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Category Archives: Living in Turkey

Gideceğim Geleceğim

Saturday, June 5, 2010

I am leaving Turkey in much the same way that I came to it, in a frantic whirlwind of packing and paperwork up to the last possible minute. (Followed by plane trouble.)1 This week has been finals week for my students in both department, so it’s been chaotic, to say the least, with [...]

Filed in Introspective, Living in Turkey, Navel-Gazing, Personal, Reactions, Travel, Turkey | Comments (0)

Şanlıurfa’ya Scenes

Sunday, January 10, 2010

[No proper introduction, as I'm on my way to bed, but here are some things jotted down in my notebook while on the way to Urfa this morning, and while at dinner. Other actual Urfa reflections to follow sometime. Short version: it was an absolutely lovely travel day.]
—
On the way to the bus [...]

Filed in Ancient What-Not, First Impressions, Living in Turkey, People, Transportation, Travel, Turkey, Turkish Culture | Comments (0)

Yesemek’e

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Tired, as I wound up in Yesemek (a village with a Hittite sculpture quarry, nearish to here) today, with a bunch of silly travel frustrations I don’t feel like recounting. Instead, you get two and a half vignettes of good things.
• (1) On the minibus ride from Antep to İslahiye (the nearest town), we [...]

Filed in Anecdotes, Language, Living in Turkey, People, Transportation, Travel, Turkey, Turkish | Comments (2)

Scenes From a Day

Friday, December 4, 2009

Quite possible the single funniest student mistake I’ve ever seen:
Found while grading writing quizzes. About the Taj Mahal, one student writes,
“It’s made of white barber. It has two towels.“
…
It’s a sound-based mistake, of course, though as a friend pointed out, “How can you mistake marble for barber when the cognate in your own [...]

Filed in Academia, Anecdotes, Cooking, Food & Drink, Living in Turkey, Quick Hit, Reactions, Teaching, Turkey, Turkish Culture | Comments (0)

What have I been up to?

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Teaching, mostly. People aren’t kidding around when they say that first-year teaching is tough. I’m learning how to plan a lesson properly, how to work with students who don’t yet know enough English to understand my classroom directions, and how to manage big classes of mostly-sweet but generally-distracted students not much younger than [...]

Filed in Ancient What-Not, Bazaars, Cooking, Food & Drink, Living in Turkey, Museums, Status Reports, Turkish | Comments (0)

Daire var!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

I have an apartment! It’s right across from the university and furnished– the best possible option. Pictures– of this and other things, though I’ve been too busy to photograph much lately– incoming.
In discussing the apartment with Narin, I found out something very surprising to me: many Turkish people apparently don’t know– and don’t [...]

Filed in Housing, Living in Turkey, Quick Hit, Turkey | Comments (1)