Random Stuff

Digital-Schmigital
My recent trip to Ayvalık was carefully documented in digital. Due to a computer glitch, they deleted themselves after I formatted my memory card. So Ayvalık is lost. Take my advice: Just go there.

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?!
Young learners are not so bad. Their grammar is actually amazing, considering that they're 16 years old. They can--and will--happily plow through a grammar worksheet. But when I hand them a speaking activity they freeze up like molasses in January. One girl, bless her, actually cowers when I walk towards her to listen. She keeps her head down, but I can tell when she's noticed my feet approach her--she sort of sways back, trying to get away but! Damn! The wall is there, trapping her. And I'm looking at her with a smile: "Speak a sentence!" I say. And she tries, but her eyelids flutter, she sputters and dies in a whispered failure.

With my incessant smiling and my ludicrous classroom antics (today's included demonstrating "plead" by getting down on my knees--in a skirt--and wrenching on Gizem's hand, all the while crying "Please, please, please?!?!?!" with a look of tragedy on my face), I would think to be non-threatening.

Melt-worthy hot.
Dinner is a slice of bread with cheese spread on it and a cucumber, followed by three times as much sorbet. If it didn't just exit a fridge, I don't want to eat it.

And yet... Turks sit outside--wearing jeans, trousers, long-sleeved shirts, the occasional woman in the çarşaf and the quite usual woman in a headscarf (the mere sight of any of these makes me wriggle; imagine the trickles of sweat that must be pooling and creeping down the backs of their legs, or the disgusting damp pinch of an armpit-soaked t-shirt)--and they drink tea. Hot, steaming tea. In temperatures inching towards 100°. It's unbelievable to me.

People do wear shorts and skirts and tank tops, but it's totally normal to be covered to a degree that would make any American cringe.

California, I'm Coming Home

Not me. Sondra. And not to California, but to Minneapolis, Wisconsin. She finished her nine-month contract, packed her bags, had a farewell beer (ok, multiple, actually) last night, got a taxi and headed to the airport. I expect she's hanging around the terminal about now, waiting to board her plane in half an hour or so.

The flat is eerily empty. Two water bottles, a bottom drawer full of abandoned toiletries, and the dirty sheets in the hamper are all that remain in her room. The mattress bears a puckered indentation of Sondra. I've long-considered commandeering her mattress--white and pillow-topped--to replace my wretched futon contraption, but now it seems like stealing from a warm corpse. Maybe I'll give it a day.

In August I'll be sharing the flat with one of my co-workers while she transitions to her new job in the Mediterranean. In September-ish I'm going to move away from my stodgy neighborhood to a newer, more exciting one. I'll live with the new teacher at PEE. She's young, hip and I hope we'll have a great time living in the student section of the city. More international folks, more tattoos, more music.

Change is good.

Did I Make Myself Clear?

I didn't even have to confiscate mobiles.

My mobile-talking, carpet-peeing puppy of a student didn't even come to class tonight. A co-worker of his told me that for whatever reason, he is unable to attend future classes. What a shame. Really, my heart aches.

Maybe I'm becoming an authority.

Thy Will Be Done...

Tonight one of my idiotic students--the kind who can't handle being back in school because he's not actually in charge--and to be bossed about by a young yabancı in a skirt, no less--surreptitiously answered his mobile in class while I was doing an exercise. I noticed him, just stopped mid-sentence, looked at him, caused the entire class of eleven to look at him hunched over his desk, hand cupped around the mouthpiece to muffle his voice, waited till he noticed us, ended his call, walked over to us to participate, apologized but said he was very busy and important with work, looked me in the eye and received his "No," from me, like he was a puppy who had just peed on the rug.

Tomorrow I will confiscate everyone's mobiles at the beginning of class as punishment. :-P

I have eight words for you:

Conversation class for 16- and 17-year olds.

Eight hours a week. For eight weeks. What the hell would you talk about with them?! Oh god... At least I can pretend to be a good ten years older than them.