Do You Like My Grumpy Pants?

I have every intention of posting about my trip to Ankara last week, but it'll probably have to wait until after my trip to Ankara next week. I picked up a cold on one of the flights, and I haven't managed to get myself any cold medicine, in large part because I don't know where to get it or what to get. So I'm feeling fairly out of sorts at the moment, which is not terribly conducive to writing anything entertaining, or even worth reading. I just wanted to let my legions of readers (two is considered a legion, right?) know that I'm still alive, just not up to doing much beyond crashing on the couch & staring at my computer screen.

Climb Every Mountain

I spent all day yesterday exploring the wonders of the region of Turkey where I live. My neighbors arranged an outing & invited several of their fellow ETAs to join us. They all arrived on Friday evening/night, and some of them crashed in my living room, so I awoke to 4 strangers on my couch & chairs, but none of them tried to kill me in my sleep, so I figured they were harmless.

We set out at 7 AM & stopped for breakfast around 8, at a restaurant where the doors apparently don't close. It was freezing, but very tasty.

Our next stop was a 500-600 year old tree. Sadly, lots of people have carved their names & other random messages in it, but it's still pretty amazing.

After that, we headed for a cave city that was built during the first century. There are all kinds of benches & beds carved right into the walls of the caves.

Our next destination was an old Roman bridge. There was a nice informational sign that probably gave lots of pertinent details, like the age of the bridge, but it was too worn away to be readable. There was, however, a sign with the name of the bridge:

I choose to believe he was a long-lost ancestor of Professor Snape. There were also a couple of panels with words carved in them, but again, they were too worn to be legible, even if I did know how to read ancient Latin.

The last stop of the day - after lunch - was the one we'd all been looking forward to: Mount Nemrut. Also from the 1st century, it has several carved stone heads that used to be on top of carved stone bodies. The bodies are still upright, but the heads fell off at some point, so are now arranged at the feet of the bodies.

The drive up the mountain was one of the more terrifying rides of my life. It's basically a one-lane road with dozens of hairpin turns & a fairly sheer dropoff. Our driver was great, but it was still pretty scary. When we finally got to the parking lot, it was about 1 1/2 hours before sunset, so we strolled up to the top & wandered among the ruins, then climbed up on one of the rocks & watched the sunset over the mountains. Then we raced back down while there was still enough light to see the path, and discovered that the road back down is much safer than the one up.

We stopped for a late dinner at the same place where we had breakfast - still freezing, still tasty - then got home around midnight. All the visitors headed home this morning, and I've been nursing my sore quads all day.

In all, I'd say it was a great way to start exploring Turkey. Next week, Ankara!

Insert Catchy Title Here

I'm wrapping up week 2 in Turkey, and feeling like I've made a tiny bit of progress. I met one of my classes last week, and have so far managed to convince them that I know what I'm doing. It'll be interesting to see how long I can keep that illusion going.

Part of my difficulty at this point is that my books haven't arrived yet. They were in Ankara about a week ago, but didn't get forwarded on to me until 2 days ago. I'm told they'll be here early next week, but that doesn't really help me to plan tomorrow's lessons - 3 hours of Listening & Pronunciation, and another 3 hours of Approaches in ELT (don't ask, I'm still not sure what it means). I'm fairly sure I can wing it through most of the day, but I'd feel more confident with a book to fall back on.

I'm also still waiting for the 2 boxes of personal items I shipped to myself. I'm just about out of the 2-week supply I brought with me, thinking that would be plenty of time for the boxes to arrive. I can survive a bit longer without them, but things are going to start getting uncomfortable soon.

I'm spending a fair amount of time with the other ex-pats in town, particularly the 2 living next door. Of course, that's mainly because they still don't have hot water, so they've been using my shower. We need to have a brief conversation about appropriate places to leave one's underwear, but I'm happy to help them out.

I took the free shuttle to the mall yesterday to do some shopping, and learned that you shouldn't leave your cart unattended in a Turkish grocery store. I had 2 items in my cart and had walked away from it to try to find something. When I came back, my 2 items were sitting on a shelf & my cart was gone. So I ended up carrying my shopping, and bought less than I would have as a result. Which may be a good thing.

After I got my groceries, I went into the liquor store next door & set off the alarm with something in my bag. The security guard spoke German, so we had a nice chat while he searched my bag & found 2 theft-prevention stickers on my bottle of Neutrogena face wash. Apparently, people are really desperate to wash their faces here, to the point of stealing. (????) Whatever, we removed the stickers & I bought a bottle of Turkish wine. It's not great, but I'm willing to overlook that at this point. I've got a whole year to find good wine, and I plan to apply myself fully to the task.

Next week begins the real work of teaching, which I'm really looking forward to. And the following week, I'll be cancelling 4 of my classes so I can go to an orientation in Ankara, which I'm also really looking forward to. But mainly, I'm hoping to get into a routine soon, so things will start feeling slightly less - well, I don't want to say "foreign," but that's the gist of it. As for the rest of today, I've got a very exciting day planned - laundry, more grocery shopping, and lesson planning. Here's hoping your Sunday will be half as fun as mine! ;)

Contact

Just in case anyone feels an overwhelming desire to spend an exorbitant amount of money on postage, my mailing address is:

Wendy Nelson

Inonu Universitesi

Egitim Fakultesi

Yabanci Diller Egitimi Bolumu

44280

Malatya/TURKEY

Please don't ask me to translate that - I recognize the words for 'education' and 'foreign,' but that's about it - other than the name of my university, of course!

I also have a Turkish cell phone, which you are welcome to call me on, but PLEASE keep the time difference in mind. Last time I was living in Poland, someone (my sister) decided I needed to know the outcome of a Seahawks game at 4:00 AM. I don't even care about the Seahawks at a reasonable hour, so I'm not sure why she thought I would care then!

Anyway, my cell number is +90 543 212 5036.

Today was the first day of school, so I spent it going to the police station to arrange for my residence card. Oh, you thought I'd be teaching? It turns out that the first week of classes is really more of an orientation/registration week. Some students may show up, but you're not really expected to have any lessons planned or do any real teaching. I do actually plan to go to classes tomorrow, but it'll just be to meet the students & chat about expectations for a bit. I'm happy to have some more time to figure out what I'm doing - and let my books arrive! - but I'm not sure what this means for the rest of the term, as far as how demanding I can be with my students.

I'm pretty happy with my schedule - 2 classes on Monday & Tuesday, 1 on Wednesday, 3 on Thursday, & none on Friday. Let's just call that a "planning" day. ;) There might be some weekend trips in my near future.

I'll try to post some pictures of my apartment & the surroundings soon. I keep forgetting to bring my camera when I go out, and when I'm home I'm usually too exhausted from the heat to do much of anything. It's been in at least the upper 80s every day so far & seems like it'll continue that way for at least the rest of this week. There might be a thunder storm on Friday - keep your fingers crossed for me!

No One I Know Would Call At This Hour

After 5 days in Turkey, I don't feel like I know too much more than I did when I arrived, but I feel like surviving this long is an accomplishment in itself.

I've made 1 1/2 round trips to the airport - 1/2 a trip when I arrived & another round trip to get my luggage. Nothing was missing & so far I've only identified one item I shouldn't have packed, simply because I didn't realize it needed to be refrigerated. There's 2 pounds of weight allowance down the drain.

I have my very own office, which I plan to decorate with my amusing parts of speech posters. I still can't quite believe I don't have to share an office with anyone!

I can find my way to my office, the campus supermarket, and 3 different places to eat. I also might know how to catch the bus to the local shopping mall.

I get to pretend to be an expert teacher for the 3 English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) who are here through the Fulbright program. I have more experience than any of them, so that makes me an expert by default, right?

I managed to sleep through the early morning call to prayer once this week. I'm really hoping to improve my percentage on that one, but the mosque is directly behind my building, so I may just have to get used to a 5:00 AM wake-up call.

The plumber seems to have finally fixed the leak in my toilet, after his 3rd visit.

My list of accomplishments may not be long, but keep in mind, I'm doing all this with only about 15 words of Turkish, and 10 of those are numbers. There's a chance I might be able to take a Turkish class for foreigners, but otherwise the 3 ETAs & I are talking about trying to find someone to tutor us. One way or another, I've got to start being able to communicate on my own!

So that's week 1 in Malatya. Next week, I'll actually start earning my keep - just as soon as they get around to telling me my teaching schedule.

I'm Not in Kansas Anymore

OK, I've never actually been to Kansas, but the paraphrase seemed appropriate.

So, here I am in Malatya, Turkey, day 2. But just barely, since I arrived last night. My luggage arrived this morning. ALWAYS pack a pair of clean underwear in your carry-on - I did, this time.

I'll keep this short, since I haven't seen much of the city yet & I'm very jet lagged at the moment. But from what I know so far, it seems like a pretty good situation. I've got a nice, comfortable, one-bedroom apartment with internet access. The people I'll be working with seem very nice. I should be able to see my office tomorrow. And classes start on Monday, by which time I hope to be more coherent than I feel right now. Really, I'm just biding my time until it's late enough for me to go to sleep - I'm shooting for 9:00 PM.

That's the best I can do right now. Stay tuned for what should be more interesting adventures coming soon!

You Don't Know What You've Got Til It's Gone

Conversely, you don't know what you're missing until it's restored to you.

I had my septum straightened a few weeks ago. The first week after the surgery was fairly unpleasant, due to the giant splints in my nose. Seriously, I had no idea how huge they were until I went in to have them removed. Let's just say, if I hadn't been present for the removal, I never would have believed there was that much space available. I'm thinking of taking in a boarder.

Since then, I've been really enjoying the novelty of breathing through both nostrils simultaneously. I truly have no idea when I lost that ability - possibly when a friend whacked me in the nose with a telephone receiver, back in the days when phones were tethered to the wall. So it's been a good, long while.

The only downsides right now are that I'm sneezing a bit more than usual - I guess the dust particles have more access - and I'm still not really comfortable blowing my nose. My nose is still a little tender, but it's also kinda drippy. This is probably karma's way of paying me back for driving my family insane as a child, when I steadfastly refused to blow my nose. I can remember being banished from the living room, more than once, because no one could stand to hear my sniffling any longer. It didn't bother me then, but it sure does now!

So there - more information about my nose than anyone ever wanted to know.