Highlights

My sister is here now and I have been doing some sightseeing with her between commitments at school for the end of the term.  She is not the only tourist in Istanbul right now, in fact it seems overrun with them.  I am sure there were just as many in August when I arrived, but without a comparison, and with everything so new, I didn't notice.  I try to be helpful to tourists who are consulting maps or acting confused on the bus, so I started a conversation with a couple me met on the tram.  After sorting out which stop they needed, and establishing that they had been in Istanbul for a week, I asked them what their highlights were.  I don't remember what they said, since when they turned the question around on me, I couldn't answer and that bothers me.  "It's complicated," I said, "I need some perspective," but it continues to bother me.  Not just what are my highlights, but why can't I call them to mind easily?

Maybe it is like going into the liqueur store to buy vodka to make vanilla extract and being confronted with shelves and shelves of different kinds.  I have just too many highlights to choose just a couple. 

Maybe it is too much like real life and not enough like a special event that nothing really sticks out.

Maybe it is the end of the school year and a really busy/hard time to remember the good times.

Maybe I am just too far down a valley to see the peaks. 

I do know that I need an answer to this question.  People are going to ask and they are not going to be satisfied with, "ask again in a month" or "let me think about it."  So I am trying to do my thinking now, so I am ready with my answer.  Of course, for the folks that have read this, maybe I wont have to answer at all...

Digression:  I spent 6 weeks teaching English in China in the summer of 1994.  I was thinking about quitting grad school when things weren't working and I was looking for a way out, or at least a break.  Some folks at my church had been with a group call ELIC and they put me in contact with them.  It was my first extended time in another country and it was challenging and exciting and all it was supposed to be.  Most of the folks that went were either retired or just out of college and at loose ends, so there was a fair amount of training and a comprehensive curriculum to follow.  At the end of the summer we met up again for a debrief and the leader of the organization said that although we may have had life changing experiences and we may be very anxious to share, we needed to have three versions of our stories.  A 30 second version, a 3 minute version and the long version. As excited as we might be to talk, most people are only going to want the short version and we should know what to put in it so we make our point before they stop listening.  I think back on this as one of the best lessons I learned from my time in China and am trying to apply it to my current experiences.  If you are interested in the 30 second version, you should probably just read the section titles, as I find I am much more verbose in writing than when speaking so this will probably be more than a 3 minute version.  End digression.


After much reflection in the last week, I am ready to enumerate my highlights, in roughly this order:

1. The people

In most circumstances, I don't make friends easily.  I have talked about this with my friend Kate, who summed it up very nicely saying that only when you are new to a place and everyone else is new, it is easy to make new friends, which explains why most of our best friends are made when we are new.  Kids seem to have less problems making friends because they are all new to the planet.  My first friends here were the other five new foreign hires.  We had the same meetings, the same orientation, the same questions, the same confusions and remarkably we got on pretty well together such that they are still good friends even 10 months later and even though we are very different people. 

Jack, Keeley, Marshall, and Janelle.  Lizzy couldn't join us on this recent trip to the Islands.

The next group of people I am grateful for are my science colleagues.  I got to know the folks in chemistry first, and then through department meetings and coffee breaks, the rest of the department.  Perhaps it helped that there were three new teachers in the science department this year, but for the most part I have felt welcomed and mentored and supported when I needed it.  We all gather during the 20 minute break between 9:40 and 10 up stairs in a narrow room with a coffee machine and water cooler.  When I first heard that science teachers usually gather during what I would have called brunch, I thought I probably wouldn't go.  Who has time for that when you are trying to get from class to class?  Brunch was a chance to catch your breath and reset before the next set of kids came it to spoil the calm.  It turned out that there are many days when my favorite part of the day is the 20 minute break.  It was a chance to catch my breath and reset and it was so much more pleasant with my piece of fruit saved from lunch the day before, a bottle of water and the rest of the science department. 

What does it say that only the three new teachers are wearing bright colors, all red?

The highlight of this highlight is probably lunch.  We get lunch everyday in the cafeteria and we can go down anytime between 11:15 and 1.  The room is shared with students, but we have a separate entrance and service line.  There are always two choices for main dish, a fruit, a soup, a salad bar and a dessert.  The tables hold 4-5 people and while there isn't complete mixing, it is a chance to talk with colleagues from other departments and levels. 

Beyond that are the other teachers in the school and the folks I have met at church and on ARIT trips.  Right now most of my friends are on campus, and that probably wont change next year, but I do feel like I know enough people off campus to keep my sanity. 

2. The physical beauty of the setting

The Bosporus is gorgeous, campus is beautiful and many other parts of Turkey are spectacular.  I don't think I fully appreciated this since I have been very fortunate to live in some beautiful places before, but it cant be over stated.

Along the Bosporus

The second bridge from the water.

The Golden Horn from the Galata Tower

The Golden Horn at sunset



Easter Day Tulips

Burgazada

3. The chance to travel

In order to get out of California from where I live you either need to fly for 90 minutes or drive for 4 hours. To leave the US the drive is 10 hours or the flight is 3. From where I live in Istanbul it takes 2 hours to cross town, but only 3 hours to get anywhere in Europe, North East Europe or the Middle East. My flight from California to Utah last summer was roughly the same cost as flying to London for Christmas. Besides England, I spent two weeks in Egypt and am planning a trip this summer to the Netherlands and in the fall to Germany.

Christmas dinner with family.

Egypt

This doesn't even take into account the many places to visit in Turkey itself. I have been on weekend trips to the Greek boarder, to the black sea, to the Aegean coast and into the interior of Turkey. I have seen lakes, forests, rivers, mountains, snow, and lightning; mosques, hospitals, aqueducts, walls, temples, amphitheaters and Ottoman villages.


City Walls

Edirne

Izmir



Sirince

Pamukkale

The Black Sea

Kemaliye

 I know I didn't take as much advantage of this chance this year as I should have (even though some months I was only home one weekend out of four) and I hope to see even more next year. 

4. The opportunity to be challenged

I left Gunn and California because I felt like I was in a rut.  I lived most of my life in a diamond 5 miles on a side, as far north as Ann's in Menlo Park and as far south as the pool in Mt. View, across from school to my dad's.  I was teaching in my sleep, not meeting anyone new and complaining about the same old things.  I have had to remind myself of this when I have been challenged here in Istanbul.  I came to be challenged, this is what I wanted.  The fact that I had a pretty good rut there in the Bay Area is a good thing to realize, but I wouldn't have known it if I hadn't hopped out. 

So what challenges have I faced here? 

Language - there are so many things I don't attempt to do because I can't communicate and am afraid to try.  I have always been very self sufficient and I find it very frustrating that I can't do what I want to do on my own.  Of course I am learning and with just a few words and a valiant effort a basic understanding can always be obtained whether in the fuse shop, the framer, the pet shop, or at the fruit stand.
Curriculum - The complete chemistry curriculum is taught over two years here with the vital topic taught in the first year so students who only take one year of chemistry have what they need for the college entrance exam.  The topic covered are taught at an advanced level even in the first year class, but since the topics are selected, they are not necessarily in the order I would have approached them, nor with the emphasis I would have used. 
Feeling trapped - Part of this is language as expressed above, but part is the sheer difficulty of getting around in this city.  If it is a sunny weekend afternoon, forget getting a bus.  After 5pm on a week day, don't bother.  Thinking about going off campus the other way?  Don't want to climb that hill...Then there is the difficulty of getting home after midnight.  At least I am getting better at taking cabs. 
Loneliness - Around Thanksgiving it was the worst.  I didn't have enough things to do to fill my day and distract me from how isolated I felt from the people around me.  As I said above I am slow to make friends and I didn't feel like I had really made any new connections beyond the superficial relationships with the other new teachers and my colleagues.  Things have gotten better, in part because I have gotten better at being alone, in part because I am making more connections.  Thank goodness for the cat.

5. The time to reflect

Finally on my list of highlights is time.  As I have written before, I haven't read so much since I was a teenager.  I haven't written so much either.  As I learn to be alone and deal with my challenges I have appreciated the time I have to reflect on what I am thinking/doing/feeling.  It has always been important to me when someone or something upsets me, to take the time to figure out what it was that I was so upset about, what about them bothered me.  I have been able to take that to another level here. Have I really written 45 blog posts?  I wonder what will change when I go home again and am not so isolated by language, crowded public transportation and lack of people I know.  Will I remain reflective?  Will I make myself so busy I will lose it?

This is likely my last blog post until school starts again in the fall.  I will be in CA from June 27th to August 1st when I fly to London to see family and go to the Olympics.  I'll be back in Istanbul on August 13th, but since I don't have to be here until the 28th, I am trying to leave again.  Hopefully to see friends in Amsterdam, but perhaps just to wonder on my own for a week or so.  If you are in CA I hope to see you.  If you liked this blog or didn't like it, I would like to hear about it, but please don't respond to the email it came in.  Instead send me an email at drmellows@hotmail.com or send me a message on facebook.  Thanks for reading.