|
Ragamuffin1981
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Drew
Birthday: 12/16/1981
Interests: Jesus Christ. the bible. turkey (the country, not the bird). theology. reading. cycling. photography. tea. running. nature. education. biology. coaching. science. social justice. detroit tigers baseball.
Expertise: education. science. cycling. running. the color blue. the bible and christian theology.
Occupation: Other
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
10/26/2003
|
|
| geez, it's been over two months since i last posted. i hate to say it, but i think for now this xanga blog is over with. i've wanted it to be a place where, unlike my other blog, i can simply relay my daily life to those friends who are interested in hearing about it. and it seems all the more necessary now that it's harder to keep contact with a lot of you, now that i'm living in the near east.
but due to the sensitive nature of my work here, i don't really have the liberty to write whatever i wish about my time. and because i hate feeling cramped, i haven't posted anything. perhaps this will resume upon returning to the states, but i doubt it. until you hear further (that is, if you receive the e-mail udpates), consider my xanga blog henceforth finished . . . or at least on long hiatus.
| | |
| it's nail-biting time. the tigers unbelievably cannot seem to clinch the central division title. we simply must win today; there are no other options! moreover, it's rather sad that i wasn't even phased to learn that msu lost to the surrendering illini yesterday.
while i was walking down the street in my neighborhood yesterday, i saw an old car parked with its windows open. asleep on the back shelf under the rear window were two cats! there were even bowls of food and water for the cats inside the car. but the weirdest thing is that, though parked and unattended in dry weather, the car's windshield wipers were moving. i have no idea.
but lest you think this is an uncommon sight in this city, last winter we saw someone with his motorcycle in his restaurant. now this is rather common until you discover that he had the rear wheel ever so slightly propped up and was turning the throttle lightly and buffing the soapy floor with his motorcycle wheel! i wish i had a camera.
| | |
| reading through cnn.com this morning, i came across this article about how university students are living increasingly posh lifestyles. i nearly vomited in my mouth. i thank the Lord for msu, where i had to learn how to be considerate of other people and deal with conflict in my suite and on my floor, where it was almost cool to be penniless. for some of the students described here, i hope they don't get too rude of an awakening when the real world comes and whacks them upside the head.
| | |
| oh, just so you know, i'm nowhere near the city of diyarbakir, where that deadly bomb blast occurred on tuesday. diyarbakir is on the complete opposite side of the country from istanbul. it seems likely right now that the bomb was an anti-kurd attack, set up against the kurdistan workers' party (pkk), who claimed responsibility for some of the previous bombings around turkey.
| | |
| ben turkiye'deyim! (i am in turkey!) first we flew into frankfurt. we took the train out into the city to search for a good knockwurst and broetchen, but we only found porn cinemas and strip clubs. rather disappointed, we caught our second flight. we arrived at ataturk international airport late on monday afternoon, from which we took a bus to our hotel. we spent the past two days there with others heading to ankara and adana for some early briefing and tips.
now we're in the process of getting settled into our apartment. five of us guys are sharing a spacious two-bedroom apartment in the district of kadikoy, which is on the asian side of the bosphorus. for the most part our apartment was well-kept, although there seems to have developed a food spillage of some sort in our pantry that led to the breeding of maggots and has developed into a large-scale moth problem. in rage, i immediately put the extension on our vacuum cleaner and went to work sucking up moths out of the air. (do you remember that scene from the movie tommy boy?) now we only have a moderate-scale moth problem.
it's been fun seeing some restaurant owners again whom lucas and i knew last year, exchanging kisses (the typical greeting), and chatting away in turkish. sure, my language skills are still pretty poor, but i feel like i've hardly missed a beat from three months ago. really, it feels like i wasn't gone at all, except for a few businesses that have closed or opened their doors this summer.
i'm pumped: my roommate ryan may be even more of a theology geek than i am. he's had two semesters of greek and brought the entire christian origins and the question of God series of books by n. t. wright (a mere 1700 pages of work), along with a few other heavyweights. i like all of my roommates, actually, and i have a hopeful feeling that we're going to connect much better than last year on all planes.
the best thing about living in istanbul: i can pull of wearing converse chuck taylor all-stars--high-tops, nonetheless, something i never could have done in the united states.
| | |
|
