Keeping It Real...Adana'da

I am excited to announce to you all that I have officially carried with me to Turkey my clumsiness! Tuesday was probably the pinnacle of my clumsiness, culminating in an epic wipe-out onto gymnasium bleachers with a sweatshirt over my head, resulting in two large bruises on my right arm, which are quite lovely. To my relief, my clumsiness did not seem quite as acute today as I practiced with my school's volleyball team for the first time. And actually, it was the first time I've actually played volleyball for probably nine months or so, and though I did not play spectacularly, or even very well, I managed to get through the practice with no embarrassing incident. I had forgotten how much I really enjoy playing volleyball, and even more than that, how much I enjoy playing on a team. Today, even though everyone was really nice, I felt like an outsider to the team, but I still loved watching the team dynamics. I guess I've found a different kind of team here, that of the other NSLI girls here in my city - we just do our playing in a new country and with a new language, rather than on a court and with a ball!

On Wednesdays and Fridays I end school around noon and head across town to the Gençlik Merkezi (Youth Center) to teach English to a rambunctious group of Turkish boys, ages 16 to 20 or so (with a few timid teenage girls thrown in). I only began this program last week; before that I was going to a Turkish kindergarten instead. The dynamics are definitely different between teaching 5-year-olds and 18-year-olds! And to be certain, I am no expert at teaching English. The past couple of classes all we've done is go over some basic phrases, body parts, introductions, etc. The level of English knowledge varies from person to person, but I think we're getting through to most of them, anyway. It's a good chance for me to practice my Turkish, too. 

School this week is passing as usual. I have been using my time fairly well this week, and especially today, as I have been studying my Turkish. I know this is really nerdy of me, but I really love teaching myself grammar. It's especially rewarding here in comparison to learning it in, say, one of my Spanish or Latin classes back in the U.S., because I have been hearing these constructions spoken, and then I find out the pattern and reasoning behind it, and it all clicks. We've also just implemented a new activity in my Turkish lessons - each week we take a Turkish song and dissect it, finding the meanings to the words and phrases in there, and we try to memorize it. The songs we've done so far are ones that I've been hearing on the radio for awhile, and so it's great to finally know the words to the songs and better understand what they mean (though a lot of times the meanings are weird, even when I do understand them!).

As a final note, if any reader out there has any specific questions about my life in Turkey or comments about the blog, feel free to comment on a post. I'd love any feedback!