My friend Jenn has just resigned from Teach For America.
Jenn and I spent countless hours of the last forty days together. I probably, scratch that, I certainly spent more time with her than I did with Jake, my husband. We planned and replanned lesson plans. She gave me amazing ideas and copies of her materials. She helped me write up numerous directions, poems, and lists on chart paper (my handwriting still needs considerable work). She’s the reason we started our Thursday night dessert runs (even though I’m concerned about my next weight watcher’s weigh in, it was totally worth it). She spent hours talking to me when I was crying so much that my words were more like babbling mumbles. She made me laugh and helped preserved my sanity.
This might not seem like much to you, but try putting it in context of all this:
Seventeen summer school students who had one teacher on the first week of summer school, only to find out that they had three more the next week.
Fist fighting between two girls at 11:20am on our first day at school.
Changing the seating plans at least eleven times in the course of four weeks.
A girl on the first row who incessantly raised her hand, knew the answers but made loud disappointment noises each time she wasn’t called on.
A boy who raised his hand before we even asked a question because he wanted to participate so badly, but rarely answered correctly.
A really intelligent boy who had no patience for our simple assignments, would lose patience quickly and start walking around the classroom or belittle the other students.
A small boy who hit every girl taller than he any second we looked away and would deny any wrongdoing vehemently.
A quiet, sweet girl who couldn’t read at all.
A boy who continually walked in late and proceeded to sit at his desk and do nothing. As time progressed, he’s tap or bang on his desk. He also made fun of the other students.
A boy who never listened in class but responded thankfully and with interest during one-on-ones.
A quiet boy who didn’t get much attention as he deserved.
A boy who could never physically sit in his chair.
Two girls who chatted incessantly no matter how far apart we seated them.
A boy who got moved around no less than eight times because he’d behave no matter where we seated him and thus got the default leftover seat.
A boy who came to school tired everyday and couldn’t hold his head up.
A boy who cared, listened and shared.
A girl who slept or felt sick every day.
A class that knew how to use the three inexperienced teachers against each other. A class who has incredible potential. A class that made me cry several times this summer. A class where we felt like we tired everything but succeeded at nothing. A class where each student was special.
This summer was incredibly rough for me. I could explain but I don’t think it’s possible to understand unless one has been through it personally. After all how difficult can it be to manage a bunch of third graders?
I don’t think there are enough words.
Which is exactly why Jenn made a significant difference in my life in the first month I’ve known her. Which is why I feel traumatized knowing she won’t be there with me in the next two years. Which is why I miss her already.
Especially since I got my new job yesterday.
South Bronx, here I come.
Third grade, here I come.
I kept journals since the age of ten. I used to write every single day. Ask any friend who’s known me from those days and she’ll tell you that I never traveled anywhere without an oversized diary. I’ve been teased endlessly by friends who claimed they’d read it the minute I walked out the door. Since I was extremelyprivate in those days, many friends got upset at me for choosing my notebooks over them.
But just as many wondered how I found something to write about each and every night. Was my life so interesting that I could write about it pretty much non-stop? The fact is, it wasn’t my life that was so full, it was my mind. My thoughts, my feelings, my observations. Life is so interesting for everyone if only they’d pay attention to their surroundings more. I’d try to explain this to my friends but it’s one of those things that cannot be told, you either know it or you don’t. When I started college, I felt it was more necessary than ever that I keep up with my diaries and record the changes that I was bound to go through.
That lasted all of a month.
If you look through my last dairy. You’d see that it has the same trickling effect I’ve had on the site. My entries from those days started getting shorter and more hurried. Then months came in between and most of the time was spent writing about how it’s been so long since I last wrote.
For years after I graduated college, I regretted never having kept diaries. I had so many memories, so many changes, so many interesting friends and conversations that it sucked not to have a record of it all, not to be able to go back and revisit it. But now I understand it. Now that the same thing is happening.
I’m going through another one of those times when there are a lot of interesting people in my life. People who share their thoughts with me, who listen to my thoughts, who are an outlet for my excessive thinking and feeling problem. And just like in college, I want to maximize my time with them. And just like in college, all my other free time is downtime and I am in need of rest then. Therefore, just like in college, I am falling out of the habit of writing. There is a limited amount of time and I’m spending mine making memories instead of writing about them.
But the guilt about not writing doesn’t go away. No matter how much I tell myself that I need not apologize and that this is for me and etc. I feel bad about the lack of updates and I feel like I’m not fulfilling some sort of duty. So I’ve decided to cut myself some slack. Here’s the story for the next three months:
May – I am getting married in two weeks. My family is coming next week and I’m quite overwhelmed.
June – I am ending a six-year career and starting the new one on the deep end of the pool.
July – I will be living in a dorm in the Bronx for five weeks, teaching and learning how to teach.
Therefore I think it’s only healthy that I stop writing for a bit. At least try and stop the guilt. If you enjoy reading my page, thank you and I have almost two years worth of archives and you can always email me and I will do more than my best to reply asap and make sure to come back in August, I will be writing again. I might even be writing sooner, who knows? I will still try to update the excerpts and pictures as often as it can.
In the meantime, be well. Go out and live.
And wish me luck.
I like to mess with people’s minds.
I am not willing to fit into the boxes people are so ready to place me in. (yes, I know it’s bad to end a sentence with a preposition and I don’t care.) I am not willing to play along just so they can simplify their own definitions of the world and its people. I am not willing to be a representative of anything but myself. I am not all women. I am not all Turkish people. I am not all managers. I am not all anything. I am only me and I am not generic. (wow, Rony would be proud.)
I curse. I tell people that I am going to ‘pee’ or that ‘I have my period’ just to see their reaction to the words being uttered. I have true male friends. I hate to shop. I am overly emotional and extremely analytical all in one. I can be incredibly mean and truly compassionate. I say it like I see it. I don’t fuck around or play games with people. I like to wear heels. I am clumsy and not dainty. I am not your typical woman. I don’t believe in the existence of a typical woman. While I understand that stereotypes exist for a reason, I am frustrated by the way in which people use them to make people feel alienated.
When I moved to the United States there were several circumstances in which people assumed I’d like a particular food because I was Jewish. Examples? Bagels and Chinese food. I had never had the former and hated the latter. Expectations lead to disappointment. And I’ve spent too many years not meeting other people’s expectations of me.
So now I fuck with them.
I say it out loud. I do it in public. I force the judgmental people in my life to face their incorrect assumptions. It is my punishment for their not taking the time to get to know me as a person. If you’re placing me in the same box as everyone else, if you’re going to be lazy, you deserve it.
If there’s one common theme across all my friendships, it’s that these people aren’t simple. I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t have layers. Some hide it better than others but all humans are less simple than we often assume. And I am tired of other people making the call on what I should and should not do. What’s okay for me to feel. What’s acceptable for me to say. What’s acceptable for me to think.
The sad thing is we all do it in some way. We all have assumptions about categories of human beings and we all categorize humans, as an intelligent commenter noted earlier this month. But what we don’t do is to rethink it. We don’t work all that hard to get to know an individual. We don’t allow for people to be multi-faceted, living in multiple boxes, having multiple sides.
Somewhere in our childhood, the norms become clearly defined and straying from the norm becomes a sign of abnormality, and therefore, inferiority. The funny thing is that by the time we’re adults, almost all of us have strayed from the norm in one way or another. For many years, I’ve handled my abnormalities with a sense of shame and downplayed them as much as possible.
Not anymore. Somewhere along the line, I decided that ‘I’m me and if you don’t like it, tough’ and I’ve also decided that what makes me me are those abnormalities. Those exceptions to the rules. So I wear them with pride and mess with people’s assumptions. That’s my way of letting them know it’s not okay to categorize and then chastise people for not fitting in.
I am so much more than a category. Aren’t you?
Previously? Jitters.
I’ve been freaking out about the upcoming wedding.
For one reason or another, I seem to find an opportunity to break down about it weekly. A good friend of mine says I have the jitters.
I guess it depends on your definition.
I’ve always associated wedding jitters with worry related to the person you’re marrying. If we use my definition, I definitely don’t have the jitters. I’ve been with Jake for over seven years and I’ve had a lot of time to think whether he’s the sort of man I can spend forever with or not. I’ve had opportunities to meet tons of other people and still am fully convinced that he’s my favorite person in the world.
Bar none.
So if Jake’s not the problem, why are you freaking out? one might ask. It appears there’s more to getting married than the man with whom you’re tying the knot.
One big part of it is the actual wedding party. What has become apparent to me is that it’s impossible for us to have a truly low-key wedding. So the bigger the wedding gets, the more concerned I become. The more chance things might not go as planned, especially since I didn’t plan all that much. Not to mention, I have only been to three weddings in my life, one of which was my sister’s, none of which was American. So I can’t even swing it since I don’t know the list and order in which things are done.
But the bigger issue isn’t the day, it’s the ‘forever.’ The fact that I am old, adult and mature enough to make a decision that will last forever. Before you go into your diatribe on how marriages aren’t necessarily forever and I’m allowed to change my mind and stuff, I would like to note that I plan for mine to be forever. I understand that things can change and it might not end up being forever but, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to plan on having it last forever. Marriage, to me, is the first step I’ve made as an adult. College, moving to the United States, moving into my own apartment, starting a job, quitting a career, moving in with my boyfriend have all seemed less permanent. Less daunting.
And I can’t exactly put my finger on why this is so daunting, but I know that it is. I know that it means more responsibility. It means more mature behavior. It is a door to more responsibility, such as having children. It’s a step where I can see the tunnel that is the rest of my life. Jake is someone I want by me for each of the steps I will make down that tunnel. So I know I chose the right person.
But I’m just scared that I could have chosen the wrong tunnel. And I’d like to reserve the right to switch. And somehow, until now I felt like I could move around and take different paths, but now that I will be married, everyone will be expecting me to walk down this one specific path and I am more likely to screw up.
So would that be categorized as having the jitters?
Previously? Richter at the MOMA.
Here’s something I’ve learned from having spent ten years in a foreign country: it’s easy to judge others.
One would think I could have had this lesson in my home country. Or that it should have nothing to do with countries at all. And one would be right. Being judgmental seems to be human nature. It’s our way of vocalizing something that we don’t approve. It’s our way of criticizing and speaking up. All of which is within one’s right, or it should be. Each person is entitled to his or her own opinion on all matters. The fact that it’s your opinion means it’s yours and no one can tell you otherwise.
So I’ve been working hard at reminding myself that when people criticize my choices, my actions, my thoughts, my feelings and my country, they have a right to feel or think the way they do. What bothers me, however, is the quickness with which people judge. Most people I know never bother to learn all sides of a matter and never care to listen to an opposing view.
If a person wants to upgrade a thought from opinion to declaration or even something that they believe is worth discussing, I think it’s crucial for that person to have completed the appropriate research. I could come to you and say, “I think three-year-old boys are stupider than three-year-old girls.” And if you have any interest in discussing this subject matter with me (which might be debatable after you hear the biased and ignorant way in which I worded my claim) you’d ask me what my sources are. Where is my data? How exactly do I define “stupid”? What is the pool of three-year-olds I have researched? Was this a controlled experiment? For my statement to be anything more than something I pulled out of thin air, I must have some examples and data to back it up.
The same goes for history. It’s easy for someone to have opinions on who did wrong when it comes to some of the world’s major historical blunders. But even with 20/20 hindsight, it’s nearly impossible to prove that one’s opinion is more valid than another’s. It’s easy for you to sit in your chair and say that a country that’s oceans away from your living room should do such-and-such to put a stop to the terrible situation over there. Yet, who are we to say exactly what’s going on?
I’m always amazed at the way people react when they find out that I’m Turkish. Over the ten years, I’ve heard just about anything and everything. How this was our fault and that was our fault, etc. Not that I’m disagreeing about anything specific but I really do doubt that most of these people know anything about Turkey besides the few lines they’ve read in their history books or heard from another opinioned source. At least I’m honest enough to admit that my education and exposure was biased and that I don’t know all the facts. I don’t know the situation and such I am not really willing to pass judgement.
While I completely agree that taking any human’s life is an awful act and we shouldn’t be killing people, especially as aimlessly as it appears to be lately, I also understand how complicated the world is and how near impossible it is to place blame. It’s never one person’s fault. Often times, there are deep-rooted problems that require years and years of work to reach a possible resolution. And maybe I am naive, but I do believe that people don’t enjoy killing others. Even the most evil-seeming ones do it out of a corrupt or confused sense of justice, but not for the sake of senseless murder. Not that it makes it excusable. It just allows me to keep my sense of faith in the world, I suppose.
I love America. To me it’s the homeland I never had. I feel like it’s where I was meant to live all along. And I also love Turkey; it’s a crucial part of my identity, one that I have always been proud to vocalize. And when I hear people criticize either nation, I feel protective urges rise within me. I feel like telling people that they are unappreciative and bitter. But then I listen. In case they have something valuable to say. To hear the meat behind their opinions. To see if they’ve done their research. To find out if it’s anything besides judgmental banter.
So that I can learn.
Previously? Shedding.
Spring might finally be coming to New York City.
This winter has been one of the most eventful and thrilling in my life. The roller coaster ride that is my life has reached new levels and promises to get even steeper. It’s not that I don’t think of writing my site all the time like I used to, it’s just that I recognize it for what it is now. I began it cause I thought it would be fun to unleash my thoughts onto the web. I went through the “please read me” obsession and made a lot of adjustments over the first few months. As a good student I complied with my inner regulation that I shall write every day. A little voice in me kept repeating that people would stop coming if I stopped updating regularly. I accomplish. I finish the things that I start. And nothing, no trip, or person was to stop me from doing my daily homework by posting my site.
And then September came and went and my belief system, which was already on its last legs, shattered.
I like the fact that snakes shed their skin. I wish I could shed my skin each time I wanted to. In the last few months I’ve realized that I live my life according to other people’s priorities more often than I’d like to. We all grow up listening to rules that the adults around us present. Between birth and adulthood, there are many adults who come in and out of our lives like parents and other family members, teachers, baby sitters, mentors, managers, etc. Each person comes with his or her own baggage and each person pushes us different ways. In my life, I have met very few adults who’ve encouraged me to find out what I want and who I am. People have promoted me and helped me walk the path that I claimed I wanted. But no one pushed me to discover myself.
I don’t mean to imply that people stood in my way or that I wasn’t allowed to be me. I mean I don’t think I knew what “being me” was. Looking around me, I don’t think this is a rare phenomenon. I guess what’s unusual is my need to work on getting to know me, getting to be me. Which is an ongoing challenge since who I am seems to change constantly. This makes me think that the struggle – and joy – of getting to know me could take forever.
My life until now has been all about the destination. All about the path that would take me there. All about reaching, working, struggling and achieving. I think that now I’m ready for some living. You might think that quitting a part-time, somewhat cushy job for a challenging and scary new career might not be the best way to start living, but I think that’s exactly the way.
Leaving the old skin behind to grow a new one.
One that might not lead anywhere. One that might just be a side trip on my journey. One that might even be the biggest mistake I will have made. One that I am determined to make the most of. One that will change my life. One that has already changed my life.
While I see the value of a destination, I want to take a break and enjoy the journey. Sink into the moment. Pay attention inward. Pay attention outward. Pay attention in general.
That might be why I am not so sad about not writing my site daily anymore. I know that when the need comes back, it will still be there and I will do it again. Until then, intermittent is good enough for me.
Spring is coming to New York and I am ready for it.
Previously? Together but Apart.
The Almitra spoke again and said, what of Marriage, master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow. – Khalil Gibran – The Prophet
There were days when I would have been shocked by the above words. Together yet not too near together? What do you mean, I would have thought, aren’t we supposed to want to stand completely by each other and depend on each other and give up part of who we are? Marriage and partnering for life are all about compromises, after all. Right?
Well, it appears my opinion on those matters has shifted somewhat in the recent days/months/years. Not that I don’t still believe that marriage is about compromise. Actually, I think most relationships, whether they be romantic, friendly or professional are all somewhat about compromise. But I no longer think that choosing to be with someone means being one with that person. I don’t believe that partnering for life equals giving up self-identity. On the contrary, I love the idea of choosing to be beside one person and sharing and caring and fulfilling each other.
It appears I am marveling in the glory of individuality and sense of self. The idea of joining to perform miracles without having to become one thing appeals to me. It no longer seems necessary to make the eternal sacrifice or ask for it in return. Instead, it feels joyous. Like something I want to do. Like something I can do. Like something I choose to do. Not something I must do.
It’s not about giving up me, it’s about having someone alongside of me forever. Growing together but separately.
Individually.
Previously? Perfetto.
Want to know a quick way to get someone to fail on a task?
Tell them it has to be perfect.
Perfection by its nature is near impossible to reach. Perfect. Flawless. Impeccable. As soon as I hear those words I can almost see the pressure. The stress. If everyone reached perfection the definition of perfection would change. It would become ordinary. I know that as a meaning, the word perfection doesn’t exclude repetition. It doesn’t imply doing better than others or being the best at something. It merely means doing that thing without any flaw. That’s all.
But who defines something as perfect? When is a painting perfect? Is Monet perfect? What about Boticelli? How about a musical piece or a book. When is a movie perfect? To me, perfection in any of those categories is a personal opinion and varies too much to be able to pin down. I can even say that people disagree every day on what qualifies as perfect computer code. Two functions that do the same thing can have extremely different code and one might be perfect for some people while the other is perfect for others. People have fights over this daily. And I am of the belief that anything that’s hard to define is hard to achieve.
I can almost hear some people saying, “So what are you saying, should we all just try hard enough but never aim for perfection?” Well, hard enough is also a difficult term to define. First of all, the amount you choose to push/challenge yourself is and should always be your own call. No one but you can get you to do the things you want to do. Secondly, I’m not telling you not to aim high or not to do the best you can, I’m just saying that when you’re working on a story and you’ve rewritten the story eleven times just to fix a single sentence, maybe it’s time to take another approach: cut the sentence out or leave it as is.
I find perfection to be highly overrated. There’s beauty in imperfection just the same way as there is in perfection. Most things in nature are slightly imperfect and somehow it feels more right to me. Perfection seems to inhuman, too calculated, like someone trying too hard. And too often it ends in disaster.
I think most people know their limit. They may never admit to it or show it to others, but we have a good understanding of how far we can go. I’d say combine that knowledge with how hard you’re willing to push.
It may not result in perfection but, it sure is close enough.
Previously? Brown Thumbs.
I manage to kill plants without much effort.
It’s not because I lack the amount of love required. First of all, I never know what sort of needs each plant has. Does it require a lot of water or just a bit? Can it survive in the darker parts of the apartment or is too much light a good idea? How often do I water it? Questions that seem simple to others are not so for me.
To make matters more painful, I love flowers. I love to see them bloom. My favorite are the tulips that come small and closed up and open almost all the way. They appear to be such giving flowers. I love that they come in tons of different colors.
In New York, delis sell flowers that range from 3-10dollars. They live about a week and still give me the pleasure of seeing flowers in my house but since they don’t last long or cost much, they come free of the guilt of killing the plant.
Or at least I can fool myself so.
Previously? Just the Facts.
History is written by the winners so the saying goes.
I waited for months to get my hands on Crescent and Star: Turkey between two worlds. I read about it months ago and decided it would be interesting to read a foreigner’s perspective of my homeland. I downloaded the first chapter from the New York Times and found him to be interesting enough to be worth my time.
As I read book, I often find myself struggling to remember the versions of history I was taught. For as long as I can remember, I’ve hated history with a passion. Part of that might be attributed to having grown up in a country with history that practically dates back to the beginning of time. Another part could have something to do with my awful teachers. History translates to hours of memorization when you go to my school and maybe that’s got something to do with my despising it, too. I’ve never been good at memorizing anything.
Anyhow, let’s get back to my topic. Reading about the history of the Ottoman Empire, I noticed a few discrepancies. Some were minor, like the story of how someone got their nickname. Others were more drastic and made me ponder how history is taught. Every nation has its own version of what happened, who was right and why things turned out how they did. One nation’s hero is another nation’s traitor.
In my training class at work, I met a girl from Iran who became one of my close friends. I remember chatting with her one day, in the subway on the way home. I can’t recall how the conversation came up but I was telling her how glad I was that Ataturk did all that he did for Turkey and how if it weren’t for him, I don’t know where we would live. She looked at me in the eye and told me that they considered him a traitor. I was flabbergasted. Honestly. If you ever visit Turkey and see how adored and cherished this man is, the idea of anyone, anywhere not thinking he’s amazing hadn’t occurred to me. I mean, there are special history classes solely based on him and his movements for goodness’ sake.
Reading this book makes me wonder what it takes to get an honest account of history. What actually happened? I am not so concerned with who’s right and who’s wrong. I do understand that’s opinion based. But I am interested in a straightforward order of events. Just to be informed. Just to learn without bias.
Do I need to read books from all the countries involved and string the pieces together? Is it even possible to get an accurate understanding of what happened? Is history always deceiving? Is the only way to know what happened to have been there?
People say that those to don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Yet they never say anything about how difficult it is to simply get the facts.
Previously? Anticipation.
I cherish the value of spontaneity.
Most of us live in a monotonous life. We get up early in the morning, brush our teeth, shower, get dressed, use our respective forms of transportation, get to work, eat lunch, work some more, return home, eat dinner, chitchat/watch TV/go out, and then sleep. Depending on your lifestyle, job, and age this might vary but most people I know who are my age or older have a comforting, though at times infuriating, monotony in their lives.
So adding color every now and then can be crucial for the sanity/life of a relationship. Every self-help book will tell you that spicing up your relationship with an unexpected moment will have huge benefits. And I am not one to disagree.
Yet I also think that certain side effects of consistency are often under-appreciated. One such side effect is anticipation.
When I know that I go to the movies every Tuesday with a friend, I tend to get excited by the anticipation of my time with my friend or the excitement of getting to see a new movie. If I have stories to tell my friend, I tend to grow more and more excited as the day approaches until I am just thrilled it’s Tuesday. If I didn’t have this regular schedule, I wouldn’t have the time to think about it ahead of time and feel the joy of anticipation. Lately, I find myself making more and more plans and thus, feeling continuously excited by yet another event that’s to come.
I guess, as with everything else, it’s best to have a bit of both. Having some scheduled events interspersed with small doses of spontaneity might be close to perfection. I just wish that the magazines that recommend you to schedule random events would also explain the values of scheduling some consistent timeslot where you plan something that you can look forward to, get excited about and anticipate.
If you don’t believe me, just give it a try. Pick a really good friend, and schedule a regular activity. Or pick a time slot with your honey, which you put aside to do something you really like. Put aside a half-hour to do something for yourself once a week. Anything. Like taking a bubble bath, going shoe shopping, curling up with your book, playing video games. It can be anything, the only requirement is that it has to be something you enjoy, not something you think you have to do. This is based on “wanting.” That’s when anticipation does its trick.
Come on. Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
Previously? Creative Imagination.
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projects for twenty twenty-six
projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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