Semester's End

There's no time to talk, barely enough time to share photos. I remembered to bring my camera to the last day of school before the holiday, and I got some nice pictures I can remember my students by once this crazy adventure is over. Here they are:





















Now that vacation has started I'm not going to keep such good care of this blog. I hope you can forgive me if the best I can do is a few picture collections when I have the time to stop for an hour or so (like right now). I'm currently in Sultanahmet, Istanbul, but in a couple days I'm going to be headed for Selçuk, then Izmir, then Goreme in Kapadokya, and finally back to Istanbul with a few days to mentally prepare for the second semester (in which there are very few, if any, breaks from school).

Proud Of My Students

Here's the bad news:

This morning I got my finger stuck in the door of the school bus. I'm pretty lucky it was as minor as it was, but the tip was mutilated pretty bad. It was kind of fun in a way, trying to stay calm and keep it together in front of the kids, asking for tissues and water in English, then remembering that I needed Turkish. Okay, fine. It wasn't very fun. It was ridiculously painful, and there's still a dull pain under the bandage as I get ready for bed. But it must have been kind of funny for someone else to watch our poor Hostess Abla (the woman who coordinates the bus I ride) juggle the first aid kit that she probably hasn't used very often as well as welcoming the kids and ushering them to the back of the bus, away from the action.

Needless to say, I went to the nurse as soon as we got to school (don't worry, Mom, I do have some common sense). A couple of my 5th grade students were there, a girl who twisted her ankle and her friends, and they were all a great help with the nurse, who speaks less English than I speak Turkish. They were very good with translating the medical instructions into English for me - take this pill when it gets really bad; come back every day to change the bandage, and during the semester vacation it should be better; hold your hand like this on your chest for 15-20 minutes. And the best part was that these were not my best English speakers (though all good students, of course!), and they were still able to work between the two languages in this outside-the-classroom real-world situation.

It made me feel confident that most of my students are going to leave my class functioning on a high level of English. I mean, isn't this kind of situation that I'm training them for in the first place? It gave me a new confidence in the job I'm doing here.

And here's the good news:

Semester holiday is coming soon. Haha! All you fools who've been back to work after MLK day, writhe in jealousy! I will be seeing the beautiful sights in Turkey while you slave away in your offices or whatever it is my readers do... flying to space, curing cancer, forging world peace, or whatever other awesome things you're up to. I'm on vacation in 3 days!

As I said, I will probably not be writing much during my 2-week holiday. However, on Friday we have a half-day at school and it's casual dress, plus no real classes. I'm not going forget my camera again, and when I don't you can bet I'll post the pictures of my beautiful English-speaking students for all of you to see.

Now, get back to work! Haha!

Top 10 Tracks of 2010

Let's see if I can limit the list to just 10. 2010 was a year dominated by weak albums with dynamite singles, so while the top 10 CDs list is pretty sad, you can't really go wrong with the top tracks list. Here we go:

1) Brad Mehldau - Don't Be Sad

Bluesy and quirky, featuring a masterful solo by saxophonist Joshua Redman (Berkeley High School power!), and beautiful string arrangements that still can make me cry, this song is at once uplifting and nostalgic. While aptly named, the title adds a new element to the piece.

After this, I don't think there's any point in reviewing individual songs... but they're all good and I've provided links so you can listen. Enjoy!

2) Flying Lotus - Do The Astral Plane

3) Shearwater - Corridors

4) Sage Francis - Little Houdini

5) LCD Soundsystem - All I Want

6) Dave Holland - How's Never? (sorry, but I can't find the link to this fine track)

7) The Tallest Man On Earth - King Of Spain

8) Hot Chip - We Have Love

9) Owen Pallett - Keep The Dog Quiet

10) How To Dress Well - Decisions

Night Photos Of Bahçeşehir

The winter weather has been so nice here - I left my windows open all day, like it was summer! - that I decided to take a walk in the evening and bring my camera along. Enjoy:



My street. I live in Manolya Evleri*, which is what that big sign is for.



The Manolya Eveleri C and D Blok parking lot



Spradon Evleri's winter decorations. They're my neighbors.



6 second shutter speed as I walk down my street. That's a car's headlights on the left.

*Evleri is the plural of apartment, house, or home, in the possessed form (Not like possessed by ghosts, kids. Sorry). Manolya Evleri roughly means Magnolia's Apartments.

Translating A Word

Today me and a coworker looked at a number of definitions for the Turkish word "Fenomen," the title of my latest First Regrets song. The consensus is that the definition is actually "Phenomenon," not "Talent" as I had originally thought. Now I can see how obviously they link up I feel I should have guessed the meaning from the beginning, though I know from Spanish to avoid false cognates (Embarazada does NOT mean "Embarrassed!" Also, in Turkish "Pasta" means "Cake," so I've been afraid of going to Italian restaurants and ordering the wrong thing.). Still, I put "Talent" into the lyrics, and now it just sounds kind of dumb. Whoops!

While "Fenomen" has a fairly straightforward translation because of the similar origin to the English word, most words are not so easy to find other language equivalents. This is how I've always felt language learning goes, in three stages: 1) Translation. Tatlı = sweet, both in the noun and verb form. 2) Finding the differences between the usages of that word. Tatlı can also be used to describe something little and cute, like a puppy. Also not a great thing to say to a girl (tatlısın) because it has deeply romantic connotation. 3) Automatic association. Tatlı doesn't mean sweet - it means tatlı.

I'm going to have some dessert now. Cheers!

Hospitality Rules

Yesterday as I was walking home from school, one of my students recognized me from his car. He and his aunt stopped for me and offered me a ride the rest of the way! It wasn't very far, but it was out of their way and very kind of them. Especially touching because Mondays are awful days that should never exist and I'm always too exhausted for anything by the time I can leave school.

Today, in contrast, I spent 2 hours trying to book flights which are impossible to pay for with an American credit card. On the other hand, Tuesdays are a lot less stressful.

Speaking of booking flights, the semester holiday is coming on January 29. I'll be off for 2 weeks, and therefore you can't count on me to post. I'll try and get some pictures up there, but don't hold your breath. Sorry.

Korkma!

New Song - Fenomen

As promised, I have my newest musical endeavor ready and online for all of you to hear. Also, I've been having lots of questions about my lyrics, so I've started to upload them to the MySpace page. If you click on a song, then click the button that says "Lyrics," you should be able to see the words I'm singing but are hard to hear. Sorry, it's the style. This one has lyrics I like, too, which is a bonus. Enjoy!

P.S. Fenomen, as one of my students informs me, is Turkish for "talent."

Pictures Of Sultanahmet

I went to the archeology museum again today and took a few pictures of the Sultanahmet area. Have a look:


That tree was in the way of my photo of the Hagia Sofia! Or was it?


With the winter's sun, now is not the time of year for pictures of the Blue Mosque. Or is it?


That palm tree has tourist information! (Turkey really is a strange place!)


"Çai Var"

In other news, I'm recording another new song for my First Regrets MySpace page. This one is about the popular Istanbul radio station, Radio Fenomen, which we listen to in the school bus each morning. I am so glad these kids don't have the English to understand these despicable lyrics! But then I wonder why they're listening to music they can't understand anyway. Anyway, the new song should be up and running sometime tomorrow (my evening, probably your morning, Americans), so check back then for an update. For now, keep listening to "Centuries Old," "Old Liar," and "City Love." And check it out: I learned how to embed songs into my posts!

Visit From A Basketball Celebrity

You might remember me complaining in an earlier post that I was disappointed that I missed Utah Jazz star Mehmet Okur's visit to Bahçeşehir College last year. Well, today I was in for a surprise: Kerem Tunçeri, the starting point guard on the Turkish National Team, dropped by for a question-answer seminar with our students. Okur didn't play in the FIBA international basketball tournament because of injury (as has been the case for much of this year's NBA season, too), so Tunçeri is probably more of a celebrity in this country. The students were pumped up to see him - one burst into tears when he wasn't chosen to ask a question after the first 5 minutes, then burst into tears again when Tunçeri didn't have time to give signatures to the students outside of our basketball team (one clever student got him to sign his basketball when no one was looking).



Tunçeri is most famous for his game-winning basket (I like this video better but I don't know if it works in the States) in the final seconds against Serbia in the semifinals of the 2010 FIBA world basketball tournament, allowing Turkey to advance to the finals and play against the United States (thanks to Kevin Durant, that was the end of Turkey's run).

Two of my 5th grade girls were so smitten that they couldn't focus in our lesson - one was devastated that he's married, and a boy from the basketball team was taunting her by saying how Tunçeri patted his head during the photo shoot with our basketball team.

How can I even try to have a lesson after such an exciting day?

On another note, I fixed the email subscription problem. Now if you enter your email in the email subscription box on the left, you should be alerted every time I post something new, and NOTHING ELSE! Finally!

(P.S. When a lot of people look at that video, they insist that Tunçeri stepped out of bounds and the basket shouldn't count. Well, folks, that's what happens when Serbia plays such awful defense while Turkey has home court advantage.)

(P.P.S. I'm taller than Tunçeri. That's so weird!)

New Year's Photos

The view from my apartment window on a foggy 2011 night


At long last I had a prep lesson the same time as my coworker Melek (meaning Angel), a social studies teacher who also is the homeroom teacher my 6-D class. If you don't remember, I totally forgot my camera during the New Year's Eve celebration at school, and ever since I've been trying to mooch off Melek's photos of the occasion. Now that we finally met up and I got hold of her photos, I can share the cream of the crop with you. Since these are Melek's photos, naturally she's going to appear in a fair amount of them. Enjoy!


Me with the 6-C girls: Seren, Beril, Melek Teacher, and Başak


Atilla (5-D), Emre (5-B), Ege (5-B), Erkan (5-B), and Melek Teacher. Atilla and Emre are on the basketball team.


Me, Cem (5-B), Melek Teacher, Alara (6-D), and Efecan (5-A). I don't know why Efecan looks so rigid.


Sabri Mert (6-D), Yiğit (5-A), Cem (5-B), Mehmet (5-C), Mertcan (5-C), Efecan (5-A), Melek Teacher, Oğuz (5-A), Arda (5-A), Kemal (5-C), and Bora (5-C). Yes, Mertcan and Efecan are twins.


Berkay (5-B) dancing like it's 2011


There is no way to accurately label this photo. These students are mostly from 5-B, but Hürkan with the Town Universe shirt is from 6-D.


6-D in their classroom. Ibrahim, Tuvanna, Hürkan (blurry and blocking out Özgecan), Baran, Sabri Mert, Bartu, Melek Teacher, Alara, Ekin, Ece S, Aleyna, and Ece E behind İdil. Beliz is sitting in the front. 6-D is my very artistic class and many of the students draw comics in class all the time. I love it. I tell them that they can answer the questions in comic form instead of sentence form if they want, as long as there's English. Sabri Mert, Hürkan, and Baran are the most prolific graphic novelists in the group (along with Atilla who wasn't here this day).


The music students. I don't know anyone in the top row because they're in 7th grade. From the second row: Başak (5-A), Berkay (5-B), Mert (5-D), and Göktuğ (5-C). From the bottom row: Sena (5-A), Enes (6-B), and Baran (5-B). Enes is on the basketball team.


Kızlar! On the far left is Gülen (6-A). Top row: Güneş and Aybüke (6-C), Setenay (6-B), and Beliz (6-D). Bottom row: Nehir (6-A), Merve (6-B), Melek Teacher, and İdil (6-D).


My dancers! These are the 4th grade winners, my students from 4-D. In the back are Deniz and Berkay. In the front are Orhun and Berk. Berk was really the star, and this photo catches him in the middle of some heavy duty breakdancing as Orhun tries to keep up. This group was better than any of the 5th grade or 6th grade groups, in my opinion.


These are the winning dancers from 5th grade. In the back are Neslihan (5-D) and Şevval (5-A). In the front are Mina (5-A) and Zeynep (5-A). Memory tells me there was a fifth dancer, but sadly I don't remember who she was. Neslihan was the star of this group, collapsing into the splits at a key moment of the song.


The dance winners from the 6th grade. In the back are Deniz (6-A), Naz (6-B), and Cansu (6-C). In the front are Gülen (6-A), Renan (6-B), and Aysu (6-C). Cansu and Aysu are twins. I think I teach 3 pairs of twins in total, but they're the only two who are in the same class. Renan is the daughter of one of my coworkers.

I also have couple pieces of news to share with you all. First, electronic artist Flying Lotus just came out with this super cool technology that I think musicians should start adopting, assuming it works efficiently. According to this article, Flying Lotus is giving away his music, but only to people who can prove they bought his latest CD, Cosmogramma. If you go to this website called Trigger, you can take a webcam picture of your copy of Cosmogramma, using image recognition software to unlock a collection of exclusive tracks to the CD. I don't know how soon it will be before these tracks leak to the public anyway, but I think this is a great idea and is a creative way to add incentive for actually buying albums.

Unfortunately I can't try it out myself. My copy of Cosmogramma is in the US.

And finally, when I log off I'm going to record some lyrics, the last thing standing between my newest song, "Centuries Old," and your computer. Heck, by the time you read this you probably be able to hear it right now on my First Regrets MySpace page. If not, try again in an hour or two. I'm really close.

UPDATE: The song is now up on the First Regrets MySpace page. Go there now.

Email Subscription Failure

Well, folks, I've heard through the grapevine (aka Mom) that the email subscription box doesn't do diddly squat... so I deleted it. I hope this means Feedburner won't be flooding your email account with updates from other blogs you have no interest in reading. I really apologize to everyone who found out about that the hard way.

But in better news I spent the weekend working on a new song, which I hope to have up and running for you all soon. I'm not going to lie, though: I'm being intentionally vague about a time period. But I AM working on new music for y'all! In fact, everything I've been uploading lately is a part of a new CD concept I've been working on, so there's plenty more coming after that, too.

...wait, did I type "y'all" a moment ago?

What's wrong with me?

Busy Start Of 2011

After getting food poisoning and throwing up for the first time since grade school (I can count the time in terms of decades!) on New Year's Day, I've met 2011 head on with a surprisingly difficult workload. This week is the week of speaking exams, a deceptively difficult excuse not to have to teach. Yes, at first I was excited to have the chance to deal with the students one on one rather in their destructive and gratuitously loud groups, but giving 40 students a 6-minute speaking exam turns out to be much more trying on my patience (my one-word resolution) than giving 5-7 lessons to 120-140 students. Partly because I have to give the same exact exam over and over and over again. By the end my head is aching with so much repetition that I feel like opening the window and yelling.

Needless to say, Socrates doesn't understand why I'm not in the mood to pet him when I get home.

It also means I've had no time to acquire the New Year's Eve photos from my co-teacher friend... so unfortunately we'll have to wait for those, too.

Luckily, for 2011 I've vowed patience.

Going out for some deep breaths now.