The World Is On Sale

I have a new boyfriend. I know, it's unceremonious to announce it on the internet... Sorry mom--hopefully you won't take it personally. Here's a picture of him--he looks a little goofy in his turtleneck sweater, but I think he's perfect.



Yeah, that's right. "He" is actually an "it"--a hot water bottle. It's getting colder and last night was uncomfortable so it was time for a sleeping upgrade. I bought him this afternoon at the ultra posh Turkish home store: MudoConcept--a cross between an upscale Pier 1 Imports and Anthropologie (since they also sell clothes and an entire lifestyle just from the experience of shopping in their store).

I thought my shopping mission would be simple enough, but what should have taken only a few minutes ended up consuming half an hour. The entire universe of Mudo was on sale--30 to 60% off to be exact--and stuffed to the gills with glitzy Turkish women vying for a spot in the check out queue. After standing in line for almost 20 minutes, I experienced more than my share of the winter shopping madness induced by the global financial crisis' absurd sales.

For the most part, I've been successful in resisting the temptation to buy things in Izmir. There have been insane sales on already-cheap clothes, but I have consistently reminded myself that I don't need anything more in my closet.

I've read some of the articles on NY Times about the sales in the States (not to mention the Walmart employee who was trampled to death), and how it's going to take seasons to retrain shoppers to pay full price for things--I think that maybe Turkey is experiencing similar problems. Everything is on sale. Everything. It's kind of nauseating.

Welcome to the Bachelorette Pad
George is finally and officially gone. He left for England last night--on an overnight bus to İstanbul, and then a flight to London. I am poised to commandeer his room once I sanitize it. There's dust and grime on everything. Ick. And then there are the banana peels he abandoned on our couch, and the bag of trash he left by the front door. Thanks for the memories.

Sondra and I thought we were scott free as far as having to put up with another flatmate, since George's replacement already lives in İzmir. Thanks PEÉ! However, some late night snooping on the vast and glorious internet proved that PEÉ is hiring (hmmm...), and offering our free and furnished accommodations. Of course, the ad doesn't say that the poor schmuck will have to move into a window-less room. Drama is in the air.

Where's Thailand?
I had a new class tonight. At the end of our lesson one of the women approached me and asked me quietly something that sounded like "Where's Thailand?"

"Sorry?"

She repeated her question but it couldn't possibly be right, and I had no idea what she was saying. She was increasingly frustrated and becoming embarrassed and finally I understood she wanted to know where the toilet was... at which point I pulled her into the hall and pointed.

It was pretty awkward. But then again, the seven students in my Intermediate class were pretty awkward to begin with. Three men (one real man who reminded me of Milton "Excuse me, you have my stapler" Waddins from Office Space, and two teenager-y looking guys) and four women, three of whom are probably in their twenties. They were all pretty uncomfortable with each other, and I probably didn't help things by putting them with same-sex partners for the first forty-five minutes. When I went to check on them in PEÉ's in-school cafe during their 10-minute break, the women were at one table, the men at another. It made mingling when them stilted, stilted, stilted.

Answering the usual questions (Why did you come to Turkey? How long have you been here? Do you like Izmir?) and some others: "Did you wote?" [Turks can't make the vvvv sound very easily] Yes, I voted. But I'm not allowed to talk to you about politics. "Barack Obama or John McCain?" I'm sorry, but I can't talk to you about it. I know--it's interesting, but I can't...

Converse Considerations

Turkish Retribution
Tonight I've finally gone and done it. I've created the long-warned-of Turkish Punishment Masks of Shame. My students are not supposed to speak Turkish in the classroom but making them comply with this is challenging. English teachers at PEÉ are constantly creating new and creative punishments for Turkish chatter (including hopping around the room on one foot, meowing like a cat, "losing points", etc.). As Sondra and I walked home tonight we hypothesized that if females could be made to feel unattractive, and males feminine, we might create an effective incentive to shut up.

So I dug through my trash and found an empty milk carton (now washed), and an old oatmeal box. They have been split open and given eye holes. I also found some hideous red tinsel in our original Turkish bathroom-turned storage closet, and sewed it onto a barrette. Tomorrow morning I'll fix some rubber bands on the sides of the milk and oatmeal boxes, so that they can be worn on the face for the duration of an activity. A lot of the guys here have pretty short hair, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the barrette will have enough to grab onto...

Behold the trinity's beauty!

Though I'll never tell them, my students would be glad to know that I sliced my finger while cutting the eye holes... Karma, yeah?

Cultural Imperialism
And God said, "Let there be English." And there was, and God saw that it was good. And English spread across the land, and grew through time until it was a complicated tangle.

Finally, hundreds of years later--when English had become the vehicle of economics and of the globalized, competitive business; when what people knew about their jobs and their cultures was no longer enough--students in countries worldwide toiled many a long hour in language schools to learn this disastrous monster that God called English. These students strove to decipher the inconsistent mess (Too, two or to? Their, they're or there? Should we use "a," "the," or "one?" before this particular noun?!). And these students spent many hundreds, nay sometimes even thousands of dollars to compensate for their unfortunate upbringing in a language foreign to English.

God created a chosen people who were blessed to speak English from childhood. Among them was J. She went to Turkey, where the original language bespoke a logic and beautiful simplicity, and she tried to teach English.

Some of her students had already been brought into the tangle of English, and she led them ever deeper. Other students were utter tyros and began outside the tangle, on the fringes. She led them slowly into the wild forest of English grammar--a place where there are more exceptions than there are rules--a place where you're lucky to grow up so that you don't have to meet the horrible beasts later in life.

J watched some students succeed. She watched others falter, and the occasional one fail. For 23 classes out of 24, she did the song and dance (grammar, grammar, grammar, and lots and lots of vocabulary). But for the last class of the 24, she sat and watched her students during their exams: they gnawed their erasers; they snuck glances at their neighbor's answer sheet; they mumbled memorized phrases and tried to remember which preposition followed which verb. They agonized and sweat as they tried to answer the multitude of questions that assessed and quantified their knowledge. In the end, no one ever got 100%.

And though God saw that it was good, J wondered...

Lead Me To The Ex-Pats

On my way to work yesterday, I went to the Turkish-American Association. It was a little awkward explaining it to the Turkish doorman, receptionists and then activity coordinating director. I felt like I was admitting that I have a communicable disease--like herpes:

"Hi, I'm an English teacher in İzmir and I want to meet Americans because my Turkish is so pathetic that I can't communicate with anyone... Lead me to the ex-pats!"

Well, it turns out that I have to be a member which would require me to pay the 50 lira annual fee AFTER I've submitted an application with the signatures of two current TAA members who are not related to each other or me, and then after I've been interviewed, reviewed and accepted by a different committee that meets monthly. (Yeah, um, no, I'm thinking in my head.)

"How do I get these sponsors' signatures?"

"You can come to the free happy hour this Friday from 6-8."

"How many people will be there?"

"Five or six, probably."

Hmm... I have to teach the subtle difference between "can't" and "don't," so unless my Elementary class is canceled, I unfortunately won't be able to attend. I am, however, very interested in meeting these five or six potentially booze-soaked ex-pats. And they look forward to reviewing my application for approval.

Tales from Kapadokya: Random Dolmuş Rides and Kay Maklı

Alright, my videos are pretty crappy for the most part. So forgive me... This is certainly no Oscar-winning work, but it'll help you kill time if you're absolutely stuck for other procrastination tasks.

First, some dolmuş rides in the Nevşehir area. I know these are less than thrilling, but that's why I take them. Here's Turkey in its mundane beauty.

~~~~~

~~~~~

Second, squeezing through Kay Maklı. I sound like such a tool in the middle video (especially while George and I argue over the correct pronunciation of "depot"). It's better when I keep my mouth shut and try not to talk about marauding Arab armies attacking the huddled underground masses... *sigh* Just mute your volume and try to see in the dark.

~~~~~

~~~~~

Tales from Kapadokya: Avanos Call to Prayer

While George and I were on our way up the hills surrounding Avanos, the Call to Prayer started. It was super haunting and beautiful--there wasn't anyone else around and I was able to get a short bit of it recorded for you.

Tales from Kapadokya: Bush in a Dolmuş

<-- Check out my new link to help you pronounce weird Turkish letters.

George and I were on a dolmuş in Nevşehir. Though we and the driver were the only ones, the windows had fogged from the ten or so people who had also ridden from Göreme. We were evading the seeping cold by waiting inside for the next dolmuş that would take us to Kay Maklı.

We had been quiet for some time--constant companionship often reduced us to silence. The only thing I'd said was to notify the ticket man that we wanted to go to one of the area's underground cities burrowed out of the earth ages and ages ago. I am never nervous traveling in Turkey. Once I tell the driver or ticket man where I want to go in broken Turkish, he smiles and shepherds us along, telling us what to do and where to get off. Though I rarely understand their directions, they point and we figure it out. No need to worry.

But once our driver realized that we spoke English, and that I was American, he twisted around in seat, off and running in poor English supplemented with Turkish.

"Obama?" he asked me.

"Çok güzel! (He's very good!)" I say with a smile on my face and the driver smiles back.

"Obama maybe good." Turks are glad to get rid of Bush but they're not holding their breath for miracles. The world's in a bind--it's still too soon for them to know about Obama.

The driver went on. Father Bush was okay, but Bush has made a mess. George tried to get a word in edgewise: "Tony Blair?" He had to repeat a couple of times to be heard and the driver said, "Sometimes good, sometimes bad." But soon he was back to ranting about Bush son going to Iraq. "Why?" the driver asked me with a pained look on his face. I shrugged. He continued--something about petrol, nuclear weapons, and children dying--lots of children dying.

I commiserated, nodding my head. "Çok kötü. (It's very bad)"

With zero prompting, he divulged his presidential preferences: "Clinton, good. Father Bush, good. Reagan, *and he made a face that was neither bad nor good*." He listed Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson and Kennedy. I can't remember his verdict for all of them, though he did like Kenney. But he knew them. They know about us. We really are omnipresent.

I get this weird feeling every once in awhile. I'm embarrassed and sad and very conscious that I don't know anything about Turkey, or the rest of the world, for that matter. I couldn't form an opinion on any of the Turkish presidents' political victories or debacles. And yet, here I am, American, with my ass bare in the wind, the world watching.

Then he transitioned to global climate change: "The world... silk." Turks don't use the verb "to be" so they often forget to include is/am/are if they don't know a lot of English yet.

"Silk? İpek?" I asked. It didn't translate.

"Hiyar (no)--hasta," he explained.

"Oh--sick--yes, the world is sick."

About this time, a dolmuş with KAY MAKLI printed in blue on its rear windows zipped past us. "Kay Maklı!" I blurted out, pointing at it through the windshield.

The driver whipped around and honked his horn a few times and flashed his headlights. I groaned with despair but the dolmuş slowed down about a hundred meters in front of us.

"No problem! No problem! I talk talk talk talk!" He apologized and gunned the engine, chasing down our next dolmuş. I was laughing with the driver as George and I hopped out of the dolmuş. "Çok teşekürler! Çok yarım seversin! Hoş çakal!" (Thanks a lot! You're very helpful! Bye!)"

The driver had a huge grin on his wrinkled face as we waved goodbye to him before we climbed into our next dolmuş to Kay Maklı.

Massive Kapadokya Photo Update

Wow. Ok, the photos are up. There are seven new albums listed, each beginning with Kapadokya. It took a couple hours. There are still some videos that I want to upload but I haven't got the energy for that tonight.

I put lots of comments in each album, so I suggest you plow through those first. Stories and other observations to follow.

Home Again, Home Again

I JUST got back from Kapadokya. I need to shower (I reek. My prediction was MORE than accurate), eat, nap and get to work. Kapadokya was amazing. I have so much to talk about (so many cool people I met and conversations I had) and so many pictures to post (I took over 300 and it's going to take some time to organize and upload the good ones). Anyway, here's one for now, just to prove I actually went...

Yobancalar (yuh-BOHN-jha-larh)
Yobanca is Turkish for foreigner. I am one. And I need to meet some more--other than the ones I work with. I had dinner with Sondra and another woman from work tonight and wanted to pull my hair out. My co-worker has been in Turkey for over a year and knows how to speak some Turkish, and yet she insists on speaking English in restaurants when she's ordering, but then complains when she doesn't get the service she wants. Are you kidding me?! It's so disrespectful that I was embarrassed just to be there with her. I mean, at least try.

I emailed the Turkish American Association this morning, asking to be put in contact with other yobancalar in Izmir. ASAP. Maybe post-Kapadokya I can branch out and meet some people. It's so, so difficult to be friends with people simply because there's no one else to speak to. I'm so glad I live with Sondra and not my co-worker.

To Pack or Not To Pack...
Starting Sunday night/Monday morning are four days in Kapadokya. Contents of one backpack:

• half a towel (I cut it in half so as to save space)
• tiny bottles of shampoo and miniature doses of aspirin, melatonin and St. John's Wort in case I have issues sleeping
• the bare minimum of clothing (I accept that I will reek when I arrive in Izmir Friday morning)
• camera with extra battery and recharger
• passport
• Swiss Army Knife
• pens and journal/Turkish words notebook
• Turkish phrasebook

I debated bringing my Turkish textbook (it's easily three pounds) but decided I should just photocopy relevant sections at work tomorrow before I go. Ah the beauty of technology.

We've Having A Heatwave

It's December 3rd. Winter has never seemed further away. It's warm. Like, 65 or 70 degrees warm but Izmirliler are bundled up in jackets, vests, ponchos and the like. Possibly to protect them from the mosquitos?

Yes, it's so warm that the mosquitos have come back. Last night there was one in my room. Being highly neurotic, I wake up when a mozzie is buzzing in my ear, even at 4:30a.m. I cannot relax and fall back asleep if I know that I am vulnerable to one of the beasts. So I haul myself from bed, switch on the overhead light and search the room until I find and murder the little fucker. But last night's predator was smarter than the average mozzie. I tried to find it twice between the hours of 4:30 and 6a.m., but to no avail. It eluded me every time I tried to crush it against the wall and then disappeared. I finally gave up looking for it and resigned myself to a bug-bitten future.

My 11:30am reflection proved that in addition to bites on my left wrist and right pinky knuckle, the mosquito had nipped my eyebrow, forehead and bridge of my nose. Have some pity--anywhere but my face.

At about 11a.m. I discovered the little bastard resting contentedly on my curtain. I called Sondra and she killed it on the first try. Too little too late.

Teach, Taught, Taught
I finally had a good day. My Pre-Int class--the ones who have been complaining about me (a.k.a. The Weekend Wankers [British slang is infusing my own])--seems to have turned around. Every few months each teacher is evaluated by their students and though I didn't get stunning results from them, I did receive a solid level of satisfaction. I guess they see me trying, and perhaps felt bad about having the Director of Studies looming in class during the particularly painful lesson a few weekends ago. Anyway, I needed a boost in confidence since the morale of virtually everyone at work has been in the toilet for the past bit.

Tomorrow night my Business Men will complete Intermediate and I will be shepherding them into the wild world of Upper Intermediate where future present continuous and other beastly points of the English language will be encountered. It is exciting because they are my first students and I am glad to find out where the end of the grammatical rainbow at Posh English leads to. After this level, students are finished, and would only be continuing in exam classes to take TOEFL or TOEIC--which thankfully I don't teach yet.

Indoctrination
I have noticed the textbooks we use are a subtle vehicle for brainwashing. Every textbook that I'm using is peppered with sentences in exercises that guilt students into acknowledging their teachers. Here's a smattering:

• My new English teacher is Simon. He's very funny and nice. We all like him a lot.
• The students all respect and admire their teacher.
• Their teacher's funnier than ours. Our lessons are more interesting than theirs.
• "Do you like your teacher?" "Yes, she's very nice."
  
• (and my personal favorite:) "Do you want to be a teacher when you grow up?" " No. They work very hard but they don't earn a lot." Amen.