A lot has happened in the past several days and I apologize for not posting yet. My computer is experiencing culture shock, I think, so I'm posting from my iPod.
In Turkish class there's been a little more attempt to explain things in English if we're just not getting it, but that's a last resort. We've been going over grammar a lot and some things are coming back to me but being reinforce in different ways (such as the difference between geniş zaman vs future tense).
Outside of class this week has been where the cool stuff has happened, though. I've been to Taksim every day for three days straight, because there have been events (some related to Pride and some not) every day. I haven't been getting as much sleep as I'd've liked, but that's okay because the events have been great.
I went to a meeting of the Istanbul Toastmasters club, which is a public speaking group mostly of professionals practicing giving presentations in English. The ideas expressed were often pretty standard corporate liberalism but it was amazing to hear so many people striving to better themselves.
One of the Onur Haftası events I went to with my friend Syndey was a music-sharing event. People did everything from body rhythm to a song about animal rights set to the tune of Mad World to TPop songs to contemporary art music that Erin Cameron would have loved. I also met several people there and elsewhere in the community, including Karem, who is involved in a group at Boğaziçi that does activism and research in the LGBT community here, which is awesome and who I'll hopefully be able to meet this summer.
I'm also going to a picnic this afternoon in Maçka Park, where a lot of my new friends (both from the program and Istanbul more generally) will be. So I'm excited for that too.
Anyway, I'll sign off now. İyi günler!
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