New Song - Plant The Seeds

My new First Regrets song, Plant The Seeds, is now on the First Regrets MySpace page for your listening pleasure. Because I'm a total klutz and can't figure out how to order the songs on my playlist, you have to scroll to the bottom to find the song. Sorry. I'm working to fıx the problem.

I'm thrilled that I have finally come to the place where I can do something besides thinking about the kids and sleeping!

Also, today, November 10, was the 72-year anniversary of Atatürk's death. At 9:05, the minute he died, the school gathered for a moment of contemplation and listened to ambulance sirens to symbolize the loss. Then we sang the national anthem.

From what I hear, all of Turkey stops for a minute at 9:05 on November 10. My friends at the school say that you can see people stopped in the middle of the street, cars abandoned on the Bosporus Bridge with their drivers standing outside in thought and mourning. Taksim comes to a standstill. For one minute all 80 million or so people in Turkey freeze in time to remember this one man.


The Bosporus Bridge

It's hard to describe both how awesome the feeling is and how confusing. All of this focus concentrated on a single person seems to stand against my American values, and yet it's still so moving. All the students brought flowers to lay under his statue in the yard, and everyone wore stıckers with his likeness on them. Maybe because I know from personal experience how hard it is to get everyone in this school to do the same thing, or maybe I've linked this unifying feeling to the group-building experiences I had at Obama rallies, but there is something very powerful about a huge group of people acting in unison like that.