If I only had the time...

How many times have you said, 'if I only had the time I would....'? I know I have said it hundreds of times, and now that I have more time than I really know what to do with, I wish I knew what was on that list.  I think there was:

- read more books
- organize my computer
- go for long walks
- bake
- format chemistry olympiad questions

It is partly because I dont have the same myriad distractions (softball, bells, swimming, board games) and partly because I have a signifigantly lighter course load than I ever had at Gunn, but I find my evenings long and often empty.  This is great when someone invites me over for a fish dinner, or there is a play to attend, or a movie I have wanted to watch, but it can also be lonely and I have finally gotten around to some of the things on my 'if I had more time' list. 

For one thing I have been reading a lot.  In the last 7 months these are the books I have read:

11/22/63 by Steven King
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Room by Emma Donoghue
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Peculiar Sadness of Lemon Cake by
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Self Made Man by Norah Vincent
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Stargirl by jerry Spinelli
Guillver's Travels by Johnathan Swift
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde

(More books added June 2:)
The Time Travelers Wife by  Audrey Niffenegger - read early on, but forgotten in the above list
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Now and Then by William Corlett
Bittersweet by Nevada Barr
We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Cat's Eye by Margaret Attwood

and at least two others that I read very early in my stay whose names I cant remember.   I am enjoying the reading I am doing.  I have always read, but sometimes I forget that I like it so much.  I was invited to join a book group when I got here, for which I am very grateful.  Not all of the discussion is about the book and it often gets quite loud and hard to have a discussion at all, but it has connected me to other people who like and read books and who can recommend books to me. 

Reading in a foreign country has some of its own challenges.  I dont have a kindle, but my ipod will let me download books from the internet, so I am not super limited, but the English language selection is not infinite.  The school library has an excellent collection and I could never read all of the books there, but if someone says read this book, they better have it or I might be stuck.  The older books on the list above I have been listening to on libravox.org which is cool too. 

All this concentrated reading has helped me figure out what I like about books and what isn't important to me.  I have also learned a lot about how to discuss a book and I find that changes how I read it, especially if I know I will talk about it with someone.  For instance I know I like plot driven books more than charactor driven books, although good charactors are important.  Good writing isn't super important to me, although if it is bad enough that I notice (and it has to be pretty bad) it gets in the way.  I also found out that I dont mind reading on my very small ipod screen, such that I wont need to get a kindle.

What else am I doing with all my free time?  I have been cooking some and for a while I was trying to make Turkish Delight, which no one here makes and all the Turks think I am strange for even trying.  I made one batch that was pretty good, but not very flavorful, so I switched recipies and got better flavor but no texture.  The third recipe was all texture with some flavor, but no structure.  I somehow need to find the average of these three recipies to get the perfect lokum.  Fortunately there is no shortage of people to eat my trials here and everyone says something nice like: "oh this is just like they make it in my home town." which I can never verify so I have to just take their word for it.

I should be working harder on learning Turkish.  I should be going for long walks and exploring new neighborhoods and perhaps I will now that the weather is getting nicer and next weekend we move the clocks back so the evenings will be longer.  Another thing I will be trying to do is to write more blogs.  I have run out of ideas for big blogs, (other than travel) but I could have a post that is only a couple of paragraphs and it would be ok.

PS if you have any suggestions for books I should look for here, or anything you want to hear more about, please let me know.