Hi everyone!

Yesterday was a very nice day here in lovely Ankara. I got up early and caught my shuttle to campus, because I had two observations in the morning and a teacher training class in the afternoon. The classes were both upper level, which is the second highest level taught. These students are nearly fluent; they probably would be in a tick if they used English for real. In the first lesson I observed they talked about the causes and effects of the women's liberation movement. They first discussed it, then they had to get together in small groups and do some writing. It was nice, they are bright kids and it is interesting that they get to talk about real things while improving their English.

In the second class they talked about universal human values, such as compassion, tolerance, honesty, reverence for life, responsibility, etc. Now THAT was interesting. They had a list of about ten of these values, and they were asked to rank them from most important to least important for a person to have. The teacher seemed surprised that some of the answers were completely reversed from one group to another! One group said, for example, that preservation of nature was one of the most important values, and another said it was the least important. One group even said that tolerance and reverence for life were the two least important (hello Gaza!), and one said that self-respect was the most important. Children are strange, aren't they.

One very entertaining thing was actually HOW the teacher grouped the students for the various exercises. First, instead of counting everyone out in 1, 2, 3 to make 3 groups, she went through and gave everyone either fork, knife, or spoon! ::tilts her head like inquisitive puppy:: I thought she was just trying to do something a little different, but the purpose was two-fold. Firstly, she didn't actually group the students until after they had read a text, so perhaps it helped them remember what group they were in. Secondly, after the first activity where each utensil group got together and did something, she then instructed the students to regroup by "setting the table", (the students were like, Wha...?) which is one fork, one knife, and one spoon together in a group. How fun(ny) is that?! I was delighted. In the background I was thinking of other ways you could apply this idea. Paper, rock, scissors? :)

I wanted to share a few pictures with you now. Some were asking what my campus looks like, and while I don't have any pictures which can give you a sense of it, since it's so large, I do have some beautiful pictures from when it last snowed.






The campus is really beautiful under snow, that is for sure. The first pic is the view peering into the rows and rows of pine trees. The second is, as you may have guessed, the flagship building of the English department. The third is an intersection that I thought was pretty.

Now, though, all the snow has melted, except on the peaks of the mountains to the south. This morning the sky was clear and we could see another beautiful sunrise:


I wish the photo could do it justice, but it just makes me happy to be able to see, happy to be awake, happy to be alive. Hmm, did I already post a picture like this? Well, it just never gets old for me. Oğuz is a good sport, because I spring out of bed when I see the sky is clear, and I yell "Come see, come see!" and he always does. What a sweetheart. :)

Mmmm.... the other nice thing about yesterday was coming home. After my class, I stood outside for a long time waiting for this bus and that bus, and my feet pretty well froze. I dozed on the shuttle ride home, and was looking forward to Oğuz having heated up some nice chicken soup. When I looked up at our building, I saw the lights in our kitchen and living room windows, and it made me SO happy!!! It felt twice as cold out thinking about getting in and being warm, so I ran to the building to get home faster. When I got upstairs, it turns out Oğuz had cooked a whole meal, pesto pasta with steak and a yummy onion-tomato-mushroom sauce. It was such a great surprise! We opened a bottle of wine, ate our great meal, and then watched episodes of Top Chef until bedtime. ::wagwag:: What a nice day.

I might have more snowy pictures soon, hopefully, because yesterday our friends called and said they're going snowboarding at Uludağ two weeks from now. It will probably be the only trip this year, so we'd really like to go along, even though it's kinda expensive for us. It will be so much fun!

Ok, lovies, talk to you later.