All in the Family, discovering new tricks

This past weekend I decided to take a break and not go out on Friday night but instead sit down and really focus on putting out some quality images that I have taken since I got here. I chose this family's photos because I had promised to email them the copies later. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingshutter/6245588033/

However, before Friday I've had very little success with photo editing tools and if I edited my photos at all it'd just be to adjust contrast, highlights, or shadows. This night finally gave me a breakthrough as I experimented with the heal, clone, and gradient tools.

Teddy's legal!

Teddy's legal! Day 14, a photo by LaughingShutter on Flickr.

Today was an interesting day.

Since I don't have class until 11:10am I slept in until 10am. I just had two and a half classes today because I had an unexpected trip to the police station to pick up my residence permit!

That's right, I'm not a foreign resident of Turkey! Now I just need my work permit and I'm all set :)

So a funny thing that happened to me today. The supervisor of the 3rd grade building called me in to his office. Now he doesn't speak english so I came in. I had a student with me that had forgotten his books at home for 2 days in a row. I was going to make him eat lunch with me but the supervisor just chastised him and away he went. Then he offered me a chocolate.

Now you'd think it wouldn't be hard to accept such a gift but they had a round bottom and I couldn't get the piece of chocolate out. so I tried to pop it out of the package. I was successful..except it popped out and hit the supervisor before falling to the floor!
He looked at me and said "Why!?!" I could just say "sorry, it was stuck" The other one next to it came out with much less trouble and then he motioned that I could go. haha

A Good Showing

Today went a lot better. 

I used the fish puppet that my Korean Student's mother Sally made for me before I left Korea and made a lesson out of story telling.

For the 4th graders I told the story "The Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Pfister. The story is about a fish that has beautiful, sparkling scales but because it doesn't share it has no friends. Once it begins sharing it has friends and becomes a very happy and modest fish. It's a nice short story and the children seemed to understand it really well. However they did have a bit of a problem expressing their answers in English so I decided to have them tell me a very short story by drawing pictures comic-strip style. I was surprised with some of their stories. The one that stood out the most was a story these two girls called "Big Bear" It was about a bear that was proud and arrogant that he was so big and made fun of a rabbit for being so small. Then the elephant comes along and laughs at the bear for being so small. So understanding how the rabbit must have felt the bear returns to apologize. They made this short story in less than 15 minutes! I'm posting some other notable ones for you:

Big Bear. My favorite

The Rainbow Fish

Caring is Sharing

Santa Troubles

 For the 3rd graders I decided not to do the Rainbow Fish story because I felt it'd be better to work on some more basic vocabulary that I began with my introducation class such as "I am ____", "I like ____", etc. So I set them to task on drawing a picture of themselves and things they enjoy. I asked them to write four sentences. However I was really surprised when almost ALL of them were writing in cursive. I haven't used cursive, except for my signature, since I was in grade school and I don't know many other people that do either. I also so how they still mix capital and lowercase letters when writing in the vernacular style. So I insisted that they write in this style. This is where a road block came in. They just didn't understand what I wanted. I finally went for some outside help which wasn't very helpful. The head of the villa didn't understand what I wanted and the guy he called was very busy and a bit annoyed. So I went back to the class and just had them finish the assignment to the best of their abilities letting them write in cursive. After the class I was informed that they don't KNOW the vernacular case and are told not to write in it. They are taught to write in cursive only by mandate of the board of education. WOW! That was a surprise. But not a big deal. I can read the writing fine. Here are two great examples of work from my 3rd graders:

A sample without cursive

A sample with a mix of cursive and regular

 After classes we had a meeting. I have a meeting every Tuesday. I'm really thankful for this as before I was finding it hard to communicate with anybody to get the things I need such as materials, a curriculum, and my books. We now have books, the curriculum is still a bit of a mystery but I'll speak with the homeroom teachers on that, and I told them the materials I needed which consisted of atleast one reem of paper, pens, markers, and poster boards for each class so I could make a point chart.

Then one by one we were told to share how our classes had been so far. I was happy to go next to last. Since I had done the storytelling lessons I had actual visual aids to show and it was really a boost of confidence that I have everything under control. The Korean system of  last minute changes and lack of communication prepared me well for well..being prepared for a class with no compass to guide me. I'm really glad I kept my powerpoints I used while in Korea as they were a huge help. If I hadn't I'd have been pretty lost and stressed this week. Now that I have the books all will be well.

My second culture today happened during the meeting when I introduced myself to female colleagues who were wearing the hijab. I offered my hand and a big smile while introducing myself; the first one gave me the tips of her fingers shyly and the second looked at me uncomfortably and a little bit in shock. Then I pulled my hand away remembering my time back in Iowa when I would congregate with Muslims at the Mosque in Cedar Rapids. Men and women don't touch if they are not related. Woops!

I got a ride home in the school bus and I'll get picked up tomorrow at 7:35am so I best be off to bed so I'm not late for my free ride.

First day of work in Istanbul

After arriving back to Istanbul a month ago and bidding my time I was finally able to be back in the classroom, a real classroom.

Looking out the window of my school I feel like I'm in a castle upon a hill

I woke up without an alarm at 7am so I got on to check some messages before jumping in the shower at 8am and shaving to look good for the first day. All was going well. I went and used my last 10 Lira note to charge my transportation card before going to the bus stop in down the road, in front of the Capital Shopping Center. After waiting a bit and it was nearing 9am (My sheet said my first class starts at 9:40am and I was hoping to be a little early to setup and resolve any issues that might come up) I decided to get on a dolmush or a small van that you pay with cash. I told the driver Umraniye and got in the front seat so I could view when my stop came up.
Now my trip to the school should have been just 8minutes max, but somehow I had missed it (my stop is kisikli but with the dottless Turkish 'i's so it sounds like kusukluh) I saw the word on a sheet of paper above the dashboard, pointed at it and said "kisikli?"  "nerede?(where is)" The driver pointed behind him and said I should get off and cross the street. You see we'd already driven into Umraniye...but Kisikli is in Uskudar!

So I had to cross the street and go to another street that was going the opposite direction. I got on the dolmus and then we hit the traffic.  The 'first day of school' traffic. It was jam packed with parents taking their precious babies to school for the first day. The dolmus talked to the passengers and took a detour so not to be stuck in traffic on the highway. I'm glad he did however I was really sweating it as it was now 9:20am. Would I make it on time before my class began?
The driver and passengers told me to get off on this one hill that was really unfamiliar. I got off and was completely lost. I began texting, not believing that I'm already going to have to report being late on the FIRST day despite leaving an hour early for a trip that usually takes 8minutes.  "just my luck" I thought to myself.

This courtyard was full of students and parents.
Each villa (8 total) houses a grade level.
That's grades 1-8. I teach Grades 3 and 4.  

After asking several people where joshkun Kolehi (coskun Koleji) was I was finally pointed in the right direction and recognized the bottom of the hill I have to walk up to get to my school. I have yet to see that free shuttle my superiors have mentioned being there. I was going as fast as I could up that hill with my new black shoes that lack support. When I arrived there was a HUGE crowd in the main court with traditional music playing and these kids dancing in traditional attire. I was too stressed and worried about how late I was to pay much attention or enjoy the performance. I just wanted to find my classroom and talk to my superior and inform them of my situation and let them know I was there.

Luckily for me, the class I would have missed was cancelled due to the performance celebrating the opening of classes. What a relief!  So I used my introduction powerpoint I had from my time in Korea and the classes went really well.

At Lunch time I was feeling quite lost again. I was going downstairs when Jeffrey, the other American teacher just shook his head at me and said "we can't eat down there, it's girls only."  I was like, no way I'll just see for myself. But as soon as I decended the stairs the other English teacher was there sitting among the other female turkish teachers keeping to herself and looking up at me a bit forlornly. I was told I should eat upstairs with the guys.  So I did.

now, the children are not seperated by sex, it's only the adults. It doesn't just stop at the lunchroom either. No no, when I went to the teachers room on a lower floor in the 4th grade villa the ladies looked at me as if I had come into a dressing room. Then the one that was at the orientation..Tugce I believe came to me and told me that we are seperated and my room was upstairs with the men. She took me upstairs and then the men took me in and waited for the one Turkish teacher that knows English to tell me that it's just Turkish culture to seperate people by sex. He was referring to Islamic culture of course. So, while the school is not specifically religious, it definately has a strong, conservative environment.

After lunch, before my last class was to begun I felt that queesy, wet rumbling in my stomach that is the tell-tale sign of an emergency toilet. Noooo!  So far I had only seen traditional squat toilets. When I asked where the restroom is the guys took me to the restroom and I was like, but how do I use it? I've never used one of these (even though Korea had them I have this absolute fear of splattering my legs). Thankfully as my stomach really wasn't easy, they have TWO, yes TWO western toilets on the campus. A student guided me to the toilets and boy was I thankful. I informed them I'd be a little late for my class and then went. When I arrived to my last class I thanked the homeroom teacher. When the homeroom teacher left the kids were surprisingly quiet and watching me. When I said "Hello class" they all stood up and said "Hello teacher" and stayed standing until I told them to take a seat. The class ran really smoothly. I was thankful.

I've got a good feeling about teaching these students. There are a few that like to talk a bit more than others but that's normal in ANY classroom, especially an EFL classroom. This should be a good year once I get my curriculum.

I took a school bus home but was told I need to talk to my supervisor about getting picked up by the bus, especially since they don't speak English. When i got home I was just so exhausted. One of my new friend's Mehmet texted me asking if I'd like to go jogging this evening with him, but I had to decline. It was such a tiring day. Around seven o'clock I had laid down on my bed and passed out, waking back up at 10:30pm. I hadn't taken my contacts out and my right eye was almost sealed shut with puss. Yeah, that's right I noticed that both of my eyes were irritated this weekend and now they are moving into a full infection.

So tomorrow I'll be getting a small advance to get me through the next 3 weeks until my payday on October 10th. I'll be visiting the doc to get some drops to clear this little annoyance up before it becomes a big problem. Hope the kids aren't scared of my red eyes tomorrow.

Speaking of which, I haven't been given a curriculum or the books I'll be teaching from so I still have no idea what they're expecting me to teach now that my introductory class is finished. Any suggestions?  The kids seem pretty bright and have a good level of English, much better than the typical 3rd-4th graders I taught while in Korea.  Tomorrow we are having an English teachers meeting..I hope they give their expectations so I can work FOR them and not just guess what they want me to do.

Preparing for Middle Earth




Passage to Middle Earth

 

  Okay, well maybe not the Middle Earth you all remember but the journey is long and arduous none-the-less and preparing for it is no easy task.



In 32 days I'll be flying out of Korea and headed for Istanbul, Turkey. The land that has been fought over for several millenia and has been a capital for the Roman Empire, Greek Empire, Latin Empire, and finally the Ottoman Empire... So one can just imagine the history and interesting culture it must still hold today. I can't wait to feast my eyes on all of the history that awaits and what has arisen today.

However, this post isn't about what I'll find there. It's about preparing to GO there. Packing. Such a dreadful chore. Such a bore!

To be honest, this is just the start of what is supposed to be an Eastern European tour. However, the more I look at this grand map of Europe there are so many places that I want to see. I want to cross ALL of it.

How will I do that. I don't know yet, but where there's a will there's a way.

This planning has been giving me quite a headache and is presenting a few issues.

The last week or so I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what I need to buy for this trip.

First, I want to be able to take some amazing photos while I"m on this trip and hopefully someday organize them into a Photography book that I can publish. I wanted to experiment with photography and some concepts while I'm there. However, this week I realized that it wouldn't be the wisest idea to spend all of my money buying new lenses and lights for my camera when I'm already taking decent photos. 

Thank goodness I came to realize that.

Second. I need to upgrade to a lighter, smaller, and faster laptop.

This is driving me INSANE!  I'm on a budget yet I do need a nice laptop.

Any help from other travel photographers or travelers in general would be greatly appreciated.

I'm thinking it's time to change to a MAC..*gasp* however they are quite expensive.

Third, I've gotta make a budget and an itinerary of some sort. At the moment, I still have no concrete plan. I just know I have a one-way ticket to adventure. I know a lot of amazing things will happen once I'm there but I definitely need a rough outline of a plan so I can budget better.

Fourth, This week it's really starting to hit me that I'm going to be seeing my girl and then leaving her for who knows how long. I have this need, this Wanderlust. I can't imagine being happy sitting still, not until I've crossed Europe. It's really starting to take a toll on me as I am trying to come to terms with my wanderlust and my love. How can I fit the two together? Can they fit together? Do I give it all up?  So many questions are coming from that and to be honest I haven't slept soundly since I began thinking about it.

I pray that it all works out well and comfortably for the both of us. This will definitely be a big obstacle that we'll face. All I know is I can't wait to see her in person in 3 weeks.

Finally, I need to get motivated and stop being so lazy. This week of vacation I should have mailed everything that's been needing to get mailed out, cleaned my house, and packed most of the things or at least organized them so I could do so minus clothes. However, I did next to nothing besides post some photos on flickr of my last photo shoot and update my blog. If I don't get my butt in gear and get responsible I hate to think how I"ll be on the road. I hope I'll be inspired enough to get things accomplished that I want to accomplish and network for friendships and possible employment.

SO the big journey, the odyssey will start in a month. I"m preparing my other blog to be a combination of travel writing, supporting charities/NGO's, and to showcase some photos. However I'm also searching the web for a good host of an actual photography portfolio.

So much to do, so little time. Lets hope I get myself organized quickly.