Various Odds and Ends

It’s been a while since I’ve updated- guess I’m just in a mid-January blogging torpor, but that is being remedied right…about…NOW.

The neighbors opposite us in our bayside high-rise apartment building think it’s very strange that two young women are living with another young man. A week or two ago they inquired to see if I was married to one of them. When Jen told them I wasn’t, they were really thrown. I guess they don’t see this Three’s Company-style living arrangement too often here in Turkey. We’re just the resident perplexing, mysterious and counter-culture neighbors in our building here.

A few weeks ago I decided that I’d have my middle-schoolers do Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum for their spring musical. It took my dad a while to find a copy of the script to send me, but eventually he did get his hands on one, and he sent it off along with the show’s soundtrack. A week before that he sent off a videotape of the version of Forum he did way back in 1988 so I could show it to the kids (none of them have ever heard of it before). Well, neither package has arrived yet! And it’s been a LONG time. Now that I’m heading home on Saturday, I would have been better off having them never sent anything (although I didn’t know I’d be coming home for vacation until 2.5 weeks ago). I had to go on half.com to buy ANOTHER script so I can work off it while re-writing and adapting it for the students when I’m home. I sort of ended up wasting everyone’s time, energy, and money, but I had no idea the postal service would be so fickle. Now, will is still have not arrived by the time I get back to school on February 7th? I wouldn’t be too shocked if they were still in airmail limbo. And the trouble is not just with packages apparently. My mom sent me a birthday card in late December and I’m still waiting on that, too. Yikes!

For the most part, the weather here has been amazing. From 10-4 it’s usually in the mid-50s, and there’s been very little rain. From all the reports I read about December and January being the rainy season, I was expecting more, but we’ve only had 2-3 genuinely rainy, cloudy days. I’m amazed by Izmir’s constant balminess. We’re right on a bay (technically, it’s a gulf) yet we never get much of a cool sea breeze. We hardly get any wind at all. When I was on the Greek island Chios last weekend, it was like Jen and I were trapped in a wind tunnel all day, but it’s like someone forgot to turn the fan on in Izmir. Walking out of my apartment, I can hear birds chirping…in January! I take a whiff of the air, and it has that spring, season of growth and rebirth kind of smell. My brain’s having a hard time wrapping itself around the idea. Back home it’s five degrees and they’ve gotten plenty of snow, with more to come, but here it’s been, for a January, absolutely delightful. Heck, today I went outside and shot some hoops in a t-shirt. I’ll have some major adjusting to do when I go home in two days.

Going to the movies is really cheap here- about $5 for an evening show. And me being a teacher, I get a discounted ticket. (Public school) Teachers get a lot of respect around here, and they get discounts on tons of stuff. Technically I’m a private school intern teacher, but the people behind the counter don’t have to know that. While they stop the movies halfway through for a 10-minute intermission, I don’t mind it. Actually, I sort of like it. They always stop it right when something important is about to occur, so it’s like having a cliffhanger ending before the next serial starts up. And with the intermission, you never have to miss any of the movie for a trip to the bathroom- you can’t beat it! All the theaters I’ve been to were very modern. They’re all fairly new, so they’re equipped with digital surround sound and stadium seating, which means cup holder armrests, reclining seats and all the legroom you want. The only downside is they insist on giving customers assigned seats, even when the theater is 80% empty. When you buy your ticket, the cashier has to show you a monitor with the floor plan of the theater as you pick your seats. It takes forever, and the lines can become unnecessarily long and slow. Some theaters enforce the assigned seating, while at others you can sit wherever you want once you get inside away from the ushers. I remember they tried doing this at a few NYC theaters about 7 years ago and it didn’t go over too well. It’s just a superfluous feature that slows everything else down, especially if you have a few picky slowpokes in front of you (can you tell that I’m writing from 1st-hand experience?).