlets haven’t been allowed in Gaza, al-Jazeera has, apparently, six journalists who were there to begin with, and, since the borders are sealed, they aren’t going anywhere. The Turkish outlets tend to re-broadcast the footage from Gaza from other channels, rather than just showing Israeli soldiers sitting on tanks and replaying clips of Tzvipi Livni over and over.

Anyways, I’m going to abide by what I said about this not being an appropriate venue to discuss the conflict. If anyone has questions about what is going on in Turkey in response to the war, I’d be happy to try my best to answer.

P.S. This entry is dragging on, but let me just answer some questions that people posed me.

Uncle Andrew: the weather is decent. It’s usually in the 50s and low 60s during the day, as best I can reckon from my on-the-fly conversions from Celsius. It’s too cold to swim and it’s kind of damp, but I think it beats the -15 degree weather I hear Maine is experiencing right now.

I was also accepted to UNC. I guess I should probably have mentioned that sooner. I’m very excited to have another school. As my dad reminded me recently, it’s always good to have options.

Bob: The Norwegian girls were beautiful. Apparently the Swedish girls are prettier, though. In a lot of the stores the people working are Swedish – so they speak English with you. Literally everyone in Oslo speaks English. Cool, huh?

To everyone who sent kind words or advice in the posts: thanks. I appreciate it. It’s great to know your thoughts are with me.

A Day in the Life

Today was my first day back at school. I spent Christmas and New Year’s in Norway, staying with friends of my host family in Oslo. I’m not going to try to explain everything that happened on this trip; I’m just going to write for a little while and see what happens.

I think today was a pretty typical day in my life as an exchange student. It started pretty badly. Because Bulatcan missed so much school, he is very behind and he has exams this week. He spent the night studying at his history teacher’s house (his history teacher is also a family friend). Thus, without Bulatcan making a ruckus at 6:30 in the morning, I slept through my alarm. I was finally woken up at 7:14, when my school bus driver called me. “Max? Max? Are you coming?” I couldn’t really manage the Turkish that early in the morning, so I think my reply was something like: “Never mind, never mind. I – not come today. Don’t wait. With my mom… drive me… to school. Okay?” He got the message. My dad drove me to school, but because my mom slept in I didn’t get breakfast.

The no-breakfast part was actually okay. I bought some simit at school. Simit is a round-shaped bread, covered with sesame seeds and cooked to a crisp. It is possibly the greatest food item ever invented. In a country where snack food isn’t really the norm, simit is a godsend. They’re about 40 cents apiece in my school’s canteen.

I was also pleased to note that it seemed like everyone had missed me while I was gone. “Where were you?” some asked, while the more well informed asked “How cold was Norway?”, or “How were the Norwegian girls?” or something similar. It was nice be the center of attention for about 10 minutes, before everyone got bored and returned to their inscrutable conversations in rapid-fire Turkish.

During my first lesson, I realized that I hadn’t had any caffeine yet. This was bad. I was very, very depressed because of this. I wanted to sleep. I tried to read, then the Soduku. I started writing in my journal, which is generally a bad idea when I’m sad. When I’m happy, the last thing I want to do is write in my journal. When I’m sad, it seems a nice idea, but usually it just creates more problems for me, I think. I write a bit, and then I think to myself, “well, what haven’t I complained about?” Inevitably, I write about things that aren’t really problems and make them that much worse for myself. I’m trying to stop, but I’m glad that I’ve finally started keeping a journal.

After my first lesson, I tried to find somewhere to hand in my doctor’s report. Turkish students are allowed to miss 20 days of school. If they miss 20, no problem. But if they miss 21, they have to repeat the year. No exceptions. If I miss more than 20, I get sent back to America, I guess. I’m not actually sure what would happen, and I don’t want to find out. AFS Camps and school trips, though, are not considered school absences.

There’s another loophole in the system as well. In addition to the 20 days of absences, students also get, I believe, an additional 20 sick-days. All you have to do is find a doctor willing to write you are report, and you’re golden. I got a 10-day report saying I had bronchitis. Everyone at school knows I was in Norway, but as long as the forms are all filled out, I’m in the clear.

When I went to pass in my report, I wasn’t really sure who to give it to. I loitered in one of the administration offices, where the assistant principal was handing out 100-lira bills to students. I’m not really sure why she was doing this, and I tried to understand for a few minutes while I waited for someone to ask me what I was doing. The students would go up to her, give the assistant principal their school number, and then they would be given 200 liras from a wall safe. I’ve stopped wondering about weird occurrences like this.

Anyways, when I went to pass in my form to the attendance secretary, it turns out I had to fill out another form. In Turkish. I didn’t understand it, and when I tried to get him to explain, he just spoke louder, not slower. I felt like an idiot, and basically wanted to cry. Finally, he told me to write my father’s name. This is a problem for me. Everything in Turkey depends on your father’s name. When I got my doctor’s report, it said “Please excuse Daniel’s son Max from school for 10 days because of bronchitis.” Now, the thing is, if they want to know who my father is, I write Daniel. But if they need to contact someone, I put my host father’s name. The bell was ringing, so I scrawled Daniel Kagan, incorrectly dated the form, signed it, and scampered off to class. I still felt like I wanted to cry.

No one cared about me, I thought. The form was probably going to get lost, and then I would have too many absences, and I would get sent home. I continued writing in my journal. Reading it over now, it’s pretty depressing. The good news is that the rest of my day went a lot better. We have two exams a day right now, which is actually kind of nice. I’m not really expected to do anything other than write my name, student number, and class number on the form, and then wait 45 minutes for the period to end. I get to read or do the crossword or basically do whatever I want, unless it’s an English exam.

I got a 92 on my latest English exam. I still don’t really understand why my answers were wrong, and I’m beyond caring. The very fact that I’m writing this blog clearly demonstrates that I can speak and communicate in English, even if I don’t know what “V2” means or what a modal verb does.

So the rest of my day was pretty uneventful. It was much happier than my morning. Yet I can’t really write about the happy times as much as the sad times. They were just… kind of there, and now I’m here. They say that times flies when you’re having fun, and I think they’re right. I try to remember that when I’m in a low spot and it seems like forever until I see the light.

What else? Tomorrow night I’m going to leave for a school trip to visit universities in Istanbul. It’s going to be… interesting. We’re going to be rooming, apparently, 8 people to a room. I knew that there was something fishy when it only cost 200 lira ($150, approximately) to spend 4 days in Istanbul. We’ll see how it goes. At least I’ll get to see Istanbul, and hopefully make some friends during the 12-hour bus ride.

So once again, it’ll be a while before I write again. Sorry.

I appreciate comments greatly, you know. It doesn’t have to be much, but it really brightens my day. Amazingly so. (Not just mom and dad, either… it takes a minute and I’ll love you forever if you do.)