The latest with me

It is the middle of summer. These days are simple but full. If you only look at the moments when I am with friends, everything is fun filled and exciting, and as someone else I would think just looking at those times gosh I wish I had his life. So in that way it is like any sitcom. You never see the long day at work, the trips to the bathroom, the conversationless lunches, or the commute. So my life, like anyone's is a balance of the tv-worthy parts and the day to day. But I mention this so that you don't think I am trying to deceive you when, in giving an account of my life as I remember it now, I describe only the most exciting parts.

Half of my life now takes place in the office of KEMA or in the car in between work and home. That cannot be too exciting right? Well, I like my job and I don't mind the drive. Furthermore, there is a huge advantage for me with all the traveling to work. I put a map here showing in green, places of interest (friends, home, work), my two main routes to work (shown in red and orange), and places where I sleep over (green dots with bright green dots inside). You can see from the map, that my commute takes me near a couple places that I would otherwise not go anywhere near, notably Framingham and Boston. In Framingham I have a couple friends from school, each with whom I stay the night once a week. In Boston there is another friend from school and a new friend from Turkey.

I stumbled upon a website called meetups.com which is for people of a common interest who want to get together and hang out. Turns out that there is one for people to speak/practice speaking Turkish. So I signed up and I went to Boston a couple weeks ago to meetup with these Turkish people at a middle eastern restaurant. As expected, they are a fun bunch of people and I had a great time there. There was live Turkish music and someone was having a birthday. The music and atomosphere reminded me a little of a bar that I visited while in Aydın called Çatı. Anyway, I was too shy to speak Turkish because the people there all knew English. Still I got to talk about Turkey with them, which was almost as good. Then after a short while I learned that the woman sitting across from me, who was the mother of one of the folks there, didn't know any English at all. With her, I had no shyness and I spoke with her for 10 or 15 minutes, until the limits of my Turkish were pushed too far. For a short time after that, her daughter translated for us.

Within a few days of the meetup, I checked my email to see that a member had seen my profile and written to me. Her name is Safiye. She is a student who has been in the US for a few months but has had difficulty meeting Americans and wants to practice English more. She must have seen the opportunity presented in an American wanting to learn Turkish (me!). So we met last week and walked around the Copley Square area then walked toward the Common. We talked about a number of things relating mostly to Turkey and so forth. It was a nice evening. Since then we have talked and taught each other things about our countries and languages. I feel compelled, perhaps by gratitude for the many ways various Turks and other foreigners have shown me kindness and hospitality, to look after her while she is here. Besides, hanging out in Boston is always fun. I have another friend living in Boston as well, Amy Castonguay. She is from WPI and we have a lot of theatre and comedy friends in common. The other day, the three of us spent some time in the Boston Common together. There, we watched a performance of Shakespeare's "As You Like It", with Amy helpfully translating it from Shakespearian into layman's English. She was in a performance of the same play last year and amazingly could still recite some of the lines. In my -limited- acting experience, I have always had an incredible ability to forget my lines immediately following the last performance.

Anyway, Safiye and I continue to meet a couple times a week. She teaches me Turkish phrases, I help her with English sometimes. This Friday we will go to the next Turkish meetup together. Actually, it is kind of ironic that I will be taking her there for the first time.

This is my life now. Day to day I am happy, hopeful. I am happy to be keeping in touch with friends, old and new. I am hopeful for a good year ahead. There are a few things I want to write more about, which I will do in my upcoming posts. Take care.