Sea legs

Bodhisattva? JK! From Incere Minaret Musezi

Still trying to find our balance here in Konya.  The first week was exhausting, and the second even more so!  Now all of the classes are actually meeting, so yesterday I had my first real Friday- a seven hour marathon starting with Advanced Reading at 8:30 am, and finishing with my other section of Advanced Reading at 6:20 pm.  My morning Advanced Reading was close to a trainwreck, but my afternoon class was far better and left me looking forward to next week's meeting!  Other classes are going well too- Hazirlik is becoming pretty comfortable, and Montana will only have two students this year.  On Friday, only one kid showed up, because the other student (Omer) is sick and in the hospital!  Hopefully he'll be well again soon.  Irem (who showed on Friday) and I spent our 3 hour lesson on Friday talking (and listening) about travel.

It seems that we won't be getting paid on the 15th, which is bad news.  Apparently some problem with paperwork (surprise!  bureaucracy strikes again!) and we're trying to work with Fulbright to see if there's a way to get beyond this red tape.  Also, we're still trying to get out of the Erasmus Sarayi and into faculty apartments, but feel we have exhausted our resources here.  So, we're also seeing if Fulbright can help out with that.  Keep your fingers crossed!

View from the Kale in Ankara

But now for the fun!  Last weekend, we traveled to Ankara and visited Zuhal Hanim's daughter, Canay, who's studying for her Masters there.  EB and I stayed at her apartment while Adnan stayed with one of his friends at Bilkent University.  It was great to get out of Konya for the weekend and to have access to fun things like nice people, outdoor cafes with beer, and coffee.  We had a great time and saw a musical performed by some young Turkish people (hipsters?) at the American Cultural Center.  It was William Finn's A New Brain, and featured three man-kisses and a gay-Jewish-New Yorker protagonist.  So American.  The musical itself was not very good, but the Turkish actors were great and it was so fun to go out and see a slice of Americana in Ankara.  The highlight of the trip, however, would be breakfast at Canay's.  She made menemen (my favorite) and served some of her grandma's homemade visne (sour cherry) and apricot preserves, along with some beyaz peynir and cay.  #nomz 


While in Ankara, we also met up with our ELF (English Language Fellow) Martha, who is our main contact while we're teaching here in Turkey.  She helped us out in orientation and teacher training earlier in Ankara, and it was great to see her again.  She took us to a market where we can buy cheap English language teaching books (among other books) and then we grabbed some tea and lunch.  With her was a ETA from last year, Brett.  He now has a nice teaching job at Ankara University, though he put his time in last year in a tiny town (Kirsehir) between Konya and Ankara.  I'll be back in Ankara in two weeks for a frisbee tournament, which is very exciting.  I miss playing and can't wait to get back on the field.  But Ankara was a fun trip-- we took the brand new "fast train" from Konya to Ankara (it opened in August) and then took the bus home.

Mevlana Museum

Well, last night after our tough second week, we took the tram into town, ate a touristy restaurant overlooking the Mevalana museum (the view was great) and went to the Sema hotel restaurant to watch the Turkey-Germany Euro2012 qualifying match and drink some beer.  Turkey lost, but I think we've grown on the Sema restaurant staff since our first visit with Aundreta and Michael two weeks ago, especially after we came and cheered for Turkey.

Sille!  (Photo credit: Adnan)

Tomorrow we'll try to take a day trip to somewhere interesting nearby, perhaps we'll return to Sille and see some Byzantine churches, or go out to the famous neolithic site of Çatalhöyük. It is supposed to rain though, so maybe we'll stay in town.  We have a lot of errands to do including: go shopping at a real supermarket, get some shoes/briefcases/bags for work, get a coffee maker (just an errand for me), do some dry cleaning.  And next weekend, I'm off to Istanbul!  Yay!  I'll get to see some of my buddies from my time at Bogazici, and see some Fulbrighters who are coming into town for the marathon.  I am looking forward to a great weekend next weekend.  Maybe I'll even get paid beforehand!  I'm enjoying getting out of Konya at the end of the week, which in some ways is a shame, but so far is making the placement much easier to deal with.


Also- I have a mailing address now at my office.  Don't send anything remotely valuable to this address, but letters and postcards should arrive (inshallah)

James Mayer
Selcuk Universitesi
Yabanci Diller Yuksek Okullu
Alaeddin Keykubat Kampusu
Konya, Turkey


Well, hope everyone is having a happy and healthy sweet new year.