It's all in a name...

Having suffered my share of childhood torment over my namesake, I wanted to post some details from a conversation shared with several Americans a few nights ago. We were discussing Turkish names.

The friends in question are relatively new to Turkey, and commented that Turkish names sound similar to those of Klingons. It was a welcome reminder of my first year here, as I long ago adjusted to the sound Turkish names, tending now to get stuck on their meanings.

Being in a school setting, myself and fellow teachers have encountered a few that are especially worth sharing.

Hurşit (yep, that's "horseshit")

Tuba (pronounced just as it looks)

Tunacan (pronounced "too-na-jon", but who's going to guess that?)

Nigar (uh...)

Incidentally, my name is a disaster here, as it both uses a character that doesn't exist in Turkish ("X") and is not written phonetically. People remember my first name easily enough, as it is similar to the Turkish word for the vocal arts. Whenever someone has to spell it, however, or reads it from my passport, it becomes "Sea-an Jocks".

Not so bad, considering the case of an American woman here, who goes by Tash (which means "stone" in the native speak). She had to shorten her moniker from Natasha, which is Turkish for "prostitute".

Knee deep in 'Bul...

The suffering from jet-lag lasted through Friday, which is to be expected, and the return to Istanbul has been otherwise rocky, with visa responsibilities and such. We have furniture in our living room, so be looking for pictures in the next few weeks. My school is still crazy (no surprise). The weather is unusually warm, for February, and I've gotten the bike out again. I'm getting back into the rhythm of life abroad, and there's only one nagging problem...

I am having difficulty weening myself from the excesses of the past two weeks. In fact, I think they may finally have broken me down, as I sit here with a lung and tonsil infection, and a rather high fever.

Isn't the road to wisdom paved in excess?

I'm estimating some of these, but the numbers for Sean's two weeks in America break down roughly so:

2,978.6 miles driven

12 tanks of gas ≈ 120 gallons

≈ 4.5 gallons of beer (good stuff too, and PBR)

1 cigarette

14 slices of pizza

7 pancakes

3 plates of hashbrowns, eggs over medium, and some greasy meat

7 egg/cheese biscuits

a milkshake the size of my head

1 salsa lesson

7 places slept (including the car)

1 car battery killed
1 car towed

2 episodes of Gossip Girl watched

I missed the USA.

I also discovered a few things that I didn't think I would miss... among them, TELEVISION! While I've been gone, TV made radical improvements, and Veronica Mars and The Wire have dominated much of my sick-leave. I know it's old stuff, but who can really expect me to keep up on trends. Better to wait for the DVD anyhow, which offers hours of instant gratification, as I lay shivering in my bed.

Being on the road as much as we were, I observed a lot that I wasn't prepared for. The state of the economy is showing, or at least seems to be. I was shocked at the condition of the roads, which reminded me of Istanbul's, and New York's subway was pretty assed-out. Also, the people in gas stations were no longer peers (as they were years ago when I worked in such an establishment). Rather, the folks behind the registers were consistently older, over 30 and maybe even 40. I also distinctly remember a kinder gentleman in his 50s, who delivered a Dominos pizza to us at a friend's home.

That's probably the most alienating experience I've had, since moving abroad: realizing that I am doing very well, while our people suffer.

Here's hoping that people get organized...