Stuff and nonsense

My stuff came yesterday (Wednesday)! This is very exciting and a bit perplexing. I didn't think that stuff was that important to me, and maybe it really isn't but it is turning out more important than I expected. Anyway, this is not a philosophical discussion about stuff, it is a practical discussion. In case any of you end up moving to another country with four suitcases and 1.0 cubic meters of stuff, I want to let you know how it worked for me.

 Way back in March the school sent me an email with information for new faculty. It was kindly provided in both English and Turkish and it covered topics ranging from cell phones, to shipments, to buses and pets. It was helpful, but it was overwhelming. In it there were also people to contact if I had any questions and when I wanted to get various things started.

 I could fish out that document and quote it, but I think it is more instructive for me to report what I remember it saying, since this is what I went by. I thought it said that I could ship things and that I should expect it to take 6-8 weeks door to door. There were a lot of regulations about what could be in the shipment and that anything that you ship in, must also be shipped out. So, if you bring a toaster and it breaks in the first week, you have to keep it and take it out again so that when you leave Turkey has no net gain or loss of toasters. There were helpful warnings about the fact that the electricity is different and things designed to run on 110V will get fried by 220V and things designed to run at 60Hz, will run more slowly at 50Hz. They told me I needed two packing lists and how to label my boxes. I had the impression from reading this that this is what people did and that if I was going to bring any electronics, it should go in the shipment. Once I got here, I found out neither of these things is strictly true.

 Yes, some people do ship things, but most people do not. Instead they pay for the extra luggage on the plane out of the moving allowance the school gives us. (You get the moving allowance if you don't ship things.) And then they buy anything that they might need here. It turns out that Istanbul pretty much has everything you could want (with a few key exceptions) it is after all a city of 13 million people give or take. Regarding electronics, if you are going to ship electronics, they must be in the initial shipment (as opposed to being shipped later), however, it is best not to ship electronics, but pack them with you, since this is what gets held up in customs. Ok, hind sight and all that, now back to my story.

 The school contracts with a company in New Jersey or New York or somewhere to arrange the shipping. I email them saying I would like my shipment to leave my house on Monday July 10th. I think I said this several times, so when the last email I got from them before the 10th, was call us on the 10th to arrange a day to pick it up, I was frustrated. When I reiterated, they capitulated and sent someone to pick up the boxes on the 10th. My shipping allowance was 1.5 cubic meters, of which I used only 1.0 m3. To get an idea of how big this is, think about a cube that is 5 feet on a side. Many floor tiles are one foot square if you need help estimating that. Anyway, in three dimensions, that is pretty big. I had 8 cardboard boxes, 7 of which were shipped to Gunn with new microscopes in them from China, so I felt like I was almost closing the loop, bringing those boxes the rest of the way around the world. None of my boxes was over 50 pounds, as was required, and there was a packing list in each box as well as the two versions I sent to the shipping company.

 From my house the boxes went to the east bay somewhere awaiting a truck to New York. I am not sure how long they waited, or what path that truck took, but it was the first week of August before they got to New York, three weeks down already. Now the school was supposed to pay for the shipment, so I was surprised when I got an email from the shippers saying that if I didn't wire them $1600 by Monday my stuff would miss the boat. I told them I thought the school was paying, I emailed the school saying, I thought you were paying, and the response I got from everyone was, just go ahead and pay it and we'll work it out later. Oh, yeah, like I always have $1600 lying around to wire across the country. Well, I did wire it, with the help of my Uncle, since I was in Salt Lake City at the time and I thought we were on our way.

 I arrived in Istanbul on August 18th, 5 1/2 weeks after I sent the shipment. I have casual clothes with me, no problem; the first week is new teacher orientation and is very casual. My second week was the bayram, so no need for nice clothes, but 7 weeks after I shipped, the entire burro racy in Turkey stops working for a week. The shipper reports that it arrived on August 31st and should be in port, I just can’t get it. Ok, after the bayram we have another week of teacher meetings etc. which can be mostly casual. School didn't start until 9 weeks after I shipped. I was getting nervous. I made the mistake of shipping all of my teaching clothes and the school takes dress code very seriously. I shared my plight with enough people that eventually someone offered to take me shopping. This was great, I had clothes to teach in, but they were not my clothes and not really my style, not to mention that I had to pay a lot for them when I had just bought a bunch of new clothes for the trip.

 As soon as the bayram is over, customs can start and I may still make it, right? Nope, before anything can be done, I need a residency permit. The teachers who arrived the day before I did got their residency permits before the bayram, but for want of one day, I waited 10. Jack, Janelle and I ducked out of some technology training for a quick trip to the police station to get our permits. I am very grateful that I don’t have to do any of this on my own, the school is taking care of everything, they just say show up here at this time, sign this paper, go with this driver, etc. They make it easy for me and I know it is not the school's time schedule that is dictating how slowly things go.

 Ok, residency permit check, now I can get the boxes right? Where is the bill of lading? The bill of what? I didn't even know that lading was a word. Aylin takes me home in the middle of the day to get my binder of papers, but none of them are the right ones. I email New Jersey or New York and they say that it was sent with the shipment, but they have a pdf of it which they attach. I forward that to Aylin and we are back in business, but it is now weekend and so maybe next week, maybe next Friday. Ok, there goes the first week of school. I have three pairs of pants and three shirts, plus the one button down I packed as an over shirt. I don’t have any proper shoes, so I wear sandals for the first few days, but my conscience gets to me and I switch to cons, cons that don’t match. In the flag ceremony (which is worth an entire blog by itself) the head of discipline announces/reminds the student that they must be in dress code every day and that includes single colored socks. Really? No stripes, no argyle? No fortune cookies? No aliens? I am counting on no one looking too carefully at my socks, I know I'll distract them with my shoes, and there was nothing in the announcement that you shoes had to match.

Monday of the second week of school comes and I get an email from Tilek, Aylin's assistant, what time can I be home on Tuesday to receive my shipment? School gets out at 3:15, I teach last period on Tuesdays, if I hurry, maybe 3:30. Ok, it is scheduled to come at 4. This is the best news all week! I start to believe that it might actually happen; I hadn't had a specific time before. So, I email Elvan who is in charge of the maintenance of the teacher housing. Can I meet you at the furniture warehouse tomorrow; I'd like to choose a few book shelves and a bigger table? Yes, she can meet me Tuesday morning! Everything is coming together. What makes it even better is that I did decide to hire the cleaning lady, but just once a month, and she was also coming on Tuesday. I had a strong candidate for most improved apartment of the month going. Of course it didn't work out like that.

Dilek sent me an email just as I was leaving school on Tuesday, the shipment was delayed. I still left promptly and by the time I got home, she responded to my hopeful question, that perhaps it would still come on Tuesday, just not at 4, no, tomorrow. So I went for a walk, made dinner and tried not to sulk too much. The silver lining was that my apartment was very clean and the furniture hadn't arrived yet anyway. I may still make most improved apartment status on Wednesday.

Again I am home before four, anxiously waiting a delivery truck. Four flies by, five saunters by too. Six is getting ready to sneak by when I get a call, 'we are sorry for the delay in your shipment, would you still like it to come today? YES! I will wait all night, no problem, just send it. Ok, 30 minutes. Great! At 6:40 or so I get another call, the only word I understand is 'security' so I say, ok, I'll come down stairs, not that they could understand that. When I went down to the security office in my building, they had no idea what I wanted; apparently they weren't the ones that called. Not sure what to do, I went back up to my apartment just in time to get another phone call. The security who had called found a student to help translate.

Student: "You have a package."

Me: "One package, or many packages?" I guess it is possible I would get a separate package at the exact time I was waiting for my shipment.
Student: "One package, it is at the bridge gate."
Me: "How big is it? Can I carry it?"
Student: "you can carry it."
Me: "Should I come get it?"
Student: "No, they will bring it to the lower parking lot."
Me: "Great"

This sounds like it! I find shoes and knock on Christine and Danny's door, across the hall. I promise chocolate chip cookies if they will help me bring up my boxes. They say bribes are not necessary, and come down. We waited what felt like at least 5 minutes. The bridge gate is not that far, and it was at least three minutes before we were down stairs. Maybe my sense of time is not that accurate. Eventually a promising looking truck pulled up and the driver opened the back to reveal a big pine box. He worked on it with a crowbar for several minutes to get the top pried off but never could get the sides off. Eventually he just started lifting the boxes out from the top. The first two were just for taking up space and he opened them and showed me that they were empty before tossing them further into the truck. Then my boxes started to appear. The three of us took them into to the entry way as they came out. The first layer wasn't so bad, but to get the second layer, the driver had to turn the box on its side, which made me cringe a little. Once all of the boxes were out, Christine, who has only been here a year, but who put a lot of effort into learning Turkish asked him if there was anything I needed to sign, or papers he needed to give me. He didn't completely understand, but tried to call someone, who didn't answer, and eventually they decided that no, I didn't need to sign anything. Ok, we said good bye and thank you and then hauled the boxes up one flight of stairs to my apartment.

I spent the next three hours unpacking 6 of the 8 boxes. I didn't unpack the games since I didn't have anywhere to put them yet and I wanted to get all of the loaner things out of the kitchen before I unpacked that box. Besides teaching clothes, it was those two boxes that I was most looking forward to, so gratification was delayed, but anticipation was amplified.

Thursday after school, I cleaned out the kitchen and packed up the loaner items (sheets, pillows, towels and kitchen stuff) and put my kitchen stuff in its place. My furniture still hadn't arrived, but the carpenter had been in to hang up my mirror, a screw for my clock and the knife magnet I got at Ikea. I took the door off the corner cabinet, making it much more useful and I put all of my items in their places. For being so into cooking, I really didn't bring that much kitchen stuff. Like, why didn't I bring a cutting board? A cheese grater? Hot pads? A pitcher? Oh, I know, it is because I needed 500 t shirts that I can't wear to school anyway. What was I thinking?

I am glad to have more soap and familiar toothpaste. Sharp knives are fantastic and I can see hours of game playing. But I guess I was really doing all right with the minimum that I brought, I know now I can survive with even less than I think I can. This makes me think about all the stuff I didn't bring. Will I miss it? What will I do with it when I return? If I am smart, I won’t just reinstall it into my life without examining whether I really need it. And then there are things that I didn't bring but wish I had. A mornings shopping in Eminunu and I have a SCART connector, stamp pads, a pitcher and a cheese grater, so it is going to be all right, but if you come to visit, pack corn syrup and chocolate chips (-:

PS this is now Sunday and I am finally publishing this blog.  Several things delayed my finishing of it, none were bad, just inconvenient.  Thanks for your patience.

God is a cauliflower

My dad has been video recording (I can't say taping) the church services at Grace Lutheran for as long as I can remember.  When I was in elementary school I would sit up in the balcony with him and Tim (I) and half pay attention and half read.  He is well known in town for recording CMT and various school plays.  I have watched segments of the church services, usually when we are playing bells or when something out of the ordinary happened.  The service is broadcast on the public access channel in Palo Alto, which in turn streams its content on the internet.  Every Sunday at 9pm I watch this strem from Istanbul.  The familiar songs, voices, faces and liturgies are very comforting.  Tonight I am watching the service from September 11th.  For some reason, September 11th is not a big deal here, but just based on the facebook posts from last week, it was almost the only deal back home.  The readings were on forgiveness and Pastor Matt is talking about how easy it is to destroy, but how hard it is to build back up.  These were the readings I heard last week too; the Lutherans and the Anglicans use the same lectionary. 

Two weeks ago I went to the Dutch Reformed church, last week was the Anglicans, today I went to Saint Anthony's Catholic church.  The first was not enough liturgy, the second was nothing but, and today was just weird.  It was a familiar structure, a good amount of liturgy, but it was weird.  The choir was, as far as I could tell, entirely Asian (Vietnamese?) women.  The officiants were all black, including the priest who preached.  It made me think of going to church in Cameroon in 2001.  What has surprised me at all three services was that no one spoke to me, to ask if I was new, to even ask my name.  The first two were small 30-50 people and it seemed like they were a pretty stable group, so I would have guessed that a new person would have been obvious.  Today, I would guess there were over 200 people at the service, including many obvious tourists, so it was not as odd that no one approached me.  It also surprised me that none of the churches had an announcement/information page. 

So, what am I looking for?  What is important to me about a church?  I know that I am looking for an off campus community.  I am looking for friendly faces with similar backgrounds and histories.  I am looking for a comfortable place.  Did I find it?  I dont know.  Unlike in the Goldilocks fairytale, there was no 'just right' but I came to Istanbul to get out of my comfort zone, out of my rut, so I am going to give all three another look, not to find a perfect fit, but to seek people who are willing to accomdate my discomfort.  And I can always get a good bowl of porriage at 9pm on public access channel 30.  God really is a caring father.

The First Week

This week has been a roller coaster of emotions. I am writing this on the Thursday of my first week and I am currently in a pretty good place. I came down the hill (literally) right after school was out, played some plants vs. zombies and made a really tasty dinner, I have good energy and feel like I am going to make it. It hasn't been like this for much of the week. When I was down (metaphorically) I didn't have the energy to write, but I dont want to let it go too far before getting my thoughts down to make this as realistic as possible a record of what it was like to be here and do this.

 I think most of my issue was uncertainty. I have taught at the same school for the last six years and I know what is going to happen at the pre school meeting, on the first day, after lunch, etc. Because I knew what was going to happen, it was very comfortable. I got used to comfortable to the point where I wanted to know everything that was going to happen before I did anything new. I recognized this in myself over the last three years or so. I didn't want to do something if I didn't know what was going to happen. I think this was a step in a dangerous direction, I could feel myself getting old and set in my ways. I didn't use to be like that and I didn't want to be like that. This is part of the rut I came here to get out of. Of course it was going to be hard, I just didn't think it through from this perpsective.

 As I have already written (see First day of School) on Sunday night I had my first day's lesson ready and I slept well. Monday was good. I got to meet the students and it turned out they were just teenagers, not unlike the ones I left in California. I finished preparing for Tuesday and I watched a movie. I also made banana bread, but I put too much salt in it and it made me feel sick, not to mention not tasting very good, so I threw it away. Baking was comforting, which I needed, but when it didn't come out I think it threw me off kilter a bit. I went to bed early an a bit out of sorts.

 Tuesday was rough. I always have a hard time with the second day of school. The adreniline of the first day wears off and the fact that it is work comes into view. Tuesday is also my longest day. I start at 8:15 and teach five periods ending at 3:15 and in there I have 'outdoor duty' where I walk around campus looking for smoking students (I didn't find any, but I did get hot and sweaty). Classes had gone ok, but I had focused on things that the other teachers didn't/won't cover and I was doubting myself and wondering if I was wasting the students time.

People are always asking how is it going?  I am sure they are just being courteous and they probably remember their first week here and so probably could empathize with what I am going through.  I can't seem to tell them, maybe it is my British stiff upper lip.  I do wonder if they can tell that I was not doing well.  I know that when I am stressed or just barely coping, I shut off all extraneous actions and words.  As if I am conserving resources to keep my core alive.  I dont hum, I dont meet peoples eyes, I dont make small talk, I dont engage.  I see this as a survival tactic, but I imagine it can be taken as rude and I am increasingly aware that I am probably pretty easy to read.   I came home and watched another movie and made genius cards rather than preparing for the rest of the week.

 Wednesday wasn't any better. I could feel myself speaking in stilted English and even at lunch I felt like I was just having the same conversation over and over again. I couldn't imagine why I wanted to teach abroad. The best I could come up with was that I wanted to be the sort of person who has taught abroad. (How is that for a sentance, huh? it is a far cry from "my name Heather" or 'Tarzan Turkish' as Marshall aptly calls it.) I shutter to think what would have happened if I actually got into the Peace Corps back in 2000. Could I have handled that? Really, this is a pretty cushy job. I have a nice and big-enough apartment on campus. There is a bus to take me up the hill to school. There is another bus to take me to the store or to down town and both of these busses stop at my apartment. The school campus is gorgeous, I have my cat and the students are great. If I can't handle this, how could I handle anything? Recognizing that I wasn't going to improve my mood by sequestering myself with my discontent, I invited myself over to Keeley's house after school for a chat and a couple of games of backgammon. He is a good listener and I left there feeling a little better. I worked on seating charts and watched another movie.

 This morning I had a later start, my first class was fourth period, at 10. I spent the morning getting ahead a little bit. Classes went well before lunch and I sat with two of the other new teachers in the cafeteria. Janelle said that she is very glad that she feels confident with her content since there are so many other things to adjust to, but she wonders how Lizzy is doing, this being her first year teaching. I completely agreed with Janelle about being glad that I didn't have to worry about what I was teaching, but I didn't think that Lizzy's experience would be all that more difficult than a first year of teaching is anywhere. Everything is new to her and this will set the standard for how things are done. Instead of trying to switch mindsets or adjust what she has done to fit what she needs to do, she is just starting out with this configuration. So she may have fewer issues to deal with than some of us with more experience who are set in our ways and I imagine that she has a lot more support here than she would at many schools in the US. Not that the first year of teaching is ever easy, I just think this isn't such a bad place to have your first year. Anyway, that was a good conversation and I went into the afternoon feeling pretty good. I was also still pondering something Ipek said to me in the copy room this morning. She said something like, the kids are going to like me because I exude smartness. I think I know what she meant, but I am still trying to wrap my head around this.

 My afternoon class was a double period of advanced. It has been in the 80s here during the day. It is very pleasant when you are doing anything, but walking from one building to the next, or standing in front of a class teaching is enough to make me sweat. None of the buildings are air conditioned (computer labs have individual air-conditioning units) and for rooms with afternoon sun, they can be quite toasty. The students are also hot and sweaty and there is always a negotiation for the fan. Yesterday this AC (advanced chemistry) was struggling with the fan, trying to get it to oscillate (unsuccessfully) when Çidem, the lab tech, came in with a second one, it was lovely to have two. I have been very honest with the students, especially the AC kids. They know what they learned in IC (introductory chemistry) but since I am teaching it for the first time while I am teaching AC, I don’t really know the details of the curriculum. So even though I am reviewing with them, I can only guess what they actually learned and they need to tell me if something I am saying is new to them. They have been very helpful with feedback and correcting my seating charts. (The alphabet is a real problem here.) Anyway, class went well and I was out of battery, so I couldn't do any more work at school, I had to come home.

 As I alluded to above, I played some video games before making dinner. I am a little worried about my video game habits. I can see that I spend too much time playing games, but I also know that I need to have some retreat from the world. I can play for 5-10 minutes and have the strength to reenter the world. I had thought I would go to the grocery store to buy things for dinner, but I had two eggplants. Last week some time I mentioned to Sandra that I would like to take Turkish cooking lessons and she sent me a link to a blog about cooking in Turkey.

http://seasonalcookinturkey.blogspot.com/2011/09/imam-bayldthe-imam-fainted-another.html

The day she sent it, the topic happened to be an eggplant recipe, so I thought I would try it. Quite coincidentally I had everything but the parsley. I made it and it was super tasty. I even used a dark green skinny pepper which gave it some serious kick.

It was even better with some cheese crumbled over the top.  Oh, and did you catch the name of this dish?  The Imam Fainted. 

Anyway, I am feeling pretty good tonight.  Still wishing I had off campus things to do, and people to see, but I am not even too worried about back to school Saturday (9am to 2pm!)

Today I am thankful for KFOG, which streams their broadcast, and with the time change, I get to hear the morning show in my evening and Ann, who has taken time from her crazy busy week to skype with me during my toughest times and to you, who read to the end of this rambling post that if I went back to read, I am sure I would realize that this last sentance is not the only run on sentence and that there probably isnt much cohearence to it, but plenty of spelling errors...

First Day Of School

7:15am I actually slept pretty well last night, falling asleep before midnight, but I woke up early thinking about what I had to do, even making up things I dont have to do.  I am ready for today with my genius cards, pens, pencils, camera and demos. I just want to get started as I feel that so many of my doubts will be addressed once I meet the students.  I have wanted to prepare a calendar, so that I have a plan for a few weeks at least, but I dont know what pace I can use, or how long 40 minutes really is.  I also dont really have a handle on how much homework I can give.  Over and over I feel like I run in to the ambiguity or even the mixed messages of "we all need to do the same thing" and "you can do what you'd like."  I appreciate that two students of the same ability in the same course who do the same amount of work should get the same grade.  Of course this is true.  I just dont know what that looks like here yet. 

8:00 am Anyway, I was early for the bus, not wanting to leave without me and it didnt leave until 7:34 by my watch.  I was dropped off at the back of campus near the science building and went into my office.  Sibel was already here and asked if I had slept.  Ipek dropped by with a card of good wishes, and I looked at my moodle page.  I just added a tag line that says welcome to my class and a link to webelements.com.  The hall got very loud at 7:57 as the students arrived for homeroom at 8.  New teachers dont get a homeroom, for which I am grateful.  There is a whole school meeting at 9am in the maze (the whole school doesnt fit in the theater at once) for the opening flag ceremony and announcements.  This will be at the same time as my first class would be on a regular Monday.  After the meeting everyone goes to their 4th period class.  My next class is double intro 5th period. 

9:44am We are just back from the opening ceremony.  The setting was beautiful.  We were in the maze, which is an outdoor ampitheater with the center part filled with chairs.  Students sat by homeroom, but there were extra people there with some parents and graduates also attending.  There was a brief welcome, then we stood to sing the Turkish national anthem.  The headmaster, John Chandler spoke first with a L11 student providing the Turkish translation.  It was particularly funny when John was talking about Farhat and thanking him for translating, which then he had to translate.  The Turkish director, Gular spoke next and then a student - maybe the class president? They both spoke in Turkish, so I dont know what they said.  It kind of felt like one of those Gary Larson cartoons, where the human speaks and the dog just hears his name and food amongst all the blah blah blahs.  I picked out teacher and student several times, but that was it. 

The students look just like students anywhere, if better dressed.  They smiled and yawned, they played with their ties and picked their nails, they laughed and they shaded their eyes from the sun when it peeked through the trees.  Even though I didn't understand much of what was going on , it was good to get a reminder that these kids are not that different from the kids I know back home.  Now it is tea break and I dont teach next period anyway, so I have a bit more time to sit.

1pm:  I have finished my first two lessons and they went just fine.  My first class has only 12 students in it, they are L10 so their English is better and I have been told that they are more squirly as L10 taking intro than they would be if they were L9, so it is nice to have a small class.  We did genius cards and I found that they need the same encouragement to be creative as my Gunn students would.  The hardest part was switching between the rooms in the 5 minute passing.  Even though it is only across the hall, when I have my stuff spread out and demos to clean up, the time was tight.  Bells ring.  No, I mean bells.  None of this electronically generated buzzer sounds, actual bells, which is a bit disturbing at first, but it is clear when it is time to switch classes.  The students names were a bit of a challenge, but they were very helpful.  Oddly, many of them go by their middle names.  The IC kids were very surprised when I ate the candle after they had 'observed' that it was made of wax and that it was melting.  The AC kids guessed right away that it was made of cheese or potato, even after I lit it.  They were still surprised when I ate it. (-:

1:50pm:  I am back from lunch and I dont have another class today.  I downed four glasses of water straight off.  Note to self: bring water to class.  Lunch is provided for all staff and students and it is pretty good.  There are always a few choices of meet and then a starch and vegitable as well as soup and fruit in addition to a salad bar.  The salad bar has always had tomatos and cucumbers, grated carrots and yogurt, but the other slots change with the day, lettus, pasta salad, potato salad, bean salad, etc.  One of my favorite discoveries at the salad bar is pomegranate syrup/vinegar.  It is sweet and tart and thinker than vinegar.  It is very tasty on the tomato/cucumber salad.  There is usually a dessert as well.  Today was a rice pudding with carmalized top, yum!  When you sit down to eat, you say afitosen, which I am sure I didn't spell correctly.  At first I thought people were saying goodbye in German, but no, it means someting like bon apatite, which I probably also didn't spell correctly.  (As a side note:  I am not a good speller in English and trying to spell something in another language is harder.  Also, I am using a Turkish keyboard set to English.  This means that if I am touch typing (thank you Mr. Froli) I only have issues with the location of the shift key, which is farther away due to the additional keys for the Turkish letters.  If I am not touch typing, for instance with - and = etc, the keys are not labled correctly so there is a bit of guess and check.  None of this excuses my spelling, but I hoped the story would distract you from worrying about it too much.)

Next to work on pictures and homework schedules for tomorrow. 

Getting Ready for School

School starts on Monday. Everybody else I know has been in school for at least two weeks, and many 3 or 4 weeks. Our school schedule is set by the Turkish Ministry of Education; I don't know what they use to determine the start date. Many Turkish students take AP tests, but it is not at the same level as in the US. There is a college entrance exam that all? seniors take, which is in the first week of April, even before APs. I have heard people talk about how lise 12 is basically over at the semester since students come to school less and spend more time in their darsane (sp?) basically cram school in preparation for the entrance exam. I wonder what goes on in them...anyway, there was a sigh of relief when it was discovered that there are no L12 students in advanced chem this year. Anyway, my point is, if the exams are in April, I would have thought that starting school earlier and ending earlier would be better, but then the ministry sets the exam date as well, so who can know.

This past week has been super hectic. I guess they usually have 1 1/2 or 2 weeks to get ready for school to start, but this year because of the bayram, it was all squished into one week, which was basically non-stop meetings, including 12 hours of tech training on how to use microsoft office 2010 and windows 7 on the new laptops that IT just passed out to every teacher and admin. We were separated by content area and I guess science had one of the better instructors, but they definately had a curriculum and were determined to stick with it regardless of the needs of the audience.

This was also the first week I really got to meet the other chemistry teachers and to get a sence of the department. As I think I mentioned before, one of the things I liked about RC was that there is a chemistry department, I was looking forward to collaborating with colleagues rather than being the whole department at a smaller school. There are four chemistry teachers, although one also teaches prep science. They are all very helpful and will answer all of my questions with patience and I have a lot of questions. My major issue is just how close together do we need to be? It has been stressed over and over that the courses need to be the same between teachers or the students feel that it is unfair. "My friend's teacher gave an extra worksheet" is not a concern for having too much work, but rather not enough practice and therefore a disadvantage for the exam.

Tests are an interesting subject, we all signed up for all the test days we will use on the Friday before school starts. The ministry says a student may not have more than two tests in a given day, so there is a scheduling website which knows every students schedule. I plug in that my section 5 advanced chemistry class will take a test on Friday Nov 7th and it checks that no one in that class has another test scheduled for that day. If even a single student does, I can not give my test then. What will I be doing on Nov 6th, you ask? It doesnt matter exactly where I am in the curriculum, not at the end of a unit? no problem, I just test on what I have covered up to then. This seems backwards to me, but when the students have 10 periods a day, and as many as 12-14 classes a week, I guess it is a safety valve for them. Science, and especially Tony, is known for getting their test dates in early to the chigrin of the other teachers. So, Nov 7th is an AC test, for all the AC sections which meet throughout the day. If two happen to be at the same time, great, they can have the same test, but next period, it has to be a different test, after lunch, another test. I think there are 6 sections of AC, so we will need to write 4 versions of the test. There are 10 sections of introductory chemistry, and there is no day that they all meet, so I think we need 6 versions of the test. I asked, can we just change the numbers, and the answer is no, we have to change to question. Remember, telling your friend what is on the test is not cheating, its helping.

Ok, so I know when the tests are, that gives me a framework for timing.  Jim and Tony have given me copies of the AC and IC tests, so I know about what needs to be covered by those times, I have the Atlas curriculum map, which gives the 'units' and their timing, and I have a folder full of labs, some of which aren't done anymore, but it isn't clear which.  This should be enough, I should be grateful that I can fill in the details myself with exactly how I get from here to there, and I am sure I will be grateful once I get the swing of things, but right now I am worrying about the details.  No body makes a unit calendar, so I dont know how much homework they assign on a given night, or what topics they emphasize.  If I felt like I had autonomy I wouldn't mind, but I feel like I wont know where the end of my leash is until I strangle myself. 

Enough about that, I will just have to get my feet wet before I know what strokes I want to use. 

Teachers are not the only folks preparing for the new school year.  Maintainance has been repainting things and the fleet of minibusses have been spiffed up and are ready to go.  Yesterday on my way back from Ulus at the top of campus, I chose not to walk through campus, but around it and found the 'okul taksi' staging area.  I think I saw more than 15 busses parked, or being labled or otherwise getting ready for Monday.  Of the 1000 students that attend this five year school, 185 live on campus and the other 815 live close enough to comute.  I think some parents drop off studnts, but most come on the service bus which goes door to door morning and afternoon all over the city. 

Grateful

Almost everyone here is super helpful, at least as helpful as they can be.  Today I am grateful for:

Sandra, who called to order water for me, and who set up an automatic delivery, so neither of us has to call again.

Jenny, who not only took me clothes shopping last week, invited me to dinner for the opening of anchovy season. 

Janelle, whose mother packed me some baking power when she packed stuff for Janelle that came with her friend.

Metin, who set up a cell phone plan for me.

Tania, who keeps inviting me to potlucks and who gave me an old phone so I wouldn't have to buy one.

Keeley, who beat me in a best of three backgammon tournament this afternoon.

Tony, who answered my insessant questions about chemistry curriculum. 

John, who showed me where the churches were and then asked how it went.

and Orange, who missed the box again last night, but keeps me company with her fuzzy softness.

"The Chow Down" followed by the melt down.

RC doesn't call it the chow down really, but those of you from Gunn will know just what I mean.  We started with snacks, then went into the theater for the whole school staff meeting and then we met in departments.  It was the first day of school for teachers.  This day can be a lot of fun when you haven't seen your friends all summer and you have adventures to catch up on, but when you are new and have already been on campus for two weeks and are saturated with meeting new people it is more of a drag. 

The meeting was pretty much like any other first day of school meeting, new people are introduced, schedules are laid out, reminders are given, etc.  This was the first opening day of school I had ever been to with a simultaneous translator and headphones for us to wear.  There was a woman in the AV booth who would translate in real time Turkish to English and English to Turkish.  I thought they were cool, and I was glad to have them, but the original speaker was a bit too loud and the translator was hard to hear (even with the volume turned up.)

There was a whole staff picture after the meeting and then department pictures later on, so today was the first dress up day.  The Turks take their appearance very seriously and they expect teachers to dress nicely.  This is not something I am good at, and my box of teacher clothes aren't here yet, but thanks to Jenny, I did have appropriate clothes to wear today, which weren't too uncomfortable. 

After lunch in the cafeteria we had a science department meeting followed by a chemistry team meeting.  There are about 12 people in the science department, four chemists, 3? bio, and 5 who teach a combination of physics and prep science.  One of the things that attracted me to RC was that I would have colleagues to teach with instead of being the physical science teacher.  There are also two lab techs, one for physics (and chem) and the other for bio (and chem.)  I am not sure it is a good thing that both of them are secondarily responsible for chemistry, it may mean that it falls through the cracks...(Especially since one of them quit on Tuesday!)

When I started hearing about how we needed to be the same, so that the students wouldn't complain that one teacher was giving more work (ie was teaching more) than another and how we would all give our tests on the same day, which will be chosen on Friday without connection to unit progress.  Oh, and the test needs to be the same for every class during a given period, but different from one period to the next, but feel free to teach your own way and do the labs you want to do, as long as they are these labs.  And you need to give the lycee office a copy of your lesson plans for the week so they can keep them on file and when the students come from all the same homeroom they will have a lesson book that you need to sign in blue or black ink, unless you teach an elective, in that case, there is no book to sign, just the lesson plans to turn in.  Fortunately you just teach in three different rooms, but it isn't so bad, they are all on the same floor and did we mention that the classes meet on different days at different times in different rooms?  Right.  Anyways, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.  This on top of the facts that the periods are only 40 minutes and the order is completely different from what I am used to. 

Today (Tuesday, the day after all of those revelations) I worked from 7:45 to my Turkish lesson at 4.  I have three unit plans for intro chem, which gets us up to the first test.  I have textbook readings, essential questions and objectives.  I have fit in the labs and think I will have covered everything they will be tested on.  It took all day, but I feel much better having my head wrapped around it.  If tomorrow weren't tech training I would do the same thing with the Advanced chem.  Advanced chem will be harder since they meet for 6 periods a week instead of 4 and their lab day (double period) does not fall at the same place in the week.  When I asked Tony about that he said it is almost imossible to keep them in sync and that the labs wont really kick in for a couple of weeks, so just keep going with theory.  When the labs do kick in, they are almost decoupled from the lecture, so consider it a 4 period lecture class with an independant 2 period lab class.  I guess I'll give it a try.

An Island Get Away

On Friday, Marshall and I had a vacation from our vacation and did what the other Istanbulites do, we went to the Islands, the Prince's Islands.  Located just off the shore from the Asian side of Istanbul, they are easy to get to on a Ferry.  The slow ferry cost 5 TL and takes just under two hours.  I think we may actually have over paid by taking a private ferry company rather than the one that uses our Istanbul card, but oh well. 

The ferry ride was an opportunity for people watching as well as seeing the city from the outside.  The first interesting charactor we met was the little boy sitting across from us.  My guess is he was hoping that no one would sit on the bench at the edge of the boat so he would have an unobstructed view out wihtout having to crane his neck.  The boat was full, if we didn't take those seats, someone else would have so get over it kid!  He seemed like a whiner, and he had an interesting shirt.  I dont know very much about Spongebob, maybe someone else can decifer his shirt.


The next act came from a salesman plying his wares.  He started out with a collapsable walking stick.  He mimed being short and using it, then extending it and being tall and using it.  He showed that you could take the tip off if you wanted to walk on soft ground, but you better put it back on if walking on hard ground or you could slip.  The best part was still to come.  Not only could tall and short people use this stick, not only could you use it on hard and soft ground, but it also could be used in the dark!  It has a built in flashlight and for the low low price of 10TL he would throw in 10 extra batteries for the flashlight.  What an amazing deal.  A lot of people went for it too. 

After saturating the market with walking sticks, he brought out his next commodity, the citrus juicer.  It was just a plastic tube with screw ridges on one side.  You screw this into a lemon and then gently massage the lemon until the upper part of the tube fills with juice.  Pouring this out into a separate cup, you can massage again and fill the tube again, three or four more times!  These he was selling 6 for 5 TL.  I am not sure why you would want 6 of them, but again he had a lot of buyers.  I was really impressed with his salesmanship.  It was done almost entirely in pantomime and non-words like 'aya!' He did say 'ten lira' in English, so he knew his audience was mixed.  There were other sellers on the boat with water or yoyo tops, but none of them had the same schtick. 

Buyukada (large island) was the second stop and we got out without really knowing what we were going to do. 

So we walked up, and at each intersection we took the road that went up, until we got to the top of the island which was covered with a pine forest (stone pines maybe) next to a graveyard and a religious building of some sort.  We sat there for a little while cooling off and chatting before coming down again. 

There are no cars (other than emergency vehicles) on the islands but a lot of people ride bike (some with motor assist) and there were lots of horses, some pulling carriages, and others just wondering free.  People do live there year round, but most of the apartments are summer and weekend places of people who live in Istanbul and need a chance to get out of town from time to time. 

 

Back down the hill we were ready for lunch, but it was hard to know one place from the next so we stopped when a guy asked us if we wanted to eat there. I gave him credit for making the effort. It was pretty expensive, but we couldn't beat the view and the food was pretty good.

We got back on the same ferry heading back to town and the walking stick sales man did his show again.  (We had seen him plying his wears along the water front while we were eating as well.)  He had at least as many takers for the juicer if not quite as many for the walking stick on the second trip.

Unfortunately the day we went it was kind of hazy, so the pictures didn't turn out quite as well as I would have liked, but what really struck me on the way back was just how big Istanbul is.  I have read that it is a city of 13 million people and the 5th largest city in the world (the largest in Europe) but I guess I had no idea just how much space that many people take up.  The city is also very dense.  I had realized that when I was walking in Istiklal, but even at the edges, there is no urban sprall, it is city an then it is forest and the city goes on and on and on. 

 

Holy Tourism Batman! Part 3: finding my way home

Before leaving Hagia Sophia completely, I visited the Sultan’s Mausoleums.  Each building had a different geometry inside from outside, as in, on the outside it was an octagon, but on the inside a square.  Why? 

The tiling on the inside was beautiful and different in each. 

There were ‘symbolic coffins’ in each building for the sultan, his wives and their children.  I guess many of them died as infants based on how small they were.  Again, unconfirmed speculation, but the ones with turbans may have been sons? 

I took a quick break for lunch and went back to the Kofte place that Metin took us too last week to break the ramazan fast.  It was tasty again, although this time I didn’t have the company or quite the level of hunger, so it was just good instead of gooood. 

Revitalized, I decided I could be a tourist for just a bit longer and followed the signs to the Bascillica Cistern.  I rented an audio guide, but it was a waste of money since it only told me one thing that wasn’t already on the signs posted (in English) around the place.  It was pretty cool, literally and figuratively, a giant cavern under the city with maybe 18 inches of water and lots of big fish. 

(Perhaps this was more interesting to me because the cistern and the water ways also featured prominently in “The Snake Stone.”)  Of course it was dark down there and my pictures are either short sighted, if taken with a flash, or red and blurry if taken without.  It was built to store water from the Belgrade forest something like 16km away, carried there by aqueduct.  There were a couple of different styles of columns, some ionic, doric, and Corinthian.  The one with the peacock feathers was unique and the two with Medussa’s heads under them were pretty cool.  Clearly they were placed there on purpose but why upside down?  And why use them at all?

Leaving the cistern, I was disoriented, but found the tram tracks and followed them until I found a station and retraced my steps back home completing my mega tourist day!  There is still more to do ‘down town,’ at the very least, Topikapi palace and the archeological museum, but I have to leave something to see in the next two years, right?

While I am thinking about it, and as a bonus to those of you who made it to the end of this epic day, I might take a minute to ponder the idea of two years.  I was surprised at the mixed responses from the other new teachers regarding what they see their plans are for staying or leaving after the two year contract is up.  I don’t think any of them have a specific job to go back to and some flat out said that they weren’t going back.  Right now I am heavily leaning towards going back at the end of my contract.  For comparison purposes, let’s say I am at 95/5 for going back.  This is probably the highest percentage I have had since I started the process and that I have been as low as 80/20 at some points.  I am fortunate in that I will most likely have a job when I get back (assuming my second year of leave is approved) and that I liked that job (maybe in two years things will have settled down on campus as well).   What keeps the 5% in there is that I really don’t want to settle right back into the rut I was in when I left.  I recognize that I am still adjusting, I don’t feel comfortable, I am missing friends and family, and this will certainly change over time.  Anyway, maybe I’ll check in with this from time to time to see where I am.