So it's Friday, and I am getting ready to head to Asia for a Big Lebowski house party with my friend's boyfriend. This week has been busy with school stuff. Our reading teacher is the sweetest lady ever, but she gives us an ungodly amount of homework. But she also wears linen pants and gives me lots of snacks in class, so it is impossible to dislike her. Also, she has invited us all over to her house next week for a drinking session. She is in her 70s and wears velcro shoes. She is awesome. She confused the English word "cub" with "pub," and said "lion pub," and then said quickly "well, you can see what I'm thinking of." Hilarious. She also told us that the plastic wares sellers on the streets nowadays sell inflatable sex dolls.
It is really fucking hot today, and I forgot to baste myself in sunscreen this morning. I can tell a difference, even if I don't burn. At the same time, though I kind of like tempting the sun to catch me. It always does, though, the bastard. Today was so hot we were all cursing the window in our classroom that some industrious janitor or maintenance guy had locked shut by screwing two screws into the window frame above the window. It would, in all likelihood, let a fierce sea breeze in, and would probably be comfortable to the point of distraction. This, as they say, cannot be. Olmaz! Olmaaaz!
Yesterday we had another lecture (my first in two weeks due to illness), this time about public-private relations in Turkey. It was really interesting, the professor has just finished an 8-year study of attitudes throughout the country. Let me grab my notes so I can share the more interesting findings with you, the curious reader...
Okay. More than a thousand respondents in 1999,2004, and 2008. The most recent batch of people were asked to rank their concerns. Out of a list of 20, the number one concern is unemployment, followed by the GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS, inflation, education, and "other." At the very bottom of the list, interestingly enough (or not), was Cyprus. In terms of levels of trust felt toward certain institutions/people: #1 Armed Forces, #3 Police, #5 Universities, and then way down at the bottom were newspapers/journalists, TV news, politicians. It looks like Turkey's got its own military-industrial-academic complex.
6.1% said that a politician should be an exemplary Muslim, and 3.0% said they must be a man.
Since 1999, there has been a general improvement in the conception of institutional fairness. It was interesting that at no point did the speaker or the research mention the fact that the huge changes since 1999 seem to coincide with the rise of the AK Parti. I wonder if there is any connection apart from coincidence.
Okay, boring stuff aside, we learned two awesome words: titiz (pronounced titties), which means meticulous, and karşılıklılık, which means reciprocity. I like writing that one a lot. Karşılıklılık. Fuck, these construction workers outside are loud. They start working at 7am and don't stop until 7pm. The courtyard I overlook is basically an echo chamber. The acoustics are so great that seagulls come from all over Turkey to scream at my window in the morning. I swear to God, they sound like howler monkeys.
I am probably going to nap for a bit in my linen pants before taking the boat to Asia, so I will holler at you all tomorrow night. We have a gezi that will likely last all fucking day. OLD CITY, HERE I COME.
Oh, so I'm listening to "Bim Bam Baby" by Sinatra. He's kind of an asshole in this song, commanding his significant other to clean up the house. "Grab a mip map mop and a brim bram broom and clim clam clean up the rim ram room because your bim bam baby is coming home tonight." If I were in their shoes, I'd tell him to go fick fack fuck himself.
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