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.