Let me begin by assuring you that what I post on this blog in no way represents the views of the State Department or the Critical Language Scholarship program. This entry's title, "yaz," in Turkish can mean either "summer" or the command form of the verb "to write." And, indeed: Bu yaz, yazmalıyım ("I should write this summer"). I have decided to do so here, in both ingilizce and in türkçe, as I have a small and beloved bilingual audience. I might occasionally throw in a bit of "Tarzanca" too (literally, the "language of Tarzan," but this is commonly used to [View Full Entry]

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We leave the hotel in roughly an hour. Dulles International Airport. Frankfurt International Airport. Atatürk International Airport. In less than 24 hours, life starts over again in Ortaköy, the swanky neighborhood on the Bosphorus where I will be passing the summer. Stay tuned... [View Full Entry]

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2008 was a memorable year for me. Some of the highlights: struggling to become bilingual, plenty of interesting travel (including a complete crossing of Turkey with my mom), lots of friends getting married and having babies, the election, and - last but certainly not least - falling in love. It was also the first year of my life that I've spent completely outside of the USA. It was also a dramatic year back home to watch from abroad. New York State's first black and blind governor came to power after a sleazy scandal ended Spitzer's reign. Americans finally started to appreciate [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Turkey exactly one year ago today. Most of these photos were taken in Turkey. This entry is mainly a celebration of the subtle mistakes that we make with one another's languages. I assure you that this is all in good fun. In no way am I aiming to insult anyone here. I make more mistakes than this on a daily basis with my Turkish... [View Full Entry]

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It's my first Christmas in a country that is supposedly 98% Muslim. I guess all that that means is that officially it's just another day here. My morning class was cancelled today, which was a nice surprise. My exam yesterday went well. Tomorrow I have my final class of the year. The snow-covered pine trees on campus look like a holiday painting, but anyone who knows me knows that I become miserably Grinch-like in this miserable type of miserable weather. But, I'm trying to change that - trying to enjoy winter, to love it for what it is. I'm trying, but [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Skopje, our third city of the day, without a solid plan. Evening was setting in, but that was about the only thing we were sure of. We changed a little money and decided to try to contact Emrah's friend, Sotir. I sailed into a closet-sized shop, hoping to buy a card for the payphone, but the communication Titanic was destined to sink. I gave a English a shot and the middle-aged woman replied "your efforts are of no use, my child," in Macedonian, or it could've been just about anything else, for all I knew. Turkish yielded a [View Full Entry]

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In retrospect, I guess it's a good thing that I still haven't learned how to say "no." When Matt asked me to join him for a visa run to the Balkans, my one condition was that we go as far as Kosovo. The time-spent-on-buses to overall-duration-of-trip ratio was ridiculously high - read: 4 nights on buses, 2 nights in actual beds, and no less than six border crossings. Although it was grueling, it turned out to be well worth the effort. The Balkans are a multi-course meal of languages, a buffet of cultures, and a glass of beer full of, well, [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday was a great day in history. After eight shameful years, my country has made a significant choice to depart from the policies of the George W. Bush regime. If only it could be a completely fresh start. As stated in President Obama's (oooh, I like that way that sounds!) acceptance speech, there is a very difficult road ahead. It will take years, if not decades to recover from the damage: financial, environmental, domestic, foreign, and so on. We can only hope for and work toward our collective success in emerging from the darkness and creating a better future. The weather [View Full Entry]

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I'm back at Hacettepe Üniversitesi. We had our first week of classes, followed by a full week off for the end Ramazan celebration. Nobody has done any work yet and most of us are still arranging our schedules, waiting for add/drop to start. Campus was bomboş (very empty) all week long and I embraced the peace and quiet, venturing into the woods next to campus when it wasn't too cold or rainy. These pictures deviate from the images that typically come to my mind when I think of Ankara: ugly buildings, construction, and traffic spread across a fairly barren landscape. I [View Full Entry]

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America is now safe from the Azerbaijani menace, a tall, haunting hurricane of terrorism and data collection! FBI in Orlando airport saves the day... (more on that later) My approach to celebrating Ramazan has apparently been to fast from blogging. Consider this my iftar, my breaking of the fast. I can say without exaggerating that I've covered a fair bit of ground in Turkey at this point. Why it's taken me four years to visit the spectacular city of Edirne, spitting distance west of İstanbul, I'm not really sure. Matt, Farah, and I made our way to İstanbul's massive m [View Full Entry]

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