Life is so very excellent!

Hello fair citizens of Readerland! It is I, your benevolent monarch, here to again tell you why life is so very, very excellent. My last post was a tough act to follow (did you realize that touch and tough are only one letter different?), but more excellence has transpired. Remember my lack-of-camera-cable problem? Oğuz managed to get his card reader to read it, after many unsuccessful attempts, and now I am fully share-enabled! Is there no end to his magnificence?!?! This is great, because I'd like to post pictures of the inside of our apartment, too, and maybe even some shots of our sweet new appliances. (Fun fact: In Turkey, home appliances are called beyaz eşya, which translates to "white furniture"!)

Also in the good category, today I went to the university to visit one of the teacher trainers. Last week they gave me a book called How To Teach English, which was basically the same thing that I've been studying in my online course for the last several months. But we had a nice conversation about that, and then we discussed what is involved in classroom observation. As part of my training, I will be observing 7 classroom hours of instruction, with 7 different teachers. I didn't realize observation was such an intense procedure... I kinda thought you went into the class, sat in the back, took some notes, got the feel for it, thought about it later... that kinda thing. But the methods described to me were some hardcore systematic stuff, man. In all cases one must pick a "focus", one particular teacher or student behavior, event, interaction, etc. Then one picks a "tool", or a method of collecting data on that focus. For example, one scenario described a focus of "teacher vs. student talk time" and it used a tool called "time lapse coding", which involved putting a check in the "Teacher Talk Time", "Student Talk Time", or "Silence" column at 5 second intervals during the entirety of the lesson. Whoa! That is intense. Ok, so you would end up with a good idea of who was talking when, but would you have time to notice anything else? Like who was talking about what? Did the students seem to be enjoying themselves or bored out of their minds? In reality, I'm sure it's not as crazy as it sounds... but at first it did sound a little OCD.

This weekend begins a major holiday in Turkey, the Kurban Bayramı. There's no school or work next week, so Oğuz and I are packing up and heading to İzmir for a while! Traditionally you visit and pay respect to your elders during this bayram, so we will do some of that, as well as hanging out with friends and generally chillin'. We plan to go to Kemeraltı (the bazaar district) to find a cool tavla (backgammon set) for us to keep at the house and play in the evenings. Oğuz still mercilessly kicks my ass at that game, even though I am a fairly good player. I keep thinking that if I just play him again, this time I might beat him. So far.... not so much.
Also, I put in a request to visit İzmir's Ikea! Woohoo Ikea! (Fun fact: Turkish Ikeas (or at least, the one in İzmir) don't serve Swedish meatballs!)

So, it occured to me the other day that I have no real concept that it's December. How can I not know it's December? I always just knew before... turns out it wasn't some sort of deep, earthy, intuitive knowledge somehow imparted to me by the length of days or whatever. It was because starting around Halloween, I've always been bombarded by the consumeristic imperative that defines December, and here that is almost wholly absent! The only traces of it I saw were in a few expensive department stores in İzmir and a small section of decorations (which are actually for the New Year) in Metro. It is so, so nice. The good side is missing, too--the white-lit trees lining the avenues, the cheesy-yet-endearing omnipresent Christmas music, the sudden excess of delectable baked goods and cheeriness--but I still enjoy being able to walk down the street and feel normal, not bad for not buying more, for not enjoying shopping more, or for not having enough money to buy the things I'd like to for people. I don't miss that, and the rest I can do for myself. We plan on putting white lights around our windows, playing holiday music stations through iTunes radio, and baking our own darn cookies! (The only thing I can't do is be with family and friends, but we'll Skype.)

I'm sure I can whip up some suitable photos tonight before bed, and I'll try to post them lickity-split. If not tonight, then sometime in the coming days while we're on holiday.

Love you all,
Jacki