The week’s downtime also allowed me to catch up on journaling. Writing has been an outlet for recording the semester’s experiences and also my emotional reactions to Turkish life. The pages of my journal serve as a sounding board for frustrations about the language barrier, feelings of homesickness, and excitement from intercultural conversations. Not only is journaling important for me now, but it will also be an amazing reminder of this semester’s details for years to come.

next page      back

Cheering for the Bilkent Judges with Zeynep and Sabine.

November 11, 2007

Lesson Nine: Downtime is not wasted time

This past week in Turkey has been rather low key. Sounds boring, right? At the time I thought so, too, but looking back I realized that being busy makes me miss out on opportunities to cook with friends or write in my journal or enjoy campus activities. For most of this semester, thus far, I'm constantly busy with travels, basketball, or schoolwork. For some reason, life slowed the first week of November.

With my ample amount of spare time I attended the first football game of Bilkent’s season. From my dorm’s kitchen window I heard the teams storm the field with excitement and anticipation. One of the international students joined the team, and football is my favorite sport to watch, so I went to the game to cheer for Oliver and enjoy a truly American pastime. Although the stands were sparse with fans, the team’s animation persisted. Bilkent ended up losing by only one touchdown to Gazi University (one of the better teams in the league), an optimistic start to the season.