Expedition to the Big Island!

On our first official vacation day, we went with a group of my work friends to Büyükada, which is the biggest of the Princes Islands in the Mamara Sea just off the coast of Istanbul. We left the apartment pretty early, around 8:15am, caught a nearly empty dolmuş down to Sarıyer to meet up with everyone. There was some hope of taking a commuter boat from Sarıyer to Kabataş, where there is a pier for boats to the islands. Since the ticket office door was still locked at 8:45 (and there was no boat waiting), we took a bus instead. The bus made remarkably good time--it seems that Istanbul has emptied out for the week long holiday--and we caught a 10am boat to the islands with 15 minutes to spare! The trip to the islands took about an hour. Here we are at the beginning of the trip:

Good-bye mainland!

Hello island!

Beautiful gardens, beautiful houses...

Beautiful cats!

 One of many horse-drawn carriages

The majority of the other tourists on our boat to the island were from Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, most likely), and they hired the carriages--the Europeans and Americans generally chose to walk. It was quite a steep uphill walk, but the views were well worth the effort.

A more humble abode

So, there is a story for this photo; the dog was tied, but determined to catch the birds. It kept rushing at them, and would get held back by the leash. The cats just watched this poor, deluded dog...

At the beginning of the real uphill trek

Wish-strings--apparently people tie these to trees and if the strands don't break, 

then their wish will come true.

Wish tree--these are labels from water bottles and wet wipes!

Abandoned orphanage--a huge wooden structure

Our destination--the monastery of Saint George

It wasn't clear if services were still held here, 

but there were lots of signs for people to be quiet to respect worshipers.

Cats waiting for us to drop something from our lunch

On break....

 Bee houses?

The House of the Masons?

Arty House

GELATO!

 

Tired feets

Good-bye islands!

Hello city...

The end of a fine day

Vacation Conundrum

After just one month of classes, we have a week long vacation because of a religious holiday, Kurban Bayramı (Feast of the Sacrifice). Those who can have gone home to visit family, and the rest of the us left behind are planning various activities: walking in the woods, a day trip to some islands in the Bosphorus, seeing some art exhibitions, hosting dinner, etc. I'll have time to do some fun things like knitting, drawing, and reading, but there are lots of other tasks that I'm hoping to get done this week as well--hence, the conundrum. How to balance fun, rest, and work? So I'm trying to make lists... what to clean, what to buy, what to do for school. It's a little overwhelming as you might imagine.
One of the most important tasks is to buy myself a pair of rain/winter boots. Shoe shopping has never been fun for me, and shopping for shoes in Turkey reminds me of the experiences I had in early high school before stores carried anything above size 10. So far, every time I've asked about size 11 (size 42 here), I've gotten that look of pity and horror for someone whose feet are that big. Yes, I could get men's shoes, and that may well be the solution...
For now, I'm thinking about buying a crochet needle and one of these:

These are awesome--they boil the water super fast and keep the tea hot in the carafe above. Where have you been all my life?

An Afternoon in the Neighborhood

The gate at the bottom of the hill is where I catch the dolmuş for work every morning.

Here is the block of Turkuaz buildings.

 Fall colors!

 Getting close to home...

 The view from half-way up the stairs

 The lovely landscaping just outside the front door of the building

[Insert thought here]

Sorry, I was busy shoveling in breakfast and I hadn't noticed the time... I'm down to nine minutes. OK, the upstairs neighbors are nocturnal giggle fiends. SOMEthing is fantastically funny every night (maybe it's the thought of sad-sap teachers going to bed so early). Last night they even let me fall asleep, but swung into action around 1 or 2 in the morning. They giggled and stomped, giggled and stomped, and then took the world's looooooooooooooooongest bath, which sounded like they were bathing in my bedroom because the pipes were so noisy. I did fall back asleep eventually, but now I'm a leetel stoopid. Let's see how my classes go today, especially with all the students completely focused on the fact that next week is a holiday.

Classroom Manager, Ltd.

Until yesterday, my lessons really haven't been derailed by the behavior of the students, and, of course, my responses to their behavior. One class in particular has issues with distraction, which leads to five or six different side conversations at any moment. Transitions are guaranteed lost time. I have never wanted to be a police woman, and I want to avoid an adversarial authoritarian relationship with my students to the best of my ability.
The classroom management advice that I have liked best tells me to move around the room to stand near people who are prone to distraction or move students away from distractors. It is quite the trick in a room packed with 22 students in rows which can be moved only with great effort. Also, it has taken me three weeks to learn almost everyone's name (still got confused yesterday), and addressing people by name is key in this situation.
None of the students are actively uncooperative; some are remarkably on-task despite the others. Today's task is to deal with the situation directly, openly and get people back on board (for 50 minutes at least).

Craftiness

It turns out that several of my ELC colleagues live in nearby apartment complexes. We live in Sinpaş and friends live in Park Evleri, Medyakent, and Acarlar (in the lower left of the map). A couple of weekends 

have been spent doing crafty projects. The first time we did a lot of gourmet canning thanks to a friend of a friend who owns a home-canning business and graciously taught us several of her recipes. This was the result:

Left to right: Olive tapenade, lemon squash, peach mustard, roasted red pepper and walnut pesto

I got to take home a jar of each! I have to say the pesto vanished almost immediately. They are all delicious!

Last week, when it was especially cold and rainy, I wished I had a bigger winter scarf (the one I brought was knitted from leftover yarn and didn't quite make a normal sized scarf), so I asked a couple friends if they knew who like to knit. Of course, they do! On Saturday, one of them took me and another new coworker to the knitting shops in Sarıyer, where I bought some nice yarn and needles to start a new scarf. Here is an early view:

I've added a few more rows since then!

Morning Routine

It's 6:45am and I have about 15 minutes before I have to get dressed and head out the door. Lately, I've been looking at work email before I go to work--big mistake! So, I'm trying to use this time for the blog. For today's mini-installment. The morning routine: I get up at 6am, make coffee, take a shower, eat breakfast, surf the net, get sucked into work email, panic about the time, get dressed, and head out the door around 7:20am. As you can see, I'm not moving very fast. Any faster, and I've learned that I forget things, drop things, and other silly stuff.
Then I walk downhill on the main road of the apartment complex to the gate where the minibus stops. If I see the bus coming from the top of the hill, I can usually guess which direction it's going, but it's smarter just to ask. It's a very simple question: Koç mu? If yes, then I get on and pay my 1,50 TL (which is about 75 cents) for the herky-jerky ride uphill and around curvy roads to the university. At the gate, the bus has to stop so the security guard can check our ID cards. In the beginning of the term, there were lots of students enrolling, so we'd have to pull over while the guard took IDs and returned with guest passes. These days at this hour, there are very few of us on the bus, and we all have IDs. There's a longish driveway into the main campus, and I get dropped off by my building, usually around 7:35. I head in and get my first cup of tea for the day (tea and coffee are continuously prepared all day long by the çaycı (tea maker) in our office--when she's not making tea/coffee or cleaning up, she's reading her book). The work day has begun.
The one important piece that's missing right now is EXERCISING :((((( I hope that changes this week. I bought cheap gym shoes last week, and I asked a couple people at work if/when they go to the gym, so the plan is getting closer to reality. Ideally, I'd like to get a yoga mat because the floor in the apartment is also the domain of ugly bugs, and somehow having a mat makes me think I'd be safe.
Anyway, it's 6:59, and time to get myself back in gear!
More tomorrow....