HighLights and LowLights

 January 22, 2021

I did it.  I taught overseas for a full semester! Grades are entered and posted to the most convoluted system I've ever seen.  The Ministry of Education in Turkey oversees most aspects of education, and therefore, grades for first semester were posted to their website.  All in Turkish.  Thank my lucky stars for an amazingly helpful head of department - Nurcan Ursal.  I was able to go to her apartment and she entered as I read out the grades.  The sense of relief I felt was surprising.

Before I write about what's been happening, I just want to say I never have regretted coming to Istanbul to teach.  Do I wish there was not a pandemic raging?  Absolutely.  I have been teaching from my apartment since November.  At times I am disheartened.  I was experiencing so much of Istanbul before this total school shut down.  I'm so anxious to do more!  

Apartments.  I have moved.  Call it optimism, but I moved into a 2 bedroom apartment in the building next to mine.  I like the apartment. Much "homier" than the small one I had.  The building of the new apartment does not have a convenient access to the central part of the apartment complex where I go to the pharmacy and my hairdresser, but I guess walking a bit more is good for me.  So, if you are reading my blog, consider yourself invited to stay in Instanbul.  You'll have a bedroom and bathroom to yourself!

It snowed in Istanbul.  So far the winter has been mild, but the day after I moved, there was a beautiful, snowstorm.  I enjoyed watching it from 22 stories up.  Sometimes there was a total white out, making the view from some parts of my apartment bearable.  Why do I say that?  I am now overlooking an area that is a stretch of old concrete buildings now exclusively an auto repair area.  Row after row of shops that deal with selling tires, fixing auto glass, general repair. Directly below me is a trash heap. It's  hideous.  I try not to look down, but beyond.  At night I see one of the expansion bridges across the Bosporus lit in red.  In the day time I can see the Asian side and a hill covered in white homes with brick-colored roofs.  I can see the dome and minarets of 4 mosques. So, in a word, I see Turkey.  Some of its best, and some of the worst. 

Tomorrow I fly back to a new America.  Trump-free. I watched the inauguration of our new president with a drink of Kentucky bourbon in hand. (I can buy Woodford Reserve at the grocery store!)   Those of us who are American received congratulatory texts from other teachers!  Now I get to go home and bask in the glory of good things for a change.

So, I went to my Turkish hairdresser Tuesday and said, "Cut it, but don't color it."  Burak seemed a bit puzzled, because I always have it colored.  But, I wanted to get in and out quick, trying to avoid that Corona bug!  The next morning when I looked in the mirror and saw all the grey, I was distraught!  No.  No I can't go back to America like this.  Back I went to get color.  Burak and I have trouble communicating, but we manage.  I told him all over, one color.  He kept saying "highlights?"  The man knows that word for certain.  Okay, I relented.  I never know what Burak will do.  I give him free reign.  He colored my hair all over a nice light brown.  Then he went in for the highlights.  I sat for 20 minutes with tin foil atop my head thinking I would see a few streaks of golden blonde crowning my head.  No. What I got was a white-blonde topper.  At first I wasn't sure I was going to like it, but Burak fashioned it a bit and I started getting use to it.  Always an experience when I go see Burak, my Turkish hairdresser. America, I'm coming home!