Thursday, December 6, 2012
Tide Togo Sticks
Yesterday I got a package from my family in Ohio which was wonderful because now I have two more Tide Togo sticks and cold medicine which are the most essential things in life, if you were not already aware of that fact. That is all for now, and I encourage you to go buy some Tide Togo sticks! They are not even paying me to say that! Also I don't know if they are supposed to be called Tide Togo sticks because to me I read that as Togo like the country, not a cool way of saying to go, and that gets confusing.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
FLICKR
I tried to add a link to my Flickr to my blog but apparently the tool do that is broken, so here is a link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/61959283@N05/
WOW two blog posts in one day!! Am I killing it or WHAT?
HAPPY BELATED TURKEY DAY FROM TURKEY
First off, I want to apologize to my mom and everyone else for not blogging for a really long time even though I do not think that blogging is half bad. But I am still having a wonderful time in Turkey, even though I miss everyone in America. My long break from blogging is why this post is so long and I would recommend reading it in stages because if not you could potentially get bored and pass out.
On Thursday, one of my really great friends and I decided that we wanted to make a pie. She is also an exchange student, from Mexico, but she is fluent in English so we speak English together. We went to the store to see if we could find pumpkin, and we thought we did, which was really exciting, as you can probably imagine, because you probably love pumpkin pie, and if not I am confused because pumpkin pie is one of the best creations ever.
Anyways, we bought a bunch of slices of something orange that looked like pumpkin and smelled like pumpkin. Then we took it home and baked it until it was soft. Then we started to mash it, only to realize that we bought spaghetti squash and not pumpkin. At first I was extremely dissappointed and considered bursting into tears. Not really, but sort of. The rest of the pie ingredients were already mixed up, and we had three cups of spaghetti squash sitting in front of us, and the next thing we knew, we had made a spaghetti squash pie. I would like to say that it was delicious and that the moral of this story is to never give up, but the pie crust was uneven, and the texture was weird, and to be perfectly honest, the pie was a complete and total failure. And that was my Thanksgiving!
Today is Teacher's Day, which is something that isn't really celebrated in America, but it's a big deal here, as I think it should be. Yesterday at school everyone wrote something about teachers on a piece of paper, and then we hung it up on the board for our teacher's to read. We also had an assembly for our teachers, which I enjoyed because for once I knew what was going on half the time.
I can tell that my Turkish is improving now bec'tause the past few days I have been able to speak to my friends at school entirely in Turkish, about things like our mutual hatred of Gangnam Style. I'm also learning a lot of slang which is my favorite because it makes me seem like I know a lot more than I do. Yesterday, in honor of Teacher's Day my Turkish friend told me to kiss my teachers at the end of the day and say Eyvallah, which means like thank you. She told me also to do it to teachers that I don't even have, which sounded awkward to me, but it really wasn't, and I told myself I wouldn't say YOLO on my blog, but YOLO. Anyways, they all thought it was hilarious and they were also really surprised that I knew what that meant. Which happens a lot.
Today my friend from Idaho who lives like three hours from here was going to come, and we were going to have a big Thanksgiving celebration eating either KFC or Popeyes but he didn't and instead me and my friends took an hour long walk by the sea and had kebab and Starbucks.
Well I think that is all for now, and I will force myself to blog more, even though I am lazy. Also here is what I am thankful for this Thanksgiving: Google, my mom, my dad, my brother, my friends, all of my other family, Barack Obama, my cat, my house, my teachers, my Kindle Fire, my Tide To Go stain remover stick, Turkey, food, America, www.Twitter.com, music, books, and 30 Rock, but not in that order.
On Thursday, one of my really great friends and I decided that we wanted to make a pie. She is also an exchange student, from Mexico, but she is fluent in English so we speak English together. We went to the store to see if we could find pumpkin, and we thought we did, which was really exciting, as you can probably imagine, because you probably love pumpkin pie, and if not I am confused because pumpkin pie is one of the best creations ever.
Anyways, we bought a bunch of slices of something orange that looked like pumpkin and smelled like pumpkin. Then we took it home and baked it until it was soft. Then we started to mash it, only to realize that we bought spaghetti squash and not pumpkin. At first I was extremely dissappointed and considered bursting into tears. Not really, but sort of. The rest of the pie ingredients were already mixed up, and we had three cups of spaghetti squash sitting in front of us, and the next thing we knew, we had made a spaghetti squash pie. I would like to say that it was delicious and that the moral of this story is to never give up, but the pie crust was uneven, and the texture was weird, and to be perfectly honest, the pie was a complete and total failure. And that was my Thanksgiving!
Today is Teacher's Day, which is something that isn't really celebrated in America, but it's a big deal here, as I think it should be. Yesterday at school everyone wrote something about teachers on a piece of paper, and then we hung it up on the board for our teacher's to read. We also had an assembly for our teachers, which I enjoyed because for once I knew what was going on half the time.
I can tell that my Turkish is improving now bec'tause the past few days I have been able to speak to my friends at school entirely in Turkish, about things like our mutual hatred of Gangnam Style. I'm also learning a lot of slang which is my favorite because it makes me seem like I know a lot more than I do. Yesterday, in honor of Teacher's Day my Turkish friend told me to kiss my teachers at the end of the day and say Eyvallah, which means like thank you. She told me also to do it to teachers that I don't even have, which sounded awkward to me, but it really wasn't, and I told myself I wouldn't say YOLO on my blog, but YOLO. Anyways, they all thought it was hilarious and they were also really surprised that I knew what that meant. Which happens a lot.
Today my friend from Idaho who lives like three hours from here was going to come, and we were going to have a big Thanksgiving celebration eating either KFC or Popeyes but he didn't and instead me and my friends took an hour long walk by the sea and had kebab and Starbucks.
Well I think that is all for now, and I will force myself to blog more, even though I am lazy. Also here is what I am thankful for this Thanksgiving: Google, my mom, my dad, my brother, my friends, all of my other family, Barack Obama, my cat, my house, my teachers, my Kindle Fire, my Tide To Go stain remover stick, Turkey, food, America, www.Twitter.com, music, books, and 30 Rock, but not in that order.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
GREETINGS FROM TURKEY
Someone told me that as an exchange student you should say yes to everything. And because of that I drink at least five glasses of tea a day. But that is totally OK with me because the tea here is wonderful, and so is everything else except maybe for learning Turkish because Turkish is an extremely difficult language.
I´ve been in Turkey for a month now and I´ve been going to school for two weeks and a lot has happened but mostly just everyday things. I really like my school because everyone is very nice and the lunch is (mostly) very good. Also you can buy chocolate in between every class!!! And instead of switching classrooms, the teachers move around which is really nice because there is no rush to get somewhere else. There are also only 11 kids in my class which is smaller than any class I´ve had in elementary school. My school is an elementary school, middle school, and high school all together which is cool because sometimes little kids will come up to me and ask me my name in English. I think next week the other exchange students and I will get to start teaching little kids English!!! I´m excited about that because I think it will really help with learning Turkish.
I know a lot of exchange students say that they start to forget their own language when they go abroad, and I don´t think that has really been an issue for me yet except I am typing on my Mexican friend´s computer so it says that I am spelling almost every word wrong anyways so I don´t know if I´m making a lot of mistakes or not.
Also the food here is delicious!! I´m really good at taking all of the bones out of a fish now which was an issue for me when I first got here. Breakfast involves a lot more food than I am used to but that is OK because it is good. Every morning I have a bowl of coco puffs or cornflakes and a piece of toast with honey and some tea. Somedays I have cucumber and tomato as well. Last night my host mom held up a green mango shaped fruit and asked me what it was in English and I said I didn´t know and she told me it was an avocado!! Then I ate some and it was super good because it was so fresh.
I will try to blog more often now because I suppose blogging is not that bad, and I will post some pictures next week! I miss everyone at home very much but I haven´t been homesick at all. Being in Mersin is quite different from Athens but I love it all the same and am so excited for the rest of my year.
I´ve been in Turkey for a month now and I´ve been going to school for two weeks and a lot has happened but mostly just everyday things. I really like my school because everyone is very nice and the lunch is (mostly) very good. Also you can buy chocolate in between every class!!! And instead of switching classrooms, the teachers move around which is really nice because there is no rush to get somewhere else. There are also only 11 kids in my class which is smaller than any class I´ve had in elementary school. My school is an elementary school, middle school, and high school all together which is cool because sometimes little kids will come up to me and ask me my name in English. I think next week the other exchange students and I will get to start teaching little kids English!!! I´m excited about that because I think it will really help with learning Turkish.
I know a lot of exchange students say that they start to forget their own language when they go abroad, and I don´t think that has really been an issue for me yet except I am typing on my Mexican friend´s computer so it says that I am spelling almost every word wrong anyways so I don´t know if I´m making a lot of mistakes or not.
Also the food here is delicious!! I´m really good at taking all of the bones out of a fish now which was an issue for me when I first got here. Breakfast involves a lot more food than I am used to but that is OK because it is good. Every morning I have a bowl of coco puffs or cornflakes and a piece of toast with honey and some tea. Somedays I have cucumber and tomato as well. Last night my host mom held up a green mango shaped fruit and asked me what it was in English and I said I didn´t know and she told me it was an avocado!! Then I ate some and it was super good because it was so fresh.
I will try to blog more often now because I suppose blogging is not that bad, and I will post some pictures next week! I miss everyone at home very much but I haven´t been homesick at all. Being in Mersin is quite different from Athens but I love it all the same and am so excited for the rest of my year.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Mersin, Turkey
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Post #1
It's a month into summer vacation, which is hard to believe. What's even harder to believe though is that around two months from now I'll be leaving for a year of Rotary Youth Exchange in Turkey.
I've been matched with District 2430 and that's all that I know. I am super excited to find out who my host family will be and where exactly I'll be going, but for now all I can do is wait, and hopefully I will know any day now. I've also been trying to learn the language and learn about some culture and history.
My language books came in the mail yesterday, but with 29 units, getting through all of it before I leave seems impossible. I also have a guide book, which is fun just to flip through because so many of the photos are beautiful, and make me even more excited!
I'm so thankful to my parents for letting me leave them 2 years before they thought I would and to Rotary for making it possible. I'm thankful for the family and friends that have supported my decision to become an exchange student, even though we'll all miss each other so much. I'm thankful for my mom, who I was the first person to ever suggest that I became an exchange student, even though it means she'll miss out on a year of my childhood.
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