İstanbul + Snow = Charlie Chaplin Style Fun

So.. we got like, 1 cm of snow last night. This wreaked havoc on the city. And made my ride to school the best morning ever. I saw busses stopped with passengers getting out to push, taxis spinning their wheels in the snow, cars abandoned by the side of the road, vehicles unable to get up a hill about as steep as.. oh wait, it wasn't steep at all! And, of course, people bundled up like the michelin man. Everyone on my bus is getting annoyed because we're super late and the traffic is terrible... and I can't help but giggle insanely in the back of the bus.

Fastforward to third period. I have spent all morning in the Foreign Langauges Department, proofreading. Now I head to my classroom where I present each classmate with a Canada flag, a Canada pencil, and a candy cane. Then, I go to sit down and İdil and Merve and Melis come in with a cupcake with a candle in it and everyone starts singing Happy Birthday to me! Awww! And they all kissed me on the cheeks, so cute!

Good day. Also? My host mommy this morning wished me "Happy birthday!" in English.. and she doesn't speak English! Aw! Seni seviyorum!

-Maeghan

Snow Update

My host mom and I just had a snowball fight... inside the house!
When she came in she had a huge snowball in her hands, which she proceeded to brake chunks off of and throw at me. I then scraped it up off the floor and threw it back. She shoved snow in my face. I put snow down her coat. I love my host family.

Oh! And when I said my mom doesn't like snow in the house, my host mom shrugged and said "Snow is water, clean water."

-M

Turkish Words

So.. went to my afternoon classes today. I talked to my friends and randomly read my dictionary, which is how I descovered these GREAT words-

uçuşmak- to fly in a swarm

when I read the definition of this one I broke down laughing.

mıymıntı- slow, lazy and exasperatingly passive.

Hehe, how often do they use this word? exasperatingly passive.

bunamak- to become weak-minded with age.

There are my excellent Turkish words. And now for an update... IT IS SNOWING.

My conversation with my host grandmother-

Me: SNOW!

Her: Snow.

Me: SNOW!!

Her: It's snowing?

Me: Yes! It is snowing. SNOW!

Her: Ah, snow.

-Maeghanwho'ssixteentomorrow.

Rotary Christmas Party

Oof ya! Where to start? At the begining, I guess. Bah. I don't want to write. Let's see. Christmas was good, but I was really disappointed when my host grandmother, instead of cooking with me like I thought we had agreed to on Christmas Eve, plunked herself down in front of the TV all day. I kept coming out and being like- "try this!" and "what do you think?" but she just sort of would nod and move so she could see the TV. It really hurt.

BUT! On a more pleasant note I talked to my family both on webcam and on the phone. Then, as a Christmas present to myself I called Janine and we talked for like, half an hour. The begining of the conversation went like this-
Me: "Hey! Merry Christmas!"
Janine: "Merry Christmas!... is this... Maeghan?"
Me: "Yup!"
Janine: "But aren't you in Turkey?"
Me: "Yup, Merry Christmas!"
Janine: "Are you serious?"
Me: "Yup, how are you?"
Janine: "But doesn't this cost like, a lot?"
Me: "It's my Christmas present to myself!"
And it was the best Christmas present I've ever recieved.

On Friday Rotary took us to a show at some hotel in Taksim. Emily and I left from school, and had quite a time trying to get there in time. I don't feel like going into detail (sooo lazy) but as you know the busses hate me...

The show itself was excellent! We all had a great time. I tried Raka, which is gross. It tastes like black licorice, which I hate. Anyways! The show included dancing from different areas in Turkey, some bellydancers, including a woman who is apparently the best in the country, and a guy who sang songs from each of our countries. It was really funny. He was looking around (there were other tables with tourists, and each table had flags from the countries of the people sitting there) and naming the different countries he saw- "Nepal, China, Italy, Korea, India.."-took one look at ours... Turkey, USA, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa and he simply said "The UN". We burst out laughing. He sang a song from every country in attendance, and often had people sing along, very embarrasing when you're the only one, although there were two other women from Canada at a different table, but they were not singing very loud at all. I met them after the show, and they're from Edmonton. Small world. Every Canadian I've met so far has been from Alberta.

Rotary gave us Christmas presents... we each got a rug! How cool is that? And it's mine, Mom. (*wink* I know you wouldn't take my rug, although you'll have fun working around the colour...)

Today I was in Taksim, shopping like crazy. Mattie and I met up to pay for our first Rotary trip. And finding that tour agency's office was crazy. The street sign was taken down, so we got all mixed up looking for the right street. Then the numbers on all the buldings were the OLD numbers, everything had been renumbered.. but they hadn't changed them on the buildings? THEN after an entire street helps us (not even kidding, we had a barber, a hotel person, a shop owner, and a delivery guy helping us look for apartment 34) the place was closed. And they don't have their times displayed anywhere, not on their signs, not on the sheets they gave us, not on their website.. Grrrr! We were really pissed off. I mean, those trips are expensive, and you don't want to be carrying around large sums of money all day. Plus, this means we have to make the trip again, and Taksim isn't exactly close to my house.

After we left Apartment 34 we decided to go shopping. I had lots to buy, because the exchange students and my class are both doing Secret Santas, so I had lots of fun trying to figure out what to buy people. Then! I saw these adorable scarves and thought, "well, I have to do it sooner or later!" so I bought gifts for people, but I'm too cheap to mail them, so I'll just bring stuff home this summer.

Over supper I got to watch some protests that I had witnessed earlier today on the news. Always fun to know that you were there when the police came... not. Thank goodness for random churches! Mattie and I hung out in one of those for a while, then booked it to Leven when the coast was clear. I like Taksim as well as the next person, but I don't want to be around when you see three seperate sets of Riot Police on your way down İstiklal street.

We'll see if I can upload a video.. or two.. or three!

-Maeghan

PS. I hope you love me.. these took over three hours to upload.

Garet the Christmas Angel

I love Garet. I am buying him a waffle (because he loves them) and an angel of some sort that he can sew on his blazer because he has saved Christmas. He convinced Işıl to let us have Christmas off which means that I'm staying home and baking cookies with my host grandmother. Yay bonding! So basically, I worship the ground he walks on, and get a Christmas.

-Maeghan

Merry Christmas!

So here I am, Christmas Eve. I don't know how tomorrow is going to be, but I know that school today was really fun. Emily and I were really busy, and we played some great music today in the Foreign Languages Department. The teachers are really cool, and Alen has offered to lend me season one of Flight of the Conchords (yes!) so that is exciting.

I'm feeling a little down because Rotary (renamed The Grinch) emailed us saying that we have to go to school tomorrow, and the email wasn't exactly polite, and kind of made some of us cry and all of us upset. Soooo we'll see how tomorrow plays out. Friday is a party. Whatever.

Merry merry merry Christmas, I love you all, and hope you're doing süper!

-Maeghan

PS. Cumpleanos feliz, Savvy!

A Rotary Christmas Ball

The Rotary Ball was great fun! Mattie, Meara and I were at the Aslı Clan table. So basically, it was just like şeker bayram. We ate really good food, drank wine (well, I didn't.. it tastes like medicine, at least the dessert wine did *_*), danced, and opened Christmas presents.

<--Me, Mattie, and Meara surrounding Aslı, my adorable, loveable Rotary Club president. As always, my hair has decided to misbehave right when the cameras come out.

The meal was intense! I had three forks.. and a dessert fork. Um.. Work your way in, right? Not that anyone would have cared, but still.

There was a live performer, and people would sing along to songs they knew or get up and dance when they felt like it. It was very cute. There were songs where EVERYONE was singing along with the chorus. At one point, a whole bunch of people were dancing in couples, and Mattie and I (having surveyed the scene) got up and danced with each other. All the Rotarians laughed and thought we were adorable. Hehe.

I should mention getting to the meeting. Actually, I should just post a photo.

That is the Bosphorus Bridge. The main one. And that line of white lights? That's what we're part of. By the time I took this photo, I was almost an hour late for the meeting. And we still had to cross that traffic-jam of a bridge! It's been raining lots, and that made traffic TERRIBLE. But I got to do the arriving late, descending the staircase to everyone looking at you thing... Akward. I don't advise it.

After the party ended, Aslı and her adorable husband dropped me off at my host uncle's house, where I stayed the night (they lived like, seven minutes from the hotel the ball was at). And upon arriving, Lutfiye invited them to stay for tea. At 2 am. And they did! Only Turks...

I'll leave you with one last picture- Mattie and Myself, neither of us looking particularly wonderful, but it's still cute. You can't see it in the picture, but Mattie has a total "Barbie Ponytail" as she calls it. Her councellor invited her to get their hair done together. It was super cute!

-Maeghan.

For Kathle

Dedicated to my dear friend Kathleen... he was almost Rambo. A mass grave on the Gallipoli Peninsula that I visited breifly over Şeker Bayram (in October.. I'm lazy, okay?)

-Maeghan

Perfection (Dedicated to 15)

Today. *aahh* Today. It was, for lack of a better word, perfect. And I'm coming to realize that maybe perfect is more of a mindset than a measurement. That maybe I've been too focused on things that can be measured and compared and not on feelings and points of view. So, although almost nothing today went as planned, I name it "Maeghan's First Perfect Day!" Note the first, suggesting that there will be many more to come. So let's start with the description!

This morning I woke up and thought "Melek won't let me stay home, will she?" and as I rolled out of bed at 6:30 am and tried to see through already watery eyes, I noticed how blue the world outside of my window was. The sun was shining and my thoughts became pleasant. I turned on some ELO (because ELO = Happy) and got ready for school. I made it out of the apartment early. Yay! Then, I cheerily greeted my bus driver (who is actually quite a nice man, and I really like him- I'm giving him something for Christmas!) and we went to school. At school I was given a candy by one of the English teachers, and Emily and I marked some tests (I love marking!) and tallied up scores. Then, Arzu (head of the second language department) came in and asked "I need your help today, we've got lots to do!" (Best words on the planet!!) and set us up making bulletin board designs for New Year's and just in general.

Then, other English teachers are talking and ask, "You guys were interrested in helping with kindergarten, right?" Of course!! "Good, because Alen has a conflict in his new schedule." Yes. Emily and I got to teach our own Kindergarten class. Gong show! But soooo much fun. "You have to be really enthusiastic," Ester told us. I can do enthusiastic. I can do big and outgoing and energetic. In fact, it's hard not to all the time. Especially on days like today.
These children love everyone. We introduced ourselves in English, talking like robots (lol) and then asked them about the weather (with lots of hand gestures). Then we sang songs with them for half an hour. It didn't work out at all like we had hoped, but it was soooo much fun. Kids would randomly come up and hug you, and suddenly half the class would be surrounding you in this giant hug. None of them stood taller than my waist. Awww!

After that interresting class, Emily and I worked on the bulletin board, and made a christmas tree out of paper chains. We also made a bunch of presents. Soo cute! And so addicting. I could have made pretty looking gifts all afternoon, but I resisted because we had more work to do! After that board was more or less done, we started on another with the title "Quench Your Thirst For Knowledge". We had cups and straws and made a giant Coke can. And of course to make it accurate I just had to buy a coke so that we could examine the can more closely. That's just how things work, you know ;D . So we worked on that bulletin board for the rest of the afternoon. I'll have to take pictures on Monday for you! They look sooooooo good! I'm so proud. And all the teachers loved them, I heard "Good job, girls" about a million times today in English and Turkish.

After school, on the bus home my little friend and I had a conversation. Starting with me saying "Yay! It's the weekend!" We talked about PS2s, computers, Canada, Turkish TV, age, and of course, Spiderman. Then, some of the boys from about 8th grade decided to talk to me and him. They asked questions like How old are you? (to which I answered 16, because really? Less than two weeks. And plus, I haven't felt 15 in a long time. Sorry 15. You never got your fair run. I'll dedicate this entry to you to make it up..) and What year were you born in? (Bin doksan yuz doksan iki! Woot! Into the thousands in Turkish!) and Do you play sports?... You get the idea. I caused great commotion on the bus when they asked me which football team I support. "Beşiktaş veya Fenarbahçe" I said. "No! Galatasaray!" Said one boy, to which I replied (in Turkish) "No. Galatasaray is bad." This was followed by a roar of laughter and arguments about how good or bad that team is. Also, one of the little girls looked upset and when I asked her what was wrong she told me that was her team and started spewing all these facts about how many goals it had beat each team by and what place it was in the league right now and stuff... Crazy. They asked me why I support two teams, and I told them about how my host mom won't feed me if I support Fenarbahçe. They spent quite a while trying to figure out how to say "boyfriend" in English. I never bothered to tell them that I knew what they were talking about. Lol. They clued in after a while that I understood them when they were asking each other how to say things (although this happend when they were past the boyfriend topic). After that they gave me heck when I talked in English, and insisted on hearing my Turkish. It was really, really good. I got laughed at a lot, but in a good way. I mean, I laughed at myself lots too. Like they asked me where I live and I told them Halkalı. As soon as the words left my lips I was struck by the stupidity of this- I was on the Halkalı bus... it was a given.

When I got home, I told Güner that I was going to call Mattie about the Rotary Ball tomorrow night. She asked me what I was wearing, and I told her that's why I was calling Mattie. "You don't have a dress?" She asked. I told her I have two, and need to decide which to wear. Then she insisted on seeing both and after loving both, told me which to wear. Then she asked about shoes, which she also fawned over. Then jewelery, and she went through my bracelets, earrings, and necklaces. Basically, she did everything I was calling Mattie about, and more. I know exactly what I'll wear tomorrow night. It was soo cute! And I loved doing something with my grandmother.

I blew a bunch of kontor calling Mattie anyways, but we had a good talk and laughed about our Enchanted Forests (I'm saying good-bye to it as soon as I finish this blog! *cry*). So there you have Maeghan's First Perfect Day. The kindergarteners didn't listen, my eyes kept watering and itching all day, I sneezed all the time, everything reminded me of The Game (ahaha you jsut lost!), I think I'm allergic to the glue we used, and the kids on my bus laughed at me all the way home. Yesterday I would have never defined this as perfect, but this mindset is my new goal. If I accomplish anything here, I want to take today's perspective and apply it to the rest of my life. I just feel so good.

Xoxo
-Meticulous Maeghan
(as Emily has named me)

Day 100

Yes. It really has been that long. Can you believe it? It feels really wierd to think that I'm almost 1/3 through my exchange. Like, where did all that time go? And what exactly have I accomplished yet? Not much, it feels like.

Oh! And how did I celebrate this momentous occassion? Stay home sick and sleep until noon, then after some breakfast, take a nap. Seriously? How lame is that. I was going to party! Well, actually no. But I was going to be happy all day and go to gym class and be interviewed by some grade 9 girls (I feel so bad for not being there today!!!) and write the 20 years later of If Romeo and Juliet Didn't Kill Themselves. And decorate a Christmas tree. A real, not made of wire, more than two feet tall, requires water, wonderful-smelling Christmas tree! But no. I'm at home, lonely, with zero energy. Boo.

-Maeghan

PS. You are allowed to comment, you know. I don't care if it's just "You lost the game!" (haha! You just lost the game!) or "There was this french guy with a really cute accent," or "Wicked Awesome? You've got to be kidding." or ANYTHING. You can say anything. You could tell me about your Christmas tree or what sweater you wore today or how much it snowed last night or what your math teacher assigned for homework. I don't care, but I love comments.

Pictures!

Just some pictures I never bothered to share, or didn't include in previous entries! Enjoy = )

This first one is a bulletin board that Teacher Sean put together. Wicked Awesome. Rofl. If this board doesn't explain why I love the English department, I don't know what would.

This one is the school garden. I took it yesterday. You in your -49 weather must be jealous at the moment. Just so you know, I'm jealous of you. Snow would be fun. *fingers crossed*

Here you can sort of see me pretending to be part of a fountain.. Those huge pillar-things of blue Christmas lights? Those are palm trees. Haha. They decorated in between mall buildings, how cute.

Okeeee! This one is the family tree painted on the wall at my family's mountain house. Totally awesome! Wicked Awesome, even. Over on the far left is their branch. It was really interresting to look at.

Yet another sunset on the Bosphorus. This is what I see every single day. Not kidding. You're jealous.

This here is the path I took in the mountains. It gets much creepier around the next turn. Thats when I decided to take the even smaller, less used path! And I creeped myself out right around here. So what did I do? Whip out the camera and try to act calm and casual while singing to myself, "Whenever you feel afraid, just hold your head up high, and whistle a happy tune, and no one will suspect you're afraid!" It's my coping mechanism. I do it all the time, lol. The picture is actually much less creepy. The emptiness just isn't there.

Blogger won't let me add anymore to this entry, so there you have it! Some random pictures from my life here.

Xoxo

-Maeghan

Woahheadcold.

My thinking is about as fast as the half-turtles that plague the doorways and staircases in Medicine Hat High School. So. Today was good. I did very little, but had a good time. I went to all my afternoon classes and spent all my morning classes in the Second Language Department. It was a nice ballance. We drew names for a secret santa thing, and now I have no clue what to get my classmate. Oh dear. This is ridiculously difficult. And yes, we're giving gifts for Christmas! Hehe! I will still bring Canadian gifts for all of my classmates. English class was pretty excellent, as always. We were doing "hot verbs- take and put". Lol.

"Give me an example of the verb Take."
"Ah! Teacher, he şey takes a cake!"
"Okay, can I put a cake?"
"No."
"Yes, I can. I can put a cake down. I can take a cake. I can do a lot of things with cake. I can throw a cake, or I can put it on the ground and stomp on a cake..." (of course the entire time I'm thinking, this is funny, but the kicking kittens example takes the cake! but I didn't want to confuse anyone.)

They always mention cake. Do you think Mr. Wright is sick of it yet? Y'know, what with his You can put it on the ground and stomp on cake. You know what else he's sick of? The girls in the front right side of the room who talk through every class. So sick of them that today he grabbed Berksu's chair and desk and pulled her across the room. And then to the door when she continued to talk from her new location. It was very, very funny.

Ben "Does everyone understand?"
A Boy "Yes, Teacher, we understand!"
A Girl "Anlamadım."
Ben "You don't understand? Why don't you understand?"
Another Girl "Because she is a mongrel!"
Me "A mongrel?"

I love English class.
-Maeghan

Our Angels write Ask Wise Wanda

Today Emily and I took an adventure to the Primary school (because they always have something for us to do there!) where we've been comissioned to create newspaper pages. We are the editors. We stick stuff in and make it look nice, check for errors. Hoorah! Basically everything I love about yearbook (photography is covered by the Prep year-end slideshow we're helping our English department put together). So! There weren't many things to include yet, so we were offered an opportunity to create an advice column. Meet "Ask Wise Wanda". Hey- they wanted it funny. And yet again they loved our work. They call us their angels. Seriously. It's just so nice to feel purposful, even for just an hour. Emily and I liked our advice so much we each printed off a copy for ourselves. Some day y'all will have to see it. We found a great picture, too.

Emily and I talk about stuff all the time. It's so nice. Today we talked about university, and it ended with a rant about Broadway. I miss randomness.

-Maeghan

Sometimes I Hate Life.

Today I would like you to imagine yourself in a foreign country. You know a bit of the language, just enough to get by, and usually that's okay. Now imagine yourself on a computer set to this foreign language. Imagine you come across a problem with msn. Imagine that you cannot fix this problem because you don't know what the computer says is wrong. Imagine that you try to look it up online except that the translation devices for that specific language really suck. Imagine you try to reinstall msn. Imagine it doesn't work and now the computer keeps flashing notifications at you in the foreign language mentioned above. Imagine you manage to sign in, but all of your contacts have been erased. Imagine you try to uninstall msn. Imagine it doesn't work, all you get are those stupid, unhelpful notifications in a foreign language that has crappy online translators. Imagine the frustration as this goes in a cycle for over an hour. Now you know why I don't really feel like telling you about my day right now. Welcome to the downside of being an exchange student with technology. Seriously? Letters never erase all your address book. I say we throw all our computers out the windows of tall buildings into İstanbul traffic.

-Maeghan

Vampirlar

So! Something I forgot to mention last time. Our last night in the mountains, my family played a game called "Vampirlar" or Vampires. Every played Mafia? Or Werewolf? It's the same game, except of course, there are vampires. They must have thought I was pretty odd when half way through the explanation (Most of them were playing it for the first time, so the rules were being explained for everyone) I burst out with an "Oooo! Biliyorum!" It was really fun, and I ended up being the.. I don't know what the name is.. the person who narrarates it. Which involved speaking in Turkish. Go me.

Yesterday I went to Mattie's new house for a sleepover. Her apartment has an underground swimming pool, so of course we had to try it out. And we were the only ones there. Private pool party! We also watched a bunch of English television, and had a great time with the cute British people on BBC. Seriously? I love England. Also, Pimp My Ride, Smallville, Asideorderoflife, and countless music videos, in English and Turkish. It was great.

Tomorrow is my last day of holidays. *Sigh*. It was so nice to sleep in. I'm pretty sure I won't do much tomorrow. I'm getting tired of this city. To get to Taksim is an average 2 hours. Taxim is the center of the European side. This means that to hang out with anyone for the day, I have to add in 4 hours of travel time. FOUR HOURS. That's like.. I could go to Lethbridge, shop for an hour, and come home in that amount of time. It takes me less time to go to my cabin. Plus, everything is super expensive here, so even if I go to Taksim, chances are I won't buy what I'm looking for because I won't have found, say, a pair of shoes for less than 100 YTL. There's no snow, no holiday cheer, nothing to lift my spirits.

Today I tried to shop for new school shoes (the principal wants me to get new ones because my current ones are "bad" and I will get sick because they are too thin so my feet must get cold). They need to be brown or black, and all the kids in my class wear brown, so brown I set out to find. Well! There are no flipping brown lace-up shoes that aren't converse or 400 YTL in all of FREAKING İstanbul. And my host mom kept saying that, too. That they are very hard to find. Where the heck do my classmates shop? And how can there be no brown shoes in a city with millions of people? Jeez. I needed.. something today. I don't know what, but a lifter-upper. And it wasn't there. All there was were grey buildings and grey moods and grey lifeless plants under a grey winter sky.

Okay Maeghan, buck up! "There's always tomorrow, the sun always rises, sometimes the future is full of suprises." A little Princess Diaries Soundtrack for annoyingly cheerful feel-goood songs. I'll work on this attitude.

Love you all,
Maeghan

My Second Bayram

So! Bayram. Sleeping in. Doing nothing. Life is good. We hopped in the car on Saturday morning, popped by the post office where everyone mailed packages (Doğan is getting the equivalent of one of my suitcases! Oh my! Gifts for his host family, I think). I mailed one to my family, and the man there wanted me to send my letter seperately. We had a heated argument (well as heated as an argument can be when one of you only speaks a little bit of the language) which ended with me folding my letter into a t-shirt. Really! Stick the letter that goes along with the package in an envelope to mail seperately! It's ridiculous!

Then we continued on, over the bridge to Asia, out of İstanbul, past İzmit, and up, up, up a hill! I will admit that when we arrived I was kind of in shock. I stood staring for a good two minutes before I realized that I must look like such a spoiled city girl and quickly helped unpack. My first thoughts were "Oh.My.God." And upon leaving my last thoughts were "Just one more day, please!" There was no electricity, as promised, so we had a fire going all the time to keep warm. It never dropped below 0, but the humidity makes it feel like it did. We used oil lamps (I didn't know you could still get those!) to see after dark, although we did turn on the generator to charge things like cell phones. Reception here is amazing. I mean, even on this random "mountain" with like, four houses on it (two of which were ours) we still had no trouble with phones. I'm thinking kind of sporatically, so I'm sorry if this entry is hard to follow.

Melek's whole family was there. Picture!
Melek's brother, Melih, is taking the photo. I'm sitting at the end, the empty seat beside me is his. On my other side is his wife, Lutfiye. Beside her is her aunt, Güler, then my host grandmother, Güner. Front and center is Yunus. He's a year younger than my brother, and knows how to say things like "I can eat strawberries" in English. In purple is my host mom, Melek, and beside her is Gülin, Lutfiye's mother. Past her is Deniz, who everyone calls Bam Bam or Bambino, because his birthday is during Bayram and that's what Yunuz called him when he was first born. Here we are eatting a traditional Turkish breakfast, which is bread, cheese, tomatoes, peppers, and lots of olives. Plus, reçel (jam, sort of) and nutella. I am, as always, being fed waaay more than I need, especially since there are 3 doting grandmothers present, rather than just the usual one. I think I ate half of their feta that morning.

We didn't have a trash can, we just threw stuff in the fire. Every time a plastic cup or fork or whatever went into the fire all I could think was "This is killing my lungs. When I die an early death, I'll know why." At one point they threw some copper wiring on the flames, which turned them a really pretty turquoise (that's how I knew it was copper, yay science class!). But it was when they threw an old pair of rubber boots on the fire that I left. And went for a loooooong walk (gosh, but it smelled in there once the rubber caught on fire!) to get away from the house. I decided to be adventurous and when I came to a fork in the road, instead of taking the lower road, which lead to the house, I took the higher one and walked for an hour in complete silence, save for the rustling of leaves. It was amazingly calming. Until I spooked myself when I bird flew out of a tree right in front of me. I opted to try an even less-used path, and every footstep I took was greeted by some sort of movement in the bushes. This was really nerve-wracking, but I was determined to keep going. After ten minutes, however, I came to a huge mud puddle that spanned the entire path, with enough shrubbery on either side that I would have to wade into the forest around the path to continue forward. I took this as my cue and headed back the way I came, not entirely disappointed.

The rest of my time was spent playing cards or reading Glamour (which Mattie had given me when she slept over) or writing in my journal. Sometimes I just sat by the fire and thought. Oh! Dreams! I should mention those. I had a themed dream night in which all of my dreams took place at the various schools I've attended. It was very weird because everyone was all mixed up. My İstanbul friends were at Cape, and my Hat High friends were at İstek and my kindergarden was in the drama room at Hat High... You get the idea. Anyways. The real reason I was going to mention dreams is because I hear Turkish in them. I'd say about 1 in every 5 dreams I remember includes Turkish. I've only ever spoken in Turkish once in a dream (I asked to go to the bathroom, grammatically incorrect..) but it's in the background. Like when I'm walking somewhere in a dream, the people around me will be conversing in Turkish. I don't know if it's actually Turkish, because I don't understand all of it. Last time the girls in the bathroom in my dream were talking about bread. I kept hearing them say 'ekmek'. It's sort of entertaining to see which words pop up, actually.

ANYWHO. When it was time to go, I was disappointed. Time had flown by, and I really enjoyed hanging out with everyone. I had been speaking a lot, because between everyone if I didn't know a word (I can never remember store) chances were someone else did. So I think my Turkish improved over the last five days. I have a question that I've been dying to ask, but I want to ask one of my classmates, because I think it would make them happy for me to ask entirely in Turkish, and if I don't understand the reply, they'll be able to translate it to English for me. There are three different ways to say Thank You, and I never know if I'm being polite enough or too polite or even if it matters. So. Any classmates reading, Bende soru var. Expect to hear it on Monday.

Melek and Yunuz and Lutfiye were walking down the hill, and asked me if I wanted to join, rather than ride in the truck. I agreed, and we ended up finding a whole bunch of Tree Strawberries. I don't know what they are in English, but that's my translation of the Turkish name. They neither look nor taste like strawberries in my opinion, but they're quite interresting, and I'm glad I chose to walk. It reminded me that every chance could lead to a new experience and adventure, no matter how small the option may seem.

-Maeghan

PS. I've been singing Christmas songs, and I think my host family thinks I've lost it. Walking around the house humming cheerily is not a normal occurance...

Mr. Bird

I've been more productive in the last three days than I have in the last three months. It feels great to be doing stuff again! All of Thursday afternoon was spent with Emily in the Primary School, helping technologically challenged teachers put together a newsletter. We spent all afternoon putting pictures with text. Really simple, but super time consuming. The head of the department kept thanking us and telling us we're life savers. She offered to take us out to lunch over Bayram, but we really didn't do that much. In the morning we went to Phys. Ed. class and yet again were the only two girls who bothered to participate.

Today Emily was mysteriously missing, so I spent the morning stapling and putting together last minute filler pages for the newsletter. I am actually impressed with the results. Just before lunch all the grade 9 classes had a listening English test, and instead of using the regular British recordings, the teachers had written a script and we went around reading it to the classes so that they would get to hear other accents. It was pretty much awesome. After lunch I went back to class and talked with my friends. They seemed really happy that I was trying to talk in Turkish. I suprised myself with the amount that I was able to say. They've promised to teach me future tense and help me practice past tense after Bayram.

After school, Mattie came over and we cooked fajitas! It went really, really well. They were delicious, although I'm not sure my host family liked them as much as we did. They did the whole "Bu çok güzel!" and then didn't want seconds. Although when we were trying to make guacamole we couldn't get it to taste right, and in desperation called one of the Mexican exchange students. "Jael! Help us, we're trying to make guacamole!" It was a pretty ridiculous conversation. But the food turned out really delicious. If you didn't catch that the first three times I said it.

Next week is Bayram, and I'm going somewhere with my host family for five days (we leave tomorrow morning). I don't know enough Turkish yet to understand where, but we won't have electricity because of an earthquake ?? Uh. They told me to bring a flashlight. Melek's brother's family is coming with us as well. I'm excited because both the brother and his wife like to point at things and name them for me. Did you know an owl in Turkish literally translates to Mr. Bird? I'm laughing.

-Maeghan

Everyone, Meet Our New Assistants!

Those were Arzu's words this morning. Emily and I have become the official teachers' assistants in the Foreign Lanugages Department. We're welcome to go to class whenever we want, but I had no exciting classes today. Today's duties included stapling. Lots and lots and lots of stapling. And photocopying. And creating a page for a newsletter. And proofreading that newsletter (at least the english part). And creating an answer key (aka writing a test... which we probably did wrong). Overall, it was the most productive day I've had at school so far. It was fun. We hung out all day, and just helped out. At one point Emily, a Kansasian (lol. I don't know the demonym) teacher, and I were debating the correct use of the words dinner and supper. I argued that the last meal of the day, the evening meal, was supper and that dinner is lunch. They both said "that's what my mother says!" and disagreed. "Dinner," claimed the teacher, "is the evening meal. Supper comes from the word 'sup' which means eat, so it could reffer to either." Except!! No one calls lunch supper. Anyways.

Tomorrow I have phys. ed. I will be going to that class, since it doesn't take a lot of Turkish to succeed. Usually we don't end up playing any organized sports and Emily and I just shoot hoops. Not that I like basketball. But I don't think me joining the boys' football game would go over well. Much as I would love to play. Although actually, I suck. So it would just be embarassing. Hmm. We should play lacrosse. Or kickball. Or dodgeball!!! Except they don't have the right kinds of equiptment for any of those lovely sports.

-Maeghan

Those Bus Children

That's right! More adventures on the school bus. The little boy was beside me again, and first he just wanted to talk. Okay, I sort of understand what he's saying now. Then, he wanted to know if I could read. So I got to read the side of his juice container. It was a really fancy Scooby-Doo one. Called a Bellywasher. A name which he asked me to explain. I rubbed my tummy and said "to clean". Sorry kid, it was the best I could do. Then! Rock, Paper, Scissors! In Turkish! Hoorah. I got my butt kicked. After a while this boy decided we should play "Spiderman, Superman, Batman". And I believe that Spiderman beat Batman who beat Superman who beat Spiderman. And all I could think was that spiderman wouldn't beat anyone. (Sorry, if I've insulted anyone's superhero preferenes). Batman could potentially win due to coolness, but Superman is obviously the strongest.

Today in Turkish class, my teacher stiff-armed one of the students. It was pretty hillarious, considering Emily pretends (or wishes she could) stiff-arm people all the time. And! When I turned on my calculator for the first time since our math final, "SWEET NECTAR." was innocently sitting there, displayed on my screen. This caused me to burst out laughing for no apparent reason...

I was talking to Mr. Wright, and I think I'm going to start doing stuff for the Second Language Department. Thank goodness, I was near death. And boredom is a (mentally) painful way to die. We'll see what happens. Next week is the second Bayram, which means no school! I don't understand what my family is doing, but we're going somewhere. I think.

-Maeghan

You know those Mini-entries I promised to stop writing?

So I got another couple of packages. One from Mattie's family, who sent each of us Advent calendars, and one from my family. They send me my calculator (oh how I missed you!) on request, and to pack it safely, they sandwiched it between two bags of mini-marshmallows! You can't get marshmallows in Turkey. Well, actually you can. For 19YTL you can have a regualr sized bag of jet-puffed at some random store near Osmanbey that sells stuff you can get at home like sour cream. But I don't love them that much.

So I excitedly shared these little white puffs of heaven with my host family... who hated them! What?! How can you dislike them? Yumuşak, they kept saying. Soft. Come to think of it, they didn't like the mini-oreos either. Oh well, more for myself! Although, I'm already starting to feel sick. I wonder if my classmates would like to try some tomorrow. I think I'll bring a bag to school. If no one likes them, Emily and I can eat them by ourselves.

-Maeghan

Turkey in Turkey

So... I ate my first turkey ever.. in Turkey!!! How fabulous!
The Thanksgiving dinner went really well. I made mashed potatoes, and they all got eatten up. I spent all afternoon on them. I used 2.5 kg of potatoes, and overflowed a pot of water puting them in. It was great fun. I'm really good at peeling now, Mom.
The dinner itself felt very short. We came, we ate, we left. Not a lot of talking and hanging out (our favorite pass-time). The Mexicans brought nachos and guacamole and stuff like that. It was really good. We didn't end up with all desserts, which (depending on how you look at it) was also good. I got to talk to Aslı, my club president, about attending meetings. Although she said exactly what she'd said over the phone, that there is a Rotarian from Florya who can take me home and they'll inform me when they're coming to a meeting. Which has yet to happen since this plan was put in place. Gaah. This city is sooooo big!
School is school. Nothing interresting happened. As usual. Heyguesswhat! It's December. Isn't that wierd to think about? It is to me. I need to brush up on my Christmas carols and walk around singing them. Sounds like a plan. Hey! Everyone tell me the name of your favorite carol, okay? Because I can't remember very many. Laura, I know you love Silver Bells (don't hit me!) and Dad, I know your favorite is the Drummer Boy (do I still get a Christmas present?). I'll stop teasing people.

Love,
Maeghan

PS. Something exciting DID happen! My German teacher marked my test, and I got 27%! This is actually not a bad mark. Considdering I don't understand Turkish, the fact that I got anything right on the test is remarkable, plus apparently loads of people in my class got worse. Second languages aren't many peoples' focus here. Everything is about passing the ÖSS university entrance exam. The last section on my test, I got 14 out of 20 right. Go me. I'm sending it home so my parents can put it on the fridge (and NOT get rid of it!) to proudly display for all to see. *hint hint*