Little did we Americans know that Daylight Savings Time starts a week early in Europe. I didn't realize it until Sunday night when I went to watch a TV show only to see it ending when it should have been beginning.
Thanks heavens they make the switch on the weekend, or we definitely would have missed our bus to school. I met up with some American friends over here on vacation Monday night, and they arrived an hour late, having no idea that the clocks had been moved forward the previous day.
So for the next couple a days, I'm 8 hours ahead of EST instead of the usual 7. I'm really enjoying all this extra sunlight.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Monday, March 28, 2005
Part of my Vacation Home- Snow, Late Night ER Action, Miller Lite, SuperBowl
OK, Part 2 of my late January/early February journal from my vacation back home in the US.
After a monster-sized Veselka breakfast fit for a king on the lower East side, Dad and I drove home to Braintree. I thought there was a lot of snow in NYC at the time, but Braintree had NY beat hands down. Snow was everywhere and it was bountiful. We pulled up to the driveway- Mom had begged someone to plow it, so it was plowed, but only ¾ of the was up to where my car was, so the Saab was basically plowed into the driveway by 4 foot high, 6 foot wide ice bank. I wouldn’t get it out of there until over a week later. There was a thin, tiny path shoveled out from the driveway to the backdoor for a walkway. I had a lot of shoveling detail to do.
The inside of the house wasn’t in its cleanest state, but it felt good to be back. All the CDs and books I had ordered over the last 7 weeks had arrived and they were waiting for me on the dining room table.
During the week I drove out to Patty’s in Arlington and had an amazing dinner with the Kelly family- it made up for the Christmas day festivities I had to miss the previous month. And we even got to have pork! Mike made my favorite baked beans and for dessert, Patty had my other favorite staple, mud pie and chocolate sauce. Both my taste buds and my stomach were in heaven.
I love spending time out there because everyone always seems so relaxed and convivial. They all seem to know how to enjoy life better than the rest of us, so any time I can hang out with them is worthwhile as I hope their “joi de vivre” can rub a little off onto me. After dinner, Joanna had a hockey game, so we all piled into Peter’s car and drove over to the rink and watched the second half, screaming out her name, trying to cheer her on and alternately embarrass her at the same time. After the game, we went back to the homestead and we all ended up talking in the living room until 11:30 or so. It felt great to be able to be back here with my family for a while. Nights like this just weren’t possible in Izmir.
Another day I went to the South Shore Plaza to pick up a few things, and I noticed that a lot of stores were still having post-Christmas, “get it out of here” sales. Men’s Express had all of these winter items thrown in big boxes, and everything in there was $5 each. $5! Even their long cashmere scarves that originally sold for $70 were priced down to $5. Unbelievable. I made out there like a bandit.
Later, I went over to the Derby Street Shops and picked up my first ever pair of Birkenstocks (still don’t have them, though- they had to stay and get the lift put on them, so I hope I can get them shipped out here eventually) and I bought a packtowl, which is this thin towel made out of a chamois material. It’s ultra-absorbent and it takes up little to no space in your bag. It’s mainly used by backpackers and campers, but anyone who wants to travel light can use them. I first saw Jen’s when I visited her in Turin two years ago, and when I saw she still had it here in Izmir, I was set on finally getting one for myself.
I saw a few movies when I was home. I went into Harvard Sq. one day to watch a double feature of Closer and A Very Long Engagement. To my disappointment, I didn’t like either of them. With Closer, I found all the main characters so despicable that I really didn’t care what happened to any of them by the time the film came to an end. And the dialogue, it just sounded forced at times. The language sounded awkward when it was spoken aloud, and I kept thinking, people wouldn’t say something that eloquent in that stressful a situation. Adapted from a play, I had high expectations from the dialogue, but it disappointed me. As for A Very Long Engagement, I just got bored with it after a while. The movie goes on some long tangents that, in the end, have no effect on the main plot or the outcome of the story. I ALMOST fell asleep, but I think I managed to stay awake until the end. When it finished, I was glad to leave the theater, which is never a good sign. I’ve really enjoyed all of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s previous films, but this one didn’t strike any sort of chord with me this time.
After a week in Braintree with Mom and Dad, Nick came home on Thursday night. Mom, Dad, Nick and I all went out for dinner at The Fours, and of course we all ate too much. Once we got home, Mom started having some chest pains, and by the time she went to bed they still hadn’t gone away.
Late in the evening, Nick and I were watching the last few minutes of Star Wars (I had just picked up the new edition set on DVD) when Mom woke up in even more pain. Both Nick and I thought it was indigestion or acid reflux, but just to err on the side of caution we drove Mom to the South Shore Hospital Emergency Room. After Nick had trouble finding the entrance to the ER, he parked the car while I went inside with Mom to check her in. Once they brought her back into an ER room, she stayed there for the rest of the night.
We didn’t know what was happening or how long she’d be there, so Nick and I waited in the waiting room. By now it was 2am and both of us were exhausted, especially Nick, who had just driven 4 hours home from NY. After a while we decided to try and get some sleep ourselves, so we tried our best to lie out on some waiting room loveseats and chairs. In the waiting room though, they had a big screen plasma television hanging from once corner of the room, and even though it was the middle of the night, the volume on the TV was ridiculously loud. At 3am, Oceans’s 11 came on. Now, I love that movie, but the last thing I want to hear when I’m desperately trying to get some sleep is George Clooney’s and Brad Pitt’s witty banter blaring in my ear.
I woke up around 7AM or so, and Nick and I, both recovering from one of the worst nights of sleep in recent memory, went back to see Mom. She was hooked up to all these machines, acting like she was half-dead. The pain in her chest still hadn’t gone away, but tests showed that she didn’t have a heart attack, thank god.
The hospital still wasn’t ready to release her, but I had to be at The Office of Career Services in Harvard Sq. at 9AM to help Ralph, the Isikkent headmaster, interview college seniors for my teaching position next year in Izmir (my attendance wasn’t mandatory by any means, but I had told him that since I’d be home at that time that I’d come, give him some company, and help him out). Nick drove me home, where I hastily changed into some decent clothes, and then back out we went to the T station, where I hopped on an inbound train.
Now, I remembered the inbound red line trains being slow before I left, but the ride into Harvard I had this day was unbearably, excruciatingly slow. From Braintree to JFK, the train never got up to full speed, averaging about 15mph, and it was constantly stopping in the middle of nowhere without a station in sight. What should have been at most a 45-minute trip slowly, and I stress “slowly”, turned into a 75-minute ride into Harvard Sq. What is wrong, MBTA? Please, your red line trains have been going at a snail-like pace since September!
Needless to say, I missed the first interview entirely, but I was able to be there for the rest of them. For lunch, I ordered a Papa Johns pizza (yay!) and walked over to William James to have lunch with Kevin, who was in the middle of advisor hours on the 2nd floor. By the end of the day, on the little, poor sleep I had gotten, my batteries were drained, so I left with one more candidate to go, but Ralph really appreciated me coming in and being there given my Mom’s circumstances.
I got back home at 6, and by that time Mom was discharged from the hospital. In fact, she had even gone grocery shopping earlier in the afternoon! We decided to stay in for the evening and Nick cooked us dinner, which he always enjoys doing immensely. Unfortunately, Mom had another attack of pain in her chest, and this time she said it was even worse than the night before. Knowing that it wasn’t a heart attack or anything a hospital could fix at the moment, we decided not to go back to the ER. I don’t think any of could have handled another night’s sleep there anyway.
On Saturday morning, Nick and I were going to drive back to NY together, but Mom was still in awful pain, and I couldn’t leave her alone in such agony. So Nick left because he had work to do and a Shark Show to perform that night, and I stayed back with Mom, with plans to take a bus to NY Sunday morning so I could watch the Superbowl with him at a big party in Brooklyn before my plane to Turkey left from JFK Airport on Monday afternoon.
Well, Sunday morning rolls around and Mom’s still in dreadful pain. So much pain that she doesn’t think she can muster the strength and concentration to drive me to the bus terminal. I tried calling Dad to see if he could drive me, but I couldn’t get a hold of him. I was going to take an 8am bus, but that soon got pushed back to an 11am bus. After a few hours, Mom thought she was well enough to be able to drive.
It’s always sad to leave your family, but even worse when your Mom is quivering from pain and constant discomfort. I stayed with her as long as I could and then I boarded the 11am Chinatown bus to NY.
To get my mind off my Mom and to get my mind focused on the Patriots-Eagles Superbowl I’d be watching that night, I fired up my laptop in the bus and threw in the DVD from the Pats’ last championship season. It chronicled every regular-season game and followed them all the way to their Superbowl victory against the Panthers. By the end, the movie had stirred up all those good memories from last year, and I was primed up and ready for another win.
By the time I got to Nick and Emily’s apartment near Union Sq., Nick was already at the party. I found Emily at a nearby nail salon where she was getting a pedicure. She gave me her keys and I let myself into the apartment. Once Emily got back, she took a while getting ready, but we eventually hopped on the subway towards Brooklyn. The party was in this really industrial Brooklyn neighborhood, but it was right on the bank of the East River, giving us a picture-perfect view of Manhattan as we walked to the party.
We arrived and the party was in full-swing. A lot of people had been there for the better part of the day playing poker. After exchanging email and phone calls for nearly two years, I finally got to meet Nick’s friend, Dan Fierman, who writes for EW, in the flesh. I was like, “Oh my god! It’s you! You actually exist!” Better yet, he told me that EW might be starting up a new monthly movie magazine this fall called “Look”, and if the magazine got the green light, they’d be looking for lots of help. Dan thought he might have a much better chance at helping me get a job there than at EW, where, even with his help, I didn’t make it past the first round. So that was great, encouraging news. I was worried about what I’d do with myself once my teaching job ended, so it was reassuring to know that I had one possible, albeit a bit farfetched, option.
There was a great group of people there to watch the game at Joe Van Ek’s house. Pretty much everyone you’d want to watch the game with was there.
Not only did the Patriots win in exciting fashion, but Nick’s Miller Lite commercial aired! Nick had just met with a new agency, one that’s fairly high up there for commercial and voice over talent. On one of the first auditions they sent him out for, Miller Lite, he actually got it! Last week he recorded 4 or 5 spots, each of them criticizing Miller Lite’s competition, Bud Light, for coming out with a new low-carb beer. Apparently Miller Lite is just going to stick with Miller Lite. Once Nick recorded them, they told him there was a chance one of them would air during the Superbowl. None of us could believe it. Sure enough, sometime during the 3rd quarter, the ad came on. After it ended, everyone cheered and clapped, and Nick started jumping up and down, yelling, “Money!!!” Then, one ad later, another one of his Miller Lite ads came on. After it ended, Nick started jumping up and down again as everyone cheered. It was a really exciting moment, and I was so happy for Nick. For voice-over and commercial talent, I guess you get paid a set amount for working on the ad, but then you get residual money each time it airs. So the more popular and effective an ad becomes, the more money the people who worked on it make.
After the game, all of us extremely happy and proud, we took a service car back to Emily’s place (now officially Nick and Emily’s place) and went to sleep. Emily has this unbelievably comfortable couch, which I was to sleep on. I had slept a night on it a year ago back during the Lobster Farm shoot, and I overslept that morning by a mere 5 hours.
The next day, Monday, Nick had four auditions (a week or two ago he had seven in a day!). We met up in the early afternoon in between casting calls. I made sure I had everything packed up and then we bought the Forum movie on DVD and the complete musical score up in Times Sq. before walking back down to Penn Station, where I was to board the LIRR, which would eventually lead me to the Airtrain heading towards JFK Airport. Before I got on the train, we stopped and had lunch at this tasty, old-school diner opposite Penn Station. I never would have even noticed it, but Nick had been there before and he thought it would be a good place for a quick burger together before I go. And he was right. The burger and fries were on the money. Then, unfortunately, it was time for me to leave. We said our goodbyes and I took the descending escalator to the Long Island rail Road while Nick hopped on the subway.
Fortunately, on my way back to Turkey, I had no problems or delays. Everything left on time, and there were no hassles of any kind. I had school early next morning and I knew I needed to sleep, but from JFK to Amsterdam I flew on this new plane with a brand-new individual entertainment center. I had seen some where you get to choose 1 of 4 movies to watch, but on this one, they had an entire library of movies, over 200 at least, and you could start, stop, and pause them whenever you wanted. If I wanted, I could have pulled out a PS2-like controller from y arm rest and played video games the entire way to Amsterdam. I was so enthralled with this thing, I didn’t sleep a wink on the flight. I watched Big Fish (more like “big disappointment and boring let-down”), followed by Casablanca. I only got into the first 10 minutes of Dumbo (yes, Dumbo) before we had to land.
When I landed in Izmir, the big white Havas bus was waiting to drive people from the airport to the city. I’m so lucky, because when I was leaving Izmir it picked me up right by my apartment and then going back home it dropped me off within 100 yards of my building. I may not always love my apartment’s location, but I sure loved it that night.
After a monster-sized Veselka breakfast fit for a king on the lower East side, Dad and I drove home to Braintree. I thought there was a lot of snow in NYC at the time, but Braintree had NY beat hands down. Snow was everywhere and it was bountiful. We pulled up to the driveway- Mom had begged someone to plow it, so it was plowed, but only ¾ of the was up to where my car was, so the Saab was basically plowed into the driveway by 4 foot high, 6 foot wide ice bank. I wouldn’t get it out of there until over a week later. There was a thin, tiny path shoveled out from the driveway to the backdoor for a walkway. I had a lot of shoveling detail to do.
The inside of the house wasn’t in its cleanest state, but it felt good to be back. All the CDs and books I had ordered over the last 7 weeks had arrived and they were waiting for me on the dining room table.
During the week I drove out to Patty’s in Arlington and had an amazing dinner with the Kelly family- it made up for the Christmas day festivities I had to miss the previous month. And we even got to have pork! Mike made my favorite baked beans and for dessert, Patty had my other favorite staple, mud pie and chocolate sauce. Both my taste buds and my stomach were in heaven.
I love spending time out there because everyone always seems so relaxed and convivial. They all seem to know how to enjoy life better than the rest of us, so any time I can hang out with them is worthwhile as I hope their “joi de vivre” can rub a little off onto me. After dinner, Joanna had a hockey game, so we all piled into Peter’s car and drove over to the rink and watched the second half, screaming out her name, trying to cheer her on and alternately embarrass her at the same time. After the game, we went back to the homestead and we all ended up talking in the living room until 11:30 or so. It felt great to be able to be back here with my family for a while. Nights like this just weren’t possible in Izmir.
Another day I went to the South Shore Plaza to pick up a few things, and I noticed that a lot of stores were still having post-Christmas, “get it out of here” sales. Men’s Express had all of these winter items thrown in big boxes, and everything in there was $5 each. $5! Even their long cashmere scarves that originally sold for $70 were priced down to $5. Unbelievable. I made out there like a bandit.
Later, I went over to the Derby Street Shops and picked up my first ever pair of Birkenstocks (still don’t have them, though- they had to stay and get the lift put on them, so I hope I can get them shipped out here eventually) and I bought a packtowl, which is this thin towel made out of a chamois material. It’s ultra-absorbent and it takes up little to no space in your bag. It’s mainly used by backpackers and campers, but anyone who wants to travel light can use them. I first saw Jen’s when I visited her in Turin two years ago, and when I saw she still had it here in Izmir, I was set on finally getting one for myself.
I saw a few movies when I was home. I went into Harvard Sq. one day to watch a double feature of Closer and A Very Long Engagement. To my disappointment, I didn’t like either of them. With Closer, I found all the main characters so despicable that I really didn’t care what happened to any of them by the time the film came to an end. And the dialogue, it just sounded forced at times. The language sounded awkward when it was spoken aloud, and I kept thinking, people wouldn’t say something that eloquent in that stressful a situation. Adapted from a play, I had high expectations from the dialogue, but it disappointed me. As for A Very Long Engagement, I just got bored with it after a while. The movie goes on some long tangents that, in the end, have no effect on the main plot or the outcome of the story. I ALMOST fell asleep, but I think I managed to stay awake until the end. When it finished, I was glad to leave the theater, which is never a good sign. I’ve really enjoyed all of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s previous films, but this one didn’t strike any sort of chord with me this time.
After a week in Braintree with Mom and Dad, Nick came home on Thursday night. Mom, Dad, Nick and I all went out for dinner at The Fours, and of course we all ate too much. Once we got home, Mom started having some chest pains, and by the time she went to bed they still hadn’t gone away.
Late in the evening, Nick and I were watching the last few minutes of Star Wars (I had just picked up the new edition set on DVD) when Mom woke up in even more pain. Both Nick and I thought it was indigestion or acid reflux, but just to err on the side of caution we drove Mom to the South Shore Hospital Emergency Room. After Nick had trouble finding the entrance to the ER, he parked the car while I went inside with Mom to check her in. Once they brought her back into an ER room, she stayed there for the rest of the night.
We didn’t know what was happening or how long she’d be there, so Nick and I waited in the waiting room. By now it was 2am and both of us were exhausted, especially Nick, who had just driven 4 hours home from NY. After a while we decided to try and get some sleep ourselves, so we tried our best to lie out on some waiting room loveseats and chairs. In the waiting room though, they had a big screen plasma television hanging from once corner of the room, and even though it was the middle of the night, the volume on the TV was ridiculously loud. At 3am, Oceans’s 11 came on. Now, I love that movie, but the last thing I want to hear when I’m desperately trying to get some sleep is George Clooney’s and Brad Pitt’s witty banter blaring in my ear.
I woke up around 7AM or so, and Nick and I, both recovering from one of the worst nights of sleep in recent memory, went back to see Mom. She was hooked up to all these machines, acting like she was half-dead. The pain in her chest still hadn’t gone away, but tests showed that she didn’t have a heart attack, thank god.
The hospital still wasn’t ready to release her, but I had to be at The Office of Career Services in Harvard Sq. at 9AM to help Ralph, the Isikkent headmaster, interview college seniors for my teaching position next year in Izmir (my attendance wasn’t mandatory by any means, but I had told him that since I’d be home at that time that I’d come, give him some company, and help him out). Nick drove me home, where I hastily changed into some decent clothes, and then back out we went to the T station, where I hopped on an inbound train.
Now, I remembered the inbound red line trains being slow before I left, but the ride into Harvard I had this day was unbearably, excruciatingly slow. From Braintree to JFK, the train never got up to full speed, averaging about 15mph, and it was constantly stopping in the middle of nowhere without a station in sight. What should have been at most a 45-minute trip slowly, and I stress “slowly”, turned into a 75-minute ride into Harvard Sq. What is wrong, MBTA? Please, your red line trains have been going at a snail-like pace since September!
Needless to say, I missed the first interview entirely, but I was able to be there for the rest of them. For lunch, I ordered a Papa Johns pizza (yay!) and walked over to William James to have lunch with Kevin, who was in the middle of advisor hours on the 2nd floor. By the end of the day, on the little, poor sleep I had gotten, my batteries were drained, so I left with one more candidate to go, but Ralph really appreciated me coming in and being there given my Mom’s circumstances.
I got back home at 6, and by that time Mom was discharged from the hospital. In fact, she had even gone grocery shopping earlier in the afternoon! We decided to stay in for the evening and Nick cooked us dinner, which he always enjoys doing immensely. Unfortunately, Mom had another attack of pain in her chest, and this time she said it was even worse than the night before. Knowing that it wasn’t a heart attack or anything a hospital could fix at the moment, we decided not to go back to the ER. I don’t think any of could have handled another night’s sleep there anyway.
On Saturday morning, Nick and I were going to drive back to NY together, but Mom was still in awful pain, and I couldn’t leave her alone in such agony. So Nick left because he had work to do and a Shark Show to perform that night, and I stayed back with Mom, with plans to take a bus to NY Sunday morning so I could watch the Superbowl with him at a big party in Brooklyn before my plane to Turkey left from JFK Airport on Monday afternoon.
Well, Sunday morning rolls around and Mom’s still in dreadful pain. So much pain that she doesn’t think she can muster the strength and concentration to drive me to the bus terminal. I tried calling Dad to see if he could drive me, but I couldn’t get a hold of him. I was going to take an 8am bus, but that soon got pushed back to an 11am bus. After a few hours, Mom thought she was well enough to be able to drive.
It’s always sad to leave your family, but even worse when your Mom is quivering from pain and constant discomfort. I stayed with her as long as I could and then I boarded the 11am Chinatown bus to NY.
To get my mind off my Mom and to get my mind focused on the Patriots-Eagles Superbowl I’d be watching that night, I fired up my laptop in the bus and threw in the DVD from the Pats’ last championship season. It chronicled every regular-season game and followed them all the way to their Superbowl victory against the Panthers. By the end, the movie had stirred up all those good memories from last year, and I was primed up and ready for another win.
By the time I got to Nick and Emily’s apartment near Union Sq., Nick was already at the party. I found Emily at a nearby nail salon where she was getting a pedicure. She gave me her keys and I let myself into the apartment. Once Emily got back, she took a while getting ready, but we eventually hopped on the subway towards Brooklyn. The party was in this really industrial Brooklyn neighborhood, but it was right on the bank of the East River, giving us a picture-perfect view of Manhattan as we walked to the party.
We arrived and the party was in full-swing. A lot of people had been there for the better part of the day playing poker. After exchanging email and phone calls for nearly two years, I finally got to meet Nick’s friend, Dan Fierman, who writes for EW, in the flesh. I was like, “Oh my god! It’s you! You actually exist!” Better yet, he told me that EW might be starting up a new monthly movie magazine this fall called “Look”, and if the magazine got the green light, they’d be looking for lots of help. Dan thought he might have a much better chance at helping me get a job there than at EW, where, even with his help, I didn’t make it past the first round. So that was great, encouraging news. I was worried about what I’d do with myself once my teaching job ended, so it was reassuring to know that I had one possible, albeit a bit farfetched, option.
There was a great group of people there to watch the game at Joe Van Ek’s house. Pretty much everyone you’d want to watch the game with was there.
Not only did the Patriots win in exciting fashion, but Nick’s Miller Lite commercial aired! Nick had just met with a new agency, one that’s fairly high up there for commercial and voice over talent. On one of the first auditions they sent him out for, Miller Lite, he actually got it! Last week he recorded 4 or 5 spots, each of them criticizing Miller Lite’s competition, Bud Light, for coming out with a new low-carb beer. Apparently Miller Lite is just going to stick with Miller Lite. Once Nick recorded them, they told him there was a chance one of them would air during the Superbowl. None of us could believe it. Sure enough, sometime during the 3rd quarter, the ad came on. After it ended, everyone cheered and clapped, and Nick started jumping up and down, yelling, “Money!!!” Then, one ad later, another one of his Miller Lite ads came on. After it ended, Nick started jumping up and down again as everyone cheered. It was a really exciting moment, and I was so happy for Nick. For voice-over and commercial talent, I guess you get paid a set amount for working on the ad, but then you get residual money each time it airs. So the more popular and effective an ad becomes, the more money the people who worked on it make.
After the game, all of us extremely happy and proud, we took a service car back to Emily’s place (now officially Nick and Emily’s place) and went to sleep. Emily has this unbelievably comfortable couch, which I was to sleep on. I had slept a night on it a year ago back during the Lobster Farm shoot, and I overslept that morning by a mere 5 hours.
The next day, Monday, Nick had four auditions (a week or two ago he had seven in a day!). We met up in the early afternoon in between casting calls. I made sure I had everything packed up and then we bought the Forum movie on DVD and the complete musical score up in Times Sq. before walking back down to Penn Station, where I was to board the LIRR, which would eventually lead me to the Airtrain heading towards JFK Airport. Before I got on the train, we stopped and had lunch at this tasty, old-school diner opposite Penn Station. I never would have even noticed it, but Nick had been there before and he thought it would be a good place for a quick burger together before I go. And he was right. The burger and fries were on the money. Then, unfortunately, it was time for me to leave. We said our goodbyes and I took the descending escalator to the Long Island rail Road while Nick hopped on the subway.
Fortunately, on my way back to Turkey, I had no problems or delays. Everything left on time, and there were no hassles of any kind. I had school early next morning and I knew I needed to sleep, but from JFK to Amsterdam I flew on this new plane with a brand-new individual entertainment center. I had seen some where you get to choose 1 of 4 movies to watch, but on this one, they had an entire library of movies, over 200 at least, and you could start, stop, and pause them whenever you wanted. If I wanted, I could have pulled out a PS2-like controller from y arm rest and played video games the entire way to Amsterdam. I was so enthralled with this thing, I didn’t sleep a wink on the flight. I watched Big Fish (more like “big disappointment and boring let-down”), followed by Casablanca. I only got into the first 10 minutes of Dumbo (yes, Dumbo) before we had to land.
When I landed in Izmir, the big white Havas bus was waiting to drive people from the airport to the city. I’m so lucky, because when I was leaving Izmir it picked me up right by my apartment and then going back home it dropped me off within 100 yards of my building. I may not always love my apartment’s location, but I sure loved it that night.
Friday, March 25, 2005
C7
Yesterday, Thursday March 24th, was simply not a good day. I woke up early in the morning and I didn’t feel quite right. I quickly noticed that the back of my head felt slightly numb, and that I had very little sensation in the fingertip of my right middle finger. I ran my hand through my hair and my fingers felt strange, like they had just been shot with Novocain. And my head, why was it all tingly? Then I remembered that my head got that weird numb feeling the day before in the middle of drama class, but it soon went away or I had stopped noticing it.
If I had slept wrong during the night, it wouldn’t make sense if my head to feel like it did the previous day. Right? Anyway, I had to get dressed and get ready for school, so I threw on my clothes and off I went to my service bus to Isikkent.
I had a lesson with my 2nd graders for the 1st two hours of the day and unfortunately I had a tough time getting through it. My finger was still numb, my head was tingly, and I was feeling very tired all of a sudden. I was lost in my head, distracted, and I was lucky to make it all the way through the lesson without incident.
I told some of the other English teachers how I was feeling and they suggested I go to the hospital to see a doctor. The ER? I thought that was a little rash- why don’t I wait a day to see if it goes away first? They insisted that I go, and one of the Turkish English teachers, Mine, came along with me so she could interpret for me at the hospital.
Once we got there, a doctor examined me and ordered an MRI of my brain, another of my neck and upper-back, and an EMG test on my arm and hand (I had no idea what an EMG was at the time, but I sure found out soon enough).
Mine had lessons to teach back at the school, so she was driven back to Isikkent and I was left there alone for a while. I waited in the waiting room for a long time after that. I started feeling really tired and eventually nodded off. A nurse woke me up sometime later and motioned that it was time for my first MRI. As I was walking downstairs, the school’s interpreter and translator, Sanem, arrived to help me out.
After that first MRI, we were told I had to go to another hospital in Izmir for the EMG. We hopped in the car and got there about a half hour later. We waited another 45 minutes or so at that hospital before they brought me in for this EMG test. The nurse had me lie down on a table and they started attaching some electrodes to my hands and arms. All of a sudden, I felt this intense, horrible electric shock in my arm. My body jumped clear off the table and I let out a yelp. The technician administering the test laughed and told Sanem that she forgot to tell me that would happen. Yeah, real funny stuff, doc.
She continued with the EMG, sending about 10-15 more shocks into my arm, and these were STRONG shocks. It felt like I was sticking a fork into an electric socket. Even on the last one, I was still yelling and my body was jumping in reaction to the pain. I noticed I had started sweating liberally, and I felt damp all over.
The nurse put the shocking tools away and I thought, “Finally, it’s over!” Boy, was I wrong. The nurse proceeded to pull out a long three-inch needle and hooked it up to the EMG machine. I asked Sanem what was going on- nobody had explained to me what the technician was going to do. The nurse told Sanem that they weren’t going to inject anything into my arm, but that they did have to stick the needle into the muscles in my arm and hand a number of times. Oh god, I thought. And suddenly I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead. Right before the first needle prick, the nurse told me with a smile that I wouldn’t have come here for the test if I knew how much it would hurt. I didn’t find her pithy attempt at humor amusing at this point.
They stuck the needle into my bicep, tricep, forearm, and a couple times into my hand in different spots. It really, really hurt. Looking online later, someone said an EMG is like giving birth without an epidural. I wouldn't go that far, but it gives you an idea. I grimaced and let out baritone screams into the wall next to my gurney. Every time she put the needle into my muscle, I had to flex my muscles or somehow push against her arm so they could get a reading. It was awful. I went there expecting a few passive, monitoring electrodes attached to my arm and instead I got shock treatment and long needles.
I got out of there as soon as possible, and when we arrived back to the first hospital, they informed me that I needed another MRI test. I asked them why they simply didn’t do both when I was there the first time, and they told me they wanted to break it up so I didn’t have to lie still for an interminable length of time in that thin MRI tube.
After the second MRI was over and the results sheet was handed over to us, it was nearly 4:30 in the afternoon. We went upstairs to the doctor so he could tell me if anything is seriously wrong. I was hoping he’d just say the tests came back fine and that I’d be back to normal in a day or two, but that was not the case.
Instead, I found out that the C7 (c stands for cervical) bone of my spine (the 7th bone down from the top of my spine) is somehow misaligned. It's jutting into my spinal cord and that’s what’s causing the numbness in my head and hands. I think I started to turn white at this point. So what do I have to do to fix this? Will I wake up tomorrow with my entire hand numb?
The doctor told me to go see a neurosurgeon next week (great!) and that I’d start some form of physical therapy then. If that doesn’t help, surgery would be my next option. I think ALL the color had dropped out of my cheeks at that point. Then the doctor started talking about how there’s a slight chance I might have multiple sclerosis and that later on they might have to take a spinal tap from me. Someone needs to tell this doctor to work on his bedside manner (even though, technically, I was sitting in a chair in front of his desk). Those were the last two things I wanted to hear right then.
Even with my insurance from working at Isikkent, the hospital visit set me back $200. I guess that's better than it would be back home, where I have no insurance whatsoever. Seriously, I cannot afford to get sick or have something like this happen right now. And to have something like this develop while I'm over here in Turkey, halfway across the world from my family, it's certainly not optimal conditions.
Sanem and the driver, Ismael, took me back to school, where I made it just in time to catch the service bus back home at 5 o’clock. Jen, Maddy, and I were invited over to someone’s house for dinner tonight. I had been looking forward to it all week, but I had to pass- I was just too exhausted (physically and mentally) and in too foul a mood to go to a dinner party. And I was angry. Angry that yet another malady in some way caused by or related to my leg imbalance problems has appeared out of nowhere. All last fall it was the plantar fasciitis in my left foot- when that started in September I could barely take a step without feeling pain in my left arch. That was 7 months ago and I still have to wear special shoes and I can’t jog because it would re-aggravate it all over again.
And now I have a vertebrae bone nudging into my spinal cord? Cut me some slack and give me a frickin’ break here! I read online tonight that these pinched nerves cause, along with numbness in the hands and arms, a fair amount of pain and discomfort. No sharp pangs or pain felt so far, but if that happens to surface in the next few days, I’m gonna be one angry, frustrated, and unhappy fellow.
If I had slept wrong during the night, it wouldn’t make sense if my head to feel like it did the previous day. Right? Anyway, I had to get dressed and get ready for school, so I threw on my clothes and off I went to my service bus to Isikkent.
I had a lesson with my 2nd graders for the 1st two hours of the day and unfortunately I had a tough time getting through it. My finger was still numb, my head was tingly, and I was feeling very tired all of a sudden. I was lost in my head, distracted, and I was lucky to make it all the way through the lesson without incident.
I told some of the other English teachers how I was feeling and they suggested I go to the hospital to see a doctor. The ER? I thought that was a little rash- why don’t I wait a day to see if it goes away first? They insisted that I go, and one of the Turkish English teachers, Mine, came along with me so she could interpret for me at the hospital.
Once we got there, a doctor examined me and ordered an MRI of my brain, another of my neck and upper-back, and an EMG test on my arm and hand (I had no idea what an EMG was at the time, but I sure found out soon enough).
Mine had lessons to teach back at the school, so she was driven back to Isikkent and I was left there alone for a while. I waited in the waiting room for a long time after that. I started feeling really tired and eventually nodded off. A nurse woke me up sometime later and motioned that it was time for my first MRI. As I was walking downstairs, the school’s interpreter and translator, Sanem, arrived to help me out.
After that first MRI, we were told I had to go to another hospital in Izmir for the EMG. We hopped in the car and got there about a half hour later. We waited another 45 minutes or so at that hospital before they brought me in for this EMG test. The nurse had me lie down on a table and they started attaching some electrodes to my hands and arms. All of a sudden, I felt this intense, horrible electric shock in my arm. My body jumped clear off the table and I let out a yelp. The technician administering the test laughed and told Sanem that she forgot to tell me that would happen. Yeah, real funny stuff, doc.
She continued with the EMG, sending about 10-15 more shocks into my arm, and these were STRONG shocks. It felt like I was sticking a fork into an electric socket. Even on the last one, I was still yelling and my body was jumping in reaction to the pain. I noticed I had started sweating liberally, and I felt damp all over.
The nurse put the shocking tools away and I thought, “Finally, it’s over!” Boy, was I wrong. The nurse proceeded to pull out a long three-inch needle and hooked it up to the EMG machine. I asked Sanem what was going on- nobody had explained to me what the technician was going to do. The nurse told Sanem that they weren’t going to inject anything into my arm, but that they did have to stick the needle into the muscles in my arm and hand a number of times. Oh god, I thought. And suddenly I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead. Right before the first needle prick, the nurse told me with a smile that I wouldn’t have come here for the test if I knew how much it would hurt. I didn’t find her pithy attempt at humor amusing at this point.
They stuck the needle into my bicep, tricep, forearm, and a couple times into my hand in different spots. It really, really hurt. Looking online later, someone said an EMG is like giving birth without an epidural. I wouldn't go that far, but it gives you an idea. I grimaced and let out baritone screams into the wall next to my gurney. Every time she put the needle into my muscle, I had to flex my muscles or somehow push against her arm so they could get a reading. It was awful. I went there expecting a few passive, monitoring electrodes attached to my arm and instead I got shock treatment and long needles.
I got out of there as soon as possible, and when we arrived back to the first hospital, they informed me that I needed another MRI test. I asked them why they simply didn’t do both when I was there the first time, and they told me they wanted to break it up so I didn’t have to lie still for an interminable length of time in that thin MRI tube.
After the second MRI was over and the results sheet was handed over to us, it was nearly 4:30 in the afternoon. We went upstairs to the doctor so he could tell me if anything is seriously wrong. I was hoping he’d just say the tests came back fine and that I’d be back to normal in a day or two, but that was not the case.
Instead, I found out that the C7 (c stands for cervical) bone of my spine (the 7th bone down from the top of my spine) is somehow misaligned. It's jutting into my spinal cord and that’s what’s causing the numbness in my head and hands. I think I started to turn white at this point. So what do I have to do to fix this? Will I wake up tomorrow with my entire hand numb?
The doctor told me to go see a neurosurgeon next week (great!) and that I’d start some form of physical therapy then. If that doesn’t help, surgery would be my next option. I think ALL the color had dropped out of my cheeks at that point. Then the doctor started talking about how there’s a slight chance I might have multiple sclerosis and that later on they might have to take a spinal tap from me. Someone needs to tell this doctor to work on his bedside manner (even though, technically, I was sitting in a chair in front of his desk). Those were the last two things I wanted to hear right then.
Even with my insurance from working at Isikkent, the hospital visit set me back $200. I guess that's better than it would be back home, where I have no insurance whatsoever. Seriously, I cannot afford to get sick or have something like this happen right now. And to have something like this develop while I'm over here in Turkey, halfway across the world from my family, it's certainly not optimal conditions.
Sanem and the driver, Ismael, took me back to school, where I made it just in time to catch the service bus back home at 5 o’clock. Jen, Maddy, and I were invited over to someone’s house for dinner tonight. I had been looking forward to it all week, but I had to pass- I was just too exhausted (physically and mentally) and in too foul a mood to go to a dinner party. And I was angry. Angry that yet another malady in some way caused by or related to my leg imbalance problems has appeared out of nowhere. All last fall it was the plantar fasciitis in my left foot- when that started in September I could barely take a step without feeling pain in my left arch. That was 7 months ago and I still have to wear special shoes and I can’t jog because it would re-aggravate it all over again.
And now I have a vertebrae bone nudging into my spinal cord? Cut me some slack and give me a frickin’ break here! I read online tonight that these pinched nerves cause, along with numbness in the hands and arms, a fair amount of pain and discomfort. No sharp pangs or pain felt so far, but if that happens to surface in the next few days, I’m gonna be one angry, frustrated, and unhappy fellow.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
I've Been Coded
It’s usually a part of my nature and character to avoid things that are extremely popular and resonant with the masses. I resist the universally cherished and instead gravitate more towards niche tastes, or at least that’s how it usually works out.
I’ve known about Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and the popular sensation surrounding it for the past year and a half, and I have tried my best to avoid it at all costs. I don’t really know why, but I never had any interest in reading it. Maybe I viewed it as one of those books that are read by people who usually NEVER read, so I, fancying myself the literary type, had no interest in it.
One of my roommates here, Jen, had just finished another one of Dan Brown’s books and loved it, tearing through it in a reading frenzy. She heavily recommended it along with the Da Vinci Code, so when I was over my headmaster’s apartment two weeks ago and I spotted the Da Vinci Code on his bookshelf, I borrowed it.
I started reading it last weekend, and I must say it’s extremely addictive. I can see why it has sold over 22 million copies worldwide. Dan Brown knows how to write an intriguing plot, and with the book containing over 100 chapters, he’s the master of the cliffhanger. Just when you’re about to find out some key information or when he’s about to make a big reveal, the chapter ends and the proceeding chapter switches storylines or points of view. Sometimes I end up racing through it to find out what happens next and I have to stop and admonish myself to slow down a little and actually read all the text.
Currently I’m 500 pages in with 100 pages to go and the pacing hasn’t let up for a moment. The author’s mixed in a colorful group of distinct, memorable characters here, and he manages to insert glints of humor at all the moments. The research, of course, is outstanding, and I’ve learned a great deal while following along with the story.
What can I say- 22 million+ readers can’t be wrong. The Da Vinci Code is by no means a great piece of literary fiction and it’s certainly not going to be added to the Canon anytime soon, but it’s as close as a book can get to an all-out summer popcorn movie event. In fact, Ron Howard’s directing the film and it’s set to star one Mr. Tom Hanks (like it needed the biggest box office draw in the world to turn a profit or get the word out on it!). Also involved are Audrey Tautou from Amelie and Jean Reno from The Professional, so it looks like the movie is in good hands for a 2006 release. My only apprehension is that it’s being adapted by Akiva Goldsman, who, along with David Koepp, is one of my least favorite screenwriters working today.
I’ve known about Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and the popular sensation surrounding it for the past year and a half, and I have tried my best to avoid it at all costs. I don’t really know why, but I never had any interest in reading it. Maybe I viewed it as one of those books that are read by people who usually NEVER read, so I, fancying myself the literary type, had no interest in it.
One of my roommates here, Jen, had just finished another one of Dan Brown’s books and loved it, tearing through it in a reading frenzy. She heavily recommended it along with the Da Vinci Code, so when I was over my headmaster’s apartment two weeks ago and I spotted the Da Vinci Code on his bookshelf, I borrowed it.
I started reading it last weekend, and I must say it’s extremely addictive. I can see why it has sold over 22 million copies worldwide. Dan Brown knows how to write an intriguing plot, and with the book containing over 100 chapters, he’s the master of the cliffhanger. Just when you’re about to find out some key information or when he’s about to make a big reveal, the chapter ends and the proceeding chapter switches storylines or points of view. Sometimes I end up racing through it to find out what happens next and I have to stop and admonish myself to slow down a little and actually read all the text.
Currently I’m 500 pages in with 100 pages to go and the pacing hasn’t let up for a moment. The author’s mixed in a colorful group of distinct, memorable characters here, and he manages to insert glints of humor at all the moments. The research, of course, is outstanding, and I’ve learned a great deal while following along with the story.
What can I say- 22 million+ readers can’t be wrong. The Da Vinci Code is by no means a great piece of literary fiction and it’s certainly not going to be added to the Canon anytime soon, but it’s as close as a book can get to an all-out summer popcorn movie event. In fact, Ron Howard’s directing the film and it’s set to star one Mr. Tom Hanks (like it needed the biggest box office draw in the world to turn a profit or get the word out on it!). Also involved are Audrey Tautou from Amelie and Jean Reno from The Professional, so it looks like the movie is in good hands for a 2006 release. My only apprehension is that it’s being adapted by Akiva Goldsman, who, along with David Koepp, is one of my least favorite screenwriters working today.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Save The Date!
Just so you know...
SLOSHBALL: Still Alive and Going Strong
Sunday July 3rd, 2005
51 Faxon St, Braintree, MA
SLOSHBALL: Still Alive and Going Strong
Sunday July 3rd, 2005
51 Faxon St, Braintree, MA
Rain Work
Not Turkey-related, but still pretty ridiculous. I hated having to do this on movie sets to random no-name actors.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/apphoto/photo?photoId=690402&sportId=10%3E
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/apphoto/photo?photoId=690402&sportId=10%3E
Monday, March 07, 2005
2 Weekends Ago
I actually jumped from a moving city bus 2 weeks ago. Quite an adventure, it was. Jen, Maddy, Ralph’s stepdaughter Catherine, and I were taking the bus from Karsiyaka into the hip, downtown area of Izmir, called Alsancak, to meet up with a new friend of Jen’s for dinner. The bus pulls up to the curb in Alsancak- it’s our stop. Being the gentleman I am, I let the ladies depart the bus first. I go to exit and the bus suddenly pulls away from the curb as the driver pushes the acceleration pedal down to the floor. Instead of yelling out to him to stop, I figure, hey, the bus isn’t moving THAT fast- let’s jump out! Silly me. So I leap from the top platform of the bus and fly out onto the sidewalk, the bus’ momentum adding to my jump. Fortunately, I land on my feet, but I quasi-land on Catherine and clutch her to keep me from falling into some bushes. Flying out of the bus, she never saw me coming. She feels some guy grabbing her and pulling her down with tremendous force and she instinctively thinks someone is trying to mug or attack her on the city sidewalk. She let out a yell and I ended up scaring the living daylights out of her.
After a moment she realized it was me, and not some shady alley denizen, but her heart rate must have doubled in a matter of milliseconds. On the bus ride over to Alsancak, Catherine had just been talking about muggers in Izmir and how she felt certain parts of the city weren’t that safe. And no sooner than walking off the bus does she think she’s getting attacked by someone literally flying into her from out of nowhere. And my heart rate, well that took quite a hop, too. The bus wasn’t moving that fast when I jumped, but just that little bit of velocity added a surprisingly tremendous force to my jump, and it almost felt like I flew off a ski jump- I got some serious hang time there.
The whole thing was absolutely hysterical to me. I started laughing uncontrollably after I landed on the sidewalk, and then whenever I thought of it throughout the night, I’d start laughing in fits. Just writing this entry I completely cracked up 5 separate times.
Later that night we went out to dinner and then we ambled down the alleyway to a nightclub. We all had to pay a 10 Yeni Turkish Lira (YTL) cover, but we each got a free drink with the entrance fee. I wouldn’t have even got in unless I were with a group of 4 girls, as there were several guys waiting outside the door while I walked past them as I entered. We got in there, and the place was JAMMED. There was a really good cover band playing popular American rock music and the singer had a flawless American accent. We made our way to the back and then up a set of stairs to the second floor balcony. It was just as crowded, and when the band played a song the crowd really liked, the balcony started shaking and bouncing up and down. I didn’t pay it any mind, but one of the girls was seriously afraid it was going to collapse.
That all happened on a Saturday night. The evening before Jen, Maddy, and I hosted a party at our apartment for everyone at Isikkent. Maddy sent everyone at school an invitation email over the school network and we expected 30-40 people. When we got home on the service bus that Friday, we employed our cleaning skills on the kitchen, which was desperate for a thorough cleansing. Maddy and I swept and washed in there while Jen rearranged the living room furniture in optimal party mode and gave the carpet a vacuuming.
We had about 30 people over and the party, paking the place, and it was a real success. Everyone brought over a bunch of food and drinks and we had plenty left over when it was all said and done. Ralph, the headmaster, said he’d maybe drop by for an hour or so- he was very insistent that he’d only pop in for a short while. So guess what- he ended up being the second to last last guest leaving! Ahh, Ralph
On Sunday of the same weekend it was a really beautiful day (finally!), so Maddy, Jen and I walked down to the seaside basketball courts to play a little roundball. The courts were full. Luckily, I brought my superdisc Frisbee with me, so we tossed that around instead. It was a lot of fun, and we even got a crowd watching us. It was as if these people had never seen a frisbee before, but apparently frisbee is only a "Beach thing" in Turkey, so when they see someone tossing it around on anything other than sand, it's a real oddity.
Jen's not the best of frisbee throwers, so a few of her errant throws hit cars parked along the road and the frisbee even ended up in the adjacent highway on three occassions. Once, it actually smacked into the windshield of a passing car! If I were the driver and I saw something flying out of nowhere and coming towards my windshield, I probably would have swerved and caused some terrible accident, but the driver simply slowed down, let the frisbee bonk of the glass, and moved on. Fortunately, the frisbee was not run over or harmed in any way. But it was just a beatiful afternoon- running around on the seaside, warm weather, picturesque mountains in the background. I'm looking forward to more of that.
After a moment she realized it was me, and not some shady alley denizen, but her heart rate must have doubled in a matter of milliseconds. On the bus ride over to Alsancak, Catherine had just been talking about muggers in Izmir and how she felt certain parts of the city weren’t that safe. And no sooner than walking off the bus does she think she’s getting attacked by someone literally flying into her from out of nowhere. And my heart rate, well that took quite a hop, too. The bus wasn’t moving that fast when I jumped, but just that little bit of velocity added a surprisingly tremendous force to my jump, and it almost felt like I flew off a ski jump- I got some serious hang time there.
The whole thing was absolutely hysterical to me. I started laughing uncontrollably after I landed on the sidewalk, and then whenever I thought of it throughout the night, I’d start laughing in fits. Just writing this entry I completely cracked up 5 separate times.
Later that night we went out to dinner and then we ambled down the alleyway to a nightclub. We all had to pay a 10 Yeni Turkish Lira (YTL) cover, but we each got a free drink with the entrance fee. I wouldn’t have even got in unless I were with a group of 4 girls, as there were several guys waiting outside the door while I walked past them as I entered. We got in there, and the place was JAMMED. There was a really good cover band playing popular American rock music and the singer had a flawless American accent. We made our way to the back and then up a set of stairs to the second floor balcony. It was just as crowded, and when the band played a song the crowd really liked, the balcony started shaking and bouncing up and down. I didn’t pay it any mind, but one of the girls was seriously afraid it was going to collapse.
That all happened on a Saturday night. The evening before Jen, Maddy, and I hosted a party at our apartment for everyone at Isikkent. Maddy sent everyone at school an invitation email over the school network and we expected 30-40 people. When we got home on the service bus that Friday, we employed our cleaning skills on the kitchen, which was desperate for a thorough cleansing. Maddy and I swept and washed in there while Jen rearranged the living room furniture in optimal party mode and gave the carpet a vacuuming.
We had about 30 people over and the party, paking the place, and it was a real success. Everyone brought over a bunch of food and drinks and we had plenty left over when it was all said and done. Ralph, the headmaster, said he’d maybe drop by for an hour or so- he was very insistent that he’d only pop in for a short while. So guess what- he ended up being the second to last last guest leaving! Ahh, Ralph
On Sunday of the same weekend it was a really beautiful day (finally!), so Maddy, Jen and I walked down to the seaside basketball courts to play a little roundball. The courts were full. Luckily, I brought my superdisc Frisbee with me, so we tossed that around instead. It was a lot of fun, and we even got a crowd watching us. It was as if these people had never seen a frisbee before, but apparently frisbee is only a "Beach thing" in Turkey, so when they see someone tossing it around on anything other than sand, it's a real oddity.
Jen's not the best of frisbee throwers, so a few of her errant throws hit cars parked along the road and the frisbee even ended up in the adjacent highway on three occassions. Once, it actually smacked into the windshield of a passing car! If I were the driver and I saw something flying out of nowhere and coming towards my windshield, I probably would have swerved and caused some terrible accident, but the driver simply slowed down, let the frisbee bonk of the glass, and moved on. Fortunately, the frisbee was not run over or harmed in any way. But it was just a beatiful afternoon- running around on the seaside, warm weather, picturesque mountains in the background. I'm looking forward to more of that.
My Vacation Back In The States: First NYC Portion
When I finally made it back home after that extremely long trek, I stayed in NY with Nick until Thursday. I took great joy in the little things of being back in America. I flipped on the TV and ESPN was on. Sportscenter! Pardon The Interruption! I didn’t realize how much I missed those shows until I saw them on the TV screen. I watched PTI like a 4 year old watches eagerly awaited cartoons on a Saturday morning (at least back when they showed cartoons on a Saturday morning!).
Nick was in the midst of moving all his stuff from his Brooklyn apartment to Emily’s apartment in Manhattan near Union Square since they were moving in together. Needless to say, he had a lot of stuff, certainly more than would ever fit into her place, which was already full of her own possessions, knick-knacks, and putzinfraffin.
Nick had several things and boxes to go back home to Faxon St., so Dad came down on Wednesday to pick me up along with Nick’s excess stuff. The only thing was, he drove down with his van already full of random Dad stuff. He neglected to take any of the rear seats out, so there was hardly any room for what Nick wanted to send home. Nick and I were both wondering about Dad- why did he drive 250 miles down here to bring Nick’s stuff back without emptying out the van first? We were stumped. Perhaps there are some things that should never be completely understood, and that suggestion occasionally applies to the enigma of our Dad.
When Nick and I stopped into Pathmark on my first day back, I was like a kid in a candy store. I was so excited and thrilled to see all these foods I hadn’t been able to find or eat in Turkey the past 2 months. Nick said he had hadn’t seen me that buoyantly ecstatic in ages. Baked beans! Raisin Bran Crunch cereal! Italian subs! Frozen pizza! Junior Mints! I could hardly control myself. While I was home, I was also on a mission to eat as much ethnic food as possible- Mexican, Chinese, Italian, Eritrean, whatever I could get my hands on, basically.
Tuesday night, before going to a concert with Nick and Oscar, I met up with Hadley, an old friend of mine from high school who I hadn’t seen in years. He graduated from Brown last year with some sort of degree in psychology and neurobiology, and now he’s living with his girlfriend uptown near Columbia while going for his PhD at NYU. He met us at this chic Thai food place in Union Sq. It sure was good to see him, and good to hear that he’s doing so well.
While walking up to the restaurant, a manhole cover in front of the eatery blasted up from the ground and flew 15 feet into the air. It was pretty creepy. Within minutes there were cavalries of police and firemen on the scene, walking around everywhere. I had never seen anything like it, and soon there were fire trucks all over Union Sq. trying to fix whatever made that man hole cover fly into the air. Luckily, nobody was hurt.
Later that night, Nick, Oscar, and I went over to the Knitting Factory to see this band perform called World Leader Pretend. They’re from New Orleans and Oscar has known these guys for years. He was their manager for a while, and spent some time making a documentary of their rise from a band playing in someone’s basement to getting signed by Warner Brothers Records. Even though their major label debut doesn’t come out until April, the room was pretty full- mostly record company people and insiders according to Oscar. The band was quite good- they reminded me of Radiohead, Coldplay, and Keane all rolled into one. They have some really catchy songs on the new album, so I hope they’re able to find an audience and hit it big. The drummer was an absolute joy to watch- he was so animated and into what he was playing, I couldn’t take my eyes off what he was doing for the entire set.
On Wednesday afternoon I met up with Danielle, a cool girl from NYU who I met last year while working on Lobster Farm, for lunch in the city. I’ve talked to her a good amount in the last year, but I hardly ever get to see her, so it was nice to hang out with her in person, as brief as it was. My Dad rolled into town Wednesday afternoon. He met Nick and I in Manhattan and we drove back to Brooklyn so we could shuttle Nick’s stuff from his old apartment over to Emily’s. Afterwards, we had a great meal at this old tavern aptly called The Old Town Bar, or something very close to that. It’s one of the oldest places to get a drink or something to eat in all of Manhattan, and it had a very cool atmosphere, along with still-functional dumb waiters and a killer burger and fries plate. That’s definitely a place to patronize again.
Dad and I rolled out of NY Thursday morning, but not before stopping by Veselka for a hearty pre-drive home breakfast. God, that place is so good. I had my customary pancakes, and I can’t remember a breakfast hitting the spot so dead on. I’d do anything for a Veselka breakfast right now, considering my breakfast now consists of a glass of water and 2 fiber crackers.
Nick was in the midst of moving all his stuff from his Brooklyn apartment to Emily’s apartment in Manhattan near Union Square since they were moving in together. Needless to say, he had a lot of stuff, certainly more than would ever fit into her place, which was already full of her own possessions, knick-knacks, and putzinfraffin.
Nick had several things and boxes to go back home to Faxon St., so Dad came down on Wednesday to pick me up along with Nick’s excess stuff. The only thing was, he drove down with his van already full of random Dad stuff. He neglected to take any of the rear seats out, so there was hardly any room for what Nick wanted to send home. Nick and I were both wondering about Dad- why did he drive 250 miles down here to bring Nick’s stuff back without emptying out the van first? We were stumped. Perhaps there are some things that should never be completely understood, and that suggestion occasionally applies to the enigma of our Dad.
When Nick and I stopped into Pathmark on my first day back, I was like a kid in a candy store. I was so excited and thrilled to see all these foods I hadn’t been able to find or eat in Turkey the past 2 months. Nick said he had hadn’t seen me that buoyantly ecstatic in ages. Baked beans! Raisin Bran Crunch cereal! Italian subs! Frozen pizza! Junior Mints! I could hardly control myself. While I was home, I was also on a mission to eat as much ethnic food as possible- Mexican, Chinese, Italian, Eritrean, whatever I could get my hands on, basically.
Tuesday night, before going to a concert with Nick and Oscar, I met up with Hadley, an old friend of mine from high school who I hadn’t seen in years. He graduated from Brown last year with some sort of degree in psychology and neurobiology, and now he’s living with his girlfriend uptown near Columbia while going for his PhD at NYU. He met us at this chic Thai food place in Union Sq. It sure was good to see him, and good to hear that he’s doing so well.
While walking up to the restaurant, a manhole cover in front of the eatery blasted up from the ground and flew 15 feet into the air. It was pretty creepy. Within minutes there were cavalries of police and firemen on the scene, walking around everywhere. I had never seen anything like it, and soon there were fire trucks all over Union Sq. trying to fix whatever made that man hole cover fly into the air. Luckily, nobody was hurt.
Later that night, Nick, Oscar, and I went over to the Knitting Factory to see this band perform called World Leader Pretend. They’re from New Orleans and Oscar has known these guys for years. He was their manager for a while, and spent some time making a documentary of their rise from a band playing in someone’s basement to getting signed by Warner Brothers Records. Even though their major label debut doesn’t come out until April, the room was pretty full- mostly record company people and insiders according to Oscar. The band was quite good- they reminded me of Radiohead, Coldplay, and Keane all rolled into one. They have some really catchy songs on the new album, so I hope they’re able to find an audience and hit it big. The drummer was an absolute joy to watch- he was so animated and into what he was playing, I couldn’t take my eyes off what he was doing for the entire set.
On Wednesday afternoon I met up with Danielle, a cool girl from NYU who I met last year while working on Lobster Farm, for lunch in the city. I’ve talked to her a good amount in the last year, but I hardly ever get to see her, so it was nice to hang out with her in person, as brief as it was. My Dad rolled into town Wednesday afternoon. He met Nick and I in Manhattan and we drove back to Brooklyn so we could shuttle Nick’s stuff from his old apartment over to Emily’s. Afterwards, we had a great meal at this old tavern aptly called The Old Town Bar, or something very close to that. It’s one of the oldest places to get a drink or something to eat in all of Manhattan, and it had a very cool atmosphere, along with still-functional dumb waiters and a killer burger and fries plate. That’s definitely a place to patronize again.
Dad and I rolled out of NY Thursday morning, but not before stopping by Veselka for a hearty pre-drive home breakfast. God, that place is so good. I had my customary pancakes, and I can’t remember a breakfast hitting the spot so dead on. I’d do anything for a Veselka breakfast right now, considering my breakfast now consists of a glass of water and 2 fiber crackers.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Weather Report
The Izmir weather hasn’t been particularly kind the last 2 months. From mid-January to now, we’ve been averaging five rainy, wet, blah days to one decent, sunny day. That’s a 5:1 ratio, and a ratio I’d prefer to be going in the opposite direction.
Before coming here, I read on weather.com that December and January were the rainy months, averaging 13 inches of rain over that particular two month span. December, it turned out, was almost perfect, and the first of January much the same. Eventually, the weather turned, the Earth screamed up to the heavens that it was thirsty and time for a big drink, so the rain and the Seattle-like climate has been in full effect ever since Isikkent broke for our 3-week semester break in January.
My first week back in February right after the Super Bowl, Izmir was downright frigid, which is saying something since I had just come from a very frosty Braintree, MA. For a few days I even regretted leaving my warm winter coat with Nick back in NY. Kids would always leave the doors leading outside ajar, so the hallways would be freezing. And none of the school bathrooms have heating of any kind, so it would be like walking into an outhouse. It was brutal. Sitting down on that cold porcelain with a draft coming in from underneath the stall walls, just not a good “going” atmosphere.
So it’s March now, and while it’s consistently 55-60 degrees everyday, it’s a minor miracle if we ever get a sunny day. Friday was beautiful, but today it was quickly back to wind gusts and showers, the sort of weather that deters me from ever leaving my apartment and stepping foot outside.
I’ve been told over and over again by multiple sources that the weather will soon brighten, and when it does it will stay that way into the summer months, when the never-ending sun and heat will leave me begging for these rainy March days. Ha! I don’t think so.
Before coming here, I read on weather.com that December and January were the rainy months, averaging 13 inches of rain over that particular two month span. December, it turned out, was almost perfect, and the first of January much the same. Eventually, the weather turned, the Earth screamed up to the heavens that it was thirsty and time for a big drink, so the rain and the Seattle-like climate has been in full effect ever since Isikkent broke for our 3-week semester break in January.
My first week back in February right after the Super Bowl, Izmir was downright frigid, which is saying something since I had just come from a very frosty Braintree, MA. For a few days I even regretted leaving my warm winter coat with Nick back in NY. Kids would always leave the doors leading outside ajar, so the hallways would be freezing. And none of the school bathrooms have heating of any kind, so it would be like walking into an outhouse. It was brutal. Sitting down on that cold porcelain with a draft coming in from underneath the stall walls, just not a good “going” atmosphere.
So it’s March now, and while it’s consistently 55-60 degrees everyday, it’s a minor miracle if we ever get a sunny day. Friday was beautiful, but today it was quickly back to wind gusts and showers, the sort of weather that deters me from ever leaving my apartment and stepping foot outside.
I’ve been told over and over again by multiple sources that the weather will soon brighten, and when it does it will stay that way into the summer months, when the never-ending sun and heat will leave me begging for these rainy March days. Ha! I don’t think so.
Friday, March 04, 2005
A 5th Grader's Written Apology
I played pencil. I'm spoke Turkish and I'm very sorry. I'm wrong but I fixed in class tomorrow. I played because I'm boring but tomorrow fixed my wrongs. (Three words written in Turkish and crossed out). I'm saw my wrong and I fix tomorrow. Tomorrow I fix my wrongs.
I'm very sorry,
Name withheld
I'm promise
Withheld name written again
I'm very sorry,
Name withheld
I'm promise
Withheld name written again
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Two weeks ago Isikkent added 5 extra hours to my schedule. I wasn’t exactly thrilled about it at first, but Maddy needed some help in her 5th grade class. And to compensate for the additional hours, they took away my yearbook responsibilities, which was quite a relief. They put me in charge of the 8th grade yearbook, when I just got here and I hardly know any of the kids. Plus, all of the yearbook publishing companies conduct their business in Turkish, so I was pretty much useless in that department. One of the guidance counselors started helping me out and soon the administration realized that there was little to nothing I could do for them, so I was happy to have that yearbook burden off my back. At first I thought they wanted a simple yearbook, but they actually want a really fancy, glossy page, full color plus a binding sort of yearbook. I think they want to come up with a really impressive, fancy-looking book to impress the parents and show them where their $10,000 tuition money is going.
In regards to Maddy’s 5th grade class, the kids that comprise it are a tough little bunch. Some are rude, some are loud, and others simply can’t pay attention, plus three of the kids have near-native English skills while the other 8 kids are light years behind them. It was impossible for Maddy to teach a class with such an enormous split in English learning ability. So I was called in as back-up, roving around the classroom with my arms folded across my chest with the sternest, most disapproving look on my face that I could muster. Whenever Maddy would ask a question, one know-it-all girl would yell out the answer from the back of the class, not giving anyone else a chance to come up with the answer. And this girl would do this for almost the ENTIRE 80 minutes. That alone was enough to drive me up a tree, but almost every kid in the class had an annoying or aggravating trait.
For a few weeks, I tried my best to help Maddy out and ease the burden of teaching this group, but I’m not sure how much good I did. My presence alleviated things on the 1st day, but it went downhill from there…quickly. Occasionally we’d split up and I’d take the 3 native speakers and do something separate with them in the back while Maddy would teach the regularly planned lesson to the rest of the kids, but my three students, two of them bound to star in the Turkish sequel to Mean Girls five years from now, weren’t very productive. I was trying to help in the best way I knew how, but I don’t think I was effective as Maddy hoped I would be. But…. (continue on to next column)
In regards to Maddy’s 5th grade class, the kids that comprise it are a tough little bunch. Some are rude, some are loud, and others simply can’t pay attention, plus three of the kids have near-native English skills while the other 8 kids are light years behind them. It was impossible for Maddy to teach a class with such an enormous split in English learning ability. So I was called in as back-up, roving around the classroom with my arms folded across my chest with the sternest, most disapproving look on my face that I could muster. Whenever Maddy would ask a question, one know-it-all girl would yell out the answer from the back of the class, not giving anyone else a chance to come up with the answer. And this girl would do this for almost the ENTIRE 80 minutes. That alone was enough to drive me up a tree, but almost every kid in the class had an annoying or aggravating trait.
For a few weeks, I tried my best to help Maddy out and ease the burden of teaching this group, but I’m not sure how much good I did. My presence alleviated things on the 1st day, but it went downhill from there…quickly. Occasionally we’d split up and I’d take the 3 native speakers and do something separate with them in the back while Maddy would teach the regularly planned lesson to the rest of the kids, but my three students, two of them bound to star in the Turkish sequel to Mean Girls five years from now, weren’t very productive. I was trying to help in the best way I knew how, but I don’t think I was effective as Maddy hoped I would be. But…. (continue on to next column)
Turns out I don’t have to worry about that 5th grade class anymore because Isikkent just got a college intern from California for the next 3 months! One Mr. James D., age 19, of San Mateo, California, arrived in Izmir on Friday afternoon. We didn’t know where he was going to live at first, and for a while we thought he’d have to spend the next three months living on our apartment balcony, but we convinced Ralph that this was not the best of ideas. We threw it out there as a last resort and suddenly that became option number one for the administration, much to our dismay. Ralph asked around the school to see if anyone would be willing to take this guy in, and a young girl from the Sports Club office, Ceyda, volunteered to give him room and board for 3 months. He stayed with us for the weekend and he moved in with Ceyda and her family last night.
Nobody at Isikkent knew what to expect from this James fella. Who was he? What was he going to do here? And why was he coming here of all places for a 3 month unpaid internship? On the service bus, we came up with all sorts of different monikers and nicknames for him. Jen called him Mr. D., Maddy called him Jamesey, and I referred to him as JD. Other names thrown around included Jamie, Saint James, Jim, Jimmy, and even Jiminy. The school, or at least the passengers on the karsiyaka service bus, were abuzz, and we really milked the new intern’s arrival for all it was worth. In the midst of all this pre-arrival chatter, I learned that everyone went through this same process before I arrived back in December.
So who was this new guy? He was supposed to arrive at noon on Friday, but the school’s front desk attendant and copy clerk went to pick him up at the Izmir Airport and he was nowhere to be found. Hmmm, had he gotten the scoop on Isikkent and decided to bail on us before it was too late? Not exactly. Turned out he arrived in Istanbul with nothing but traveler’s checks, and he couldn’t find anywhere to cash them. He spent the night in Istanbul and when he went to cash one of his checks the next day to pay for cab fare to the airport, he had to visit 8 banks before he could find a branch willing to cash his checks. Obviously, he missed his 11am flight and had to catch a 5pm flight instead.
I stayed at school and joined Ralph in picking him up at the airport. After Ralph got himself into a pickle of a traffic jam in the airport parking lot, I ran inside and met James at the arrivial gate. A mere lad of 19, James was tall, over 6 feet tall, and quite slender. Lanky yet limber, he spoke with a soft California accent. At first he was quite reserved and soft-spoken, and I wondered how he’d fare in a class full of Isikkent children. He explained on the car ride home about the program that sent him over here for 3 months. For three weeks he went on a kind of hippy, religious retreat where you do a lot of yoga, meditate, go a whole day without talking, stay up an entire night with a group of peers while continuously banging a drum, and spend considerable time in a sweat lodge. I know very little to nothing about retreats, so I found it very interesting. After the three weeks are up, you’re sent out to somewhere in the world, where you live with a home stay family, absorb the culture, work or study, and spread the knowledge or wisdom you learned from your time at the retreat.
Jen was going to Olimpos for the weekend (a southern coastal town about 7 hours away by bus, she made some friends down there during semester break, and plans on going down every other weekend or so), so at least James got a proper bed for his first few nights in Izmir. Before she left, we took James out to Kerkichey for some genuine Turkish food, and he properly order some kuzu shish (lamb kebabs).
On Saturday, I took James across the bay on the ferry to Konak, where we ventured through the ginat bazaar known as Kameralti. It was raining and a bit chilly, but we didn’t let it interfere with our day of exploration and sightseeing. Kameralti is still such a maze to me, so we just wandered around, hoping to come across my favorite pide place. After much wandering and browsing, we finally stumbled across it, and we had some pides custom-made and fired up in the oven for us. James’ first pide and he loved it- a good start.
We eventually made our way back to Mavesehir, where we regrouped and went out to dinner with Maddy and Ceyda, who had offered James a room in her family’s apartment. Before any arrangements were finalized, I think they both wanted to meet each other first, so we went out for Chinese Food. Yup, that’s right- Chinese! Peter had told us about this new Chinese/Japanese place he found near his house. They didn’t do any business, but he really liked the food, so he was referring as many people as he could to go there so it wouldn’t close any time soon. It was raining pretty steadily, so the four of us took a cab to the restaurant, only the cab took us to the wrong restaurant. It wasn’t even in the right neighborhood! After another cab was called, we found the right restaurant, and we enjoyed a delicious Chinese meal. And I thought I wouldn’t get to taste Chinese food until July. I dined on chicken fried rice and chicken chow mein and it was just what the culinary doctor ordered. And the Asian waitress there even knew English!
James has turned out to be a really interesting, diverse, laid-back fellow. He’s led a fairly interesting life- he recently got back from a vacation to the Galapagos Islands and three month tour of India, where he got to sleep in a bedroom with a ceiling no more than five and a half feet tall (he’s 6’2”) that was filled with large, creepy spiders. I figure our balcony must have looked like a shangri-la compared to some of his past living conditions. He has an offbeat sense of humor, and you never know quite what he’s going to say. I think Jen and Maddy have taken to him very quickly, as he’s quite affable and comfortable around everyone. While we were all a bit tentative when we first heard a teenage American intern was arriving, I think we’re all thankful for the wrinkle James’ arrival has made in weekly Isikkent grind. No chance to get complacent or into a routine here, and that’s the way I like it.
Nobody at Isikkent knew what to expect from this James fella. Who was he? What was he going to do here? And why was he coming here of all places for a 3 month unpaid internship? On the service bus, we came up with all sorts of different monikers and nicknames for him. Jen called him Mr. D., Maddy called him Jamesey, and I referred to him as JD. Other names thrown around included Jamie, Saint James, Jim, Jimmy, and even Jiminy. The school, or at least the passengers on the karsiyaka service bus, were abuzz, and we really milked the new intern’s arrival for all it was worth. In the midst of all this pre-arrival chatter, I learned that everyone went through this same process before I arrived back in December.
So who was this new guy? He was supposed to arrive at noon on Friday, but the school’s front desk attendant and copy clerk went to pick him up at the Izmir Airport and he was nowhere to be found. Hmmm, had he gotten the scoop on Isikkent and decided to bail on us before it was too late? Not exactly. Turned out he arrived in Istanbul with nothing but traveler’s checks, and he couldn’t find anywhere to cash them. He spent the night in Istanbul and when he went to cash one of his checks the next day to pay for cab fare to the airport, he had to visit 8 banks before he could find a branch willing to cash his checks. Obviously, he missed his 11am flight and had to catch a 5pm flight instead.
I stayed at school and joined Ralph in picking him up at the airport. After Ralph got himself into a pickle of a traffic jam in the airport parking lot, I ran inside and met James at the arrivial gate. A mere lad of 19, James was tall, over 6 feet tall, and quite slender. Lanky yet limber, he spoke with a soft California accent. At first he was quite reserved and soft-spoken, and I wondered how he’d fare in a class full of Isikkent children. He explained on the car ride home about the program that sent him over here for 3 months. For three weeks he went on a kind of hippy, religious retreat where you do a lot of yoga, meditate, go a whole day without talking, stay up an entire night with a group of peers while continuously banging a drum, and spend considerable time in a sweat lodge. I know very little to nothing about retreats, so I found it very interesting. After the three weeks are up, you’re sent out to somewhere in the world, where you live with a home stay family, absorb the culture, work or study, and spread the knowledge or wisdom you learned from your time at the retreat.
Jen was going to Olimpos for the weekend (a southern coastal town about 7 hours away by bus, she made some friends down there during semester break, and plans on going down every other weekend or so), so at least James got a proper bed for his first few nights in Izmir. Before she left, we took James out to Kerkichey for some genuine Turkish food, and he properly order some kuzu shish (lamb kebabs).
On Saturday, I took James across the bay on the ferry to Konak, where we ventured through the ginat bazaar known as Kameralti. It was raining and a bit chilly, but we didn’t let it interfere with our day of exploration and sightseeing. Kameralti is still such a maze to me, so we just wandered around, hoping to come across my favorite pide place. After much wandering and browsing, we finally stumbled across it, and we had some pides custom-made and fired up in the oven for us. James’ first pide and he loved it- a good start.
We eventually made our way back to Mavesehir, where we regrouped and went out to dinner with Maddy and Ceyda, who had offered James a room in her family’s apartment. Before any arrangements were finalized, I think they both wanted to meet each other first, so we went out for Chinese Food. Yup, that’s right- Chinese! Peter had told us about this new Chinese/Japanese place he found near his house. They didn’t do any business, but he really liked the food, so he was referring as many people as he could to go there so it wouldn’t close any time soon. It was raining pretty steadily, so the four of us took a cab to the restaurant, only the cab took us to the wrong restaurant. It wasn’t even in the right neighborhood! After another cab was called, we found the right restaurant, and we enjoyed a delicious Chinese meal. And I thought I wouldn’t get to taste Chinese food until July. I dined on chicken fried rice and chicken chow mein and it was just what the culinary doctor ordered. And the Asian waitress there even knew English!
James has turned out to be a really interesting, diverse, laid-back fellow. He’s led a fairly interesting life- he recently got back from a vacation to the Galapagos Islands and three month tour of India, where he got to sleep in a bedroom with a ceiling no more than five and a half feet tall (he’s 6’2”) that was filled with large, creepy spiders. I figure our balcony must have looked like a shangri-la compared to some of his past living conditions. He has an offbeat sense of humor, and you never know quite what he’s going to say. I think Jen and Maddy have taken to him very quickly, as he’s quite affable and comfortable around everyone. While we were all a bit tentative when we first heard a teenage American intern was arriving, I think we’re all thankful for the wrinkle James’ arrival has made in weekly Isikkent grind. No chance to get complacent or into a routine here, and that’s the way I like it.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Biopicorama
Was 2004 the year of the biopic or what? In the last month, I’ve seen 3 great ones- The Aviator, Kinsey, and Ray. The Aviator was terrific, a fascinating character study of a really unique, and odd fellow. I think Leonardo DiCaprio’s acting skills usually get overshadowed by his good looks and popular persona, but there’s no question the boy can act. Did you ever see him as a kid in This Boy’s Life? He went toe-to-toe with Robert DeNiro and held his own. And What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? He was marvelous, stealing the show from Johnny Depp and everyone else.
Kinsey was a pretty fascinating portrait of a guy that wasn’t all that exciting. What Kinsey did with all his sexuality research was rather groundbreaking and innovative, but Kinsey the man was kind of dull. Before studying human sexuality, he was an entomologist hell-bent on collecting and categorizing half a million gull-wasps. Not the stuff of cinematic legend. But in his later years, when he realized that nobody was well educated in the matters of sex in the 1950s, he took it upon himself to create a course at Indiana University to set the record straight. It’s astounding how little grown adults knew about their own bodies at that time. The movie was written and directed by Bill Condon, who made another great biopic 5 years ago about the fellow that made the old Frankenstein movies, called Gods and Monsters.
As for Ray, I wasn’t expecting to like the movie that much. Mainly I just wanted to see it for Jamie Foxx’s performance before he won the Oscar. But dang it all if I didn’t end up enjoying the hell out of Ray. It was 2.5 hours, but the time just flew by without me ever having to look at the clock. His life story was told with so much effortless gusto and enthusiasm, I was hooked the whole way through. And the music, all of it so good and undeniably catchy, was worked into the movie seamlessly. Ray Charles certainly had his problems with infidelity and drug addiction, but it ended up being a very uplifting story. And Foxx channeled Ray so well, I sat there and never thought he was acting as or imitating a musical icon. Foxx deserves all the praise and attention he gets.
As for the WORST bipic of the year, that goes in a landslide to DeLovely. Actually, it’s in the running for worst movie of the year, too. Unlike Ray, it had a terrible time working Cole Porter’s music into the film. The writers came up with a terrible framework to show Porter’s life- as an old, decrepit man, Porter, played by Kevin Kline, is taken into a theater by some sort of supposed omniscient angel played by Jonathan Price, and the aged Porter watches his life unfold onstage before him. The whole thing was just overly contrived and clumsy. With a runtime of 2 hours, it felt more like 6. A bulk of the film is devoted to Porter being gay and gallivanting around with pretty young men while being married to a woman that loved him dearly. The whole time, he’s either having boyfriend trouble or marriage trouble, and it got tiring VERY quickly. The film had a glum air over it, and it was oftentimes difficult figuring out what year it was, where everyone was, or how much time had elapsed between scenes. It was more or less a dull, plodding, and downbeat disaster. Don’t waste your time!
Kinsey was a pretty fascinating portrait of a guy that wasn’t all that exciting. What Kinsey did with all his sexuality research was rather groundbreaking and innovative, but Kinsey the man was kind of dull. Before studying human sexuality, he was an entomologist hell-bent on collecting and categorizing half a million gull-wasps. Not the stuff of cinematic legend. But in his later years, when he realized that nobody was well educated in the matters of sex in the 1950s, he took it upon himself to create a course at Indiana University to set the record straight. It’s astounding how little grown adults knew about their own bodies at that time. The movie was written and directed by Bill Condon, who made another great biopic 5 years ago about the fellow that made the old Frankenstein movies, called Gods and Monsters.
As for Ray, I wasn’t expecting to like the movie that much. Mainly I just wanted to see it for Jamie Foxx’s performance before he won the Oscar. But dang it all if I didn’t end up enjoying the hell out of Ray. It was 2.5 hours, but the time just flew by without me ever having to look at the clock. His life story was told with so much effortless gusto and enthusiasm, I was hooked the whole way through. And the music, all of it so good and undeniably catchy, was worked into the movie seamlessly. Ray Charles certainly had his problems with infidelity and drug addiction, but it ended up being a very uplifting story. And Foxx channeled Ray so well, I sat there and never thought he was acting as or imitating a musical icon. Foxx deserves all the praise and attention he gets.
As for the WORST bipic of the year, that goes in a landslide to DeLovely. Actually, it’s in the running for worst movie of the year, too. Unlike Ray, it had a terrible time working Cole Porter’s music into the film. The writers came up with a terrible framework to show Porter’s life- as an old, decrepit man, Porter, played by Kevin Kline, is taken into a theater by some sort of supposed omniscient angel played by Jonathan Price, and the aged Porter watches his life unfold onstage before him. The whole thing was just overly contrived and clumsy. With a runtime of 2 hours, it felt more like 6. A bulk of the film is devoted to Porter being gay and gallivanting around with pretty young men while being married to a woman that loved him dearly. The whole time, he’s either having boyfriend trouble or marriage trouble, and it got tiring VERY quickly. The film had a glum air over it, and it was oftentimes difficult figuring out what year it was, where everyone was, or how much time had elapsed between scenes. It was more or less a dull, plodding, and downbeat disaster. Don’t waste your time!
Injury Report: Flu-Like Symptoms
I know I said I was going to kick the writing into high gear, but I got stopped in my tracks by a bout with flu-like symptoms this week. On Sunday, I woke up at 10 and by 1pm my muscles were aching and I was ready for a nap. A 4-hour nap to be exact. I knew I was coming down with something so I drank all the water my stomach could hold and I started popping some extra vitamin C and E, along with some black elderberry syrup, which is supposed to ward off sickness. I probably shouldn’t have woken up at 330 in the morning to watch the Oscars, but I wasn’t going to let a little nascent cold get in the way with an annual tradition. I went to school on Monday on 4 hours sleep (plus the hyper-nap) and I felt terrible by noon. I got some Thera-Flu and throat lozenges from the school doctor to makethe day passable. I passed out for the full hour-ride home on the bus and when I got into my apartment I fell asleep for another 4 hours. I stayed home from school on Tuesday- aside from a bad head cold, my body felt like it had just run a marathon. My back, my legs, and my hips suddenly felt downright arthritic and there was no way I could deal with those evil 5th graders with this little in the tank.
On my day off I slept until 11am, took another power nap from 2-5:30, and then I packed it in for the night around 11:30. Clearly, the best way to spend your time when you’re feeling sick and miserable is to sleep it off. In the few hours I was awake and coherent, I watched some of Ralph’s Seinfeld DVDs. The first season was only 4 episodes and a pilot! Ralph lent me the first 3 seasons, so I’ll be watching those over the next month or so in my downtime.
I’m back at school today, but I’ve been like a zombie most of the time due to the powerful effects od a Sudafed cold pill I took this morning. For a majority of the day I felt like I was floating and I could hardly feel my legs. Walking down the halls, I had some trouble keeping my balance and walking a straight line. Luckily, I didn’t have to teach any classes until the last 2 periods. But then my last class, English Drama, was cancelled because all of the kids are in the school science fair and they were in a mad rush to finish their projects. Great! I only have 9 more rehearsals to put on a full-fledged musical, and one of them just got cancelled so the kids could work in the 11th hour on the science fair. I wasn’t up to teaching today anyway. All English classes have been cancelled tomorrow due to the aforementioned fair, but I still have to spend 5 hours babysitting kids. Ah well, it could be worse.
On my day off I slept until 11am, took another power nap from 2-5:30, and then I packed it in for the night around 11:30. Clearly, the best way to spend your time when you’re feeling sick and miserable is to sleep it off. In the few hours I was awake and coherent, I watched some of Ralph’s Seinfeld DVDs. The first season was only 4 episodes and a pilot! Ralph lent me the first 3 seasons, so I’ll be watching those over the next month or so in my downtime.
I’m back at school today, but I’ve been like a zombie most of the time due to the powerful effects od a Sudafed cold pill I took this morning. For a majority of the day I felt like I was floating and I could hardly feel my legs. Walking down the halls, I had some trouble keeping my balance and walking a straight line. Luckily, I didn’t have to teach any classes until the last 2 periods. But then my last class, English Drama, was cancelled because all of the kids are in the school science fair and they were in a mad rush to finish their projects. Great! I only have 9 more rehearsals to put on a full-fledged musical, and one of them just got cancelled so the kids could work in the 11th hour on the science fair. I wasn’t up to teaching today anyway. All English classes have been cancelled tomorrow due to the aforementioned fair, but I still have to spend 5 hours babysitting kids. Ah well, it could be worse.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
