A friend of mine recently sent me some bad news.
She’s been going through some tough times with a friend and she told me that she knew I’d say “I told you so” and I’d be right.
The first thought that crossed my mind as I read the words was “I’d never say that.” What’s the point of making such a cruel comment to someone who’s already suffering? The more I thought about it, the more stupid it seemed to me. Was I really the sort of person to make such a remark?
I called up my friend and told her how badly I felt for her recent falling out and how much I wished she’d work things out eventually. I said, “I wouldn’t say ‘I told you so’ I would have never wanted you to have to go through this.” She thanked me and we chatted for a brief period before it was time for me to get on the plane to Turkey.
Even though she didn’t say, or probably even imply, that I was a vindictive person, the idea of getting satisfaction from having been right about her potential to have a falling out with her friend felt disgusting. The more I thought about the phrase the more repulsive it became in my mind. If I were the sort of person to enjoy being right so much, I needed to change immediately.
Giving advice is not necessarily a bad thing. Often times if a friend asks for my opinion on a subject matter, I’m more than happy to offer my opinion of experience with the subject matter. Especially if the friend is someone on whom I can count to take my words as nothing more than my opinion. I don’t want people to do as I say, I just want to offer them my perspective, as I believe in hearing everyone out before I make a decision.
I also get annoyed at people who give me advice and then get cross if I decide not to do exactly as they recommended. What these people seem to fail to understand is that this is my life. I need to make and be responsible for my own decisions so that if something doesn’t turn out as expected, I only have myself to blame. Disappointments are hard enough to live with as is, the last thing I need is the excuse to blame it on someone else. Nor do I want anyone putting the responsibility of their own misfortune on me.
And ‘I told you so’ accomplishes nothing besides making everything about you. It’s as if you’re saying ‘See you messed up you life, cause you didn’t listen to me. You didn’t take my advice as gospel and now you’re screwed.’ It doesn’t matter if the friend is sad, all you’re thinking of is gloating about how you were right.
Talk about a good friend.
Previously? Home Again.
This time tomorrow, I’ll be over the Atlantic Ocean.
I’ve already written about my feelings when it gets this close to going home.
I’ve already written about hugging my nephews.
I’m sitting here and trying to come up with a pithy entry. Something that will make you think during the next few days that I won’t be updating the site. Something to keep you entertained. Something to keep you busy.
But all my thoughts fail me.
This is about the time when my feelings have completely taken over everything else. I go through my daily motions and do what I need to, but the whole time there’s this loud voice inside my head and all it says is:
“You’re going home!”
It’s not quiet. It’s yelling. It’s not subtle. It’s a continuous loop. It’s there during all my waking hours. It even creeps into my dreams.
I’ve packed all my presents, Jake’s clothes, my clothes, 4 library books on education, Derek‘s book into a piece of luggage. Add to that a bag pack full of printouts on education reform, Trail Fever by Michael Lewis, The Language Instinct by Pinker, my laptop and my Japanese homework and our passports and tickets. We’re set to go!
All this for nine days.
I hate packing. I want to take everything with me. All my books. My cameras. My laptop. More clothes than I could wear in a month. Mostly cause I hate to have to choose. I want it all so I don’t need to make any decisions. What if I finish all six books in one day and I have nothing left for the rest of the week. That’s what I think. Even after the last eleven trips where I barely finished a book, I take six with me just in case.
Just in case what? Your guess is as good as mine.
I simply suck at packing.
I apologize for the lack of depth in this post. But the voice in my head won’t let me do anything. All it can think of is lying on the couch in our balcony, playing with my nephews. Hugging my nephews. Hugging my nephews. Hugging my nephews.
My mom, my dad, my sister, my brother in law, my grandmas. But most importantly, my nephews.
See? This is why I should stop writing now!
I promise to have something much deeper to say as soon as I arrive in Burgaz.
Btw, I am in the process of putting together a new idea and I need volunteers. If you’re interested email me.
Previously? Courage and Fear.
“Courage is the mastery of fear, not the absence of fear.” – Mark Twain
Mark Twain’s quotes are often my favorite, but this one has a special significance to my current state of mind.
I think most people assume that if you take a risk you must either be stupid or fearless. Why else would you give up all you have for a questionable future? Especially now that the markets are bad, the future of everyone is up in the air. This is no time to take risks.
So I must be fearless, right?
I must be a snob. I must be secure in my abilities. I must be rich. I must be dumb.
Well, I’m not.
I just believe in the power of fear and the necessity of conquering it.
A while back, I wrote about how sometimes it’s okay to ignore an issue. Sometimes time helps issues disappear. Sometimes you change your mind. Sometimes you just learn to let go.
But that’s not the case with fear. Fear tends to grow with avoidance.
Imagine you’re in a bad relationship and you’re scared to leave him or her for fear that you might never find ‘the one.’ So you put it off. Another year passes and now your relationship is even worse, yet you’re a year older, and even more scared to leave. Another year and you’re even worse off. One more year, and you’re completely stuck. You may never get out.
The same applies to pretty much everything of which you’re afraid. A bad job, moving out, moving in, a bad friend. The longer you’re in, the harder it is to get out.
The trick is not ‘not to fear’, it’s to face your fears. To attack them head on and remind yourself that you deserve better. Or at least that you owe it to yourself to try. As Shakespeare said, “Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.”
Cause if you don’t try, you cannot possibly achieve.
So I’m going to try. I am scared. But I want to try. I need to try. I will try.
Care to join me?
Previously? Cuppcik.
I’m not a bird person.
When I first moved to New York City, I knew I was going to live by myself in a city where I knew practically no one. Ideally, I wanted to get a dog. But with the obscene investment banking hours, I knew that the shelters wouldn’t let me have a puppy.
So I figured a cat might be a better alternative. Cats are more self-entertained, I assumed. Well, I found out I am dreadfully allergic. So much so that the white of my eyeballs swells when in the same room with a cat. That ruled out the cat option.
My mom kept saying that I should get a bird. Wouldn’t I want a cute, little bird?
A bird? Who wants a bird? You can’t hug a bird. You can’t give him kisses and have him curl up on your lap. No, I told my mom, I wouldn’t want a bird.
A few weeks later, on my way home, I saw a bird store with tons of colorful lovebirds in the window, chirping loudly. I don’t know what made me walk in, but next thing I knew a parrot the size of my face was sitting on my arm, looking into my eyes. When the storeowner quoted me several thousand dollars for the fascinating creature, I balked. Maybe I could see a cheaper, more affordable size?
Which is how I ended up with cupcik.
   
  
  
  
In the five years that cupcik and I have shared the same apartment, he’s never ceased to amaze me. This tiny, blue creature is curious, intelligent, and playful. He imitates the phone ring, he figures out how to maximize his level of fun and he makes our life much more entertaining.
His little feet make small clicking sounds when on the parquet floor. He walks over to the mirrored legs of our chairs and pecks at the bird he sees. He is so excited by the clicking of the computer that he flies on to the keyboard to have a piece of his own. He loves chewing on paper and landing on your head. He’s sweet, kind, and comes to everyone.
He’s made me into a bird person.
Previously? 121,110.
I registered the domain karenika.com on June 5, 2000.
I put up a page and started writing. Nothing in particular. Just anything that crossed my mind. I had begun reading a few weblogs and as a person who wrote diaries for years, I loved the idea.
On August 20, 2001, I started using blogger.
I changed the layout of my site. I kept reading. I kept writing.
At first, I had one loyal reader. My good friend Cheryl.
But then it changed. I kept checking my referrer logs, trying to find out where people came from. Certain sites kept appearing in my logs over and over again, making me feel giddy.
Last week, I downloaded all of the main karenika writings into a Word document. Running wordcount showed that the file had 121,110 words.
121,110 words.
That’s almost two novels.
And it doesn’t even include the excerpts, tidbits, or ‘what I learned’ section.
And here I was feeling miserable that I couldn’t finish my novel.
In the last year, I’ve shared many of my emotions, thoughts, frustrations and joy with the entire world. I’ve met some incredible people. I’ve been sad, mesmerized and inspired. I’ve learned an enormous amount from the community that is exclusive and inclusive at the same time.
I love writing my page and to each one of you who come to read every day, or even once in a while, I thank you. You encourage me to keep writing, even if you don’t say a word. Just the fact that you come to my site thrills me endlessly.
And if you’ve been coming for a while and haven’t ever shared or dropped me an email, please do so. What makes the web amazing is the people and I’m delighted to be a part of this wonderful place!
Here’s to another great year!
Previously? Burgaz.
When I tell people that I’m from Turkey, the visions they imagine are nothing like my actual life.
Istanbul is actually quite similar to New York City. People running around, always in a rush, the streets dirty, the nightclubs open till the morning hours and blocks and blocks of shops continuously open. The mosques, the low skyline and the widely spread city reassure you that you’re not New York City and the Turkish doesn’t help either, but the lifestyle isn’t so different from most other major cities.
But Burgaz is.
Burgaz is a tiny island, one of four, in the sea connecting the Black Sea to the Aegean, the Marmara Sea. The islands increase in size, Burgaz being the second smallest. We have spent our summers there for as far back as I can remember.
The island is so small that you can walk its entire circumference in two to three hours. As children, we used to make the trip several times a summer. Burgaz has no cars, only horse carriages. The only vehicles on the island are the two fire trucks.
  
Fishers make the island a heaven for the hundreds of cats that are its inhabitants. As you dine in one of the seaside restaurants, live fish jump up and down in their buckets. It has the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted in my life. Sweet corn and caramelized apples are available all day long. Most of the kids either skateboard or swim during the day and hang out in one of the two clubs at night. I must admit that dancing in front of your parents and your grandparents during your teenage years isn’t anyone’s idea of fun, which is why every teenager, as soon as the parents okay it, takes the evening boat to the biggest island to dance in the one disco. The same boat picks up the kids around 4 am, after the disco is closed and the early morning snacks are eaten. I have breathtaking images of walking up the hill to my house as the sun rose.
Burgaz is a piece of history. A tiny community with a single pharmacy, one grocery store, and a few restaurants. You know every one of your neighbors cause just like you, they and their parents and their parents’ parents have all grown up here.
As of next week yesterday, Jake and I will be relaxing in the balcony of our small house in Burgaz. Watching the waves dance, the sailboats slide back and forth, the kids run around, eating delicious Turkish food.
Thankful that some parts of the world never change.
Ps: the beautiful images of Burgaz and our house are copyright of a family friend, Erdogan. If you want to see more pictures of Burgaz, you can find them here.
Previously? Mistakes.
I believe in making mistakes.
I know that in the overall scheme of life mistakes are meant to be bad. They lead us to failure and who wants to fail?
But that’s not entirely true, similar to yesterday’s point, the importance of learning firsthand also applies to making mistakes.
Let’s say you didn’t want to learn firsthand, how could you avoid making mistakes? Well, by listening to other people of course! With that approach, you’re making two fundamental assumptions:
One. What they consider to be a mistake in their environment and circumstances is also going to be a mistake in yours.
Two. Repeating the actions that led them to their mistake will result in your facing the same mistake.
I believe that both of these have cases where they become incorrect assumptions.
Let’s take the first case. Decisions and choices are extremely environment-based. Divorcing an abusive partner may be considered a huge mistake in some societies and the correct path in others. Same goes for abortion and many other controversial issues. Dropping out of school to help save your family’s financial situation might seem shortsighted to some people but might lead you to go through doors that would not have been available to you in some societies because in yours family values are extremely highly regarded. What I consider to be a stupid move might be an act of genius for you.
On a related note, just because you do the same thing I did doesn’t mean you will reach the same results I did. We could both cut school and go to the movies and while I get caught and end up getting detention, you might end up meeting someone who changes your life in that movie theater. (okay, it’s not likely but it could happen) A lot of our life depends on people or events outside our control. The likeliness of a certain set of actions resulting in the same exact outcome is very low.
Even if we ignored the above points. I still think there’s much to be said for making your own mistakes and learning from them. When you make a mistake, depending on the significance of that mistake, it stays in your mind for quite a long period of time. You don’t need someone to explain to you why it’s a bad idea, you lived through it and you learned. Even when the same actions result in a mistake, there might be different reasons why it was a mistake for you than why it was a mistake for the other person. And it’s important to know the difference.
When we make mistakes, we learn about ourselves more than anything else. Yes, we learn about our environment, too, but we learn so much more about our logic. Our assumptions. Our ignorance. Our unrealistic expectations. Our naive outlook. We try to sit and pinpoint where exactly things went wrong. At what point did the great idea turn into a disaster?
That’s not something any other human being can teach you.
Previously? Show Me.
One of the fundamental creeds of writing is telling versus showing.
Imagine you’re reading a novel and the writer has the following line:
“She must be out of her mind,” said Jennifer. She was angry.
What do you know about the character? Well you take the author’s that Jennifer’s angry. You don’t really have proof, with the possible exception of your added voice to the words. If you read it in an angry manner, you might feel okay about taking the author’s word for jennifer’s state of mind. But if you read it ironically, you might be surprised when you hit upon the word “angry”. Depending on the sentence, you might even have to go back an reread.
Now take this sentence:
Jennifer stormed into the room. “She must be out of her mind,” she hollered. She slammed her schoolbag on the table and turned on the TV.
Okay so it’s not the most elegant prose you’ve ever read, but the author didn’t come out and say that Jennifer was mad, yet you got the idea. Why? Cause you could see Jennifer “storming” into the room and “hollering” and “slamming her bag” those are all signs of anger. The reader can play it out in his mind and figure out that Jennifer must be mad. You haven’t “told” the reader what to feel; you’ve let him experience it firsthand.
The same strategy can be used in teaching. It’s the fundamental difference of being told how things work and seeing how things work. Especially in topics in the sciences, since we have real world examples of how things work, firsthand knowledge can’t measure up to a few lines in a textbook. No matter how many times I tell you that a chemical solution is very acidic, as soon as you dip the litmus strip into it and it turns red, it will carve a place in your memory. And it’s important that you dipped the strip and not me. You figure it out all by yourself. You deduce. You conclude.
Same idea applies to basic math, instead of saying two plus two equals four, why not line up two balls and then add two more and ask the student count? This way it’s not as if you’re divine and just imparting knowledge, but you’re showing people how they can derive their own, correct, conclusions. I think that we tend to remember firsthand experiences much more vividly than information we’re told.
Maybe it’s cause we don’t inherently like to take other people’s word for things. Humans always observe the world around them. It’s in our nature. And maybe in the processes of letting the students or readers come to their own conclusions, you elevate them to the same level as yourself. You show them that they’re intelligent enough to figure it out.
In the end don’t we all like to be treated as equals?
Previously? The Obvious.
Can you light a bulb with a battery and a wire?
Really? How?
It’s amazing how little attention we pay to things that are part of our day to day experience. We often focus on the task at hand and pay little attention to the peripherals in our world.
For example, let’s take this question: “If you wanted to see more of yourself in a mirror, do you move backwards of forward?”
Go ahead, think, I’ll be here.
You thought it through? You sure? What’s the answer?
Nope. It’s not “you have to move back.”
The fact is no matter how far back you move, you still see the same amount of yourself in the mirror. Trust me, you can test it out.
Isn’t it amazing that we use mirrors every single day, but we never really notice that? When we look in the mirror, we’re busy concentrating on our task: brushing our teeth, combing our hair, etc. But we don’t wonder much about how the mirror works.
Mostly because we don’t have to. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it, right?
I think we could all benefit from looking harder at the world around us. Maybe I feel that way cause I’m surprised when a basic assumption I make turns out to be wrong. At the age of twenty-six, I believe I should know about fundamentals of how the world works or at least how things I interact with on a daily basis work. I don’t mean that you should know how each chip of a computer works, but how does electricity work, or mirrors, or cameras. Those are pretty fundamental.
Here’s another question for you: if by some way we were able to create a room that was completely dark, could you see an apple that was in that room? What about after ten minutes?
Let me know what you think, you might be amazed at the answer.
Most of us take these fundamentals for granted. Most of us are never taught these core functions well. Most of us never had to light a bulb with a battery and wire or sit in a completely dark room. Most of us never cared to look at a mirror just to see how the reflection is affected by the change in the distance of the source. Most of us either don’t care or work off of some, and often incorrect, assumptions.
Buy maybe you’re much more observant than I am and have learned all the basics. In that case I look up to you and think you’re amazing.
Because you’ve conquered the ideal of looking beyond the obvious.
Previously? Categorical Imperative.
Act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. – Immanuel Kant
I was watching a TV program about the above philosophy tonight and since I’ve never studied philosophy before, Kant’s categorical imperative was completely new information to me.
While most of us would probably agree that only doing things that we would be okay with the entire public doing is a pretty safe moral attitude, I wonder if it’s actually used. I’d be interested in putting our own behavior to the test.
Let’s say you’re not really good about recycling. You mean to, but you just never get around to it and it’s so much easier just to mix it all up and take it out as one big bag of trash. Well, that’s not a huge deal. How many recyclable items are you throwing away? Maybe 10 a week, maybe 20. At the end of the day it’s not a major disaster.
Now let’s assume, no one recycles cause what you do became universal law. Suddenly, the numbers have grown exponentially. Suddenly, it became a huge deal. Suddenly, you’re the cause of a major problem. Don’t you feel responsible?
You’d better.
Yet in our day-to-day encounters how many of us actually use such a barometer?
I can personally volunteer the information that I would fail this test in a different way almost every single day. Some days I don’t show as much patience as I would expect other people to show, or at least the world would be a bad place if everyone practiced as little patience as I do on those days. Other days, I’m too lazy. And at times too selfish. I try to be conscientious and I try to not overdo any of my negative traits, but I can not in good conscience say that I’d measure up.
On the other hand, I can see cases where Kant’s theory doesn’t work so well. Life is often not so black and white. Sometimes we have to reprimand people, sometimes we have to lie, sometimes we have to be mean in the short term to ensure the long term turns out okay.
But those are the exceptions.
Overall, I think the concept of “imagine everyone in the world did exactly as you did” is a good strategy to live in a society. Maybe if we all kept the principle in mind more, we might rethink a lot of our behavior or at least grow a conscious seed.
Sometimes a seed is all it takes.
How well do you measure up in Kant’s barometer?
Previously? All-nighter.
The night before her philosophy paper was due, my college roommate swallowed the two Vivarins that came in her Freshman box.
In our first week in college, we each got a box with the ‘essentials’. A small box of shaving cream, a razor, a pack of advil, tampons, tooth paste and a toothbrush, deodorant and a pack of Vivarin. Two years later when I became a Resident Assistant, I tried to get the Vivarins removed from the package but I lost. Well, that’s another story for another time.
My roommate ended up pulling an all-nighter but her brain was completely asleep yet the chemicals wouldn’t let her body cooperate. So she couldn’t write her paper and she got no sleep. The next morning, she felt like shit. And she still had a paper to write.
My first all-nighter was to guard the fence. At CMU, we have a tiny fence that’s outside one of the main buildings. Much of the campus-event advertising is done through painting this fence. The rules are that you need to guard it all night, before you can paint it. So my organization got a tent and we spent the night by the fence. A perfect college experience.
All-nighters are exactly what college is about.
Thanks to a full load of classes, real good friends, several jobs, and unquenchable energy, I spent many all-nighters in my four years. To be fully honest, most of them had nothing to do with homework. I was having too much fun, I enjoyed being around the people and sleep seemed to be a waste of time.
Since graduation, I have pulled one, a single, all-nighter. It was during my very first year in New York, when I was chatting with friends on the computer and working on my 3-D trumpet. I modeled and rendered it all that night. I’d been working on it on and off for a long time but I kept getting it wrong. The energy I got at three in the morning and the excitement of talking to my friend, allowed me the concentration to actually get it right.
I can’t seem to stay up all night any more. By the time my watch says eleven, my eyelids are heavy and I struggle to make it to bed. It might have something to do with getting up at seven, or that I’m six years older now, but I think it’s just that I’m lacking the environment.
The enticing setting.
I miss school. I miss the friendship, the chatting about everything, even the work. But most of all, I miss the all-nighters. The wee hours when your body is tired but getting its second wind. When you’re giddy and laugh at everything. When you don’t care that you’ll be dead tired tomorrow.
When you just do it cause it’s fun.
Do you remember your first all-nighter?
Previously? Reality.
There are many theories of reality.
Some people say that reality doesn’t exist unless someone’s there to observe it. Others claim that there is a fundamental reality regardless of its observers. The age old question of “If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s there to see it, does it make a sound?”
About three years ago, I started writing thanks to a web site that offered a free writing course. As time passed I got more and more involved in this site and became a part of it. So much so that I wrote for their monthly e-zine and wrote one of their classes a year and a half down the road. I even went down to Virginia to meet some of my fellow classmates and the brains behind the site. The site was part of my daily routine, I made friends who changed my life.
A year ago, I decided to take a break and stop writing there altogether. I wanted to take a local class on writing and get some face-to-face feedback. I told everyone I was taking a break and literally cut myself off. A few months later, at the end of my NYU course, I injured my back and stopped writing completely. Each time I thought of my novel, I’d get depressed and try to put it out of my mind.
This week, I finally decided that unless I got back to the site, I am never going to finish my novel. And the characters refuse to leave me alone. Plots attack me out of nowhere and I keep hearing dialogue. So I logged back onto the site and started surfing around.
The thing that surprised me the most was how little things had changed. I don’t mean the site hadn’t improved; they offered more and better classes now and they had many more members. But most of the old-timers were still around, still writing their novels, albeit they’re much further along. I just felt like I’d never been away.
It was so eerie.
I just thought it odd that when I was incredibly involved in this community and then I removed myself, for some reason it was as if the community disintegrated. But of course it hadn’t. When you quit your job and come back to visit a few months down the road, you can often see that things are pretty much the same way they were before you left. Similarly, just because you stop reading a website, the poster doesn’t stop writing it. It only feels to you as if the world stopped cause you’re not observing anymore.
It made me realize how insignificant one person is in the grand scheme of things and how, thankfully, the world goes on.
With or without you.
Previously? Intimate Stranger.
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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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