There are just 17 more days left until I set foot back on American soil.
I've been super busy but I wanted to update you all on the craziness that has been going on as
the deadline approaches.
First:
In two days I'll finish my Cambridge CELTA (Certification of English Language Teaching for Adults)! I've been taking this intensive course for 3 months now and it feels great that to finally be finishing tomorrow.
My TO DO list today:
1. Write up last Teaching Practice about Dreams and 2nd Conditional grammar
2. Finish all of my DF's for remaining 14 Units (this may take all day)
3. Do last online observation with write-up.
If I'm able to finish all of this before my friend Tatlihan's birthday party tonight then I'll work on editing some photos for my portfolio from the Seoul Fashion Week 2010 show. I had so many shots and video from that show that I never really got to editing them all.
Second
Showing posts with label life in istanbul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life in istanbul. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Finding the Path to the Hastanesı
Today was a day.
Like any other day I suppose.
You know, the type of day where you wake up to the alarm.
much like you did the day before and the one before that.
My eyes are heavy from the crusty sleep crumbs that built up over night and the exhaustion of the past week. It takes an effort to get out of bed. In fact I always find myself
going back into the bed and surrenduring myself to my covers' sweet embrace. I'm not quite ready to get up! And my sleepiness makes my willpower an easy victim to the needs of my sloth-like motivation. So I give in and dip my head back into my pillow only to wake up with 20 or so minutes left to be at work.
Like any other day I suppose.
You know, the type of day where you wake up to the alarm.
much like you did the day before and the one before that.
My eyes are heavy from the crusty sleep crumbs that built up over night and the exhaustion of the past week. It takes an effort to get out of bed. In fact I always find myself
going back into the bed and surrenduring myself to my covers' sweet embrace. I'm not quite ready to get up! And my sleepiness makes my willpower an easy victim to the needs of my sloth-like motivation. So I give in and dip my head back into my pillow only to wake up with 20 or so minutes left to be at work.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Teddy's legal!
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
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
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Diary: October 8th, 2011
I'll be using these Diary entries to record my thoughts and emotions as I live and travel around the world. I lost my diary on my trip and it was a great loss as it had all of my feelings and thoughts written down from my time in Costa Rica. So I'll be using this medium to write things down.
I've just taken a sip from the green bottle of Jagermeister to build up my confidence to write about myself. It's funny it's one of the hardest things for me to get started on is just sitting down and writing. As it warms my gullet and my mind feels as if it's opening and loosening up much like a dancer stretches his muscles, loosening up so he can perform the difficult jumps and taut forms that are required; my mind also loosens up to let loose the words to bring to life my thoughts and actions from mere words.
The last few weeks have gone by in a bit of a blur. Starting the new school and having a lot of the memories and cultural lessons I learned while attending the masjid(mosque/camii) in Iowa flow back to me as I began working at a conservative school. Things were pretty disorganized but having experienced this in South Korea I was less disturbed by it than my colleagues. I just took things in stride and figured everything would work itself out. So far they have. It's crazy how fast this first month has gone though. In one month I've organized three cooking events at different peoples homes which allowed me to meet locals, I joined in a photowalk, and I even hosted a few people at my new home. I did all of this while having NO money. I lived off of peoples charity and goodwill. To be honest I really didn't like it because it feels like I'm mooching from them. It's really embarassing when I can't foot my own bill.
But alas, on Monday I'll receive my first paycheck from my new work. It's funny how I keep referring to this paycheck like it's the holy grail that will end all of my problems. One thing is for sure though, it will end my dependence on everyones money and goodwill. I've learned that I'll be receiving a full paycheck because our orientation week will count so I'll be able to pay back my debtors and since I was able to put a small forbearance of one month on my student loan I'll be able to put some money into savings so I don't end up stuck in a hard spot again. Atleast I'll try for this savings.
There are so many things I'm wanting to do. I'll join a climbing gym for one month to see how I like it and how often I go. I may join a gym as well but I'm still speculating as I dont' want to waste my money by paying and not attending every day. I'd like to do a dance lesson of some sort. There are so many things I plan to do. I wonder how my budget will work.
This past week itself was just great. On Wednesday I decided to go to the Wednesday night CS Regular meetup in Taksim. It was alright. I saw a lot of people that I've met over the past month but to be honest I was a little bored. I didn't feel like randomly walking up to somebody and talking about nothing or trying to leverage my way into a conversation. So instead I began to ask people if I could take their portraits. That proved to be fun. Afterwards a small group of us including my friends Pelin and Gulcen decided to go out dancing. We went to a club called Araf. A dj was playing a huge variety of music so there was always some different style we could dance to. I'm talking everything from swing, salsa, rumba, bachata, rock and roll, I even heard country music playing as I was leaving. It was hard to leave that place but I was dying of thirst and wasn't feeling well. I didn't have money to buy any water while dancing so I figured it was best to go home and not risk my health.
I slept for most of Thursday which happened to be a public holiday in Turkey, some kind of liberation day I guess. When I wasn't sleeping I was reading. I've been reading A LOT lately. After a suggestion from my friend Nicolas I searched out the author Edgar Rice Burroughs and his series about John Carter on Mars. I never imagined that a book published in 1917 could be so good. The books are nearly 100 years old but speak of things such as spaceships, space travel, and technology that didn't exist then but are now common. It's really amazing how ensightful this author was. If you dont' recognize the name, this is the same man that brought you the Adventures of Tarzan.
Another author that has recently caught my attention and I'm unable to pull myself away from his books is the almost prophetic author Paulo Coelho. His writings tend to be just over 100 pages or less yet his words are so full of meaning that you must come back to his books again and again. Each time you feel an 'Ah HA!' moment and an almost enlightenment. His books are like spiritual food. And I'm not even that spiritual but they just speak to me. The first book I read was the Alchemist which spoke of following your Destiny. The second book I just finished was titled Brida and spoke of finding your soulmate. However this book was written in the perspective of a woman named Brida who was going through the path of Magic and witchcraft or the occult and finding her answers through this tradition. Yet while it is offputting for some monotheistic readers as it goes into reincarnation and different practices of witchcraft, it is also eye-opening to see how connected both Christianity and witchcraft really are. I highly recommend all of these books to EVERYONE. I think you'll learn something and perhaps have your own 'Ah HA!' moments.
Also, I'm feeling like I need to be doing more even though I've got a whole list of things to do on my plate. I really want to get serious with my photography. I've been inspired lately seeing so many people starting their own pages, a young teenage friend in Korea even started her own business at just 16 years old shooting weddings! She didn't take no for an answer and went online offering to shoot weddings for free at first until she got a few under her belt and it seems now she is beginning to make some money. I was suprised with how quickly she was able to take off and am so proud of her. Way to go Dahee! You can see her page here. Every shoot she is getting exponentially better. It got me to thinking why can't I find my niche? I've got over 10,000 photos and a wide variety of genres under my belt. All I need now is to get organized..develop the photos that have turned out the best and make a diverse portfolio from everything I've done. Perhaps then I can set up an exhibition with the help of photographer friends and I'll finally do what I wanted to do which was start on me way to being a serious and respected photographer.
On Friday I had so many plans but I first had plans to meet a CSer that first contacted me when I made a post about finding new friends since I was new. We finally met up along with her friend and found we had so much to talk about. I lost all track of time and found it hard to end the night because it was going so nicely. Even when we were discussing a point of conflict (I wanted to go to school for marine biology so I could become a dolphin trainer and she is against all wild animals in captivity for the sake of profits and human enjoyment). She had some great points but so did I :) What is clear though is our love for the animal itself.
Today I spent the day reading and catching up on leaving references for people I've met through Couchsurfing. Now I'm finally catching up on my blogs which I slacked off on this past week. Hopefully I'll keep up for next week. Well..this is me signing off on my first diary entry.
I've just taken a sip from the green bottle of Jagermeister to build up my confidence to write about myself. It's funny it's one of the hardest things for me to get started on is just sitting down and writing. As it warms my gullet and my mind feels as if it's opening and loosening up much like a dancer stretches his muscles, loosening up so he can perform the difficult jumps and taut forms that are required; my mind also loosens up to let loose the words to bring to life my thoughts and actions from mere words.
The last few weeks have gone by in a bit of a blur. Starting the new school and having a lot of the memories and cultural lessons I learned while attending the masjid(mosque/camii) in Iowa flow back to me as I began working at a conservative school. Things were pretty disorganized but having experienced this in South Korea I was less disturbed by it than my colleagues. I just took things in stride and figured everything would work itself out. So far they have. It's crazy how fast this first month has gone though. In one month I've organized three cooking events at different peoples homes which allowed me to meet locals, I joined in a photowalk, and I even hosted a few people at my new home. I did all of this while having NO money. I lived off of peoples charity and goodwill. To be honest I really didn't like it because it feels like I'm mooching from them. It's really embarassing when I can't foot my own bill.
But alas, on Monday I'll receive my first paycheck from my new work. It's funny how I keep referring to this paycheck like it's the holy grail that will end all of my problems. One thing is for sure though, it will end my dependence on everyones money and goodwill. I've learned that I'll be receiving a full paycheck because our orientation week will count so I'll be able to pay back my debtors and since I was able to put a small forbearance of one month on my student loan I'll be able to put some money into savings so I don't end up stuck in a hard spot again. Atleast I'll try for this savings.
There are so many things I'm wanting to do. I'll join a climbing gym for one month to see how I like it and how often I go. I may join a gym as well but I'm still speculating as I dont' want to waste my money by paying and not attending every day. I'd like to do a dance lesson of some sort. There are so many things I plan to do. I wonder how my budget will work.
This past week itself was just great. On Wednesday I decided to go to the Wednesday night CS Regular meetup in Taksim. It was alright. I saw a lot of people that I've met over the past month but to be honest I was a little bored. I didn't feel like randomly walking up to somebody and talking about nothing or trying to leverage my way into a conversation. So instead I began to ask people if I could take their portraits. That proved to be fun. Afterwards a small group of us including my friends Pelin and Gulcen decided to go out dancing. We went to a club called Araf. A dj was playing a huge variety of music so there was always some different style we could dance to. I'm talking everything from swing, salsa, rumba, bachata, rock and roll, I even heard country music playing as I was leaving. It was hard to leave that place but I was dying of thirst and wasn't feeling well. I didn't have money to buy any water while dancing so I figured it was best to go home and not risk my health.
I slept for most of Thursday which happened to be a public holiday in Turkey, some kind of liberation day I guess. When I wasn't sleeping I was reading. I've been reading A LOT lately. After a suggestion from my friend Nicolas I searched out the author Edgar Rice Burroughs and his series about John Carter on Mars. I never imagined that a book published in 1917 could be so good. The books are nearly 100 years old but speak of things such as spaceships, space travel, and technology that didn't exist then but are now common. It's really amazing how ensightful this author was. If you dont' recognize the name, this is the same man that brought you the Adventures of Tarzan.
Another author that has recently caught my attention and I'm unable to pull myself away from his books is the almost prophetic author Paulo Coelho. His writings tend to be just over 100 pages or less yet his words are so full of meaning that you must come back to his books again and again. Each time you feel an 'Ah HA!' moment and an almost enlightenment. His books are like spiritual food. And I'm not even that spiritual but they just speak to me. The first book I read was the Alchemist which spoke of following your Destiny. The second book I just finished was titled Brida and spoke of finding your soulmate. However this book was written in the perspective of a woman named Brida who was going through the path of Magic and witchcraft or the occult and finding her answers through this tradition. Yet while it is offputting for some monotheistic readers as it goes into reincarnation and different practices of witchcraft, it is also eye-opening to see how connected both Christianity and witchcraft really are. I highly recommend all of these books to EVERYONE. I think you'll learn something and perhaps have your own 'Ah HA!' moments.
Also, I'm feeling like I need to be doing more even though I've got a whole list of things to do on my plate. I really want to get serious with my photography. I've been inspired lately seeing so many people starting their own pages, a young teenage friend in Korea even started her own business at just 16 years old shooting weddings! She didn't take no for an answer and went online offering to shoot weddings for free at first until she got a few under her belt and it seems now she is beginning to make some money. I was suprised with how quickly she was able to take off and am so proud of her. Way to go Dahee! You can see her page here. Every shoot she is getting exponentially better. It got me to thinking why can't I find my niche? I've got over 10,000 photos and a wide variety of genres under my belt. All I need now is to get organized..develop the photos that have turned out the best and make a diverse portfolio from everything I've done. Perhaps then I can set up an exhibition with the help of photographer friends and I'll finally do what I wanted to do which was start on me way to being a serious and respected photographer.
On Friday I had so many plans but I first had plans to meet a CSer that first contacted me when I made a post about finding new friends since I was new. We finally met up along with her friend and found we had so much to talk about. I lost all track of time and found it hard to end the night because it was going so nicely. Even when we were discussing a point of conflict (I wanted to go to school for marine biology so I could become a dolphin trainer and she is against all wild animals in captivity for the sake of profits and human enjoyment). She had some great points but so did I :) What is clear though is our love for the animal itself.
Today I spent the day reading and catching up on leaving references for people I've met through Couchsurfing. Now I'm finally catching up on my blogs which I slacked off on this past week. Hopefully I'll keep up for next week. Well..this is me signing off on my first diary entry.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
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:
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:
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.
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.
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