Oooooh! Spring is here! Yasmin and I drove up to Çengirköy, just past Beylerbeyi, today, and sat out in the sun and had a cup of tea, and watched all the tankers coming up and down the Bosphorus, which was all blue and sparkly, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The local cat populace came out and went after our toasties. One got even so bold as to jump into Yasmin's lap. and there she stayed, quite desperate to have a drink of tea apparently. Some street cats are obviously cultured! Then we went and got Spinach Börek. Yum. Yum!

Nestlé last night was a bit of a scream. We were doing vocab: town versus country and what you can see in both places. I gave them a list of vocab and they were busy sorting it out. They said to me "What's a port?" and then one of them, obviously remembering something said, "Oh, it's a place where ships live!" Yes, yes, I said, and they all wrote it down as "Country". So I looked at them and said, "But... what's Üsküdar then?" "Aaaaaah!" they all said, "Yes! Bloody Bayram!"

It took me a minute to click. Then I drew a picture of a ship and a sheep on the board and said "Right. Which one lives in a port?"

Time for a quick round of minimal pairs, I think.

* posted by nat 3:24 PM

Thursday, February 27, 2003

It finally stopped snowing on Wendesday so Fife and I ventured out to Taksim. We had an interesting dolmus ride, we got on, the man took one look at us and said "Welcome to my dolmus!" (Drat! Spotted as tourists!) then eight people all crammed in including a dead ringer for Inspector Clouseau which had Fife and I in fits of giggles - the man literally disappeared under the collar of his coat! Then our driver picked up his friend who tried to get in the boot (didn't work!), then after much counting out of money he stopped for petrol - overeager attendants at the filling station meant the fuel pump was shoved in while the ignition was still on which didn't make us feel very safe! Then a bit down the road the driver decided to stop and look under the bonnet, at which point we wondered if we'd ever get there.

But we did. Fife managed to spend money, I failed completely. Oh well. Spinach gozleme and a visit to the chocolate man and all is all right.

* posted by nat 11:23 AM

Monday, February 24, 2003

All my other kids, when asked why they like snow, say "Because I can make a snowman" or "Because I can throw snowballs." Put the question to Mert and he replies: "Because there is no school." So no change there then! However, after three days of no school they're obviously bored and missing it, because we got a lot of work done in two hours, and then we watched The Snowman, whch they all adored, and wanted to know "Is there 'Snowman 2'?" - Which is, I suppose, indicative of all the sequels that come floating around these days.

Today I had 3 Eles - one hour with the strongest and the weakest together - nightmare situation but we did chat, mostly about cooking - and then Hatice struggled in for 11am so we did some work. (It's still snowing, in case it wasn't clear.) Nestle has cancelled, and now I have to write a bunch of reports for students who I haven't seen for a whole month, which could be interesting!
In lieu of teaching Nestle, and the fact that I can't do my admin tasks for this week because the tapes I need aren't in the right place (quel dommage!) I've just spent the afternoon with lots of hot chocolate and Heather's DVD of 'The Princess Bride'. So I'm now in happy smiley silly mood, and am off home to join Yasmin, who has had the evil business class from hell taken away form her, so we have some evenings to spend together. Hurrah! Except it's snowing so there's really no desire to go out anywhere.

Hmm. Must be cooking, then.

* posted by nat 3:41 PM

Sunday, February 23, 2003

So I had three of them - including one new student, who spent the first hour in a state of shock, as he couldn't quite believe he'd come to a lesson and we were playing Snakes and Ladders. (But in a form with lots of English questions!) We then played "What can you see out of the window?", which happened to involve opening the window, scraping snow of the window ledge and throwing it at the roof opposite. Great fun. Still involved lots of English - really! (Can you hit the chimney? The roof? The satellite dish? The crow? The umbrella down there - uh, maybe not....) Then in the final hour we played clock races, and gained Isil's 12 year old cousin from Marmaris, all got up in skater gear and with half a box of Brylcream in his hair attempting to look very cool indeed, who said, completely seriously and very keenly, "Can we play Simon Says?" (Got to love twelve year olds!)

So this new kid went home yesterday to tell his parents that in his first English lesson he played Snakes and Ladders, threw snowballs out of the window, and all he has written in his notebook is "Give me five - to the side - up above - down below - oh you're too slow!" Erk.

And, you guessed it, it's STILL SNOWING! It stopped overnight, but we had a nice quick blizzard this morning and got a couple of inches on the ground in no time at all. Fife says we made it onto the BBC News for being snowy. Lucky us.

* posted by nat 11:41 AM

Saturday, February 22, 2003

Quarter to two and NO YOUNG LEARNERS in my classroom yet...

*crosses fingers* -- You guessed it, we're in the middle of another snowstorm. All the traffic is going down Bagdat so slowly it's like watching the world in slow motion. It's quite bizarre.

* posted by nat 11:46 AM

Friday, February 21, 2003

Schools over the whole of the country are closed - and never mind there's no snow in Erenköy either, all my ex-kids are jumping around today non-school-uniformed. Lucky them. Also the two I was meant to teach tonight haven't shown up. Which is rather nice, only I wish they'd phone to check... or cancel... because here I am sitting around basically wasting time. I could be at home slobbing in front of the television, for heaven's sake! Anywhere but here, where the builders are in partitioning the big computer room, to make two smaller ones. It feels very wierd. I love this big, airy, light bright room, and these smaller places aren't really what I want to see. Ho hum. I was trying to get round to asking Ben about Taking Extra Summer Time, but the Business-Teacher Conglomerate (all one of him) was in there monopolising for half the afternoon. Oh well. Next week.

I shall wait till 7:30, then run away home. Or to the pub. Hmmm.

* posted by nat 5:20 PM

Thursday, February 20, 2003

Just had lots of fun Salsa-ing w�th Mali. Who is a lot happier to dance with me and stop me from making silly mistakes when Mark's not around. (Funny, that...) It goes something like this: "Let me lead. No, let me lead.... Dammit, woman, let ME lead.... See. You've got it right now."

*flört flört flört flört*

* posted by nat 5:06 PM

My Nestlé lesson has been cancelled because of the snow.

Oh, I like snow! Never mind there is absolutely no snow on the ground... there probably is up in Dudullu though, where Nestlé is. It is still snowing though, all rather blustery, and mostly sideways.

I also keep forgetting to mention that I am now the proud owner of a tree. The school bought me a tree for Bayram! I don't know where the tree is exactly, somewhere near Tekirdag I think. But I have a certificate to prove it! It's a TEMA tree, and TEMA just rocks. Or maybe it really acorns! Lots.

I knocked one of the dragon trees in the cafe over at first break today and ended up throwing tea all over myself in an attempt to right it. Clever me. Still, it gave my Eles more chance to practice the word "clumsy". See?

* posted by nat 11:16 AM

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Today it snowed upwards.

Which was quite bizarre, like watching the world in reverse. But it was only the wind.

* posted by nat 6:58 PM

Monday, February 17, 2003

So we didn't go to Ayvalık, because it started snowing again, and the road wasn't reopened, so instead we went to the airport with our credit cards and said "Get us out of here!"

It took a couple of hours, but we ended up in Milan and then Bergamo and Como, on the grounds that Bergamo is only one letter different from Bergama. And the hot chocolate was wonderful too, except I had too much chocolate and pizza and caffeine (and alcohol) and by Thursday I was incredibly ill. But it was worth it!

Anyway, we spent a lot of money, the sun shone, I practised my very basic Italian (read: 10 words of it) on all and sundry, whether they liked it or not, and it was fabulous! I am now going to crawl into a hole for a month or two, because spending your entire month's salary in five days flat doesn't do wonders for the budget.

More later, because I have to go teach at Nestlé soon and it really would help if I had planned a lesson before I got there...

So yes, I went to Italy, no plans, no nothing, just because we felt like it. I'm still enjoying the double take people all do when we tell them.

* posted by nat 2:07 PM

Saturday, February 08, 2003

Oh my goodness! Yummy Doga green tea with mint! On the TOP shelf of the supermarket where I can't reach it! I managed to get one down by lobbing a packet of apple tea at it, but couldn't get any more down. Still, one packet will do for now. I would go find the assistant manager, as I know him, but as he isn't much taller than me it wouldn't be much help.
In other good supermarketty news, a new supply of Balmonds are in. I think I am the only person who buys them. And I buy almost all of them. Oh yes. CHOCOLATE.

* posted by nat 3:01 PM

I had two of the weaker students, and that was all, so we had a serious thrashing around with conditionals, because they wanted it.

Yawn.

It has stopped snowing. Pray! Pray!

* posted by nat 1:11 PM

ARGH!

Stop snowing!!!

We pizza'd and tavla'd at home last night. It was a nightmare. Mustafa turned up on the doorstep and said "You are NOT going to Ayvalık," and we said "Oh shut up" so then he turned the TV on and showed us the pictures of the roads, and we said "Oh,"and then Ercan phoned Fife and said "Our road is closed, and so is their road."

Except they seem to think it's really amusing. Bloody men.

So there has been mass sulking and sniffling.

I wonder if I will get any students today. It's very white outside the window at the moment.

* posted by nat 7:31 AM

Friday, February 07, 2003

So first last night there was the chatroom, and people in the chatroom, and it was all very yay!

And then we went to the pub and looked at each other and said "Whatever happened to us?!" and went wah for a bit and got quite drunk, resolving to make "us" happen again in the near future, despite being on wildly variant timetables and doing so many other different things. Then Fife and I vented about Mad About You (it made us so upset I had to eat yet more ice-cream, just when I thought I was pulling myself out of my ice-cream-consuming phase.) Then I had an argument with Mustafa, which meant of course Yasmin started to have an argument with Mustafa as well, and Kevin just sat there and made snarky comments from time to time which made us all giggle.

Ended up yelling "But you don't know!" in chorus with Yasmin at several points (Note: despite spending not enough time together we really do need to spend more time apart) and sulking in very great detail. Tonight Yasmin and I are doing pizza, beer and tavla - unless by that point it has snowed so much that the roads are flooded - and doing some serious dissection.

* posted by nat 1:35 PM

Thursday, February 06, 2003

Wibble! WIBBLE!

My timetable is changing after Kurban Bayram. Waaah! I am losing Erdem, which I am /cross/ about, because having got the man up from monosyllabic utterances at five minute intervals to chatty conversationalist in two months flat I wanted to stay around to enjoy the conversation, but no. I have to go back to Nestle to teach a bunch of people in the evenings. After work. I imagine they'll be thrilled to be there. Argh. And then I've got the two little kids who come for one hour speaking a week... on Friday nights.

I go /dancing/ on Friday nights. *sulk* Would much rather salsa than teach.

However, I keep the early eles who are just being such fun. On Wednesday, we had an extra lesson so I can run away for Bayram on Sunday instead of Tuesday, and Tülay made a cheesecake for us all at breaktime. Mahmut decided it would be a great idea for us to take it in turns and went through a very complicated set "Eeny Meeny Miny Mo" - which landed on himself! So this morning he turned up with a big cake, bought from the pastry shop down the road. Chocolate sponge with raspberries... just divine! Ayten is a little distraught though: "If this carries on, our English will be good, but our waistline won't be!"

* posted by nat 4:47 PM

This morning Erdem's phone went, on a ringtone I have not heard before (his ringtones are coded so he can tell when his wife is calling, when it's someone from his company or one of his clients). "Ooooh!" said Erdem, "Secret ringtone!" And proceeded to conduct a very short and rather excitable conversation in Turkish.

"Hmm," he said when he put the phone down, then was silent for about two minutes. (This is normal.) Then he said "Very interesting." And was silent for about another two minutes. (Also normal). And then he decided he had enough English to tell me all about it. Apparently there's a new company in his sector, operating in the south of Turkey; it's been going one month. And last night, the director of this company had dinner with one of his suppliers. This is: "Very Dangerous Problem!" Luckily, Erdem has a network of informants from his old companies, not to mention the people he went to school with.

I am beginning to learn about how businesses work...

We spent the rest of the lesson discussing insider dealing, apart from when we got slightly sidetracked onto the heroin route from Central Asia to Europe and even South America. Just another normal lesson then!

* posted by nat 11:16 AM

Monday, February 03, 2003

I will be flattened by a falling piano



How will you die? Take the Exotic Cause of Death Test

* posted by nat 5:16 PM

Rereading the last few day's worth of entries, I think it's fairly obvious that 1) I am not very well and therefore 2) my brain is really not functioning at all, and I'm not coming up with anything useful - or even coherent.

Oh well. I have moved all my classes from next Monday (well, Erdem and I decided to cancel and the Eles are coming this Wednesday instead, which leaves me ready for Bayram on sunday lunchtime, as the kids aren't coming this weekend. Hurrah!)

Yesterday there were just six kids, and after much threatening "We are going downstairs to use the computers and you must be very very quiet because there are big people next door having a business lesson and they will throw you out of the window if you are noisy" - we went to www.heromachine.com and had great fun making our own superheroes. Most of which were decked out in Galasaray colours! Then we decided on their superpowers. They can all fly, they can all fight, and they can all save the world, but we're undecided about their abilities to swim or cook, and none of them can play chess. Bear that in mind next time you meet a superhero.

* posted by nat 12:53 PM

Sunday, February 02, 2003

The thing that hits me most about Columbia (well, after getting home, poking my head round the lounge door, looking at the pictures and thinking 'Oooh, pretty fireworks - oh, they're not fireworks, are they?') is really the memory of Challenger. You see, Challenger is pretty much the first news story I actually have much recollection of, down to the way the news starterd and quite a lot of what was said, when I think about it. And with being the first news story, it's really the First Bad Thing I remember (unless you count the birth of my brother, but I suppose that is debateable!)

So it just made me want to sit at the television and stare and think, 'ugh', even through the inanity of BBCWorld "You've anticipated my next question, (so here it is verbatim anyway and you can give me the same answer)" and the hilarity of CNN "It's not this type of terrorism because blah blah blah, and it's not this type of terrorist attack either because blah blah blah, and basically it isn't terrorism at all, ok?"

We also had to laugh at the interview they showed with the Israeli astronaut "Most people can't believe I go into space. For most of them it's out of this world!" Us at home: "Well, yes, that's what going into space is..."! also the assertion on BBCWorld that the shuttle contained "Five Americans, an Indian-born American, and an Israeli-in-mid-flight..." - You Know You've Been An English Teacher Too Long When...

And then I beat Ercan at Tavla 5-0, and Mustafa and I finished off our came and I beat him too, so I was on a roll. I think it's the serious vodka drinking I've suddenly started doing again... hurrah, that's obviously what I should have been doing all along. I'd forgoteen there was a bottle of Smirnoff Blue in the freezer, you see, and I've given up drinking the yukky stuff that is Absolut - not that Smirnoff is much better, but it's more palatable.

* posted by nat 4:02 PM

I have officially decided that caller intercept is my new worst enemy. "Hi, this phone has caller intercept, blah blah blah, plese speak your name then press the pound key."

Me: "Hi, this is Natalie and I don't have a pound key. What's a pound key?!?!?! " presses random buttons and gets cut off. Huh!!!

* posted by nat 3:54 PM