Today, after cunningly managing to be in the shower when the school phoned to ask me if I could come in fast and cover (phew!), I have been doing plenty of work, and inbetween stressing over many things I have been making koalas slide down trees. It's great.

Sevda is off to Barcelona next week so wants to practise shopping language. I looked at her a few times and said "But they speak Catalan/Spanish in Barcelona, does this mean you want a Spanish lesson?" and she looked at me very strangely and said, "But everyone speaks English!"

I have a feeling they probably do; it's just when I go abroad these days I tend to profess non-knowledge of English as it's just more fun that way. Anyway all I can remember of Catalan is that all the good words have an X in them (rebaixes, orxata). These things you have to know: just because they plaster "SALE - INDIRIM" in all the windows on ultra-trendy Bagdat Cad. (FCUK ON BAGDAT CADDESI, says the latest rather too-large advert, no thank-you, say I) doesn't mean they do that anywhere else.

Anyway, now I am off to spend more quality time in the K.C., and as soon as it closes I am off on a mission for ice-cream, unless Barıs has other ideas.

* posted by nat 2:53 PM

Thursday, July 29, 2004

My Entirely Uninteresting Week, by Me.

On Thursday night Yasmin arrived back at some stupid hour of the morning, on Friday I had a filling done and a root canal messed around with, which necessitated lots of taking photos of my teeth, x-rays and far too many injections, then I went home and drank three beers, then we went out for dinner and I ate too much and drank half a bottle of wine. In retrospect this was not very clever.

At 4am I redecorated Yasmin's bathroom not particularly tastefully, so on Saturday I called in sick and moved onto the couch and Yasmin went off Antalya-wards.

On Saturday afternoon I got bored and made carrot and dill soup (there was not much else in the house to use, and it's a great chilled soup anyway). Then a man came round and drilled holes in the wall and put a new phone wire in, which apparently made sense to the man who wanted to drill holes in the wall and to all the neighbours, but it was all a bit too much for me.

So on Sunday morning I woke up and couldn't (wouldn't?) get out of bed, so I called in sick again, crawled onto the couch and read three books. (Monica Ali's Brick Lane which was fantastic, some appalling piece of chicklit and some even more appalling book by Dan Brown, which I distracted myself from by dragging myself into the kitchen and making pilaki (I found more in-house ingredients, plus I had to do something to get rid of the rest of the carrots).

On Monday I was feeling a bit better, and I was also climbing up the walls (figuratively, actally I was really just hobbling painfully around the flat) having seen nobody in 48 hours apart from a man with a very large drill. I considered going to work, until I realised that if I went to work I would have to cope with the Last Day of the-teacher-who-really-annoys-me, which meant I suffered an instant relapse. Stayed at home and got bored instead. It was worth it.

Tuesday was my weekend so I went back to see Murat (it helps having a dentist who is very, very close to your house) more nasty root-canal stuff and lots of wailing on my part. Then later I decided I couldn't bear being in the house any longer and trekked over for nargile with Barıs, getting entirely soaked by large waves on the Bosphorus on the way. Which was nice.

On Wednesday I realised that it was either stay in and eat too much chocolate (but oh, mint kitkat pieces!) or Get Out Of The Flat, so I chose the latter course and dragged myself back over to the Bazaar to see Barıs in yet another effort to get my bracelet fixed (was not allowed to, but several queries were made on my behalf) and then when I tried to escape for a few minutes to go and ogle carpets I was unceremoniously hauled out of the shop by Timur on the grounds that 'They will try to cheat you!' to which I objected that it was difficult to cheat me when I only had 20 million in my pocket, and all I was doing was practising my Turkish. Then Barıs gave me a complete earful, which made me feel very satisfied (score! score!). After work we went down to Bakırköy and ate kumpir, and life was good.

And today I came back to work. It is so peaceful and relaxed! After today, nine days to go! It's getting rather scary...

I have also spent too long today (and last Friday, as a matter of fact) playing Bauns, which is proving rather addictive. Hurrah!

* posted by nat 3:02 PM

Friday, July 23, 2004

On Wednesday I went all the way to Maslak, which was a bit of a trek, but definitely worth it. I went to the CNBC-e/NTV studios, ostensibly to have lunch with Pınar, but actually to spend as much time as possible wandering round behind the cameras from the newsroom (it's only the general office, so wandering around is required). Technically there was nothing to stop me wandering onto the set - no glass panels no nothing - but as I know next to nothing about the economy I couldn't exactly have contributed much to the discussion. So then Pınar and I went and hid ourselves in her editing room and played about with the equipment, and I had much fun distorting BEKO ads.

Afterwards I went and met Barıs and we went for a wander in Gölhane Park and talked relative nonsense, which is what we do best.

Yesterday there was much fun as my 1-2-1 who is 40-odd going on 10 (but in a good way) and I tried very hard to bring up rakı as often as possible in the course of the lesson. He is off on business to Gaziantep at the weekend so I angled for baklava, we shall see.

Then there was the brand new and shiny 18:00-from-Haydarpasa train crash, which has brought out the conspiracy theorist that lurks inside most Turks. (Was it sabotaj? Was it terrorists? Was it the Government skimping on costs? Was it the railways skimping on costs? Is this not a sign we should all use the buses? (say the bus companies very quickly) How come by last night 139 people had died but this morning only 36 people have died, and why has the number of injured remained the same throughout?! Is this a cover-up? Can government officials count? Etc. Etc. Etc.)

* posted by nat 9:04 AM

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Having decided to ban myself from buying chocolate mousse in pots, I have decided that this does not preclude me from buying chocolate mousse in a packet, heating it up, and throwing it all over the kitchen surfaces. This way is more fun, and you get bigger portions at the end of it (provided you haven't thrown too much all over the stove, that is).

* posted by nat 5:31 PM

Monday, July 19, 2004

My Saturday went like this:
 
Worked.  Stressed.  Went to Kapalı Carsı.  Met up with Barıs.  Thumped Barıs.  Yelled at Barıs.  Barıs yelled back.  Tourists goggled.  Scowled at tourists.  Turks goggled.  Scowled at Turks. Went and smoked nargile.  Made far too many jokes about having communication problems.
 
We both feel better now.

Today I recieved a delightful piece of written work from one of my late eles (we spent an hour today discussing the relative merits of leopard print shirts and the different between lipstick and lipgloss, and I wasn't very good at looking interested.  But I tried, valiantly.  At least they all hate fur, so that's something!) which brightened my day considerably.  It is a very short summary of Pirates of the Caribbean.  Except somewhere along the line Pirates became something else, thus: "In the next scene, parrots attacked the village and kidnapped governer's daughter."  All the way through.  It is a work of genius.  Caribbean Parrots.  I want to frame it.  (And see the movie of it, too!)

* posted by nat 5:24 PM

Saturday, July 17, 2004

So.  More cover.  More insane tacking together of timetable.  More doing extra fill-in lessons to which about two students come to, and I really thought I was getting bored of the whole thing and able to cope with the fact that I'm stopping.
 
But then things happen like this morning, in which after a bit of a struggle I brought the two ele students I had round to the fact that the Past Simple is really Not That Hard, and it was one of those occasions where you could just see the lightbulbs going on above their heads and we all sit there feeling thoroughly pleased with ourselves.  By second break they had marched out to reception to ask if I could be their teacher for ever and ever because all of a sudden English Makes Sense and the reception staff and I had to let them down very gently by explaining in three weeks or so I'll be gone.
 
Bleh.
 
Also my front teeth are white again; Murat has redone the fillings there, so I have been going around giving toothy grins at people and scaring them.  Yay!

* posted by nat 1:53 PM

Friday, July 16, 2004

Five seconds of careful questioning has ascertained that Daria is responsible for misdirecting men to my phone.  I thought it might be her as she does tend to phone up at random moments talking to me in Russian before going, "Oh hang on, wrong number."
 
Barıs phoned me up this morning to critique my grammar in my latest text message (it turned out there was nothing wrong with my grammar, he just couldn't read).  This means things are going okay.
 
Ben is in the office destroying a phone.  It makes for entertaining listening.

* posted by nat 1:12 PM

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Tuesday was the dentist; Murat came bouncing out of his office going "Hi! Missed me?" I said, "No." He has obviously spent his holiday thinking up new things to say to me; when he came out with "I feel like a mother bird feeding her young," I nearly swallowed the drill! It was a fight to get finished so I could get home and get the laundry in before the rain started, then we had a terrific thunderstorm with continuous lightning for almost an hour. All the electricity thoughtfully went off so I could enjoy it at its best.

On Wednesday, therefore, I decided to be lazy, or at least lazy in the sense of not bothering to wash my hair and having a massive cooking session. I cunningly managed to burn a whole load of lentils to the bottom of the pan, so my lentil köfte taste a little chargrilled - but it's the next best thing to barbecuing them! Then I made imam bayıldı and forgot I was following a Turkish recipe so it ended up with entirely too much oil all over it - but it tastes good once you have drained it all off. After that I spent more soul-destroying time de-seeding grapes and made another extremely large bowl of fruit salad. So I am set for the week.

I then settled down in front of the TV to try to choose between House of Cards and A Passage to India (honestly. There's nothing on all the rest of the week) and had my evening entirely disturbed by a whole load of phone calls.

The first one went like this:
Him: Hello. Natalia?
Me: Huh?
Him: Can I talk in German?
Me: You can do whatever you want. Who the hell are you?
Him: *random mix of German, Russian, Turkish*
Me: No, no help.
Him: Do I have the right number? Do you live in Levent?
Me: (light dawning) No and no. Wrong Natalia. Phone up the school and ask again.

The second went something like this.
Him: HellohowareyouIamOguz. *descends back into Turkish*
Me: *falls off sofa*
Him: Where are you?
Me: Home. Where are YOU?
Him: Cadde. Come and have a coffee.
Me: Buuuut... *lazy part of brain going, but TV! girl part of brain going, Your Hair Is A Mess you cannot leave the house!*
Him: Just for an hour.
Me: Gnunkfleargh... I have to teach early tomorrow (lie). Err.. Maybe tomorrow.
Him: Ok.
Me: I had totally forgotten you had leave.
Him: Huh?
Me: Never mind.

Half an hour later I got a text message from Barıs.

Fortunately having already had one shock of the evening I was prepared and did not quite throw my fruit salad all over the room. So then I debated, and then I texted back in ALL CAPS and lots of !!?@^&$%@&, and then he called, which was probably a mistake, as I was far too zoned out to really understand everything, but the most important thing is that there was profuse apologising and lots of stupid in-joking and we are going to meet on Saturday, and I am reserving judgement until I have heard the explanation, which is apparently coming then.

So I finished the Baileys, drank an awful lot of Pimms, and then tried mixing lingonberry liqueur into some fruit salad, which was interesting to say the least. But I felt better after that, anyway.

* posted by nat 12:47 PM

Monday, July 12, 2004

Wah, lovely engineer-type student is not here and I am having nightmares about him being stuck in traffic on the servis. Or perhaps he called to cancel and no-one has told me. That seems far more likely! I am in reception boogieing along to truly bad music on the radio and achieving nothing useful except annoying Pelin.

I forgot to mention that today I had a class with more than five students in it for the first time in two months - I am a little shellshocked! Although that might have something to do with the fact I didn't really sleep last night at all (stayed up reading and missed the fall-asleep window, or possibly I consumed too much chocolate before bedtime... or not enough!

* posted by nat 5:42 PM

I think I had better eat out for the rest of the month: on Saturday I thoughtfully grated up not only a couple of carrots, but also most of the side of my thumb. I ditched a load of red cabbage into the bowl soon after though, so it didn't make too much of a difference to the colour.

Not content with that, I then had a little go with the handheld dustbuster that Yasmin has in the kitchen. Now in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing this is obviously a helpful little thing (Yasmin whizzes around with it very professionally), but in the hands of me this is obviously an utter disaster waiting to happen. After three attempts to turn it on, the first of which involved me managing to push the button that released the front hoover part of it, the second when I managed to get it back on again and then did exactly the same thing, I then failed to have any direction over it whatsoever and it just went everywhere. So after I had knocked over everything that could be knocked over and still failing to catch the mini-roach that just sat in the middle of the counter waving its antennae around in 'nyah nyah' fashion, I went back to the more traditional 'stun the thing with Mr Muscle then scoop it up into kitchen roll' (the most traditional way would be to hit it with cockroach-killer spray, but having just knocked everything all whichways I got hold of Mr Muscle first).

It was after this that I gave in and had a glass of Pimms - with bitter lemon, which is not perfect but still quite good. I will not tell you about the interesting event that happened with the in-freezer ice-maker thingy though. Fortunately I have not actually broken anything - yet.

* posted by nat 2:23 PM

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

On Monday I taught a random student - this tends to start happening when people start going on holiday. Once I assured him I was in fact older than 20 (this seems to be theme of the week again all of a sudden) we started having a conversation and he brought up lychees. So we talked for about half an hour about lychees and suddenly realised we were sitting there in almost total darkness. I love this type of student!

Yesterday I spent all morning trying to find out about the Olympiat Mesalesi - all I could find out was the bridge would be closed between 19:00 and 20:00, so Fife and I extrapolated from that that our area would be hit around 5pm. That decided I went off to get my blood test results from the clinic, which all seem to have gone in the wrong direction - the blood test results that is, the clinic has moved closer to my house - and then gave in to StarbucksDoom, because the waiters in there are unfailingly flirtatious, which is obviously what you pay for.

So then I went and stood on the street, and in a moment of Britishness my brain went into 'if you need information, ask a policeman' mode. Bad idea. Instead I just got accosted by people on the street wanting to know if foreigners were going to be running or if it was just Turks. I said Turks.

After that a lot of people on lorries saying Coca Cola came past and then we nearly got mown down by people on scooters giving us pennants. I wanted a Samsung blow-up stick but no joy. Then a bus came along and deposited a man holding a torch who everyone instantly identified as some famous singer whose name I was told several hundred times thus I can tell you was Ahmet Özhan. So he was instantly mobbed by people going 'can I take my photo with you'. He was very sweet though. So after that along came a lorry full of cameramen and after a fumbly sort of changover (as far as I can see you press a button in the bottom of the torch!) off he went and off I went too - we were down by the Garanti bank at this point and I was mostly interested to see how far we was going. He wasn't going very fast as he was mostly waving to the crowd and going 'I'm carrying this for all of you!' and middle aged women were going gaga, so there was plenty of room on the pavement for me to jog along thinking that sandals were a bad idea for this. Anyhow he got up to the Saskinbakkal traffic lights where the school is and then a little bit further on there was another changoever, which makes it about 200m. So I went up to school and distributed a few of my accumulated CocaCola pennants, then, feeling achieved, I went home and made an extremely big and exciting fruit salad.

Halfway through this TRT decided to have half an hour of torch relaying, and I thought they would show it going across the bridge, so I moved my grape-deseeding and cherry destoning efforts into the lounge with vast amounts of newspaper covering the lino - I was taking no chances. Which meant I was in prime position to watch them show the entire run of one Ahmet Özhan. There was nothing wrong in that. What was wrong was the camera panning round to the side of the road every twenty seconds in an unerring attempt to find the three idiots who were running along behind all the people doing the sensibel thing and watching, one of whom, obviously, was me.

Cherries went everywhere, I howled at the TV, and then I texted just about everybody I knew. Then I had to wash my phone.

Then I watched Shrek 2. Twice. The first time with fruit salad and dieting intentions. The second time with Baileys and frozen chocolate mousse. It has Antonio Banderas and Rupert Everett doing voices, thus there was much happiness over and above the fact that it is simply a lot of fun.

Today I went to Suleymaniye Camii, and then in a complete lack of judgement I went to Sandalye Bedesten to see if anyone could shed any light on What The Hell Is Going On.

Naturally no-one could. They averred the whole thing was an entirely normal and approved method (method of WHAT?), and I should have chosen one of them instead because they would never do anything like that, and while they were on the subject how about the cinema on Sunday?

I drank a load of apple tea through gritted teeth and stomped off to SS Sergius and Bacchus, which turned out to be closed for restoration, so then I walked all the way round the coast, past the old palace and the sea walls round to Sirkeci, then I ferried home and bought myself half a kilo of Sütlü Nuriye to cheer myself up.

Bang goes the diet. Again.

* posted by nat 6:57 PM

Friday, July 02, 2004

CESI PROHRALI WAAAAAAAAH! BRECELA JSEM NAD NEDVEDEM!
*
Also: Dear Turkish TV, re car bomb in Van. I like seeing charred bodies at the wheel before breakfast. Really I do.
*
Loni has just read us an email from her father:

'I am confused about your last email. Is Turkey in the European continent or the Asian continent? It sounded like the country is divided by two bridges.'

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

* posted by nat 2:41 PM

Thursday, July 01, 2004

Last night I watched the first half of the football match, then I fell asleep on the sofa, then Yasmin called me from her bag and I spent 18 seconds yelling down the phone "Hello, hello? I'm in your bag!" before I realised she was never going to hear me.

Then they came round and we moved the rest of my stuff, then we went to Mustafa's and picked up the DVD player, then we watched the first 15 minutes of Brief Encounter and then we stopped, which was good as I was just about in tears by that point. Stupid film anyway.

This morning my alarm clock refused to go onto snooze, and thus Yasmin woke me up at 7:40 saying something to the effect of "Hey, it's 7:40" and I had to do the scramble-to-work all over again.

Last lesson with Osman, who said very seriously at the end, "Thank you. I improved. I improved?"

I assured him he had.

Yay for a silly personality test!

You are an SEDF--Sober Emotional Destructive Follower. This makes you an evil genius. You are extremely focused and difficult to distract from your tasks. With luck, you have learned to channel your energies into improving your intellect, rather than destroying the weak and unsuspecting.

Your friends may find you remote and a hard nut to crack. Few of your peers know you very well--even those you have known a long time--because you have expert control of the face you put forth to the world. You prefer to observe, calculate, discern and decide. Your decisions are final, and your desire to be right is impenetrable.

You are not to be messed with. You may explode.

I am an evil genius! Go me!

* posted by nat 10:49 AM